“The girl was kneeling beside him.”Page 36
“The girl was kneeling beside him.”Page 36
McKay bent over, and opening the rough shirt felt Loring’s heart. “No, he’s alive still, but he’s pretty close to gone,” he answered. He untwisted the tight clenched fingers from the bridle, and halfraised the unconscious body. It lay limp in his arms. He turned to one of the foremen who were gathered around.
“Smith, get a horse and ride like hell for the company doctor!” The man was off for the corral in an instant.
“Now, Miss, you just leave him to us!” went on McKay. “See now, your skirt is getting all blood.”
For reply, she raised Loring’s head gently and placed it in her lap. “Now, send some one for blankets and water,” she directed.
“Agua, hey,ag-ua!” shouted McKay, and in a minute a little pale-faced water boy came stumbling up with a bucket of muddy water. McKay looked on in wonder while the girl deftly washed the dirt from the wounds.
“She has her nerve,” he thought. “There ain’t nothing like a woman.”
One of the Mexicans came back from the cook tent with a blanket, and upon this they gently lifted Stephen. Then four men carried him to the nearest tent. Jean walked beside them, holding her wet handkerchief tightly against Loring’s forehead, in vain attempt to stop the bleeding. They laid him on the ground, inside the tent.
“Now you must go, Miss Cameron,” imploredMcKay. “I’ll send you up to camp in one of the teams. Your father would never forgive me if I let you stay. Why you are as pale as—”
The girl interrupted him decisively. “Are there any cloths here for bandages?”
He looked hopelessly around the tent with its pile of dirty quilts.
“I don’t see anything,” he murmured.
Jean seized the soft white stock about her neck, and with a quick tug tore it off. “This will do,” she breathed, as she placed the impromptu bandage about Loring’s head.
“Now tie this! I can’t pull it tightly enough.”
McKay drew the ends of the bandage together, and clumsily knotted them. Then he thought of his one universal remedy. Meekly turning to Jean he asked: “How about some whisky for him?” She nodded, and he drew a flask from his pocket. With strong fingers he pried open Stephen’s jaws, and poured the whisky down his throat. The stimulant brought a slight color to the mask-like face.
“I guess he would sure enjoy this some, if he were conscious,” thought McKay grimly. The men had been sent back to work, and only he and Miss Cameron knelt in the tent by Stephen, feelinganxiously for the slow heart-beats in the big helpless frame. Then came the pound of horses’ hoofs on the road, the sliding sound of a pony flung back in full career upon his haunches, and the doctor stood pulling open the flaps of the tent. Jean rose to her feet.
“I shall only be in the way now,” she said, and stepped outside into the vivid sunlight.
Two weeks had passed since the accident. Loring, whose life had been at first despaired of, was gaining fast in strength, and enjoying the first real comfort that he had known in months. As he lay quietly on the hard canvas cot, the rough company hospital seemed to him a dream of luxury.
His cot had been placed close to the door, where he could look out over the little camp. The early morning light brought the whiteness of the tents scattered about the plateau into clear contrast with the shadowy brownness of the surrounding mountains, while in the sunlight the yellow pine framework of the intermingled shacks sparkled brightly. The smelter pounded away steadily, great wreaths of smoke pouring from its chimneys, the blast sucking and breathing like some huge driven beast. Intermingled with the sound was the clanging rasp of shovels, as the smelter stokers piled coke into the furnace. Over on the far mountain a wood-laden burro trainwas picking its way slowly down the trail. In the thin morning air the tinkle of the bells on the animals’ necks and the sharp calls of the drivers carried clear across the valley. Close by the smelter, in the midst of the coal dust and cinders, stood a jaded horse, with a harness made of chains. For two days it had fascinated Loring to see the deft way in which the driver hooked this horse to the glowing slag pots, and drove him along the narrow track that led out on the slag dump. With the childishness of the sick, he harbored a deep grudge against the shack, behind which the horse, with his molten load, would always disappear. This prevented his seeing the operation of dumping the slag, which he felt must be highly interesting. At the other side of the doorway he could just see the corner of a newly finished shack. He looked a bit gloomily at the completed building, for it had been delightful to watch the carpenters at work upon it. In two days the whole house had been finished, even to the tin roofing. This tin roofing, by the way, had brought Stephen much joy, for the carpenter’s assistant had laid the plates from top down, instead of beginning at the bottom, so that the joints would overlap and be water-tight.In consequence the whole roofing had been ripped off and done over again.
The morning shift was just going to work, and the hurrying groups of men passed the door on their way up to the mine. At the watering-trough each stopped, and plunging his canteen deep into the water, held it there until the burlap and flannel casing was saturated, ensuring a cooling drink for them during their work. Loring laughed at himself when he found himself wishing that they would not all wear blue denim overalls.
Little water boys struggled past, each with a pole, like a yoke across his shoulders, from either end of which hung a bucket. The men greeted them as they passed, with calls of “Go-od boy!” “Bueno muchacho!” Several of the men, as they passed, greeted Stephen with shy exclamations of “Eh, amigo—Cóm’ estamos?” Then they went on to their work beneath the ground. Loring was touched by these inquiries for his welfare, and smiled in a friendly fashion at each.
Loring’s smile had been one of his worst enemies, for it had so often prevented people from telling him what they thought of him. It combined a sensitiveness which was unexplainedby the rather heavy molding of his chin, with a humor which only one who had carefully studied his eyes would be prepared for. It was an exasperating smile to those who did not like him, for it possessed a quality of goodness and strength to which they thought he had no right as an accompaniment to his character. On the other hand, it was one of the attributes which most strongly attracted his friends. It was not an analytical smile, so it put him in touch with unanalytical people, yet it had a certain deprecating twist which could convey a hint of subtlety.
When the seven o’clock whistle blew, Loring thought of the gang at the road camp lined up for ten hours of relentless toil, and he breathed deep in contentment.
“It is great to be laid up for a respectable cause,” he thought. Memories of the times that he had spent at an old university in the East came to him. He looked about him at the rough, bare boards, at the eight canvas cots, at the lumps on three of them, where, wearing the inevitable pink or sky blue undershirt, lay sick Mexican miners. He amused himself by mentally filling with his old-time associates each of the empty cots. “I wish they were all here,” he half exclaimed.Then it occurred to him that this was not a very kindly wish. Loring heard the murmur of voices outside the door, and listened attentively. He recognized the voice of the company doctor. “It must be time for the morning clinic,” he thought to himself. Then he listened to the brisk questioning and prescribing.
“You feeling muchmal’? Well, not so much whisky next time; get to work!”
Stephen heard a low-voiced question from some one. Then again the doctor’s decided answer: “Of course not! Hospital fee does not pay for crutches. What do you want for a dollar, anyhow?”
He listened with interest as each man described his symptoms or his needs. “It makes me feel almost well to hear about all those things,” he reflected. The broad shoulders and cheerful smile of the doctor appeared in the doorway, and with heavy footsteps the owner of these two pleasant possessions approached Loring.
“Feeling pretty good this morning?” asked the doctor.
Stephen answered that he was.
“That’s fine,” exclaimed the doctor. “At one time you were a pretty tough case. I thoughtwe’d have the trouble of a funeral in camp. Swell affairs they are, here. But say, did you ever see a funeral in Phœnix? Why, theytrots’em in Phœnix!”
Loring expressed his admiration for such a spirit of activity, while the doctor was propping him up in bed, and adjusting the bandages.
“I guess you won’t have to work for some days,” remarked the doctor. “It is lucky you did one day’s work, as it just pays for your hospital fee and medicine.”
“Hard luck, doctor,” laughed Stephen, “but that had to go for traveling expenses.” Hearing light footsteps on the porch outside, the doctor went to the door. Loring heard him answer some question.
“Well, Miss Cameron, I guess it won’t kill him to see you. It may even be good for him. Come in by all means!”
Loring looked up and saw framed in the doorway, like a picture, a girl frank of eyes and fresh of coloring. A little Scotch cap was perched on the waves of her tawny hair. Her gown was of dark blue, relieved at neck and throat by bands of white, and girdled by a ribbon of red and blue plaid. Across her arms lay a sheaf of yellow andred wild flowers such as creep into abundant life among the forbidding rocks. The vision seemed to bring a new tide of life and vigor to Loring. He forgot his weakness and raised himself for a moment on his elbow; but the effort was too much for him, and he sank back exhausted on his pillow.
The girl hesitated for an instant. Then she stepped quickly over to his cot.
“This is Miss Cameron, Loring,” explained the doctor; “she has come to thank you for what you have done.”
The girl impulsively bent over him, and took his big, weak hand in her own small, strong one.
“Oh, I am glad that you are better. I would have come before to see you, but the doctor would not allow it.”
Loring looked malevolently at the doctor.
“How can I thank you?” she went on.
So fascinated was Stephen by the eager breathless way in which she spoke, that he hardly understood what she was saying. With difficulty he raised himself again on his elbow. “Why it was all in the day’s work of a flagman,” he said. “There is nothing at all for which to thank me.”
She shook her head in denial. “It is not in theday’s work of a flagman to risk his life for someone whom he has never seen,” she said quickly. “There is nothing that I can say which can possibly express my gratitude; but you do know, don’t you?” As she spoke she looked at him appealingly.
Stephen murmured something, he scarcely knew what, in reply, and was conscious of wishing vaguely that the doctor would not look at him.
Miss Cameron laid her armful of flowers beside him. As she dropped the red and yellow sheaf, Stephen noticed the delicate modeling of her wrist, and smiled appreciatively. “When you are better, my father will see you,” continued the girl. “He will reward you, and—” With her usual quick intuition she noticed the shade of annoyance on his face. “That is,” she went on rather slowly, “he will do what he can for you.”
“Thank you,” said Loring, “but I think that in two or three weeks I shall be able to work again.”
“I am afraid if I let you talk any more, you won’t ever be able to work,” interrupted the doctor.
“I will come again to-morrow,” said Jean. “If there is anything that you want, you mustlet us send it to you. Good-bye, and thank you!” Her voice as she spoke had the quality of sympathy.
He watched her for a moment as she stopped by the other cots, inquiring in pretty broken Spanish for the welfare of the occupants. “Hang it,” he thought, “I wish she would not look at that Mexican in just the way that she looked at me!” With his eyes he followed her as long as he could, then when the tents shut her from view, he closed his eyes and imagined that she was still near.
He picked up the flowers and buried his face in them. Their sweetness brought up a wave of memories of the past, of things that he had thrown away. He bit his lip hard and under his breath swore bitterly at himself. Then the fragrance of the flowers soothed him, and he lay back on his pillow thinking of the girl who had brought them. She seemed so strange a figure in the life of Quentin, so aloof, so unrelated! He could not adjust her to her setting. At last it occurred to him that it was not necessary for him to adjust her—in fact that she and her setting were none of his business.
Then tired, with the flowers still crushed in his hand, he fell asleep to the accompanimentof the monotonous pound of the smelter. He dreamed of days gone by, yet through it all, vaguely, intangibly, there drifted a girl, the tenderness of whose eyes was blended with the impersonality of pity.
As they walked together across the camp, Miss Cameron remarked to the doctor: “It is strange how the rough life here seems to train men. He seemed to be almost a gentleman.”
Doctor Kline smiled in an amused fashion.
“There’s a lot here, Miss Cameron, who seem ‘almost a gentleman,’ and they are not the best kind, either. In fact they come pretty near to being the worst. Arizona is not the graveyard of reputations. It’s the hell that comes after that. Men drift here from every corner of the world, and from every sort of life. The undercurrent here is full of derelicts. Nobody questions about the past or the future here. They just drift, and it is not so very long before most of them sink.”
In the course of forty years of varied experience, Dr. Kline had never made so long a speech. He stopped short, and, flushing, looked quickly at Miss Cameron to see if she were laughing at him. Her serious expression reassured him, and helooked at her again; only this time it was for the purpose of admiration.
They had reached the door of her father’s house. It was called a house and not a shack, partly as a matter of etiquette, being the manager’s dwelling, and partly because it had a porch. Also it possessed the added grandeur of two small wings, which were joined to the one-story, central building.
Jean said good-bye to the doctor and went into the house. Her father was busy at his desk with some large blue prints of the workings; but he stopped when she entered.
“How is the man getting along?” he asked. “I hope that the poor devil isn’t laid up so that he can never swing a pick again.”
“He is much better,” answered Jean, as she dropped into a big chair beside her father’s desk, “but, Father, do these men do nothing else all their lives beside swing picks?”
Her father smiled, amused at the earnest manner. “Well, my dear, they are likely to do so, unless they develop aptitude for ‘polishing’ the head of a drill, as they say here. In other words, become miners, instead of ‘muckers,’ in which case they get their three dollars a day insteadof two. The difference in social position, however, which I suppose is what you mean, is not very great.”
“I thought that the West was a place where men rose fast from the ranks, where the opportunities for success lay at each man’s feet,” said Jean thoughtfully.
“That is partially true,” replied her father; “but you must remember steadiness is needed as much here as anywhere, and that is a quality which most men, of a type such as I judge this Loring to be, have not. Also to reach success here they have to swim through a river of whisky, and most of them drown in transit.”
Jean sat for a moment in silence, the sun playing tricks of light and shade across the ripples of her hair and in the depths of her level-gazing eyes.
At length she exclaimed suddenly: “Why is it that they all drink?”
“Why?” echoed her father. “I have been so occupied with the result that I have had no time to consider the cause. The fact is—they have no other form of relaxation here. Besides, when men work seven days a week all the year round, after a while they reach a point where they mustdo something to break the tedium, and drinking whisky is a convenient method.”
“Then why do you make them work on Sunday?” asked Jean. “Why not let them rest on that day?”
Her father laughed. “Well, it doesn’t sound logical after what I have just said, but if they get Sunday to rest, they are all so drunk that we have not enough men on Monday to start the mines. We tried it once. I suppose that the only explanation of the way the men drink here is that they do. I think it is a germ in the air.”
Mr. Cameron turned again to his work. Jean sat silently beside him watching the firm lines with which he traced new winzes, drifts, and cross-cuts on the prints, the precision with which he wrote his comments on the borders.
It was a strong face which bent over the table, strong, stern, and telling of a Scotch ancestry in which Mr. Cameron took great pride, for had not one of his forefathers fought in the army of the Lord of the Isles, and another been a faithful follower to the end of the hopeless Stuart cause!
Clearly loyalty was a tradition of their race, and typical of that allegiance which still madeall Scotch things dear to these two descendants of the old Highlanders, which led the father to hang on the bare walls of his cabin the shield of the Camerons with its armorial bearings of “or, three bars gules,” and impelled Jean to wear a Scotch cap, and always, somewhere about her dress, a touch of the red and blue Cameron plaid.
Now, as Jean stood at her father’s side, it was easy to see the family likeness, for all the softening of age and sex, which had changed the lines of his face to the curves of hers. The same spirit looked out from both pairs of eyes, and if ever there should come a conflict of wills between the two, there would be as pretty a fight as once happened at Inverlochie, when Cameron and the Lord Protector fell foul of each other.
Jean Cameron had been only a month in Quentin. She had begged to join her father and he had consented, although he had assured her that she would dislike the life. But from the first she had loved the place and everything about it. The atmosphere of crude labor, the men thrusting down into the mountains and drawing out the green-crusted ore, the ridesacross the trails, had brought her a sense of exhilaration.
She had expected to find in the West the romance of freedom, of wildness, of the natural type. Instead, she had found, and it was infinitely more fascinating, the romance of work, of risk borne daily as a matter of course, not from love of danger, but because it meant bread. To a girl of her keen perception there was a meaning in it all. It was the first glimpse that she had ever had of a world where the little things of life had no existence and where the big things were the little things.
During his convalescence, Stephen had many callers. Mr. Cameron paid him a short visit, and briskly and efficiently expressed his gratitude. At least this was the way in which Loring characterized it to himself, after his departure. From motives of kindness, most of the foremen and men from the office force came in to see him; from motives of self-interest, the visits were generally repeated, for Loring combined a drollness, a vein of narrative, and a wide range of experiences.
McKay was one of those who dropped in frequently to discuss the affairs of the camp in short, jerky sentences, which alternated with the puffs from his stubby black pipe. Stephen, by a great amount of reticence as to his own personal affairs, had won McKay’s respect as a wise man. He was by nature of an exuberant temperament; but experience had taught him that taciturnity was the best way to acquire a reputation for solidity in a community. About four years previousto this time, when he had embarked in life in the West, the first man under whom he had worked had commented upon his garrulous propensities rather caustically. His words: “You don’t want to talk too much in this world, young feller; it ain’t pleasant,” had been borne in upon Loring to the great improvement of his character. McKay had once in the course of a discussion of different men’s capabilities expressed the Western view very tersely. He had said: “The wisest man I ever knew was a fellow in Nogales. I never heard him open his mouth once!”
Loring’s visitors, however, were not all of such a character. Every morning Miss Cameron came into the hospital and greeted Stephen with a gay smile that made pain seem a base currency with which to pay for such happiness. He had come to look forward to the few minutes during which she talked to him as the oasis of his day. As time went on, his thoughts of her grew more absorbing. A man when convalescent can, with the greatest of ease, fall in love with an abstract ideal, so that when a very charming concrete example was near, the process of dreaming speedily crystallized to a point where Stephenfound himself very much in love. For many hours after one of her visits he lay staring at the ceiling, trying to find some adjective by which to describe her. Failing in his direct search, he fell back on the method of question and answer. Was she beautiful? he asked himself. It was many years since he had seen women of her class, and it was hard for him to find a comparative standard. He was certain that she was a joy to look upon. Had she sympathy? Her kindness to the sick Mexicans in the hospital was a ready answer to that question. Was she feminine? She had a quality of comradeship and companionship combined, which previously he had only associated with men. Yet back of it was a latent coquetry, and unconsciously it piqued him to feel that towards him there was no trace of it. Strive as he would, he could find no word which could fit all the opposing sides of her character, her aloof frankness, her subtle force.
“Fall-in-love-withable-ness,” he reflected, “is not a recognized word, and yet it is the one that describes her.”
At last came the days when with effort at first, then with ease, he could stroll from shack to shack about the camp. He often spent histime in the assay office, watching the assayer tend the delicate balances, or precipitate the metal from the various shades of blue liquid which stood on the ledge by the window in neat rows of test-tubes. Then there was thetienda, where, sitting on a box in the corner, he could watch the Mexicans as they crowded up to the bookkeeper’s window, loudly calling out their numbers, and asking for coupons. The air in the store was always thick with the smell of “Ricorte” or “Pedro” tobacco. There were also in the glass cases gaudy tinfoil-wrapped cigars, “Dos Nationes,” which the more lavish and wealthy purchased, and which added a slightly more expensive hue to the smoky atmosphere. Often, too, he would loaf about the draughting-room, where at first he amused himself by drawing exceedingly impressionistic sketches on the bits of paper that were scattered about.
Stephen possessed that rare quality of being able to loaf without being in the way. His loafing added a pleasant background to work that others were doing, instead of being an irritant. Gradually he came to helping Duncan, the surveyor, to check up his figures, and, much to thelatter’s surprise, in speedy fashion worked out logarithms for him. Loring as a subordinate always did so well that it made his incompetency, when given responsibility, doubly disappointing. Duncan, whose mathematical methods were, though no doubt safer, far slower, grew to have an excessive opinion of Loring’s ability, and expressed it about the camp. He often questioned Stephen as to where he had acquired his knowledge of logarithms; but Loring always told him that he had merely picked it up at a way station on the journey of life. As curiosity about others rarely goes deep in Arizona, the subject had been finally taken for granted, and dropped.
One day while Stephen was working with Duncan, Mr. Cameron entered the room, and said abruptly: “Well, Loring, are you about ready for work?”
“Yes,” said Stephen, “I was going to work for Mr. McKay again to-morrow.”
Mr. Cameron paused for a moment, and looked him over carefully. He noticed the clear light of the eyes, and he was pleased. He noticed the indecisive lines at the corners of the mouth, hesitated, and almost imperceptiblyshook his head. Years of experience had taught him to read men’s faces well. This was the first which he had ever liked, and yet not quite trusted. The combination of feeling puzzled him.
Loring had begun to flush a trifle under the sharp scrutiny, before Mr. Cameron again spoke.
“I was thinking of giving you a position on the hoist. The man on Number Three is going to quit to-morrow.” Mr. Cameron said “quit,” with a little snap of the jaw, that left no doubt as to why the man was going to leave. “Do you know anything about the work?” he went on.
Loring’s “No, but I think perhaps I can learn,” seemed to irritate Mr. Cameron, who exclaimed: “Good Lord, man! ‘think perhaps you may be able to learn.’ ‘Think perhaps!’ Here you are going to have men’s lives in your hands. It is no place for a man who thinks ‘perhaps.’ Still I will try you. You will receive three dollars and a half for eight hours, and overtime, extra. At that the work is not hard. You can go up to the shaft now. Colson, the man whom you are going to try to replace, ison shift, and he will teach you what he can. You go on the pay-roll to-morrow.” Cutting short Stephen’s thanks, Mr. Cameron abruptly left the office.
Duncan began to chuckle quietly.
“It is damned lucky for you, Loring, that you didn’t go on much further with your theories of ‘thinking perhaps.’ I don’t know where you were before you came here, and I don’t care; but here it will help you some to remember that it is only what youdoknow orcando that counts.”
Stephen took cheerfully this good advice, and after securing his hat, he stretched himself comfortably in the doorway, then started up the hill to the mine. In the hot glare he climbed the tramway which led from the hungry ore cribs by the smelter to Number Three hoist. He was still weak, and the climb tired him considerably. Several times, in the course of the few hundred yards, he stopped and rested. As many times more he was compelled to step to one side of the track in order to let the funny, squat, little ore cars whiz by him, the brake cable behind them stretching taut, and whining with the peculiar note of metal under tension. When atlast, tired and out of breath, he reached the hoist box, Colson gave him a sour greeting.
“Damned boiler leaks like a sieve. Have to keep stoking her all the time. Engine is always getting centered. Wish you joy! It’s the worst job I ever tackled.”
In answer to Loring’s request for instructions, Colson slowly wiped his hands on a bit of oily waste, and having taken a fresh chew of tobacco, proceeded to explain the working of the drum hoist, and the signal code.
For the rest of the afternoon, under Colson’s supervision, Stephen managed the clutch that governed the cable, and at the ever recurring clang of one bell, ran the ore buckets with great speed up the shaft. Whenever the signal of three bells, followed by one, rang out, he brought the buckets slowly and decorously to the surface, for that told of a human load. Loring, in spite of apparent clumsiness, possessed a great amount of deftness, and he was soon running the hoist fairly well, although the jerks with which the engine was brought to a standstill told the miners that a new and inexperienced hand was at the clutch.
At half-past three the men of the shift beganto signal to come to the surface. Loring asked Colson how, when the shift did not end till four, this was allowed. Colson explained that as the mine was non-Union, and employed mostly Mexican labor, the piece work system was in use. When the men had filled a certain number of buckets, they could come to the surface regardless of the time. The result had been that more work was accomplished than formerly, while the miners had shorter hours.
“That is all very pleasant,” reflected Stephen, “if the company, having seen how active the men can be, does not increase the number of buckets required.”
Shortly before four o’clock they were relieved by the engineer for the next shift, who undertook the task of lowering the waiting men. Then Colson and Loring, picking up their coats, walked slowly down the hill into the camp. At the smelter Loring parted with Colson and walked over to his own quarters. Since his dismissal from the hospital, he had been sharing a tent with one of the shift bosses—a man about whom Stephen knew little except the fact that he was named Lynn, and that he never washed. The company rented tents withboard floors, for two dollars a month, so that when the quarters were shared, household expenses were not large.
As Loring threw back the wire-screened door of the tent, Lynn, from within, greeted him with mild interest.
“I hear they are goin’ to try you on Number Three. Now over where I used to work in Black Eagle, they wouldn’t let a green man even smell the hoist. It ain’t safe, nor legal. But I suppose the Boss had to give yousomejob. All wrong, though.”
Loring kept discreet silence in answer to this, and after fetching a bucket of water, proceeded to wash with many splashes. This annoyed Lynn, who grunted: “How can a man do any work with you wallowin’ round like a herd of steers?” Then he returned to his previous occupation of poring over location papers for some claims of his “up yonder.” These claims were the joke of the camp, on account of their remoteness from any known ore vein, yet Lynn, unaffected by the waves of exultation or depression which from time to time swept through the camp, year by year persisted in doggedly doing his assessment work.
In Arizona almost every man, no matter what his occupation or station, has “some claims up in the hills.” These claims furnish the romance of his life, for always beneath the grimmest present lies the golden “perhaps” of a rich strike.
Stephen sat on the edge of his cot, rolling a cigarette and watching Lynn’s profile.
“There are some people,” he meditated, “who would not look cheerful if they were paid so much a smile.” When Lynn had finished his papers, he rose with solemn deliberative slowness, took down a black felt hat from a wooden peg on the tent pole, transferred his toothpick from the left side of his mouth to the right, and slouched towards the door.
“Come on over to grub!” he called back. Loring joined him, and together they walked over to the company mess.
As they picked their way along the sordid road, Stephen looked at the dirty houses of the Mexicans with a feeling of repulsion. They were built from all the refuse that could be gathered: old sheet iron, quilts, suwara rods, a few boards, broken pieces of glass and tarred paper. A broken-down wagon, on one wheel,lurching in a dissipated fashion against a boulder, added to the disreputability of the tin-can-strewn road. While he and Lynn were plodding moodily along, Stephen suddenly heard behind him the clatter of horses’ hoofs. He turned. The scene no longer seemed sordid, for riding up the road was Miss Cameron. Around her rode five or six little girls,—the camp children,—their legs, too short to reach the stirrups, stuck in the leathers, their hair flying in all directions, while their stiff little gingham dresses fluttered in the breeze. Jean, riding a gray pony, sat clean limbed and lithe across the saddle. The deep full modeling of breast and thigh, the proud carriage of the shoulders, and the easy swing of her body to the lope of the horse—all bespoke high health and keen enjoyment. Her khaki skirt fell on either side in yellow folds against the oiled brown of the saddle. She wore no hat, and the sunlight struck clear and sparkling upon her tawny hair. Her color was fresh from the sting of the wind.
Stephen stepped aside to let the little cavalcade pass; but Miss Cameron reined in her pony, and smilingly greeted him and his companion. Her convoy of little girls bade her a grateful“good-bye,” and scattered to their homes in the various parts of the camp.
“You seem to be a ‘Pied Piper of Hamelin,’” remarked Stephen, looking up at her. Lynn for some reason appeared uneasy.
“No, I don’t decoy them,” she answered. “In fact, I try hard to get away from them, but they are not allowed to ride alone in the valley, and consequently whenever they see my pony saddled they swarm about me like bees and cannot be shaken off. Are you sure that you are strong enough to be out of the hospital?” Miss Cameron added, scrutinizing Stephen with friendly solicitude.
Loring was busying himself with the problem of whether her eyes were really gray or blue. He gathered his wits together however to answer that he was growing better steadily.
“Well, good night, and be sure to continue to get better!” The girl shook the reins of her pony, and galloped off towards the corral.
Lynn could no longer contain himself.
“Look a-here, Loring. I don’t know where you was brought up, but Miss Cameron is a lady, if ever I seed one, and whar I come from, gentlemen don’t call ladies ‘Pi-eyed Pipers.’”
Stephen, with a start, came out of his wistful mood, then almost collapsed with laughter. Lynn stalked along in silent wrath, not speaking another word until they entered the mess room.
It was half-past five, and the room was still crowded, though that many had come and gone was attested by the pools of coffee on the zinc tables, the bread crumbs on the floor, and the great piles of dirty dishes. In a mining camp five o’clock is the fashionable supper hour, and he who comes late has cause to rue it. Loring and his companion cleared places for themselves, and after the necessary preliminaries of wiping their cracked plates on their sleeves, and obtaining their share from the great bowl of stew in the center of the table, they proceeded to eat in businesslike silence. There had been a time when such surroundings would have taken away Stephen’s appetite, but that was far away. The proprietor walked frequently up and down the room, answering mildly the contumely heaped upon the food. He carried a large bucket from which he replenished the coffee cups. Stephen quickly reached the dessert stage of the meal, and the proprietor set that course beforehim. It consisted of two very shiny canned peaches, floating in a dubious juice.
The man who owned the eating house was of a quiet, depressed nature developed by years of endeavor to please boarders’ appetites at one dollar a day and make a profit of seventy-five cents. Ordinarily dessert consisted of one canned peach. Loring’s double allowance was a silent tribute to the fact that he did not rail at the food as did the others, and to the fact that once, when the purveyor had “spread himself” and served canned oysters, Stephen had thanked him. This had been the third time that the man had been thanked in all his life, and he stowed it away in his strange placid brain.
When Stephen had finished his meal, he rose and joined the group of men, who, as customary after supper, were lounging on the steps. The proprietor, wearing his usual apologetic smile, soon joined them.
“Pretty good supper, boys?” he remarked tentatively.
Some one in the crowd moaned drearily. “Say, I know what good food is. I used to eat up at the Needles, at a place so swell they give Mexicans pie. Reg’lar sort of Harvey house, thatwas.” The proprietor, still smiling, sadly withdrew, and the crowd returned to its former occupations: commenting on the thin ponies of the Mexicans who galloped by, and trying to catch the eyes of the señoritas as they strolled past, arm in arm, seemingly stolid alike to the attentions and to the jests of the men.
Many of the Indians, who had been brought from the San Carlos Reservation to work on the railway grade, were in camp to make their simple purchases of supplies. Stephen noticed with disgust the way the braves sat astride their ponies with indolent grace, while beside them walked the squaws, with the papooses slung in blankets over their shoulders.
“Good example of the ‘noble redman,’ isn’t it!” he exclaimed to McKay.
“Well, what can you expect?” chuckled the latter. “You know in their marriage ceremony the brave puts the bit of his pony in the mouth of his prospective bride. Sort of a symbol of equality and companionship between man and wife, I reckon.”
As the twilight turned to dusk, the group gradually dissolved, till Loring alone was left on the steps. It was peaceful there, and as hedrew on his old black pipe, a healthy feeling of contentment permeated him. He felt that he could do his new work well. His last lessons, he thought, had taught him concentration. He saw himself working up again to a position of power. For some reason that even to himself was only vaguely defined, he felt that now it was all infinitely worth while. As for drink, he merely thought of it as an episode of the past. Stephen’s worst fault lay in not grappling with his enemies until they had him by the throat. As he sat smoking and dreaming, he was aroused by a cheerful salutation.
“Howdy, me bludder? Me bludder, he feel fine?”
Stephen looked up to see Hop Wah standing in the road before him. With his derby hat, yellow face, coal black pig-tail, and with a five-cent cigar drooping from one corner of his mouth Wah was a strange combination of Occident and Orient.
“Fine, thanks!” answered Loring, “but what are you doing up here in camp now, Wah?”
Wah proudly puffed at his cigar, and blew a wreath of gray smoke from between his flat lips.
“Me cook for the company here, now. Makeepie ebbrey day. Oh, lubbly, lubbly pie! Me bludder come to back door, and I give him some. Oh, lubbly, lubbly pie! Goodee bye. Goodee bye, me bludder!” Then Wah departed in the direction of thetienda, marching cheerfully along to his old refrain: “La, la, boom, boom; la, la, boom, boom.”
“The crazy Chinaman!” laughed Stephen. “He certainly enjoys life, though.” Loring rose and knocked out the ashes of his pipe on the steps. Then he walked towards his tent. They were just dumping the slag from the smelter, and he watched the glowing slag pot shoot along the track in front of him. As if by magic it checked at the end of the heap, and poured its molten, flashing stream far over the embankment. The whole camp glowed with a clear, all-suffusing orange light. The outline of the surrounding mountains loomed out blue-black. The glow faded to dull red, then dwindled to a mere thread of light, then disappeared, and all was dark again.
During the next two months, with a concentration of which he had never before thought himself capable, Stephen slaved at learning his task. To feel that in his hands lay the lives of the sixteenmen of the shift gave him a sense of responsibility, which in all his former work had been completely lacking. He was so faithful in the performance of his duties that even the critical Mr. Cameron was secretly pleased, while Jean watched with growing interest her father’s experiment, and felt that at last Loring had ceased to drift.
Stephen, on his part, carried in his heart one memory which shortened his working day, gladdened his leisure hours, and left no time for vain regrets. This was the thought of one evening which he had spent at Mr. Cameron’s house, on the occasion of a “Gringo” dance, whereto all the workers in camp, except the Mexicans, had been bidden, in celebration of Washington’s birthday.
Often did Stephen recall the flag-draped room, the Mexican orchestra, which in color resembled a slice of strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate ice-cream. He remembered the lantern-lighted porch, its lamps blending with the soft darkness of the southern night, hung with its own lanterns of stars.
But all these were only a background of his real memories, which were the warm touch ofJean’s hand, as he had held it in the dance for five blessed minutes, and the sound of her voice as she had talked with him on the porch, in the brief intervals when the guests had gathered around the musicians, to invoke the “Star Spangled Banner” and urge that long might it “Wa-a-ave!”
What they had talked about Stephen scarcely knew; but he had a confused impression that under the commonplaces of their talk had lurked, on her part, a hint of friendship which made his dreams perhaps not quite so wild, for he recognized in her something softly invincible which once having given friendship would never withdraw it, though the skies fell. In fact, while Loring was playing cards over the mess table one evening, Jean was putting her friendship to the proof in another quarter of the camp.
“Father, he is a gentleman.” Jean made this remark after a period of silence, during which she had sat on the porch of the shack, contemplating the moon as it rode high in the unclouded sky.
“Who is a gentleman? The man in the moon?” As he asked the question, Mr. Cameron withdrewhis cigar from his mouth, and pulled the smoke in leisurely rings into the air.
“No,” Jean answered, “not the man in the moon; the man on the hoist, Stephen Loring.”
“What made you think of him?”
“I met him this afternoon in the valley. That put him into my head.”
“Well, I advise you to take him out again.”
“Not at all. I shall keep him there. He interests me, because he is a gentleman.”
“What are the hall-marks of a gentleman?”
“Oh,” said Jean slowly, “there are a hundred little signs which cannot be suppressed. A deacon may turn into a horse thief, or a millionaire into a beggar; but once a gentleman, always a gentleman. Mr. Loring tries to hide it; but he cannot. Oh, haven’t you noticed the difference?”
“Between Loring and the other men? No, I cannot say that I have. But I am not particularly interested in the question whether my hoist engineers are gentlemen.”
“Don’t you think you ought to be?”
“Why?”
Jean clasped her hands around her knee and looked out over the dim hills bathed in the mistof the moonlight. After a while she said: “It must be very lonely for a gentleman in a camp like this.”
“If you are thinking of Loring,” said her father, “he is busy all day and he can go to the mess in the evening.”
“The mess!” exclaimed Jean scornfully. “Yes, fine place for a gentleman, where the men chew tobacco and drink whisky all the evening, and tell stories as long as they are broad!”
“All terribly offensive no doubt to a sensitive soul like your Mr. Loring,” answered Mr. Cameron. “Perhaps,” he added with fine sarcasm, “you would like to have him take his meals with us.”
“Yes, I would like to ask him here sometime. It is good in you to think of it,” replied his daughter calmly.
“It cannot be done, Jean. It cannot be done,” Mr. Cameron said with decision. “Discrimination among the men breeds discontent. I think that we have done full enough for Loring as it is.”
“Do you?” Jean responded, with the audacity of a hot temper. “Well, I do not; but then it was my life that he saved, and perhaps that makes me see the thing differently. I am thinking thatwhen a man saves your life you cannot get rid of the obligation by throwing him a job, as you might toss a bone to a dog. I am thinking that he has some claim on the life that he has given back, and that the other person should spend a little of it in doing something for him.”
“And, pray, what has his being a gentleman to do with all this?” asked Mr. Cameron, whose wrath took the form of sarcasm. “Suppose that Colson or Lynn had saved your life, would you have wished to have him at the house?”
“Neither of them would have wished to come.”
“That is not honest, Jean. You know that they would; but you would never ask them, except to one of your camp dances. You would not if they had saved your life twenty times.”
“I should try to do something for them, something that they would like; but if people are not of your kind there is no use in inviting them. There is no kindness in it in the end.”
“Perhaps,” said her father, “there would prove to be no kindness in the end in what you wish to do for Loring.”
“Very well. There is no use in arguing with a Scotchman; but I warn you that I shall make itup to him in friendliness. The other men can scarcely object to that.”
With these words Jean rose from the steps and, passing through the door, entered the little living-room where she picked up a guitar from the window-seat, and to its accompaniment began to sing in a low voice. What was the song she chose? Why, it was “Jock o’ Hazeldean.” If ever a song expressed flat mutiny it is that one, and it lost nothing in expression from Jean Cameron’s rendering, from the beginning where the heroine refuses to be commanded or cajoled, to the last line where “She’s o’er the border and awa’ wi’ Jock o’ Hazeldean.”
Mr. Cameron was justified in being angry; but who could resist a voice like Jean Cameron’s? Evidently not Jean’s father, for when the girl came out again and smiling laid her hand upon his shoulder, Mr. Cameron relaxed the grimness of his expression.
“Well, well, lassie, we will see what can be done for your gentleman engineer,” he said encouragingly; “but don’t be ‘o’er the border and awa’’ with Jock, till we know a little more about him, and about what is thought of him in Hazeldean.”
“Oh, Loring. Have you heard the news?” Stephen, on his way to breakfast, on the morning of the Fourth of July, stopped until McKay joined him.
“No. What is the matter?”
“There is to be a half holiday to-day,” went on McKay.
“The devil there is! I did not know that such things existed this side of heaven.”
“In which case you would never see one,” laughed McKay. “But to-day there is to be one. In my opinion, we owe it to Miss Cameron’s influence with her father. Every one can knock off work at twelve o’clock. Look at the notice!”
On the office wall, beneath the usual “No Entrada—Oficina,” was a big placard which conveyed the news in English and Spanish. Stephen read it with satisfaction.
“I think that will make breakfast taste rather well. What is your opinion, Mac?”
“That comes pretty close to my jedgments,”answered McKay. “Hey, Wah, you crazy Chinaman; quit hammering that gong!”
This last was addressed to Hop Wah, who was standing on the porch of the eating house, hammering with a railroad spike upon an iron gong.
“Me hab to. Else me lazy pig bludders allee late. La, la, boom, boom! Breakfas’. Nice hot cakes. Oh, lubbly, lubbly cakes; eggs this mornin’. Goodee canned eggs. Oh, lubbly; la, la”—Wah fled precipitately into the kitchen, as Loring and McKay made gestures of killing him.
They were the first at the mess, and while the sleepy stragglers filed in, one by one, they ate their oatmeal in comfort. They took a lazy pleasure in watching the surprise, and listening to the ejaculations, with which the news of the half holiday was received. “Thin Jim,” who always presided at the head of the table, on account of his so-called “boarding house arm,” which enabled him to be of vast service as a waiter, professed to be so astounded at the news as to be incapable of performing his duties.
“What with a dance on Washington’s birthday, and a half holiday to-day, why, we’re becomin’ sort of a leisure class,” he remarked.
“Well, look out that you don’t deteriorateunder the strain,” laughed Loring. “Has any one a match?” The only real system in all Loring’s habits of life was his custom of rising early enough to have time for a smoke between breakfast and work.
In the afternoon the camp was alive with shouts and hilarity. On the slag dump two baseball games were in progress, of such excitement that the umpires had early withdrawn; while some one had established in the gulch an impromptu shooting gallery, whence the quick rattle of reports told of financial success.
Stephen sat with Duncan on the steps of the assay office while the latter checked up his figures for the morning’s work.
“The ore from Number Three is running six per cent these days,” he exclaimed, as he tossed his note-book into the office.
Together they watched the trail leading out from the camp, down which rode little groups of horsemen, lounging in the saddle. The smoke from their cigarettes trailed thinly blue behind them.
“There goes domesticity for you, Steve!” said Duncan. He pointed to a family group riding by. Old Tom Jenkins, the smelter boss, withhis wife, was starting for a trip to the river. Three children were strung in various attitudes across their saddles.
“It seems as if every one were going for a ride,” commented Stephen. “Shall we fall in line with the popular amusement?”
“I haven’t got a horse,” answered Duncan, “and all the companycaballoswill be out to-day. I heard old Hodges down at the corral after lunch cursing like a pirate at the amount of saddling that he had to do. Right in the midst of his growling, Miss Cameron came along, and wanted a horse. The old man pretty nearly fell over himself trying to accommodate her. There’s something about her that seems to affect people that way. Quite a convenient trait, I should think!”
Stephen agreed silently, and in his mind added considerably more, then strode off to the corral for his pony.
As he slung the saddle across his horse’s back and cinched the girth, he fumbled a little, for his mind was not upon the task, but upon a certain curl, which defying combs or hairpins, waved capriciously at the turn of a girl’s neck.
Horses, however, have little sympathy withsentiment, and while Loring tugged absent-mindedly at the straps, the little beast puffed and squealed, trying to arrange for a comfortable space between his round, gray belly and the girth. Stephen, placing his left hand on the head-piece, and his right on the pommel, swung himself into the saddle, in spite of the pony’s antics. Soon he was loping out of camp, and down towards the river. The clear sunshine struck his neck beneath his broad hat; the alkali dust tasted smoky and almost invigorating.
As he left the camp behind him, he laughed and sang softly to himself, beating with his unspurred heel the time of his song against his pony’s ribs. He blessed the extravagance which had led him to invest half a month’s pay in “Muy Bueno,” as the horse was christened to indicate the owner’s assurance that he was “very fine.” Leaning forward, Loring playfully pulled “Muy Bueno’s” ears. The pony shook its head in annoyance. This was no holiday for him.
After a short distance the ground began to rise, and the pony, with lowered head, buckled to his task, resolutely attacking the trail which zig-zagged up the steep mountainside.
Half way up the rise stood a saloon. As Loringapproached it, he heard roars of laughter. In it there was that quality which only liquor can produce. As he drew nearer he could see the reason for the laughter. Before the saloon was a girl on horseback, her pony balking, and flatly refusing to proceed. The doorway was full of half drunken miners, calling out advice of varied import. The saloon keeper, himself a bit flushed, called out: “She’s got Tennessee Bob’s old pony. He never would go by here without taking a drink, and I reckon the horse sort of inherited the habit.”
Stephen took in the situation at once. Riding up quickly, he cut the stubborn pony across the flank with his quirt. The animal quivered for a moment, then as another stinging blow fell, galloped on up the trail.
“Hell, Loring! what you want to do a thing like that for? Funniest thing I’ve seen in a month,” growled a man in the crowd.
Stephen only waved his hand in answer and rode on after the girl, whom he had no difficulty in recognizing. A couple of hundred yards of hard riding brought him up with her.
Jean’s cheeks were still crimson, but it was as much from laughter as embarrassment.
“Really, Mr. Loring,” she exclaimed, half breathlessly, “you seem to be always in the position of a rescuer.”
“Your horses do seem to have a taste for adventure,” he replied. “Perhaps I may be allowed to accompany you on your ride this afternoon,” continued Stephen. “There might, you know, be other saloons which your pony was in the habit of visiting.”
“I think it would be safer,” assented Jean.
They were nearing the crest of the hill, and the trail broadened so that they could ride abreast. A bevy of quail flushed suddenly up from the ground, strumming the air sharply. A little further on, a jack-rabbit jumped into the center of the trail, looked about, then dove into the underbrush. To a mind in its normal condition, these things were but commonplaces. To Stephen it seemed as if all nature were in an exuberant mood. The very creak of the leather, or ring of steel, as now and then one of the horses’ hoofs struck on stone, fell in with the tenor of his spirits. There are few men who could ride over the Arizona hills with Jean Cameron and doubt the gloriousness of existence.
At the summit they drew rein to breathe thehorses. Before them lay the valley of the “Dripping Spring Wash.” For miles the belt of white sand in the bottom stretched away darkened with clumps of drab sage-brush, or with tall wavy lines which they knew must be cactus. Whiter than the sand, far out in the valley, a tent gleamed. Here and there a few moving specks betokened range cattle. Framing it all were great mountains, as irregular and barren as floe ice,—blue, purple, and brown, with streaks of yellow where the hot rays of the sun struck upon bare earth. All the detail of the rocky contour showed in the clear air. The mountains at the end of the valley, forty miles away, seemed as distinct as if within a mile. In silence the riders sat their horses, looking straight before them.
“I never knew how big life could be until I saw Arizona,” exclaimed Jean.
“I never knew how big life could be until—”
“Until what, Mr. Loring?”
Loring’s answer was to guide the horses into the trail that led down to the Wash.
In a short while they reached the bottom, and rode out into the valley, where wandering “mavericks,” or faggot-laden burros had pounded innumerable hard paths.
Jean shook the bridle of her horse, and calling back over her shoulder, “Shall we run them?” was off in a flash. Stephen, urging on his pony, soon caught up with her, and side by side they galloped hard up the valley. Leaning forward in his saddle, he could watch the rich color rush across the girl’s face, as the speed set her blood dancing. Her head was tossed backward, throwing out the clean molded chin, and perhaps emphasizing the hint of obstinacy concealed in its rounded finish. Her bridle hand lay close on the horse’s neck, the small gloved fingers crushing the reins. From the amount of attention that Loring was, or rather was not, paying to his horse, he richly deserved a fall; but the fates spared him. Perhaps they, too, were engaged in watching the girl.
With a sigh, Jean pulled her horse down to walk.
“That was splendid! Why can’t one always be riding like that?”
Loring looked at her, amused by the exuberance of her spirits.
“A bit hard on the horses as a perpetual thing, otherwise perfect,” he answered.
She turned to him suddenly. “Have you no enthusiasms?”
“I used to have,” answered Stephen, “but they were not of exactly the right kind. In fact they made me what I am.”
“What are you?” she asked, looking at him directly.
“A failure—and rather worse, because I am a poor failure. There is just enough left in me to make me realize the truth, but not enough to compel me to do anything about it.”
Jean thought for a minute, then, with sincere pity in her face, she asked, “Why?”
Stephen had resolved never to speak of his past, of the golden opportunities lost, of the friends who would have helped if they could; but as he looked at her, at the slightly parted lips, at the frank sympathy that shone from her face, he knew that here was some one who could understand and perhaps help.
Slowly at first, controlling the breaks in his voice, then more evenly, he told her of start after start, of the relatives who had disowned him, of drifting and drifting. “Now, here I am, running a hoist! Well, it is probably the best thing of which I am capable and I owe it to you andyour father that I have so good a place. I have been tried and found wanting in almost every way the Lord could invent, and,” he tried rather unsuccessfully to smile, “I think I am down and out.”
Jean reached out her hand to him, and pressed his warmly, with the proud confidence of not being misunderstood.
“Mr. Loring, I do not believe it. You may have been and done all that you say, but you have still the battle ahead of you. I owe my life to you. You risked yours to save me. I will not let you go on throwing yourself away, without trying to help you. I thank you for what you have told me. I think that I understand. It is hard perhaps for a girl to realize the truth; but I do so want to help you! Here in Arizona you have a fresh chance. Go on and win—and never forget that I am going to stand by you.”
Stephen set his teeth and looked straight ahead of him. Every nerve within him tingled with the desire to bow his head over the small hand that lay on his, to crave, he knew not what. Then he lifted his head and looked at her. “I will try—and God bless you!”
So absorbed had the man and girl been intheir talk, that they had failed to realize that the soft, swift night of Arizona was overtaking them. Clouds too were gathering in the west and obscuring the sunset before its time. Jean noticed it at length and took alarm.
“We must turn and ride fast,” she said hastily. “My father will be worried if we are late. I think I remember this path which cuts into the trail again farther on and is a shorter way. Let us take it!”
Without waiting for Loring’s assent, she dashed off to the left. Stephen followed her with some misgiving. He had known too much of the devious windings of these half-beaten paths and would have chosen the longer way around in confidence of its proving the shorter way home.
On and on they rode in the gathering darkness till at length they could scarcely see a yard ahead of them, and were forced to drop the reins on the necks of the ponies, realizing that in such a situation instinct is a far safer guide than reason. Loring took the lead, and rode slowly and cautiously, peering about him in the vain hope of discovering the right way. At length his pony balked suddenly and threw back its ears. “Stop!” Stephen called back, as he slippedhastily from the saddle and took a step forward to investigate the cause of “Muy Bueno’s” fright. One step was enough, for it showed him that the ground dropped off into space at his very feet. “Whew!” he whistled softly to himself. Then aloud he said: “I am afraid, Miss Cameron, that you must dismount. Wait and let me help you!” But before he could reach her the girl was out of her saddle and at his side. She saw their danger and paled at its nearness. Then she said quietly: “Of course it is my fault; but we need not talk about that now. The question is, what are we going to do?”
“The only thing we can do is to grope our way back by the way we have come, and hope by good luck to reach the main trail again. If the moon would only come up, we might at least get our bearings,” said Loring.
“We ought to be somewhere near the Bingham mine,” Jean reflected aloud. “Mr. Bingham is a friend of my father’s and we have ridden over to supper in his camp once or twice. But I don’t know—I have lost all faith in my skill as a pilot.”
Loring took hold of the bridles and turned the ponies. Then mounting, they rode into thedarkness, where a slight thread of openness seemed to show their path. Time and time again the horses, sure-footed as they were, stumbled and went down on their knees, only to pick themselves up with a shake and a plunge. Wandering cattle had beaten so many blind paths through the chaparral or between the rocks that the riders were often forced to stop and retrace their way, searching for new openings. Stephen was afraid. It was a new sensation for him to have any dread of the uncertain; but every time that Miss Cameron’s horse slipped or hesitated he turned nervously in the saddle on the lookout for some accident to her. His was a nature which danger elated, but responsibility depressed. Had he been alone he would have rejoiced in the stubbornness of the way, in the rasp of the cactus as his boots scratched against it, in the uncertain sliding and the quick checking of his horse; but now they worried him, so intent was he on the safety of the girl with him. He knew that only good fortune could find their way for them before sunrise and he prayed for good fortune in a way that made up for his past unbelief in such a thing.
Jean’s cheerfulness and acceptance of conditionsonly made it harder for him, as, with every sense alert, he led the way towards what he hoped was their goal.
And fear was not the only emotion that struck at his heart. Mingled with his anxiety was a rushing glow of happiness, of fierce exultation such as he had never experienced in his life. The fact that under his care, alone in the Arizona night, was the girl whom he loved, thrilled and shook him. The soft note of confidence in her voice, her unconscious appeal to him for protection, made the stinging blood rush to his face, made him crush the bridle in a grip as of a vise. “Alone!” he murmured. “Is there in God’s world any such aloneness as two together when the world is a countless distance away, when each second is precious as a lifetime!” His voice, when he spoke to her, sounded to him dry and forced. It was only by superhuman control that when he guided her horse to the right or left he did not cry out his need of her. Yet through all the electric silence he knew that he had no right to speak of love, no right even to love her. His mood was of that intensity which cares not for its reaction on others. Through it all he did not think or imagine that she couldcare; and yet he was happy, happy with that joy of a great emotion so sweeping as not to know pain from pleasure and not to care. For the first time in his life he realized what it was to live, not to think or to care, but tolive.
And she? She could not have been a woman and not have known, even though the imprisoned words had not escaped; but from knowing to caring is a very long road, and not only has it many turnings, but often it doubles upon itself.
After an hour of this blind riding, they suddenly found themselves following a well-beaten track. A tip of bright gold appeared from behind the black mountains, then a crescent, then a semicircle, and almost before they realized it the trail was flooded with the splendor of the full-rounded moon. As they watched, they were startled by the soft thud of a horse’s hoofs behind them. Stephen, a bit uneasy as to the newcomer, wheeled his horse sharply to meet him, and slipped his riding gauntlet from his right hand, prepared to shoot or to shake as the occasion might necessitate. He was greatly surprised, when the stranger drew abreast of them, to hear him exclaim in a cheerful bass voice: “Miss Cameron! How did you come here?”