251CHAPTER XVIITHE WINTHROP COAT-OF-ARMS
Priscilla, sitting under the biggest cottonwood, was writing to Miss Wallace, in her best handwriting, on her best stationery, in her best style. One unconsciously brought forth the best she had for Miss Wallace. She was telling of the Emperor and of the Cinnamon Creek ranger, sure that Miss Wallace would be glad to add both to her collection of interesting people. Interruptions were many. Carver, moody and silent, rode over, looking for entertainment, and she did her best; Vivian, having reached a halt in her daily Latin review, asked assistance; little David, Alec’s adorable son, had come over with his mother for the afternoon, and Priscilla found him irresistible; and at last Donald, riding homeward, hot and tired from working on the range, had stopped for rest and refreshment. With Hannah’s help Priscilla had provided252the refreshment, and the ground beneath the cottonwood was giving the rest.
“Some stationery!” said Donald, raising himself on his elbow to look at the pile of sheets which Priscilla had placed in readiness on the grass. “A shield and an eagle and a lion and a unicorn all at once, to say nothing of Latin. What does it say? ‘Courage—my——’”
“Courage is my heritage,” translated Priscilla proudly. “It’s our family coat-of-arms, and that’s the motto. We’ve had it for years and years, ever since the Wars of the Roses. A Winthrop was shield-bearer for Edward, Duke of York, and Grandfather used to say we could be traced back to the Norman Conquest.”
“I see,” said Donald politely, but with something very like amusement in his blue eyes. “You New England folks are strong on crests and mottoes and that sort of thing, aren’t you?”
“No more than we should be,” announced Priscilla a little haughtily. “We are the oldest families for the most part, and I think we ought to remember all those things about our ancestors. It’s—it’s253very—stimulating. The West is so excited over progress and developing the country and all that,” she finished a little disdainfully, “that it doesn’t care about family traditions or—or anything like that.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” returned Donald. “It isn’t so bad as that. We think a fine family history is a splendid thing. I venture I’m as proud of my Scotch forefathers as you are of the Duke of York’s shield-bearer, though we haven’t any coat-of-arms, and never did have any, I guess. Only back there you think it’s a necessity to have a good ancestry, and out here we just consider it a help. I like what Burns said about a man being just a man. That’s the way we feel out here. It isn’t what you come from; it’s what youare, and what you can do. Family mottoes are all right, if you live up to them. I knew a fellow at school when I was East two years ago. He roomed with me. He had the family coat-of-arms framed and hung on the wall. ’Twas all red and silver, and the motto was ‘Ne cede malis’—‘Yield not to difficulties.’ The funny part was that he was the biggest quitter254in school. You see, I think it’s you who have to uphold the motto—not the motto that has to uphold you.”
Priscilla ate a cookie silently. She wished Donald were not so convincing.
“For instance,” Donald continued, “supposeCourage is my heritagewere Vivian’s family motto. Do you think that fact would give Vivian an extra amount of courage if she said it over a thousand times? I don’t. All the courage Vivian’s got she’s gained for herself without any motto to help her out. And I guess that’s the way with most of us in this world.”
He took his hat and rose to go.
“I’ve got to be making for home,” he said. “Dave’s gone, and I’ve an extra amount of work to do. Thanks awfully for the cookies, and don’t think I’m too hard on the family motto business. I can see where your motto means a heap to you, but you’re not a quitter anyway, Priscilla.”
He jumped on MacDuff and rode down the lane with a final wave of his hat as he galloped homeward across the prairie. Priscilla’s cheeks grew255red as she watched him. She was not any too sure that she was not a quitter. Disturbing memories came to trouble her—memories of occasions when she had not proven the truth of the motto, which had fired her ancestors. Donald was right, too, about ancestry and coats-of-arms and mottoes being only helps. Her New England conscience told her that, and her weeks in Wyoming corroborated her conscience. Still she was averse to admitting it—even to Donald.
She returned to her unfinished letter, but Genius seemed on a vacation. She could not picture the Emperor to Miss Wallace—could not give the impression which he had indelibly stamped upon her memory as he stood between Nero and Trajan at the palace entrance. The coat-of-arms seemed a disturbing element. She covered it with a strip of paper, but still thoughts would not come.
Disgruntled and out-of-sorts, she put away her letter, and started toward the house. Carver’s mood was contagious, she said to herself. In Hannah’s kitchen she found Mrs. Alec and little David, a roly-poly youngster of three who demanded too256much attention for just one mother. Priscilla, seeing in David a sure antidote for introspection, offered to play the part of the necessary other mother, and took him out-of-doors, much to the relief of tired Mrs. Alec. She had no more time to think of family mottoes or coats-of-arms. David clamored for attention, begged to be shown the horse, the dogs, and all the live-stock which the ranch afforded. Priscilla was an obedient guide. Nothing was omitted from the itinerary. When David, satisfied as to the other four-footed possessions, said “Pigs” in his funny Scotch way, pigs it was!
She led him down the hill to the corral, then off toward the right where the pigs had their abiding-place. A pile of rocks, the crevices of which were filled with all weeds infesting the neighborhood of pigs, offered a vantage-ground from which they might view the landscape so alluring to little David. With his hand in hers, she was helping him mount the rocks one by one.
Suddenly a miniature saw-mill whirred at their feet. A swarm of bees filled the air! Priscilla, intent upon David, had not noticed the flat257surface of the rock where the sun lay warm and bright. Warned by the strange sound, her terrified eyes saw the snake, coiled and ready to spring! She had a fleeting vision of a flat, cruel head, and a thousand diamond-shaped yellow dots as she grasped little David by the neckband and pulled him from the rocks to the corral. It was a rattlesnake! The brakeman’s prophecy had come true! In spite of Virginia’s assertion that they never came near the house, she had seen one!
Little David was crying from surprise and a sore neck. He had not seen the snake. Priscilla was trembling in every muscle. There was no one whom she could call. The men were on the range and in the fields; Mr. Hunter and the girls, except Vivian, were in town; Aunt Nan was at the Keiths. The snake must not be allowed to live. Little David might be playing around there again, or some other child. She herself would never, never have the courage——! She started, for suddenly in place of the sound of the saw-mill and the vision of the diamond-shaped dots, came the memory of a lion rampant on a field of gold, an eagle perched upon258a shield, and a unicorn surrounded by stars. As the red came back into her white cheeks, Donald’s words came back also:
“You see, you’re no quitter anyway, Priscilla!”
Two minutes later Mrs. Alec and Hannah were surprised to receive into their midst a shrieking child, borne by a most determined girl, who was almost out of breath.
“He’s all right!” she gasped. “Except his neck, I mean! I dragged him. I had to! I’ll tell you why by and by. Keep him till I get back!”
Then she flew out of the house and down the path to the stables. A many-tined pitchfork rested against one of the sheds. It was one which William had used that morning in turning over sod for a new flower-bed. Priscilla in her hurried transit with David had marked the fork, and chosen it as her best weapon. Of all those cruel tines, one must surely be successful. Donald had told tales of forked sticks and heavy stones, but her hands were too inexperienced for those things.
She seized the fork and ran down the path toward the rocks, not daring to stop lest her resolve259should fail her; not even waiting to plan her attack lest the memory of that awful head should send her back to the kitchen.
The saw-mill whirred again as she neared the rock. Apparently the snake had not stirred since his last conquest. This time she saw his wicked little eyes, his flattened head, and the contraction of his diamond-covered muscles as he made ready to spring. But Priscilla sprang first. The tines of the heavy pitchfork pierced the coils, and the only whirr which sounded was the whirr of iron against the rock.
Priscilla, on the rock below, held the handle of the pitchfork firmly, and tried not to look at her victim as he writhed in agony. A sickness was creeping over her. There were queer vibrations in the air, and a strange, singing sound in her ears. Memory brought back the picture of an evening in Carver Standish’s room at the Gordon School when she had felt the same way. She would not faint, she said to herself, rallying all her forces. She would die first! The snake had ceased writhing. He was surely dead. Little David need be no260longer in danger, and she—perhaps she need not feel so unworthy when she thought of the Winthrop coat-of-arms.
She was very white when she reached the kitchen after depositing the pitchfork and its burden by the shed. Grateful Mrs. Alec cried and held little David closer when Priscilla, fortified by Hannah’s cider, told the story. Alec, who came in a few minutes later, was grateful, too, in his bluff Scotch way. The snake, he said, was a whopper. He had rarely seen a larger, and Miss Priscilla was a trump—the very bravest tenderfoot he’d ever seen!
She had been true to her heritage, Donald said that evening—worthy to bear the Winthrop coat-of-arms. But then he knew she wasn’t a quitter anyway. He had told her so that very afternoon.
But Priscilla’s honesty was equal to all the demands placed upon it that night. Donald’s praise was but the last straw!
“All the coats-of-arms and family mottoes in the world, Donald,” she said, “couldn’t have made me kill that snake. It was what you said about them, and about me not being a quitter that did it. I261think I was a quitter until this afternoon; but now I can go and write Miss Wallace without covering up the top of the paper. I’m going to do it before bed-time, if you’ll excuse me. Good-night!”
262CHAPTER XVIIIA GOOD SPORT
“Whew!” sighed Vivian, shifting her position in the saddle for the tenth time in as many minutes, and taking off her broad-brimmed hat to fan her tanned, flushed face. “I think sagebrush must attract the sun. I never was hotter in all my life! I wish now we’d stayed at the Buffalo Horn and waited till after supper to start back. Of course I don’t exactly love riding in the dark, but of the two I’d about as soon be scared to death as baked. Where is the next shady spot, Virginia? I can’t see a tree for miles! I honestly can’t!”
“There aren’t any,” said the comforting Virginia, brushing back the damp rings of hair from her hot forehead, “and the next shady spot is two miles away. The trail bends and there are some quaking-asps by a spring. We’ll rest there, and eat our cookies, and drink some real water. ’Twill be a change from the river.”263
“I’m thankful for the river though, even if I have drunk all kinds of bugs. I guess we’d have died without it through all these miles of sagebrush. When will the others get home, do you suppose?”
“Not until late,” Virginia answered, “that is, if they wait for supper. I’d have loved to have stayed, but William wants Pedro for the range to-morrow, and I wanted him to have a longer rest. Besides, he runs so with the other horses and gets nervous. You were a peach to come with me, Vivian. Right in the hottest part of the day, too.”
Vivian was honest.
“It wasn’t all out of kindness,” she admitted, “though, of course, I love to ride with you. I didn’t especially care about riding home at night, and I don’t like such a big crowd either. Siwash always forgets how old he is, and begins to act kittenish, and I never know what to do. I’m thirsty again. Shall we drink a few more bugs?”
“Might as well, I suppose,” Virginia replied. “Pedro and Siwash seem ready. Ugh! I got one that time! Actually felt him go down my264throat! We ought not to put water on our faces, Vivian. They’re peeling now! Here’s some cold cream!”
Vivian squeezed the tube and smeared her glowing nose, before she again mounted Siwash.
“We mustn’t drink any more of the river,” she said. “I feel like an insect cabinet already. Let’s get to the quaking-asps as soon as we can and rest.”
Virginia’s eyes glowed with pride as she watched Vivian mount Siwash and ride away from the river. One would never have known it was the same Vivian who nearly seven weeks ago had begged to stay at home from the getting-acquainted trip. She had learned to ride well and easily, and no apparent fear, at least of Siwash, remained. With still more pride Virginia saw her tanned, happy face, the red color in her cheeks, and the extra pounds which Wyoming had given her. The Big Horn country had been kind to Vivian in more ways than one.
“I never saw any one improve so in riding, Vivian,” she could not resist saying. “You do every265bit as well as Priscilla, and Don thinks she’s a marvel. I’m proud as Punch of you!”
Vivian’s cheeks glowed redder.
“I can’t help but be a tiny bit pleased with myself,” she said hesitatingly, “at least about the riding. And—and there are other things, too, Virginia. Of course I know there have been loads of silly things—Mr. Crusoe, for instance. I’ll never forget how awful that was, even though you were all so fine about it. But in spite of everything foolish, I have learned things out here, Virginia, that I never knew in all my life. Mother and Father probably won’t see any difference next week when I get home, but there is some just the same. I’m not quite such a—a coward as I was! I feel it inside!”
“I know you do,” said Virginia, riding Pedro closer. “It shows on your face, too. I guess what’s really inside of us usually does. You’re getting to be a good sport, Vivian, and we’re all proud of it—with you!”
The knowledge of Virginia’s approval somehow made the mid-day heat less intense, and266the two miles to the quaking-asps less long. It was good to reach them, and to lie at full length on the cool ground before drinking from the spring a few steps away. Pedro and Siwash were grateful, too, as they cropped the sweet, moist grass. A half hour here would sustain them against the three miles of sagebrush beyond.
Virginia and Vivian lay flat on their backs with their arms straight above their heads and rested, as they had been taught to do at St. Helen’s. Above them the interlaced branches of the quaking-asps shut out the sun. The air was still with that strange stillness which sometimes comes before a storm. Even the ever-active leaves of the quaking-asps moved not at all.
“It’s the stillest place I ever knew,” said Vivian, as she reached for a cookie. “How far is it to the nearest house?”
Virginia considered.
“Six miles,” she said. “No, there’s a homesteader’s cabin nearer. That’s about four, I guess, but Michner’s, the cattle ranch, is six. We always267call them the nearest neighbors from here. It is still, isn’t it?”
“Awfully!” returned Vivian.
Their words were hardly finished when the sound of hoofs broke the stillness. Pedro and Siwash snorted. Virginia and Vivian sat up quickly—one interested, the other alarmed. Some one was coming along the rough trail through the sagebrush. Some one was very near! They peered through the quaking-asps. The some one was a lone cowboy riding a buckskin horse. He was leaning forward in his saddle and clutching the horn. His face, almost covered by the big hat he wore, was close to the black mane of the sturdy little buckskin.
From their shelter they watched him draw near with beating hearts. There was something strange about him—strange as the stillness. They could not see that he was guiding the horse, who apparently knew not only the way, but her mission as well. She came straight toward the shady thicket and stopped beneath the trees a few rods away from the two anxious spectators. Her rider, conscious perhaps from the halt that he had reached268his destination, loosened his hold upon the saddle-horn, swung himself with a mighty effort from the saddle, and fell upon the ground, his hat all unnoticed falling from his head.
The buckskin was apparently worried. She sniffed the air dubiously, snorted an anxious greeting to Pedro and Siwash, and moved to one side, lest by mistake she should tread upon her master, who lay in a motionless heap close beside her. Then Virginia’s quick eyes discovered blood upon the man’s head and face. She jumped to her feet.
“He’s hurt somehow, Vivian,” she said, “terribly hurt, I’m afraid. We mustn’t leave him like this. He might die here all alone! Come on! Let’s see what we can do.”
Vivian, too surprised to remonstrate, followed Virginia through the quaking-asps. The man lay where he had fallen, unconscious of anything about him. Blood was flowing from an ugly wound just above his forehead. He was a sad and sorry sight. Vivian shuddered and drew back.
“Who is he, Virginia?” she breathed. “You know who he is, don’t you? Oh, what are you269going to do?” For Virginia’s strong young arms were trying to pull the man into a more comfortable position, and farther beneath the trees.
“No, I don’t know who he is,” she whispered, fanning the man’s white face with her broad-brimmed hat. “That doesn’t make any difference. He’s awfully hurt! I thought at first ’twas a shot, but I guess he’s fallen. It looks like that. The horse belongs to Michner’s. I know by the brand. Fan him, Vivian, while I fix his head and see if he has any whisky about him anywhere.”
The dazed and frightened Vivian obediently took the fan, and turning her face away, frantically fanned the quaking-asps until they danced and fluttered once more. Virginia untied the cow boy’s slicker from the back of the buckskin’s saddle and folded it into a pillow, which she placed beneath the sick man’s head. The buckskin was relieved and whinnied her thanks. Then from one pocket she drew a small, leathern flask and shook it.
“Empty!” she said. “Hard luck! Water will have to do. We were careless to forget our drinking-cups.270Rinse this flask, and get some water from the spring, Vivian.”
Vivian, still waving the fan in the air, brought the water, which Virginia tried to pour between the man’s lips. It seemed to arouse him, for he drank some gratefully, though without opening his eyes.
“I ought to wash some of this blood away,” said Virginia, “but I guess I won’t take the time. You can do that after I’m gone. There’s only one thing to do. We can’t leave this man here in this condition. He might die before any one found him. I’ll take Pedro and ride on to Michner’s as fast as I can for help. Or,” she added, seeing Vivian’s eyes open wider, “youtake him, and I’ll stay here. Either you like, only we must decide at once. Maybe we’ll meet somebody or somebody’ll come, or maybe there’ll be somebody at the homesteader’s cabin. Which will you do, ride or stay?”
Vivian had decided before she looked at Pedro. She always felt that Pedro entertained scorn for her, contempt that wild gallops through the sagebrush should, together with his youth and speed,271present terrors. She knew that he despised her for preferring Siwash to him.
“I’ll stay,” she said firmly. “Pedro will do more for you than for me. When will you be back?”
Virginia was already in the saddle.
“Probably in little more than an hour, if I find folks,” she said. “Keep giving him some water if he needs it, and fan him. He may come to. Good-by.”
The sound of Pedro’s feet died away all too quickly. The stillness which followed was deeper than ever. It fairly sang in the air. For fully five minutes Vivian stood motionless, loath to believe that Virginia had gone. She did not want to be alone! Something inside of her cried out against it. But shewasalone—she, Vivian Winters, alone with a dying cow boy on a limitless Wyoming plain. Since the relentless knowledge pushed itself upon her, she might as well accept it.She was alone!And there was the cow boy!
Virginia had said that he might come to! For her own sake she hoped he didn’t. He was awful enough as he was—blood-smeared and dirty—but272at least he did not realize the situation, and that was a scant comfort. If he came to, he might be insane. Blows on the head often made persons so. Given insanity and a gun, what would be the demonstration?
A low groan from the quaking-asp thicket brought Vivian to herself. Imagination had no place here. This man was hurt, and she was strong and well. There was a spring of water near by, and she had extra handkerchiefs in her pocket. It was plainly up to her!
The stillness was less persistent after she had gone to the spring for water. She forgot all about it as she knelt beside the wounded man and washed the blood from his pain-distorted face. He opened his eyes as he felt the cold cloths, and Vivian saw that they were good, blue eyes. They, together with the absence of blood and dirt, told her that her patient was young—only a boy, in fact! The cut on his head was ugly! Something fluttered inside of her as she parted his hair to place a clean handkerchief upon it, and for a moment she was ill and faint. The cow boy’s “Thank you, miss,” brought273her to herself. Perhaps he was coming to! It was not so awful as she had thought.
But he again fell asleep, cleaner and more comfortable than before. The buckskin whinnied her thanks, and put her nose against Vivian’s arm as she went to the spring for more water. For the first time in her life Vivian felt the comradeship, the dumb understanding of a horse. Then Siwash became glorified. He was something more than a ragged, decrepit old pony. He was a companion, and Vivian stopped to pat him before she hurried back to her patient.
Upon her return from her third journey after water, she found the cow boy’s eyes again open. This time he had raised himself on his elbow and was looking at her. He had come to, and it was not horrible at all. Her only feeling was one of alarm lest his sitting up should cause his wound to bleed again, and she hurried to him.
“You’re feeling better, aren’t you?” she faltered. “But you’d better lie down. You’ve got a pretty bad cut on your head.”
The boy smiled in a puzzled way.274
“I don’t seem to remember much,” he said, “except the header. My horse fell when I wa’n’t expectin’ it, and I went on a rock. ’Twas the only one on the prairie, I guess, but it got me for sure. What are you doin’ here, miss? I don’t seem to remember you.”
Vivian explained as simply as possible. She and her friend had been resting when his horse brought him to the quaking-asps. One of them had gone for help, and the other had stayed. She was the other.
“You’re not from these parts, I take it,” said the boy, still puzzled. “You don’t speak like us folks.”
“No,” Vivian told him, “I’m from the East. I came out here six weeks ago to visit my friend.”
Her patient looked surprised and raised himself again on his elbow in spite of Vivian’s restraining hand.
“So much of a tenderfoot as that?” he said, gazing at her. “They ain’t usually such good sports as you are, miss. Yes, thank you, I’ll have some more water. It’s right good, I tell you!”
Then he fell asleep again, and left Vivian to the275companionship of Siwash and the buckskin. Her patient comfortable, she fed them the remaining cookies, wondering as she did so where the awful sense of loneliness had gone. She should welcome Virginia—already it was time for her—but the knowledge that she must stay another hour would not present such terrors to her.
It was Siwash who first caught the sound of returning hoofs—Siwash and the relieved buckskin. They neighed and told Vivian, who ran from the thicket to see if they were right. Yes, there was Virginia, with Pedro still in the lead, and two men on horseback behind her. She had luckily met them a mile this side of Michner’s, and hurried them back with her. The cow boy had again raised himself, as they rode up to him and dismounted. He was better, for he could look sheepish! This being thrown from one’s horse was a foolish thing!
They would stay with him, the men said. They knew him well. He was called “Scrapes” at Michner’s because he was always getting into trouble. This last was the worst yet. They would camp there that night, and in the morning he could ride home,276they felt sure. They were grateful to the girls. Scrapes was a likeable chap, and no one wanted him hurt.
But Scrapes himself was the most grateful. He staggered to his feet as Vivian went up to tell him good-by and shook hands with her, and then with Virginia. But his eyes were for Vivian.
“You’re the best tenderfoot I ever knew, miss,” he said. “You was sure some good sport to take care o’ me. Would you take my quirt? It’s bran new, and I made it all myself. Get it off my horn, Jim. Yes, I want you to have it. Good-by!”
“Scrapes is right,” said Virginia, as they left the thicket and started homeward. “I said a while ago that you were getting to be one, Vivian, but now I know you’ve got there—for sure!”
277CHAPTER XIXCARVER STANDISH III FITS IN
Carver Standish III hated the world, himself, and everybody else—at least, he thought he did. In fact, he had been so sure of it all day that no one had attempted any argument on the subject. Jack, unable to maneuver a fishing-trip and secretly glad of an escape, had ridden over to Mary with some much-needed mending; Donald had been glad to ride on the range on an errand for his father; Mr. Keith was in town; the whereabouts of Malcolm could easily be guessed.
Carver, in white trousers and a crimson Gordon sweater, was idly roaming about the ranch in search of any diversion which might present itself, and which did not require any too much exertion. For two weeks and more things had not been going well with him. His stay in Wyoming was not closing so happily as it had begun—all due, he admitted to himself, to a missed opportunity. For had he seized278the chance when it was given him on the morning after that disastrous night on the mountain, and taken the laugh he had so richly deserved, by now the incident, like Vivian’s affair with Mr. Crusoe, would be forgotten. Instead, he had accepted ill-gotten commendation, and received with it the well-disguised scorn of Virginia. This last was the worst of all.
He wandered down to the corral. If there were a horse around he might change his clothes and ride. Dave was there, repairing some harnesses. There were no horses down, he said, except old Ned. They were all on the range. Carver might ride Ned, or take him to round up the others. For a moment Carver thought of asking Dave to do the service for him, but the determined set of the old Scotchman’s jaw warned him in time. Dave was averse to taking orders from a tenderfoot. It was too much like work, Carver concluded, to round up a decent horse, and to ride Ned would not alleviate his present mood. He would walk.
Old Dave, intent on his harnesses, did not see Carver jump the farther boundary of the corral.279Had he done so, he would have shouted a warning not to stray too far on foot across the range. The cattle were being driven farther down toward the ranch, and they were often averse to solitary persons on foot.
Carver, all unperceived, climbed the foot-hills, his hands deep in his pockets, his eyes on the ground. It was all a bad mess, he thought, and how to get out of it, he didn’t know. Of one thing he was certain: the West was not the place for him. The dreams in which he had lived only three weeks ago—dreams of opening a branch of his father’s business in the West when he should have finished college—had vanished. He had now decided he was born to remain a New Englander. There were things about the West which he didn’t like—blunt, unpolished, new things. Of course these ranchers didn’t mind crudities. They could fraternize with ordinary cow-punchers. Even Donald could do that. Buthehad been reared differently. He struck his toe against a rock, which he kicked savagely out of his way. No, the Standishes were New Englanders, and there they would remain!280
He reached the brow of the first foot-hills, crossed an open space, and climbed others to the open range above. When he again reached a level he stopped in surprise. Never had he seen so many cattle. There were literally hundreds of them. Where had they all come from? He stood still and stared at them, and they with one accord stopped browsing and stared at him. They were unaccustomed to persons strolling on foot across their preserves. For an instant Carver Standish felt a strange sense of fear. There was something portentous in the way a big red and white bull in the foreground was staring at him. Then he saw Donald on horseback off to the right, and waved his hand. But Donald, spying the white trousers and the red sweater in the same instant, did not stop to wave. Instead, he struck MacDuff with his spur, skirted the cattle nearest him, and rode madly down toward Carver and those ahead.
“He’s crazy,” he said to himself, “coming up here in that rig and afoot. Old Rex will never stand it for a moment.”
He was right. Old Rex had not the slightest281inention of standing it. He ate no more, but with lowered head gazed at this curiously clad intruder, who was hesitating, not knowing whether to advance or to turn back. Old Rex decided for him. He did the advancing. One shake of his heavy head, crowned with long, sharp horns, one cloud of dust as he pawed the ground, and one tremendous bellow warned Carver Standish III to do no tarrying in that locality.
A shout from Donald following Old Rex’s roar determined Carver’s direction. He fled toward MacDuff at a speed which would have won any twenty-five yard cup in New England! Old Rex followed. The other cattle, curiously enough and much to Donald’s relief, let their champion fight it out alone.
Donald, every moment drawing nearer, freed his left foot from the stirrup. Carver must somehow be made to jump behind the saddle, and jump quick! There was not an instant to lose. Old Rex was gaining, and Carver was growing tired. It was too hot up there for a red sweater. With the bull a scant thirty feet away Donald pulled in MacDuff,282and yelled to Carver to jump, which he did, aided by the stirrup, Donald’s arm, and the last bit of ancestral nerve he possessed. When Old Rex, baffled and defeated, saw his foe being championed by one whom he full well knew, it took but a yell from Donald and a mighty crack of his quirt to send him back among the herd.
There seemed little enough to say as MacDuff bore his double load down over the hills to the lower range, where white trousers and red sweaters might be countenanced. But something had returned to Carver, something which for two weeks had been on a vacation. As they neared the home foot-hills, he slid from MacDuff.
“If you’re not in a hurry, Don,” he said, “let’s rest here a minute. MacDuff is tired, I know, and there are some things I want to get straightened out before we go down home.”
The next afternoon while Jack searched the ranch for his scattered possessions and tried in vain to stow them all away in his trunk, while three crestfallen girls packed at the Hunter ranch, Carver,283fresh from an interview with Mr. Keith, sat down to write his father. The letter, received four days later in place of its author by the Standish family, brought surprise and consternation in its wake.
“I simply can’t understand it,” said Mrs. Carver Standish II, on the verge of hysterical tears. “I’ve never known him to do such a thing before. There’s Ruth Sherman’s house-party coming off, and the St. Clair wedding, and the tennis tournament, and our trip to the Adirondacks—and everything! Whatever shall I tell people who inquire? There’s something wrong with him, Carver! I never did want him to go to that place, anyway. You’d better wire!”
“I can’t see but that it’s plain enough,” said his father. “He simply prefers threshing on a Wyoming ranch to a house-party or a wedding or a tennis tournament or the Adirondacks. Let him alone. Maybe a little work won’t hurt him.”
“Hurt him!” cried a certain gray-haired old gentleman, slapping his knees. “Hurt him! It’ll be the best thing that ever happened to him, inmyopinion! Work, and being with that little girl out there!”284
“And I did so want Mrs. Van Arsdale to see him!” continued his mother. “I’d planned all sorts of things for September. Read the letter again, Carver.”
Mr. Carver Standish II read the letter. It was brief and to the point.
“‘Dear Dad:“‘I’m not coming home till school opens. I’m going to stay out here and help thresh. Mr. Keith is short on hands, and he says I’ll do. I wanted to help for nothing, they’ve all been so good to me—but he says I mustn’t. You needn’t send me any money, because I’m going to be earning two dollars a day, and maybe three if I’m any good. Please don’t let Mother object. It won’t do any good anyhow, because I’ve already signed a contract to stay. Mr. Keith didn’t want to draw it up, but I insisted. He does it with the other men, and I’m no better than the rest.“‘I’ve got a great scheme about bringing the business West when I’m through college. It sure is some country out here! Love to Grandfather.“‘Carver.’”
“‘Dear Dad:
“‘I’m not coming home till school opens. I’m going to stay out here and help thresh. Mr. Keith is short on hands, and he says I’ll do. I wanted to help for nothing, they’ve all been so good to me—but he says I mustn’t. You needn’t send me any money, because I’m going to be earning two dollars a day, and maybe three if I’m any good. Please don’t let Mother object. It won’t do any good anyhow, because I’ve already signed a contract to stay. Mr. Keith didn’t want to draw it up, but I insisted. He does it with the other men, and I’m no better than the rest.
“‘I’ve got a great scheme about bringing the business West when I’m through college. It sure is some country out here! Love to Grandfather.
“‘Carver.’”
285
That Carver Standish III preferred threshing on a Wyoming ranch to a house-party was the subject of conversation at every social affair for a week and more. Poor Mrs. Carver Standish II found explanations most difficult.
“Carver’s so in love with the country and riding and all that he just won’t come back,” she said.
But Carver’s grandfather, the old Colonel, found no such difficulty.
“My grandson,” he said, his fine head thrown back, and his blue eyes glowing with pride, “my grandson is discovering the dignity of labor on a Wyoming ranch!”
286CHAPTER XXCOMRADES
Wyoming, to be appreciated, should be explored on horseback and not viewed from the observation platform of a limited train. Barren stretches of sagebrush and cactus, and grim, ugly buttes guard too well the secret that golden wheat-fields lie beyond them; the rugged, far-away mountains never tell that their canyon-cut sides are clothed with timber and carpeted with a thousand flowers; and tired, dusty travelers, quite unaware of these things, find themselves actually longing for Nebraska to break the monotony!
The half-dozen weary persons who on the afternoon of September 6th sat on the observation platform of the Puget Sound Limited, together with the scores who peered from its windows in vain search of something besides sagebrush, were no exception to the rule. To a man, they were all giving fervent287thanks that Fate had cast their lots in California or New England or, at the worst, Iowa. The assurances of the brakeman, who was loquacious beyond his kind, that once past Elk Creek they would strike a better country brought some much-needed cheerfulness; and Elk Creek itself afforded such amusement and entertainment that they really began to have a better impression of Wyoming. Apparently, there were civilized persons even in so desolate an environment as this!
The sources of their entertainment, for they were several, stood on the little station platform at Elk Creek. The central figure was a tall, middle-aged man, whose hands were filled with trunk checks and tickets, and to whom three very excited girls were saying good-by all at the same time. Three boys, two in khaki and one in traveling clothes, were shaking hands heartily; a fresh-faced young woman with marigolds at her waist stood a little apart from the others and talked earnestly with a tall young man; and a hatless, brown-haired girl in a riding suit seemed to be everywhere at once.
“Oh, I can’t bear to think it’s all over!” the288interested travelers heard her say, as she embraced the three girls in turn. “It’s been absolutely the most perfect six weeks I’ve ever, ever known. Don’t lose your quirt, Vivian! And don’t leave Allan’s knife around, Mary. It isn’t fair to tempt even a porter. You’ll write from every large place, won’t you, Priscilla?”
In spite of an amused and impatient conductor, the last-named girl turned back for a last hug. Her hat was askew, her brown hair disheveled, and her brown eyes full of tears, which were coursing freely down her cheeks.
“Oh, Virginia,” she cried, “you’re the biggest peach I ever knew! Remember, you’re going to think of me every night at seven o’clock. It’ll be nine for me in Boston, but I’ll not forget. And it’s only three weeks before I see you again. That’s a comfort!”
She hurried toward the waiting train, at the steps of which a boy in khaki stood ready to help her.
“Good-by, Carver,” she cried, shaking hands for at least the fourth time. “I’m going to see your289grandfather the very first thing and tell him what a good sport you are!”
A mad rush for the observation platform ensued—the three girls, the boy, and the young woman reaching it just in time to wave good-by to those left behind. The brown-eyed girl swept the faces of her fellow travelers at one glance, nodded to the interested brakeman with a surprised and pleased smile, and then, just as the train began to move, hurried to the railing.
“Oh, Virginia!” she cried to the girl in the riding-suit. “What do you think! I’ve got the very same brakeman! Doesn’t that make the ending just perfect?”
Two hours later a boy and a girl on horseback forded Elk Creek, rode up the Valley, and to the summit of the highest foot-hill.
“I’m glad we rode up here,” said Virginia. “I’m missing them already, and to be up here with you helps a lot! Do you remember a year ago, Don? ’Twas in this very spot that we planned and planned, and the day was just like this, too—all clear and290golden. It just seems as though every year is lovelier than the last, and this one has been the very loveliest of all my life.”
“I guess,” said Donald thoughtfully, leaning forward in his saddle to pat MacDuff, “I guess it’s been the best of my life, too, counting this summer and all. Last year at school was great, with college always ahead—sort of a dream almost true, you know. And then to have Jack and Carver here, and all the girls with you, finished everything up just right. But the best part of the year to me, Virginia,” he finished hesitatingly, “was June when you came back, and I found you weren’t a young lady after all. I was some glad, I tell you!”
Virginia’s gray eyes looked at the mountains, swept the golden prairie stretches, and lingered for a long moment on the cottonwoods which bordered Elk Creek before they came back to Donald’s blue ones.
“I’m glad, too,” she said simply.
Pedro and MacDuff sniffed the September air and gloried in it. They were impatient for a wild run across the brow of the hills, and wondered why their291riders chose to look so long at the mountains on such an afternoon as this. If they sat so silently much longer, there would be no time to make the mesa, to gallop across its wide surface, and at last, perhaps, to have supper among the sagebrush with Robert Bruce. They felt somewhat encouraged when Virginia began to speak.
“I’ve been trying to decide the very loveliest thing of all the year,” she said. “I mean from September to June. I don’t know whether ’twas the Vigilantes or Miss Wallace or Grandmother Webster, but I’m almost sure ’twas Grandmother Webster learning to love Father. The others were joys for me, but that was one for all of us. Of course we know the loveliest thing of this summer. Everything’s been perfect, but Aunt Nan and Malcolm the most perfect of all. Yesterday, when Grandmother Webster’s letter came, I just cried for joy, it was so lovely!
“I—I couldn’t help comparing it with the one she wrote Mother about Father,” she continued, a little break in her voice. “I found it—afterward—in Mother’s things. She didn’t understand at all then.292I guess it takes some people a long time to understand things. But I’m going to try to forget that because Grandmother Webster knows now just how splendid Father is. Besides,” she finished thoughtfully, “it’s going to be very hard for Grandmother to give Aunt Nan up. I guess we can’t even imagine how hard it’s going to be.”
“Of course we can’t I think it’s fine of her to take it the way she does. What relation will that make you and me?” he finished practically.
“Priscilla and I figured it all out. You’re no relation at all—just my uncle’s brother. Makes you sound about forty-five, doesn’t it?”
“It doesn’t sound exactly young. When do you suppose it will happen?”
“Aunt Nan doesn’t know. Malcolm says Christmas, but she says no, she must have a year with Grandmother. So I think it will be in June—just after school is out. Webster is lovely then—all filled with daisies and buttercups and wild roses. And you’ll come on, Don—of course you will. And Priscilla will be there, and Mary and Vivian and Carver and Jack and maybe Dorothy! I want you293to see Dorothy. Oh, won’t it be the happiest time? I’m getting excited already!”
“The horses want to go,” said Donald. “I’ll race you to the edge of the mesa. Come on!”
Five minutes later they looked at each other, red-cheeked and radiant.
“In together, just as usual,” cried Donald. “There’s never much difference!”
“My hair makes me think of Priscilla,” said Virginia, brushing back some loose locks and re-tying her ribbon. “Wasn’t she funny this afternoon when she said good-by, her hat on one side and her hair all falling down, and her eyes full of tears? I can’t help saying all over and over how lovely it’s been. And now another year’s beginning, and in two weeks more you and I will go away to school again. I’m wondering,” she finished thoughtfully, “I’m wondering if next June, when we ride up here, you’ll say that I’m not a young lady after all.”
“You don’t feel you’re going to be—too grown-up, do you?” There was anxiety in Donald’s tone.
“No, not in the way you mean,” Virginia294promised him. “Not ever like Imogene or Katrina Van Rensaelar. But Iamgrowing up! I feel it coming! It’s just as though I’d met my older self and shaken hands with her before she went away again, for, you see, she hasn’t come to stay for keeps yet. I think she came the first time when Jim went away, and then again at Easter time when Miss King talked to us at Vespers, and then this summer when Aunt Nan told me about Malcolm. That time she stayed longest of all.”
“I hope she won’t be a lot different from you,” said Donald. “I shouldn’t want to have to get acquainted all over again.”
“You won’t,” Virginia assured him. “Only she knows a lot more than I know, and she’s told me a great many things already. That night on the mountain she came and stayed with me while Vivian and Carver were asleep. I learned so many things that night, Don. I’m just sure she taught them to me—she and the night and the stillness.” Her voice softened. “Somehow, away up there on the mountain, life seemed such a big, wonderful thing—all full of dreams and opportunities and surprises295and—and comrades, all going along the same trail. Don’t you like to think of life as a trail—like the kind that leads to Lone Mountain, I mean—all full of dangers and surprises and beautiful things?”
“Yes,” he said simply. His eyes as he watched her filled with pride in their comradeship—his and hers.
“And, oh, that makes me think!” she cried excitedly. “I’ve forgotten to tell you about the poem Miss Wallace sent me yesterday. You see, I’m collecting lovely ones, and she’s such a help in sending them to me. I learned this one to say to you. Of course she didn’t know, but it’s just like we were the Christmas before I went away to school when you were home for the holidays. Don’t you remember how we went for Christmas greens up Bear Canyon in that big snow-storm and didn’t get home until long after dark, and how Jim and William were just starting to hunt for us? Listen! I know you’ll like it. It’s called ‘Comrades.’
“‘You need not say one word to me as up the hill we go
(Night-time, white-time, all in the whispering snow),
296
You need not say one word to me, although the whispering trees
Seem strange and old as pagan priests in swaying mysteries.
“‘You need not think one thought of me as up the trail we go
(Hill-trail, still-trail, all in the hiding snow),
You need not think one thought of me, although a hare runs by,
And off behind the tumbled cairn we hear a red fox cry.
“‘Oh, good and rare it is to feel as through the night we go
(Wild-wise, child-wise, all in the secret snow)
That we are free of heart and foot as hare and fox are free,
And yet that I am glad of you, and you are glad of me!’”
“Don’t you like it, Don?” she finished eagerly. “I do. I like it because I think it shows the finest kind of friendship—the kind that makes you free to do just what seems right and best toyou, and yet makes you glad of your friends. Miss Wallace calls it the friendship which doesn’tdemand, and it’s her ideal, too. I’m sure she was thinking of that when she sent me the poem. And then I like it most297of all because it makes me think of that Christmas, and the good time we had. Don’t you like it?” she repeated.
In her eagerness she was all unconscious that she had given him no time to reply.
“Yes,” he said. “I should say I do like it. I guess I’ll copy it, if you don’t mind. And, Virginia,” he added, hesitating, “you don’t know what our comradeship means to me. You see, when a fellow goes away to college the way I’m going, it helps him to be—to be on the square in everything, if he has a comrade like—like you’ve always been.”
But there was no hesitation—only gladness in Virginia’s frank gray eyes as she looked at him.
“Oh, I’m so glad!” she cried, her face flooded with happiness. “That’s the very kind of a comrade I want to be, Don! I like to feel just as it says in the poem:
“‘That we are free of heart and foot as hare and fox are free,
And yet that I am glad of you, and you are glad of me!’”