The Reverend Donald Fraser was pushing his buckskin broncho faster than
he really liked, but he was late for his next appointment and he had to
run in to Pine Croft for a hurried meal. Gaspard had insisted upon this,
and the unique experiences of the morning strongly inclined him to this
course.
The morning had furnished one of the rare oases which here and there
dotted the otherwise somewhat dreary landscape of his ministerial
experience in the Windermere Valley.
The recall of Gaspard to his place in the church had undoubtedly been an
event of quite impressive importance with the minister, just as the
moral and physical collapse of the rancher had dealt a heavy blow to the
cause for which the minister stood in the community. The unexpected and
voluntary forward step in the religious life taken by Paul too had
furnished an additional exhilaration in the experiences of the morning.
Paul had been to him somewhat of an enigma. He had never met with just
such another in all his forty years of varied service in the slums of
Glasgow and on the mission fields of the West. But he had been none the
less delighted, indeed thrilled, by the act of the boy in making his
first communion in this rather irregular and startling manner. The boy
was all right. The training of a wise and saintly mother had furnished
the mould for his soul stuff that would determine his character and
destiny. He wanted a word with both father and son before the first
impressions of the day had been dissipated. He believed in striking
while the iron was hot.
So urging his buckskin to unusual speed he turned into the Pine Croft
drive and in his old buckboard rattled up toward the bungalow.
As he turned toward the stables the figure of a man, wildly dishevelled,
hurled itself down the front steps and rushed toward a horse tied at the
garden gate. It was Sleeman, white of face, wild of eye, mad with fear,
and rushing as if hunted by ten thousand devils.
“What’s wrong? What’s up, Mr. Sleeman?” cried the minister, pulling his
horse to a standstill.
As he spoke there came from the bungalow a succession of piercing cries,
weird, wild, unlike anything he had ever heard, then the sound of a
shot, then a long, loud wailing.
“God help us! What is that?” cried Mr. Fraser, making for the door.
“Wait, you may be needed.” But Sleeman, tearing at the reins, had got
them free and, flinging himself across his horse, swung off down the
drive. Before he could get under way forth from the door came Paul, a
smoking gun in his hand, cleared the steps at a single bound, and,
eluding the grasp of the minister, rushed through the gate and pulled
his gun upon the flying horseman. The shot went wide, a second and a
third failed of the mark. The fourth shot found the foreleg of the
horse. The animal stumbled, recovered itself, then finally plunged
headlong to earth, flinging its rider heavily to the ground. With a glad
yell the boy ran swiftly forward, his gun held steadily in position,
waiting for the man to rise. But before he could get his “bead” the
minister, shouting “Paul! Paul! don’t shoot! don’t shoot, boy!” had
covered the intervening space and reached the boy’s side, just as the
fleeing man struggled on the road side to his feet and running low made
for the bushes.
As the minister touched the boy’s arm the flame leaped from the gun
muzzle, the flying figure stumbled, fell, rose and disappeared in the
underbrush.
“Paul! Paul! what are you doing? Stop! Stop! Listen to me, Paul.” The
minister’s arms were thrown around the boy. But like one possessed and
with a man’s strength the sinewy muscles writhed free from the
encircling arms.
Breathless, bewildered, the boy stood a moment, summoning his wits and
his strength, when from the doorway a voice came gasping, “Paul, boy! I
want you.”
“Daddy!” cried the boy, and flinging his gun down he ran toward his
father.
“Daddy! oh, Daddy, dear! are you hurt?” He caught his father in his arms
and held him fast.
As the minister reached the door Gaspard, clinging to his son, sagged
slowly down to the floor and lay white and gasping for breath. A hasty
examination showed a wound in the side, from which blood was slowly
trickling.
“Paul, take my horse and go for Colonel Pelham, and have him send for
the doctor.”
Without a word Paul ran swiftly to the back of the house, found his
pinto waiting, mounted and was off at top speed down the drive.
Within an hour, by a rare chance, the doctor was found and in
attendance.
“How did this thing happen?” he inquired.
“Tell me, Doctor, is this the end?” said Gaspard, speaking as calmly as
if asking about the weather. “Don’t lie to me, Doctor. You needn’t, you
know. I know your professional tricks. ‘Keep the patient quiet,’ and all
that stuff.”
“Gaspard, you have a chance, if you want to take it,” said the doctor,
patting his patient on the arm.
“Doctor, I want to live—to try once more to make good—for the boy’s
sake. But, Doctor, I have a queer feeling here.” He laid his hand on his
heart. “I think I am done for, eh? What about it, old friend? The truth,
Doctor. Only the truth will do. If I am going out I have some things to
do while I can. Doctor, I am no coward.” His eyes were quietly searching
the doctor’s face. There was in them deep concern but no fear. In the
silence could be heard the ticking of the doctor’s big watch. The
doctor’s face began to twitch.
“Thank you, Doctor, that will do. Now how long have I?”
“Three hours, perhaps six, Gaspard old man. You have a right to the
truth,” said the doctor, taking himself in hand with a firm grip.
“Again, thank you. I knew you wouldn’t fail me. Now, a little business.
Doctor, you watch my time.” The doctor nodded.
“Where’s Pelham? Ah, Colonel, I am going to ask you to take charge. It
is an infernal nuisance, but——”
“A pleasure! Eh—confound it! I mean, I shall willingly do all I can,”
replied the Colonel hurriedly.
“First of all, Gaspard, before anything else, tell me how this happened.
This is necessary,” said the doctor.
“Surely, surely, take it down—Paul and I riding home from church found
my wife struggling in the grip of that devil Sleeman—she defending
herself with her hunting knife—seeing them I sprang for gun, hanging on
the wall—the beast made a break for the door—my wife threw herself on
me, catching my gun hand—in the struggle the gun went off—the gun fell
on the floor—Paul grabbed it and very nearly did what I would have done.
He’s a little better shot than I—glad he didn’t get him. That’s all.
Paul saw everything. Paul! Listen! There must be no more of
this—remember!”
Paul started from the bedside where he had been kneeling and stood tense
and rigid.
“What, Daddy?” he said. “You know, Daddy, I must kill him. He deserves
to be killed. It is right, Daddy.” The boy spoke quietly with the steady
voice of a man set upon a simple and irrevocable duty. His father’s eyes
rested with loving pride on his boy’s face for a moment or two.
“Good boy!” he said, laying his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Good boy!
And you will be a good man—a better man than your father.”
“Daddy! Don’t, Daddy!” The boy’s voice broke in a cry of pain. The
Colonel’s head went down on the bed.
“Steady, every one!” said the doctor in a strong, clear voice. “Don’t
waste his strength.” It was the word needed for the moment.
“Paul, my boy,” pleaded Gaspard. The boy stood, it seemed for minutes,
his hands writhing, his burning eyes upon his father’s face, his lips
closed in a thin white line. His father put out his hand to him. “You
promise, Paul?”
“A-a-ah!” A long-drawn sigh that seemed to carry in it the outgoing of
his very soul came from Paul’s white lips. “Yes, Daddy. Oh! yes! I
promise.”
“Good boy! good boy!” whispered his father, drawing the boy down to him.
“I knew! I knew!”
For a long time no one spoke, for Gaspard lay as if exhausted, with eyes
closed, voiceless and hardly breathing. After he had rested, Gaspard,
always husbanding his strength under the doctor’s care, went over his
affairs with the Colonel, turning over everything to his charge.
“There should be something left from the wreckage, Pelham. Not enough,
perhaps, but it will all go to Paul. Paul will take care of the others,
won’t you, boy?”
“Yes, Daddy, I will,” replied the boy, accepting without question a
trust that was to determine for him the course of his life at more than
one moment of crisis.
When he had finished with the arranging of his affairs Gaspard called
his Indian wife and her children to him. At once the others moved into
another room. No one witnessed that farewell, not even Paul. For an hour
the woman sat beside the man who was to her life as the sun to the
flowers. Almost without speech, without tears or moan or lament, she
sat, now with her head pressed down upon his hand, again with his hand
pressed hard against her breast, watchful not to weary him or exhaust
his failing strength with her grief. Beside him on the bed sat the
little blind child, her inquiring little fingers wandering over his face
as his voice changed with his pain. Beside his mother sat Peter, silent,
stoical, after the manner of his mother’s race. Before he sent them away
for the last time Gaspard called Paul to him.
“Paul, boy, you are free to take your way as far as these are concerned.
Their way may not be yours. I lay no obligation upon you. This woman is
my lawful wife. She is wise and good. But you will do justly by them.
This little one,” touching the blind girl beside him, “I had hoped might
have had her sight restored. Now—” for the first time since his wounding
Gaspard showed signs of breaking—“I don’t know. Life in the wilds would
be hard for her.”
“Daddy! Do you think I would leave her?” cried Paul.
“Thank you, Paul! Thank God for you, Paul!” Then the Indian woman at a
sign took the children away, leaving Paul close to his bedside.
As the evening fell Gaspard grew rapidly weaker, the doctor relieving as
best he could his pain and distress throughout the dreary hours of the
night. Then at the breaking of the day his spirit fared forth to meet
the dawn.
* * * * *
All through the summer the valley looked on with amazed approval and
sympathy at Paul as with a man’s wisdom and courage he ran the Pine
Croft ranch. Looked on, and more. More than once the neighbours gathered
in an old-fashioned bee and helped the boy with the crops, the fencing,
the branding of stock and with other ranch operations before which Paul,
with his lack of experience and labour, would have been quite helpless.
Under the burden of responsibility and of incessant work the boy
developed a gravity of demeanour and a strength of purpose far beyond
his years. With all childish games and sports he had done. Sleeman, who
had disappeared from the valley upon the day of the tragedy, he never
saw, but never forgot. Asa he ignored completely and avoided, but
Adelina he frequently met in his lonely rides round the range. Her he
found it impossible to ignore. She would not permit him to do so, and
indeed, after the first shock which the sight of her gave him, Paul came
to tolerate, then to enjoy, her company on those lonely rides of his.
She was a good comrade, a capable assistant in emergencies and with an
amazing endowment of tact and delicacy of feeling.
At the “big white house” Paul was a welcome and frequent visitor, but
not upon the old footing. His lessons were done with. He had no time for
them, but more than that he had assumed, with his responsibility as a
man, a man’s attitude toward life and a man’s manners. For some weeks
Peg openly resented this new rôle of Paul’s, ridiculing it as a thing
“put on,” a mere pose. But the boy’s gravity and gentleness, his
preoccupation in his work and his constant association with her father
and the men effectually shut Peg out from his life. She found before the
summer was over that the fourteen-year-old boy had in a single day
become a man, and a man to whom she had become a mere child. She had
lost a playmate and had not yet acquired a friend.
But if she had lost one playmate she gained another, in the little blind
Tanna, who in great measure helped her to endure her loss and to
overcome her resentment. Through the long summer days Peg found in the
little girl a new and altogether delightful interest. After much
persuasion on Peg’s part and after approval by Paul, the little girl was
allowed by her mother to mount old Tubby’s back behind old Tubby’s
mistress and to take many a sober jaunt hither and thither along the
quiet trails. Those were golden days for Peg, when Paul could make it
chime with his work to join them in their jaunts or to meet them at a
convenient rendezvous and share their lunch. With Paul, his very shadow
everywhere, went Peter, a silent, dour, devoted henchman, rejoicing to
fetch and carry for his chief.
The mother, thus left much alone with her grief, withdrew more and more
from the life of the household. Like a dark shadow she glided about the
house, rarely speaking except to her little blind child, and spending
most of her days in the woods near to the enclosed plot on the
pine-shadowed hillside where was the new-made grave beside the two
others, which held all that had made life for her vivid with love and
gladness. Except when spoken to by Paul her face was masked by the
passionless colour of the dead. Paul alone could kindle a flicker of
light in her sombre eyes and set tremulous life waves rippling over her
face. Often she would be found by Paul, wearing her Indian dress and
roaming the woods, ostensibly seeking for roots and herbs for medicinal
use. It seemed as if her loneliness and grief were driving her away from
the newer environment of the white men’s civilisation and back to the
ancient racial and primeval precincts of her own people.
In late September the word went through the valley that Sleeman had
returned and had shut himself up in his ranch, holding communication
with none but his own people. That word produced a strange effect upon
the Indian woman. The casual mention of Sleeman’s name seemed to
galvanise into vivid life her dead face. A new gleam appeared in the
depths of her sombre eyes and burned there with a steady glow. Her
wanderings began to take her to the hills behind the Sleeman ranch. One
afternoon, wearied with a long day in the saddle after straying cattle,
Paul, allowing his pinto to graze at will, lay down to rest and fell
asleep in a thicket. He was startled into wakefulness by the sense of
some living thing near him, which becomes second nature with those bred
in the wilds. Creeping stealthily toward the edge of the thicket which
sheltered him he saw erect upon an out-jutting rock a woman’s figure
with wind blown tresses, with one hand outstretched toward the Sleeman
ranch and in her outstretched hand a long hunting knife. It was the
Indian woman Onawata. In the rhythmic cadence of a wailing chant her
voice rose and fell, thrilling with suppressed and passionate emotion.
The boy shuddered as he listened, but deemed it wisdom to remain hidden
from her view. As he lay watching the chanting ceased, the woman fell
upon her knees, lifted her face toward the skies, her lips moving as if
in prayer, raised high above her head her knife, pressed the naked blade
to her lips, made the sign of the cross, bowed her head a few moments as
if again in prayer, then rose to her feet and wearily took her way. A
weird mingling it was of primal human emotions, expressing themselves in
a ritual in which Christian and pagan symbolism found a place. Shocked,
startled, terrified, the boy waited a sufficient time to allow her to
remove from the vicinity, then mounting his pinto rode hard to the “big
white house,” where he laid before the Colonel the thing he had seen and
heard.
“What does it mean, Paul?” inquired the Colonel when the boy had
finished his tale.
“Why, Uncle Colonel, it means only one thing, the thing I would mean
if—if—God would let me. But He won’t let me. Besides,” he added as if to
himself, “I promised Daddy.”
“You are right, boy. It is not given into our hands to take vengeance.
God will——”
“But that’s just it, Uncle Colonel. God won’t. And——”
“How do you know, boy? Don’t you go dictating to the Almighty. He has
his own ways and times that to His wisdom seem best. Who are we to
instruct Him what to do and when? No, boy, leave the ordering of the
universe to God. Do your own work and let God do His. But this thing may
lead to some desperate deed.”
“Onawata is acting very queerly. She sits for hours under the trees. She
eats little food. She gets up at night and wanders round the house. I am
awfully afraid she will do something. What can I do?”
“We can only watch her, and do all we can to turn her mind to other
things,” said the Colonel. “She is very, very lonely and very sad, and
by continual kindness we may help her to forget.”
“She will never forget,” said Paul.
The very next day Paul was much cheered by the proposal of Onawata that
they should all go riding. Immediately he responded to the suggestion.
Saddles and bridles were furbished up, with saddle bags for food, and a
delightful day was spent by the family, with Peg in charge of little
Tanna. This was but the beginning of many such days throughout the
golden month of September, and Paul reported to the colonel a most
cheering improvement in Onawata’s whole bearing.
“That is quite good news. Poor thing! she will soon be all right again.
Keep up the riding excursions. Peg is quite delighted. They are doing
her as well as Onawata a world of good. Keep ’em up, Paul, keep ’em up.
If we could only get her interested in our local social events now it
would be a great thing for her. There’s our fall picnic now coming off
next week. By Jove! I shall speak to Augusta. We must get her out to
that, eh? what? Must try to work that, eh?” The Colonel was full of a
generous excitement over the prospect.
To his utter surprise and delight Paul found Onawata quite ready to
consider the possibility of the picnic, and during the days intervening
the whole family was occupied with preparations for the great event. It
was no small disappointment to all concerned therefore that on the
morning of the picnic day both Peter and Tanna were so completely in the
grip of some children’s ailment as to be quite unfit to support the
excitements of the day. There was nothing for it but that the mother and
children should abandon all thought of anything but a perfectly quiet
day at home. Paul attached himself to the Colonel’s party, and Peg
attached herself to Paul. For that day at least Paul appeared to throw
off the cares of manhood so prematurely thrust upon him and with Peg
abandoned himself to the delights of a boy’s holiday. The dark of the
evening found two very happy people riding up the lane toward the “big
white house.”
“It has been a wonderful day, Paul,” said Peg, “and you have been just
like you used to.”
“It’s been a jolly day, all right,” said Paul. “And I am awfully glad
Joseph showed those fellows how to jump.”
“And you beat Asa out at the last,” exclaimed Peg rapturously. “I think
he is just a horrid boy, though he is so big and strong.”
“Huh!” grunted Paul.
“Well, he _is_ strong, you know, and he is great in football. We never
would have beaten the Post but for him.”
“Oh, he can play football all right,” admitted Paul, with something of a
grudge. “He’s a little slow, of course, but——”
“But then he is so awfully sure at back. He just tumbled those forwards
about. Of course, he spends a lot of time practising.”
“Huh!” again grunted Paul.
“You can’t really be a good player without practice, can you?”
“Oh, I dunno,” said Paul, who had given little attention to football and
who in consequence, though giving great promise because of his unusual
speed, had not won any great glory on the field that day. “I don’t care
much for football anyway.”
“Oh, Paul, I just love it. It’s a wonderful game.”
“Oh, pshaw!” said Paul in contempt of a game in which he did not excel.
“Oh, never mind,” said Peg cheerfully, “we won the jumps anyway. And
Joseph was a regular deer in the racing.”
“Wasn’t he?” exclaimed Paul, restored to good humour by the remembrance
of his pinto’s achievements at the picnic, where he won premier honours
from the field.
“And, Paul, you were good to me,” said Peg shyly when they came to the
bars.
“Oh, shucks, Peg!” said Paul, greatly pleased.
“You were, Paul. And that Adelina is just a bold thing.”
“Oh, she isn’t half bad. Rides awfully well.”
“Yes, she does,” acknowledged Peg, “but she has a wonderful pony. And
don’t you think that cap she wore was awfully funny?”
“Why! that’s a regular jockey’s cap, she told me.”
“Jockey cap! For a girl!” Peg’s finer sensibilities were obviously
offended. She, however, skilfully and lightly turned from distressing
and disturbing subjects of conversation to one in which she was more
deeply concerned.
“But, Paul, you have never been over at our house once this summer,” she
said reproachfully, “and you used to come every week at least.”
“Why, Peg! I’ve been often over here.”
“Yes, on some old business or other with Daddy.”
“Oh! Well!”
“Well! I don’t call that anything. You never see me—us, I mean. You
never play for us. And you’re always so busy. And—and—Paul, you are just
forgetting all about us.” This was going a long way for the
proud-spirited Peggy.
Paul considered a few moments. “Yes! I guess that’s so, Peg. But I _am_
busy, you know. And besides, they want me at home. They always want me
to play for them before going to bed. Their mother used to sing queer
little Indian songs about the beasts and the trees and the stars and
things. And then I spin them out on the piano, you know. And the little
one, she’s just wild over them and—you know—it is awfully hard for her,
always in the dark— Oh, Peg, no light! It must be just terrible for
her!”
“I know, I know, Paul. You are just a dear to poor little Tanna. Oh, it
is so awfully sad for her. And I am a pig to want you to come away from
her.”
“You’re not a pig, Peg,” said Paul indignantly. “You are just fine to
Tanna, and I won’t ever forget that, Peggy.”
They had turned Tubby out into the paddock and were standing in the soft
light of the September moon near the corral. Peg’s voice grew very soft
as she answered, “But I just love her, Paul, and I want to be good to
her because I’m sorry for her—and—and because she is your sister. She
_is_, isn’t she, Paul?” Peg finished a little breathlessly.
Paul turned this over in his mind. He was conscious of queer stirrings
within him. It came to him all at once that Peg was a girl, not simply a
fine and splendid chum, but something different from himself. The
moonlight fell in a soft glory upon her sweet face and dainty girlish
figure. As he stood looking at her she smiled up into his face. A warm
rush of something, he knew not what, filled his whole body from his toes
upward.
“Peggy,” he said with a quick catch in his breath, “I think—I’d like to
kiss you.”
The little girl’s eyes grew large with something almost like fear, but
she did not shrink away from him. Instead she lifted up her face,
smiling with tremulous lips.
“Would you, Paul?” she said.
He suddenly caught her in his arms and kissed her.
“Oh, Paul, that was my nose,” said Peg in a disappointed voice.
“I was in a hurry,” explained Paul.
“Why hurry?” inquired Peg innocently.
“That’s so,” agreed Paul, amazed at her self-command, and then took his
time.
It seemed to Paul that he had done a thing immensely significant. Again
he looked at Peg and wondered what had happened to her, she was so
utterly different; and to himself, he seemed another being. As he
continued looking at her he felt no desire to kiss her again. He
wondered, indeed, how he had ever come to do such a thing. He wanted
rather to protect her. She seemed so little, so tender, so needing
protection. It suddenly came to him that henceforth he would always have
to stand between her and any harm. She was in his charge, just as Tanna
was, and yet with a difference. Yes, a wonderful and delightful
difference. He was greatly puzzled over it all. He wanted to get away
alone and think.
“Good night, Peg,” he said abruptly, and swung himself on his pinto.
“Good night, Paul,” answered Peg in a voice shy and tender. Something in
her tone set Paul’s nerves tingling again. He wanted to get off his
horse and kiss her again, but somehow he felt too that this would not be
fair to her. She looked so little, so unprotected. No, he must not do
it.
“Good night, Peg. I’ll see you tomorrow. It’s been a wonderful day,
Peggy.”
“Oh, wonderful, Paul! I won’t ever forget!” sighed Peg, looking so
sweet, so wistful, so radiant in the moonlight that Paul, feeling his
control threatened by the surge of strange emotions, dug his heel into
the pinto and swung him down the lane at a gallop.
Peg stood motionless, watching till she saw him clear the bars, then
listened so long as she could hear the pony’s hoof beats drumming far up
the road. Then she drew a long breath, gazed round about her as if upon
a strange world and smiled up at the moon in a friendly way as if
sharing with the man there a delicious secret. Then she put her fingers
softly to her lips, looked at them, kissed them gently and went quietly
into the house and soon to bed, a happy-hearted if somewhat bewildered
little girl. And over all the world the moon rode high, serene in her
soft and radiant splendour.
Within an hour there came to Peg up in her bedroom the sound again of
hoof beats, hard driven as by dread of impending death. Nearer they came
and nearer and with no slackening speed. She sprang to the window. She
heard her father go to the door. She could make out the piebald coat of
the pinto coming down the lane. Clearing the bars in his stride the
pinto came with unchecked speed to the very door. From the saddle Paul
hurled himself and fell breathless in the Colonel’s arms.
“Oh! Uncle Colonel!” he gasped. “She’s—done it!”
“Steady, boy. Steady, Paul. Wait! Not a word,” commanded the Colonel,
holding the boy with steady hands. “Wait! Not a word! Take your time!
Sixty of a count!” The Colonel proceeded quietly counting while Paul, to
whom this law of the Colonel was well known to be inexorable, got his
breath and quieted his nerves.
“Now then, quietly, Paul! Go on!” said the Colonel in a voice peremptory
and calm.
“Uncle Colonel, you see that light beyond the hill? That’s Sleeman’s
house. She—Onawata has killed him with her knife and then set fire to
the house. I found her all ready to go, with horses saddled and packs
made up. They have gone.”
“Who?” said the Colonel sharply.
“Onawata and Peter and—and Tanna. And I——”
“Where have they gone?”
“Colonel, I don’t think I ought to tell you. You see, the police will be
after them. And I am going too.”
“You, Paul? Nonsense! You must not think of such a thing.”
“Uncle Colonel, I must go with them. I see that to be right. I promised
Daddy to care for them. And there’s Tanna——”
“Nonsense, Paul! Let them go! They don’t need you. You can’t throw away
your life like that. Anyway they will be caught. You must not mix up
yourself with this thing.”
“I must go, Uncle Colonel. I could not go without seeing you. I must go!
Oh! I must go! I promised Daddy! And Tanna will need me.
Good-bye—good-bye!” He caught his reins preparatory to mounting.
“But, good God, Paul! You see what this means? Don’t you see that——”
“Colonel Pelham,” said Paul quietly, “I see it clearly. That’s why I
must go. God wants me to.” The Colonel knew the boy well enough to
realise the utter finality of his resolve.
“Well, Paul, God keep you, boy, if you must go. God keep you, my dear
boy.”
“He will, Uncle Colonel. I know He will. And some day I’ll come back.
Say good-bye to Peg. Tell her I’ll never forget.” The boy was speaking
in the voice and manner of a full grown man, and like a man the Colonel
treated him. He would fain have taken the lad in his arms, for he loved
him as if he had been his own son, but somehow the grave, firm tones,
the steady voice, checked any demonstration. They shook hands in
farewell and Paul swung himself onto the pinto. But before he could turn
his pony round a little white figure appeared at the door, and with a
faint cry ran toward him with hands outstretched.
“Paul! Paul! You are going away! I know! I heard!”
Flinging himself from the saddle Paul was at her side, and holding her
hands in his stood silent, fighting to hold himself steady.
“You are going away, Paul!” Again came the pitiful cry.
“Oh, Peggy! dear Peggy! I must go, I must go. Uncle Colonel, take her
away, take her away. Good-bye, Peggy.”
Her father touched her arm. “Come, Peggy,” he said quietly. “Paul must
go.”
“Daddy! Daddy!” she cried. “He’ll never come back!”
“Peggy, listen to me,” said the boy, once more speaking in a man’s
voice. “I shall come back to you. Remember what I say. And, Uncle
Colonel, you remember too, I am coming back. And, Peggy, I’ll never,
never forget.” He turned once more to mount.
“Paul,” the child’s voice was sharp with grief, “you
didn’t—say—good-bye.”
The boy stood hesitating, then came to the Colonel. His man’s pose fell
from him.
“Uncle Colonel,” he said, his voice quivering pitifully, “good-bye.” He
put out his arms, the Colonel drew him to his breast and kissed him on
the cheek twice.
“Good-bye, my boy. The good God have you in His care.”
“Good-bye, Peggy,” said Paul, and putting his arms round her kissed her
on the lips.
“Good-bye! dear, dear Paul,” whispered Peggy, clinging to him. “I won’t
ever forget.”
In her father’s arms she lay listening while the hoof beats drummed
farewell far down the trail and faded into silence.