Siona took up the cue. "Isn't it! It's romantic enough to be the
back-drop in a Bret Harte play. I love it!"
Moore turned to Wayland. "I know a Norcross, a Michigan lumberman,
Vice-President of the Association. Is he, by any chance, a relative?"
"Only a father," retorted Wayland, with a smile. "But don't hold me
responsible for anything he has done. We seldom agree."
Moore's manner changed abruptly. "Indeed! And what is the son of W. W.
Norcross doing out here in the Forest Service?"
The change in her father's tone was not lost upon Siona, who ceased her
banter and studied the young man with deeper interest, while Mrs. Belden,
detecting some restraint in Berrie's tone, renewed her questioning:
"Where did you camp last night?"
"Right here."
"I don't see how the horses got away. There's a pasture here, for we rode
right through it."
Berrie was aware that each moment of delay in explaining the situation
looked like evasion, and deepened the significance of her predicament,
and yet she could not bring herself to the task of minutely accounting
for her time during the last two days.
Belden came to her relief. "Well, well! We'll have to be moving on. We're
going into camp at the mouth of the West Fork," he said, as he rose.
"Tell Tony and the Supervisor that we want to line out that timber at the
earliest possible moment."
Siona, who was now distinctly coquetting with Wayland, held out her hand.
"I hope you'll find time to come up and see us. I know we have other
mutual friends, if we had time to get at them."
His answer was humorous. "I am a soldier. I am on duty. I'm not at all
sure that I shall have a moment's leave; but I will call if I can
possibly do so."
They started off at last without having learned in detail anything of the
intimate relationship into which the Supervisor's daughter and young
Norcross had been thrown, and Mrs. Belden was still so much in the dark
that she called to Berrie: "I'm going to send word to Cliff that you are
over here. He'll be crazy to come the minute he finds it out."
"Don't do that!" protested Berrie.
Wayland turned to Berrie. "That would be pleasant," he said, smilingly.
But she did not return his smile. On the contrary, she remained very
grave. "I wish that old tale-bearer had kept away. She's going to make
trouble for us all. And that girl, isn't she a spectacle? I never could
bear her."
"Why, what's wrong with her? She seems a very nice, sprightly person."
"She's a regular play actor. I don't like made-up people. Why does she go
around with her sleeves rolled up that way, and--and her dress open at
the throat?"
"Oh, those are the affectations of the moment. She wants to look tough
and boisterous. That's the fad with all the girls, just now. It's only a
harmless piece of foolishness."
She could not tell him how deeply she resented his ready tone of
camaraderie with the other girl; but she was secretly suffering. It hurt
her to think that he could forget his aches and be so free and easy with
a stranger at a moment's notice. Under the influence of that girl's smile
he seemed to have quite forgotten his exhaustion and his pain. It was
wonderful how cheerful he had been while she was in sight.
In all this Berrie did him an injustice. He had been keenly conscious,
during every moment of the time, not only of his bodily ills, but of
Berrie, and he had kept a brave face in order that he might prevent
further questioning on the part of a malicious girl. It was his only way
of being heroic. Now that the crisis was passed he was quite as much of a
wreck as ever.
A new anxiety beset her. "I hope they won't happen to meet father on the
trail."
"Perhaps I should go with them and warn him."
"Oh, it doesn't matter," she wearily answered. "Old Mrs. Belden will
never rest till she finds out just where we've been, and just what we've
done. She's that kind. She knows everything that goes on."
He understood her fear, and yet he was unable to comfort her in the only
way she could be comforted. That brief encounter with Siona Moore--a girl
of his own world--had made all thought of marriage with Berea suddenly
absurd. Without losing in any degree the sense of gratitude he felt for
her protecting care, and with full acknowledgment of her heroic support
of his faltering feet, he revolted from putting into words a proposal of
marriage. "I love her," he confessed to himself, "and she is a dear,
brave girl; but I do not love her as a man should love the woman he is to
marry."
A gray shadow had plainly fallen between them. Berea sensed the change in
his attitude, and traced it to the influence of the coquette whose
smiling eyes and bared arms had openly challenged admiration. It saddened
her to think that one so fine as he had seemed could yield even momentary
tribute to an open and silly coquette.