He looked at her with grave inquiry. "Do you think that a wise thing to
do? Won't that make more talk?"
"We'll start early and ride straight through."
"You'll have to go by Lost Lake, and that means a long, hard hike. Can he
stand it?"
"Oh yes. He rides well. It's the walking at a high altitude that does him
up. Furthermore, Cliff may turn up here, and I don't want another
mix-up."
McFarlane was troubled. "I ought to go back with you; but Moore is over
here to line out a cutting, and I must stay on for a couple of days.
Suppose I send Tony along?"
"No, Tony would be a nuisance and would do no good. Another day on the
trail won't add to Mrs. Belden's story. If she wants to be mean she's got
all the material for it already."
In the end she had her way. McFarlane, perceiving that she had set her
heart on this ride, and having perfect faith in her skill and judgment on
the trail, finally said: "Well, if you do so, the quicker you start the
better. With the best of luck you can't pull in before eight o'clock, and
you'll have to ride hard to do that."
"If I find we can't make it I'll pull into a ranch. But I'm sure we
can."
When Wayland came in the Supervisor inquired: "Do you feel able to ride
back over the hill to-day?"
"Entirely so. It isn't the riding that uses me up; it is the walking;
and, besides, as candidate for promotion I must obey orders--especially
orders to march."
They breakfasted hurriedly, and while McFarlane and Tony were bringing in
the horses Wayland and Berrie set the cabin to rights. Working thus side
by side, she recovered her dominion over him, and at the same time
regained her own cheerful self-confidence.
"You're a wonder!" he exclaimed, as he watched her deft adjustment of the
dishes and furniture. "You're ambidextrous."
"I have to be to hold my job," she laughingly replied. "A feller must
play all the parts when he's up here."
It was still early morning as they mounted and set off up the trail; but
Moore's camp was astir, and as McFarlane turned in--much against Berrie's
will--the lumberman and his daughter both came out to meet them. "Come in
and have some breakfast," said Siona, with cordial inclusiveness, while
her eyes met Wayland's glance with mocking glee.
"Thank you," said McFarlane, "we can't stop. I'm going to set my daughter
over the divide. She has had enough camping, and Norcross is pretty well
battered up, so I'm going to help them across. I'll be back to-night, and
we'll take our turn up the valley to-morrow. Nash will be here then."
Berrie did not mind her father's explanation; on the contrary, she took a
distinct pleasure in letting the other girl know of the long and intimate
day she was about to spend with her young lover.
Siona, too adroit to display her disappointment, expressed polite regret.
"I hope you won't get storm-bound," she said, showing her white teeth in
a meaning smile.
"If there is any sign of a storm we won't cross," declared McFarlane.
"We're going round by the lower pass, anyhow. If I'm not here by dark,
you may know I've stayed to set 'em down at the Mill."
There was charm in Siona's alert poise, and in the neatness of her camp
dress. Her dainty tent, with its stools and rugs, made the wilderness
seem but a park. She reminded Norcross of the troops of tourists of the
Tyrol, and her tent was of a kind to harmonize with the tea-houses on the
path to the summit of the Matterhorn. Then, too, something triumphantly
feminine shone in her bright eyes and glowed in her softly rounded
cheeks. Her hand was little and pointed, not fitted like Berrie's for
tightening a cinch or wielding an ax, and as he said "Good-by," he added:
"I hope I shall see you again soon," and at the moment he meant it.
"We'll return to the Springs in a few days," she replied. "Come and see
us. Our bungalow is on the other side of the river--and you, too," she
addressed Berrie; but her tone was so conventionally polite that the
ranch-girl, burning with jealous heat, made no reply.
McFarlane led the way to the lake rapidly and in silence. The splendors
of the foliage, subdued by the rains, the grandeur of the peaks, the song
of the glorious stream--all were lost on Berrie, for she now felt herself
to be nothing but a big, clumsy, coarse-handed tomboy. Her worn gloves,
her faded skirt, and her man's shoes had been made hateful to her by that
smug, graceful, play-acting tourist with the cool, keen eyes and smirking
lips. "She pretends to be a kitten; but she isn't; she's a sly grown-up
cat," she bitterly accused, but she could not deny the charm of her
personality.
Wayland was forced to acknowledge that Berrie in this dark mood was not
the delightful companion she had hitherto been. Something sweet and
confiding had gone out of their relationship, and he was too keen-witted
not to know what it was. He estimated precisely the value of the
malicious parting words of Siona Moore. "She's a natural tease, the kind
of woman who loves to torment other and less fortunate women. She cares
nothing for me, of course, it's just her way of paying off old scores. It
would seem that Berrie has not encouraged her advances in times past."
That Berrie was suffering, and that her jealousy touchingly proved the
depth of her love for him, brought no elation, only perplexity. He was
not seeking such devotion. As a companion on the trail she had been a
joy--as a jealous sweetheart she was less admirable. He realized
perfectly that this return journey was of her arrangement, not
McFarlane's, and while he was not resentful of her care, he was in doubt
of the outcome. It hurried him into a further intimacy which might prove
embarrassing.
At the camp by the lake the Supervisor became sharply commanding. "Now
let's throw these packs on lively. It will be slippery on the high trail,
and you'll just naturally have to hit leather hard and keep jouncing if
you reach the wagon-road before dark. But you'll make it."
"Make it!" said Berrie. "Of course we'll make it. Don't you worry about
that for a minute. Once I get out of the green timber the dark won't
worry me. We'll push right through."
In packing the camp stuff on the saddles, Berrie, almost as swift and
powerful as her father, acted with perfect understanding of every task,
and Wayland's admiration of her skill increased mightily.
She insisted on her father's turning back. "We don't need you," she said.
"I can find the pass."
McFarlane's faith in his daughter had been tested many times, and yet he
was a little loath to have her start off on a trail new to her. He argued
against it briefly, but she laughed at his fears. "I can go anywhere you
can," she said. "Stand clear!" With final admonition he stood clear.
"You'll have to keep off the boggy meadows," he warned; "these rains will
have softened all those muck-holes on the other side; they'll be
bottomless pits; watch out for 'em. Good-by! If you meet Nash hurry him
along. Moore is anxious to run those lines. Keep in touch with Landon,
and if anybody turns up from the district office say I'll be back on
Friday. Good luck."
"Same to you. So long."
Berea led the way, and Norcross fell in behind the pack-horses, feeling
as unimportant as a small boy at the heels of a circus parade. His girl
captain was so competent, so self-reliant, and so sure that nothing he
could say or do assisted in the slightest degree. Her leadership was a
curiously close reproduction of her father's unhurried and graceful
action. Her seat in the saddle was as easy as Landon's, and her eyes were
alert to every rock and stream in the road. She was at home here, where
the other girl would have been a bewildered child, and his words of
praise lifted the shadow from her face.
The sky was cloudy, and a delicious feeling of autumn was in the
air--autumn that might turn to winter with a passing cloud, and the
forest was dankly gloomy and grimly silent, save from the roaring stream
which ran at times foam-white with speed. The high peaks, gray and
streaked with new-fallen snow, shone grandly, bleakly through the firs.
The radiant beauty of the road from the Springs, the golden glow of four
days before was utterly gone, and yet there was exultation in this ride.
A distinct pleasure, a delight of another sort, lay in thus daring the
majesty of an unknown wind-swept pass.
Wayland called out: "The air feels like Thanksgiving morning, doesn't
it?"
"It _is_ Thanksgiving for me, and I'm going to get a grouse for dinner,"
she replied; and in less than an hour the snap of her rifle made good her
promise.
After leaving the upper lake she turned to the right and followed the
course of a swift and splendid stream, which came churning through a
cheerless, mossy swamp of spruce-trees. Inexperienced as he was, Wayland
knew that this was not a well-marked trail; but his confidence in his
guide was too great to permit of any worry over the pass, and he amused
himself by watching the water-robins as they flitted from stone to stone
in the torrent, and in calculating just where he would drop a line for
trout if he had time to do so, and in recovered serenity enjoyed his
ride. Gradually he put aside his perplexities concerning the future,
permitting his mind to prefigure nothing but his duties with Landon at
Meeker's Mill.
He was rather glad of the decision to send him there, for it promised
absorbing sport. "I shall see how Landon and Belden work out their
problem," he said. He had no fear of Frank Meeker now. "As a forest guard
with official duties to perform I can meet that young savage on other and
more nearly equal terms," he assured himself.
The trail grew slippery and in places ran full of water. "But there's a
bottom, somewhere," Berrie confidently declared, and pushed ahead with
resolute mien. It was noon when they rose above timber and entered upon
the wide, smooth slopes of the pass. Snow filled the grass here, and the
wind, keen, cutting, unhindered, came out of the desolate west with
savage fury; but the sun occasionally shone through the clouds with vivid
splendor. "It is December now," shouted Wayland, as he put on his slicker
and cowered low to his saddle. "It will be January soon."
"We will make it Christmas dinner," she laughed, and her glowing good
humor warmed his heart. She was entirely her cheerful self again.
As they rose, the view became magnificent, wintry, sparkling. The great
clouds, drifting like ancient warships heavy with armament, sent down
chill showers of hail over the frosted gold of the grassy slopes; but
when the shadows passed the sunlight descended in silent cataracts
deliriously spring-like. The conies squeaked from the rocky ridges, and a
brace of eagles circling about a lone crag, as if exulting in their
sovereign mastery of the air, screamed in shrill ecstatic duo. The sheer
cliffs, on their shadowed sides, were violently purple. Everywhere the
landscape exhibited crashing contrasts of primary pigments which bit into
consciousness like the flare of a martial band.
The youth would have lingered in spite of the cold; but the girl kept
steadily on, knowing well that the hardest part of their journey was
still before them, and he, though longing to ride by her side, and to
enjoy the views with her, was forced to remain in the rear in order to
hurry the reluctant pack-animals forward. They had now reached a point
twelve thousand feet above the sea, and range beyond range, to the west
and south, rose into sight like stupendous waves of a purple-green sea.
To the east the park lay level as a floor and carpeted in tawny velvet.
It was nearly two o'clock when they began to drop down behind the rocky
ridges of the eastern slope, and soon, in the bottom of a warm and
sheltered hollow just at timber-line, Berrie drew her horse to a stand
and slipped from the saddle. "We'll rest here an hour," she said, "and
cook our grouse; or are you too hungry to wait?"
"I can wait," he answered, dramatically. "But it seems as if I had never
eaten."
"Well, then, we'll save the grouse till to-morrow; but I'll make some
coffee. You bring some water while I start a fire."
And so, while the tired horses cropped the russet grass, she boiled some
coffee and laid out some bread and meat, while he sat by watching her and
absorbing the beauty of the scene, the charm of the hour. "It is exactly
like a warm afternoon in April," he said, "and here are some of the
spring flowers."
"There now, sit by and eat," she said, with humor; and in perfectly
restored tranquillity they ate and drank, with no thought of critics or
of rivals. They were alone, and content to be so.
It was deliciously sweet and restful there in that sunny hollow on the
breast of the mountain. The wind swept through the worn branches of the
dwarfed spruce with immemorial wistfulness; but these young souls heard
it only as a far-off song. Side by side on the soft Alpine clover they
rested and talked, looking away at the shining peaks, and down over the
dark-green billows of fir beneath them. Half the forest was under their
eyes at the moment, and the man said: "Is it not magnificent! It makes me
proud of my country. Just think, all this glorious spread of hill and
valley is under your father's direction. I may say under _your_
direction, for I notice he does just about what you tell him to do."
"You've noticed that?" she laughed. "If I were a man I'd rather be
Supervisor of this forest than Congressman."
"So would I," he agreed. "Nash says you _are_ the Supervisor. I wonder if
your father realizes how efficient you are? Does he ever sorrow over your
not being a boy?"