"Of course I do, but you're mistaken. We're not related that way any
longer."
This silenced him for a few moments, then he said: "I'm rather glad of
that. He isn't anything like the man you thought he was--I couldn't say
these things before--but he is as greedy as Alec, only not so open about
it."
All this comment, which moved the forester so deeply to utter, seemed not
to interest Berea. She sat staring at the fire with the calm brow of an
Indian. Clifford Belden had passed out of her life as completely as he
had vanished out of the landscape. She felt an immense relief at being
rid of him, and resented his being brought back even as a subject of
conversation.
Wayland, listening, fancied he understood her desire, and said nothing
that might arouse Nash's curiosity.
Nash, on his part, knowing that she had broken with Belden, began to
understand the tenderness, the anxious care of her face and voice, as she
bent above young Norcross. As the night deepened and the cold air stung,
he asked: "Have you plenty of blankets for a bed?"
"Oh yes," she answered, "but I don't intend to sleep."
"Oh, you must!" he declared. "Go to bed. I will keep the fire going."
At last she consented. "I will make my bed right here at the mouth of the
tent close to the fire," she said, "and you can call me if you need me."
"Why not put your bed in the tent? It's going to be cold up here."
"I am all right outside," she protested.
"Put your bed inside, Miss Berrie. We can't let conventions count above
timber-line. I shall rest better if I know you are properly sheltered."
And so it happened that for the third time she shared the same roof with
her lover; but the nurse was uppermost in her now. At eleven thousand
feet above the sea--with a cold drizzle of fine rain in the air--one does
not consider the course of gossip as carefully as in a village, and
Berrie slept unbrokenly till daylight.
Nash was the first to arise in the dusk of dawn, and Berrie, awakened by
the crackle of his fire, soon joined him. There is no sweeter sound than
the voice of the flame at such a time, in such a place. It endows the
bleak mountainside with comfort, makes the ledge a hearthstone. It holds
the promise of savory meats and fragrant liquor, and robs the frosty air
of its terrors.
Wayland, hearing their voices, called out, with feeble humor: "Will some
one please turn on the steam in my room?"
Berrie uttered a happy word. "How do you feel this morning?" she asked.
"Not precisely like a pugilist--well, yes, I believe I do--like the
fellow who got second money."
"How is the bump?" inquired Nash, thrusting his head inside the door.
"Reduced to the size of a golf-ball as near as I can judge of it. I doubt
if I can wear a hat; but I'm feeling fine. I'm going to get up."
Berrie was greatly relieved. "I'm so glad! Do you feel like riding down
the hill?"
"Sure thing! I'm hungry, and as soon as I am fed I'm ready to start."
Berrie joined the surveyor at the fire.
"If you'll round up our horses, Mr. Nash, I'll rustle breakfast and we'll
get going," she said.
Nash, enthralled, lingered while she twisted her hair into place, then
went out to bring in the ponies.
Wayland came out a little uncertainly, but looking very well. "I think I
shall discourage my friends from coming to this region for their health,"
he said, ruefully. "If I were a novelist now all this would be grist for
my mill."
Beneath his joking he was profoundly chagrined. He had hoped by this time
to be as sinewy, as alert as Nash, instead of which here he sat,
shivering over the fire like a sick girl, his head swollen, his blood
sluggish; but this discouragement only increased Berea's tenderness--a
tenderness which melted all his reserve.
"I'm not worth all your care," he said to her, with poignant glance.
The sun rose clear and warm, and the fire, the coffee, put new courage
into him as well as into the others, and while the morning was yet early
and the forest chill and damp with rain, the surveyor brought up the
horses and started packing the outfit.
In this Berrie again took part, doing her half of the work quite as
dextrously as Nash himself. Indeed, the forester was noticeably confused
and not quite up to his usual level of adroit ease.
At last both packs were on, and as they stood together for a moment, Nash
said: "This has been a great experience--one I shall remember as long as
I live."
She stirred uneasily under his frank admiration. "I'm mightily obliged to
you," she replied, as heartily as she could command.
"Don't thank me, I'm indebted to you. There is so little in my life of
such companionship as you and Norcross give me."
"You'll find it lonesome over at the station, I'm afraid," said she. "But
Moore intends to put a crew of tie-cutters in over there--that will help
some." She smiled.
"I'm not partial to the society of tie-jacks."
"If you ride hard you may find that Moore girl in camp. She was there
when we left." There was a sparkle of mischief in her glance.
"I'm not interested in the Moore girl," he retorted.
"Do you know her?"
"I've seen her at the post-office once or twice; _she_ is not my kind."
She gave him her hand. "Well, good-by. I'm all right now that Wayland can
ride."
He held her hand an instant. "I believe I'll ride back with you as far as
the camp."
"You'd better go on. Father is waiting for you. I'll send the men along."
There was dismissal in her voice, and yet she recognized as never before
the fine qualities that were his. "Please don't say anything of this to
others, and tell my father not to worry about us. We'll pull in all
right."
He helped Norcross mount his horse, and as he put the lead rope into
Berrie's hand, he said: with much feeling: "Good luck to you. I shall
remember this night all the rest of my life."
"I hate to be going to the rear," called Wayland, whose bare, bandaged
head made him look like a wounded young officer. "But I guess it's better
for me to lay off for a week or two and recover my tone."
And so they parted, the surveyor riding his determined way up the naked
mountainside toward the clouds, while Berrie and her ward plunged at once
into the dark and dripping forest below. "If you can stand the grief,"
she said, "we'll go clear through."
Wayland had his misgivings, but did not say so. His confidence in his
guide was complete. She would do her part, that was certain. Several
times she was forced to dismount and blaze out a new path in order to
avoid some bog; but she sternly refused his aid. "You must not get off,"
she warned; "stay where you are. I can do this work better alone."
They were again in that green, gloomy, and silent zone of the range,
where giant spruces grow, and springs, oozing from the rocks, trickle
over the trail. It was very beautiful, but menacing, by reason of its
apparently endless thickets cut by stony ridges. It was here she met the
two young men, Downing and Travis, bringing forward the surveying outfit,
but she paused only to say: "Push along steadily. You are needed on the
other side."
After leaving the men, and with a knowledge that the remaining leagues of
the trail were solitary, Norcross grew fearful. "The fall of a horse, an
accident to that brave girl, and we would be helpless," he thought. "I
wish Nash had returned with us." Once his blood chilled with horror as he
watched his guide striking out across the marge of a grassy lake. This
meadow, as he divined, was really a carpet of sod floating above a
bottomless pool of muck, for it shook beneath her horse's feet.
"Come on, it's all right," she called back, cheerily. "We'll soon pick up
the other trail."
He wondered how she knew, for to him each hill was precisely like
another, each thicket a maze.
Her caution was all for him. She tried each dangerous slough first, and
thus was able to advise him which way was safest. His head throbbed with
pain and his knees were weary, but he rode on, manifesting such cheer as
he could, resolving not to complain at any cost; but his self-respect
ebbed steadily, leaving him in bitter, silent dejection.
At last they came into open ground on a high ridge, and were gladdened by
the valley outspread below them, for it was still radiant with color,
though not as brilliant as before the rain. It had been dimmed, but not
darkened. And yet it seemed that a month had passed since their ecstatic
ride upward through the golden forest, and Wayland said as much while
they stood for a moment surveying the majestic park with its wall of
guardian peaks.