The allurement of a September day had brought me far down the trail,
past the neck of the marsh, and far from my accustomed haunts. But I
could never resist September weather, particularly when the winds are
still, and the sun through the leaves dapples the trail like a fawn's
back, and the woods are so silent that the least rustle of a squirrel in
the thicket cracks with a miniature explosion. And for all the gloom of
the woods, and the tricky windings and cut-backs of that restless little
serpent of a trail, I still knew approximately where I was. A natural
sense of direction was seemingly implanted with less essential organs in
my body at birth.
The Ochakee River wound its lazy way to the sea somewhere to my right. A
half mile further the little trail ended in a brown road over which a
motor-car, in favorable seasons, might safely pass. The Nealman estate,
known for forty miles up and down the shore, lay at the juncture of the
trail and the road--but I hadn't the least idea of pushing on that far.
Neither fortune nor environment had fitted me to move in such a circle
as sometimes gathered on the wide verandas of Kastle Krags.
I was lighting a pipe, ready to turn back, when the leaves rustled in
the trail in front. It was just a whisper of sound, the faintest
scratch-scratch of something approaching at a great distance, and only
the fact that my senses had been trained to silences such as these
enabled me to hear it at all. It is always a fascinating thing to stand
silent on a jungle-trail, conjecturing what manner of creature is
pushing toward you under the pendulous moss: perhaps a deer, more
graceful than any dancer that ever cavorted before the footlights, or
perhaps (stranger things have happened) that awkward, snuffling,
benevolent old gentleman, the black bear. This was my life, so no wonder
the match flared out in my hand. And then once more I started to turn
back.
I had got too near the Nealman home, after all. I suddenly recognized
the subdued sound as that of a horse's hoofs in the moss of the trail.
Some one of the proud and wealthy occupants of the old manor house was
simply enjoying a ride in the still woods. But it was high time he
turned back! The marshes of the Ochakee were no place for tenderfeet;
and this was not like riding in Central Park! Some of the quagmires I
had passed already to-day would make short work of horse and rider.
My eye has always been sensitive to motion--in this regard not greatly
dissimilar from the eyes of the wild creatures themselves--and I
suddenly caught a flash of moving color through a little rift in the
overhanging branches. The horseman that neared me on the trail was
certainly gayly dressed! The flash I caught was _pink_--the pink that
little girls fancy in ribbons--and a derisive grin crept to my lips
before I could restrain it. There was no mistaking the fact that I was
beginning to have the woodsman's intolerance for city furs and frills!
Right then I decided to wait.
It might pay to see how this rider had got himself up! It might afford
certain moments of amusement when the still mystery of the Floridan
night dropped over me again. I drew to one side and stood still on the
trail.
The horse walked near. The rider wasn't a man, after all. It was a girl
in the simplest, yet the prettiest, riding-habit that eyes ever laid
upon, and the prettiest girl that had ridden that trail since the woods
were new.
The intolerant grin at my lips died a natural death. She might be the
proud and haughty daughter of wealth, such a type as our more simple
country-dwellers robe with tales of scandal, yet the picture that she
made--astride that great, dark horse in the dappled sunlight of the
trail--was one that was worth coming long miles to see. The dark, mossy
woods were a perfect frame, the shadows seemed only to accentuate her
own bright coloring.
It wasn't simply because I am a naturalist that I instantly noticed and
stored away immutably in my memory every detail of that happy, pretty
face. The girl had blue eyes. I've seen the same shade of blue in the
sea, a dark blue and yet giving the impression of incredible brightness.
Yet it was a warm brightness, not the steely, icy glitter of the sea.
They were friendly, wholesome, straightforward eyes, lit with the joy of
living; wide-open and girlish. The brows were fine and dark above them,
and above these a clear, girlish forehead with never a studied line. Her
hair was brown and shot with gold--indeed, in the sunlight, it looked
like old, red gold, finely spun.
She was tanned by the Florida sun, yet there was a bright color-spot in
each cheek. I thought she had rather a wistful mouth, rather full lips,
half-pouting in some girlish fancy. Of course she hadn't observed me
yet. She was riding easily, evidently thinking herself wholly alone.
Her form was slender and girlish, of medium height, yet her slender
hands at the reins held her big horse in perfect control. The heels of
her trim little shoes touched his side, and the animal leaped lightly
over a fallen log. Then she saw me, and her expression changed.
It was, however, still unstudied and friendly. The cold look of
indifference I had expected and which is such a mark of ill-breeding
among certain of her class, didn't put in its appearance. I removed my
hat, and she drew her horse up beside me.
It hadn't occurred to me she would actually stop and talk. It had been
rather too much to hope for. And I knew I felt a curious little stir of
delight all over me at the first sound of her friendly, gentle voice.
"I suppose you are Mr. Killdare?" she said quietly.
Every one knows how a man quickens at the sound of his own name. "Yes,
ma'am," I told her--in our own way of speaking. But I didn't know what
else to say.
"I was riding over to see you--on business," she went on. "For my
uncle--Grover Nealman, of Kastle Krags. I'm his secretary."
The words made me stop and think. It was hard for me to explain, even to
myself, just why they thrilled me far under the skin, and why the
little tingle of delight I had known at first gave way to a mighty surge
of anticipation and pleasure. It seems to be true that the first thing
we look for in a stranger is his similarity to us, and the second, his
dissimilarity; and in these two factors alone rests our attitude towards
him. It has been thus since the beginning of the world--if he is too
dissimilar, our reaction is one of dislike, and I suppose, far enough
down the scale of civilization, we would immediately try to kill him. If
he has enough in common with ourselves we at once feel warm and
friendly, and invite him to our tribal feasts.
Perhaps this was the way it was between myself and Edith Nealman. She
wasn't infinitely set apart from me--some one rich and experienced and
free of all the problems that made up my life. Nealman's niece meant
something far different than Nealman's daughter--if indeed the man had a
daughter. She was his secretary, she said--a paid worker even as I was.
She had come to see me on business--and no wonder I was anticipatory and
elated as I hadn't been for years!
"I'm glad to know you, Miss----" I began. For of course I didn't know
her name, then.
"Miss Nealman," she told me, easily. "Now I'll tell you what my uncle
wants. He heard about you, from Mr. Todd."
I nodded. Mr. Todd had brought me out from the village and had helped me
with some work I was doing for my university, in a northern state.
"He was trying to get Mr. Todd to help him, but he was busy and couldn't
do it," the girl went on. "But he said to get Ned Killdare--that you
could do it as well as he could. He said no one knew the country
immediately about here any better than you--that though you'd only been
here a month or two you had been all over it, and that you knew the
habits of the turkeys and quail, and the best fishing grounds, better
than any one else in the country."
I nodded in assent. Of course I knew these things: on a zoological
excursion for the university they were simply my business. But as yet I
couldn't guess how this information was to be of use to Grover Nealman.
"Now this is what my uncle wants," the girl went on. "He's going to have
a big shoot and fish for some of his man friends--they are coming down
in about two weeks. They'll want to fish in the Ochakee River and in the
lagoon, and hunt quail and turkey, and my uncle wants to know if--if he
can possibly--hire you as guide."
I liked her for her hesitancy, the uncertainty with which she spoke.
Her voice had nothing of that calm superiority that is so often heard
in the offering of humble employment. She was plainly considering my
dignity--as if anything this sweet-faced girl could say could possibly
injure it!
"All he wanted of you was to stay at Kastle Krags during the hunting
party, and be able to show the men where to hunt and fish. You won't
have to act as--as anybody's valet--and he says he'll pay you real
guide's wages, ten dollars a day."
"When would he want me to begin?"
"Right away, if you could--to-morrow. The guests won't be here for two
weeks, but there are a lot of things to do first. You see, my uncle came
here only a short time ago, and all the fishing-boats need overhauling,
and everything put in ship-shape. Then he thought you'd want some extra
time for looking around and locating the game and fish. The work would
be for three weeks, in all."
Three weeks! I did some fast figuring, and I found that twenty days, at
ten dollars a day, meant two hundred dollars. Could I afford to refuse
such an offer as this?
It is true that I had no particular love for many of the city sportsmen
that came to shoot turkey and to fish in the region of the Ochakee. The
reason was simply that "sportsmen," for them, was a misnomer: that they
had no conception of sport from its beginnings to its end, and that they
could only kill game like butchers. Then I didn't know that I would care
about being employed in such a capacity.
Yet two or three tremendous considerations stared me in the face. In the
first place, I was really in need of funds. I had not yet obtained any
of the higher scholastic degrees that would entitle me to decent pay at
the university--I was merely a post-graduate student, with the
complimentary title of "instructor." I had offered to spend my summer
collecting specimens for the university museum at a wage that barely
paid for my traveling expenses and supplies, wholly failing to consider
where I would get sufficient funds to continue my studies the following
year.
Scarcity of money--no one can feel it worse than a young man inflamed
with a passion for scientific research! There were a thousand things I
wanted to do, a thousand journeys into unknown lands that haunted my
dreams at night, but none of them were for the poor. The two hundred
dollars Grover Nealman would pay me would not go far, yet I simply
couldn't afford to pass it by. Of course I could continue my work for
my alma mater at the same time.
Yet while I thought of these things, I knew that I was only lying to
myself. They were subterfuges only, excuses to my own conscience. The
instant she had opened her lips to speak I had known my answer.
To refuse meant to go back to my lonely camp in the cypress. I hoped I
wasn't such a fool as that. To accept meant three weeks at Kastle
Krags--and daily sight of this same lovely face that now held fast my
eyes. Could there be any question which course I would choose?
"Go--I should say I will go," I told her. "I'll be there bright and
early to-morrow."
I thought she looked pleased, but doubtless I was mistaken.