DEAN WOLCOTT had many times--on his solitary rides, in his cabin, after
the Scout had gone to sleep--rehearsed his next meeting with Ginger
McVeagh, planned it, pictured it, set the stage: never had he dreamed
of such utterly satisfying scenery, such glorious action; riding a
gentled Snort after cattle at Dos Pozos before the respectful gaze of
the girl and ’Rome Ojeda was a slow and pallid film beside this!
He had wheeled sharply at sound of her voice, and now they were looking
at each other. His face flamed scarlet, but the bright color slowly
drained out of Ginger’s and left it in golden, creamy pallor. They held
the pose for a stunned instant, the man, rifle in hand, standing over
the beautiful dead beast, the girl, wet-eyed and breathing fast, erect
upon the doctor’s splendid horse.
“I didn’t know you were ... at the camp.” He heard himself speaking.
“I didn’t know you were the Ranger,” Ginger said, unsteadily.
It seemed then as if they had said all there was to say, and a pause
stretched out silently between them. It was broken by the Scout who had
slipped swiftly from the Mabel horse and was kneeling on the ground,
his ecstatic arms about the fawn. It was panting and struggling, its
dappled sides heaving painfully in the battle for breath, and its big
eyes rolled in sick panic.
“Oh, Ranger, can I keep him? Can I keep him and tame him and have him
for a pet? Can I?” The boy shrilled into their silence. “Oh, say, _can_
I? I betcher Aunt Lizzie would let me keep a _baby deer_, maybe! We got
a back yard! _Can_ I, Ranger?”
There was rescue and relief in walking over to him, in addressing
himself wholly to him, his back toward the girl. “Well, Scout, you
could, of course, but I think it would be a pretty mean trick to play
on him, don’t you?”
The kindling eagerness in Elmer’s face died hard. “But--if I was awful
good to him and fed him--’n’ everything? And no mountain lions would
ever chase him in the city! Oh, Ranger, _can_ I?”
Dean Wolcott thought that perhaps the girl would speak--he remembered
her hot convictions on the subject of captive wild things--but she did
not; perhaps she was likewise thankful for this instant of shelter.
“You can put your rope around his neck and see how he takes it, Scout,”
he said. “See if you can get him to drink, first of all. He’s too weak
to run away, yet.” Then he turned back to Ginger. “Will you dismount?”
“Thank you, no,” she said.
Even through the mists of amazement he sensed a difference ... what was
it? Intonation? Phrasing? It was too tiny a thing to notice, really,
but hadn’t she always said--“No, thanks”--with a certain slouchiness
of articulation? He could not know that this was one of Mary Wiley’s
small, smooth habits of speech.
“Then, may I give you a drink?” He pulled out his folding cup.
“Please! I remember Cold Spring; I’ve been remembering it, thirstily,
for the last hour.”
Gravely, he knelt and rinsed his cup and filled it and carried it to
her, and gravely she drank, and the stillness about them was charged
and quivering. If they had been alone-- But they were not alone. The
Scout called upon them in a thrilled whisper to revel with him in the
spectacle of the fawn drinking from his cupped hands, and again they
were grateful to him, thankful for him. They watched absorbedly while
he got his hair rope from the neck of Mabel, the lady horse, and put
it, shaking with excitement, about the slim little throat of the young
deer.
Then Ginger turned her gaze to the mountain lion, round which Rusty,
the Airedale, was walking, the hair standing up in a line from the
crown of his head to the tip of his tail. He was emitting low,
ferocious growls. “That was a good shot,” she said, levelly.
“Thank you,” said Dean Wolcott, pleasantly. “The element of surprise
was the only doubt; one could hardly miss a target of that size, at
that distance.”
Another pause came down out of the blue and enveloped them thickly, and
again the boy and the little wild beast filled up the stage. The fawn
had staggered to its feet at the feel of the rope and now, refreshed
by the water, by the minutes of rest, it began to battle this fresh
terror.
“Careful, Scout! If he gets away from you with that rope he’ll be out
of luck; he’ll hang himself in the brush within an hour!” Dean’s voice
was sharp.
“Oh, gee--will he? Oh, golly! _Gee!_ Then--then _help_ me to let him
loose!”
“I’ll help you!” Ginger was out of the saddle, down beside him, her
arms about the madly struggling body. It had been more than she could
bear, Dean Wolcott had calculated surely. “I’ll hold him. Get your rope
off. And boy, Scout”--she looked at him earnestly across the head of
the fawn, just as he slipped the hair rope clumsily off--“never keep
anything--tied or in a cage! Never keep anything--that--that doesn’t
want to stay!”
“I guess I won’t,” said Elmer Bunty, soberly. “I thought I could take
awful good care of him, but-- Look! _Looky!_”
The baby deer was trotting unsteadily back in the direction from which
he had come, making all the speed his weakness and weariness would
allow, but at the bend in the trail he paused and looked back over his
shoulder; he stood there, looking back at them for a long instant.
“He’s thanking you,” said Ginger, gently. “He’s thanking you--_both_.”
Now the boy was free to give his undivided attention to the dead lion,
and he joined the Airedale in his sentry go, and now Ginger was aware
of being off her horse, aware that she was--good heavens, what had
the doctor said about “not lingering”? He had known, of course, and
planned it all, and Aunt Fan had known--and perhaps the very blond girl
had known, and the whole camp--the whole gay, jovial, joking camp had
known.... She blushed, swiftly and scorchingly, and sprang into her
saddle.
“I must go,” she said, curtly. “It’s a good two hours--”
She gave Ted his head, and he sprang forward on the trail. She could
not even say good-by.
“Oh--wait!” Dean Wolcott called after her, but she pretended not to
hear. She was in a hot fury; she had been tricked and fooled; this was
why Aunt Fan had brought her down here; they were all waiting for her
now at camp, talking her over, laughing, conjecturing. “_Ted!_” She
flecked the shining flank with her _ramal_ (sacrilege, this!) and they
sped fleetly up the trail. She heard him following her; Ted heard, too,
and laid back his ears; there would be no passing him on the trail--no
catching up with him.
She could not forbear a look behind; she must see him on Snort; it was
not enough to hear the thundering hoofs, to imagine him. The instant
she turned her head he waved his hand with something--a paper--a card
in it.
“Your--permits!” he called. “The doctor’s camp-fire permits.”
Then she must wait, pulling in the mettlesome Ted, furious at herself
for forgetting, for betraying her confused bewilderment. The crisping
color stayed in her face, but she had a cool hold on her voice. “Thank
you--I’m sorry. Seeing the lion, and the fawn--it went out of my mind--”
“Naturally,” said the Ranger, gravely. He handed her the permits, and
he did it slowly, filling up his eyes with the sight of her. It was he
who wore the corduroy now; Ginger was in creamy linen, smartly cut,
with a scarlet band on her linen hat and a soft scarlet tie under the
rolling collar of her sport shirt; she was more radiant, more glowing,
more breath-takingly lovely, even, than he had remembered, and he had
remembered a great deal.
Then, just to make entirely clear the fact that she was wholly at her
ease, that there were, for her, at least, no stinging memories, the
girl said pleasantly--“Snort is in fine condition, isn’t he?”
And the man, quite as coolly, made answer, “Yes; he’s a great
horse--I’ve enjoyed him.” Then, as if to paraphrase ’Rome Ojeda’s
drawling words on that gray and baleful morning of the cattle drive, he
added, slowly, “But I’m thinking of changing his name. You see ... he
_doesn’t_ ... any more!”
It was her turn, now, during his leisurely sentence, to snatch a fuller
look at him, to sense the breadth and vigor, the brown and vehement
power of him; he looked older, in the way of poise and serenity, yet
more boyish--younger, winningly young, and it seemed as she looked at
him, meeting the eagerness leashed in his eyes, as if some force beyond
their stiff young wills must pull them down off their horses and push
them back into each other’s arms.
She did not answer what he had said about Snort, but she was not aware
that she had not done so, for she had paid full and instant tribute in
her own mind, and she knew that she must go _now_ if she meant to go at
all. She nodded, and spoke to Ted, and he sprang forward, but before
he had gone a dozen lengths she had to halt again; she could have wept
with rage at herself, but it would be intolerable to go back to camp
and confess to a forgotten message.
She called after him, not “Dean,” not the ridiculous “Mr. Wolcott,”
just a hail; but it stopped him instantly. “The doctor”--he could feel
the emphasis she put on the two words--it seemed to make the doctor
stand out, unique in his strange desire--“_the doctor_ hopes you will
come to supper at the camp Saturday night, and stay to dance.”
He asked her to thank the doctor and to say that he would try to come.
Then they went steadily on in their opposite ways and neither one of
them looked back again, and Ginger had almost two hours (Ted made even
better speed on the home trail) in which to get herself thoroughly
in hand before she met the campers. It suited her to find them all
assembled at the “Civic Center” as they called the cleared space about
the camp fire. The mail had just been brought over from Pfeiffer’s,
and they had all had their tingling cold showers and made their bluff,
informal toilets for dinner, and there was a chattering over letters
and magazines which ceased instantly as Ginger rode up. She might be
imagining a sort of electric quiet on the part of the whole group, she
told herself, but she was not imagining anything about the doctor and
her Aunt Fan.
The doctor paused in the middle of his gesture in handing a plump
letter to the betrothed girl, and his eyes twinkled uncontrollably, and
Mrs. Featherstone put her pink sport handkerchief to her lips. “Well,”
said Dr. Mayfield, genially, “did you meet the Ranger? And did you get
our permits?”
“Yes,” said Ginger. “I met the Ranger at Cold Spring, and here are
your permits.” She leaned from the saddle to hand them to him. Then,
addressing herself to the others, smiling a little at the very blond
girl who was holding up two crossed fingers for her attention--“And it
was a very nice surprise! I find your Ranger is an old friend. Yes; he
was Aleck’s best friend--over there. He was with him--on the last day.”
(Let them laugh now, if they could! But they didn’t laugh; they smiled
at her and murmured kind little fragments of sentences, and she went
on.) “And he made Aunt Fan and me a visit at Dos Pozos last summer.
You’ll be glad to see how husky he’s grown in this work, Aunt Fan!”
Mary Wiley could not have done it more handily, with nicer values. “And
it was very thrilling--I saw him shoot a mountain lion! I’ll tell you
all about it at supper, but I must fly now, if I’m to have my shower!”
She delivered Ted over to his master with a warm word of homage, and
ran to her cabin and went into it and locked both doors. She didn’t
want her Aunt Fan’s prominent blue eyes. Swiftly, an eye on the little
traveling clock in its case of scarlet leather, she pulled off her
clothes and jumped under the shower, and her slim brown body was
shivering before the nipping water touched it.