THE LOG HUT IN THE MOUNTAINS
What awakened the woman she did not know; in all probability it was the
bright sunlight streaming through the narrow window before her. The
cabin was so placed that the sun did not strike fairly into the room
until it was some hours high, consequently she had her long sleep out
entirely undisturbed. The man had made no effort whatever to awaken her.
Whatever tasks he had performed since daybreak had been so silently
accomplished that she had not been aware of them.
So soon as he could do so, he had left the cabin and was now busily
engaged in his daily duties outside the cabin and beyond earshot. He
knew that sleep was the very best medicine for her and it was best that
she should not be disturbed until in her own good time she awoke.
The clouds had emptied themselves during the night and the wind had at
last died away toward morning and now there was a great calm abroad in
the land. The sunlight was dazzling. Outside, where the untempered rays
beat full upon the crests of the mountains, it was doubtless warm, but
within the cabin it was chilly--the fire had long since burned
completely away and he had not entered the room to replenish it. Yet
Enid Maitland had lain snug and warm under her blankets. She presently
tested her wounded foot by moving it gently and discovered agreeably
that it was much less painful than she had anticipated. The treatment of
the night before had been very successful.
She did not get up immediately, but the coldness of the room struck her
so soon as she got out of bed. Upon her first awakening she was hardly
conscious of her situation; her sleep had been too long and too heavy
and her awakening too gradual for any sudden appreciation of the new
condition. It was not until she had stared around the walls of the rude
cabin for some time that she realized where she was and what had
happened. When she did so she arose at once.
Her first impulse was to call. Never in her life had she felt such
death-like stillness. Even in the camp almost always there had been a
whisper of breeze through the pine trees, or the chatter of water over
the rocks. But here there were no pine trees and no sound of rushing
brook came to her. It was almost painful. She was keen to dress and go
out of the house. She stood upon the rude puncheon floor on one foot
scarcely able yet to bear even the lightest pressure upon the other.
There were her clothes on chairs and tables before the fireplace. Such
had been the heat thrown out by that huge blaze that a brief inspection
convinced her that everything was thoroughly dry. Dry or wet she must
needs put them on since they were all she had. She noticed that there
were no locks on the doors and she realized that the only protection she
had was the sense of decency and the honor of the man. That she had been
allowed her sleep unmolested made her the more confident on that
account.
She dressed hastily, although it was the work of some difficulty in view
of her wounded foot and of the stiff condition of her rough dried
apparel. Presently she was completely clothed save for that disabled
foot. With the big clumsy bandages upon it she could not draw her
stocking over it and even if she succeeded in that she could in no way
make shift to put on her boot.
The situation was awkward, the predicament annoying; she was wearing
bloomers and a short skirt for her mountain climbing and she did not
know quite what to do. She thought of tearing up one of the rough
unbleached sheets and wrapping it around her leg, but she hesitated as
to that. It was very trying. Otherwise she would have opened the door
and stepped out into the open air, now she felt herself virtually a
prisoner.
She had been thankful that no one had disturbed her, but now she wished
for the man. In her helplessness she thought of his resourcefulness with
eagerness. The man however did not appear and there was nothing for her
to do but to wait for him. Taking one of the blankets from the bed, she
sat down and drew it across her knees and took stock of the room.
The cabin was built of logs, the room was large, perhaps twelve by
twenty feet, with one side completely taken up by the stone fireplace;
there were two windows, one on either side of the outer door which
opened toward the southwest. The walls were unplastered save in the
chinks between the rough hewn logs of which it was made. Over the
fireplace and around on one side ran a rude shelf covered with books.
She had no opportunity to examine them, although later she would become
familiar with every one of them.
Into the walls on the other side were driven wooden pegs; from some of
them hung a pair of snow shoes, a heavy Winchester rifle, fishing tackle
and other necessary wilderness paraphernalia. On the puncheon floor wolf
and bear skins were spread. In one corner against the wall again were
piled several splendid pairs of horns from the mountain sheep.
The furniture consisted of the single bed or berth in which she had
slept, built against the wall in one of the corners, a rude table on
which were writing materials and some books. A row of curtained shelves,
evidently made of small boxes and surmounted by a mirror, occupied
another space. There were two or three chairs, the handiwork of the
owner, comfortable enough in spite of their rude construction. On some
other pegs hung a slicker and a sou'wester, a fur overcoat, a fur cap
and other rough clothes; a pair of heavy boots stood by the fireplace.
On another shelf there were a number of scientific instruments the
nature of which she could not determine, although she could see that
they were all in a beautiful state of preservation.
There was plenty of rude comfort in the room which was excessively
mannish. In fact there was nothing anywhere which in any way spoke of
the existence of woman--except a picture in a small rough wooden frame
which stood on the table before which she sat down. The picture was of a
handsome woman--naturally Enid Maitland saw that before anything else;
she would not have been a woman if that had not engaged her attention
more forcibly than any other fact in the room. She picked it up and
studied it long and earnestly, quite unconscious of the reason for her
interest, and yet a certain uneasy feeling might have warned her of what
was toward in her bosom.
This young woman had not yet had time to get her bearings, she had not
been able to realize all the circumstances of her adventure; so soon as
she did so she would know that into her life a man had come and whatever
the course of that life might be in the future, he would never again be
out of it.
It was therefore with mingled and untranslatable emotions that she
studied this picture. She marked with a certain resentment the bold
beauty quite apparent despite the dim fading outlines of a photograph
never very good. So far as she could discern the woman was dark haired
and dark eyed--her direct antithesis! The casual viewer would have found
little to find fault with in the presentment, but Enid Maitland's eyes
were sharpened by--what, pray? At any rate she decided that the woman
was of a rather coarse fiber, that in things finer and higher she would
be found wanting. She was such a woman, so the girl reasoned acutely, as
might inspire a passionate affection in a strong hearted, reckless
youth, but whose charms being largely physical would pall in longer and
more intimate association; a dangerous rival in a charge, but not so
formidable in a steady campaign.
These thoughts were the result of long and earnest inspection and it was
with some reluctance that the girl at last put the photograph aside and
looked toward the door. She was hungry, ravenously so. She began to be a
little alarmed and had just about made up her mind to rise and stumble
out as she was, when she heard steps outside and a knock on the door.
"What is it?" she asked in response.
"May I come in?"
"Yes," was the quick answer.
The man opened the door, left it ajar and entered the room.
"Have you been awake long?" he began abruptly.
"Not very."
"I didn't disturb you because you needed sleep more than anything else.
How do you feel?"
"Greatly refreshed, thank you."
"And hungry, I suppose?"
"Very."
"I will soon remedy that. Your foot?"
"It seems much better, but I--"
The girl hesitated, blushing. "I can't get my shoe on and--"
"Shall I have another look at it?"
"No, I don't believe it will be necessary. If I may have some of that
liniment, or whatever it was you put on it, and more of that bandage, I
think I can attend to it myself, but you see my stocking and my boot--"
The man nodded, he seemed to understand; he went to his cracker box
chiffonier and drew from it a long coarse woolen stocking.
"That is the best that I can do for you," he said, extending it toward
her somewhat diffidently.
"And that will do very nicely," said the girl. "It will cover the
bandage and that is the main thing."
The man laid on the table by the side of the stocking another strip of
bandage torn from the same sheet; as he did so he noticed the picture.
He caught it up quickly, a dark flush spreading over his face, and
holding it in his hand he turned abruptly away.
"I will go and cook you some breakfast while you get yourself ready. If
you have not washed, you'll find a bucket of water and a basin and towel
outside the door."
He went through the inner door as suddenly as he had come through the
outer one. He was a man of few words and whatever of social grace he
might once have possessed and in more favorable circumstances exhibited,
was not noticeable now; the tenderness with which he had cared for her
the night before had also vanished.
His bearing had been cool almost harsh and forbidding and his manner was
as grim as his appearance. The conversation had been a brief one and her
opportunity for inspection of him consequently limited, yet she had
taken him in. She saw a tall splendid man, no longer very young,
perhaps, but in the prime of life and vigor. His complexion was dark and
burned browner by long exposure to sun and wind, winter and summer. In
spite of the brown there was a certain color, a hue of health in his
cheeks. His eyes were hazel, sometimes brown, sometimes gray, and
sometimes blue, she afterward learned. A short thick closely cut beard
and mustache covered the lower part of his face, disguising but not
hiding the squareness of his jaw and the firmness, of his lips.
He had worn his cap when he entered and when he took it off she noticed
that his dark hair was tinged with white. He was dressed in a leather
hunting suit, somewhat the worse for wear, but fitting him in a way to
give free play to all his muscles. His movements were swift, energetic
and graceful; she did not wonder that he had so easily hurled the bear
to one side and had managed to carry her--no light weight, indeed!--over
what she dimly recognized must have been a horrible trail, which
burdened as he was would have been impossible to a man of less splendid
vigor than he.
The cabin was low ceiled and as she had sat looking up at him he had
towered above her until he seemed to fill it. Naturally she had
scrutinized his every action, as she had hung upon his every word. His
swift and somewhat startled movement, his frowning as he had seized the
picture on which she had gazed with such interest aroused the liveliest
surprise and curiosity in her heart.
Who was this woman? Why was he so quick to remove the picture from her
gaze? Thoughts rushed tumultuously through her brain, but she realized
at once that she lacked time to indulge them. She could hear him moving
about in the other room, she threw aside the blanket with which she had
draped herself, changed the bandage on her foot, drew on the heavy
woolen stocking which of course was miles too big for her, but which
easily took in her foot and ankle encumbered as they were by the rude,
heavy but effective wrapping. Thereafter she hobbled to the door and
stood for a moment almost aghast at the splendor and magnificence before
her.
He had built his cabin on a level shelf of rock perhaps fifty by a
hundred feet in area. It was backed up against an overtowering cliff,
otherwise the rock fell away in every direction. She divined that the
descent from the shelf into the pocket or valley spread before her was
sheer, except off to the right where a somewhat gentler acclivity of
huge and broken boulders gave a practicable ascent--a sort of titantic
stairs--to the place perched on the mountain side. The shelf was
absolutely bare save for the cabin and a few huge boulders. There were a
few sparse, stunted trees further up on the mountain side above; a few
hundred feet beyond them, however, came the timber line, after which
there was nothing but the naked rock.
Below several hundred feet lay a clear emerald pool, whose edges were
bordered by pines where it was not dominated by high cliffs. Already the
lakelet was rimmed with ice on the shaded side. This enchanting little
body of water was fed by the melting snow from the crest and peaks,
which in the clear pure sunshine and rarefied air of the mountains
seemed to rise and confront her within a stone's throw of the place
where she stood.
On one side of the lake in the valley or pocket beneath there was a
little grassy clearing, and there this dweller in the wilderness had
built a rude corral for the burros. On a rough bench by the side of the
door she saw the primitive conveniences to which he had alluded. The
water was delightfully soft and as it had stood exposed to the sun's
direct rays for some time, although the air was exceedingly crisp and
cold, it was tempered sufficiently to be merely cool and agreeable. She
luxuriated in it for a few moments and while she had her face buried in
the towel, rough, coarse, but clean, she heard a step. She looked up in
time to see the man lay down upon the bench a small mirror and a clean
comb. He said nothing as he did so and she had no opportunity to thank
him before he was gone. The thoughtfulness of the act affected her
strangely and she was very glad of a chance to unbraid her hair, comb it
out and plait it again. She had not a hair pin left of course, and all
she could do with it was to replait it and let it hang upon her
shoulders; her coiffure would have looked very strange to civilization,
but out there in the mountains, it was eminently appropriate.
Without noticing details the man felt the general effect as she limped
back into the room toward the table. Her breakfast was ready for her; it
was a coarse fare, bacon, a baked potato hard tack crisped before the
fire, coffee black and strong, with sugar but no cream. The dishes
matched the fare, too, yet she noticed that the fork was of silver and
by her plate there was a napkin, rough dried but of fine linen. The man
had just set the brimming smoking coffee pot on the table when she
appeared.
"I am sorry I have no cream," he said, and then before she could make
comment or reply, he turned and walked out of the door, his purpose
evidently being not to embarrass her by his presence while she ate.
Enid Maitland had grown to relish the camp fare, bringing to it the
appetite of good health and exertion. She had never eaten anything that
tasted so good to her as that rude meal that morning, yet she would have
enjoyed it better, she thought, if he had only shared it with her, if
she had not been compelled to eat it alone. She hastened her meal on
that account, determined as soon as she had finished her breakfast to
seek the man and have some definite understanding with him.
And after all she reflected that she was better alone than in his
presence, for there would come stealing into her thoughts the
distressing episode of the morning before, try as she would to put it
out of her mind. Well, she was a fairly sensible girl, the matter was
passed, it could not be helped now, she would forget it as much as was
possible. She would recur to it with mortification later on, but the
present was so full of grave problems that there was not any room for
the past.