A traveller might have descended through the Spirit River pass half a
dozen times without suspecting the vicinity of any fellow-creatures in
the hundred miles of mountains. Nevertheless there was a white man's
camp at the foot of Mount Milburn. Milburn is the hoary-headed monarch
that stands guard on the right-hand side of the gateway to the Rockies.
It rises sheer from the river to a height of more than six thousand
feet. In the country it is otherwise called the Mountain of Gold
because it has long been known that one of the buttresses of its base
is entirely composed of a metal-bearing quartz.
The few people of the country knew of course that Jim Sholto had
established himself here with his three children for the purpose of
smelting the ore in a small way, but Jim had built his shacks a quarter
of a mile back from the river to avoid the inconvenient observation of
the chance traveller. Jim and his two sons excavated the ore and
burned it in half a dozen little furnaces of porcelain and brick, the
materials for which they had brought in with immense difficulty. The
venture was not highly regarded in the country. The expense of
bringing in supplies was too great. They worked like beavers, it was
said, for a net return no greater than day labourer's wages. Such
unremitting industry accused the easy-going ways of the North.
On a brilliant afternoon in July Kitty Sholto was redding up the
kitchen in the larger of the two shacks. There was a cloud on her
charming face. She slapped the enamel-ware plates on the shelf with a
malicious satisfaction in the clatter, and cast the dish-towels over
the line, as if they had individually offended her.
Kitty was twenty years old. In her face were combined elements of
gentleness and piquancy, a rare association and provoking to the other
sex. The piquancy was due to her long eyes, green-gray in colour, and
placed a thought obliquely in her head. Green in eyes is thought of in
connection with feline qualities. There was nothing of that sort about
Kitty. All the rest was gentleness. She had a small, straight nose,
and an adorable mouth that turned up at the corners. Her hair, darkest
brown in colour, was of the crinkly sort that reaches out tendrils.
She had a soft voice, with an odd, hushed thrill in it that was all her
own, and a soft and ready laugh. She was not at all the kind of girl
to be given to ill-humours.
Sweeping the crumbs over the door-sill, she stood broom in hand leaning
against the jamb. In one swift cast around she took in the whole
scene, the exquisite, limpid sky, the polished malachite of the
deciduous foliage, the rich bottle-green of the pines, the brook
whipping itself white on the stones. She took it all in, and the line
between her dark eyebrows deepened as if the loveliness of nature were
an added affront.
Down the trail from the excavations the four ponies came plodding, each
laden with a double wooden bucket of ore. Bill, the younger of Kitty's
two brothers, walked behind, whistling vociferously, and tickling the
rearmost beast with a switch. Bill was a tall, strong youth of
twenty-two, a black Scotchman with a gleaming smile. Dumping the
contents of the buckets on the little mountain of ore before the other
shack, with a flick of his switch he sent the ponies trotting back one
by one for another load.
Bill, pausing to fill his pipe, grinned amiably at his sister. Kitty's
brothers adored her, and teased her remorselessly. "Hello, sis!" he
said. "What's biting you?"
"Nothing!" she said quickly.
"You look as if the cat was dead and the milk turned," he said in the
humorous style that brothers affect.
"There is no cat and I haven't tasted milk in a year and a half," said
Kitty sharply.
"Take example from me!" sang Bill. "Dog-tooth Bill, the sunshine of
Milburn Gulch!"
"That's all very well!" said Kitty bitterly. "Who wouldn't be gay in
your shoes. You're going away to-morrow. You're going to mix with
people; to see something besides trees; to have some fun! What have I
got to look forward to?"
"Cheer up, sis," said Bill with jocular solicitude. "What can we do
about it? The little iron chest has to be carried out. It's getting
too heavy to be left lying around loose. And there's next year's grub
to be brought in."
"Certainly, I know you're obliged to go," said Kitty.
"If you could go in my place you'd be welcome," said Dick. "But it's
too hard a trip both out and in again. You and Dick couldn't do it
alone."
"I know it," said Kitty stiffly. "You don't have to explain."
"And we can't take you with us, because the old man can't keep the
plant going, and cook his own grub, too."
"I wouldn't think of leaving him alone," said Kitty indignantly.
Bill began to grin again. "Cheer up, the worst is yet to come!" he
cried. "We'll be back in six weeks with a scow full of good things!
What'll I bring her from town for a present? A silk dress?"
"A lot of good a silk dress would do me!" Kitty said scornfully. "Who
do I ever see from one month to another?"
"Ah, there we have her trouble!" cried Bill. He began to sing and to
caper absurdly:
"Kitty is mad and I am glad,
For I know how to please her;
A bottle of wine to make her shine
And a nice young man to squeeze her!"
"You're horrid!" cried Kitty, frowning and blushing.
"Give me the specifications," Bill went on, with an air of serious
gravity. "Blond, brunette, or albino? Heavy, welter, or light weight?
Kind of disposition you prefer, and amount of purse to be put up before
you enter the ring? I'll bring the candidate back with me if I have to
sandbag him!"
Kitty retired into the house, slamming the door. Bill, with a whoop,
started up the trail after his horses.
When the cabin was put to rights there was nothing more that Kitty was
obliged to do until it was time to start the supper. On such occasions
she was accustomed to help her father in the "works," as they called
the other shack, but the furnaces had been cold for a week now, while
all hands joined to get out enough ore to keep them fed while the boys
were away. There was plenty of work that Kitty might have done, but
she was in a mood to dream and to nourish her grievances. She might
have gone up to the excavation to help, but she dreaded male raillery.
She finally turned in the other direction and followed the path down to
the river.
It ended in a little glade that had been a camping-place since time out
of mind. In the middle of the place was a fire-hole, centuries old,
maybe. Upright posts were driven on either side, with a bar across and
wooden hooks of assorted sizes waiting for the bails of the next
traveller's pots. In front of Kitty as she stood beside the fireplace
the river stretched its smooth jade-green flood across to the base of
the mountain opposite, and at her left hand the limpid waters of the
creek mingled with the thicker current.
Below the camping-place stretched a bank of fine yellow sand
precipitated by the eddies in times of high water. Partly drawn up on
the sand was a dugout. The Sholtos kept their two boats cached in the
creek, but this one had been got out in preparation for the journey
next day. It was the happy-go-lucky Bill who had left it where it was
without tying it, forgetful of the sudden rises of the river in hot
weather.
Kitty got in the dugout, and sat down in the stern, where she might
trail her hands in the water, while she thought things out and dreamed
her dreams. All unwittingly Bill had discovered to her the very source
of her discontent, and she was disturbed and ashamed. It was true that
she wanted a young man! Here she was twenty years old; it was
jocularly granted by her brothers that she was not exactly a fright;
yet she had never had a young man. What was worse there was no young
man, at least of her own colour, within hundreds of miles, and she was
doomed to her present imprisonment for at least another year.
Twenty-two loomed ahead like old age itself. "What chance will I have
then!" she thought dejectedly. Behind this was the hot-cheeked,
nagging thought: what business had a nice girl to be desiring a young
man, anyway!
But after a while the lovely afternoon began to have its way with her,
and the disquieting thoughts melted by imperceptible degrees into
deceitful, charming daydreams. She was lying in the bottom of the boat
with her arm on the gunwale, and her head on her arm. Her eyes were
bent upstream as far as she could see. He will come down the river,
she dreamed. "Perhaps he is just around the bend at this moment. I
should not be surprised. But what if he should come when I am not
here, and be carried past! That is not possible! If he is the right
one, some power will lead him directly to me! What is he like? Tall
and slender, with round, strong arms, and a wonderful light in his
eyes. He will not be surprised to see me either. He will say: 'I have
found you!' And I will say quite simply: 'I have been waiting for
you,' and everything will be understood."
Following the usual course of day-dreams, Kitty little by little lost
the direction of this beautiful story, and picture began to succeed
picture without any help from her. She found herself climbing the
higher slopes of Mount Milburn hand in hand with the youth whose face
was hidden from her; up into the intoxicating air of the summits. Then
presto! without so much of an effort as the wink of an eyelid they were
transported to the busy streets of town, and looked into the
bewildering shop-windows without any surprise at all. Then they walked
between endless rows of silk dresses hung on hooks, and all the dresses
were hers, but she couldn't decide which one she liked the best, and
was much distressed. And he said: "Don't worry; I have a paper boat to
sail down Milburn Creek in." And she answered: "We'll never get up
again," without caring in the least. And then they danced to delicious
music that issued from a row of trees like the pipes of an organ.
With a long sigh Kitty stretched herself luxuriously in the bottom of
the dugout, and ceased to dream. If any young man had come along then
and had seen her thus, her head on her folded arm, her lashes on her
cheeks, and a dream-smile tilting the corners of her mouth, it is safe
to say he would never have been the same again afterward.
She awakened as quietly as she had fallen asleep, and lay for a while
gazing up between the sides of the dugout at the delicate clear sky,
which had not changed while she slept. Gradually she became aware of
missing something; it was the turbulent voice of Milburn Creek, never
stilled in her ears at home. At the same time the dugout rocked gently
with her, filling her with an unexplained fear. She quickly sat up.
The heart in her breast turned cold. She was adrift in midstream.
Mount Milburn had disappeared and the even more familiar limestone face
of Stanhope, opposite their camp. Strange mountain shapes surrounded
her, and unfamiliar shores. Her eyes darted up and down the dugout;
there was no paddle; nothing! The swirling green eddies smiled at her
horribly, like things biding their time. Blank, hideous terror
descended on her, scattering her faculties.
There was worse in store. Sweeping around a bend, she saw far down the
river the white horses leaping in the sunshine. She knew the place,
the Grumbler rapids; up and down river they bore a sinister reputation.
She stared at the place, fascinated with horror. The river was so
smiling, sunny, and beautiful, she could not believe that there was the
end of all; the very white-caps below seemed to be leaping in play.
And she herself, twenty years old, and full of the zest of living--it
was not possible! But the ever-increasing voice of the place warned
her, there waited Death, sure and dreadful. And nothing might stop her
deliberate progress between the green shores. She must sit with her
hands in her lap and watch it coming step by step.
Kitty's very softness and gentleness shielded her. She could not take
in so much horror. Her eyes widened; she struggled for her breath--and
collapsed in the bottom of the dugout.
When consciousness and sight returned, she found a strange, dark face
bending over her. She was lying on firm ground beside the river. The
roar of the rapids filled the air. Seeing Kitty's eyes open, and the
light of reason return, the face broke into a beautiful and kind smile.
Kitty, without understanding clearly, was immensely reassured. It was
a girl not much older than herself.
"You all right now," the girl said.
"What happened?" asked Kitty faintly.
"You near get in the rapids."
The recollection of her terror rushed back over her almost drowning
Kitty's senses again.
"You all right," the girl repeated in a cheery, matter-of-fact tone
that was just what Kitty needed. "I was working on the shore," she
went on, "and I see a canoe come floating down. I think it is foolish
to let a good boat get broke on the rocks, so I get my boat and paddle
for it, but there isn't much time. I come to it, and I look in. Wah!
there is you!"
"Oh, it was horrible! horrible!" murmured Kitty, shaken by strong
shudders.
"Forget it," said the girl. "You all right now."
"How did you get me ashore?" Kitty asked.
"It was not much," the girl said with a shrug. "I was too near the
rapids to save both boats, so I jump in yours and let mine go down. It
was pretty hard paddling," she went on, smiling; "we were on the wrong
side for the deep water. Long time we jus' stand still out there, and
not go up or down. Then we come in slow, slow. There is a tree fallen
down beside the water, and I catch hold just in time."
"You have saved my life!" murmured Kitty.
"Cut it out!" said the dark girl gruffly. "It was worth it for the
boat alone."
"But you lost your boat," said Kitty.
The other shook her head. "It is stuck on the rocks down there," she
said. "I will get it after."
Strength and self-command came back to Kitty, and she sat up. The two
girls measured each other with glances of shy, strong curiosity. Each
was a surprising discovery to the other.
"You are Kitty Sholto," said the dark girl.
"How did you know that?" exclaimed Kitty, opening her eyes.
"There is no other white girl in the country."
"I don't know you," said Kitty.
The other shrugged and smiled a little. "There are plenty red girls,"
she said. "I am Annie Crossfox."
"Where do you live?"
Nahnya pointed vaguely downstream. "My people are the Sapi Indians,"
she said.
"But that is way down by the canyon," said Kitty. "Do you travel so
far by yourself?"
"I like travel by myself," Nahnya said deprecatingly. "I hunt and I
fish. People think I am crazy. They say it is like a man!"
Each thought the other a wonderful creature. Nahnya marvelled at the
colour of Kitty's eyes, green-gray like the Spirit River itself, and
her cheeks like snow--snow with the light of the setting sun upon it.
Her delicacy and gentleness seemed like the qualities of a superior
creature. Kitty for her part was no less admiring of Nahnya's strength
and courage. The gentle Kitty like most girls had often wished that
she had been born in one of her brother's places. To be able to go
where one pleased like a man! this stirred her imagination. Each of
these lonely girls was hungry for a woman friend; therein lay the
explanation of their kind and wistful looks upon each other.
Kitty was soon quite herself again. Only at intervals did the
recollection of her terror cause her to catch her breath, and send the
colour flying from her cheeks. A lesser fear succeeded.
"How will I get home?" she said. "Dad and the boys! They will be
frantic, poor things!"
"Have they another boat?" asked Nahnya.
Kitty nodded.
"Then they will come look for you soon," said Nahnya calmly. "It is
all right."
Kitty was much reassured.
By degrees the two girls felt their way toward intimate speech. "I am
so surprise I find a white girl in this country," Nahnya said in her
quaint, soft Mission English. "When I look in your boat I am thinking
nothing at all. And there you are! I am so surprise almost we both go
in the rapids!"
Kitty explained how she had been carried off.
"Yes, all day the water rise," said Nahnya.
"If you hadn't been there!" said Kitty, and all her terrors returned.
"We must eat," said Nahnya energetically. "I have tea and bread and
meat across the river. We must track for half a mile before I can
cross. You have only a short line on your boat. I will track, and you
push out with a pole."
Nahnya went ahead with the end of the line, while Kitty, according to
instructions, walked abreast of the dugout, and kept it off shore, and
steered it around obstructions with her pole. Kitty had never worked
harder. Nahnya thought she was sparing her, but Kitty had to struggle
desperately over the stones and the tree trunks and around the edge of
cut-banks in order to keep up. The dugout acted like a thing inspired
by personal malice against them. Kitty insisted that it went out of
its way to find stones to stick on, and if she fell so much as a yard
behind, it instantly drove its nose into the bank. Whenever it was
necessary Nahnya waded unconcernedly into the icy water, and Kitty, not
to be outdone, followed suit, shivering.
When they finally arrived opposite the spot whence Nahnya had first set
out to Kitty's aid, Kitty distinguished a wide, flat rock and a little
stream that emptied beside it. Nahnya told off the white girl to make
a fire while she went for the supplies. Kitty enviously watched her
assured handling of the canoe. Heading upstream enough to equalize the
pull of the current, Nahnya crossed the river as straight as a ruled
line, and in twenty minutes was back with everything they needed.
Hanging their stockings and moccasins to dry, they extended their pink
and white and pink and brown toes side by side to the fire, and ate
their supper. Meanwhile they were progressing in friendship by long
leaps. With a girl and, moreover, a girl so gentle as Kitty, Nahnya
did not feel obliged to wall up her breast, and the natural warmth of
her nature had way. Lengthy girl confidences were exchanged.
"I never talk to a white girl like this," Nahnya said shyly. "Though I
have live among white people, and watch the girls, and think about them
much."
"What did you think about white girls?" Kitty asked with her charming
smile.
"Always I am thinking how are they different from me," said Nahnya.
"Different?" echoed Kitty. "You are not really different from me."
"I am half white," said Nahnya. "Inside I feel the same as white
people. But white people treat me different from them."
"I don't understand," said Kitty.
"When I go to the Mission school," said Nahnya, "the sisters teach us:
'Think no evil, and evil will pass you by.'"
"That is true," said Kitty.
Nahnya sadly shook her head. "It is true for you," she said; "not for
me. When I went among the white people I thought no evil, but evil
wrap me so close as a blanket over my head."
"I--I do not understand," faltered Kitty.
"Why should you?" said Nahnya. "Nobody is bad to you. Only to me. So
always I am wondering what is different in me. I do not understand it,
but I know it."
"Do you--do you mean men?" asked the startled Kitty.
Nahnya was silent.
"But all men are not bad," said Kitty, thinking of her honest, jolly
brothers.
"Not all men," admitted Nahnya. "Once I know a white man--at first he
was crazy. But he change. He look at me cleanly, and speak honest.
But always I am thinking this different thing is in me, and I send him
away. And always I think what is this different thing in me?"
Kitty, looking at her with troubled eyes, made no reply.
"Now I have scare you!" said Nahnya remorsefully. "You think I mus' be
bad, because others think I am so!"
"No," said Kitty, "it is my own ignorance that I am scared of. I don't
know anything. I don't know what to say."
"Say not'ing!" cried Nahnya, bending a quick look of contrite affection
on her. "Me, I talk too much! Always I want talk to some one who is
like me, and I am near crazy with talk that I cannot speak. My people,
they are good people, but they do not know me. My mot'er not know me.
I am strange to her. She is scare of me. Always I think if I could be
friends with a white woman, we could talk. And to-day the river bring
you to me, so I think it is like magic. And my tongue, she shoot the
rapids of talk! I am sorry I scare you!"
"You don't scare me a bit!" protested Kitty. "I like to have you talk
to me. I'm talking to you, too. Tell me about the white man," she
said shyly, "the one you liked."
Nahnya was startled. For an instant the old walled look darkened her
face. "I not say I like any white man," she said quickly. "I not want
any man."
Kitty hung her head a little. "That's what we say," she murmured with
a burst of shy candour; "but how true is it?"
The dark fled out of Nahnya's face. She turned a pair of wondrously
soft eyes on Kitty. "You are lonely up here!" she said. "I know what
lonely is!"
Kitty's eyes grew large and bright with tears. She nodded. "I wanted
a friend, too," she said very low. "Some one to talk to like you. The
boys are good to me, but they treat me like a baby. I wanted a woman
friend. I haven't talked to a woman in a year and a half."
Nahnya sprang to her knees, and unconsciously clasping her hands to her
breast, leaned toward Kitty. "I will be your friend--always!" she said
with trembling eagerness. "If you want me," she added with wistful
humility.
Kitty's answer was to fling her arms around Nahnya's neck.
Nahnya recoiled in a kind of terror. "You--you kissed me!" she
faltered. "Me!"
"I'll do it again!" cried Kitty. "And again! And again! I think you
are just sweet!"
With an odd little cry the dark girl hid her face on Kitty's shoulder
and clung to her, and broke into a silent shaken weeping. Broken
whispers of confession reached the white woman's ear.
"I never have a friend.... Always inside of me I am alone.... I think
I am marked out to be alone.... My heart hurt me like any woman's
heart ... but always I mus' make out I don't care about anything..."
An hour later they heard a hail from far up the river. Kitty leaped up
in great excitement. Nahnya answered the hail. She had the riverman's
trick of sending the voice to a distance. By and by they came flying
around the bend, father and sons paddling like men possessed, and
momentarily raising hoarse, anxious cries. Nahnya tore off a branch of
leaves, and putting it into Kitty's hands, urged her down to the beach
to wave it. At the sight of her safe on dry land, the three men sent
up tremendous shouts of joy and relief. Nahnya retired up on the bank.
They landed, and Kitty was instantly locked in her father's arms. Dick
collapsed in the boat, while Bill's legs caved under him on the beach.
Both boys wept, unashamed.
"We heard the rapids," Bill blubbered. "We thought we were just too
late!"
They quickly recovered. Kitty had presently to submit to their
bear-hugs, and again to her father's embraces. All four talked at
once, and foolishly laughed. Kitty was abashed by their transports.
Never had she seen her men so stirred. Afterward questions began to
fly.
"How did you drift off without knowing it?"
"Why didn't you scramble ashore and let the boat go?"
"How did you get ashore here without a paddle or anything?"
"Who is with you?"
"Why, she's gone!" cried Bill suddenly.
It was true. They looked around in vain. During the excitement of the
men's landing, the dark girl had stolen unobserved to the other dugout.
It lay a little downstream, and partly screened by some bushes.
Putting off, and keeping close to the shore, she was soon lost to their
sight.
Kitty's face fell like a child's. "Without a word of good-bye!" she
said.
"She's taken our best boat," said Jim Sholto, frowning.
"She lost her own in the rapids saving me," said Kitty, with quick
indignation.
Jim hastened to mollify her. "That's all right," he said. "But to
steal away like this!"
"It's just like them," said Dick, "always mysterious."
"You're not very grateful," said Kitty, at the point of tears. "I tell
you she saved my life."
"You haven't told us anything yet," said her father. "Who is she?"
"Annie Crossfox."
"I had a look at her," said Bill. "She's mighty good-looking! Don't
see why she couldn't wait to receive our thanks."
Kitty, looking at him sharply, saw the untoward, eager light in his
dark eyes, and became suddenly thoughtful. A reason for Nahnya's
abrupt departure occurred to her.
"She will bring the boat back to our camp," she said quietly. "Just as
soon as she can get her own boat. She promised me!"
"But Dick and I will be gone then," grumbled Bill. "If we've got such
a good-looking neighbour I want----"
Kitty interrupted him. "She saved my life," she repeated with a direct
look. "She is my friend."
"What of it?" said Bill, beginning a great parade of innocence. He
caught his little sister's eye and saw something new there--knowledge.
He had the grace to drop his own gaze and blush a little. Bill was an
honest youth.