Late one afternoon during the following week Livingston drove up to
Harris' ranch and helped from his buggy a small, fair-haired girl who
looked with wonderment at the squalid log buildings, the squealing,
scurrying pigs and children, and the usual group of roughly dressed men
waiting for their supper. The pain in her eyes deepened, and she clasped
Livingston's arm like a frightened child.
"_O_, _mein Freund_, I fear!" she cried, drawing back.
"Come," he urged gently. "There is nothing to fear. You must trust me,
for I am indeed your friend, little girl. We will find the one who is
expecting you--who will love you and be a sister to you."
A look of trustful obedience came into her sweet blue eyes, now
disfigured by much weeping, and without hesitation she walked beside him
past the group of rough-looking men, dirty, barefooted children,
scurrying pigs and dogs, to the kitchen door.
An Indian woman with a baby in her arms stood in the shadow of the room
and motioned them to enter.
"Is Miss Hathaway here?" inquired Livingston.
At the sound of his voice the door of an inner room opened and Hope, her
slender form gowned as he had first seen her, came quickly across the
untidy room toward them.
"I am Hope," she said to the girl, taking both of her soft little hands
in her own and looking in wonder at the childish face with its setting
of wavy gold hair. Suddenly the broken-hearted girl was in her arms
sobbing out her grief upon her shoulder. Hope led her to a seat, removed
her hat and coat, and uttered words of endearment to her, soothing her
as she would have done a child.
Could this impulsive, loving girl be Hope, wondered Livingston, who
still stood in the doorway. She smoothed back the bright hair from the
pretty, childish face, exclaiming:
"How beautiful you are! And what a little thing to have such a grief!
Oh, it is cruel, _cruel_! Cry, dear, cry all you want to--it will do you
good, and the pain will sooner be gone."
"_O, Gott im Himmel_," sobbed the German girl, "_gieb mir Muth es zu
ertragen!_"
"But you are, oh, so much braver than I. Look at me, see what a great,
big strong thing I am, and _I_ moaned and cried because the world wasn't
made to my liking! Oh, it makes me _ashamed_ now, when I see such a
little, frail thing as you suffer such a real sorrow! But I am your
friend--your sister, if you will have me."
"How goot you are, _meine liebe Freundin_!" sobbed the girl.
"May you never have reason to change your opinion," replied Hope slowly,
in German.
"She speaks my language!" exclaimed the German girl, with something like
hopefulness in her voice.
"But very poorly," apologized Hope, looking for the first time at the
man standing quietly in the doorway.
"It will comfort her that you speak it at all," he replied. "But without
any language you would still be a comfort to her. I will leave her in
your hands, Miss Hathaway. She has had a long journey and--must be very
tired." He bowed and turned to go, but, recollecting something, came
back into the room. "I am going now," he said to the German girl, "but I
will come to see you often. You need have no fear when you are
with--Hope."
Hope turned to him impulsively.
"You will do as you say," she begged. "You will come often to see her."
Then added, "You know she'll be terribly lonely at first!"
"It will give me great pleasure, if I may," he replied.
She held out her hand to him.
"If you _may_! Are you not master of your own actions? Good-by!"
She took her hand from his firm clasp with something like a jerk, and
found herself blushing furiously as she turned to the little German
girl.
As far as anyone could be made comfortable in the Harris home Hope made
her little charge so. She shared her room, her bed with her, took her to
school each day and kept her constantly at her side.
She was a simple, trusting German girl, bright, and extremely pretty,
and her name was Louisa Schulte. From the first she had loved Hope with
an affection that was as touching as it was beautiful, and as she came
to know her better, day by day her love and admiration grew akin to
worship. She believed her to be the most wonderful girl that ever lived,
in some respects fairly superhuman. She marveled at the skill with which
she could ride and shoot, and her wisdom in Western lore. And behind
every accomplishment, every word and act, Louisa read her heart, which
no one before had ever known.
So finding in the bereaved girl, who had so strangely come into her
life, the sympathy and love for which she had vainly searched in one of
her own sex, Hope gave her in return the true wealth of a sister's
heart.
For some time after Louisa's arrival Hope was with her almost
constantly, but the inactive life began to tell upon her. Her eyes would
light up with an involuntary longing at the sight of the breed boys
racing over the hills upon their ponies.
"Why don't you go?" asked the German girl, one morning, reading her
friend with observant eyes as the boys started out for a holiday.
It was a beautiful warm Saturday morning. The two girls were sitting on
a pile of logs by the side of the road sunning themselves, far enough
away from the Harris house and its surroundings to enjoy the beauty of a
perfect day.
"I would rather stay here with you," replied Hope, arranging a waving
lock which the wind had displaced from Louisa's golden tresses. "When
the horse comes that I have sent for, and you have learned to ride
better, we will go all over these mountains together. I will show you
Sydney's camp and take you to old Peter's cabin, and let you see where
we found the den of coyotes. We will go everywhere then, and have such a
good time!"
Louisa looked at her tenderly, but her eyes were filled with the pain of
a great sorrow.
"O, _Fraeulein_, you are goot, so goot to me! If I may ask, not too much,
I wish to see where lies _mein lieber Fritz_. I vill weep no more--then.
Ven I sleep the dreams come so much. If I could see once the place it
would be better, _nicht wahr_?"
"Yes," replied Hope, "it is a lovely spot and you shall see it. Mr.
Livingston could not have found a more beautiful place. Just now it is
all a mass of flowers and green grass as far as you can see, and behind
it is a great high jagged wall of stone. It is beautiful!"
"Mr. Livingston is a good, true man," mused Louisa, lapsing into German,
which Hope followed with some difficulty. "He was very kind to my poor
Fritz, who loved him dearly. His letters were filled with his praises.
It was of him, of the beautiful country, and our love of which he always
wrote. He was a good boy, _Fraeulein_."
"Tell me about him," said Hope, adding hastily, "if you feel like it. I
would love to hear."
Hope could not have suggested a wiser course, for to speak of a grief or
trouble wears off its sharp edges.
"He was a good boy," replied Louisa. "I cannot see why God has taken him
from this beautiful place, and from me. It has been a year, now, since I
last saw him. He left in a hurry. He had never spoken of love until that
day, nor until he told me of it did I know that it was real love I had
so long felt for him. We grew up together. He was my cousin. I had other
cousins, but he was ever my best companion--my first thought. He came
to me that day and said: 'Louisa, I am going far away from here to the
free America. It breaks my heart to leave you. Will you promise to some
day join me there and be my wife?' I promised him, and then cried much
because he was going so far. It was even worse than the army, I thought,
and somehow it held a strange dread for me. But Fritz would not think of
the army. His eldest brother returned, and as head of the family all the
money went to him. My aunt married again. Her husband is a wholesale
merchant of wines. He gave Fritz a position in his warehouse, but very
soon they quarreled. He seemed not to like Fritz. Then there was nothing
for the poor boy but the army, or far America. I could not blame him
when he chose freedom. The lot of the youngest son is not always a happy
one. A friend who had been here told all about this great country and
the good opportunities, so he came. His letters were so beautiful! I
used to read them over and over until the paper was worn and would break
in pieces. For a whole year I waited, and planned, and lived on the
letters and my dreams, then filled with happiness I started to him. To
think that I have come to the end of this long, strange journey to a
foreign land to see but his grave! Oh, God in heaven, help me be brave!"
"There is no death," said Hope, rising abruptly from the log upon which
she had been sitting and standing erect before Louisa, her dark
commanding eyes forcing the attention of the grief-stricken girl. "I
know there is no death. I feel it with every throb of my pulse--in every
atom of my being! _I_ and my _body_!--_I_ and my _body_!" she continued
impressively. "How distinct the two! Can the death of this lump of clay
change the _I_ that is really myself? Can anything exterminate the
living me? Every throb of my whole being tells me that I am more than
this perishable flesh--that I am more than time or place or condition or
_death_! I believe, like the Indians, that when we are freed from this
husk of death--this perishing flesh, that the we, as we truly are, is
like a prisoner turned loose--that then, only do we realize what _life_
really means."
Louisa's innocent eyes were intent upon her as she strove to grasp the
full meaning of the English words.
"_Ich weiss; es ist wahr_," she replied softly, "_aber wenn der Kummer
so frisch ist, dann ist es unmoeglich in dem Gedanken Trost zu finden_."
"I should have said nothing," said Hope in contrition, seating herself
upon the log pile again.
"_Nein_, my dear, dear friend! I have now dis misery, but I belief you.
Somedimes your vords vill help--vat you calls 'em--vill _soothe_, und I
vill be better."
"Then it's all right," said Hope, jumping from the logs and giving her
hand to Louisa to assist her down. "Let's walk a little."
They went slowly up the road toward the school-house, and had not
proceeded far when they met Livingston driving toward them in an open
buggy.
Hope waved her hand to him and hastened forward, while Louisa smiled
upon him the faintest of dimpled greetings, then drew back to the side
of the road while the girl of the prairies stepped up to the side of his
buggy.
"You haven't kept your word very well," she said. "We have seen you only
twice, and Louisa has wondered many times what has been keeping you.
Isn't that so, Louisa?" she nodded at the girl. "I am glad you have come
this morning, because I want to ask you a favor."
"I am at your service," he replied.
"You know Louisa hasn't learned to ride yet, and Harris' have no other
way of conveyance, so I wanted to ask you to take her in your buggy--to
see Fritz's grave." The last few words were added below her breath.
"I came this morning to ask you if she did not wish to see it," he
replied. "It might be good for her."
"Of course _you_ should be the first one to think of it!" she said
quickly, shading her eyes with her hand to look down the long, crooked
stretch of road. "I didn't think of it at all myself. She has just asked
me if she might see it. All the virtues are yours by right," she
continued, showing, as she again faced him, a flash of her strong white
teeth. "And the funny part of it is, I think I am getting jealous of the
very virtues you possess!"
"You should see with my eyes awhile," he replied, "and you would have no
cause for jealousy."
"I do not know jealousy in the ordinary sense of the word--that was
entirely left out of my make-up, but for once I covet the attributes of
thoughtfulness that should be ingrained in every woman's nature."
When she had spoken he seemed struggling for an instant with some strong
emotion. Without replying he stepped from his buggy and walked to the
heads of his horses, presumably to arrange some part of the harness.
Livingston struggled to keep back the words which sprang to his lips. He
loved the girl with all the strength of his nature. Her whole attitude
toward him artlessly invited him to speak, but his manhood forbade it.
He was a puzzle, she thought, impatiently. Why did he not make a little
effort to woo her, after having declared his love in no uncertain
manner? She was not sure that she wanted to receive his advances if he
should make any, but why did he not make them? She knew that she was
interested in him, and she knew, also, that she was piqued by his
apparent indifference. She knew he was like a smoldering volcano, and
she had all a girl's curiosity to see it burst forth; but with the
thought came a regret that their acquaintance would then be at an end.
"I can take you both up there now, if you wish," he said, coming around
to the side of the buggy. "The seat is wide and I do not think you will
be uncomfortable."
Hope had turned her eyes once more down the narrow, winding stretch of
gray toward the Harris ranch.
"I think I will not go," she replied, still peering ahead from under the
shade of her hand. "Yes, I am sure now that's Sydney. See, just going
into the corral. Jim was to have brought me an extra saddle horse
to-day, but Sydney has come instead, so I'll go back. Louisa can go
alone with you." She motioned to the girl. "Come, Louisa, Mr. Livingston
wants to take you for a little drive. I will be down there at the house
when you come back."
The girl understood enough of their conversation to know where she was
expected to go. Obediently, trustfully, with one loving glance at Hope,
she climbed into the buggy beside Livingston and was soon riding rapidly
up the mountain road to the grave of her sweetheart.