These words kept ringing in Jen's ears as she stood again in the doorway
that night with her face turned to the beacon. How different it seemed
now! When she saw it last night it was a cheerful spirit of light--a
something suggesting comfort, companionship, aspiration, a friend to the
traveller, and a mysterious, but delightful, association. In the morning
when she returned from that fortunate, yet most unfortunate, ride, it was
still burning, but its warm flame was exhausted in the glow of the life-
giving sun; the dream and delight of the night robbed of its glamour by
the garish morning; like her own body, its task done, sinking before the
unrelieved scrutiny of the day. To-night it burned with a different
radiance. It came in fiery palpitations from the earth. It made a sound
that was now like the moan of pine trees, now like the rumble of far-off
artillery. The slight wind that blew spread the topmost crest of flame
into strands of ruddy hair, and, looking at it, Jen saw herself rocked to
and fro by tumultuous emotions, yet fuller of strength and larger of life
than ever she had been. Her hot veins beat with determination, with a
love which she drove back by another, cherished now more than it had ever
been, because danger threatened the boy to whom she had been as a mother.
In twenty-four hours she had grown to the full stature of love and
suffering.
There were shadows that betrayed less roundness to her face; there were
lines that told of weariness; but in her eyes there was a glowing light
of hope. She raised her face to the stars and unconsciously paraphrasing
Pierre's song said: "Oh, the God that dost save us, hear!"
A hand touched her arm, and a voice said, huskily, "Jen, I wanted to save
him and--and not let you know of it; that's all. You're not keepin' a
grudge agin me, my girl?"
She did not move nor turn her head. "I've no grudge, father; but--if--
if you had told me, 'twouldn't be on my mind that I had made it worse for
Val."
The kindness in the voice reassured him, and he ventured to say: "I
didn't think you'd be carin' for one of the Riders of the Plains, Jen."
Then the old man trembled lest she should resent his words. She seemed
about to do so, but the flush faded from her brow, and she said, simply:
"I care for Val most, father. But he didn't know he was getting Val into
trouble."
She suddenly quivered as a wave of emotion passed through her; and she
said, with a sob in her voice: "Oh, it's all scrub country, father, and
no paths, and--and I wish I had a mother!"
The old man sat down in the doorway and bowed his grey head in his arms.
Then, after a moment, he whispered:
"She's been dead twenty-two years, Jen. The day Val was born she went
away. I'd a-been a better man if she'd a-lived, Jen; and a better
father."
This was an unusual demonstration between these two. She watched him
sadly for a moment, and then, leaning over and touching him gently on the
shoulder, said: "It's worse for you than it is for me, father. Don't
feel so bad. Perhaps we shall save him yet."
He caught a gleam of hope in her words: "Mebbe, Jen, mebbe!" and he
raised his face to the light.
This ritual of affection was crude and unadorned; but it was real. They
sat there for half-an-hour, silent.
Then a figure came out of the shadows behind the house and stood before
them. It was Pierre.
"I go to-morrow morning, Galbraith," he said. The old man nodded, but
did not reply.
"I go to Fort Desire," the gambler added.