Days wore by; sometimes days of unbroken sunshine; sometimes days of
gently sifted whiteness fluttering out of a grey sky. In a week all the
prairie was blanketed deep with snow.
Then came the great night.
At this time of the year, in this latitude, it is dark by five in the
afternoon, particularly if the sky happen to be overcast. On the day in
question Jack and I had done up our few chores about the stable, carried
in a supply of water and firewood, and returned to our shacks for
supper. Marjorie, brisk, efficient housewife that she was, had the table
set when I came in. Our meals were perforce simple, and when we had
finished and the few dishes were cleared away I looked at my watch. It
was barely six o'clock.
"This is going to be another of our long, long evenings," Marjorie
remarked, with what seemed like a suggestion of complaining. "Suppose
you ask Jack and Jean to come over; I don't feel like going out in the
snow."
"Jean may not feel like going out either," I retorted. "I guess she's as
much like sugar as you are," I added, having in my mind some reference
to an adage about sugar melting.
"I fancy you think she's a good deal more like sugar than I am, brother
o' mine," Marjorie returned. "Well, run along and find out."
Later, when I recalled that remark, I was struck with its significance,
but at the moment I had no suspicion that Jack and Marjorie were working
a scheme on me. I have always held that Jean was innocent of any part in
it.
So urged, I pulled on my pea-jacket and overshoes and fur cap and
started out on the hundred-yard jaunt from our shack to the one across
the gully. As I came out of the door the snow was falling thickly but in
smaller flakes than usual; the air seemed filled with a mist of snow,
and there was a rising wind, but the temperature was not uncomfortable.
I could see the dull yellow glow of the light in Jean's window across
the gully and a thing that struck me at the moment was that nothing
about that glow offered any clue to the distance at which it was
located. Had I not known I might have believed it a mile away, or within
a dozen yards.
I made the trip without difficulty and entered without knocking as was
our custom in our numerous visits back and forth. Jean looked up from
the table where she sat reading.
"Alone, Frank?" she said, when I had closed the door behind me.
"Yes; where's Jack? I came to see----"
"Jack left for Fourteen some time ago. He was going to ask you and
Marjorie to come over. You must have passed him."
"That's rather funny. That's what _I_ came for, if you reverse it.
Strange I didn't see him on the way."
"He may have looked in at the stable again, to make sure that the stock
are all right," Jean suggested. "He said it looked like rough weather."
I stood for a moment, undecided whether I should go back for Jack and
Marjorie, or ask Jean to go with me. It was she who settled the
question.
"Take off your things, Frank," she invited. "Jack will be there by this
time, and will keep Marjorie company. It is not a good night for a girl
to go walking."
So I stayed, although a little self-consciously. Jean and I had known
each other's company since childhood, but, at least since coming to the
West, we had hardly seen each other alone. Always Jack or Marjorie, or
both, were somewhere about. There had been, of course, that sudden,
impetuous, unspoken revelation when we returned from our harvest absence
in the settlements, but there had been no talk of love between Jean and
me. I had treasured that moment as a bit of wonderful memory, as a
glimpse of wonderful promise, but I had not presumed upon it; I had
concluded that two months' loneliness had been too much for Jean's
reserve, and that she had done something it hardly would be fair to talk
about. . . . Doubtless Jack, when he found I had missed him, would be
back shortly.
I took my wraps off and sat down beside the stove. The warmth was very
pleasant after the buffeting of the snow, and Jean looked very lovely
and tempting in the soft glow of the lamp on the table. I felt a strange
embarrassment growing upon me as the moments were ticked off by the
little alarm clock on the shelf. The embarrassment grew until I felt
that I must break it by speech of some kind.
"What are you reading?" I ventured at last.
"Nothing."
"Nothing! You have a book----"
"I know, but I'm not reading it."
"Then what _are_ you doing?"
"Just waiting."
"Waiting? For what?"
Then she looked up at me, and there was a light in her eyes that was
strange and good to see, but it sent my brain reeling. For a moment she
looked at me thus, and started my heart thump-thumping like a steam
pump. Then her eyes drooped.
"Don't you know, Frank?" she murmured.
Her face was ruddy in the glow of the lamp, and the pink skin shone with
a color that was not all reflected. Amazing as was her revelation I
could no longer fail to understand it. I rose and walked to the table; I
took her hands in mine and lifted her to her feet.
"You are waiting for me to--kiss you, Jean," I whispered.
She was trembling, but she spoke with outward composure. "There is
something else, first."
"Something else--first? I don't understand."
"You should."
I could not follow her thought. "I kissed you once before," I ventured.
"Many times before."
"No, only once. The other times were when we were children. They don't
count."
"Do things that happened when we were children not count--with you?"
"Do they--with you?"
"Ask me, and see."
It had come; the moment of which I had told myself in dreams and
visions; the moment to which I had looked forward with a strange fear
and a great hope. "Jean," I whispered. "I love you. Will you be my
wife?"
As I write the words they seem very bare and matter-of-fact. But they
were all that Jean required. She made no spoken answer, but she turned
her face to mine, and I drew her up in my strong arms and kissed her in
the breathless passion of our young love. . . . .
After a time, with one box serving us both, we talked of our future. I
hinted that circumstances made our immediate marriage somewhat dependent
upon the course that Jack and Marjorie might elect to follow. I took it
for granted that Jack and Marjorie would marry, but I was very vague in
my idea as to when this would happen.
"I don't think we shall have to wait on Jack and Marjorie," Jean
remarked, knowingly. "I rather think they have been waiting on us."
"Then they need wait no longer," I said, boldly. "I am ready at once;
now."
"We might make it by Christmas," Jean remarked, more thoughtfully. "We
can't afford any special wedding clothes but we can at least afford a
few weeks' anticipation."
"Then Christmas be it!" I exclaimed. "Oh, Merry Christmas!"
I was so stirred with a strange new joy that all the future looked rosy
and inviting. But suddenly I felt Jean's arm tighten on my neck and I
looked up in her face just in time to catch the splash of a warm tear on
my cheek. I was immediately filled with wonder and misgiving. What could
make Jean cry, in a moment of such happiness? I pressed the question.
"I'm not sorry," she said at length, "but I'm a little--frightened. Not
for you; for myself. Oh, my dear Frank, my dear boy--will you
always--will we always--love each other as we do to-night?"
Man-like, I assured her that of course we would. She rested her head
against mine, and for awhile she seemed to nestle at peace in the soft
luxury of our love. But presently a shiver ran through her frame, and,
drawing back a little, she looked me fairly in the eyes.
"You know, Frank," she murmured, "it seems strange to say it, but I am
so glad to get this settled."
"Not gladder than I, little one," said I, shaping my lips to endearments
with the awkwardness of my racial reticence. "You couldn't be gladder
than I am."
"I have wanted so long," she continued, almost disregarding my
interruption, "to get it settled--to be sure of myself--to know just
what is going to happen."
"To be sure of yourself? How sure of yourself?"
She dropped into a moment's silence, as though studying her words before
attempting an answer. "You won't misunderstand, I think, Frank," she
said at length, "if I tell you that I have been somewhat like a
traveller on the prairie who comes upon two roads, and is not quite sure
which he should take. Let us say a storm is sweeping down from the
North, and his very life depends on the right decision. But the longer
he stands there, looking at them, the harder it is to make the choice.
It's a comfort to choose, and be on one's way."
"But suppose he chooses the wrong way?" I blundered out, only half
following her meaning.
"Oh, Frank!" she cried seizing my shoulders in her strong, supple hands.
"It mustn't, mustn't, _mustn't_ be the wrong way! I won't have it the
wrong way--I won't think of _that_ as possible! See, here we are. And we
have known, always, since we were little children, that we were for each
other, haven't we, Frank? It has always been settled, in Heaven, don't
you think, and we have just confirmed it? Oh, I know it has--I know it
has!"
"I have never doubted it," I said. And even as I uttered the words the
first little poisoned arrow of doubt in some way dodged through my
armor and stung me in the heart. Perhaps it was the reaction to Jean's
vehemence; perhaps it was that I saw her striving over-hard to convince
herself. And from being over-sure I now craved to be assured.
"You are quite sure?" I ventured, after another silence in which I felt
that subtle poison slowly chilling through my veins. "You are quite sure
you should not have taken the road to section Two?"
"Oh, Frank!" For a moment she buried her face in my shoulder, then she
lifted her head proudly, like one who goes forth resolutely to try his
spirit in some great issue. "Yes, I'm sure! Spoof is to me only a
neighbour, an acquaintance, always. I am quite sure."
"And there was no third trail, no little-beaten third path, that might
have been the one to be chosen?" I persisted, anxious to stifle my demon
of doubt at its birth.
"You are thinking of Brook," she caught me up instantly. "Let that give
you no uneasiness. Brook was only an incident--a rather pleasant
incident," she added, and for the first time I realized how
exquisitely tantalizing Jean could be, "but an incident after all.
Let's not talk about it, or think about it, any more, at all. Everything
is settled."
So, by force of will, we turned our minds into happy, unquestioning
channels, and talked of the future, our future--and built fairy
dream-castles that were most wonderful things to dream about. From time
to time Jean arose from my knee to throw fresh wood on the fire, but she
needed no coaxing to return. Some strange phenomenon had already
occurred between us, and Jean, with all her gentleness and beauty and
delicacy, no longer walled herself about with quite the same barrier of
shyness as had been her custom. But her soul, I knew, was as pure as the
snow sifting across the white prairies outside.
At last we had to come back to earth. "It's growing colder," said Jean,
as she again replenished the fire. Then, glancing at the little clock on
the shelf, "Why, it's after midnight! Jack is late."
"Are you uneasy for him?"
"No--why should I? Jack is all right. And I have you. But I thought he
would have been back before this. . . . Listen!"
We strained our ears, and presently became aware that what had seemed to
be the silence of the night was really full of noises. The wind whined
with an eerie note about the eaves of the little shack, and the tremor
of its pressure ran through the board walls and wrung mournful creakings
from the slender framework of the building. Above all came a sound of
rushing, as though the night itself swept by, drumming on the tin
chimney-piece as it went. The incessant lash of snow against the black
panes of the windows gave further notice of the rising storm.
"Perhaps I had better go home," I said at length. "Jack is doubtless
waiting there until I turn up."
"You have the same privilege to wait here until he turns up," Jean
commented. "Still, I suppose it's the right thing to do."
So, reluctantly enough, I got into my pea-jacket, cap, and over-shoes,
and with Jean's good-night kiss on my lips, and a promise to come again
very soon, I opened the door. The moment I did so the suction of the
storm put out the light, and the next instant a flail of icy snow
particles lashed through the room. I pressed the door shut again while
Jean found matches.
"Such a night!" she exclaimed. "Is it quite safe to try it?"
"Of course! It's not a hundred yards, and I could make it with my eyes
shut."
So, with another farewell (for good measure) I started again, Jean
shading the lamp while I rushed through the door and closed it behind
me. My first sensation was of having been clutched by the neck; of being
strangled in a grip which I could not throw off. In a few moments the
worst of that sensation passed, and my lungs began pumping violently,
working against the partial vacuum created by the storm. It was not very
cold, but the snow stung the face where it struck; it clung in the
eyebrows, melted, and ran into the eyes, blurring such poor vision as
there was in the gaunt greyness that buffeted from every side.
I looked for the light of the shack on Fourteen, but it was nowhere to
be seen; evidently its faint rays could not beat their way through the
hundred yards of swirling tempest that intervened. So, taking careful
note of my directions, I started out, my head bowed to save my face from
the lashing of the storm; my legs wallowing uncertainly through the
varying depths of drifts.
At length I knew I had come to the edge of the gully; although I could
see nothing I was aware that I was going sharply down a steep slope.
Here at points the snow was already piled in great drifts and I plunged
through it waist deep, only to come suddenly upon a bare, icy spot where
I lost my balance and fell. I was now at the bottom of the coulee, and
the ascent proved even more difficult than coming down. I had to plow
through deep drifts and scramble up icy ledges, and I could only suppose
that I had reached the top by the greater violence of the storm. Nothing
was to be seen but a grey mist; my eyes were almost completely closed
with snow and ice. I was not cold; indeed, I was warm, but I began to
realize that my exertions and the strangling sensation I felt in
breathing were quickly exhausting me. However, there could not be much
farther to go, and I pressed on.
It is wonderful how little sense of distance the average man has when
deprived of the service of his eyes. He may walk a road every day in the
year and yet have but a faint idea of the number of paces it represents.
He probably could not tell you how many steps there are in the stairs of
his house. As to direction he is even more hopelessly at sea, and when,
in addition to these difficulties, he is plunging waist-deep through
snow drifts and buffeted by a fifty-mile gale he is in imminent danger
of becoming hopelessly lost. Just how near to that state I had come I
began to realize, and it was with more relief than I would have cared to
admit that I at length discerned a faint glow of yellow light battling
against the storm and throwing fantastic spectres into the night. I was
soon at the shack, and, groping my way along the wall, I reached the
door and burst in.
Jean was sitting by the stove, her wonderful hair down about her back
and neck, her face resting in her hands, her feet on the rail of the
stove and her dainty ankles peeping out from under her woolen skirt. But
for the moment my appreciation of her charms was buried in amazement.
"Jean! What are you doing here?"
"Frank! You've come back! What is the matter?"
I threw off my mitts and rubbed the snow from my eyes while Jean took my
cap and shook it and then stood by, eagerness and apprehension in her
face. Then, when I was quite sure I was not in a dream or a mirage, "I
guess I'm back on Twenty-two, am I?" I said, as one who, suddenly
awakened from sleep, finds it impossible to recall his surroundings.
"You're on Twenty-two all right, but why did you come back? Not that I'm
not glad to see you--you know I am, Frank, dear, always--but, why did
you come back?"
"I guess it's because my time hasn't come," I answered, soberly. "I've
heard of getting turned around in a storm, but I didn't know it could
happen so easily. I suppose it was when I fell at the bottom of the
gully."
"Well, you're here, and we're not going to take any more chances," said
Jean, slipping her arms about my neck when I had told her. "We're going
to have a little supper, and if Jack doesn't come you will stay until he
does."
Jean hustled about and my eyes followed every graceful movement as she
prepared hot tea and made toast at the fire, and found a jar of
preserves that she had cached away for some special occasion. And when
we had finished our betrothal banquet she gave me a lamp and sent me
into Jack's room. And after a little her limpid voice called to me a
last good-night, and through the open doorway of my partition--we could
not afford unnecessary doors in those days--I saw her slender hand
tossing me a caress. And then her light went out, and I lay under Jack's
warm blankets listening to the roar of the storm and hoping Jack was
quite all right, and marvelling at the amount of happiness one human
heart can hold. My doubts were gone; my faith was again the faith of a
little child. And my mind wandered back into the past and picked up
again those tender days of childhood when Jean and I played together
beside the dam, and the sober mill-wheel across the stream flung its
myriads of diamonds in the air. And Jean had saved me in those days,
and I was to be hers--hers, and she mine, forever!