AVALANCHE
Huntington soon had his revenge on Marion, though, in his blindness,
he never knew it. She and Claire, after an unusually protracted Small
Talk the night before, arose late one morning to find the house
topsy-turvy from masculine activity. On the veranda they discovered
Seth cleaning rifles, surrounded by cartridge boxes, hunting knives,
canvas bags and wrappings, rubber coats, leather straps, fishing
tackle and what not.
"In the name of goodness, Seth Huntington! What are you doing?"
shrilled Claire.
"Guess!" replied Huntington, with a rather heavy attempt at
tantalizing.
"Oh, I know! Camping. But you don't mean to-day?"
"Sure!"
"But why didn't you ask us?" demanded Claire. "Maybe we don't
choose--"
"But you do, though. I promised Marion that as soon as I--"
He stopped, for even his habitually veiled eyes could not miss the
look of consternation on Marion's face.
"Why--I thought--" he began uncertainly. "Of course, if you don't want
to go--"
The oiled rag dropped from his hand. His descent from elation (he had
planned a little surprise) to dejection and chagrin was a tumble that
touched Marion's commiseration and disarmed her. She did not want to
go camping; she did not want to leave the Park for even a day, an
hour; she did not want to miss any opportunity to see Haig. More than
ever now was she determined to solve his mystery. So Huntingdon's
"surprise" was a greater shock to her than he, simple man, could
possibly have foreseen or perceived. But even if she had not been
moved by his rather ludicrous disappointment she would not have dared
to refuse acquiescence in his programme. She had indeed expressed an
ardent--oh, too ardent!--desire to go camping, and any explanation she
could think of on the instant would have led her into regions where
she could not trust herself.
"Indeed, I want to go!" she cried quickly, though there was a big lump
in her throat. "You took me by surprise, that's all."
"I should say so!" said Claire. "Think you're smart, don't you? We
might have been all dressed for it if you'd only told us. When do we
start, Big Boss?"
Huntington recovered his good spirits quickly, assured that he had
succeeded after all.
"I thought we'd ride to Ely's to-day, sleep there to-night, and make
Mount Avalanche to-morrow evening."
"Then we must hurry," said Claire. "Come, Marion."
"How long--shall we be gone?" asked Marion, struggling to appear
enthusiastic.
"Four or five days, I suppose."
Her heart sank. She could have cried with vexation. But she managed to
conceal her real feelings in the bustle of preparation. There were
provisions to be packed: cans and jars and bottles; bacon and ham and
flour against the possible event of bad luck with the guns and rods;
warm clothes and bedding; medicines and bandages. So fully occupied
were her hands and brain with these details, and later with her first
real experience with the mountain trails, that her heart must perforce
keep its peace until some hour of solitude.
Toward five o'clock of the second day they reached their destination,--a
grassy shelf a little below timber line on Mount Avalanche. There, in
some past age, an avalanche of titanic proportions had carried away
part of the mountain itself; and they camped now on the top of the
debris, long since concealed by a dense forest growth, as if nature had
employed her utmost arts to hide the wound. Marion could not but yield a
little to emotions of delight and wonder. On that high platform she
stood above a marvelous mountain world, below another mountain world as
marvelous. Behind her Avalanche reared sheer and sharp and white
against the sky. On either side were snow-clad peaks. At her feet
were forests in solid masses of green, now darkening in the
twilight. And beyond, far, far beyond, the Park they had left lay
bright under the sun's after-glow, with a background of range on range
of mountains in their violet haze. On the shelf was forage for the
horses; near at hand were moss and balsam for their beds; and at a
little distance a rivulet, ice-cold, had shady pools where small
trout awaited capture. And the air was like dry wine on the lips, with
a tang of resin in the nostrils; and the woods sang a song that even
Marion could not resist.
Here they pitched two tents just large enough to cover the beds of
balsam boughs and moss and blankets. In the three days they passed in
camp Marion learned many things that were to be of incalculable value
to her one day, though she never could have guessed that all this too,
like the encounter in the Forbidden Pasture, had been ordered in the
Beginning, details in the Scheme of Things. She learned surprising
secrets of makeshift cookery; she learned the Indian's lesson of a
very little fire; she learned the mountaineer's economy of matches and
like precious articles. She fished in the small pools that lay hidden
away in dark recesses of the forest, practised shooting with her
rifle, and on the third day, in the timber below the camp, with Seth
at her side, brought down her first deer.
"I told you!" cried Huntington, delighted at the progress of his
pupil.
But her heart was not in all this; it was clamoring now to be heard,
and would by no means be stilled. Each evening Marion walked apart
from the others, to stand at the edge of the lofty platform, and watch
her green and violet Elysium swallowed up in night. Each morning she
searched for it through her field glasses to assure herself that it
had not vanished in the dark. And when the last day of their outing
came, the last evening, the last night, she could scarce contain her
impatience. To-morrow they would start; and the day after--
She could not sleep that night. Every twig and every needle of her
pine mattress seemed to have conspired to torture her. She tossed
about until she could no longer endure her bed; and in the middle of
the night she crept out of the tent, and sat, wrapped in a blanket,
before the smouldering embers of the fire. The hobbled horses grazed
not far away; a night bird twitted solitarily in the brush; and from
the depths of the forest came the scream of some savage creature out
on its kill. Against the star-crowded sky the peaks stood up cold and
impassive. What cared they? What did the world care? What did Philip
care?
For now she knew that she loved him. Yes, yes, she loved him! In her
heart she had known it from the beginning, since that meeting in the
Forbidden Pasture, had known it as one knows things without
acknowledgment. Her mind had acknowledged only the hundred reasons why
she should not, could not love him. He had repelled her; he had not
veiled his meaning, had not concealed his antagonism; he had told her
plainly, brutally almost, that he would not endure her presence, that
she must avoid his side of the Park.
Then she thought of Robert,--Robert, so devoted and so true. What was
she doing: throwing away his love that was so unselfishly, so
whole-heartedly laid at her feet? Had she been mad to flee from him?
Yes, mad! Pride rose to support the fondness and the admiration she
had felt for him. And so there ensued a struggle between the two fine
spirits that dwelt in her,--the proud little lady of the Fragonard and
the Viking with red hair.
The Viking won. Had not her father said to her, in those long talks
about her mother, that love is the only thing? And back she came, on
swiftest wings of passion, to Philip; and she was glad. She knew now
the meaning of her restlessness in the dark days in the unheeding
city; she knew whose voice had called, whose arms had held her, though
he was unaware. He needed her, though he did not know it. And she had
come to him, without understanding. Somewhere she had read a fugitive
bit of verse that had meant nothing then, and had been forgotten until
now, when it suddenly sang across the years and the spaces like a call
to courage:
"The wild wind bloweth
The cross of fire.
The wild heart knoweth
Its own desire."
The wild heart knoweth its own desire! She rose to her feet with a
singing and a resurrection of her heart. She scarcely knew that her
limbs were stiff and that her body ached with cold. Her spirit was
aroused. She could not go and take Philip as her father had taken the
one he loved. But there were ways; when had a woman ever failed, in
love, of finding them? She set herself to thinking, planning,
scheming, while she walked swiftly to and fro before the tents. And
presently she stopped her pacing, and looked curiously around her.
There had come a subtle alteration in the aspect of the night. A
shivering freshness had crept insensibly into the air. Leaves and
grass and the very air appeared to be astir, though the silence and
the darkness were as before. She looked up eagerly at the sky, and saw
that the stars were pale. It was not yet the dawn; it was only the
passing of the night. But the dawn was near. The dawn! The dawn!
She did not wish Seth to find her there. He would ask questions,
staring at her. She crept stealthily back into her tent, and lay
there, shaking with cold, to wait for the noise that Huntington would
make as he sought for live embers in the ashes of the fire.
* * * * *
Once out of the mountains and in the foothills, she rode far ahead of
Seth and Claire, impatient at the slow progress necessitated by the
difficulties of the pack horses. Late in the afternoon she found
herself at a fork of the road with which she was familiar. A little
way up the less-used of the two branches there was a glade where
columbines grew in extraordinary profusion. She had gathered armloads
of them there, and seemed scarcely to have touched the edge of that
wild garden where nature had been seized with a prodigal impulse. And
now, rather to be doing something than to await in irritation for Seth
and Claire, she turned her pony's head and rode toward the glade. In
five minutes she was fording a little stream, beyond which the road
rose slightly to cross the shoulder of a hill, and dipped again to run
in a sharp curve along the margin of the glade. She took the rise at a
gallop, sped down the other slope, and at the curve of the road reined
up her horse with a startled cry. She had come suddenly upon a team
hitched at the side of the road,--the sorrels and the trap in which
Philip Haig had driven her to Huntington's that terrible evening.
For a moment she was bereft of thought and feeling. At that very
instant she had been thinking of him; what instant was she not
thinking of him? But the utterly unexpected encounter--for he was
there somewhere, in the glade, no doubt--swept away all that courage
she had found on Avalanche. She felt suddenly helpless, inert,
afraid; and before she could regain her self-possession, call back her
high resolve, the bushes at the roadside parted, and Philip stood
before her. He bore a great bouquet of columbines, their stems wrapped
in damp moss and leaves and tied securely with a string. At sight of
her he halted; and that look of annoyance she had seen him wear in the
road below his ranch house came again into his pale face. For some
seconds they regarded each other in silence.
"True," he said at length, with a smile that tortured her, "this is
not my side of the Ridge. I am the trespasser, even though this is
public domain. You have as much right here as I--more, since I said
the Ridge was the dividing line. So--"
He stepped quickly to her horse's side, pressed the great bunch of
pale-blue flowers into her limp but obedient hands, lifted his
battered hat, turned on his heel, walked directly to the trap, leaped
into the seat, and drove swiftly away. She watched him dully until he
was out of sight behind a bend in the road, among the trees; watched
the spot where he had disappeared until it became a blur to her aching
eyes. Then she looked slowly down at the flowers in her hands.
Columbines! Frail, lovely things, the fairest product, she had
thought, of nature's laboratory, reflecting the infinite, ineffable
blue of God's skies, delicate as the flower that had bloomed with such
wonderful, unexpected beauty in her own heart! How she could have
treasured them, wept over them, hugged them to her breast, if he had
given them to her in another way. Slowly her fingers relaxed. The
flowers fell into the dust of the road. She stared down, at them a
moment; and then, with a cry, leaped from her horse, picked them up
eagerly, clasped them to her breast, buried her face in them, and
watered them with her tears.
* * * * *
Seth said he guessed he would ride down to the post-office before
supper; yesterday was mail day; might be something. Marion was glad of
his departure, and to avoid Claire was not difficult, considering what
baths, and changing of linen, and brushing of hair they required after
their outing. Refreshed and rested, they had scarcely met before the
new-lighted fire at twilight when Seth returned, stamping vigorously
into the room.
"You're the lucky one, Marion," he said.
He fumbled in his pockets, and finally produced a letter. She took it,
glanced at it, and let it fall into her lap. A great stillness seemed
to have come upon the world. She appeared to be looking at Seth and
Claire across great distances. She could hear her heart pounding in
her bosom, like something that hammered for freedom. Ages seemed to
have passed before she was able to rise slowly, to smile, to beg to be
excused a moment. In her room she stood quite still, mechanically tore
open the envelope, and read:
Dear Marion: You told me not to write, and I have obeyed till now.
Don't scold, please! You see I am in Denver. It's business.
Honest! A mining deal, just for a flyer. It may mean millions or
nothing. I am here for several days, possibly weeks. Won't you
_please_ let me run up to see you? Don't say no, Marion. I promise
to be good. I have an auto here, and they tell me the roads are
O. K. at this season. I'll come away the minute you tell me to. If
I can see you only for an hour it will make me very happy.
Yours always,
Robert.
She read it twice, while the color slowly returned to her cheeks. Then
the letter faded from her sight, and she saw a face that wore a cruel
smile, and heard a voice that bade her begone. And suddenly a wave of
resentment, of anger, swept over her. To have been scorned, flouted,
humiliated by one to whom--And here was a man who wanted her as he
wanted nothing else in the world, who would toil for her, die for her,
who would treasure every word and smile she should consent to give
him, whose one desire was to make her happy. What madness had come
over her that she--she the Viking's daughter--Her eyes were drawn, she
knew not how, to the columbines that she had carefully, tenderly
arranged in a bowl on her dressing table. In a passion she rushed upon
them, snatched them up dripping, bore them to the open window, and
flung them with all her strength out upon the lawn. A moment she stood
looking at them, her hands clutched upon her heaving breast, her whole
body quivering with the storm that raged within her. Then she whirled
around, flung herself down at her little writing table, and wrote:
Dear Robert: Yes, come. MARION.
Her hand trembled now so that she could scarcely address the envelope,
and seal it. But it was done at last. She rose, and paused a moment to
collect herself. Her mouth was dry, her forehead was hot under the
hand that she pressed upon it. Nervously she poured a glass of water
from the crystal pitcher that stood on a little table by the window,
and gulped it down. Her eyes, as she did so, fell again upon the
bouquet of columbines lying forlorn, their tender faces half buried in
the dry grass. A cry rose to her lips, but she forced it back, and
with a tightening of her lips, turned and went rapidly out into the
room where Seth and Claire awaited her.
"What do you think?" she cried, in a voice that sounded strangely
shrill and unmusical in her ears. "It's from Robert--Robert
Hillyer--Papa's good friend--and mine. He wants to come up and see
me--he's in Denver--on business. He wants to come up--he says--just
for a day or two--do you mind--if I ask him?"
"Of course, dear!" cried Claire, with enthusiasm.
"Sure!" seconded Seth. "Tell him he's very welcome."
"I knew you'd say that!" said Marion excitedly. "So--the letter--it's
all ready. Can it go out--the stage goes to-morrow, doesn't it?"
"Yes," replied Huntington. "I'll take it down in the morning--before
you're up."
"Please!"
She stood a moment, smiling at them. Then her eyes wandered aimlessly
around the room. She must do something quick, or she would go to
pieces. She saw the piano, and fairly ran to it. Crash! went the
chords. Rippling and tumbling on one another came the notes under her
nervous fingers. Out of the jumble of unrelated sounds presently
emerged a gay and sparkling melody; and then a gayer one; and after
that a rollicking song from one of the latest musical comedies. There
followed two of the sauciest, most irresponsible tunes that ever made
a vaudeville success. She played with abandon, a kind of reckless
fury, sitting erect, with her head flung back, an insouciant smile
flickering about her lips, her lithe body swaying with the music. Then
suddenly, in the midst of a tune, she stopped, arose, faced Seth and
Claire with flaming cheeks and eyes unnaturally bright.
"Great, Marion!" cried Seth, slapping his thigh. "Go on, please!"
But Claire had seen what Huntington had not. She turned to him
swiftly, with a quick command, as if she had suddenly remembered
something.
"I've clean forgot that pie, Seth. Go to the cave and bring me some
apples. Quick, now!"
He sensed something a little queer in that order, which would have
been very natural and pleasing at any other time, but he did not stop
to question. Claire waited until the door had closed behind him, then
ran to Marion, with anxiety pictured in her face.
"What is it, Marion?" she exclaimed.
"Oh, Claire, Claire!" cried Marion, breaking. "I'm so--so--unhappy!"
Then she flung herself into Claire's arms, weeping without restraint.