peaceful afternoon, surrounded by the inanimate life that to her brought
the fullness of companionship and left no room for vain cravings; the
shadow creeping upward over her hands folded in her lap, the light resting
on her girlish face and meek, smooth hair. For this was during that
unquestioning time of content which may not always last, even in a life as
safe and as easily predicted as hers. But even now this silent communion
was interrupted by the appearance of one of Tommy's rivals. It was the
young man whose comrades called him Kirk, who came along the shore,
stooping under the willow boughs and scattering all their shadows lightly
traced on the stones below. He held his fishing-rod, couched like a lance,
in one hand, and a string of gleaming fish in the other.
Tommy, with practiced eye, rapidly counted them and saw with chagrin that
he was outnumbered, but another look satisfied him that the stranger's
catch was nearly all “white-fish” instead of trout. He caressed his own
dappled beauties complacently.
Kirkwood stopped and looked at them; he was evidently impressed by Tommy's
superior luck.
“Those are big fellows,” he said; “did you catch them?”
“You don't suppose _she_ did?” said Tommy, with a jerk of his head towards
Ruth Mary.
Kirkwood looked up and smiled, seeing the young girl on her sunny perch.
The smile lingered pleasantly in his eyes as he seated himself on the
stones,--deliberately, as if he meant to stay.
Tommy watched him while he made himself comfortable, taking from his
pocket a short briar-wood pipe and a bag of tobacco, leisurely filling
the pipe and lighting it with a wax match held in the hollow of his
hands--apparently from habit, for there was no wind. He did not seem to
mind in the least that his legs were wet and that his trout were nearly
all white-fish. He was evidently a person of happy resources, and a
joy-compelling temperament that could find virtue in white-fish if it
couldn't get trout. He began to talk to Tommy, not without an amused
consciousness of Tommy's silent partner on the bank above, nor without an
occasional glance up at the maidenly head serenely exalted in the sunlight.
Nor did Ruth Mary fail to respond, with her down-bent looks, as simply and
unawares as the clouds turning their bright side to the sun.
Tommy, on his part, was stoutly withholding, in words, the admiration
his eyes could not help showing, of the strange fisherman's tools. He
cautiously felt the weight of the ringed and polished rod, and snapped it
lightly over the water; he was permitted to examine the book of flies and
to handle the reel, things in themselves fascinating, but to Tommy's mind
merely a hindrance and a snare to the understanding in the real business of
catching fish. Still, he admitted, where a man could take a whole day all
to himself like that, without fear of being called off at any moment by the
women on some frivolous household errand, he might afford to potter with
such things. Tommy kept the conservative attitude of native experience and
skill towards foreign innovation.
“If Joe Enselman was here,” he said, “I bet he could ketch more fish in
half 'n hour, with a pole like this o' mine and a han'ful o' 'hoppers, than
any of you can in a whole week o' fishing with them fancy things.”
“Oh, Tommy!” Ruth Mary expostulated, looking distressed.
“Who is this famous fisherman?” Kirkwood asked, smiling at Tommy's boast.
“Oh, he's a feller I know. He's a packer, and he owns ha'f o' father's
stock. He's goin' to marry our Sis soon's he gits back from Sheep Mountain,
and then he'll be my brother.” Tommy had been a little reckless in his
desire for the distinction of a personal claim on the hero of his boyish
heart. He was even conscious of this himself, as he glanced up at his
sister.
Kirkwood's eyes involuntarily followed Tommy's. He withdrew them at once,
but not before he saw the troubled blush that reddened the girl's averted
face. It struck him, though he was not deeply versed in blushes, that it
was not quite the expression of happy, maidenly consciousness, when the
name of a lover is unexpectedly spoken.
It was the first time in her life that Ruth Mary had ever blushed at the
name of Joe Enselman. She could not understand why it should pain her to
have this young stranger hear of him in his relation to herself.
Before her blush had faded, Kirkwood had dismissed the subject of Ruth
Mary's engagement, with the careless reflection that Enselman was probably
not the right man, but that the primitive laws which decide such haphazard
unions doubtless provided the necessary hardihood of temperament wherewith
to meet their exigencies. She was a nice little girl, but possibly she was
not so sensitive as she looked.
His pipe had gone out, and after relighting it, he showed Tommy the gayly
pictured paper match-box from Havana, which opened with a spring, and
disclosed the matches lying in a little drawer within. Tommy's wistful
eyes, as he returned the box, prompted Kirkwood to make prudent search in
his pockets for a second box of matches before presenting Tommy with the
one his eyes coveted. Finding himself secure against want in the immediate
future, he gave himself up to the mild amusement of watching Tommy with his
new acquisition.
Tommy could not resist lighting one of the little tapers, which burned in
the sunlight with a still, clear flame like a fairy candle. Then a second
one was sacrificed. By this time the attraction had proved strong enough
to bring Ruth Mary down from her high seat in the sun. She looked scarcely
less a child than Tommy, as, with her face close to his, she watched the
pale flame flower wasting its waxen stem. Then she must needs light one
herself and hold it, with a little fixed smile on her face, till the flame
crept down and warmed her finger-tips.
“There,” she said, putting it out with a breath, “don't let us burn any
more. It's too bad to waste 'em in the daylight.”
“We will burn one more,” said Kirkwood, “not for amusement, but for
information.” And while he whittled a piece of driftwood into the shape of
a boat, he told Ruth Mary how the Hindoo maidens set their lighted lamps
afloat at night on the Ganges, and watch them perilously voyaging, to
learn, by the fate of the traveling flame, the safety of their absent
lovers.
He told it simply and gravely, as he might have described some fact in
natural history, for he rightly guessed that this little seed of sentiment
fell on virgin soil. According to Tommy, Ruth Mary was betrothed and soon
to be a wife, but Kirkwood was curiously sure that as yet she knew not
love, nor even fancy. Nor had he any deliberate intention of tampering with
her inexperience. He spoke of the lamps on the Ganges because they came
into his mind while Ruth Mary was bending over the wasting match flame;
any hesitation he might have had about introducing so delicate a topic was
conquered by an idle fancy that he would like to observe its effect upon
her almost pathetic innocence.
While he talked, interrupting himself as his whittling absorbed him, but
always conscious of her eyes upon his face, the boat took shape in his
hands. Tommy had failed to catch the connection between Hindoo girls and
boat-making, but was satisfied with watching Kirkwood's skillful fingers,
without paying much heed to his words. The stranger had, too, a wonderful
knife, with tools concealed in its handle, with one of which he bored a
hole for the mast. In the top of the mast he fixed a wax taper upright and
steady for the voyage.
Ruth Mary's cheeks grew red, as she suddenly perceived the intention of
Kirkwood's whittling.
“Now,” he said, steadying the boat on the shallow ripple, “before we light
our beacon you must think of some one you care for, who is away. Perhaps
Tommy's friend, on Sheep Mountain?” he ventured softly, glancing at Ruth
Mary.
The color in her cheeks deepened, and again Kirkwood fancied it was not a
happy confusion that covered her downcast face.
“No?” he questioned, as Ruth Mary did not speak; “that is too serious,
perhaps. Well, then, make a little wish, and if the light is still alive
when the boat passes that rock--the flat one with two stones on top--the
wish will come true. But you must have faith, you know.”
Ruth Mary looked at Kirkwood, the picture of faith in her sweet
seriousness. His heart smote him a little, but he met her wide-eyed gaze
with a gravity equal to her own.
“I would rather not wish for myself,” she said, “but I will wish something
for you, if you want me to.”
“That is very kind of you. Am I to know what it is to be?”
“Oh yes. You must tell me what to wish.”
“That is easily done,” said Kirkwood gayly. “Wish that I may come back some
other day, and sit here with you and Tommy by the river.”
It was impossible not to see that Ruth Mary was blushing again. But she
answered him with a gentle courtesy that rebuked the foolish blush: “That
will be wishing for us all.”
“Shall we light up then, and set her afloat?”
“I've made a wish,” shouted Tommy; “I've wished Joe Enselman would bring me
an Injun pony: a good one that won't buck!”
“You must keep your wish for the next trip. This ship is freighted deep
enough already. Off she goes then, and good luck to the wish,” said
Kirkwood, as the current took the boat, with the light at its peak burning
clearly, and swept it away. The pretty plaything dipped and danced a
moment, while the light wavered but still lived. Then a breath of wind
shook the willows, and the light was gone.
“Now it's my turn,” Tommy exclaimed, wasting no sentiment on another's
failure. He rushed down the bank and into the shallow water to catch the
wishing-boat before it drifted away.
“All the same I'm coming back again,” said Kirkwood, looking at Ruth Mary.
Tommy's wish fared no better than his sister's, but he bore up briskly,
declaring it was “all foolishness anyway,” and accused Kirkwood of having
“just made it up for fun.”
Kirkwood only laughed, and, ignoring Tommy, said to Ruth Mary, “The game
was hardly worth the candle, was it?”
“Was it a game?” she asked. “I thought you meant it for true.”
“Oh no,” he said; “when we try it in earnest we must find a smoother river
and a stronger light. Besides, you know, I'm coming back.”
Ruth Mary kept her eyes upon his face, still questioning his seriousness,
but its quick changes of expression baffled while fascinating her. She
could not have told whether she thought him handsome or not, but she had a
desire to look at him all the time.
Suddenly her household duties recurred to her, and, refusing the help of
Kirkwood's hand, she sprang up the bank and hurried back to the house.
Kirkwood could see her head above the wild-rose thickets as she went along
the high path by the shore. He was more sure than ever that Enselman was
not the right man.
At supper Ruth Mary waited on the strangers in silence, while Angy kept the
cats and dogs “corraled,” as her father called it, in the shed, that their
impetuous appetites might not disturb the feast.
Mr. Tully stood in the doorway and talked with his guests while they ate,
and Mrs. Tully, with the little two-year-old in her lap, rocked in the
large rocking-chair and sighed apologetically between her promptings of
Ruth Mary's attendance on the table.
Tommy hung about in a state of complete infatuation with the person and
conversation of his former rival. He was even beginning to waver in his
allegiance to his absent hero, especially as the wish about the Indian pony
had not come true.
During the family meal the young men sat outside in the shed-room, and
smoked and lazily talked together. Their words reached the silent group at
the table. Kirkwood's companions were deriding him as a recreant sportsman.
He puffed his short-stemmed pipe and looked at them tranquilly. He was not
dissatisfied with his share of the day's pleasure.
When Mr. Tully had finished his supper, he took the young men down to the
beach to look at his boat. Kirkwood had pointed it out to his comrades,
where it lay moored under the bank, and ventured the opinion of a boating
man that it had not been built in the mountains. But there he had
generalized too rashly.
“I built her myself,” said Mr. Tully; “rip-sawed the lumber up here. My
young ones are as handy with her!” he boasted cheerfully, warmed by the
admiration his work called forth. “You'd never believe, to see 'em knocking
about in her, they hadn't the first one of 'em ever smelt salt water. Ruth
Mary now, the oldest of 'em, is as much to home in that boat as she is on
a hoss--and that's sayin' enough. She looks quiet, but she's got as firm a
seat and as light a hand as any cow-boy that ever put leg over a cayuse.”
Mr. Tully, on being questioned, admitted willingly that he was an Eastern
man,--a Down-East lumberman and boat-builder. He couldn't say just why he'd
come West. Got restless, and his wife's health was always poor back there.
He had mined it some and had had considerable luck,--cleaned up several
thousands, the summer of '63, at Junction Bar. Put it in a sawmill and
got burned out. Then he took up this cattle range and went into stock, in
partnership with a young fellow from Montana, named Enselman. They expected
to make a good thing of it, but it was a long ways from anywheres; and for
months of the year they couldn't do any teaming. Had no way out except by
the horseback trail. The women found it lonesome. In winter no team could
get up that grade in the cañon they call the “freeze-out,” even if they
could cross the river, on account of the ice; and from April to August the
river was up so you couldn't ford.
All this in the intervals of business, for Mr. Tully, in his circuitous
way, was agreeing to build a boat for the engineers, after the model of his
own. He would have to go down to the camp at Moor's Bridge to build it, he
said, for suitable lumber could not be procured so far up the river, except
at great expense. It would take him better'n a month, anyhow, and he didn't
know what his women-folks would say to having him so long away. He would
see about it.
The four men sauntered up the path from the shore, Tommy bringing up the
rear with the little black-and-tan terrier. In default of a word from his
master, Tommy tried to make friends with the dog, but the latter, wide
awake and suspicious after dozing under the wagon all the afternoon, would
none of him. Possibly he divined that Tommy's attentions were not wholly
disinterested.
The family assembled for the evening in the shed-room. The women were
silent, for the talk was confined to masculine topics, such as the quality
of the placer claims up the river, the timber, the hunting, the progress
and prospects of the new railroad. Tommy, keeping himself forcibly awake,
was seeing two Kirkwoods where there was but one. The terrier had taken
shelter between Kirkwood's knees, after trying conclusions with the mother
of the kittens,--a cat of large experience and a reserved disposition, with
only one ear, but in full possession of her faculties.
Betimes the young men arose and said good-night. Mr. Tully was loath to
have the evening, with its rare opportunity for conversation, brought to a
close, but he was too modest a host to press his company upon his guests.
He went with them to their bed, on the clean straw in the barn, and if good
wishes could soften pillows the travelers would have slept sumptuously.
They did not know, in fact, how they slept, but woke, strong and joyous
over the beauty of the morning on the hills, and the prospect of continuing
their journey.
They parted from the family at the ranch with a light-hearted promise to
stop again on their way down the river. When they would return they were
gayly uncertain,--it might be ten days, it might be two weeks. It was a
promise that nestled with delusive sweetness in Ruth Mary's thoughts, as
she went silently about her work. She was helpful in all ways, and very
gentle with the children, but she lingered more hours dreaming by the
river, and often at twilight she climbed the hill back of the cabin and sat
there alone, her cheek in the hollow of her hand, until the great planes
of distance were lost, and all the hills drew together in one dark profile
against the sky.
* * * * *
Mrs. Tully had been intending to spare Ruth Mary for a journey to town,
on some errands of a feminine nature which could not be intrusted to Mr.
Tully's larger but less discriminating judgment. Ruth Mary had never before
been known to trifle with an opportunity of this kind. Her rides to town
had been the one excitement of her life; looked forward to with eagerness
and discussed with tireless interest for many days afterwards. But now she
hung back with an unaccountable apathy, and made excuses for postponing the
ride from day to day, until the business became too pressing to be longer
neglected. She set off one morning at daybreak, following the horseback
trail, around the steep and sliding bluffs high above the river, or across
beds of broken lava rock,--arrested avalanches from the slowly crumbling
cliffs which crowned the bluff,--or picking her way at a soft-footed pace
through the thickets of the river bottoms. In such a low and sheltered
spot, scarcely four feet above the river, she found the engineers' camp,
a group of white tents shining among the willows. She keenly noted its
location and surroundings. The broken timbers of the old bridge projected
from the bank a short distance above the camp; a piece of weather-stained
canvas stretched over them formed a kind of awning shading the rocks below,
where the Chinese cook of the camp sat impassively fishing. The camp had a
deserted appearance, for the men were all at work, tunneling the hill half
a mile lower down. Her errands kept her so late that she was obliged to
stay over night at the house of a friend of her father's, who owned a fruit
ranch near the town. They were prosperous, talkative people, who loudly
pitied the isolation of the family in the upper valley.
Ruth Mary reached home about noon the next day, tired and several shades
more deeply sunburned, to find that she had passed the engineers, without
knowing it, on their way down the river by the wagon road on the other
side. They had stopped over night at the ranch and made an early start that
morning. Ruth Mary was obliged to listen to enthusiastic reminiscences,
from each member of the family, of the visit she had missed.
This was the last social event of the year. The willow copses turned
yellow and leaf-bare; the scarlet hips of the rosebushes looked as if tiny
finger-tips had left their prints upon them. The wreaths of wild clematis
faded ashen gray, and were scattered by the winds. The wood dove's cooing
no longer sounded at twilight in the leafless thickets. They had gone down
the river and the wild duck with them.
But the voice of the river, rising with the autumn rains, was loud on the
bar; the sky was hung with clouds that hid the hilltops or trailed their
ragged pennants below the summits. The mist lay cold on the river; it rose
with the sun, dissolving in soft haze that dulled the sunshine, and at
night, descending, shrouded the dark, hoarse water without stilling its
lament. Then the first snow fell, and ghostly companies of deer came out
upon the hills, or filed silently down the draws of the cañons at morning
and evening. The cattle had come down from the mountain pastures, and at
night congregated about the buildings with deep breathings and sighings;
the river murmured in its fretted channel; now and then the yelp of a
hungry coyote sounded from the hills.
The young men had said, among their light and pleasant sayings, that they
would like to come up again to the hills when the snow fell, and get a shot
at the deer; but they did not come, though often Ruth Mary stood on the
bank and looked across the swollen ford, and listened for the echo of
wheels among the hills.
About the 1st of November Mr. Tully went down to the camp at Moor's Bridge
to build the engineers' boat. The women were now alone at the ranch, but
Joe Enselman's return was daily expected. Mr. Tully, always cheerful, had
been confident that he would be home by the 5th.
The 5th of November and the 10th passed, but Enselman had not returned.
On the 12th, in the midst of a heavy fall of snow, his pack animals were
driven in by another man, a stranger to the women at the ranch, who said
that Enselman had changed his mind suddenly about coming home that fall,
and decided to go to Montana and “prove up” on his ranch there.
Mr. Tully's work was finished before the second week of December. On his
return to the ranch he brought with him a great brown paper bundle, which
the children opened by the cabin fire on the joyous evening of his arrival.
There were back numbers of the illustrated magazines and papers, stray
copies of which now and then had drifted into the hands of the voracious
young readers in the cabin. There were a few novels, selected by Kirkwood
from the camp library with especial reference to Ruth Mary. For Tommy there
was a duplicate of the wonderful pocket-knife that he had envied Kirkwood.
Angy was remembered with a little music-box, which played “Willie, we have
missed you” with a plaintive iteration that brought the sensitive tears
to Ruth Mary's eyes; and for Ruth Mary herself there was a lace pin of
hammered gold.
“He said it must be your wedding present from him, as you'd be married
likely before he saw you again,” Mr. Tully said, with innocent pride in the
gift with which his daughter had been honored.
“Who said that?” Ruth Mary asked.
“Why, Mr. Kirkwood said it. He's the boss one of the whole lot to my
thinkin'. He's got that way with him some folks has! We had some real good
talks, evenings, down on the rocks under the old bridge,--I told him about
you and Enselman”--
“Father, I wish you hadn't done that.” The protest in Ruth Mary's voice was
stronger than her words.
She had become slightly pale when Kirkwood's name was mentioned, but now,
as she held out the box with the trinket in it, a deep blush covered her
face.
“I cannot take it, father. Not with that message. He can wait till I am
married before he sends me his wedding present.”
To her father's amazement, she burst into tears and went out into the
shed-room, leaving Kirkwood's ill-timed gift in his hands.
“What in all conscience' sake's got into her?” he demanded of his wife, “to
take offense at a little thing like that! She didn't use to be so techy.”
Mrs. Tully nodded her head at him sagely and glanced at the children, a
hint that she understood Ruth Mary's state of mind, but could not explain
before them.
At bedtime, the father and mother being alone together, Mrs. Tully revealed
the cause of her daughter's sensitiveness, according to her theory of
it. “She's put out because Joe Enselman chose to wait till spring before
marryin', and went off to Montany instead of comin' home as he said he
would.”
“Sho, sho!” said Mr. Tully. “That don't seem like Ruth Mary. She ain't in
any such a hurry as all that comes to. I've had it on my mind lately that
she took it a little too easy.”
“You'll see,” said the mother. “_She_ ain't in any hurry, but she likes
_him_ to be. She feels's if he thought more of money-makin' than he does of
her. She's like all girls. She won't use her reason and see it's all for
her in the end he's doin' it.”
“Why didn't you tell her 'twas my plan, his goin' to Montany this fall?
He wouldn't listen to it nohow then. He'd rather lose his ranch than wait
any longer for Sis, so he said; but I guess he's seen the sense of what I
told him. 'Ruth Mary ain't a-goin' to run away,' I says, 'even if ye don't
prove up on her this fall.' You ought to 'a' told her, mother, 'twas my
proposition.”
“I told her that and more too. I told her it showed he'd make a good
provider. She looked at me solemn as a graven image all the time I was
talkin' and not a word out of her. But that's Ruth Mary. I never said the
child was sullen, but she is just like your sister Ruth--the more she
feels, the less she talks.”
“Well,” said Mr. Tully, “that's all right, if that's it. That'll all
straighten out with time. It was natural perhaps she should fire up at
the talk about marryin' if she felt the bridegroom was hangin' back. Why,
Joe,--he'd eat the dirt she treads on, if he couldn't make her like him no
other way! He's most too foolish about her, to my thinkin'. That's what
took me so by surprise when word come back he'd gone to Montany after all;
I didn't expect anything so sensible of him.”
“'Twas a reg'lar man's piece o' work anyhow,” said Mrs. Tully
disconsolately.
“And you'll be sorry for it, I'm afraid. I never knew any good come of
puttin' off a marriage, where everything was suitable, just for a few
hundred acres of wild land, more or less.”