contradictory moods and emotions in his own nature to puzzle long over
Marion's sudden changes. Three months ago he would have called her
crazy, or accused her of posing. Now, however, he understood well
enough the spell of that tremendous view. He had felt it too often and
too deeply to grudge her one long feast for her imagination. So he
took her at her word and let her go.
He tidied the small room and sent in another report of the headlong
rush of the fire and the direction of the wind that fanned it. He
learned that all Genessee was out, fighting to keep the flames from
sweeping down across the valley. Three hundred men were fighting it,
the supervisor told him. They would check it on the downhill slope,
where it would burn more slowly; and if the wind did not change in the
night it would probably be brought under control by morning. After
that the supervisor very discreetly inquired after the welfare of the
young lady who had telephoned. Had she found any means of getting back
to her camp, or of sending any word?
Jack replied she had not, and that there was no likelihood of her
getting away before daylight. There were too many burning trees and
stumps and brush piles on the ground in the burned strip, he
explained. It would bother a man to get down there now. But he offered
to try it, if he might be excused from the station for a few hours. He
said he would be willing to go down and tell them she was all right,
or, a little later, he might even take a chance of getting her across.
But it would take some time, he was afraid.
Ross seemed to consider the matter for a minute. Then, "N--o, as long
as she's up there, she'd better stay. We can't spare you to go. You
might call her to the phone--"
"I can't. She's off somewhere on the peak, taking in the view," Jack
replied. "She grabbed my sweater and beat it, an hour or so ago, and I
don't know where she went.... No, I don't think she tried that. She
knows she couldn't get there. She said she wanted to see all she could
of it while she had the chance.... What?... Oh, sure, she's got sense
enough to take care of herself, far as that goes. Seems to be one of
the independent kind.... All right. I'll call up if she comes back,
and she can talk to you herself."
But he did not call up the supervisor, for Marion did not come back.
At daybreak, when Jack could no longer fight down his uneasiness, and
went to look for her, he found her crouched between two boulders that
offered some shelter from the wind without obstructing the view. She
was huddled in his sweater, shivering a little with the dawn chill but
scarcely conscious of the fact that she was cold. Her lids were
red-rimmed from staring up too long, at the near stars and down at the
remote mountains--as they looked to be that night. She seemed rather
to resent interruption, but in a few minutes she became human and
practical enough to admit that she was hungry, and that she supposed
it was time to think about getting home.
When she got up to follow Jack to the station, she walked stiffly
because of her cramped muscles; but she didn't seem to mind that in
the least. She made only one comment upon her vigil, and that was when
she stopped in the door of the station and looked back at the heaving
cloud of smoke that filled the eastern sky.
"Well, whatever happens to me from now on, I'll have the comfort of
knowing that for a few hours I have been absolutely happy." Then, with
the abruptness that marked her changes of mood, she became the slangy,
pert, feather-headed Marion Rose whom Jack had met first; and remained
so until she left him after breakfast to go home to Kate, who would be
perfectly wild.
CHAPTER TWELVE
KATE FINDS SOMETHING TO WORRY OVER
Kate may have been wild, but if so she managed to maintain an
admirable composure when Marion walked up to the door of the cabin.
She did not greet her best friend with hysterical rejoicings, probably
because she had been told of her best friend's safety soon after dark
the night before, and had since found much to resent in Marion's
predicament and the worry which she had suffered before Marion's
message came.
"Well!" she said, and continued brushing her hair. "Have you had any
breakfast?"
"Ages ago. Where's everybody?" Marion flung down her hat and made
straight for the hammock.
"Helping put out the forest fire, I suppose. They had to go last
night, and I was left all alone. I hope I may never pass as horrible a
night again. I did not sleep one minute. I was so nervous that I never
closed my eyes. I walked the floor practically all night."
"Forevermore!" Marion murmured from the hammock, her cheek dropped
upon an arm. "I simply ruined my shoes, Kate, walking through all
those ashes and burnt stuff. You've no idea how long it stays hot. I
wonder what would soften the leather again. Have we any vaseline?"
Kate looked at her a minute and gave a sigh of resignation. "Sometimes
I really envy you your absolute lack of the finer sensibilities,
Marion. I should not have suffered so last night, worrying about you,
if I were gifted with your lack of temperament. Yes, I believe we have
a jar of vaseline, if that is what worries you most. But for my part,
I should think other things would concern you more."
"Why shouldn't it concern me to spoil a pair of nine dollar shoes? I
don't suppose I could get any like them in Quincy, and you know what a
time I had getting fitted in Hamburger's. And besides, I couldn't
afford another pair; not till we sell our trees anyway."
"How is the fire? Are they getting it put out?" Kate's face was veiled
behind her hair.
"I don't know, it is down the other side of the mountain now. But
three hundred men are fighting it, Jack said, so I suppose--"
"Jack!" With a spread of her two palms like a swimmer cleaving the
water, Kate parted her veil of hair and looked out at the girl. "Jack
who? Is that the man up at the lookout station, that you--"
"He's not a man. He's just a big, handsome, sulky kid. When he's
cross he pulls his eyebrows together so there's a little lump between
them. You want to pinch it. And when he smiles he's got the sweetest
expression around his mouth, Kate! As if he was just so full of the
old nick he couldn't behave if he tried. You know--little quirky
creases at the corners, and a twinkle in his eyes--oh, good night!
He's just so good looking, honestly, it's a sin. But his disposition
is spoiled. He gets awfully grouchy over the least little thing--"
"Marion, how old is he?" Kate had been holding her hair away from her
face and staring all the while with shocked eyes at Marion.
"Oh, I don't know--old enough to drive a girl perfectly crazy if he
smiled at her often enough. Do you want to go up and meet him? He'd
like you, Kate--you're so superior. He simply can't stand me, I'm such
a mental lightweight. His eyes keep saying, 'So young and lovely,
and--nobody home,' when he looks at me. You go, Kate. Take him up a
loaf of bread; that he had brought from town tastes sour."
"Marion, I don't believe a word you're saying! I can tell by your eyes
when you're trying to throw me off the track. But old or young,
handsome or ugly, it was a dreadful thing for you to spend the night
up there, alone with a strange man. I simply walked the floor all
night, worrying about you! I'd have gone up there in spite of the
altitude, if the fire had not been between. I only hope Fred and the
professor don't get to hear of it. I was so afraid they would reach
home before you did! But since they didn't, there's no need of saying
anything about it. They left right away, before any of us had gotten
anxious about you. If the man who told me doesn't blurt it to every
one he sees--what in the world possessed you, Marion, to phone down to
the Forest Service that you were up there and going to stay?"
"Well, forevermore!" Marion lifted her head from her arm to stare at
Kate. Then she laughed and lay back luxuriously. "I was afraid you
wouldn't know where to look for the bread," she explained meekly, and
turned her face away from the sunlight and took a nap.
Kate finished with her hair rather abruptly, considering the leisurely
manner in which she had been brushing it. She glanced often at Marion
sprawled gracefully and unconventionally in the hammock with one
cinder-blackened boot sticking boyishly out over the edge. Kate's eyes
held an expression of baffled curiosity. They often held that
expression when she looked at Marion.
But presently the professor came, dragging his feet wearily and
mopping his soot-blackened face with a handkerchief as black. He gave
the hammock a longing look, as though he had been counting on easing
his aching body into it. Seeing Marion there asleep, he dropped to the
pine needle carpet under a great tree, and began to fan himself with
his stiff-brimmed straw hat that was grimed with smoke and torn by
branches.
"By George!" he exclaimed, glancing toward Kate as she came hurrying
from the cabin. "That was an ordeal!"
"Oh, did you get it put out? And where is Fred? Shall I make you some
lemonade, Douglas?"
"A glass of lemonade would be refreshing, Kate, after the experience I
have gone through. By George! A forest fire is a tremendous problem,
once the conflagration attains any size. We worked like galley slaves
all night long, with absolutely no respite. Fred, by the way, is still
working like a demon."
While Kate was hurrying lemons and sugar into a pitcher, the professor
reclined his work-wearied body upon the pine needles and cast hungry
glances toward the hammock. He cleared his throat loudly once or
twice, and soliloquized aloud: "By George! I wish I could stretch out
comfortably somewhere."
But Marion did not hear him--apparently being asleep; though the
professor wondered how one could sleep and at the same time keep a
hammock swinging with one's toes, as Marion was doing. He cleared his
throat again, sighed and inquired mildly: "Are you asleep, Marion?"
Getting no answer, he sighed again and hitched himself closer to the
tree, so that a certain protruding root should not gouge him so
disagreeably in the side.
"Shall I fix you something to eat, Douglas?" The voice of Kate crooned
over him solicitously. "I can poach you a couple of eggs in just a
minute, over the oil stove, and make you a cup of tea. Is the fire
out? And, oh, Douglas! Has it burned any of our timber? I have been so
worried, I did not close my eyes once, all night."
"Our timber is safe, I'm happy to say. It really is safer, if
anything, than it was before the fire started. There will be no
further possibility of fire creeping upon us from that quarter." He
quaffed the lemonade with little, restrained sighs of enjoyment. "It
also occurred to me that every forest fire must necessarily increase
the value of what timber is left. I should say then, strictly between
you and me, Kate, that this fire may be looked upon privately as an
asset."
The hammock gave an extra swing and then stopped. Kate, being somewhat
sensitive to a third presence when she and the professor were talking
together, looked fixedly at the hammock.
"If you are awake, dear, it would be tremendously thoughtful to let
the professor have the hammock for a while. He is utterly exhausted
from fighting fire all night," she said with sugar-coated annoyance in
her tone.
"Oh, don't disturb her--I'm doing very well here for the present," the
professor made feeble protest when Marion showed no sign of having
heard the hint. "Let the child sleep."
"The child certainly needs sleep, if I am any judge," Kate snapped
pettishly, and closed her lips upon further revelations. "Shall I
poach you some eggs? And then if the child continues to sleep, I
suppose we can bring your cot out under the trees. It is terribly
stuffy in the tent. You'd roast."
"Please don't put yourself to any inconvenience at all, Kate. I am
really not hungry at all. Provisions were furnished those who fought
the fire. I had coffee, and a really substantial breakfast before I
left them. I shall lie here for a while and enjoy the luxury of doing
nothing for a while. By George, Kate! The Forest Service certainly
does make a man work! Think of felling trees all night long! That is
the way they go about it, I find. They cut down trees and clear away
a strip across the front of the fire where there seems to be the
greatest possibility of keeping the flames from jumping across. They
even go so far as to rake back the pine needles and dry cones as
thoroughly as possible, and in that manner they prevent the flames
from creeping along the ground. It is really wonderfully effective
when they can get to work in the light growth. I was astounded to see
what may be accomplished with axes and picks and rakes and shovels.
But it is work, though. By George, it is work!"
"Don't try to root in those needles for a soft spot," Kate advised him
practically. "Not when some persons have more cushions than they need
or can use." Whereupon she went over and took two pillows from under
Marion's feet, and pulled another from under her shoulder.
These made the professor comfortable enough. He lay back smiling
gratefully--even affectionately--upon her.
"You certainly do know how to make a man glad that he is alive," he
thanked her. "Now, if I could lie here and look up through these
branches and listen while a dear little woman I know recites Shelley's
_The Cloud_, I could feel that paradise holds no greater joys than
this sheltered little vale."
The hammock became suddenly and violently agitated. Marion was
turning over with a movement that, in one less gracefully slim, might
be called a flop.
"Well, good night! I hope you'll excuse me, Kate, for beating it," she
said, sitting up. "But I've heard The Cloud till I could say it
backwards with my tongue paralyzed. I'll go down by the creek and
finish my sleep." She took the three remaining cushions under her arms
and departed. At the creek she paused, her ear turned toward the shady
spot beyond the cabin. She heard Kate's elocutionary voice declaiming
brightly:
"From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds, every one--"
She went on a little farther, until she could hear only the higher
tones of Kate's voice above the happy gurgle of the stream. She
scrambled through a willow tangle, stopped on the farther side to
listen, and smiled when the water talked to her with no interruption
of human voices.
"And Doug thinks he's a real nature lover!" she commented, throwing
her cushions down into a grassy little hollow under the bank. "But if
he would rather hear Kate elocute about it than to lie and listen to
the real thing, he's nothing more or less than a nature pirate." She
curled herself down among the cushions and stared up through the
slender willow branches into the top of an alder that leaned over the
bank and dangled its finger-tip branches playfully toward her.
"You pretty thing!" she cooed to it. "What does ail people, that they
sit around and talk about you and make up rhymes about you, when you
just want them to come out and love you! You darling! Words only make
you cheap. Now whisper to me, all about when you woke up last spring
and found the sun warm and waiting--Go on--tell me about it, and what
you said to the creek, and all."
Having listened to Kate's dramatic rendition of the poem he liked, the
professor went over and made himself comfortable in the hammock and
began talking again about the fire. It was a magnificent spectacle, he
declared, although he was really too close to it to obtain the best
view. A lot of fine timber was ruined, of course; but fortunately not
a tree on any of their claims had been touched. The wind had blown the
flames in another direction.
"It would have been terrible to have a fire start in our timber," he
went on. "We should lose all that we have put into the venture so
far--and that would mean a good deal to us all. As it stands now, we
have had a narrow escape. Did you go up where you could obtain a view
of the fire, Kate?"
"No, I didn't." Kate poured herself out a glass of lemonade. "I was so
worried about Marion I couldn't think of anything else. And when the
man stopped and told me where she was, it was dark and I was afraid to
go off alone. Douglas, I never spent as miserable a night in all my
life. The tremendous risk you and Fred were taking made me fairly wild
with anxiety--and then Marion's performance coming up on top of
that--"
"What was Marion's performance? Did she sit by the creek again until
after dark, refusing to stir?" He smiled tolerantly. "I know how
trying Marion's little peculiarities can be. But you surely wouldn't
take them seriously, Kate."
"Oh, no, I suppose not. But when it comes to getting herself caught on
the other side of the fire, and going up to that lookout station and
staying all night, and nobody up there except the lookout man--"
"No! By George, did she do that?"
"Yes, she did, and I think it's perfectly awful! I don't suppose she
could get back, after the fire got started," she admitted grudgingly,
"but she might have done _something_, don't you think? She could have
gone down the other side, it seems to me. I know I'd have gotten back
somehow. And what hurts me, Douglas, is the way she passed it over, as
though it was nothing! She knew how worried I was, and she didn't
seem to care at all. She made a joke of it."
"Well! By George, I am surprised. But Marion is inclined to be a
trifle self-centered, I have noticed. Probably she doesn't realize
your point of view at all. I am sure she likes you too much to hurt
you deliberately, Kate. And young people nowadays have such different
standards of morals. She may actually feel that it isn't shocking, and
she may be hurt at your apparent lack of confidence in her."
"She couldn't possibly think that." Kate was too loyal at heart to
contemplate that possibility for a moment. "Marion knows better than
that. But it does hurt me to see her so careless of her own dignity
and good name. We're strangers in this community, and people are going
to judge us by appearances. They have nothing else to go by. I care
more for Marion, it seems to me, than she cares for herself. Why,
Douglas, that girl even telephoned down to the Forest Service that she
was up there and going to stay, and wanted them to send word to me.
And they are men in that office--human beings, that are bound to think
things. What _can_ they think, not knowing Marion at all, and just
judging by appearances?"
"I suppose they understood perfectly that it would be impossible for
her to get home across the fire, Kate. By George! I can see myself
that she couldn't do it. I shouldn't blame the girl for that, Kate.
And I can see also that it was a consideration for you that prompted
her to send word in the only way she could. Poor girl, you are
completely worn out. Now be a good girl and go in and rest, and don't
worry any more about it. I shall stay here and keep an eye on
camp--and I want you to promise that you will lie down and take a
good, long sleep. Go--you need it more than you realize."
Tears--unreasoning, woman tears--stood in Kate's eyes at the tender
solicitude of his tone. Very submissively she picked up the pitcher
and the glasses and went into the cabin. The professor sighed when she
was gone, kneaded the pillows into a more comfortable position and
proceeded to keep an eye on camp by falling into so sound a sleep that
within five minutes he was snoring gently. It would be cruel to
suspect him of wanting to be rid of Kate and her troubles so that he
could sleep, but he certainly lost no time in profiting by her
absence. Nature had skimped her material when she fashioned Professor
Harrison. He was not much taller than Kate--not so tall as Marion by a
full inch--and he was narrow shouldered and shallow chested, with
thin, bony wrists and a bulging forehead that seemed to bulge worse
than it really did because of his scanty growth of hair. He was a kind
hearted little man, but the forest rangers had worked him hard all
night. One cannot blame him for wanting to sleep in peace, with no
sound but the gurgle of the creek two rods away, and the warbling call
of a little, yellow-breasted bird in the alders near by.
It was Fred Humphrey tramping wearily into camp three hours later, who
awoke him. Fred was an altogether different type of man, and he was
not so careful to conceal his own desires. Just now he was hungry, and
so he called for Kate. Moreover, he had with him two men, and they
were just as hungry as he was, even if they did suppress the fact
politely.
"Oh, Kate! Can you scare up something right away for us to eat? Make a
lot of coffee, will you? And never mind fancy fixings--real grub is
what we want right now. Where's Marion? She can help you get it ready,
can't she?"
Kate was heard moving inside the cabin when Fred first called her. Now
she looked out of the door, and dodged back embarrassed when she saw
the two strangers. She was in a kimono, and had her hair down;
evidently she had obeyed the professor implicitly in the matter of
going to sleep.
"Oh!" she said, "I don't know where Marion is--as usual; but I can
have luncheon ready in a very short time, I'm sure. Is the fire--"
"'Luncheon!'" snorted Fred, laughing a little. "Don't you palm off any
luncheon on us! That sounds like a dab of salad and a dab of sauce and
two peas in a platter and a prayer for dinner to hurry up and come
around! Cook us some grub, old girl--lots of it. Coffee and bacon and
flour gravy and spuds. We'd rather wait a few minutes longer and get a
square meal, wouldn't we, boys? Make yourselves at home. There's all
the ground there is, to sit down on, and there's the whole creek to
wash in, if the basin down there is too small. I'm going to get some
clean clothes and go down to the big hole and take a plunge. How long
will it be before chuck's ready, Kate?"
Kate told him half an hour, and he went off down the creek, keeping at
the edge of the little meadow, with a change of clothing under his arm
and a big bath towel hung over his shoulder. The two men followed him
listlessly, too tired, evidently, to care much what they did.
Fred, leading the way, plunged through the willow fringe and came upon
the creek bank three feet from where Marion lay curled up on her
cushions. He stood for a minute looking down at her before his
present, material needs dominated his admiration of her beauty--for
beautiful she was, lying there in a nest of green, with her yellow
hair falling loosely about her face.
"Hello! Asleep?" he called to her, much as he had called to Kate.
"Afraid we'll have to ask you to move on, sister. We want to take a
swim right here. And anyway, Kate wants you right away, quick. Wake
up, like a good girl, and run along."
"I don't want to wake up. Go away and let me sleep." Marion opened her
eyes long enough to make sure that he was standing right there
waiting, and closed them again. "Go somewhere else and swim. There's
lots of creek that isn't in use."
"No sir, by heck, I'm going to take my swim right here. I'm too
doggone tired to walk another yard. Suit yourself about going, though.
Don't let me hurry you at all." He sat down and began to unlace his
shoes, grinning back over his shoulder at the other two who had not
ventured down to the creek when they heard the voice of a woman there.
Marion sat up indignantly. "Go on down the creek, why don't you?"
"Oh, this place suits me fine." Fred, having removed one shoe, turned
it upside down and shook out the sand, and began unlacing the other.
Marion waited stubbornly until he was pulling that shoe off, and then
she gathered up her cushions and fled, flushed and angry. She was
frequently angry with Fred, who never yielded an inch and never would
argue or cajole. She firmly believed that Fred would actually have
gone in swimming with her sitting there on the bank; he was just that
stubborn. For that she sometimes hated him--since no one detests
stubbornness so much as an obstinate person.
Fred looked after her, still smiling oddly because he had known so
well how to persuade her to go back to the house and help Kate. Fred
almost loved Marion Rose. He admitted to himself that he almost loved
her--which is going pretty far for a man like Fred Humphrey. But he
also admitted to himself that she could not make him happy, nor he
her. To make Marion happy he believed that he would need to have about
a million dollars to spend. To make him happy, Marion would need to
take a little more interest in home making and not so much interest in
beauty making. The frivolous vanity bag of hers, and her bland way of
using it, like the movie actresses, in public, served to check his
imagination before it actually began building air-castles wherein she
reigned the queen.