THROUGH THE WOODS
The autumn quiet at Roya-Neh was intensely agreeable to Scott Seagrave.
No social demands interfered with a calm and dignified contemplation of
the Rose-beetle, _Melolontha subspinosa_, and his scandalous "Life
History"; there was no chatter of girls from hall and stairway to
distract the loftier inspirations that possessed him, no intermittent
soprano noises emitted by fluttering feminine fashion, no calflike
barytones from masculine adolescence to drive him to the woods, where it
was always rather difficult for him to focus his attention on printed
pages. The balm of heavenly silence pervaded the house, and in its
beneficent atmosphere he worked in his undershirt, inhaling inspiration
and the aroma of whale-oil, soap, and carbolic solutions.
Neither Kathleen nor his sister being present to limit his operations,
the entire house was becoming a vast mess. Living-rooms, library, halls,
billiard-room, were obstructed with "scientific" paraphernalia; hundreds
of glass fruit jars, filled with earth containing the whitish, globular
eggs of the Rose-beetle, encumbered mantel and furniture; glass
aquariums half full of earth, sod, and youthful larvæ of the same sinful
beetle lent pleasing variety to the monotony of Scott's interior
decorative effects. Microscopes, phials, shallow trays bristling with
sprouting seeds, watering-cans, note-books, buckets of tepid water, jars
brimming with chemical solutions, blockaded the legitimate and natural
runways of chamber-maid, parlour-maid, and housekeeper; a loud scream
now and then punctured the scientific silence, recording the Hibernian
discovery of some large, green caterpillar travelling casually somewhere
in the house.
"Mr. Seagrave, sir," stammered Lang, the second man, perspiring horror,
"your bedroom is full of humming birds and bats, sir, and I can't stand
it no more!"
But it was only a wholesale hatching of huge hawk-moths that came
whizzing around Lang when he turned on the electric lights; and which,
escaping, swarmed throughout the house, filling it with their loud,
feathery humming, and the shrieks of Milesian domestics.
And it was into these lively household conditions that Kathleen and
Geraldine unexpectedly arrived from the Berkshires, worn out with their
round of fashionable visits, anxious for the quiet and comfort that is
supposed to be found only under one's own roof-tree. This is what they
found:
In Geraldine's bath-tub a colony of water-lilies were attempting to take
root for the benefit of several species of water-beetles. The formidable
larvæ of dragon-flies occupied Kathleen's bath; turtles peered at them
from vantage points under the modern plumbing; an enormous frog regarded
Kathleen solemnly from the wet, tiled floor. "Oh, dear," she said as
Scott greeted her rapturously, "have I got to move all these horrid
creatures?"
"For Heaven's sake don't touch a thing," protested Scott, welcoming his
sister with a perfunctory kiss; "I'll find places for them in a minute."
"How _could_ you, Scott!" exclaimed Geraldine, backing hastily away
from a branch of green leaves on which several gigantic horned
caterpillars were feeding. "I don't feel like ever sleeping in this room
again," she added, exasperated.
"Why, Sis," he explained mildly, "those are the caterpillars of the
magnificent Regal moth! They're perfectly harmless, and it's jolly to
watch them tuck away walnut leaves. You'll like to have them here in
your room when you understand how to weigh them on these bully little
scales I've just had sent up from Tiffany's."
But his sister was too annoyed and too tired to speak. She stood limply
leaning against Kathleen while her brother disposed of his uncanny
menagerie, talking away very cheerfully all the while absorbed in his
grewsome pets.
But it was not to his sister, it was to Kathleen that his pride in his
achievements was naïvely displayed; his running accompaniment of chatter
was for Kathleen's benefit, his appeals were to her sympathy and
understanding, not to his sister's.
Geraldine watched him in silence. Tired, not physically very well, this
home-coming meant something to her. She had looked forward to it, and to
her brother, unconsciously wistful for the protection of home and kin.
For the day had been a hard one; she was able to affix the red-cross
mark to her letter to Duane that morning, but it had been a bad day for
her, very bad.
And now as she stood there, white, nerveless, fatigued, an ache grew in
her breast, a dull desire for somebody of her own kin to lean on; and,
following it, a slow realisation of how far apart from her brother she
had drifted since the old days of cordial understanding in the
schoolroom--the days of loyal sympathy through calm and stress, in
predatory alliance or in the frank conflicts of the squared circle.
Suddenly her whole heart filled with a blind need of her brother's
sympathy--a desire to return to the old intimacy as though in it there
lay comfort, protection, sanctuary for herself from all that threatened
her--herself!
Kathleen was assisting Scott to envelop the frog in a bath towel for the
benevolent purpose of transplanting him presently to some other
bath-tub; and Kathleen's golden head and Scott's brown one were very
close together, and they were laughing in that intimate undertone
characteristic of thorough understanding. Her brother's expression as he
looked up at Kathleen Severn, was a revelation to his sister, and it
pierced her with a pang of loneliness so keen that she started forward
in sheer desperation, as though to force a path through something that
was pushing her away from him.
"Let me take his frogship," she said with a nervous laugh. "I'll put him
into a jolly big tub where you can grow all the water-weeds you like,
Scott."
Her brother, surprised and gratified, handed her the bath-towel in the
depths of which reposed the batrachian.
"He's really an interesting fellow, Sis," explained Scott; "he exudes a
sticky, viscous fluid from his pores which is slightly toxic. I'm going
to try it on a Rose-beetle."
Geraldine shuddered, but forced a smile, and, holding the imprisoned one
with dainty caution, bore him to a palatial and porcelain-lined
bath-tub, into which she shook him with determination and a suppressed
shriek.
That night at dinner Scott looked up at his sister with something of
the old-time interest and confidence.
"I was pretty sure you'd take an interest in all these things, sooner or
later. I tell you, Geraldine, it will be half the fun if you'll go into
it with us."
"I want to," said his sister, smiling, "but don't hurry my progress or
you'll scare me half to death."
The tragic necessity for occupation, for interesting herself in
something sufficient to take her out of herself, she now understood, and
the deep longing for the love of all she had of kith and kin was
steadily tightening its grip on her, increasing day by day. Nothing else
could take its place; she began to understand that; not her intimacy
with Kathleen, not even her love for Duane. Outside of these there
existed a zone of loneliness in which she was doomed to wander, a zone
peopled only by the phantoms of the parents she had never known long
enough to remember--a dreaded zone of solitude and desolation and peril
for her. The danger line marked its boundary; beyond lay folly and
destruction.
Little by little Scott began to notice that his sister evidently found
his company desirable, that she followed him about, watching his
so-called scientific pursuits with a curiosity too constant to be
assumed. And it pleased him immensely; and at times he held forth to her
and instructed her with brotherly condescension.
He noticed, too, that her spirits did not appear to be particularly
lively; there were often long intervals of silence when, together by the
window in the library where he was fussing over his "Life History," she
never spoke, never even moved from her characteristic attitude--seated
deep in a leather chair, arms resting on the padded chair-arms, ankles
crossed, and her head a trifle lowered, as though absorbed in studying
the Herati design on a Persian rug.
Once, looking up suddenly, he surprised her brown eyes full of tears.
"Hello!" he said, amazed; "what's the row, Sis?"
But she only laughed and dried her eyes, denying that there was any
explanation except that girls were sometimes that way for no reason at
all.
One day he asked Kathleen privately about this, but she merely confirmed
Geraldine's diagnosis of the phenomenon:
"Tears come into girls' eyes," she said, "and there isn't anybody on
earth who can tell a man why, and he wouldn't comprehend it if anybody
did tell him."
"I'll tell you one thing," he said sceptically; "if Rose-beetles shed
tears, I'd never rest until I found out why. You bet there's always a
reason that starts anything and always somebody to find it out and tell
another fellow who can understand it!"
With which brilliant burst of higher philosophy they went out into the
October woods together to hunt for cocoons.
Geraldine, rather flushed and nervous, met them at Hurryon Gate,
carrying a rifle and wearing the shortest skirts her brother had ever
beheld. The symmetry of her legs moved him to reproof:
"I thought people looked that way only in tailor's fashion plates," he
said. "What are you after--chipmunks?"
"Not at all," said his sister. "Do you know what happened to me an hour
ago? I was paddling your canoe into the Hurryon Inlet, and I suppose I
made no noise in disembarking, and I came right on a baby wild boar in
the junipers. It was a tiny thing, not eighteen inches long, Kathleen,
and so cunning and furry and yellowish, with brown stripes on its back,
that I tried to catch it--just to hug it."
"That was silly," said her brother.
"I know it was, now. Because I ran after it, and it ran; and, one by
one, a whole herd of the cunning little things sprang out of the hemlock
scrub and went off bucking and bucketing in all directions, and I, like
a simpleton, hard after one of them----"
"Little idiot," said her brother solicitously. "Are you stark mad?"
"No, I'm just plain mad. Because, before I knew it, there came a crash
in the underbrush and the biggest, furriest, and wickedest wild boar I
ever saw halted in front of me, ears forward, every hair on end----"
"Lord save us, you jumped the sow!" groaned her brother. "She might have
torn you to pieces, you ninny!"
"She meant to, I think. The next thing I knew she came headlong, mouth
open, fairly screaming at me; and I turned and jumped clean into the
Gray Water. Oh, Scott, it was humiliating to have to swim to the point
with all my clothes on, scramble into the canoe, and shove off because a
very angry wild creature drove me out of my own woods!"
"Well, dear, you won't ever interfere with a sow and pigs again, will
you?" said Kathleen so earnestly that everybody laughed.
"What's the rifle for?" inquired Scott. "You don't intend to hunt for
her, do you?"
"Of course not. I'm not vindictive or cruel. But old Miller said, when I
came past the lodge, dripping wet, that the boar are increasing too fast
and that you ought to keep them down either by shooting or by trapping
them, and sending them to other people for stocking purposes. The
Pink 'uns want some; why don't you?"
"I don't want to shoot or trap them," said Scott obstinately.
"Miller says they pulled down deer last winter and tore them to shreds.
Everything in the forest is afraid of them; they drive the deer from the
feeding-grounds, and I don't believe a lynx or even any of the bear that
climb over the fence would dare attack them."
Kathleen said: "You really ought to ask some men up here to shoot,
Scott. I don't wish to be chased about by a boar."
"They never bother people," he protested. "What are you going to do with
that rifle, Geraldine?"
"My nerve has gone," she confessed, laughing; "I prefer to have it with
me when I take walks. It's really safer," she added seriously to
Kathleen. "Miller says that a buck deer can be ugly, too."
"Oh, Lord!" said her brother, laughing; "it's only because you're the
prettiest thing ever, in that hunting dress! Don't tell me; and kindly
be careful where you point that rifle."
"As if I needed instructions!" retorted his sister. "I wish I could see
a boar--a big one with a particularly frightful temper and tusks to
match."
"I'll bet you that you can't kill a boar," he said in good-humoured
disdain.
"I don't see any to kill."
"Well, I bet you can't find one. And if you do, I bet you don't kill
him."
"How long," asked Geraldine dangerously, "does that bet hold good?"
"All winter, if you like. It's the prettiest single jewel you can pick
out against a new saddle-horse. I need a gay one; I'm getting out of
condition. And all our horses are as interesting as chevaux de bois when
the mechanism is freshly oiled and the organ plays the 'Ride of the
Valkyries.'"
"I've half a mind to take that wager," said Geraldine, very pink and
bright-eyed. "I think I will take it if----"
"Please don't, dear," said Kathleen anxiously. "The keepers say that a
wounded boar is perfectly horrid sometimes."
"Dangerous?" Her eyes glimmered brighter still.
"Certainly, a wounded boar is dangerous. I heard Miller say----"
"Bosh!" said Scott. "They run away from you every time. Besides,
Geraldine isn't going to have enough sporting blood in her to take that
bet and make good."
Something in the quick flush and tilt of her head reminded Scott of the
old days when their differences were settled with eight-ounce gloves.
The same feeling possessed his sister, thrilled her like a sudden,
unexpected glimpse of a happiness which apparently had long been ended
for ever.
"Oh, Scott," she exclaimed, still thrilling, "it _is_ like old times to
hear you try to bully me. It's so long since I've had enough spirit to
defy you. But I do now!--oh, yes, I do! Why, I believe that if we had
the gloves here, I'd make you fight me or take back what you said about
my not having any sporting spirit!"
He laughed: "I was thinking of that, too. You're a good sport, Sis.
Don't bother to take that wager----"
"I _do_ take it!" she cried; "it's like old times and I love it. Now,
Scott, I'll show you a boar before we go to town or I'll buy you a
horse. No backing out; what's said can't be unsaid, remember:
"King, king, double king,
Can't take back a given thing!
Queen, queen, queen of queens,
What she promises she means!"
That was a very solemn incantation in nursery days; she laughed a little
in tender tribute to the past.
Scott was a trifle perturbed. He glanced uneasily at Kathleen, who told
him very plainly that he had contrived to make her anxious and unhappy.
Then she fell back into step with Geraldine, letting Scott wander
disconsolately forward:
"Dear," she said, passing one arm around the younger girl, "I didn't
quite dare to object too strongly. You looked so--so interested, so
deliciously defiant--so like your real self----"
"I feel like it to-day, Kathleen; let me turn back in my own
footsteps--if I can. I've been trying so very hard to--to get back to
where there was no--no terror in the world."
"I know. But, darling, you won't run into any danger, will you?"
"Do you call a hard-hit beast a danger? I've wounded a more terrible one
than any boar that ever bristled. I'm trying to kill something more
terrifying. And I shall if I live."
"You poor, brave little martyr!" whispered Kathleen, her violet eyes
filled with sudden tears; "don't you suppose I know what you are doing?
Don't you suppose I watch and pray----"
"Did _you_ know I was really trying?" asked the girl, astonished--"I
mean before I told you?"
"Know it! Angels above! Of course I know it. Don't you suppose I've been
watching you slowly winning back to your old dear self--tired,
weary-footed, desolate, almost hopeless, yet always surely finding your
way back through the dreadful twilight to the dear, sweet, generous self
that I know so well--the straightforward, innocent, brave little self
that grew at my knee!--Geraldine--Geraldine, my own dear child!"
"Hush--I did not know you knew. I am trying. Once I failed. That was not
very long ago, either. Oh, Kathleen, I am trying so hard, so hard! And
to-day has been a dreadful day for me. That is why I went off by myself;
I paddled until I was ready to drop into the lake; and the fright that
the boar gave me almost ended me; but it could not end desire!... So I
took a rifle--anything to interest me--keep me on my feet and moving
somewhere--doing something--anything--anything, Kathleen--until I can
crush it out of me--until there's a chance that I can sleep----"
"I know--I know! That is why I dared not remonstrate when I saw you
drifting again toward your old affectionate relations with Scott. I'm
afraid of animals--except what few Scott has persuaded me to
tolerate--butterflies and frogs and things. But if anything on earth is
going to interest you--take your mind off yourself--and bring you and
Scott any nearer together, I shall not utter one word against it--even
when it puts you in physical danger and frightens me. Do you
understand?"
The girl nodded, turned and kissed her. They were following a path made
by game; Scott was out of sight ahead somewhere; they could hear his
boots crashing through the underbrush. After a while the sound died away
in the forest.
"The main thing," said Geraldine, "is to keep up my interest in the
world. I want to do things. To sit idle is pure destruction to me. I
write to Duane every morning, I read, I do a dozen things that require
my attention--little duties that everybody has. But I can't continue to
write to Duane all day. I can't read all day; duties are soon ended.
And, Kathleen, it's the idle intervals I dread so--the brooding, the
memories, the waiting for events scheduled in domestic routine--like
dinner--the--the terrible waiting for sleep! That is the worst. I tell
you, physical fatigue must help to save me--must help my love for Duane,
my love for you and Scott, my self-respect--what is left of it. This
rifle"--she held it out--"would turn into a nuisance if I let it. But I
won't; I can't; I've got to use everything to help me."
"You ride every day, don't you?" ventured the other woman timidly.
"Before breakfast. That helps. I wish I had a vicious horse to break. I
wish there was rough water where canoes ought not to go!" she exclaimed
fiercely. "I need something of that sort."
"You drove Scott's Blue Racer yesterday so fast that Felix came to me
about it," said Kathleen gently.
Geraldine laughed. "It couldn't go fast enough, dear; that was the only
trouble." Then, serious and wistful: "If I could only have Duane....
Don't be alarmed; I can't--yet. But if I only could have him now! You
see, his life is already very full; his work is absorbing him. It would
absorb me. I don't know anything about it technically, but it interests
me. If I could only have him now; think about him every second of the
day--to keep me from myself----"
She checked herself; suddenly her eyes filled, her lip quivered:
"I want him now!" she said desperately. "He could save me; I know it! I
want him now--his love, his arms to keep me safe at night! I want him to
love me--_love_ me! Oh, Kathleen! if I could only have him!"
A delicate colour tinted Kathleen's face; her ears shrank from the
girl's low-voiced cry, with its glimmer of a passion scarcely
understood.
Long, long, the memory of his embrace had tormented her--the feeling of
happy safety she had in his arms--the contact that thrilled almost past
endurance, yet filled her with a glorious and splendid strength--that
set wild pulses beating, wild blood leaping in her veins--that aroused
her very soul to meet his lips and heed his words and be what his behest
would have her.
And the memory of it now possessed her so that she stood straight and
slim and tall, trembling in the forest path, and her dark eyes looked
into Kathleen's with a strange, fiery glimmer of pride:
"I need him, but I love him too well to take him. Can I do more for him
than that?"
"Oh, my darling, my darling," said Kathleen brokenly, "if you believe
that he can save you--if you really feel that he can----"
"I am trying to save myself--I am trying." She turned and looked off
through the forest, a straight, slender shape in the moving shadows of
the leaves.
"But if he could really help you--if you truly believe it, dear, I--I
don't know whether you might not venture--now----"
"No, dear." She slowly closed her eyes, remained motionless for a
moment, drew a deep, long breath, and looked up through the sunlit
branches overhead.
"I've got to be fair to him," she said aloud to herself; "I must give
myself to him as I ought to be, or not at all.... That is settled."
She turned to Kathleen and took her hand:
"Come on, fellow-pilgrim," she said with an effort to smile. "My
cowardice is over for the present."
A few steps forward they sighted Scott coming back. He was unusually red
in the face and rather excited, and he flourished a stick.
"Of all the infernal impudence!" he said. "What do you think has
happened to me? I saw a wild boar back there--not a very big one--and he
came out into the trail ahead, and I kept straight on, thinking he'd
hear me and run. And I'm blessed if the brute didn't whirl around and
roughen up, and clatter his tusks until I actually had to come to a
halt!"
"I don't want to walk in these woods any more," said Kathleen with
sudden conviction. "Please come home, all of us."
"Nonsense," he said. "I won't stand for being hustled out of my own
woods. Give me that rifle, Geraldine."
"I certainly will not," she said, smiling.
"What! Why not?"
"Because it rather looks as though I'm about to win my bet with you,"
observed Geraldine. "Please show me your boar, Scott." And she threw a
cartridge into the magazine and started forward.
"Don't let her!" pleaded Kathleen. "Scott, it's ridiculous to let that
child do such silly things----"
"Then stop her if you can," said Scott gloomily, following his sister.
"I don't know anything about wild boar, but I suppose straight shooting
will take care of them, and Sis can do that if she keeps her nerve."
Geraldine, hastening ahead, rifle poised, scanned the woods with the
palpitating curiosity of an amateur. Eyes and ears alert, she kept
mechanically reassuring herself that the thing to do was to shoot
straight and keep cool, and to keep on shooting whichever way the boar
might take it into his porcine head to run.
Scott hastened forward to her side:
"Here's the place," he said, looking about him. "He's concluded to make
off, you see. They usually go off; they only stand when wounded or when
they think they can't get away. He's harmless, I suppose--only it made
me very tired to have him act that way. I hate to be backed out of my
own property."
Geraldine, rather relieved, yet ashamed not to do all she could, began
to walk toward a clump of low hemlocks. She had heard that wild boar
take that sort of cover. She did not really expect to find anything
there, so when a big black streak crashed out ahead of her she stood
stock still in frozen astonishment, rifle clutched to her breast.
"Shoot!" shouted her brother.
"Oh, dear, oh, dear," she said helplessly, "he's gone out of sight! And
I had such a splendid shot!" She stamped with vexation. "What a goose!"
she repeated. "I had a perfectly splendid shot. And all I did was to
jump like a scared cat and stare!"
"Anyway, you didn't run, and that's a point gained," observed her
brother. "I had to. And that's one on me."
A moment later he said: "I believe those impudent boar do need a little
thinning out. When is Duane coming?"
"In November," said Geraldine, still looking vaguely about for the
departed pig.
"Early?"
"I think so, if his father is all right again. I've asked Naïda, too.
Rosalie wants to come----"
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't," he protested. "All I wanted was a
shooting party to do a little scientific thinning out of these boar.
I'll do some myself, too."
Geraldine laughed. "Rosalie is a dead shot at a target, dear. She wrote
asking us to invite her to shoot. I don't see how I can very well refuse
her. Do you?"
"That means her husband, too," grumbled Scott, "and that entire bunch."
"No; if it's a shooting party, I don't have to ask him."
Her brother said ungraciously: "Well, I don't care who you ask if
they'll thin out these cheeky brutes. Fancy that two-year-old pig
clattering his tusks at me, planted there in the path with his mane on
end!--You know it mortifies me, Kathleen--it certainly does. One of
these fine days some facetious pig will send me shinning up a tree!" He
grew madder at the speculative indignity. "By ginger! I'm going to have
a shooting party before the snow flies," he muttered, walking forward
between Kathleen and his sister. "Keep your eyes out ahead; we may jump
another at any time, as the wind is all right. And if we do, let him
have it, Geraldine!"
It was a beautiful woodland through which they moved.
The late autumn foliage was unusually magnificent, lacking, this year,
those garish and discordant hues which Americans think it necessary to
admire. Oak brown and elm yellow, deep chrome bronze and sombre crimson
the hard woods glowed against backgrounds of pine and hemlock. Larches
were mossy cones of feathery gold; birches slim shafts of snowy gray,
ochre-crowned; silver and green the balsams' spires pierced the canopy
of splendid tapestry upborne by ash and oak and towering pine under a
sky of blue so deep and intense that the lakes reflecting it seemed no
less vivid.
Already in the brooks they passed painted trout hung low over every bed
of gravel and white sand; the male trout wore his best scarlet fins, and
his sides glowed in alternate patterns, jewelled with ruby and sapphire
spots. Already the ruffed grouse thundered up by coveys, though they had
not yet packed, for the broods still retained their autonomy.
But somewhere beyond the royal azure of the northern sky, very, very far
away, there was cold in the world, for even last week, through the
violet and primrose dusk, out of the north, shadowy winged things came
speeding, batlike phantoms against the dying light--flight-woodcock
coming through hill-cleft and valley to the land where summer lingered
still.
And there in mid-forest, right in the tall timber, Scott, advancing,
flushed a woodcock, which darted up, filling the forest with twittering
music--the truest music of our eastern autumn, clear, bewildering,
charming in its evanescent sweetness which leaves in its wake a
startling silence.
Ahead, lining both sides of a gully deep with last year's leaves, was an
oak grove in mid-forest. Here the brown earth was usually furrowed by
the black snouts of wild boar, for mast lay thick here in autumn and
tender roots invited investigation.
"Get down flat and crawl," whispered Scott; "there may be a boar or two
on the grounds."
Kathleen, in her pretty white gown of lace and some sheer stuff, looked
at him piteously; but when he and Geraldine dropped flat and wriggled
forward into the wind, misgiving of what might prowl behind seized her,
and she tucked up her skirts and gave herself to the brown earth with a
tremor of indignation and despair.
Nearer and nearer they crept, making very little sound; but they made
enough to rouse a young boar, who jerked his head into the air, where he
stood among the acorns, big, furry ears high and wide, nose working
nervously.
"He's only a yearling," breathed Scott in his sister's ear. "There are
traces of stripes, if you look hard. Wait for a better one."
They lay silent, all three peering down at the yearling, who stood
motionless, nosing for tainted air, listening, peering about with dull,
near-sighted eyes.
And, after a long time, as they made no sound, the brute wheeled
suddenly, made a complete circle at a nervous trout, uttered a series of
short, staccato sounds that, when he became older, would become deeper,
more of an ominous roar than a hoarse and irritated grunt.
Two deer, a doe and a fawn, came picking their way cautiously along the
edge of the gully, sometimes flattening their ears, sometimes necks
outstretched, ears forward, peering ahead at the young and bad-tempered
pig.
The latter saw them, turned in fury and charged with swiftness
incredible, and the deer stampeded headlong through the forest.
"What a fierce, little brute!" whispered Kathleen, appalled. "Scott, if
he comes any nearer, I'm going to get into a tree."
"If he sees us or winds us he'll run. Don't move; there may be a good
boar in presently. I've thought two or three times that I heard
something on that hemlock ridge."
They listened, holding their breath. Crack! went a distant stick.
Silence; nothing stirred except the yearling who had returned to the
mast and was eagerly nosing among the acorns. They could hear him
crunching the husks, see the gleam of long white teeth which one day
would grow outside that furry muzzle and curve up and backward like
ivory sabres.
Geraldine whispered: "There's a huge black thing moving in the hemlock
scrub. I can see its feet against the sky-line, and sometimes part of
its bulk----"
"Oh, heavens," breathed Kathleen, "what is that?"
Out of the scrub trotted a huge, shaggy, black thing, all head and
shoulders, with body slanting back abruptly to a pair of weak
hindquarters. Down the slope it ran in quick, noiseless, jerky steps;
the yearling turned his head, still munching, ears cocked forward. And
suddenly the monster rushed at him with a squeal, and the yearling
shrieked and fled, chased clear up the slope.
"It's a sow; don't shoot," whispered Scott. "Look, Sis, you can't see a
sign of tusks. Good heavens, what a huge creature she is!"
Fierce, formidable, the great beast halted; three striped, partly grown
pigs came rushing and frisking down the gully to join her, filling the
forest with their clumsy clatter and baby squealing. From the ridge the
two deer, who had sneaked back, regarded the scene with terrified
fascination.
Presently the yearling rushed them out again, then sidled down,
venturing to the edge of the feeding-ground, where he began to crunch
acorns again with a cautious eye on the sow and her noisy brood.
Here and there a brilliant blue-jay floated down, seized an acorn, and
winged hastily to some near tree where presently he filled the woods
with the noise he made in hammering the acorn into some cleft in the
bark.
Gradually the sunlight on the leaves reddened; long, luminous shadows
lengthened eastward. Kathleen, lying at full length, her pretty face
between her hands, suddenly sneezed.
The next moment the feeding-ground was deserted; only a distant crashing
betrayed the line of flight where the great fierce sow and her young
were rushing upward toward the rocks of the Gilded Dome.
"I'm so sorry," faltered Kathleen, very pink and embarrassed.
Geraldine sat up and laughed, laying the uncocked rifle across her
knees.
"Some of these days I'm going to win my wager," she said to her brother.
"And it won't be with a striped yearling, either; it will be with the
biggest, shaggiest, fiercest, tuskiest boar that ranges the Gilded Dome.
And that," she added, looking at Kathleen, "will give me something to
think of and keep me rather busy, I believe."
"Rather," observed her brother, getting up and helping Kathleen to her
feet. He added, to torment her: "Probably you'll get Duane to win your
bet for you, Sis."
"No," said the girl gravely; "whatever is to die I must slay all by
myself, Scott--all alone, with no man's help."
He nodded: "Sure thing; it's the only sporting way. There's no stunt to
it; only keep cool and keep shooting, and drop him before he comes to
close quarters."
"Yes," she said, looking up at Kathleen.
Her brother drew her to her feet. She gave him a little hug.
"Believe in me, dear," she said. "I'll do it easier if you do."
"Of course I do. You're a better sport than I. You always were. And
that's no idle jest; witness my nose and Duane's in days gone by."
The girl smiled. As they turned homeward she slung her rifle, passed her
right arm through Kathleen's, and dropped her left on her brother's
shoulder. She was very tired, and hopeful that she might sleep.
And tired, hopeful, thinking of her lover, she passed through the woods,
leaning on those who were nearest and most dear.
Somehow--and just why was not clear to her--it seemed at that moment as
though she had passed the danger mark--as though the very worst lay
behind her--close, scarcely clear of her skirts yet, but all the same it
lay behind her, not ahead.
She knew, and dreaded, and shrank from what still lay before her; she
understood into what ruin treachery to self might precipitate her still
at any moment. And yet, somehow, she felt vaguely that something had
been gained that day which never before had been gained. And she thought
of her lover as she passed through the forest, leaning on Scott and
Kathleen, her little feet keeping step with theirs, her eyes steady in
the red western glare that flooded the forest to an infernal beauty.
Behind her streamed her gigantic shadow; behind her lay another shadow,
cast by her soul and floating wide of it now. And it must never touch
her soul again, God helping.
Suddenly her heart almost ceased its beating. Far away within, stirring
in unsuspected depths, something moved furtively.
Her face whitened a little; her eyes closed, the lids fluttered, opened;
she gazed straight in front of her, walked on, small head erect, lips
firm, facing the hell that lay before her--lay surely, surely before
her. For the breath of it glowed already in her veins and the voices of
it were already busy in her ears, and the unseen stirring of it had
begun once more within her body--that tired white, slender body of hers
which had endured so bravely and so long.
If sleep would only aid her, come to her in her need, be her ally in the
peril of her solitude--if it would only come, and help her to endure!
And wondering if it would, not knowing, hoping, she walked onward
through the falling night.