Whatever might have been his other deficiencies as an escort, Whiskey
Dick was a good horseman, and, in spite of his fractious brute,
exhibited such skill and confidence as to at once satisfy the young
girls of his value to them in the management of their own horses,
to whom side-saddles were still an alarming novelty. Jessie, who
had probably already learned from her sister the purport of Dick's
confidences, had received him with equal cordiality and perhaps a more
unqualified amusement; and now, when fairly lifted into the saddle by
his tremulous but respectful hands, made a very charming picture of
youthful and rosy satisfaction. And when Christie, more fascinating than
ever in her riding-habit, took her place on the other side of Dick, as
they sallied from the gate, that gentleman felt his cup of happiness
complete. His triumphal entree into the world of civilization and
fashion was secure. He did not regret the untasted liquor; here was
an experience in after years to lean his back against comfortably in
bar-rooms, to entrance or defy mankind. He had even got so far as
to formulate in fancy the sentence: “I remember, gentlemen, that one
afternoon, being on a pasear with two fash'nable young ladies,” etc.,
etc.
At present, however, he was obliged to confine himself to the functions
of an elegant guide and cicerone--when not engaged in “having it out”
with his horse. Their way lay along the slope, crossing the high-road at
right angles, to reach the deeper woods beyond. Dick would have lingered
on the highway--ostensibly to point out to his companions the new flume
that had taken the place of the condemned ditch, but really in the hope
of exposing himself in his glory to the curious eyes of the wayfaring
world.
Unhappily the road was deserted in the still powerful sunlight, and he
was obliged to seek the cover of the woods, with a passing compliment to
the parent of his charges. Waving his hands towards the flume, he
said, “Look at that work of your father's; there ain't no other man in
Californy but Philip Carr ez would hev the grit to hold up such a bluff
agin natur and agin luck ez that yer flume stands for. I don't say it
'cause you're his daughters, ladies! That ain't the style, ez YOU know,
in sassiety, Miss Carr,” he added, turning to Christie as the more
socially experienced. “No! but there ain't another man to be found
ez could do it. It cost already two hundred thousand; it'll cost five
hundred thousand afore it's done; and every cent of it is got out of the
yearth beneath it, or HEZ got to be out of it. 'Tain't ev'ry man, Miss
Carr, ez hev got the pluck to pledge not only what he's got, but what he
reckons to git.”
“But suppose he don't get it?” said Christie, slightly contracting her
brows.
“Then there's the flume to show for it,” said Dick.
“But of what use is the flume, if there isn't any more gold?” continued
Christie, almost angrily.
“That's good from YOU, miss,” said Dick, giving way to a fit of
hilarity. “That's good for a fash'nable young lady--own daughter of
Philip Carr. She sez, says she,” continued Dick, appealing to the sedate
pines for appreciation of Christie's rare humor, “'Wot's the use of a
flume, when gold ain't there?' I must tell that to the boys.”
“And what's the use of the gold in the ground when the flume isn't there
to work it out?” said Jessie to her sister, with a cautioning glance
towards Dick.
But Dick did not notice the look that passed between the sisters. The
richer humor of Jessie's retort had thrown him into convulsions of
laughter.
“And now SHE says, wot's the use o' the gold without the flume? 'Xcuse
me, ladies, but that's just puttin' the hull question that's agitatin'
this yer camp inter two speeches as clear as crystal. There's the
hull crowd outside--and some on 'em inside, like Fairfax, hez their
doubts--ez says with Miss Christie; and there's all of us inside, ez
holds Miss Jessie's views.”
“I never heard Mr. Munroe say that the flume was wrong,” said Jessie
quickly.
“Not to you, nat'rally,” said Dick, with a confidential look at
Christie; “but I reckon he'd like some of the money it cost laid out for
suthin' else. But what's the odds? The gold is there, and WE'RE bound to
get it.”
Dick was the foreman of a gang of paid workmen, who had replaced the
millionaires in mere manual labor, and the WE was a polite figure of
speech.
The conversation seemed to have taken an unfortunate turn, and both the
girls experienced a feeling of relief when they entered the long gulch
or defile that led to Indian Spring. The track now becoming narrow, they
were obliged to pass in single file along the precipitous hillside,
led by this escort. This effectually precluded any further speech,
and Christie at once surrendered herself to the calm, obliterating
influences of the forest. The settlement and its gossip were far behind
and forgotten. In the absorption of nature, her companions passed out of
her mind, even as they sometimes passed out of her sight in the windings
of the shadowy trail. As she rode alone, the fronds of breast-high
ferns seemed to caress her with outstretched and gently-detaining hands;
strange wildflowers sprang up through the parting underbrush; even the
granite rocks that at times pressed closely upon the trail appeared as
if cushioned to her contact with star-rayed mosses, or lightly flung
after her long lassoes of delicate vines. She recalled the absolute
freedom of their al-fresco life in the old double cabin, when she
spent the greater part of her waking hours under the mute trees in
the encompassing solitude, and, half regretting the more civilized
restraints of this newer and more ambitious abode, forgot that she had
ever rebelled against it. The social complication that threatened her
now seemed to her rather the outcome of her half-civilized parlor than
of the sylvan glade. How easy it would have been to have kept the cabin,
and then to have gone away entirely, than for her father to have allowed
them to be compromised with the growing fortunes of the settlement!
The suspicions and distrust that she had always felt of their fortunes
seemed to grow with the involuntary admission of Whiskey Dick that
they were shared by others who were practical men. She was fain to have
recourse to the prospect again to banish these thoughts, and this opened
her eyes to the fact that her companions had been missing from the trail
ahead of her for some time. She quickened her pace slightly to reach
a projecting point of rock that gave her a more extended prospect. But
they had evidently disappeared.
She was neither alarmed nor annoyed. She could easily overtake them
soon, for they would miss her, and return or wait for her at the spring.
At the worst she would have no difficulty in retracing her steps home.
In her present mood, she could readily spare their company; indeed she
was not sorry that no other being should interrupt that sympathy with
the free woods which was beginning to possess her.
She was destined, however, to be disappointed. She had not proceeded a
hundred yards before she noticed the moving figure of a man beyond her
in the hillside chaparral above the trail. He seemed to be going in the
same direction as herself, and, as she fancied, endeavoring to avoid
her. This excited her curiosity to the point of urging her horse forward
until the trail broadened into the level forest again, which she now
remembered was a part of the environs of Indian Spring. The stranger
hesitated, pausing once or twice with his back towards her, as if
engaged in carefully examining the dwarf willows to select a switch.
Christie slightly checked her speed as she drew nearer; when, as if
obedient to a sudden resolution, he turned and advanced towards her. She
was relieved and yet surprised to recognize the boyish face and figure
of George Kearney. He was quite pale and agitated, although attempting,
by a jaunty swinging of the switch he had just cut, to assume the
appearance of ease and confidence.
Here was an opportunity. Christie resolved to profit by it. She did not
doubt that the young fellow had already passed her sister on the trail,
but, from bashfulness, had not dared to approach her. By inviting his
confidence, she would doubtless draw something from him that would deny
or corroborate her father's opinion of his sentiments. If he was really
in love with Jessie, she would learn what reasons he had for expecting
a serious culmination of his suit, and perhaps she might be able
delicately to open his eyes to the truth. If, as she believed, it was
only a boyish fancy, she would laugh him out of it with that camaraderie
which had always existed between them. A half motherly sympathy, albeit
born quite as much from a contemplation of his beautiful yearning eyes
as from his interesting position, lightened the smile with which she
greeted him.
“So you contrived to throw over your stupid business and join us,
after all,” she said; “or was it that you changed your mind at the
last moment?” she added mischievously. “I thought only we women were
permitted that!” Indeed, she could not help noticing that there was
really a strong feminine suggestion in the shifting color and slightly
conscious eyelids of the young fellow.
“Do young girls always change their minds?” asked George, with an
embarrassed smile.
“Not, always; but sometimes they don't know their own mind--particularly
if they are very young; and when they do at last, you clever creatures
of men, who have interpreted their ignorance to please yourselves, abuse
them for being fickle.” She stopped to observe the effect of what she
believed a rather clear and significant exposition of Jessie's and
George's possible situation. But she was not prepared for the look
of blank resignation that seemed to drive the color from his face and
moisten the fire of his dark eyes.
“I reckon you're right,” he said, looking down.
“Oh! we're not accusing you of fickleness,” said Christie gayly;
“although you didn't come, and we were obliged to ask Mr. Hall to join
us. I suppose you found him and Jessie just now?”
But George made no reply. The color was slowly coming back to his face,
which, as she glanced covertly at him, seemed to have grown so much
older that his returning blood might have brought two or three years
with it.
“Really, Mr. Kearney,” she said dryly, “one would think that some silly,
conceited girl”--she was quite earnest in her epithets, for a sudden,
angry conviction of some coquetry and disingenuousness in Jessie had
come to her in contemplating its effects upon the young fellow at her
side--“some country jilt, had been trying her rustic hand upon you.”
“She is not silly, conceited, nor countrified,” said George, slowly
raising his beautiful eyes to the young girl half reproachfully. “It is
I who am all that. No, she is right, and you know it.”
Much as Christie admired and valued her sister's charms, she thought
this was really going too far. What had Jessie ever done--what was
Jessie--to provoke and remain insensible to such a blind devotion as
this? And really, looking at him now, he was not so VERY YOUNG for
Jessie; whether his unfortunate passion had brought out all his latent
manliness, or whether he had hitherto kept his serious nature in the
background, certainly he was not a boy. And certainly his was not a
passion that he could be laughed out of. It was getting very tiresome.
She wished she had not met him--at least until she had had some clearer
understanding with her sister. He was still walking beside her, with his
hand on her bridle rein, partly to lead her horse over some boulders in
the trail, and partly to conceal his first embarrassment. When they had
fairly reached the woods, he stopped.
“I am going to say good-by, Miss Carr.”
“Are you not coming further? We must be near Indian Spring, now; Mr.
Hall and--and Jessie--cannot be far away. You will keep me company until
we meet them?”
“No,” he replied quietly. “I only stopped you to say good-by. I am going
away.”
“Not from Devil's Ford?” she asked, in half-incredulous astonishment.
“At least, not for long?”
“I am not coming back,” he replied.
“But this is very abrupt,” she said hurriedly, feeling that in some
ridiculous way she had precipitated an equally ridiculous catastrophe.
“Surely you are not going away in this fashion, without saying good-by
to Jessie and--and father?”
“I shall see your father, of course--and you will give my regards to
Miss Jessie.”
He evidently was in earnest. Was there ever anything so perfectly
preposterous? She became indignant.
“Of course,” she said coldly, “I won't detain you; your business must
be urgent, and I forgot--at least I had forgotten until to-day--that
you have other duties more important than that of squire of dames. I am
afraid this forgetfulness made me think you would not part from us in
quite such a business fashion. I presume, if you had not met me just
now, we should none of us have seen you again?”
He did not reply.
“Will you say good-by, Miss Carr?”
He held out his hand.
“One moment, Mr. Kearney. If I have said anything which you think
justifies this very abrupt leave-taking, I beg you will forgive and
forget it--or, at least, let it have no more weight with you than the
idle words of any woman. I only spoke generally. You know--I--I might be
mistaken.”
His eyes, which had dilated when she began to speak, darkened; his
color, which had quickly come, as quickly sank when she had ended.
“Don't say that, Miss Carr. It is not like you, and--it is useless. You
know what I meant a moment ago. I read it in your reply. You meant that
I, like others, had deceived myself. Did you not?”
She could not meet those honest eyes with less than equal honesty.
She knew that Jessie did not love him--would not marry him--whatever
coquetry she might have shown.
“I did not mean to offend you,” she said hesitatingly; “I only half
suspected it when I spoke.”
“And you wish to spare me the avowal?” he said bitterly.
“To me, perhaps, yes, by anticipating it. I could not tell what ideas
you might have gathered from some indiscreet frankness of Jessie--or my
father,” she added, with almost equal bitterness.
“I have never spoken to either,” he replied quickly. He stopped, and
added, after a moment's mortifying reflection, “I've been brought up in
the woods, Miss Carr, and I suppose I have followed my feelings, instead
of the etiquette of society.”
Christie was too relieved at the rehabilitation of Jessie's truthfulness
to notice the full significance of his speech.
“Good-by,” he said again, holding out his hand.
“Good-by!”
She extended her own, ungloved, with a frank smile. He held it for a
moment, with his eyes fixed upon hers. Then suddenly, as if obeying
an uncontrollable impulse, he crushed it like a flower again and again
against his burning lips, and darted away.
Christie sank back in her saddle with a little cry, half of pain and
half of frightened surprise. Had the poor boy suddenly gone mad, or was
this vicarious farewell a part of the courtship of Devil's Ford? She
looked at her little hand, which had reddened under the pressure, and
suddenly felt the flush extending to her cheeks and the roots of her
hair. This was intolerable.
“Christie!”
It was her sister emerging from the wood to seek her. In another moment
she was at her side.
“We thought you were following,” said Jessie. “Good heavens! how you
look! What has happened?”
“Nothing. I met Mr. Kearney a moment ago on the trail. He is going away,
and--and--” She stopped, furious and flushing.
“And,” said Jessie, with a burst of merriment, “he told you at last he
loved you. Oh, Christie!”