The days passed and, unfettered, Jim White remained in the deep woods.
After Nella-Rose's disturbing but thrilling advent, Truedale rebounded
sharply and, alone in his cabin, brought himself to terms. By a rigid
arraignment he relegated, or thought he had relegated, the whole matter
to the realm of things he should not have permitted, but which had done
no real harm. He brought out the heavy book on philosophy and
endeavoured to study. After a few hours he even resorted to the wet
towel, thinking that suggestion might assist him, but Nella-Rose
persistently and impishly got between his eyes and the pages and flouted
philosophy by the magic of her superstition and bewitching charm.
Then Truedale attacked his play, viciously, commandingly. This was more
successful. He reconstructed his plot somewhat--he let Nella-Rose in!
Curbed and somewhat re-modelled, she materialized and, while he dealt
strictly with her, writing was possible.
So the first day and night passed. On the second day Truedale's new
strength demanded exercise and recreation. He couldn't be expected to
lock himself in until White returned to chaperone him. After all, there
was no need of being a fool. So he packed a gunny sack with food and a
book or two, and sallied forth, after providing generously for the live
stock and calling the dogs after him.
But Truedale was unaware of what was going on about him. Pine Cone
Settlement had, since the trap episode, been tense and waiting. Not many
things occurred in the mountains and when they did they were made the
most of. With significant silence the friends and foes of Burke Lawson
were holding themselves in check until he returned to his old haunts;
then there would be considerable shooting--not necessarily fatal, a
midnight raid or two, a general rumpus, and eventually, a truce.
All this Jim White knew, and it was the propelling factor that had sent
him to the deep woods. His sentiments conflicted with duty. Guilty as
Lawson was, the sheriff liked him better than he did Martin and he
meant, should he come across Burke in "the sticks," to take him off for
a bear hunt and some good advice. Thus he would justify his conscience
and legal duties. But White, strange to say, was as ignorant as Truedale
was of an element that had entered into conditions. It had never
occurred to Jim to announce or explain his visitor's arrival. To Pine
Cone a "furriner" aroused at best but a superficial interest and, since
Truedale had arrived, unseen, at night, why mention him to a community
that could not possibly have anything in common with him? So it was
that Greyson and a few others, noting Truedale at a distance and losing
sight of him at once, concluded that he was Burke, back and in hiding;
and a growing but stealthy excitement was in the air. He was supposed by
both factions to be with the sheriff, and feeling ran high. In the final
estimate, could White have known it, he himself held no small part!
Beloved and hated, Lawson divided the community for and against himself
about equally. There were those who defended and swore they would kill
any who harmed the young outlaw--he was of the jovial, dare-devil type
and as loyal to his friends as he was unyielding to his foes. Others
declared that the desperado must be "finished"; the trap disagreement
was but the last of a long list of crimes; it was time to put a quietus
on one who refused to fall into line--who called the sheriff his friend
and had been known to hobnob with revenue men! That, perhaps, was the
blackest deed to be attributed to any native.
So all Pine Cone was on the war path and Truedale, heedless and unaware,
took his air and exercise at his peril.
The men of the hills had a clear case now, since Peter Greyson had given
his evidence, which, by the way, became more conclusive hour by hour as
imagination, intoxication, and the delight of finding himself important,
grew upon Greyson.
"Jim told me," Peter had confided to Jed Martin, "that he was going to
get a posse from way-back and round Lawson up."
This was wholly false. White never took any one into his business
secrets, least of all Greyson for whom he had deep contempt. "But I
don't call that clean to us-all, Jed. We don't want strangers to catch
Burke; we don't want them to--to string him up or shoot him full of
holes; what we-all want is to force White to hand him over to justice,
give him a fair trial, and then send him to one of them prison traps to
eat his soul out behind bars. Jed--just you shut your eyes and _see_
Burke Lawson behind bars--eating sop from a pan, drinking prison
water--just you call that picture up."
Jed endeavoured to do so and it grew upon his imagination.
"We-all wants to trail him," Greyson continued, "we don't want to give
him a free passage to Kingdom-Come by rope or shot--we-all want prison
for Lawson, prison!"
As Jed was the one most concerned, this edict went abroad by mountain
wireless.
"Catch him alive!" Friend and foe were alert.
"And when all's fixed and done--when Burke's trapped," Greyson said,
"what you going to do--for me, Jed?"
This was a startling, new development.
"I didn't reckon yo' war doin' this--fur pay!" Jed faltered. Then
Greyson came forth:
"No pay, Jed. Gawd knows I do my duty as I see it. But being keen about
duty, I see more than one duty. When you catch and cage Lawson, Jed, I
want to be something closer to you than a friend."
"Closer than--" Jed gasped.
"And duty drives me to confess to you, Jed, that the happiness of a lady
is at stake."
Jed merely gaped now. Visions of Nella-Rose made him giddy and
speechless.
"The day you put Lawson in jail, Jed, that day I'll give you the hand of
my daughter. She loves you; she has confessed! You shall come here and
share--everything! The hour that Burke is convicted--Marg is yours!"
"Marg!" The word came on a gasp.
"Not a word!" Greyson waved his hand in a princely way--this gesture was
an heirloom from his ancestry. "I understand your feelings--I've seen
what has been going on--but naturally I want my daughter to marry one
worthy of her. You shall have my Marg when you have proven yourself!
I've misjudged you, Jed, but this will wipe away old scores."
With a sickening sense of being absorbed, Jed sank into black silence.
If Marg wanted him and old Greyson was helping her, there was no hope!
Blood and desire would conquer every time; every mountaineer recognized
that!
And so things were seething under a surface of deadly calm, when
Truedale, believing that he had himself well in control, packed his
gunny sack and started forth for a long tramp. He had no particular
destination in mind--in fact, the soft, dreamy autumn day lulled him to
mental inertia--he simply went along, but he went as directly toward the
rhododendron slick as though he had long planned his actions. However,
it was late afternoon before he came upon Nella-Rose.
On the instant he realized that he had been searching for her all day.
His stern standards crumbled and became dry dust. One might as well
apply standards to flickering sunlight or to swirling trifles of
mountain mist as to Nella-Rose. She came upon him gaily; the dogs had
discovered her on one of their ventures and were now quietly
accompanying her.
"I--I've been looking for you--all day!" Truedale admitted, with truth
but indiscretion. And then he noted, as he had before, the strange
impression the girl gave of having been blown upon the scene. The
pretty, soft hair resting on the cheek in a bewildering curve; the
large, dreamy eyes and black lashes; the close clinging of her shabby
costume, as if wrapped about her slim body by the playful gale that had
wafted her along; all held part in the illusion.
"I had to--to lead Marg to Devil-may-come Hollow. She's hunting there
now!" Nella-Rose's white teeth showed in a mischievous smile. "We're
right safe with Marg down there, scurrying around. Come, I know a sunny
place--I want to tell you about Marg."
Her childish appropriation of him completed Truedale's surrender. The
absolute lack of self-consciousness drove the last remnant of caution
away. They found the sunny spot--it was like a dimple in a hill that had
caught the warmth and brightness and held them always to the exclusion
of shadows. It almost seemed that night could never conquer the nook.
And while they rested there, Nella-Rose told him of the belief of the
natives that he was the refugee Lawson.
"And Marg would give you up like--er--this" (Nella-Rose puffed an
imaginary trifle away with her pretty pursed lips). "She trailed after
me all day--she lost me in a place where hiding's good--and there I left
her! She'll tell Jed Martin this evening when she gets back. Marg is
scenting Burke for Jed and his kind to catch--that's her way and Jed's!"
Stinging contempt rang in the girl's voice.
"But not your way I bet, Nella-Rose." The fun, not the danger, of the
situation struck Truedale.
"No!--I'd do it all myself! I'd either warn him and have done with it,
or I'd stand by him."
"I'm not sure that I like the misunderstanding about me," Truedale half
playfully remarked, "they may shoot me in the back before they find
out."
"Do you" (and here Nella-Rose's face fell into serious, dangerously
sweet, lines), "do you reckon I would leave you to them-all if there was
that danger? They don't aim to shoot or string Burke up; they reckon
they'll take him alive and--get him locked up in jail to--to--"
"What, Nella-Rose?"
"Die of longing!"
"Is that what would happen to Burke Lawson?"
The girl nodded. Then the entrancing mischief returned to her eyes and
she became a child once more--a creature so infinitely young that
Truedale seemed grandfatherly by comparison.
"Can't you see how mighty funny it will be to lead them and let them
follow on and then some day--they'll plump right up on you and find out!
Godda'mighty!"
Irresponsible mirth swayed the girl to and fro. She laughed, silently,
until the tears stood in the clear eyes. Truedale caught the spirit of
her mood and laughed with her. The picture she portrayed of setting
jealousy, malice, and stupidity upon the wrong trail was very funny, but
suddenly he paused and said seriously:
"But in the meantime this Burke Lawson may return; you may be the death
of him with your pranks."
Nella-Rose shook her head. "I would know!" she declared confidently. "I
know everything that's going on in the hills. Burke would let me
know--first!"
"It's like melodrama," Truedale murmured half to himself. By some trick
of fancy he seemed to be looking on as Brace Kendall might have. The
thought brought him to bay. What would good old Brace do in the present
situation?
"What is melodrama?" Nella-Rose never let a new word or suggestion
escape her. She was as keen as she was dramatic and mischievous.
"It would be hard to make you understand--but see here"--Truedale drew
the gunny sack to him--"I bet you're hungry!" He deliberately put Brace
from his thoughts.
"I reckon I am." The lovely eyes were fixed upon the hand that was
bringing forth the choicest morsels of the food prepared early that
morning. As he laid the little feast before her, Truedale acknowledged
that, in a vague way, he had been saving the morsels for Nella-Rose even
while he had fed, earlier, upon coarser fare.
"I don't know about giving you a chicken wing!" he said playfully. "You
look as if you were about to fly away as it is--but unfortunately I've
eaten both legs!"
"Oh! please"--Nella-Rose reached across the narrow space separating
them, she was pleading prettily--"I just naturally admire wings!"
"I bet you do! Well, eat plenty of bread with them. And see here,
Nella-Rose, while you are eating I'm going to read a story to you. It is
the sort of thing that we call melodrama."
"Oh!" This through the dainty nibbling of the coveted wing. "I'm right
fond of stories."
"Keep quiet now!" commanded Truedale and he began the spirited tale of
love and high adventure that, like the tidbits, he knew he had brought
for Nella-Rose!
The warm autumn sun fell upon them for a full hour, then it shifted and
the chill of the approaching evening warned the reader of the flight of
time. He stopped suddenly to find that his companion had long since
forgotten her hunger and food. Across the debris she bent, absorbed and
tense. Her hands were clasped close--cold, little hands they were--and
her big eyes were strained and wonder-filled.
"Is that--all?" she asked, hoarsely.
"Why, no, child, there's more."
"Go on!"
"It's too late! We must get back."
"I--I must know the rest! Why, don't you see, you know how it turns out;
I don't!"
"Shall I tell you?"
"No, no. I want it here with the warm sun and the pines and
your--yourself making it real."
"I do not understand, Nella-Rose!" But as he spoke Truedale began to
understand and it gave him an uneasy moment. He knew what he ought to
do, but knew that he was not going to do it! "We'll have to come again
and hear the rest," was what he said.
"Yes? Why"--and here the shadowy eyes took on the woman-look, the look
that warned and lured the man near her--"I did not know it ever came
like that--really."
"What, Nella-Rose?"
"Why--love. They-all knew it--and took it. It was just like it was
something all by itself. That's not the sort us-all have. Does it only
come that--er--way in mel--melerdrammer?"
"No, little girl. It comes that way in real life when hearts are big
enough and strong enough to bear it." Truedale watched the effect of his
words upon the strange, young face before him. They forced their way
through her ignorance and untrained yearning for love and admiration. It
was a perilous moment, for conscience, on Truedale's part, seemed
drugged and sleeping and Nella-Rose was awakening to that which she had
never known before. Gone, for her, were caprice and mischief; she seemed
about to see and hear some wonderful thing that eluded but called her
on.
And after that first day they met often. "Happened upon each other" was
the way Truedale put it. It seemed very natural. The picturesque spots
appealed to them both. There was reading, too--carefully selected bits.
It was intensely interesting to lead the untrained mind into bewildering
mazes--to watch surprise, wonder, and perplexity merge into
understanding and enjoyment. Truedale experienced the satisfaction of
seeing that, for the first time in his life, he was a great power. The
thought set his brain whirling a bit, but it made him seriously humble
as well.
Gradually his doubts and introspections became more definite; he lived
day by day, hour by hour; while Jim White tarried, Nella-Rose remained;
and the past--Truedale's past--faded almost from sight. He could hardly
realize, when thinking of it afterward, where and how he decided to cut
loose from his past, and all it meant, and accept a future almost
ludicrously different from anything he had contemplated.
One day a reference to Burke Lawson was made and, instead of letting it
pass as heretofore, he asked suddenly of Nella-Rose:
"What is he to you?"
The girl flushed and turned away.
"Burke?--oh, Burke isn't--anything--now!"
"Was he ever--anything?"
"I reckon he wasn't; I _know_ he wasn't!"
Then, like a flash, Truedale believed he understood what had happened.
This simple girl meant more to him than anything else--more than the
past and what it held! A baser man would not have been greatly disturbed
by this knowledge; a man with more experience and background would have
understood it and known that it was a phase that must be dealt with
sternly and uncompromisingly, but that it was merely a phase and as such
bound to pass. Not so Truedale. He was stirred to the roots of his
being; every experience was to him a concrete fact and, consequently,
momentous. In order to keep pure the emotions that overpowered him at
times, he must renounce all that separated him from Nella-Rose and
reconstruct his life; or--he must let _her_ go!
Once Truedale began to reason this out, once he saw Nella-Rose's
dependence upon him--her trust and happiness--he capitulated and
permitted his imagination to picture and colour the time on ahead. He
refused to turn a backward glance.
Of course all this was not achieved without struggle and foreboding; but
he saw no way to hold what once was dear, without dishonour to that
which now was dearer; and he--let go!
This determined, he strenuously began to prepare himself for the change.
Day by day he watched Nella-Rose with new and far-seeing interest--not
always with love and passion-blinded eyes. He felt that she could, with
his devotion and training, develop into a rarely sweet and fine woman.
He was not always a fool in his madness; at times he was wonderfully
clear-sighted. He meant to return home, when once his health was
restored, and take the Kendalls into his confidence; but the thought of
Lynda gave him a bad moment now and then. He could not easily depose her
from the most sacred memories of his life, but gradually he grew to
believe that her relations to him were--had always been--platonic; and
that she, in the new scheme, would play no small part in his life and
Nella-Rose's.
There would be years of self-denial and labour and then, by and by,
success would be achieved. He would take his finished work, and in this
he included Nella-Rose, back to his old haunts and prove his wisdom and
good fortune. In short, Truedale was love-mad--ready to fling everything
to the ruthless winds of passion. He blindly called things by wrong
names and steered straight for the rocks.
He meant well, as God knew; indeed all the religious elements, hitherto
unsuspected in him, came to the fore now. Conventions were absurd when
applied to present conditions, but, once having accepted the inevitable,
the way was divinely radiant. He meant to pay the price for what he
yearned after. He had no other intention.
Now that he was resigned to letting the past go, he could afford to
revel in the joys of the present with a glad sense of responsibility for
the future.
Presently his course seemed so natural that he wondered he had ever
questioned it. More and more men with a vision--and Truedale devoutly
believed he had the vision--were recognizing the absurdity of old
ideals.
Back to the soil meant more than the physical; it meant back to the
primitive, the simple, the real. The artificial exactions of society
must be spurned if a new and higher morality were to be established.
If Truedale in this state of mind had once seen the actual danger, all
might have been well; but he had swung out of his orbit.
At this juncture Nella-Rose was puzzling her family to the extent of
keeping her father phenomenally sober and driving Marg to the verge of
nerve exhaustion.
The girl had, to put it in Greyson's words, "grown up over night." She
was dazzling and recalled a past that struck deep in the father's heart.
There had been a time when Peter Greyson, a mere boy, to be sure--and
before the cruel war had wrecked the fortunes of his family--had been
surrounded by such women as Nella-Rose now suggested. Women with dancing
eyes and soft, white hands. Women born and bred for love and homage, who
demanded their privileges with charm and beauty. There had been one
fascinating woman, a great-aunt of Nella-Rose's, who had imperilled the
family honour by taking her heritage of worship with a high hand.
Disregarding the rights of another, she boldly rode off with the man of
her choice and left the reconstruction of her reputation to her kith and
kin who roused instantly to action and lied, like ladies and gentlemen,
when truth was impossible. Eventually they so toned down and polished
the deed of the little social highwaywoman as to pass her on in the
family history with an escutcheon shadowed only, rather than smirched.
Nella-Rose, now that her father considered, was dangerously like her
picturesque ancestress! The thought kept Peter from the still, back in
the woods, for many a day. He, poor down-at-heel fellow, was as ready as
any man of his line to protect women, especially his own, but he was
sorely perplexed now.
Was it Burke Lawson who, from his hiding place, was throwing a glamour
over Nella-Rose?
Then Peter grew ugly. The protection of women was one thing; ridding the
community of an outlaw was another. Men knew how to deal with such
matters and Greyson believed himself to be very much of a man.
"Nella-Rose," he said one day as he smoked reflectively and listened to
his younger daughter singing a camp meeting hymn in a peculiarly sweet
little voice, "when my ship comes in, honey, I'm going to buy you a
harp. A gold one."
"I'd rather have a pink frock, father, and a real hat; I just naturally
hate sunbonnets! I'd favour a feather on my hat--flowers fade right
easy."
"But harps is mighty elegant, Nella-Rose. Time was when your--aunts
and--and grandmothers took to harps like they was their daily
nourishment. Don't you ever forget that, Nella-Rose. Harps in families
mean _blood_, and blood don't run out if you're careful of it."
Nella-Rose laughed, but Marg, in the wash-house beyond, listened
and--hated!
No one connected _her_ with harps or blood, but she held, in her sullen
heart and soul, the true elements of all that had gone into the making
of the best Greysons. And as the winter advanced, Marg, worn in mind and
body, was brought face to face with stern reality. Autumn was
gone--though the languorous hours belied it. She must prepare. So she
gathered her forces--her garden products that could be exchanged for
necessities; the pork; the wool; all, all that could be spared, she must
set in circulation. So she counted three dozen eggs and weighed ten
pounds of pork and called Nella-Rose, who was driving her mad by singing
and romping outside the kitchen door.
"You--Nella-Rose!" she called, "are you plumb crazy?"
Nella-Rose became demure at once and presented herself at the door.
"Do I look it?" she said, turning her wonderful little face up for
inspection. Something in the words and in the appealing beauty made Marg
quiver. Had happiness and justice been meted out to Marg Greyson she
would have been the tenderest of sisters to Nella-Rose. Several years
lay between them; the younger girl was encroaching upon the diminishing
rights of the older. The struggle between them was as old as life
itself, but it could not kill utterly what should have existed ardently.
"You got to tote these things"--Marg held forth the basket--"down to the
Centre for trade, and you can fetch back the lil' things like pepper,
salt, and sugar. Tell Cal Merrivale to fetch the rest and bargain for
what I've got ready here, when he drives by. If you start now you can be
back by sundown."
To Marg's surprise, Nella-Rose offered no protest to the seven-mile
walk, nor to the heavy load. She promptly pulled her sunbonnet to the
proper angle on her head and gripped the basket.
"Ain't you goin' to eat first?" asked Marg.
"No. Put in a bite; I'll eat it by the way."
As the Centre was in the opposite direction from the Hollow, as seven
miles going and seven miles coming would subdue the spirits and energy
even of Nella-Rose, Marg was perplexed. However, she prepared food,
tucked it in the basket, and even went so far as to pin her sister's
shawl closely under her chin. Then she watched the slim, straight figure
depart--still puzzled but at peace for the day, at least.
Nella-Rose, however, was plotting an attack upon Truedale quite out of
the common. By unspoken consent he and she had agreed that their
meetings should be in the open. Jim White might return at anytime and
neither of them wanted at first to include him in the bewildering drama
of their lives. For different reasons they knew that Jim's cold
understanding of duty would shatter the sacred security that was all
theirs. Truedale meant to confide everything to White upon his
return--meant to rely upon him in the reconstruction of his life; but he
knew nothing could be so fatal to the future as any conflict at the
present with the sheriff's strict ideas of conduct. As for Nella-Rose,
she had reason to fear White's power as woman-hater and upholder of law
and order. She simply eliminated Jim and, in order to do this, she must
keep him in the dark.
Early that morning she had looked, as she did every day, from the hill
behind the house and she had seen but one thin curl of smoke from the
clearing! If White had not returned the night before the chances were
that he would make another day of it! Nella-Rose often wondered why
others did not note the tell-tale smoke--a clue which often played a
vital part in the news of the hills. Only because thoughts were focussed
on the Hollow and on White's absence, was Truedale secure in his
privacy.
"I'll hurry mighty fast to the Centre," Nella-Rose concluded, after
escaping from Marg's disturbed gaze, "then I'll hide the things by the
big road and I'll--go to his cabin. I'll--I'll surprise him!"
Truedale had told her the day before, in a moment of caution, that he
would have to work hard for a time in order to make ready for White's
return. The fact was he had now got to that point in his story when he
longed for Jim as he might have longed for safety on a troubled sea.
With Jim back and fully informed--everything on ahead would be safe.
"I'll surprise him!" murmured Nella-Rose, with the dimples in full play
at the corners of her mouth; "old Jim White can't keep me away. I'll
watch out--it's just for a minute; I'll be back by sundown; it will be
only to say 'how-de?'"
Something argued with the girl as she ran on--something quite new and
uncontrolled. Heretofore no law but that of the wilds had entered into
her calculations. To get what she could of happiness and life--to make
as little fuss as possible--that had been her code; but now, the same
restraint that had held Marg from going to the Hollow awhile back, when
she thought that, with night, Burke Lawson might disclose his
whereabouts, held Nella-Rose! So insistent was the rising argument that
it angered the girl. "Why? Why?" her longings and desires cried.
"Because! Because!" was the stern response, and the _woman_ in
Nella-Rose thrilled and throbbed and trembled, while the girlish spirit
pleaded for the excitement of joy and sweetness that was making the
grim stretches of her narrow existence radiant and full of meaning.
On she went doggedly. The dimples disappeared; the mouth fell into the
pathetic, drooping lines that by and by, unless something saved
Nella-Rose, would become permanent and mark her as a hill-woman--one to
whom soul visions were denied.