dreams, when he beheld a sight that sent the blood back to his heart
with a rush. Not fifty yards away, in a sunny opening, lay a mass of
brownish fur which could belong to nobody but a bear _in propria
persona_. Great Caesar! Could it be possible? Almost too agitated to
breathe, Sir Bryan moved cautiously toward the creature, covering it
with his rifle. The bear, with the politeness which appeared to cling to
all classes of society in this effetely civilized West, rose up and sat
on his haunches, facing his visitor. Sir Bryan fired and the bear
tumbled over like a ninepin.
Sir Bryan Parkhurst, as became a young Irish baronet, had enjoyed his
share of sensations in life. A year previous he had almost broken his
neck riding across country, and had won the brush into the bargain. He
had once saved a man from drowning on the coast of Cornwall. He had
come into his title unexpectedly, and made his new tenantry adore him.
To crown all, he had, at a still poignantly recent date, practically
refused the hand of an English heiress. But he had never before shot a
bear, nor indeed had he ever seen one outside the Zoo. As he steadfastly
regarded the heap of brown fur, a sinister doubt invaded his mind. Might
it be a cow, after all? Forgetful of the well-established fact in
natural history that cows never sit on their haunches, even with a view
to serving as target to an ambitious sportsman, he cautiously approached
his victim.
It was unquestionably a bear, though not of a terrific aspect. Sir Bryan
examined the lifeless body with the keenest interest. He had seen a
domestic pig which would have weighed more; he had encountered more than
one dog of a more dangerous appearance; yet, when all was said, a bear
was a bear.
Sir Bryan seated himself upon a rock to reflect upon his next step. It
was close upon midday. He thought he must be some eight miles from town.
When he had enjoyed his bear for a few minutes, he would return there
and get some men to come and cart the carcass to town. He would have the
skin removed and cured, and the meat--
"Brian! Brian Boru!"
The words came ringing up the mountain slope in a bell-like soprano. Why
should a bell-like soprano call the name of the old Irish king in this
remote wilderness? Was there witchery at work? Was the bear merely a
part of the phantasmagoria of an enchanted region?
Sir Bryan, undeterred by these suggestions of his fancy, lifted up his
voice and shouted "Hulloo!" and behold! a few minutes later, a horse
came pushing through the scrub-oaks, bearing upon his back an enchanted
princess. As was to be expected of a Colorado princess, enchanted or
otherwise, she had not quite the traditional appearance. In lieu of a
flowing robe of spotless white, she was clad in a plain black skirt and
a shirt waist of striped cambric, while the golden fillet, if such she
wore, was quite concealed by a very jaunty sailor-hat, than which no
fillet could have been more becoming. In short, the pleasing vision
which Sir Bryan beheld was far more to his taste than any princess of
fairy lore could have been. As he sprang to his feet and lifted his hat
he wondered whether the expression "nut-brown maid" was poetry. If so,
he had performed an unprecedented feat in recalling it so aptly.
There is a difference in the way men lift their hats, and Sir Bryan's
way was a charming one.
"Did you call?" asked the nut-brown maid.
"No; I only answered when I heard you call my name."
"Is your name Brian Boru?" she inquired, with animation.
"I am an Irishman, and my name is Bryan, so they used to call me Brian
Boru."
"How very curious! That is the name of my bear!"
"Of your bear?" he repeated in blank amazement.
"Yes. Have you seen anything of him? I'm a little near-sighted and----"
Sir Bryan Parkhurst never shirked a dilemma.
"I've just shot a bear," he blurted out, "but I hope, with all my heart,
it wasn't yours!"
"Shot a bear?" cried the girl, in consternation. "Oh! how could you?"
Before Sir Bryan could reach out a helping hand, her feet were on the
ground.
"Where is he? Oh! where is he?" she cried in tragic accents.
Sir Bryan pointed to the prostrate form of the murdered bear. Alas! It
must have been her bear, for she knelt down beside him, and gazed upon
him long and mournfully.
And truly there was something pathetic about the victim, viewed from
this new standpoint. He lay on his side, exposing the wound, which was
clotted with blood. His small eyes were open, and a red tongue just
visible between his parted teeth. One short, rigid, foreleg was
stretched out as though in remonstrance, and just within its embrace a
fading spray of gilia lifted its fragile blossoms.
Sir Bryan stood lost in contemplation of this singular scene; the
graceful figure of the kneeling girl, bending over the mass of coarse
brown fur; the flower, standing unscathed close beside the long,
destructive claws. A few yards away, the horse lazily whisked his tail,
while to the right the frowning crags rose, so near and steep that they
seemed about to topple over and make an end of the improbable situation.
At last the girl lifted her head, murmuring, "Straight through the
heart!"
The sportsman's vanity gave a little throb. It was a pretty shot, by
Jove! He moved nearer.
"I'm no end sorry about it," he declared.
Alas, for that throb of vanity! His contrition did not have the true
ring.
The girl turned upon him with quick distrust. No, he was more glad than
sorry.
"If we were in England," she cried, with withering scorn, "you would
have to be more than sorry."
"In England?"
"Yes, in England, or in Ireland, or anywhere round there. If I'd shot so
much as a miserable pheasant on your land you'd have--you'd have _had me
up before the bailey_!"
Clearly the girl's reading of English fiction had confused her ideas of
British magistracy. But Sir Bryan was generous, and overlooked side
issues.
"Is this your land?" he asked, gazing at the wild mountain side, and
then at the flaming cheeks of the girl. She stood there like an animated
bit of autumn coloring.
"Of course it's my land," she declared.
"But I didn't know it was your land."
"You knew it wasn't _yours_!" she cried vehemently.
Poor Sir Bryan was hopelessly bewildered. The great West was, after all,
not quite like the rest of the world, if charming young ladies owned the
mountain sides, danced attendance upon by bears of dangerous aspect and
polished manners. He blushed violently, but he did not look in the least
awkward.
"I wish you would tell me your name," he said, feeling that if this
remarkable young lady possessed anything so commonplace as a name, the
knowledge of it might place him on a more equal footing with her.
"Certainly, Mr. Bryan," she replied. "My name is Merriman; Kathleen
Merriman," and she looked at him with great dignity but with no
relenting.
"Well, Miss Merriman, I don't suppose there's any good in talking about
it. My being awfully sorry doesn't help matters any. I don't see that
there's anything to be done about it, but to have the carcass carted off
your land as soon as may be."
"Carted off my land!" the girl cried, with kindling indignation. "You
need not trouble yourself to do anything of the kind." Then, with a
sudden change to the elegiac, she fixed her mournful gaze upon her
departed friend and said, "I shall bury him where he lies!"
In this softened mood she seemed less formidable, and Sir Bryan so far
plucked up his spirit as to make a suggestion.
"Perhaps I could help you," he said. "If I had a shovel, or something,
I think I could dig a first-rate grave."
The fair mourner looked at him doubtfully, and then she looked at his
namesake, and apparently the poetic justice of the thing appealed to
her.
"There's a spade over at the house," she said, "and I don't know that
it's any more than fair that you should bury him."
Sir Bryan's spirits rose still higher at the hope of partial expiation
of his crime; but with his rising spirits came a premonition of a good
healthy appetite which would soon be due, and he asked meekly: "Would
you mind, then, if I were to go back to town first, to get something to
eat? A person doesn't dig so well, I suppose, on an empty stomach."
"No, you'd better stay and get your dinner with me. It will take you
pretty much all day to bury Brian. You probably never buried a bear
before," she added, as patronizingly as if she herself had been a
professional grave-digger, "and you don't know what a piece of work it's
going to be."
They started to push their way through the scrub-oaks.
"Shall I lead your horse for you?" Sir Bryan asked.
[Illustration: "THE VAST SEA OF THE PRAIRIE."]
"No, thank you. Comrag will follow, all right;" and Comrag did follow,
so close upon their heels, that Sir Bryan was in momentary expectation
of being trampled upon.
Comrag was an unbeautiful beast, and he permitted himself startling
liberties; crowding himself in between his mistress and her companion,
helping himself without ceremony to a bunch of asters which Sir Bryan
had in his hand, and neighing straight into the young baronet's ear as
they came in sight of the house.
The "house" was a mere hut, painted red, entirely dwarfed by an ungainly
chimney of rough stone. The little hut was built against a huge boulder,
which towered above the chimney itself, and looked as though it had
stood there since the foundation of the earth. There was a rustic
veranda along the front of this diminutive dwelling, which stood on a
slight eminence; and, as Sir Bryan stepped upon the veranda, he drew a
long breath of amazement and delight. Looking down over the broad,
oak-clad slope of the mountain, he beheld the vast sea of the prairie,
stretching for leagues upon leagues away to the low horizon. From that
height the view seemed limitless, and the illusion of the sea, which
always hovers over the prairies, was complete.
As his hostess came out with a long-handled spade in her hand, he cried,
"That is the most magnificent thing I ever saw!"
She did not answer immediately, but stood leaning upon the spade, and
gazing forth as intently as if it had been to her too a revelation.
Then she drew a long breath and said, in a rapt tone, as though the
words came to her one by one: "Yes, it makes you feel sometimes as if
your soul would get away from you."
They stood there for a while, watching the cloud-shadows swimming upon
that mystic sea. The smoke of an express train on the horizon seemed
fairly to crawl, so great was the distance.
"That looks like the smoke of a steamer," Sir Bryan observed.
"Then you think it seems like the sea, as everybody else does," she
answered. "I never saw the sea, myself, but I don't believe it can be
finer than this."
There was another pause, and then, with a sudden change of mood, to
which she seemed subject, the rapt worshipper turned her thoughts to
practical things, saying briskly: "Here's your spade, Mr. Bryan. You
had better go and begin, while I get the dinner. I'll fire a shot when
it's ready."
Sir Bryan obediently took the spade.
"How am I to find my way to the bear?" he asked.
All about the little clearing was an unbroken wilderness of scrub-oaks,
gorgeous but bewildering.
"Why, you can just follow Comrag's tracks," she said, pointing toward
the spot where the hoof-prints emerged from the brush. "You'd better
leave your rifle here," she added with some asperity, "You might take a
fancy to shoot Comrag if he strayed your way."
It was Sir Bryan Parkhurst's first attempt at digging, and he devoutly
hoped it might be his last. He thought at first that he should never get
his spade inserted into the earth at all, so numerous and exasperating
were the hindrances it met with. The hardest and grittiest of stones,
tangled roots, and solid cakes of earth, which seemed to cohere by means
of some subterranean cement, offered a complicated resistance, which was
not what he had expected of Mother Earth. He began to fear that that
much bepraised dame was something of a vixen after all.
The other Brian lay, meanwhile, in all the dignity and solemnity of
funeral state, awaiting burial. As Sir Bryan toiled at his thankless
task he found himself becoming strangely impressed. There seemed to be a
weird and awesome significance in the scene. He did not know why it was,
but the beetling crags above him, the consciousness of the marvellous
plains below, the rhythmic murmur of the wind in the pine trees near at
hand, the curious impenetrableness of the old earth, the kingship of
death asserting itself in the motionless brute which he had killed, but
which he was powerless to make alive again--all these weird and
unaccustomed influences seemed to be clutching at his imagination,
taking liberties with his sense of identity. He had just about reached
the conclusion that it was all a mistake about his being anybody in
particular, when a shot rang out and reminded him that he was, at any
rate, ravenously hungry.
Five minutes later he had washed his hands at the toy sink of a toy
kitchen and was seated at a snowy table on the little veranda, partaking
of a mutton stew which seemed a dish fit for the gods.
It had been something of a shock to Sir Bryan to find places laid for
only two. He had never before enjoyed a _tete-a-tete_ meal with a young
lady, and it was some minutes before he could rid his mind of the
impression that an irate chaperon was about to appear from behind the
boulder, or, for the matter of that, from the depths of the earth
itself. His recent experience of the difficulty of penetrating the
surface of the earth might have given him a sense of security in that
direction, had he not cherished an exaggerated opinion of the prowess of
the traditional chaperon in thwarting the pleasures of the young. The
comeliness, too, of his hostess led him, by inference, to suppose that
the chaperon in question would prove to be of a peculiarly vicious and
aggressive type. No such apparition came, however, to disturb his
satisfaction, and he gradually came to believe in the lawfulness of the
situation. His face may have betrayed something of the questionings
which were racking his mind, for the self-possessed Kathleen, after
heaping his plate with stew for the second time, gave him an
elder-sisterly look, and said: "Mr. Bryan, you are such a very discreet
young man, that I believe I will answer all the questions you are dying
to ask."
Sir Bryan blushed, as he always hated himself for doing, and the
nut-brown maid continued:
"Yes, I live here all alone. I am taking up a claim. No. Nobody molests
me, and I get on beautifully. Sometimes my friends come up and spend a
few days with me, but not often. Comrag and I do the marketing once or
twice a week. I've got a lovely cool cellar up against the boulder under
the house."
All this she said like a child repeating a lesson she has learned by
rote, which the teacher wants to hear, but which the child finds rather
uninteresting. But Sir Bryan listened as if it had been the most
exciting tale he had ever heard. Thus encouraged she proceeded with the
dry statement of facts.
"I've only got to stay here a month longer to secure the claim. I've got
three hundred acres, and it has cost me just three hundred dollars to
take it up and to build my house and Comrag's stall. I could sell out
to-morrow for five hundred dollars, but I don't know that I would sell
for five thousand. Because I have such a beautiful time here. I feel
somehow as if I had struck root."
Sir Bryan knew exactly what she meant. In spite of the sailor hat and
shirt waist, she had the air of having grown up among the rocks and
glowing oak leaves. He said nothing, but his attentive attitude asked
for more.
"Oh, yes! and about Brian Boru," she proceeded. "I found him last June,
lying up against a tree with his leg broken. I fed him until his leg was
mended, and--and"--with a little catch in her breath--"he adored me! See
how green it looks off to the south," she hastened to add, brushing her
hand across her eyes.
An hour after dinner, as Sir Bryan still labored at that contumacious
grave, his hostess came and seated herself upon the rock, whence he, in
the first flush of triumph, had surveyed the dead bear. Sir Bryan could
not but feel flattered by this kind attention, and, being particularly
anxious to acquit himself creditably before so distinguished a
spectator, he naturally became more and more awkward at his work.
The young lady considerately divided her attention between the futile
efforts of the amateur grave-digger and the flippant behavior of a black
and white magpie, which was perched on the branch of a dead pine near
by, derisively jerking its long tail. She wondered whether the magpie
perhaps shared her astonishment, that an able-bodied son of Erin should
not take more naturally to a spade. She had supposed that, if there was
one weapon that an Irishman thoroughly understood, it was that which her
new acquaintance was struggling with. She cocked her head on one side,
with something of a magpie air, while a little crease appeared between
her eyebrows.
"Why don't you coax it a little more?" she suggested.
Sir Bryan straightened himself up and stood there, very red in the face,
trying to make out whether she was laughing at him. Then he laughed at
himself and said, "I believe you are right. I was getting vindictive."
After that he seemed to get on better.
They buried the bear just as the heavy shadow of the mountain fell
across their feet. By the time the last clod of earth had fallen upon
the grave, the mountain shadow had found its way a hundred miles across
the plains, and a narrow golden rim, like a magic circlet, glimmered on
the horizon.
"Do you never feel afraid?" he asked, as they walked back to the house.
"No. I suppose I ought to, but I don't. I was a little disappointed the
first summer I was here, because nothing happened. It seemed such a
chance. But somehow things don't happen very often. Do you think they
do? And now I'm a good deal older and more experienced, and I don't
expect adventures. I'm almost twenty-five," she declared, with the
pardonable pride of advancing years.
There was that in Sir Bryan's face as well as in his character which had
always invited confidence. Consequently it did not seem to him in the
least degree unnatural that this charming girl should tell him about
herself, as they walked side by side along the lonely mountain slope, in
the fading light.
"I forgot to tell you," she was saying, "that I am a trained nurse. I
came out West from Iowa with a sick lady who died very soon, and I liked
the mountains, and so I stayed."
"And you've given up nursing?"
"Oh, no. In the winter season I am always busy. I couldn't afford to
give up nursing, and I don't believe I should want to. It's lovely to
help people when they are suffering. You get almost to feel as though
they belonged to you, and I haven't anybody belonging to me."
All this was said in a tone of soliloquy, without a trace of
self-consciousness. Miss Kathleen Merriman seemed to find it quite
natural that she should stand alone and unprotected in the world. But
somehow it conflicted with all Sir Bryan's articles of faith. Women were
intended to be taken care of, especially young and pretty women. A
feeling of genuine tenderness came over him and a longing to protect
this brave young creature. There was, to be sure, something about the
way her head was set upon her shoulders, that made him doubt whether it
would be easy to acquire the right to take care of her. But that made
the task all the more tempting. The old song that every Irishman loves
was in his thoughts. He felt an impulse, such as others had felt in this
young lady's presence, to whisper: "Kathleen Mavourneen." He tried to
fancy the consequences of such a bold step, but he did not venture to
face them. He therefore contented himself with observing that the air
had grown very chilly.
They had reached the little veranda once more, and Sir Bryan was not
invited to tarry. The girl stood there in the deepening twilight, a step
above him, leaning upon the spade he had delivered up, and looking out
across the shadowy plains, and Sir Bryan could think of no possible
excuse for staying any longer. As he flung his rifle over his shoulder
and made a motion to go, she held out her hand, with a sudden friendly
impulse, and said: "I was very unjust this morning. You couldn't
possibly have known, and it was very kind of you to bury him."
Sir Bryan murmured a remorseful word or two, and then he started down
the mountain side.
"Good-bye," he cried, across the scrub-oaks that were growing dark and
indistinct.
"Good-bye, Mr. Bryan," came the answer, sounding shrill and near through
the intervening distance.
As he looked back, a huge, ungainly form thrust itself before the
slender figure. A great dark head stood out against the light shirtwaist
the girl wore, and he perceived that Comrag had strolled from his stall
for a friendly good-night.
"The only friend she has left now," Sir Bryan reflected in sorrowful
compunction.
He strode down the mountain at a good pace. Now and then a startled
rabbit crossed his path, and once his imagination turned a scrub-oak
into the semblance of a bear. But he gave no heed to these apparitions.
His sportsman's instinct had suffered a check.
By the time Sir Bryan had reached the outskirts of the town, the stars
were out. He looked up at the great mountain giant that closed the range
at the south. Wrapped in darkness and in silence it stood against the
starry sky. He tried to imagine that he could perceive a twinkling light
from the little cabin, but none was visible. The enchantment of the
mountain-side had already withdrawn itself into impregnable shadow.
"Jove!" he said to himself, as he turned into the prosaic town. "If I
were an American, or something of that sort, I'd go up there again."
Being, however, a young Irish baronet, as shy of entanglements with his
own kind as he was eager for encounters with wild beasts, he very wisely
went his way the next morning, and up to this time has never beheld
mountain or maiden again.
Over the grave which Sir Bryan dug, there stands to-day a stout pine
board, upon which may be read the following legend:
"Here lies the body of
Brian Boru,
shot through the heart
and subsequently buried
by an agreeable Paddy
of the same name."
Every year, however, the inscription becomes somewhat less legible and
it is to be feared that all record of the poor bear will soon be lost.
III.
JAKE STANWOOD'S GAL.
Jacob Stanwood was not the only college-bred man, stranded more or less
like a disabled hull, upon the prairie sea of Colorado. Within the
radius of a hundred miles--no great distance as prairie miles are
reckoned,--there were known to be some half dozen of the fraternity,
putting their superior equipment to the test, opposing trained minds and
muscles to the stubborn resistance of an ungenial nature. The varying
result of the struggle in different cases would seem to indicate that it
is moral fibre which nature respects and submits to, rather than any
acquired advantages.
[Illustration: "BETWEEN HIS CABIN DOOR AND 'THE RANGE' STRETCHED TWENTY
MILES OF ARID PRAIRIE."]
In Jacob Stanwood's case there was no such test applied, for there was
absolutely no struggle. He would have found it much easier to send a
bullet through his brain than to put that organ to any violent exertion.
Up to him, but he sometimes fancied that he saw it coming. At such times
he would philosophize over himself and fate, until he had exhausted
those two great subjects, and then, in a quiet and gentlemanly way, he
would drown speculation in the traditional dram. He never drank anything
but "Old Rye," and he flattered himself that he did so only when he
pleased. If he somewhat misapprehended his relation with old rye, it was
perhaps no wonder; for in his semi-occasional encounters with this
gentlemanly intoxicant, his only witnesses and commentators were his
collie dogs, and they never ventured upon an opinion in the matter.