young man, standing there in the bright moonlight,--at his sensitive,
intelligent face, his finely-modelled head and brow,--and somehow she
felt reinstated with herself. She had been fatally wrong in making
choice so lightly, but at least the choice was, in itself, nothing to be
ashamed of! As she helped Stephen in his painful transit to the saddle,
she wondered if she were really a heartless person to take comfort in
such a thought. But, in truth, since she had come to question the
genuineness of her own part in their relation, she had lost faith in
his share as well. There must have been something wrong about it from
the beginning, and certainly, she reasoned, if she had lost interest in
so admirable a being as he, it was not to be expected that he would be
more constant to a trifling sort of person like herself. There was only
a little awkwardness to be got over at first, but sooner or later he
would bless her for his escape.
Stephen, meanwhile, was submitting to all her arrangements with neither
protest nor suggestion. She had undertaken to rescue him, and she must
do it in her own way. If he hated to see her ploughing through the snow
by the side of the horse, he made no sign. If he would rather have been
left to his fate than to have subjected her to exposure and fatigue, he
was too wise to say so. Her wilfulness had been so thoroughly
demonstrated in the course of that day that he merely observed her with
an appreciation half amused, half admiring.
"There is a house just beyond the gate where we can go," she said; and
then she did not speak again for many minutes.
As for her companion, he seemed inclined at first to be as taciturn as
she. Whether or not he was suffering agony from his foot, she had no
means of knowing, nor could she guess how he interpreted her own action.
At last he broke the silence.
"Of course you meant to give me the slip," he said. "I half knew it all
the time. I suppose that was the very reason why I persisted in acting
as if I thought you had ridden back for me. One clings all the harder to
one's illusions when,--well, when it's all up with them."
Amy could not seem to think of any suitable remark to make in reply.
They had reached the ranch road now. She knew the general lay of the
land well enough to recognize it, and she could trust Sunbeam to keep
it. A dense black cloud, the rearguard of the storm, had covered the
moon, but there were stars enough to light the way somewhat.
"Would you mind telling me why you risked your life for me?" Stephen
asked abruptly.
Some seconds went by before she answered. Then: "I think there was
reason enough in my being to blame for it all," she said; "I behaved
outrageously."
"And the other reason? There was another reason, I take it."
His voice was not eager, not lover-like; there was more curiosity than
anything else in the tone. Again the moon shone out, and lighted up her
face distinctly, as she answered him, looking straight before her along
the snowy road.
"I think," she said, speaking with a slow consideration of her words; "I
think it was because I could not bear to have you--go out of the world,
believing--what was not true! It seemed like a deceit going over into
eternity!"
Would he say something very dreadful in reply, she wondered; something
that would haunt her for the rest of her days?
She was still bracing herself for the worst,--for he had not yet broken
the silence,--when they came to the gate, fixed there, half closed.
There was just room for Sunbeam to pass out, and Amy fell behind for a
moment. Stephen drew rein and waited for her, while she vainly tried to
close the gate.
"Don't mind that," he said. "It will close of itself when the snow
melts."
She came obediently and walked beside him. They had turned aside from
the direction of Springtown, toward a little house a few rods away. They
were almost there when Stephen spoke again.
"You must be sorry about it all," he said, "though you very wisely leave
that to be understood. You have made a mistake and you think you have
caused another person great and lasting unhappiness. I can't tell
to-night whether that is so or not, but there is one thing that I think
you have a right to know."
"And that is?" She felt that she must fill in the pause, for he
evidently found it difficult to go on.
"I think I know you well enough," he said; "to be sure of your feeling
about it, though it is different from what some people would have under
the circumstances. But somehow I am sure that you will be glad to know,
that when I thought I was going to perish in the storm,--after I was
thrown, and before I had seen that there was shelter near by,--it was
_not you_ my thoughts were running on."
Again he paused while she lifted the latch of the little gate. Then, as
Sunbeam passed through, and Amy walked by his side up the snowy path,
Stephen said:
"I think it must have been a good many minutes that I lay there,
thinking that the end was coming, and the only person in the world that
I seemed to care about was--_my mother_!"
At the word, the bond that had irked her was gently loosed, and he, for
his part, could only wonder that he felt no pain. The great cold
moonlit calm of the night seemed to enter into their hearts, swept
clean by the storm. They looked into one another's faces in the solemn
white light, with a fine new unconcern. Where were all their
perplexities? What had it all been about?
It was as if the snow had melted, and the great gate had closed itself.
Was it Paradise or Purgatory they had shut themselves out from?
XIII.
A GOLDEN VISTA.
Tramp, tramp, tramp,--the heavy boots had sounded on the road,--tramp,
tramp, tramp! since Sunday morning, and now it was Tuesday noon. Often
for hours together there had been no witness to the steady march, save
the lordly pine-trees, standing straight and grand in the mountain
"parks," or scaling boldly the precipitate sides of the encroaching
cliffs; the cliffs themselves, frowning sternly above the path; and
always somewhere on the horizon, towering above the nearer hills or
closing in the end of the valley, a snowy peak gleaming like a
transcendent promise against the sky. Waldo Kean, as he strode steadily
down from his father's mountain ranch toward a wonderful new future
whose door was about to be flung wide to him, felt the inspiration of
those rugged mountain influences, the like of which had been his
familiars all the seventeen years of his life. The chattering brooks
had nothing to say to him as they came dashing down from the hills to
join the rollicking stream whose course his path followed; the
sunflowers, gilding the edge of the road, were but frills and furbelows
to his thinking. But in the pine-trees there was a perfectly clear
significance,--in those hardy growths, finding a foothold among the
rocks, drawing sustenance from Heaven knew where, yet ever growing
skyward, straight and tall and strong. As he passed among them, standing
at gracious intervals in the broad "parks," they seemed to flush with
understanding and sympathy. His way led from north to south and as often
as he turned and looked back among the trees, the stems glowed ruddily
and his heart warmed to them. He knew that it was merely the southern
exposure that had tinged their bark and caused that friendly glow, but
he liked it all the same.
Now and then the solitude was relieved by the appearance of a horseman
riding with flapping arms and jingling spurs up the pass; or again the
silence was broken by the inconsequent bleating of a flock of sheep
wandering in search of their scant pasturage or huddling together, an
agitated mass of grimy wool, its outskirts painfully exposed to the
sharp but well-intentioned admonitions of a somewhat irascible collie.
Neither man nor beast took special note of the overgrown boy striding so
confidently on his way, nor was one observer more likely than the other
to guess what inspiring thoughts were animating the roughly clad,
uncouth form. The boy's clothes were shabby and travel-stained, and over
his shoulders was slung a canvas bag, its miscellaneous contents making
sharp, angular protuberances on its surface. He had left the ranch with
clothes and books enough to give the bag a pretty weight, and this he
had unconcernedly increased by the insertion into the straining
receptacle of many a "specimen" picked up by the way. For the eyes were
keen and observant that looked out from under the strongly marked brows,
and bits of fluorite and "fool's gold," and of rarer minerals as well,
which had lain for years beside the road, noted as little by cowboy and
ranchman and mountain tourist as by the redman whose feet first trod the
pass, were destined to-day to start on their travels, enlisted in the
service of Science.
It must have been a daring specimen indeed that should have thought of
resisting its fate when it came at the hands of Waldo Kean. There was a
certain rough strength not only in the muscular frame, but in the face
itself, with its rude features, its determined outlines, its heavy
under-lip; and in the stiff black hair roughly clipped on the ample
skull, growing in a bushy thatch above the keen dark eyes. It seemed but
natural that just that type of boy should feel himself drawn to the
study of the rocky foundation of things.
Four years ago Waldo Kean had found out that he wanted to be a
geologist, and that to this end he must go to college. Yet though the
college was in Springtown, and though Springtown lies close to the foot
of the "range," it had taken him four years to get there. During that
enforced interval he had done his full share of the heavy ranch work, he
had found one and another means of accumulating a little capital of his
own; at off hours and off seasons he had cudgelled his brain over books
with ugly difficult titles and anything but tractable contents. In short
he had fairly earned his passport, and now, at last, on this radiant
October morning, he was striding over the few intervening miles that
separated him from that wonderful Land of Promise, where Latin and Greek
grew on every tree, and the air was electric with the secrets of Science
itself. What wonder that he was unconscious of hardship and fatigue,
that he counted as nothing the three days' tramp; the icy nights spent
out under the chill stars; the only half-satisfied hunger of a healthy
boy, living on food which the dry mountain air was rapidly reducing to a
powdery consistency! He was going to College; he was going to be a
Geologist. What did he care for any paltry details by the way?
He seated himself for his noon meal, the last crumbling sandwich of his
store, at the foot of a big pine-tree, just where the pass narrows to a
wild ravine. As he took out the slice of bread and meat neatly wrapped
about with brown paper, his thoughts reverted with a certain sore
compunction to the hand that had prepared it for him. It had been his
mother's farewell service, and he somehow realized now as he had not
realized at the time, how much all those careful preparations meant, to
her and to himself. He remembered how, late Saturday night, she had sat
mending a new rip in his best coat, and that when she pricked her
finger, and a little bead of red blood had to be disposed of before she
could go on with the work, he had wondered why women were always
pricking their fingers when there was no need. It was not until the very
moment of departure that the pain of it seized him. His mother was a
quiet, undemonstrative woman of the New England race, and if mother and
son loved each other,--as it now transpired that they did,--no mention
had ever been made of the fact on either side. The consequence was, that
when, at parting, an iron hand seemed to be gripping the boy's throat,
he had been so taken at unawares, that he had found it impossible to
articulate a single word. On the mother's part there had been one
little, half-suppressed sob that sounded in his ears yet. It left an
ache in him that he did not at first know what to do with, but which
clearly called for heroic treatment. Accordingly, after much pondering
the situation, he had adopted a great resolution,--a resolution which
involved no less arduous a task than that of writing a letter to his
mother and telling her that he loved her. He thought it possible that
the confession might give her pleasure, coming from a safe distance and
involving no immediate consequences, and in any case he did not feel
justified in keeping to himself a discovery which so nearly concerned
another person. He had thought a good deal about the letter and of how
he should approach the subject, and he had about decided to make the
momentous statement in a postscript down in one corner and to sign it
"Waldy."
He was so near his journey's end that he allowed himself rather a longer
nooning than usual. He stretched himself on his back on the pine
needles, and with his hands clasped behind his head, he gazed up through
the spreading branches to the marvellous blue of the sky. When he should
be a scientific man and know all sorts of things besides
geology,--meteorology and chemistry and the like,--perhaps he should
find out why the sky looked so particularly deep and palpitating when
you were lying flat on your back and there were some pine branches in
between. He meant, one of these days, to know everything there was to be
known, and to discover a little something new besides.
A train of cars thundered by on the other side of the brook not thirty
yards from his feet. He did not change his position, but looking down
the long length of his legs, he saw the roaring, snorting beast of an
engine rush by, trailing its tail of cars behind it.
"And yet the power isn't in the steam," he thought to himself, "but in
the brain that controls it. Just the brain. That's all." At the thought
a sudden impatience seized him to arrive at that goal where the brain
takes command, and he sprang to his feet, and shouldering his pack,
strode on down the pass. Tramp, tramp, tramp! went the heavy boots; the
great bag weighed like lead across his shoulders; a gnawing hunger had
somehow got into him since he swallowed the crumbling bread and meat.
"The water was good, at any rate," he said to himself, glancing more
appreciatively than before at the crystal stream that still raced on a
level with the road. The way led across both brook and railroad just
there, and there was a sharp turn in the walls of the canon. He looked
back and saw a train rushing down the pass, swiftly,--surreptitiously,
it seemed, so curiously little noise did it make on the down-grade. An
instant later he had turned the corner, and found himself face to face
with a pair of horses harnessed to a buggy, trotting rapidly up the
pass, straight toward that railroad crossing. They were already close
upon him and he could see a man and woman seated in the buggy. He had
only time to fling his pack to one side and wave his arms in warning,
and then, his warning being unheeded, he sprang at the horses' heads and
seized the bridles. The horses reared and plunged, there was the sharp
whistle of a whiplash, a stinging blow cut him across the face. The
blood rushed to his head in a sudden fury, but instinctively he kept his
hold upon the plunging horses. They had all but dragged him to the track
when the train rushed by. The whole thing had happened in twenty seconds
of time.
He dropped his hold and sprang to one side while the horses dashed on
and tore round the projecting corner of rock, the buggy slewing wildly
after them.
Waldo Kean stood an instant with clenched hands and crimson face, a
straight welt standing out white and angry across his cheek.
Then,--"Pooh! he muttered, I'm going to college all the same!"--and he
picked up his hat which the horses had trampled out of shape, shouldered
his pack and strode on down the pass. His cheek was smarting with pain,
but he was hardly aware of that; there was a yawning rip in the arm-hole
of his coat, but that was of still less consequence. He had all he could
do to attend to the conflicting emotions of the moment; the sense of
outraged dignity contending, not very successfully, with a lively
concern for the fate of those people he had tried to rescue. He thought
it more than likely that they would both get killed, for the horses
were quite unmanageable when they disappeared around the corner, and he
remembered an ugly bit of road just above that point. He was not a
little disgusted with himself when he caught himself hoping that they
might get out of the scrape alive. Well, if he could not "stay mad"
longer than that, he told himself, he might as well forget the whole
business and be on the look-out for specimens.
Meanwhile the pass was getting grander every moment; the brook was
working its way deeper below the level of the road, while here and there
in this sombre defile a splash of yellow aspen gleamed like living gold
on the face of the precipice. The wild and beautiful gorge interested
him in spite of himself; it disengaged his thoughts alike from his
personal grievance, and from his dissatisfied contemplation of his own
lack of proper vindictiveness. There was nothing grand like this in the
neighborhood of the ranch. It was more like his father's description of
the "Flume" and the "Notch," those natural wonders of the White Hills
which Waldo Kean the elder liked to talk about. "When I was a boy over
in New Hampshire," he used to say; and to the children it seemed as if
"over in New Hampshire" could not be more than a day's journey from the
ranch.
[Illustration: "THE WILD AND BEAUTIFUL GORGE."]
"When I was a boy over in New Hampshire," he would say, "I got it into
my head that if I could only get away to a new place I sh'd get to be
something big; and the farther away I got, the bigger I expected to be.
Colorado was a territory then, 'n I thought, 'f I could only get out
here they'd make me gov'nor's like 's not. 'N I do' know but what I'd
have looked to be made President of the United States 'f I'd sighted the
Pacific Ocean!"
Then the shaggy, keen-eyed mountaineer who made so light of boyish
expectations would knock the logs together and take a puff or two at his
pipe before coming to the climax of his remarks, which varied according
to the lesson he wished to inculcate.
"It took me several years of wrastling with life," he was fond of
saying, "to find out that it ain't so much matter _whar_ you be, as
_what_ you be. 'N if I was you, Waldy,"--here was the application,--"I'd
contrive to learn a little something on my own hook, before I aspired to
go consorting with them as knows it all!"
When, however, the time was ripe, and "Waldy," having fulfilled these
conditions, was fairly off for college, the ranchman had signified his
approval of his son's course by escorting him a few miles on his way.
The boy had felt himself highly honored by the attention, yet when the
time of parting came, it was with no such stricture about his throat as
had taken him at unawares in the early morning, that he watched the tall
form disappearing among the pine-trees. There was a certain
self-sufficiency about the "old man,"--aged forty-five,--that precluded
any embarrassing tenderness in one's relations with him.
Waldo was thinking of his father as he strode down the pass with that
welt on his cheek. He had an idea that his father would not make so much
of the affair as he was taking himself to task for not doing. And up to
this time his father had been his standard. He not only had a very high
opinion of him as he was, but he had a boyish faith in what he might
have been, a belief that if he had had half a chance he would have made
his mark in the world. He was glad that he bore his father's name, and
he was quite determined to make it stand for something in the minds of
men before he got through with it. It sounded like a name that was to be
made to mean something.
Suddenly the sound of wheels coming down the pass struck his ear. They
were the wheels of a buggy, he thought, and of a buggy drawn by a pair
of horses. The suggestion was distasteful to Waldo Kean just at that
moment, and he quickened his pace somewhat. Presently the wheels stopped
close behind him, a firm step sounded on the road, he felt a heavy hand
on his shoulder. He looked up, and his worst forebodings were realized.
It was the face he had caught sight of in that particular buggy which he
did not like to think about, and the hand that rested on his shoulder
was the one which had swung the whip to such good purpose.
A very hearty and pleasant voice was saying; "Do you know, I never did
anything in all my life I was so sorry for!" but the boy strode on as
stolidly as if he had been stone-deaf.
The other, though a man of heavy build, kept pace with him easily.
"You see," he remarked, after waiting a reasonable time for a reply; "I
never knew what it was to owe any one so much as I owe you!"
Not being, in fact, stone-deaf, Waldo found himself obliged to make some
response. As much from embarrassment as from anger, he spoke gruffly.
"That's nothing," he said. "I'd have done as much for a stray dog,--and
like as not I'd have got bit all the same!"
His companion was making a study of him rather than of his words;--of
the defiant pose of the head above the shabby, uncouth figure,--of the
stormy eyes set in the fiery crimson of the face. He could not resent
the rough words, but neither could he help being amused at the tragic
exaggeration of the figure.
"Do you know, you _do_ look like a brigand!" he said, in an easy tone,
that had a curious effect upon the excited boy. "I don't so much wonder
that I took you for a footpad!"
No one but Dick Dayton,--for it was the Springtown "Mascot" himself who
was trying to make friends with the ranch boy,--could have "hit off" the
situation so easily. The "brigand's" face had already relaxed somewhat,
though his tongue was not to be so lightly loosed.
"The fact is," Dayton went on, following up his advantage; "The fact is,
there was a hold-up here in the pass last week, and my wife and I were
just saying what a jolly good place it was for that kind of thing, when
you flung yourself at the horses' heads. I don't know what you would
have done under the circumstances, but I know you'd have been either a
fool or a prophet if you hadn't let fly for all you were worth!"
The boy looked up at the friendly, humorous face, and pleasant
relentings stole upon him.
"Well, then," he said, with a sudden, flashing smile, which illuminated
his harsh countenance, very much as the gold of the aspens lit up the
wall of frowning rock over there. "That's all right, and I'm glad I did
it."
"All right!" cried Dayton, with a sudden rising emotion in his
voice,--"I should think it _was_ all right! It isn't every day that a
man and his wife get their lives saved in that offhand way! Why! I'm all
_balled up_ every time I think of it!"
"Oh, well; I don't know!" said Waldo, relapsing into embarrassment
again; "I guess it was the horses I thought of as much as anything!"
Dayton was still too sincerely moved to laugh outright at this
unexpected turn, as he would have done in spite of himself under
ordinary circumstances, but he found it a relief to slip back into his
tone of easy banter.
"If that's the case," he said; "would you mind coming back and being
introduced to the horses? They are just behind us, and I think they
ought to have a chance to make their acknowledgments."
The boy, very much aware that he had said the wrong thing, yet
attracted, in spite of himself and his own blunders, to the good-natured
giant, yielded, awkwardly enough, and retraced his steps. They were soon
face to face with the horses, making their way at a slow walk down the
road, driven by the woman whose face Waldo had had a confused glimpse of
in the heat of that fateful encounter.
"This is my wife, Mrs. Dayton," said the big man; "and you are?"
"Waldo Kean."
For the first time in his life the boy had taken his hat off as a matter
of ceremony. He had done so in unconscious imitation of Dayton, who had
lifted his own as he mentioned his wife's name. Waldo Kean did not
perhaps realize that the education he was so ambitious of achieving was
begun then and there.
The shapeless old hat once off, he did not find it easy to put it on
again, and, as Mrs. Dayton leaned forward with extended hand, he stopped
to tuck the battered bundle of felt into his pocket before clasping the
bit of dainty kid she held out to him.
She was already speaking, and, strangely enough, there was something in
her voice which made him think of his mother's as it had sounded just
before it broke into that pathetic little sob.