NIP AND TUCK
Bailey was right; the colts were beauties. But at the time Tisdale arrived
at the Kittitas stables, Lighter, having decided to drive them to North
Yakima, was putting the pair to a smart buggy. They were not for hire at
double or treble the usual day rate.
"I want to sell this team," the trader repeated flatly. "I don't want to
winter 'em again, and my best chance to show 'em is now, down at the fair.
I can keep 'em in good shape, making it in two stages and resting 'em over
night on the road, and be there by noon to-morrow."
One of the horses reared, lifting the stable-boy off his feet, and Lighter
sprang to take the bit in his powerful grasp. "Steady, Tuck, steady! Whoa,
whoa, back now, back, steady, whoa!" The animal stood, frothing a little,
his beautiful coat moist, every muscle tense. "See there, now! Ain't he
peaceable? Nothing mean under his whole hide; just wants to go. The other
one will nip your fingers once in a while, if you don't watch out, but he
don't mean anything, either; it's all in fun."
He gave his place to the boy again and stepped back to Tisdale's side,
still watching his team, while a second stableman hurried to fasten the
traces. "The fact is," he went on, dropping his voice confidentially,
"I've got wind of a customer. He's driving through from the Sound to the
races in his machine. A friend of mine wired me. Mebbe you know him. It's
one of those Morgansteins of Seattle; the young feller. He saw these bays
last year when they took the blue ribbon and said he'd keep an eye on 'em.
They were most too fly then for crowded streets and spinning around the
boulevard 'mongst the automobiles, but they're pretty well broke now.
Steady, Nip, whoa there!"
"But," said Tisdale quietly, "young Morganstein met with an accident this
morning in Snoqualmie Pass. An axle was broken, and he was thrown out of
his machine. His leg was injured, and he took the train back to Seattle. I
happened to be on the eastbound at the siding where it all occurred."
Lighter gave him a skeptical glance between narrowed lids. "Then, if he
can't come himself, I guess he'll send his man. He told that friend of
mine he counted on having another look at this team."
Tisdale's brows contracted. "See here, I want to drive to Wenatchee; what
is the best you can do for me?"
"Why, let's see. My best livery rig is on the Wenatchee road now. One of
them High Line fellers hired the outfit with a driver to take him through
to the valley. If you'd be'n here when they started, likely they'd be'n
glad to accommodate you. And the sorrels is out with a picnic to Nanum
canyon. That leaves the roans. They come in half an hour ago. A couple of
traveling salesmen had 'em out all the forenoon, and these drummers drive
like blue blazes; and it's a mean pull through to Wenatchee. But wait till
to-morrow and, with an early start, you can make it all right with the
roans. That's the best I can do, unless you want a saddle-horse."
Tisdale walked back to the stalls and, convinced at a glance the jaded
roans were impossible for that day, at least, stopped to look over the
saddle animals. He saw that there were two promising travelers, but it
would be necessary to impress an indifferent third to carry the baggage.
Besides, judging from all he had seen, the resources of Kittitas did not
include a ready-made lady's habit. He returned and stood another silent
moment watching the lithe, impatient bays. Finally his eyes moved to the
entrance and down the road to the railroad station where Miss Armitage was
waiting. She was seated on a bench near the door. He could distinguish her
gray figure in relief against the reddish-brown wall.
Directly he swung around. "What is your price?" he asked.
Lighter's hand dropped from the edge of the buggy seat. He stepped back to
the heads of his team. "You get in, Harry," he said. "Drive 'em five or
six blocks. Keep your eyes open."
Harry gathered the reins warily and sprang in; Lighter released his hold,
then hurried forward to the driveway and stood with Tisdale watching the
team. "Ain't they a sight?" he said.
And they were. Their coats shone like satin in the sun; they stepped
airily, spurning the dust of Kittitas, and blew the ashen powder from
their nostrils; then without warning the splendid span was away.
Tisdale repeated: "What is your price?"
Lighter's shrewd eyes swept his new customer over; it was as though he
made an estimate of how much Tisdale could pay. "Five hundred dollars," he
said. "Five hundred--if it's spot cash."
"And the outfit?"
"Let me see. Harness is practically new; buggy first-class. I'll make it
an even seven hundred for the whole business; outfit and team."
There was a brief silence. As a rule, a man drawing the salary of the
Geological Survey does not spend seven hundred dollars lightly. He bridles
his impulses to own fine driving-horses until at least he has tried them.
And this sum, just at that time, meant something of a drain on Tisdale's
bank account. He knew if he bought the Weatherbee tract and reclaimed it,
he must hedge on his personal expenses for a year or two; he had even
talked with Banks a little about a loan to open the project and keep it
moving until the next season's clean-up, when the Aurora should make good.
He stirred, with a quick upward lift of his head, and looked once more in
the direction of the station.
The girl rose and began to walk the platform.
Tisdale swung back and met the trader's calculating gaze. "Where is your
bank?" he asked.
The business was quickly transacted and, when Lighter and his customer
stepped out of the bank, Harry was there, driving the bays slowly up and
down the street. In the moment they waited for him to draw up, the trader
looked Tisdale over again. "Your easiest way to get this team over to the
Sound is to drive through Snoqualmie Pass, the way you came."
"But," said Tisdale, knitting his brows, "I told you I wanted this team to
drive to the Wenatchee valley."
"You can't drive on through the Cascades from there and, if you try to
ship these colts aboard a Great Northern train, you'll have trouble."
"I shall probably leave them to winter in the valley. Unless"--Tisdale
paused, smiling at the afterthought--"I decide to sell them to young
Morganstein when I get back to Seattle."
Lighter laughed dryly. "I thought so. I sized you up all right at the
start. I says to myself: 'He don't look like a feller to run a bluff,' and
I says: 'Young Morganstein ain't the sort to pick up any second-hand
outfit,' but I thought all along you was his man."
"I see." The humor played softly in Tisdale's face. "I see. But you
thought wrong."
Lighter's lids narrowed again skeptically. "Those letters you showed to
identify yourself cinched it. Why, one was signed by his brother-in-law,
Miles Feversham, and your draft was on the Seattle National where the
Morgansteins bank. But it's all right; I got my price." He nudged Tisdale
slyly and, laughing again, moved to the heads of the team. "Now, sir,
watch your chance; they're chain lightning the minute you touch the seat."
Tisdale was ready. At last he felt the tug of the lines in his grasp, the
hot wind stung his face, and he was speeding back in the direction of the
station. The girl came to the edge of the platform as he approached, and
while the solitary man from the freight office caught the first
opportunity to store the baggage under the seat, and the second to lift in
the basket of samples from Bailey's orchard, she tied her veil more snugly
under her chin and stood measuring the team with the sparkles breaking in
her eyes. Then she gathered her skirts in one hand and laid the other
lightly on the seat.
"Don't try to help me," she said breathlessly. "Just hold them." And the
next instant she was up beside him, and her laugh fluted in exhilaration
as they whirled away.
Kittitas fell far behind. They were racing directly across the seven miles
of level towards a pass in a lofty range that marked the road to
Wenatchee. Far to the left lines of poplars showed where the irrigating
canals below Ellensburg watered the plain, and on the right the dunes and
bluffs of the unseen Columbia broke the horizon. But the girl was watching
Tisdale's management of the horses. "What beauties!" she exclaimed. "And
Nip and Tuck!" Her lips rippled merriment. "How well named. Wait, be--
care--ful--they are going to take that ho-le. Oh, would you mind giving
those reins to me?"
"I wish I could." He shook his head, while the amusement played gently at
the corners of his mouth. "I know all about a team of huskies, and it
doesn't make much difference what I have under a saddle, but these kittens
in harness are rather out of my line."
"Then trust yourself to me; please do. I used to drive just such a pair."
"Oh, but your hands couldn't stand this, and those gloves would be ribbons
in half an hour."
"They are heavier than they look; besides, there are the shops at
Wenatchee!" As if this settled the matter she said: "But we must change
places. Now." She slipped into his seat as he rose, and took the reins
dexterously, with a tightening grip, in her hands. "Whoa, whoa, Nip!" Her
voice deepened a little. "Steady, Tuck, steady! That's right; be a man."
There was another silent interval while he watched her handling of the
team, then, "I did not know there could be a pair in all the world so like
Pedro and Don José," she said, and the exhilaration softened in her face.
"They were my ponies given me the birthday I was seventeen. A long time
ago--" she sighed and flashed him a side-glance, shaking her head--"but I
shall never forget. We lived in San Francisco, and my father and I tried
them that morning in Golden Gate park. The roads were simply perfect, and
the sea beach at low tide was like a hardwood floor. After that we drove
for the week-end to Monterey, then through the redwoods to Santa Cruz and
everywhere." She paused reminiscently. "Those California hotels are fine.
They pride themselves on their orchestras, and wherever we went, we found
friends to enjoy the dancing evenings after table d'hôte. That was in the
winter, but it was more delightful in the spring. We drove far south then,
through Menlo Park and Palo Alto, where the great meadows were vivid with
alfalfa, and fields on fields were yellow with poppies or blue with
lupine; on and on into the peach and almond country. I can see those
blossoming orchards now; the air was flooded with perfume."
Her glance moved from the horses out over the sage-covered levels, and the
contrast must have dropped like a curtain on her picture, for the light in
her face died. Tisdale's look followed the road up from the plain and
rested on the higher country; his eyes gathered their far-seeing gaze. He
had been suddenly reminded of Weatherbee. It was in those California
orchards he had spent his early life. He had known that scent of the
blossoming almond; those fields of poppies and lupine had been his
playground when he was a child. It was at the university at Palo Alto that
he had taken his engineering course; and it was at one of those gay
hotels, on a holiday and through some fellow student, he had met the woman
who had spoiled his life.
The moment passed. One of the horses broke, and instantly the driver was
alert. And while she alternately admonished and upbraided, with a firm
manipulation of the reins, the humor began to play again in Tisdale's
face. They were approaching the point where the road met the highway from
Ellensburg, and in the irrigated sections that began to divide the
unreclaimed land, harvesters were reaping and binding; from a farther
field came the noise of a threshing machine; presently, as the bays turned
into the thoroughfare, the way was blocked by a great flock of sheep.
"Oh," she exclaimed, "there must be thousands of them; how can the ones in
the center breathe? Whoa, Nip, whoa now! Do you think you are one of those
lambs? And there's no chance to go around; it is fenced with barbed wire
on both sides; we simply must drive through, No, let me, please. Steady,
now, Tuck, steady, whoa."
They had passed the mounted herders, and the colts broke their way
playfully, dancing, curveting with bowing necks, into the midst of the
flock. Soon the figures of the advance shepherds loomed through the dust.
They were turning the sheep into a harvested field. They rolled in over
the yellow stubble like a foaming sea. Far away, outlined like a sail
against an island rick, the night tent of these nomads was already
pitched.
Tisdale laughed softly. "Well, madam, that was skilful piloting. A bidarka
couldn't have been safer riding in a skiddery sea."
"A bidarka?" she questioned, ruffling her brows.
Tisdale nodded. "One of those small skin canoes the Alaskan natives use.
And it's touchy as a duck; comes bobbing up here and there, but right-side
up every time. And it's frail looking, frail as an eggshell, yet I would
stake a bidarka against a lifeboat in a surf. Do you know?"--he went on
after a moment--"I would like to see you in one, racing out with the
whitecaps up there in Bering Sea; your face all wet with spray, and your
hair tucked away in the hood of a gray fox parka. Nothing else would show;
the rest of you would be stowed below in a wonderful little water-tight
compartment."
"It sounds delightful," she said, and the sparkles broke in her eyes.
After that there was a long silence. The bays fell into an even trot. The
mountains loomed near, then before them, on the limits of the plain, a
mighty herd of cattle closed the road. The girl rose a little in her place
and looked over that moving sea of backs. "We must drive through again,"
she said. "It's going to be stifling but there's no possible way around.
No," she protested, when he would have taken the reins, "I'm able. I
learned once, years ago, on a great ranch in southern California. I'd
rather." She settled in her seat smiling a little. "It's in the blood."
Tisdale reached and took the whip. They had passed the drivers and were
pushing into the herd. Sometimes a red-eyed brute turned with lowered
horns and dripping mouth, then backed slowly out of the way of the team.
Sometimes, in a thicker press, an animal wheeled close to the tires and,
stemming the current, sounded a protest. But the young horses, less
playful now, divided the great herd and came at last safely out of the
smother. The road began to lift, as they rounded the first rampart of the
range, and Tisdale's glance fell to her hands. "Those gloves are done for,
as I expected," he exclaimed. "I'll wager your palms are blistered. Come,
own they hurt."
She nodded. "But it was worth it, though you may drive now, if you wish.
It's my wrists; they have been so long out of practice. You don't know how
they a--che."
"So," he said, when he had taken the reins, "so you are as fond of horses
as this."
"Horses like these, yes. I haven't felt as happy and young since I gave up
Pedro and Don José."
Tisdale turned a little to look in her face. She had said "young" with the
tone of one whose youth is past, yet the most conservative judge could not
place her age a day over twenty-five. And she was so buoyant, so vibrant.
His pulses quickened. It was as though currents of her vitality were being
continually transmitted through his veins.
As they ascended, the plain unfolded like a map below; harvest fields,
pastures of feeding cattle or sheep, meadows of alfalfa, unreclaimed
reaches of sage-brush, and, far off among her shade-trees, the roofs of
Ellensburg reflecting the late sun. Above the opposite range that hemmed
the valley southward some thunder-heads crowded fast towards a loftier
snow-peak. Far away across the divide, white, symmetrical, wrought of
alabaster, inlaid with opal, lifted a peerless dome.
"Mount Rainier!" exclaimed Tisdale.
"I knew it." Her voice vibrated softly. "Even at this distance I knew. It
was like seeing unexpectedly, in an unfamiliar country, the head of a
noble friend lifting above the crowd."
Tisdale's glance returned to her face. Surprise and understanding shone
softly in his own. She turned, and met the look with a smile. It was then,
for the first time, he discovered unsounded depths through the subdued
lights of her eyes. "You must have known old Rainier intimately," he said.
She shook her head. "Not nearer than Puget Sound. But I have a marvelous
view from my hotel windows in Seattle, and often in long summer twilights
from the deck of Mr. Morganstein's yacht, I've watched the changing Alpine
glow on the mountain. I always draw my south curtains first, at Vivian
Court, to see whether the dome is clear or promises a wet day. I've
learned a mountain, surely as a person, has individuality; every cloud
effect is to me a different mood, and sometimes, when I've been most
unhappy or hard-pressed, the sight of Rainier rising so serene, so pure,
so high above the fretting clouds, has given me new courage. Can you
understand that, Mr. Tisdale? How a mountain can become an influence, an
inspiration, in a life?"
"I think so, yes." Tisdale paused, then added quietly: "But I would like
to be the first to show you old Rainier at close range."
At this she moved a little; he felt the invisible barrier stiffen between
them. "Mr. Morganstein promised to motor us through to the National Park
Inn when the new Government road was finished, but we've been waiting for
the heavy summer travel to be over. It has been like the road to Mecca
since the foot of the mountain has been accessible."
There was a silence, during which Tisdale watched the pulling team. Her
manner of reminding him of his position was unmistakable, but it was her
frequent reference to young Morganstein that began to nettle him. Why
should she wish specially to motor to Rainier with that black-browed,
querulous nabob? Why had she so often sailed on his yacht? And why should
she ever have been unhappy and hard-pressed, as she had confessed? She who
was so clearly created for happiness. But to Tisdale her camaraderie with
Nature was charming. It was so very rare. A few of the women he had known
hitherto had been capable of it, but they had lived rugged lives; the
wilderness gave them little else. And of all the men whom he had made his
friends through an eventful career, there was only Foster who sometimes
felt the magnitude of high places,--and there had been David Weatherbee.
At this thought of Weatherbee his brows clouded, and that last letter, the
one that had reached him at Nome and which he still carried in his breast
pocket, seemed suddenly to gather a vital quality. It was as though it
cried out: "I can't stand these everlasting ice peaks, Hollis; they crowd
me so."
Miss Armitage sat obliviously looking off once more across the valley. The
thunder-heads, denser now and driving in legions along the opposite
heights, stormed over the snow peak and assailed the far, shining dome.
"Oh," she exclaimed, "see Rainier now! That blackest cloud is lifting over
the summit. Rain is streaming from it like a veil of gauze; but the dome
still shines through like a transfigured face!"
Tisdale's glance rested a moment on the wonder. His face cleared. "If we
were on the other side of the Cascades," he said, "that weather-cap would
mean a storm before many hours; but here, in this country of little rain,
I presume it is only a threat."
The bays began to round a curve and presently Rainier, the lesser heights,
all the valley of Kittitas, closed from sight. They had reached the timber
belt; poplars threaded the parks of pine, and young growths of fir, like
the stiff groves of a toy village, gathered hold on the sharp mountain
slopes. Sometimes the voice of a creek, hurrying down the canyon to join
the Yakima, broke the stillness, or a desert wind found its way in and
went wailing up the water-course. And sometimes in a rocky place, the
hoof-beats of the horses, the noise of the wheels, struck an echo from
spur to spur. Then Tisdale commenced to whistle cautiously, in fragments
at first, with his glance on the playing ears of the colts, until
satisfied they rather liked it, he settled into a definite tune, but with
the flutelike intonations of one who loves and is accustomed to make his
own melody.
He knew that this woman beside him, since they had left the civilization
of the valley behind, half repented her adventure. He felt the barrier
strengthen to a wall, over which, uncertain, a little afraid, she watched
him. At last, having finished the tune, he turned and surprised the covert
look from under her curling black lashes.
"I hope," he said, and the amusement broke softly in his face, "all this
appraisal is showing a little to my credit."
The color flamed pinkly in her face. She looked away. "I was wondering if
you blamed me. I've been so unconservative--so--so--even daring. Is it not
true?"
"No, Miss Armitage, I understand how you had to decide, in a moment, to
take that eastbound train in Snoqualmie Pass, and that you believed it
would be possible to motor or stage across to Wenatchee from the Milwaukee
road."
"Yes, but," she persisted, "you think, having learned my mistake, I should
have stayed on the freight train as far as Ellensburg, where I could have
waited for the next passenger back to Seattle."
"If you had, you would have disappointed me. That would have completely
spoiled my estimate of you."
"Your estimate of me?" she questioned.
"Yes." He paused and his glance moved slowly, a little absently, up the
unfolding gorge. "It's a fancy of mine to compare a woman, on sight, with
some kind of flower. It may be a lily or a rose or perhaps it's a
flaunting tulip. Once, up in the heart of the Alaska forest, it was just a
sweet wood anemone." He paused again, looking off through the trees, and a
hint of tenderness touched his mouth. "For instance," he went on, and his
voice quickened, "there is your friend, Mrs. Feversham. I never have met
her, but I've seen her a good many times, and she always reminds me of one
of those rich, dark roses florists call Black Prince. And there's her
sister, who makes me think of a fine, creamy hyacinth; the sturdy sort,
able to stand on its own stem without a prop. And they are exotics, both
of them; their personality, wherever they are, has the effect of a strong
perfume."
He paused again, so long that this time his listener ventured to prompt
him. "And I?" she asked.
"You?" He turned, and the color flushed through his tan. "Why, you are
like nothing in the world but a certain Alaska violet I once stumbled on.
It was out of season, on a bleak mountainside, where, at the close of a
miserable day, I was forced to make camp. A little thing stimulates a man
sometimes, and the sight of that flower blooming there when violet time
was gone, lifting its head next to a snow-field, nodding so pluckily,
holding its own against the bitter wind, buoyed me through a desperate
hour."
She turned her face to look down through the treetops at the complaining
stream. Presently she said: "That is better than an estimate; it is a
tribute. I wish I might hope to live up to it, but sooner or later," and
the vibration played softly in her voice, "I am going to disappoint you."
Tisdale laughed, shaking his head. "My first impressions are the ones that
count," he said simply. "But do you want to turn back now?"
"N--o, unless you--do."
Tisdale laughed again mellowly. "Then it's all right. We are going to see
this trip through. But I wish I could show you that Alaska mountainside in
midsummer. Imagine violets on violets, thousands of them, springing
everywhere in the vivid new grass. You can't avoid crushing some, no
matter how carefully you pick your steps. There's a rocky seat half-way up
on a level spur, where you might rest, and I would fill your lap with
those violets, big, long-stemmed ones, till the blue lights danced in your
eyes."
They were doing that now, and her laugh fluted softly through the wood.
For that moment the barrier between them lost substance; it became the
sheerest tissue, a curtain of gauze. Then the aloofness for which he
waited settled on her. She looked away, her glance again seeking the
stream. "I can't imagine anything more delightful," she said.
A rough and steep breadth of road opened before them, and for a while the
bays held his attention, then in a better stretch, he felt her swift
side-glance again reading his face. "Do you know," she said, "you are not
at all the kind of man I was led to expect."
"No?" He turned interestedly, with the amusement shading the corners of
his mouth. "What did you hear?"
"Why, I heard that you were the hardest man in the world to know; the most
elusive, shyest."
Tisdale's laugh rang, a low note from the depths of his mellow heart. "And
you believed that?"
She nodded, and he caught the blue sparkles under her drooping lids. "You
know how Mrs. Feversham has tried her best to know you; how she sent you
invitations repeatedly to dinner or for an evening at Juneau, Valdez,
Fairbanks, and you invariably made some excuse."
"Oh, but that's easily explained. Summers, when she timed her visits to
Alaska, I was busy getting my party into the field. The working season up
there is short."
"But winters, at Seattle and in Washington even, it has been the same."
"Winters, why, winters, I have my geological reports to get in shape for
the printer; interminable proofs to go over; and there are so many
necessary people to meet in connection with my work. Then, too, if the
season has been spent in opening country of special interest, I like to
prepare a paper for the geographical society; that keeps me in touch with
old friends."
"Old friends," she repeated after a moment. "Do you know it was one of
them, or rather one of your closest friends, who encouraged my delusion in
regard to you?"
"No, how was it?"
"Why, he said you were the hardest man in the world to turn, a man of iron
when once you made up your mind, but that Mrs. Feversham was right; you
were shy. He had known you to go miles around, on occasion, to avoid a
town, just to escape meeting a woman. And he told us--of course I can
repeat it since it is so ridiculously untrue--that it was easier to bridle
a trapped moose than to lead you to a ballroom; but that once there, no
doubt you would gentle fine."
She leaned back in her seat, laughing softly, though it was obviously a
joke at her own expense as well as Tisdale's. "And I believed it," she
added. "I believed it--every word."
Tisdale laughed too, a deep undernote. "That sounds like Billy Foster. I
wager it was Foster. Was it?" he asked.
She nodded affirmatively.
"Then Foster has met you." Tisdale's voice rang a little. "He knows you,
after all."
"Yes, he could hardly help knowing me. His business interests are with my
closest friends, the Morgansteins; they think a great deal of him. And he
happens to play a remarkably good hand at bridge; we always depend on him
to make up a table when he is in town."
Tisdale's eyes rested a thoughtful moment on the road ahead. Strange
Foster never had mentioned her. But that showed how blind, how completely
infatuated with the Spanish woman the boy was. His face set austerely.
Then suddenly he started; his grasp tightened on the reins so that the
colts sprang to the sharp grade. "Do you happen to know that enchantress,
too?" he asked.
"Whom?" questioned Miss Armitage.
"I mean Mrs. Weatherbee. I believe she counts the Morgansteins among her
friends, and you said you were staying at Vivian Court, where her
apartments are."
"Oh, yes, I know--her. I"--the color flamed and went in her face; her
glance fell once more to the steep slope, searching out the narrowing
stream through the trees. "I--'ve known Beatriz Weatherbee all my life.
I--I think a great deal of her."
"Madam, madam!" Tisdale protested, "don't tell me that. You have known
her, lived near her, perhaps, in California, those years when you were
growing up; shared the intimacies young girls enjoy. I understand all
that, but don't say you care anything for her now."
Miss Armitage lifted her face. Her eyes did not sparkle then; they flamed.
"Why shouldn't I, Mr. Tisdale? And who are you to disparage Beatriz
Weatherbee? You never have known her. What right have you to condemn her?"
"This right, Miss Armitage; she destroyed David Weatherbee. And I know
what a life was lost, what a man was sacrificed."