Purely by accident, the wall of reserve that Hilda had reared between
herself and Cheerio was, for the nonce at least, removed. Sandy had
desired to go over a certain cliff, incredibly steep and slippery and
four hundred feet above the river. Now Sandy could climb up and down
places with the agility and sureness of a mountain goat, but even a
mountain goat would have hesitated to go over the side of that cliff.
Hilda came out of her absent trance with a start, as she realized the
intention of the daring and reckless youngster. Over an out-jutting
rock Sandy was poised.
“Sandy McPherson! You cut out that darned nonsense. You can’t go down
there. It’s too doggone steep.”
“Guess I can if I want to,” retorted the boy, looking over the perilous
edge and scrutinizing the grade for any possible root or tree stump
upon which he might grasp in an emergency. “Say,” his head jerked
sideways toward Cheerio, who had dismounted himself to investigate the
situation. “Will you look after Silver Heels till I get back? ’Tain’t
safe for _him_ to go over, but I’ll be Jake.”
“Sandy! You come back! Dad said the earth wasn’t safe under those rocks
there, and any minute one of ’em might roll over. That rock’s moving
now! Sandy! Oh, stop him! D-d-don’t let--him! _Please!_”
She had appealed to Cheerio. It was the first request she had ever made
of him. Instantly he grasped the arm of her brother.
“Come on, old man. There’s a prospect over yonder that looks a jolly
sight better than down there.”
“Aw, girls give me a pain,” declared the disgusted Sandy. “What do they
want to come spyin’ along for anyway, and throwin’ fits about nothin’.
What do they know about dinosauruses or anything else, I’d like to
know?”
“On you go, old man!”
He had hoisted the grumbling boy upon his horse. Sandy raced angrily
ahead. Cheerio looked at Hilda with the expectant boyish smile of one
hoping for reward. He had “taken her part.” Thanks were his due. Thanks
indeed he did not get. Hilda’s glance met his own only for a moment and
then she said, while the deep colour flooded all of her face and neck:
“Now you can see for yourself what your fool expeditions might lead
to. Sandy’s the only brother I have in the world, and first thing you
know he’ll be going over one of those cliffs and then--then--you’ll be
entirely to blame.”
Discomfited, Cheerio lost the use of his tongue. After a moment he
inquired, somewhat dejectedly:
“Sh-shall we c-c-c-call them off then?”
Hilda was unprepared for this. Though she would not have admitted it to
herself for anything in the world, those evening rides were becoming
the most important events in her life. Indeed, she found herself
looking forward to and thinking of them all day. Faced now with the
possibility of their being ended, she said hurriedly and with a slight
catching of her breath that made Cheerio look at her with an odd fixity
of expression:
“No, no--of course not. I wouldn’t want to disappoint my brother, b-but
I can’t trust that boy alone. I’ve always taken care of Sandy. That’s
why I come along. Sandy’s just a little boy, you know.”
How that “little boy” would have snarled with wrath at his sister’s
designation! Even Cheerio’s eyes twinkled, and Hilda, to cover up her
own embarrassment, hastily pressed her heel into her horse’s flank, and
for the first time she suffered him to ride along beside her.
It was intensely still and a dim golden haze lay like a dream over all
the sky and the land, merging them into one. Into this glow rode the
girl of the ranching country and the man from the old land across the
sea. The air was balmy and full of the essence of summer. There was
the sweet odour of recently-cut hay and green feed and a suave wind
whispered and fragrantly fanned the perfumed air about them. They came
out of the woods directly into the hay lands and passed through fields
of thick oats already turning golden. A strange new emotion, a feeling
that pained by its very sweetness was slowly growing into being in the
untutored heart of the girl of the foothills. Glancing sideways at the
man’s fine, clean-cut profile, his gaze bent straight ahead, Hilda
caught her breath with a sudden fear of she knew not what. Why was it,
she asked herself passionately, that she was unable to speak to this
man as to other men? Why could she scarcely meet his clear, straight
glance, which seemed always to question her own so wistfully? What
was the matter with her and with him that his mere presence near her
moved her so strangely? Why was she riding alone with him now in this
strange, electrical silence? As the troubled questions came tumbling
over one another through the girl’s mind, Cheerio suddenly turned in
his saddle and directly sought her gaze. A wonderful, a winning smile,
which made Hilda think of the sunshine about them, broke over the man’s
face. She was conscious of the terrifying fact that that smile awoke in
her breast tumultuous alarms and clamours. She feared it more than a
hostile glance. Feared the very friendly and winning quality of it.
Impetuously the girl dug her little spurred heels into her horse’s
flanks and rode swiftly ahead.
It was nearly ten o’clock, yet the skies were incredibly bright and
in the west above the wide range of mountains, shone the splendour
of a late sunset, red, gold, purple, magenta and blue. All of the
country seemed tinted by the reflected glow of the night sun. Hilda,
riding breathlessly along, had the sense of one in a race, running to
escape that which was pursuing her. On and on, neck and neck with the
galloping horse beside her, and feeling its rider’s gaze still bent
solely upon her.
Presently there was a slackening of the running speed; gradually the
galloping turned to the shorter trot. Daisy and Jim Crow, panting from
the long race, slowed down to a lope. Some of the fever had run out of
Hilda’s blood and she had recovered her composure.
Silence for a long interval, while they rode steadily on into the
immense sun glow. Then:
“R-ripping, isn’t it?” said the man, softly.
“Meaning what?” demanded the girl, angry with herself that her voice
was tremulous.
Almost they seemed to be riding into the sky itself. Sky and earth had
the curious phenomenon of being one.
“Everything,” he replied, with an eloquent motion of his hand. “It’s a
r-ripping--land! I’m jolly glad I came.”
“I don’t suppose,” said Hilda, “that you have skies like this in
England.”
“Hardly.”
“It’s foggy and dark there, I’ve heard,” said Hilda.
He glanced at her, as if slightly surprised.
“Why no, that hardly describes it, you know.”
He was thoughtful a moment, and then said, with a smile, as if glad to
reassure her:
“It’s a dashed fine place, all the same. C-carn’t beat it, you know.”
That brought the girl’s chin up. For some reason, she could not have
analyzed, it hurt and offended her to hear him praising the land from
which he had come.
“Hm! I wonder why Englishmen who think so darned much of their own old
land bother to come to wild outlandish places like Canada.”
If she had expected him to deny that Canada was wild and outlandish she
was to be disappointed, for he replied eagerly:
“Oh, by Jove! th-that’s wh-why we like it, you know. It’s--it’s
exhilarating--the difference--the change from things over there. One
gets in a rut in the old land and travel is our only antidote.”
Hilda had never travelled. She had never been outside the Province of
Alberta. Calgary and Banff were the only cities Hilda had ever been in.
She was conscious now of a sense of extreme bitterness and pain. Like
some young wounded creature who strikes out blindly when hurt, Hilda
said:
“Look here, Mr.----er----Whatever your name is, if you Englishmen just
come out to Canada out of curiosity and to----”
“But, my dear child, Canada is part of us! We’re all one family. I’m at
home here.”
“No, you’re not. You’re a fish out of water.”
“I s-say----”
“And look here, I don’t let anyone call me ‘dear child.’ I won’t be
patronized by you or anyone like you. I’m not a child anyway. I’m
eighteen and that’s being of age, if you want to know.”
He could not restrain the smile that came despite himself at this
childish statement. Hilda’s face darkened, and her eyelids were
smarting with the angry tears that, much to her indignation, seemed to
be trying to force their way through. She said roughly, in an effort to
hide the impending storm:
“Anyway you can’t tell me that there is anything whatsoever in England
to compare with--that--for instance.”
Her quirt made an eloquent motion toward the west, along the complete
horizon of which the long line of jagged peaks were silhouetted against
the gilded skies.
“Righto!” said the man, softly and then after a pause he added almost
gently, and as if he were recalling something to memory: “But I doubt
if there’s anything rarer than our English country lanes--lawns--fine
old places--the streams--but you must see it all some day.”
When he spoke, when he looked like that, with the faraway absent
expression in his eyes. Hilda had a passionate sense of rebellion and
resentment. For some reason she could not have explained she begrudged
him his thought of England. It tormented her to think that the man
beside her was homesick. Her quirt flicked above Daisy’s neck. A short
swift gallop and back again to the lope of the cow ponies. The ride had
whipped the colour into her cheeks and brought back the fire to her
eyes. She was ready now with the burning questions that for days she
had ached to have answered.
“If England’s such a remarkable place, why do you come to Canada to
make a home for this--what was her name, did you say?”
“Her name? Oh, I see--you mean--Nanna.”
He said the name softly, almost tenderly, and Hilda’s breath came and
went with the sudden surge of unreasonable fury that swept over her. He
answered her lightly, deliberately begging the question.
“Why not? This is the p-p-promised land!”
“Are you making fun of Canada?” she demanded imperiously.
“No--never. I s-said that quite seriously.”
She shot her next question roughly. She was determined to know the
exact relationship of this Nanna to the man beside her. Undoubtedly she
was the woman of the locket, whose fair, lovely face Hilda was seeing
in imagination too often these days for her peace of mind.
“Is she your sister?”
“Oh, no. No relation whatever. At least, no blood relation.”
“I see. I sup-pose you think her very--pretty?”
“Lovely,” said Cheerio. Something had leaped into his eyes--something
bright and eager. He leaned toward Hilda with the impulse to confide
in her, but the look on the girl’s face repelled him, so that he drew
back confounded and puzzled. Hilda set her little white teeth tightly
together, put up her nose, and, with a toss of her head, said:
“For goodness sakes, let’s get home. Hi, Daisy! get a wiggle on you,
you old poke.”
She was off on the last lap of the journey.
In her room, she faced herself in the wide mirror and revealed a
remarkable circumstance so far as she was concerned. Tears, bitter and
scorching, were running down her face. Clinching her hands, she said to
the tear-stained vision in the mirror:
“It’s just because I hate him so! Oh, how I hate him. I never knew
anyone in all the days of my life that I hated so much before and I’d
give anything on earth if only I could just _hurt_ him!”
Hurt him she did, for the following evening when he brought her horse,
saddled and ready for her, to the front of the ranch house, Hilda, in
the swinging couch on the verandah apparently deeply absorbed in a
dictionary, looked up coolly, and inquired what the hell he was doing
with her horse.
“Wh-why I th-th-thought you would be coming with us as usual,” said the
surprised Cheerio.
“No thank you, and I’m quite able to saddle my own horse when I want
to go,” said Hilda, and returned to a deep perusal of the dictionary.
But the crestfallen and puzzled Cheerio did not see her, as on tiptoe,
she stole around the side of the house, to catch a last glimpse of him
as he rode out with Sandy beside him. Her cheeks were hot and her eyes
humid with undropped tears as over the still evening air her brother’s
shrill young voice floated:
“Hilda not coming! Gee! we’re in _luck_! _Now_ we can go over the
cliff!”
Hilda didn’t care just then whether that brother of hers went over the
cliff or not. She felt forsaken, bitter, ill-used and extremely unhappy
and forlorn. But she had had her last ride in the magical evenings on a
dinosaur quest.