A mighty panorama of golden hills swelled like waves on all sides and
vanished into cloud-like outlines of yet higher hills that zigzagged
across the horizon and merged in the west into that matchless chain of
rugged peaks. Snow crowned, rosy under the caress of the slowly sinking
sun, bathed in a mystic veil of gilded splendour, the Canadian Rockies
were printed like an immense masterpiece across the western sky.
Hilda rode slowly along, her gaze pinned upon the hills. Yet of them
she was thinking but vaguely. They were a familiar and well-loved
presence that had been with them always. To them she had turned in all
her girlish troubles. To them she had whispered her secrets and her
dreams.
As she rode on and on, her thoughts were all of those strange evenings
in the company of this man--the too-short, electrical half hour or so
when they would be alone together before her father awoke.
Her reins hung loose over her horse’s neck; her hands were in the
pockets of her hide coat; her head slightly bent, Hilda gave herself up
to a long, aching, yet singularly glowing day dream. Daisy made her own
trail, idly loping along above the canyon that skirted the Ghost River,
stopping now and then to nibble at the sweet grass along the paths.
The woods were very still and lovely. Wide searchlights of the
remaining sunshine pierced through the branches of the trees and
flickered in and out of the woods, playing in golden, dancing gleams
upon the green growth.
Brown and gold, deeply red, burnt yellow, and green, the trees were
freighted with glorious beauty. Masses of the leaves fluttered idly
to the ground, moved by the soft fragrant breeze and the branches on
bush and tree seemed lazily to shake themselves, as if succumbing
unwillingly to the slumberous spell of the quiet Autumn day.
The flowers beneath the trees still shone, their radiance but slightly
dulled by the touch of the night frosts, seeming lovelier indeed, as
if veiled by some softening web-like touch. Scarlet and bright, all
through the wooded growth, the wild-rose berries grew.
Coveys of partridge and pheasants fluttered among the bush, peeked up
with bright, inquiring eyes at the girl on horse, then hopped a few
paces away, under the thick carpet of leaves.
In an open field, swiftly running horses raced to meet them. Like
playful children, they ran around and in front and on all sides of
Hilda’s mare, thrusting their noses against hers, and laying their
faces across her slender back, utterly unafraid of the rider, yet
timorous and moving at Hilda’s slightest affectionate slap or word of
reproval when they pressed too closely.
She was off again. This time a race across a wide pasture and into the
hills to the west, turning at the end of a long, wooded climb up an
almost perpendicular slope, to come out upon the top of one hill, to
climb still higher to another, into a wide, open space, and again to
a higher hill, till, suddenly, she seemed to be on the very top of the
world.
Below her, nestling like a small city, the white and green buildings of
the ranch showed. Very near it seemed, and yet in fact a distance of
two or three miles. From this highest point, the girl on horse paused
to cast a long, lingering look over the surrounding country that lay
spread below her.
To the north were dim woods, thick and dark. An eagle soaring overhead.
To the east, the wide-spreading pastures and the long, trailing road to
Banff. Dim forms of cattle and horse observable in the still lingering
light, moving specks upon the gracious meadows.
To the south, the lower chain of hills and the sheep lands. A coyote’s
wild moaning call. A hawk circling toward the ranch house.
Shining like a jewel in the mellow glow, the long, sinuous body of the
Bow River, rushing swiftly to make its junction with the more leisurely
flowing Ghost, upon whose surface the logs from the Eaue Claire Lumber
Camp were being borne by the hundreds upon the first lap of their
journey to Calgary.
In the West, hill upon hill and still farther hill upon hill, and
beyond all, the snow crowned, inescapable immortal range of Rocky
Mountains, a dream, a miracle, emblematic of eternity and peace.
It was hard indeed to tear her gaze from the last lingering gleams
of that marvellous sunset. There was that about it that uplifted and
comforted the aching heart. Hilda sighed and at last her long gaze was
reluctantly withdrawn, dropped lower over the hill tops, the woods, and
came to rest, alertly and still, upon a moving shadow that slipped in
and out of the bush in a direct line with the barbed wire fencing.
She rode slowly, leisurely, but her reins were now in her hands. In
all her young life, Hilda McPherson had known not the meaning of the
word fear. Anger, pain, pity and now love, had shaken her soul, but of
fear she knew nothing. That anyone should wish to harm her, was beyond
her comprehension. So she rode forward quietly, almost indifferently.
Nevertheless, Hilda knew that someone was trailing her. An O Bar O
“hand” or a neighbour would have come out into the open. Whoever was
following her was keeping purposely under the shadow of the bush. Nor
could it be an Indian. Hilda knew the Stoneys well. An Indian does not
molest a white woman.
She pondered over the purpose of the man who was following her. What
did he want? Why did he not come out into the open? Thieves and
rustlers would not have ventured as near to the ranch house as this.
Their work was upon the range.
Hilda’s horse was now climbing down the other side of the hill slope,
directly toward the ranch. O Bar O was fenced and cross-fenced with
four wires, every field being laid out for especial stock. In a country
like Alberta, where ranching is done on a large scale, stock are seldom
penned in barn or stable. They are loose upon the range. Between each
field, antiquated barbed wire gates were kept tightly closed. These
were difficult to open. They consisted of three or four strands of
barbed wire nailed to light willow fence posts at a space of about a
foot apart. These swung clear from the ground and when closed fastened
by a loop of the wire to the stout post at the end of the fencing. They
were nasty things to open, even for the toughened hands of the cowboy.
Hilda seldom used these gates. She would go around by the paths that
opened to the main trails where were the great gates that swung from
their own weights and were made of posts ten feet long. These, however,
were not as desirable for dividing fields, since they swung too easily
and were a temptation to leave open. The old type were preferred by the
ranchers. They kept the cattle more securely separated.
This evening, Hilda came over the hill by the shorter trail, and now
she was before the first of the wire gates.
The days were getting shorter and already, though it was scarcely
six o’clock, the shadows were closing in deeply. The rosy skies were
dimming and the pressing shadows crept imperceptibly over the gilded
sky.
Quite suddenly darkness fell. The trail, however, was close to the gate
and her horse knew the way. Hilda did not dismount. Leaning from her
horse, she grasped the post and tugged at the tightly wedged ring of
wire.
Her first knowledge of the near presence of the man who had followed
her came when something thudded down at her horse’s feet. In the half
light of the fading day Hilda saw that uncoiled rope.
The lariat!
Now she understood and a gasp of rage escaped her. The man had
attempted to rope her. The lariat had fallen short! She, Hilda
McPherson, daughter of O Bar O, to be lariated like a head of stock!
As she watched the rope slowly being coiled in, the sickening thought
rushed upon her that presently it would be thrown again, and that
second throw might fall true. Instantly she was off her horse, had
grasped the end of the lariat, whipped it about the gate post, tied
a tight knot, ducked under the wire of the fence, and secure in the
knowledge that her pursuer would be held back by the closed gate,
unless he dismounted and took her own means of passing through, Hilda
ran like the wind straight along the trail to O Bar O, shouting in her
clear, carrying young voice, the Indian cry:
“Hi, yi, yi, yi, yi, yi, yi, yi, yi! Eee-yaw-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw!”
As she called, as she ran, an answering shout came from the direction
of the ranch, still more than a mile away; but he who had answered her
call for help was even then coming over the crest of the last hill, and
the silhouette in the twilight of man and horse stopped the girl short
and sent her heart racing like a mad thing in her breast. He was riding
as only one at O Bar O could ride. Reining up sharply before Hilda,
Cheerio swiftly dismounted and was at her side.
“Hilda! You’ve been thrown!”
Oh, how that voice, with its unmistakable note of deep anxiety in
her behalf, made Hilda’s heart leap. Even in her excitement, she was
conscious of a strangely exultant pang at the thought that he should
have been the one to have come to her in her need. She could scarcely
speak from the excitement and terror of her recent experience, and for
the tumultuous emotions at the sight of the man she loved.
“Over there--a man! He followed me--Oh--has been trailing me through
the woods, and at the gate--the gate--he threw the lariat--the lariat!”
Her voice rose hysterically.
“It missed us--just touched Daisy. I--I--tied it to the gate post.
Gate’s closed. He can’t come through on horse. Look! There he is! There
he is! See--see--white chaps! Look!”
She was speaking in little sobbing gasps, conscious not of the fact
that she was held in the comforting curve of the man’s strong arm.
Dimly the vanishing form of horse and man showed for an instant in the
half light and disappeared into the dense woods beyond. Cheerio made a
motion as if to remount and follow, but Hilda clung to his sleeve.
“Oh, don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. I’m--I’m--afraid to be
alone.”
“N-not f-for worlds,” he said, “but d-d-dear--” Through all her pain
she heard that soft term of endearment, “He’s left the lariat. Couldn’t
stop to get it. Come, we’ll get it. It may furnish a clue.”
Back at the gate, they untied the knotted lariat and Cheerio recoiled
it and attached it to his own saddle.
“We’ll keep this as a memento. Maybe there’s a man at O Bar O short a
lariat.”
“No man at O Bar O would do a coyote’s trick like that,” said Hilda,
faintly.
She had recovered somewhat of her composure, though she still felt the
near influence of the man walking beside her, leading his horse with
one hand, and holding her arm with the other. Her own mount had gone
free and would not be recovered till the morning. She would not follow
his suggestion to mount his horse.
And so they came down over the hill together. Just before they passed
into the ranch yard, Cheerio controlled his fluttering tongue and
stammered something that he had been trying to say to her all of the
way down the hill.
“Hilda, I’m a f-f-f-fortunate d-dog. I’m jolly glad I w-w-went out to
look for you to-night.”
“_Were_ you looking for me, then? Why?”
“C-can’t explain it. S-something m-made me go. I had to f-find you,
Hilda.”
Now they were at the steps of the ranch house. Hilda went up one step,
paused, went up another and stopped, unable to go further. Cheerio
leaned up and tried to see her face in the semi-light that was now
silvering the land from the broad moon above. What he saw in Hilda’s
face brought the word bursting to his lips:
“M-my _dear_ old girl!” he said. “I’m dashed jolly glad I’m alive.”
Hilda said in a whisper:
“Ah, so am I!”
And then she fled--fled in panic-stricken retreat to the house. Blindly
she found her way to her room, and cast herself down upon her bed. She
was trembling with an ecstasy that stung her by its very sweetness.