Bill Bronson found that he had the usual number of difficulties to
contend with, when arranging for the journey. He had to procure more
horses for the larger outfit, and he was obliged to comb the town of
them before he had enough. This was not an agricultural land, this wild
realm of the Selkirks, and all of the animals were originally Indian
stock,--the usual type of mountain cayuses with which most big-game
hunters are acquainted. Some of them were faithful and trustworthy
animals, but many were half-broken, many cowardly and vicious. On those
he rented he took the risk; he would be charged on the books for all
those that were not returned to their owners at Bradleyburg by October
twentieth.
Bill knew perfectly that he would play in good fortune if the loss in
horseflesh did not cost him most of the gains of the undertaking. Even
the sturdy mustangs were not bred for traversing the trails of
Clearwater. There were steep hills where a single misstep meant death,
there were narrow trails and dangerous fords, and here and there were
inoffensive-looking pools where the body of a horse may sink out of
sight in less time than it takes to tell it. These were not the
immense-chested moose or the strong-limbed caribou, natives of the place
and monarchs of its trails. Besides, if the winter caught them on the
higher levels, they would never eat oats in Johnson's barn again. The
six feet of snow covers all horse feed, and the alternatives that remain
are simply a merciful bullet from the wrangler's pistol or death of slow
starvation.
Bill had certain stores in his cabins,--the long line of log huts
from which he operated in the trapping season,--yet further supplies
were needed for the trip. He bought sugar, flour, great sacks of
rice--that nutritious and delightful grain that all outdoor men learn
to love--coffee and canned goods past all description. Savory bacon,
a great cured ham of a caribou, dehydrated vegetables and cans of
marmalade and jam: all these went into the big saddle-bags for the
journey. He was fully aware that the punishing days' ride could never
be endured on half-rations. Camp equipment, rifles, shells and a
linen tent made up the outfit.
He encountered real difficulty when he tried to hire a man to act as
cook. Evidently the Bradleyburg citizens had no love for the mountain
realms in the last days of fall. For the double wage that he promised
he was only able to secure a half-rate man,--Vosper by name, a
shifty-eyed youth from one of the placer mines, farther down toward the
settlements.
Up to the time that he heard the far-off sound of their automobile
struggling up the long hill, he had made no mental picture of his
employers. He rather hoped that Mr. Kenly Lounsbury--uncle of the
missing man--would represent the usual type of middle-aged American
with whom he had previously dealt,--cold-nerved, likeable business men
that came for recreation on the caribou trails. Virginia Tremont would
of course be a new type, but he felt no especial interest in her. But
as he waited at the door of the hotel he began to be aware of a curious
excitement, a sense of grave and portentous developments. He did not
feel the least self-conscious. But he did know a suddenly awakened
interest in this girl who would come clear to these northern realms to
find her lover.
The car was in evident difficulties. It was the end of the road: in
fact, the old highway for the last three miles of its length was simply
two ruts on the hillside. As soon as it came in sight Bill recognized
the driver,--a man who operated a line of auto-stages, during the
summer months, on the long river-road below. The next instant the car
drew up beside the hotel.
To a man of cities there would have been nothing particularly unusual in
this sight of a well-groomed man and girl in the tonneau of an
automobile. The man was a familiar type, of medium size, precise, his
outing clothes just a trifle garish; the girl trim and sweet-faced, and
stylish from the top of her head to the soles of her expensive little
boots. But no moment of Bill's life had ever been fraught with a
greater wonder. None had ever such a quality of the miraculous. None
had ever gone so deep.
He had not known many women, this dark man of the forests. He had seen
Indian squaws in plenty, stolid and fat, he had known a few of the wives
of the Bradleyburg men,--women pretty enough, good housekeepers,
neatly clad and perhaps a little saddened and crushed by the very
remorselessness of this land in which they lived. But there had been no
girls in Bradleyburg to grow up with, no schoolday sweethearts. He had
known the dark and desolate forests, never a sweetheart's kiss. His
mother was now but a memory: tenderness, loveliness, personal beauty to
hold the eyes had been wholly without his bourne. And he gazed at
Virginia Tremont as a man might look at a celestial light.
If the girl could have seen the swift flood of worship that flowed into
his face, she would have felt no scorn. She was of the cities, caste
had hardened her as far as it could harden one of her nature, she was a
thoroughbred to the last inch, used to flattery and the attentions of
men of her own class; yet she would have held no contempt for this tall,
bronzed man that looked at her with such awe and wonder. The surge of
feeling was real in him; and reality is one thing, over the broad earth,
that no human being dares to scorn. If she could have read deeper she
would have found in herself an unlooked-for answer, in a small measure
at least, to a lifelong dream, an ideal come true, and even she--in
her high place--would have known a little whisper of awe.
All his life, it seemed to him, Bill had dreamed dreams--dreams that
he would not admit into his conscious thought and which he constantly
tried to disavow because he considered their substance did not exist in
reality and thus they were out of accord with the realism with which he
regarded life. On the long winter nights, when the snow lay endless and
deep over the wilderness, and the terrible cold locked the land tight,
he would sit in his trapping cabins, gazing into the smoke clouds from
his pipe, and a tender enchantment would steal over him. He would have
admitted to no human being those wistful and beautiful hours that he
spent alone. He was known as a man among men, one who could battle the
snows and meet the grizzly in his lair, and he would have been ashamed
to reveal this dreamy, romantic side of his nature, these longings that
swept him to the depths. He would go to his bed and lie for long,
tingling, wakeful hours stirred by dreams that through no earthly chance
could he conceive as coming true. Arms about him, lips near, beauty and
tenderness and hallowed wakenings,--he had imagined them all in his
secret hours.
In the deep realms of his spirit, it seemed to him, he had always known
this girl,--this straight, graceful, lovely being with eyes of an
angel and smile of a happy child. He had denied her existence, and here
she was before him. Dark hair, waving and just a little untidy in the
brisk wind, oval face and determined little chin, shadowing lashes and
the exquisite contrasts of brunette beauty, a glimpse of soft, white
flesh at the throat through her dark furs, smart tailored suit and
dainty hands,--they were all known to him of old. For all the
indifference and distance with which she looked at him and at the other
townspeople, there was a world of girlish sweetness in her face. For
all her caste, there was spiritual beauty and gracious charm in every
facial line.
Curiously, Bill had no tinge of the resentment he might have expected
that his dream should come half-true only to be shattered like the
bubble it was. Because he had no delusions. He knew that he was only
an employee, that a girl of her caste would ever regard him as the great
regard those that serve them--kindly but impersonally--but for now
he asked for nothing more. To him she was a creature past belief, a
being from another world, and he was content to serve her humbly. He
knew that he was of the forest and she of the cities of men, and soon
they would take separate trails. His only comfort, heretofore, had
been that his dream could not possibly come true, that the stuff of
which it was made could never exist in the barren, dreadful, accursed
place that was his home; but his nature was too big and true for any
bitterness--to hate her because she was of a sphere so infinitely apart
from his. But he wouldn't give her his love, he told himself, only his
adoration. He wasn't going to be foolish enough to fall in love with a
star! Yet he was swept with joy, for did not a whole month intervene
before she would go back to her kind? Would she not be in his own
keeping for a while, before she left him to his forests and his snows?
Could he not see her across the fire, exult in her beauty, even aid her
in finding her lost lover? His eye kindled and his face flushed, and
he leaped to help her from the tonneau.
"I suppose you are Mr. Bronson?" she asked.
It was the same friendly but impersonal tone that he had expected, but
he felt no resentment. His spirits had rallied promptly; and he was
already partly adjusted to the fact that his joy in the journey would
consist of the mere, unembellished fact of her presence.
"Yes. Of course this is Miss Tremont and Mr. Lounsbury. And just as
soon as I pack the horses we'll be ready to start."
"I don't see why you haven't got 'em already packed," Lounsburg broke
in. "If I ran my business in this shiftless way----"
Bill turned quickly toward him. He saw at once that other elements
beside pleasure were to enter into this journey. The man spoke
querulously, in a tone to which Bill was neither accustomed nor
reconciled. If the girl had chosen to abuse him, he would have taken it
meekly as his due; but it hadn't been his training to accept too many
rude words from a fellow man. Yet, he remembered, he was the uncle of
the girl's fiance, and that meant he was a privileged person. Besides,
his temper had likely been severely strained by the rough road.
"Don't be ridiculous, Uncle," the girl reproved her. "How did he know
exactly when we were going to arrive?" She tuned back to Bill. "Now
tell us where we can get lunch. I'm starved."
"This country does--stimulate the appetite," Bill responded gravely.
Then he showed them into the hotel.
He did a queer and sprightly little dance as he hurried toward the barn
to get his horse.