In the glow of the fire, and speaking just loud enough to be heard above
its roar, Alice and Hugh made swift appraisal of their situation. It was
not easy to be calm, to hold the body in subjugation to the brain in
that death valley, between two walls of flame. Yet the calm strength of
the wilderness itself seemed to be in their thews.
“Wait, wait,” the girl whispered. “Every second is precious—but give me
time to think. I know this country, and I’ve got to remember how the
canyons lie.”
Hugh stood silent, and endless hours seemed to go by before the girl had
marshalled all her memories of the geographical nature of Smoky Land. In
reality, her thoughts came quickly and surely.
“There’s only one way,” she told him at last, “and that’s only a chance.
It depends on how far the fire has advanced behind us. We might ride out
through the old Dark Canyon, back from the camp at Two Pines.”
“Alice, the fire has already swept it——”
“I don’t think so. The canyon is deep, and the fire hasn’t got down into
it. We must run for it—and if we get through to safety we can ride to a
’phone on the old Lost River road. Then we can ’phone to the ranger
station, and they may be able to rush men in time to save some of the
forest.”
“But that wouldn’t save the flock——”
“No. We can’t think of that, Hugh—any more. We’ve done what we could.
We’ll try to get the dog to follow us, and save him——”
“Then don’t wait any longer,” he urged her. “And kill the horse if need
be.” His hands, a single instant, groped toward hers. “Good-by——”
“Good-by?” she questioned; and for the first time a sob caught at her
throat. “What do you mean? Get up behind me. It’s the only chance——”
Her eyes leaped to his face,—for the sight of a little weakness, a
little sign of breaking strength. It was pale, even under the angry glow
of the fire, but it seemed graven of white stone. “No,” he answered
clearly. “No, Alice—just one of us must go——”
“Then I’ll stay too. I won’t go alone.”
“Listen!” His voice, ringing out in command above the roar of the
flames, held her and silenced her. “You’re wasting precious seconds. The
only way you can help is to ride—fast as the horse can run—and try to
send rangers to make a last stand in the canyon, and maybe help me out
with the sheep. The horse couldn’t make good time with both of us; it
would just mean that both of us would die, caught between those two
fires. One of us has got to stay here and try the best he can to head
the sheep back in the direction that we’ve come—to follow you through
the canyon. The wind might change—the fire might not be able to work
down at once to the canyon floor—and we might all get through.”
“There’s no hope of that. It means death for you—that’s all it means.
And there’s plenty of time for both of us if you’d just leave the sheep.
Oh, please——”
She looked down in desperate appeal, and she knew her answer when she
found a strange little ghost of a smile at his white lips. “But a good
herder—doesn’t leave his sheep,” he told her soberly. The tone was
perfectly simple, wholly sincere, utterly free from emotionalism or
self-pity. Yet it thrilled and moved her to the depths of her being.
She understood. At last she knew this man who stood before her. Perhaps
with this knowledge there came an understanding of the whole great race
of men,—the breed that has waged war with the powers of the wilderness,
who have driven back the beast and plowed the fields, established a
protectorate over the wild creatures, and followed the flocks at the
dusky edge of the forest. No longer was she the employer and he the
servant. She was simply the woman, sick at heart with fear for the man
she loved. And he was the man: one of a breed that has ever been willing
to die for an ideal. To her, the sheep no longer mattered. She only knew
that the wall of fire was creeping toward this man, this tall,
straight-eyed companion that held her heart. Yet she knew in the depths
of her own heart that she could not turn him from his resolve, that she
could not make him break his trust. She had longed to find strength in
him, the strength of the mountains and the pines, the basic strength
that has made men the rulers of the earth, and now she had found
it,—only to have it break her heart.
The captain who stayed with his ship when his children at his hearth
wept for his return, the soldier in his trench for an ideal that few
women, in their heart of hearts, can really understand, and this
shepherd, willing to stand the test of fire to save his flocks were
simply three of one breed. Nor did they greatly differ from the whole
race of men from which they sprung. They were only obeying the immutable
laws of their own beings. They could not break trust with themselves.
They didn’t know why. It was as blind faith as that which will make a
mother—a woman useful to the earth—give her life to save her crying
infant—not through love, not through a sense of duty, but just from the
inexorable command of the soul. Common sense and the voice of reason go
unheard: and only instinct, blind and cruel, remains. No human being
would blame Hugh for leaving his flock to the terror of the flame. Yet
he was a man, one of the Breed, and he had no power to disobey the
promptings of his own spirit.
Yet out of her tearful eyes, Alice saw in Hugh’s stand the heaven-sent
impulse that has brought the world up from the darkness. She understood
old wars, the martyrdom of peoples. Vision had come to her, and
throughout the world she saw men’s works and heard women’s tears. She
could see the Viking, leaving the white arms of his woman and following
western stars; the frontiersman, striking out from his beloved hearth to
seek new dominions; the blood-stained paths of armies; the builder,
stretching his bridges across roaring rivers and his railroads into
uncharted lands. Through the long roll of the ages she saw the shepherd
on the rugged hills, alone and wondering and full of thoughts, watching
his sheep.
The man he had been—the waster and the egotist—was wholly gone now.
Only the shepherd remained. Hugh saw himself as he really was,—just a
pawn by which Destiny works out vast and invisible schemes of its own.
His life didn’t matter here. His love for this girl beside him pulled at
his heart, but the laws within him could not be disobeyed. He was only
the shepherd, and here—a milling, panic-stricken band—were his sheep.
“Way round,” he ordered the dog, and the girl helped him keep the
control of the animals until he had started to turn them. And just for a
moment he took her hands, two little, hard brown hands that were clasped
about his heart.
“Good-by, Alice,” he said quietly. “Don’t blame me for staying—and
forgive me. All my life has been wasted, and now I’ve got a chance to
pay the debt. You don’t know what it means——”
But yet she understood this personal reason too. His manhood was at the
test; and even if he should fall, at last, victim to those hungry
flames, his life would have been vindicated—beyond all the powers of
Destiny to accuse him. He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them
again and again.
“Maybe there won’t be time to put my petitions to the queen,” he told
her soberly. “But I want you to know what they were to be. I love you,
Alice. Never doubt it—never forget it. And it’s my right—to tell you
at last.”
“And I love you, Hugh,” she answered clearly. He heard her without
exultation, rather only with a great and inward peace, as if this were
his ordained fate, his destiny fulfilled. He swung toward her, their
lips met. And she rode away toward the advancing wall of flame.