It was afternoon when Darragh awoke in his bunk, stiff, sore, confused
in mind and battered in body.
However, when he recollected where he was he got out of bed in a hurry
and jerked aside the window curtains.
The day was magnificent; a sky of royal azure overhead, and everywhere
the silver pillars of the birches supporting their splendid canopy of
ochre, orange, and burnt-gold.
Wier, hearing him astir, came in.
"How long have you been back! Did you meet the ladies with your
flivver?" demanded Darragh, impatiently.
"I got to Five Lakes station just as the train came in. The young ladies
were the only passengers who got out. I waited to get their two steamer
trunks and then I drove them to Harrod Place----"
"How did they seem, Ralph--worn-out--worried--ill?"
Wier laughed: "No, sir, they looked very pretty and lively to me. They
seemed delighted to get here. They talked to each other in some foreign
tongue--Russian, I should say--at least, it sounded like what we heard
over in Siberia, Captain----"
"It _was_ Russian.... You go on and tell me while I take another hot
bath!----"
Wier followed him into the bath-room and vaulted to a seat on the deep
set window-sill:
"--When they weren't talking Russian and laughing they talked to me and
admired the woods and mountains. I had to tell them everything--they
wanted to see buffalo and Indians. And when I told them there weren't
any, enquired for bears and panthers.
"We saw two deer on the Scaur, and a woodchuck near the house; I thought
they'd jump out of the flivver----"
He began to laugh at the recollection: "No, sir, they didn't act tired
and sad; they said they were crazy to get into their knickerbockers and
go to look for you----"
"Where did you say I was?" asked Darragh, drying himself vigorously.
"Out in the woods, somewhere. The last I saw of them, Mrs. Ray had their
hand-bags and Jerry and Tom were shouldering their trunks."
"I'm going up there right away," interrupted Darragh excitedly. "--Good
heavens, Ralph, I haven't any clothes here, have I?"
"No, sir. But those you wore last night are dry----"
"Confound it! I meant to send some decent clothes here---- All right;
get me those duds I wore yesterday--and a bite to eat! I'm in a hurry,
Ralph----"
He ate while dressing, disgustedly arraying himself in the grey shirt,
breeches, and laced boots which weather, water, rock, and brier had not
improved.
In a pathetic attempt to spruce up, he knotted the red bandanna around
his neck and pinched Salzar's slouch hat into a peak.
"I look like a hootch-running Wop," he said. "Maybe I can get into the
house before I meet the ladies----"
"You look like one of Clinch's bums," remarked Wier with native honesty.
Darragh, chagrined, went to his bunk, pulled the morocco case from under
the pillow, and shoved it into the bosom of his flannel shirt.
"That's the main thing anyway," he thought. Then, turning to Wier, he
asked whether Eve and Stormont had awakened.
It appeared that Trooper Stormont had saddled up and cantered away
shortly after sunrise, leaving word that he must hunt up his comrade,
Trooper Lannis, at Ghost Lake.
"They're coming back this evening," added Wier. "He asked you to look
out for Clinch's step-daughter."
"She's all right here. Can't you keep an eye on her, Ralph?"
"I'm stripping trout, sir. I'll be around here to cook dinner for her
when she wakes up."
Darragh glanced across the brook at the hatchery. It was only a few
yards away. He nodded and started for the veranda:
"That'll be all right," he said. "Nobody is coming here to bother
her.... And don't let her leave, Ralph, till I get back----"
"Very well, sir. But suppose she takes it into her head to leave----"
Darragh called back, gaily: "She can't: she hasn't any clothes!" And
away he strode in the gorgeous sunshine of a magnificent autumn day, all
the clean and vigorous youth of him afire in anticipation of a reunion
which the letter from his lady-love had transfigured into a tryst.
For, in that amazing courtship of a single day, he never dreamed that he
had won the heart of that sad, white-faced, hungry child in rags--silken
tatters still stained with the blood of massacre,--the very soles of her
shoes still charred by the embers of her own home.
Yet, that is what must have happened in a single day and evening. Life
passes swiftly during such periods. Minutes lengthen into days; hours
into years. The soul finds itself.
Then mind and heart become twin prophets,--clairvoyant concerning what
hides behind the veil; comprehending with divine clair-audience what the
Three Sisters whisper there--hearing even the whirr of the spindle--the
very snipping of the Eternal Shears!
* * * * *
The soul finds itself; the mind knows itself; the heart perfectly
understands.
He had not spoken to this young girl of love. The blood of friends and
servants was still rusty on her skirt's ragged hem.
Yet, that night, when at last in safety she had said good-bye to the man
who had secured it for her, he knew that he was in love with her. And,
at such crises, the veil that hides hearts becomes transparent.
At that instant he had seen and known. Afterward he had dared not
believe that he had known.
But hers had been a purer courage.
* * * * *
As he strode on, the comprehension of her candour, her honesty, the
sweet bravery that had conceived, created, and sent that letter,
thrilled this young man until his heavy boots sprouted wings, and the
trail he followed was but a path of rosy clouds over which he floated
heavenward.
* * * * *
About half an hour later he came to his senses with a distinct shock.
Straight ahead of him on the trail, and coming directly toward him,
moved a figure in knickers and belted tweed.
Flecked sunlight slanted on the stranger's cheek and burnished hair,
dappling face and figure with moving, golden spots.
Instantly Darragh knew and trembled.
But Theodorica of Esthonia had known him only in his uniform.
As she came toward him, lovely in her lithe and rounded grace, only
friendly curiosity gazed at him from her blue eyes.
Suddenly she knew him, went scarlet to her yellow hair, then white: and
tried to speak--but had no control of the short, rosy upper lip which
only quivered as he took her hands.
The forest was dead still around them save for the whisper of painted
leaves sifting down from a sunlit vault above.