ON, OVER THE ONE-WAY TRAIL
Eve's door was suddenly pushed open. She did not look up from her
sewing-machine. She guessed who her visitor was.
"Sit down, Annie, dear," she said, cordially. "I'll be through with
this in a moment."
Her visitor took the proffered chair and smiled, while the busy
machine rattled down the last seam of the skirt on which the other was
busy.
Eve was very good to look upon, as she bent over her work, and her
visitor was well content to wait. Her slight figure was delightfully
gracious; her pretty hair, loosely dressed, looked to have all the
velvet softness and lustre of spun silk. Her face was hidden, but the
beautifully moulded outline of her cheek was visible. There was such a
wholesome air of purpose in her attitude that it was quite easy to
imagine that the shadows of the past had long since faded from her
gentle eyes, that youth had again conquered, now that those gray days
had lightened to the rosy summer of peace.
Something of this was passing through the man's mind as he hungrily
devoured the beauty, which for so long had held him its slave.
It was nearly two months since the happenings which had so nearly
ended Jim Thorpe's earthly career. Two months during which he had
honestly struggled to regain that footing he had once held in the
district. And now the fall was advancing, and the hopes of winning
through with the people of the place seemed as far off as ever.
Prejudice still clung. Barnriff, willing enough to accept his actual
innocence on the double charges made against him, still could not
forget that he had helped the real thief to escape. It mattered
nothing to them that in the end the man had died a violent death. He
had been helped to escape--their justice. So there was no employment
of any sort in Barnriff for Jim Thorpe. And Eve, too, was only
completing orders which had been placed with her weeks before.
"There," she said, raising her needle and removing the stuff from
beneath it. "I hate it, and I'm glad it's done."
She looked up with a smile to encounter the dark eyes of Jim Thorpe.
"You?" she cried, in a tone that should have made him glad. "Why, I
thought surely it was Annie. But there, I might have known. Annie
would not have sat silent so long. You see she was coming over for a
gossip. But I s'pose it's too early for her."
Jim noticed now that something of the old happy light was in her eyes
again. That joyous light which he had not seen in them for nearly a
year. What a wonderful thing was youth.
"I saw her as I came along," he said slowly. "She said she'd come
_after_ supper. She sent her love, and said she was going to bring a
shirt-waist to get fixed."
"The dear thing! It's the one thing that makes my life here possible,
Jim. I mean her friendship. She's the only one in all the village that
can forget things. I mean among the women." She came round the table
and sat on its edge facing him, staring out of the window at the ruddy
sunset with eyes that had suddenly become shadowed with regret. "Men
aren't like that, it seems to me. They're fierce, and violent, and all
that, but most of them have pretty big hearts when their anger is
past."
Jim's eyes smiled whimsically.
"Do you think so?" he said. "Guess maybe I won't contradict you, but
it seems to me I've learned pretty well how large their hearts are--in
the last two months."
"You mean--you can get no work?"
The man nodded. But he had no bitterness now. He had learned his
lesson from Peter Blunt. He had no blame for the weaknesses of human
nature. Why should he have? Who was he to judge?
There was a silence for some moments. Eve continued to gaze at the
sunset. The glorious ever-changing lights held her physical vision,
but her mind was traveling in that realm of woman's thought, whither
no mere man can follow it.
It was Jim who spoke at last.
"But I didn't come to--to air troubles," he said thoughtfully. "I came
to tell you of two things. One of 'em is Peter. He's packing his
wagon. He goes at sun-up to-morrow. He says he must move on--keep
moving. He says all that held him to Barnriff is finished with, so now
there's nothing left but to hit the trail."
"Poor old Peter!" Eve murmured softly. "I s'pose he means the gold
business?"
"Maybe," replied the man, without conviction.
"Why--what do you mean?"
Eve's eyes were widely questioning. The other shrugged.
"You can't tell. It's hard to get at what's passing through his quaint
mind. I don't think gold interests him as much as you'd think. Peter
has plenty of money. Do you know, he offered to advance me ten
thousand dollars to buy up a ranch around here. He pressed it on me,
and tried to make out it would be a favor to him if I took it. Said I
didn't know how much I'd be obliging him. He's a good man. A--a
wonderful man. I tried to get him to stop on--but----"
"I don't blame him for going," said Eve, regretfully.
"Nor do I."
Again that silence fell, and each was busy with thoughts they neither
could easily have expressed.
"What's the other?" Eve inquired presently. "You said--two things."
"Did I? Oh, yes, of course."
But Jim did not at once tell her the other reason for his visit.
Instead he sat thinking of many things, and all his thoughts were
centred round her. He was thinking the honest thoughts of a man who
loves a woman so well that he shrinks from offering her so little of
worldly goods as he possesses. He had come there, as a man will come,
to hover round and burn his fingers at the fire which he has not the
courage to turn his back upon. He had come there to tell her that he
was going away, even as Peter was going--going away to make one more
of those many starts which it had been his lot to make in the past.
"Well?" Eve faced him with smiling eyes. She understood that his
second reason was troubling him, and she wanted to encourage him.
He shook his head.
"It isn't a scrap 'well,'" he said, with an attempt at a lightness he
did not feel.
"Nothing can be so bad, as--as some things," she said. Her eyes had
become serious again. She was thinking of those two short months ago.
"No," he breathed, with a sigh. "I--I suppose not." Then with a
desperate effort he blurted out his resolve. "I'm going away, too," he
said clumsily.
His announcement cost him more than he knew. But Eve showed not the
least bit of astonishment.
"I knew you would," she said. Then she added, as though following out
a thought which had been hers for a long time, "You see there are some
things nobody can put up with--for long. Barnriff, for instance, when
it turns against you."
Jim nodded. Her understanding delighted him, and he went on more
easily.
"I've one hundred and fifty head of stock, and a thousand odd
dollars," he said deliberately. "I'm going to make a fresh start."
He laughed, and somehow his laugh hurt the woman. She understood.
"Don't laugh like that, Jim," she said gently. "It's--it's not like
you."
"I'm sorry, Eve," he replied in swift contrition. "But--but it's not
much, is it?"
"I seem to fancy it's quite a deal." The girl's face wore a delightful
smile. "Where are you thinking of?"
[Illustration: "We've just come over to say that we, too, are going to
hit the trail."]
"Canada. Edmonton. It's a longish piece off, but it's good land--and
cheap."
"It's British."
"Ye-es."
"It's not under the 'stars and stripes.'"
"Most flags are made of bunting."
The girl nodded her head.
"A monarchy, too," she said.
"Monarchs and presidents are both men."
Jim's love for his flag was a sore point with him, and he gathered
that Eve disapproved. He wanted her approval. He wanted it more than
anything else, because---- Suddenly he remembered something.
"Peter's English," he said slyly.
"God bless him!"
The fervor of the woman's response was unmistakable.
"I must see him to-night before he goes," she went on, "because--I've
got something to tell him."
She looked down at the table on which the dress she had just finished
making was lying.
"That's the last of them," she said, pointing at it.
The man knew what she meant. She had completed her last order.
"I'm going to do no more--here."
Jim's eyes lit.
"Here?"
Eve shook her head.
"I'm going away," she said, with a shamefaced smile. "That's--that's
what I want to tell--Peter."
Jim sprang to his feet, and looked into the bright smiling eyes.
"I've got a sewing-machine," Eve went on, deliberately mimicking him,
"and--and some dollars. And I'm going to make a fresh start."
Her manner of detailing her stock-in-trade, and the smile that
accompanied her words were good to see. Jim's heart beat hard beneath
his buckskin shirt, and the light in his eyes was one of a hope such
as he rarely permitted himself.
"Where?" he demanded. But he knew before she said the words.
"Canada, Edmonton. It's--it's a longish piece off--but----"
Eve never finished her mimicry. In a moment she was in his arms, and
her lips were silenced with his kisses.
Some minutes later she protested.
"You haven't let me finish, Jim," she cried.
But he shook his head.
"No need. I'll tell you the rest. We'll start in together, up there,
and--we'll keep the sewing-machine for home use. You see my socks 'll
sure need darning."
"Silly. You don't do that with a sewing-machine."
* * * * *
Peter's spring wagon was standing outside his door. It was a quaint,
old-fashioned vehicle--just such a conveyance as one would expect him
to possess. It had lain idle during most of his time in Barnriff, and
had suffered much from the stress of bitter winters and the blistering
sun of summers. But it still possessed four clattering wheels, even
though the woodwork and the tires looked conspicuously like parting
company.
The last of his household goods, with the exception of his blankets,
had been loaded up. There was a confused pile of gold-prospecting
tools and domestic chattels. Books and "washing" pans, pictures and
steel drills, jostled with each other in a manner thoroughly
characteristic of his disregard for the comforts of life. These
material matters concerned him so little.
He was scraping out a large frying-pan, the one utensil which shared
with his "billy" the privilege of supplying him with a means of
cooking his food. The work he was engaged upon was something of a
strain. It seemed so unnecessary. Still, the process was his habit of
years, so he did not attempt to shirk it. But he looked up with relief
when he heard voices, and a glad smile of welcome greeted Jim and Eve
as they came up.
"Peter, I've----"
"Peter, we've----"
Jim and Eve both began to speak at the same time. And both broke off
to let the other go on.
Peter glanced swiftly from one to the other. His shrewd eyes took in
the situation at once.
"I'm glad," he said, "real glad. Jim," he went on, "I guess your
luck's set in. Eve, my dear, your luck's running, too. I'm just
glad."
The culprits exchanged swift glances of astonishment. Eve blushed, but
it was Jim who answered him.
"Guess you see things easy, Peter," he said. "But you aren't as glad
as I am."
"We are," corrected Eve.
Peter bent over his work again, smiling at the friendly pan with
renewed interest. He scraped some long congealed black grease from its
shoulder and gazed at it ruefully.
"Look at that," he said, with his quaint smile, holding up the knife
with the unwholesome fat sticking to it. "Guess your pans won't get
like that, eh, Eve?" Then he added with a sigh, "It's sure time I hit
the trail. It's been accumulating too long already. Y'see," he went on
simply, "it's a good thing moving at times. Things need cleaning once
in a while."
He threw the pan into the wagon-box with a sigh of relief, and turned
again to his two friends.
"I'd ask you to sit," he began. But Jim cut him short.
"There's no need, old friend. We've just come over to say we, too, are
going to hit the trail. We're going to hit it together."
Peter nodded.
"We're going to get the parson to marry us," Jim went on eagerly, "and
then we're going to hit out for Canada--Edmonton--and start up a bit
of a one-eyed ranch."
Peter stood lost in thought, and Jim grew impatient.
"Well?" he inquired. "What do you think of it?"
The other nodded slowly, his eyes twinkling.
"Bully, but you'll need a wagon to drive you out--when you're getting
married," he said. "That's how I was thinking. Guess I'll drive you
out in mine, eh?"
"But you're going at sun-up," cried Eve, in dismay. "We--we can't get
married so soon."
"Guess I'll wait over," Peter answered easily. "It just means
off-loading--and then loading up again. My frying-pan can have another
cleaning."
"Thanks, old friend," cried Jim, linking his arm in Eve's. "You're a
great feller. You'll see us--married." He squeezed the girl's arm.
"And then?"
"And then?"
Peter looked away at the dying light. His eyes were full of the kindly
thought his two friends knew so well.
"Why, I'll just hit the trail again," he said.
"Where to?"
The big man turned his face slowly toward them, and his gentle humor
was largely written in his expressive eyes.
"Why, Canada, I guess," he said. "Edmonton--it seems to me."