In fairylike traceries the tiny drops of a mist-like rain embroidered
the broad pane of the Pullman. Betty Hunt gazed through this at the
flying fields and woods, the panorama of the railroad fences, and the
still nearer blur of telegraph poles with that hopeless feeling a
sentenced prisoner must have as he journeys toward the prison pen.
Everything she cared for save her brother, everything she knew and that
was familiar to her daily life, every object of her thought and
interest, was being left behind by the onrush of the train. Time, with a
big besom, was sweeping her quiet past into the discard--she felt it, she
knew it! They would never go back to Ditson Corners again, or to Amberly
where they had lived as children with Aunt Prudence or to any similar
sanctuary.
That was what Betty had most longed for since her last term at boarding
school, which had ended for her so abruptly with the death of her Aunt
Prudence Mason. Her last previous journey by train had been that somber
one to the funeral. When Betty and her brother had later moved to the
Ditson Corners' parsonage they had done so by motor.
The drumming of the wheels over the rail-joints kept time with the
swiftly flying thoughts of the girl. She lay in the corner of the broad,
tan plush seat like a crumpled flower that had been carelessly flung
there. Thoughts of that last train journey seared her mind in hot
flashes, as summer lightnings play about the horizon at dusk.
First one thing, then another, she glimpsed--mere jottings of the
happenings that had gone before the hurried good-byes at school and the
anxious trip homeward. These remembrances now were like the projection
of a broken film upon the moving picture screen.
And those trying, anxious weeks which followed the funeral while Ford
was completing his divinity course and received his ordination and which
came to an end with his selection as pastor of the First Church at
Ditson Corners! All through these weeks was the dull, miserable pain of
disillusion and horror that Betty must keep to herself. She could not
tell Ford. She could tell nobody. What had happened during the last few
weeks at school was a secret that must be buried--buried in her mind and
heart as deeply as Aunt Prudence was buried under the flowering New
England sod.
Betty, with her secret, was like a hurt animal that hides away to die or
recover of its wound as nature may provide. She could not die. She knew
that, of course, from the first. Time, she felt, would never erase the
scar upon her soul; but the wound itself must heal.
All that--that which was now such a horror in her thought--she had hoped
to bury deeper as time passed. She had devoted herself to her brother's
needs. She had made his comfort her constant care. Busy mind and busy
hands were her salvation from the gnawing regret for that secret
happening that she believed must wither all her life.
Now this sudden and unlooked for change had come to shake up all her
fragile plans like the shifting of a kaleidoscope. They were going West,
toward the land she hated, toward people whom, she told herself, she had
every reason to suspect and fear. Why had Ford kept up his
correspondence with that Joe Hurley? Betty did not blame her brother for
wishing to get away from Ditson Corners. But why need it have been that
Westerner who offered the soul-sore minister the refuge that he so
gladly accepted?
Betty, without a clear explanation, had no reason to oppose to Hunt's
desire for a change that would satisfy him. And such explanation she
would have died rather than have given him! She was swept on toward the
West, toward whatever fate had in store for her, like a chip upon a
current that could not be stemmed.
Aunt Prudence had left her money--conservatively invested--to Betty; but
she was not to touch the principal until she was thirty. "If the girl
marries before that age, no shiftless man can get it away from her," had
been the spinster's frank statement in her will. "If she is foolish
enough to marry after that age, it is to be hoped she will then have
sense at least regarding money matters." The brother had a small nest
egg left from his father's estate after paying his college and divinity
school expenses.
So they were not wholly dependent upon Hunt's salary. He could afford to
take a vacation, and it was on this ground--the need of rest--that he had
resigned from the pulpit of Ditson Corners' First Church. They had left
some really good friends behind them in the little Berkshire town--some
who truly appreciated the young minister. But the clique against him had
shown its activity much too promptly to salve Hunt's pride. His
resignation had been accepted without question, and he had remained only
to see Bardell established in his place.
Betty condemned herself that she could not enter whole-heartedly into
Hunt's high expectations of the new field that lay before him. It was
adventure--high adventure--to his mind. And why should a parson not long
for a bigger life and broader development as well as another healthy
man?
He was going to Canyon Pass without a penny being guaranteed him. Joe
Hurley urged him to come; but he told him frankly that there would be
opposition. Certain Passonians would not welcome a parson or the
establishment of religious worship.
But this opposition was that of the enemy. The Reverend Willett Ford
Hunt was not afraid of the devil in an open fight. Opposition in the
church itself was what had conquered him at Ditson Corners. Let the
phalanxes of wickedness confront him at Canyon Pass, he would stand
against them!
Betty saw him coming back down the aisle of the car, smiling broadly, a
handsome, muscular figure of a man. He did not look the cleric. She had
been so used to seeing him in the black frock-coat and immaculate white
collar that she was at first rather shocked when he had donned another
suit to travel in.
He was almost boyish looking. He was a big man, and she believed him
capable of big things. She could almost wish he had selected some other
road in life--although that thought was shocking to her, too. Ford might
well have been a business man, an engineer, a banker, a promoter.
Betty's ideas were somewhat vague about business life; but she felt sure
Ford would have shone in any line. She was a loyal sister.
She shook herself out of the fog of her own thoughts and smiled up at
him.
"Met a man in the smoking room who knows that country about Canyon Pass
like a book, Bet," Hunt said, dropping down beside her. "It really is a
part of the last frontier. We shall always be a pioneer people, we
Americans. There is something in the raw places of the earth that
intrigues us all--save the saps. And sap, even, hardens in such an
environment as this we are bound for."
"I hope you will not be disappointed, Ford."
"Disappointed? Of course I shall be disappointed and heart-sick and
soul-weary. But I believe my efforts will not be narrowed and
circumscribed and bound down by formalism and caste. As Joe says, I
won't be 'throwed and hog-tied.' The old-time revivalists used to urge
their converts to 'get liberty.' I'll get liberty out there, I feel
sure, in Canyon Pass."
She could say nothing to dash his enthusiasm. It was too late for that
now, in any case. Betty even tried to smile. But her face felt as stiff
as though it were like to crack in the process.
"All that territory of which Canyon Pass is the heart," pursued Hunt,
"has been phenomenally rich in ore in past time. They have to comb the
mines and sweep the hydraulic-washed benches very scientifically now to
make the game pay. Yet Canyon Pass is distinctly a mining town and
always must be.
"My new acquaintance says it is really 'wild and woolly.'" He smiled
more broadly. "I fancy it is all Joe said it is. Crude, rude,
roughneck--but honest. If I can dig down to the honest heart of Canyon
Pass, Bet, I shall succeed. We'll not worry about first impressions, or
the lack of super-civilized conveniences, or the fact that men don't
often shave, and the women wear their hair untidily. Of course, I'll
make you as comfortable as possible----"
"I can stand whatever you can, Ford," she interrupted with brisk
conviction.
"Well," with a sigh of relief, "that's fine. Oh, Bet! This is the life
we're going to. I am sure you will be happier when you once get a taste
of it."
But she made no reply.
* * * * *
When the two mountain-hogs, drawing and pushing the trans-continental
train up the grade, ground to a brief stop at Crescent City, Betty Hunt
was surprised to see brick office buildings, street cars, several
taxi-cabs at the station, paved streets, and the business bustle of a
Western city which always impresses the stranger with the idea that the
place is commercially much more important than it actually is.
"This--this cannot be Canyon Pass?" she stammered to Hunt.
"No." He laughed. "But here's Joe Hurley--bless him! Joe!"
He shouted it heartily before dropping off the car step and turning to
help Betty. But Joe Hurley strode across the platform and playfully
shouldered the minister aside.
"Your servant, Miss Betty!" the Westerner cried, sweeping off his
broad-brimmed hat in a not ungraceful bow.
The girl from the East floated off the step into his arms. Joe set her
as lightly as a thistle-down upon the platform and somehow found her
free hand.
"When Willie, here, told me you would come with him, Miss Betty, I
promised the boys at the Great Hope a holiday when you arrived. Great
saltpeter!" he added, stepping off to admire her from her rippling,
bistered hair to her silk stockinged ankles. "You sure will make the
boys sit up and take notice!"
Here Hunt, having relieved himself of the hand-bags, got hold of
Hurley's hand and began pumping. The two young men looked into each
other's eyes over that handclasp. They had little to say, but much to
feel. Betty sighed as she looked on. Her last hope of quick escape from
the West went with that sigh. The handclasp and the look were like an
oath between the two young men to stand by each other.
"Well, old sobersides!" said Joe.
"Same old Joe, aren't you?" rejoined the minister.
"Come on. We'll get your bags into a taxi and go up to the hotel,"
Hurley said briskly. "I got rooms for you. We can't go on to the Pass
till eight o'clock to-morrow morning."
"Is there but one train a day, Mr. Hurley?" Betty asked as he helped her
into the cab.
"To Canyon Pass? Ain't ever been one yet," and he chuckled. "We go over
with Lizard Dan and the mail. Some day, when the roads are fixed up, we
may get motor service. Until then, a six-mule stagecoach has to serve."
"Oh!"
Hunt's eyes twinkled. "Break it to her gently, Joe," he advised. "Bet is
prepared to be very much shocked, I know. This frontier life is going to
be an eye-opener for her."
"'Frontier life!'" snorted Hurley. "Why, we're plumb civilized. Bill
Judson has laid in a stock of near-silk hosiery and shirts with pleated
bosoms. Wait till you see some of the boys in holiday rig. Knock your
eye out, when it comes to style."
Betty smiled. She did not mind being laughed at. Besides, the modern
appearance of Crescent City had somewhat relieved her apprehension. Even
the hotel was not bad. Their rooms were cheerful and clean, so she could
excuse the brand-new, shiny oak furniture and the garish brass beds.
She did not dislike Joe Hurley--not really. It was only his influence
over Ford that she observed with a somewhat jealous eye. Although the
mining man seldom addressed her brother seriously, she realized that he
was fond of Ford. The latter was much the stronger character of the
two--she was sure of that. He would never be overborne in any essential
thing by the lighter-minded Hurley. But Ford admired the latter so much
that Betty felt her brother was likely to give heed to Hurley's advice
in most matters connected with this new and strange environment to which
they had come.
"Bet is scared of the West and of you Westerners," Hunt said lightly. "I
don't know but what she expected you to have sprouted horns since she
saw you before, Joe."
"Shucks!" chuckled the other. "We're mostly born with 'em out here, Miss
Betty. But they de-horn us before they let us run loose out o' the
branding pens. And remember, I spent two years in the effete East."
"It never touched you," and Hunt laughed. "You're just as wild and
woolly as ever."
The girl noted that Hurley was thoughtful of their every comfort. He
showed them the best of the town that day; but in the evening they
rested at the hotel and talked. The two men conversed while they smoked
in Hunt's room, with the door opened into Betty's. She heard the murmur
of their voices as she sat by her darkened window and looked out into
the electrically lighted main street of Crescent City.
She was not at all thrilled by the novelty of the situation. She was
only troubled.
* * * * *
Those strangers passing by! She saw a face in the throng but seldom as
the street lights flickered upon it. And always she was fearfully
expectant of seeing--What? Whom? She shuddered.