Just behind the Burrows' cabin the ground fell away with startling
abruptness. There were just two or three juniper bushes and a patch
of dirty snow, then the rough edge--then space. One looked down
almost terrified into a blue mist; and full three thousand feet below
were the tops of big pine trees in another climate--almost in another
world. Opposite there rose another granite precipice, smooth, grey,
gigantic, the valley between reaching away on the right, round a
bend, to the meadow where Arrapahoe Bill and Black Bear guarded their
bulls.
On the left was the head of the gorge, with its glacier breaking over
a cliff, and the broken river, roaring down the wall, fell into a
lake deep blue as the very sky. This was the Throne glacier, the
seat of what seemed like a chair, with the lake at its feet, the
enormous cliffs on either side for arms, the back an Alp, ice-clad,
but splintering upward into needle spires, now touched with the
roseate glow of sunrise.
All along the westward sky glimmered the awakening summits of the
Selkirks; eastwards, across the Kootenay trench, the Rocky Mountains
hung like a belt of azure mist against the sunrise; but La Mancha,
sitting on the verge of that huge precipice behind the cabins, took
no thought of the day or of the morrow. A little wreath of smoke
rose straight up from his pipe into the thin air, and the awful
magnificence of the Alps had no existence for him while he thought of
a woman. Her face was before him in a dream--the face of a sweet
maid, bright with impudence, a wholesome nut-brown maiden innocent.
Her innocence made the Blackguard want to protect her; the frank
brown eyes made him desirous of study, that in their depths he might
see what it was to be good. The Blackguard had tasted all the joys
of life, save this one thing--purity. The aftertaste of pleasure was
sour upon his lips, but happiness seemed yet ever so far away. "If I
were only good," he said to his pipe, "but I'm not; wherefore she
would find me out, then hate me." So he sat at the edge of the
cliff, perched like a fly on a wall, until presently there came
another fly stealing up softly behind; a female fly this, full as her
little body could hold of wanton mischief, to wit, the Burrows girl,
who clapped her dainty hands over both La Mancha's eyes.
"You must be Love," laughed the Blackguard, "blinding a chap like
that. What nice soft fingers--Um! Get away, you minx, or I'll kiss
you."
"Ugh!" said the minx, suddenly releasing him.
"Now, sit down here, Impudence, and tell me who taught you your
manners."
"I couldn't help it," she said in justification.
"My Uncle is talking that poor boy to death in the cabin. Oh! so
grave, so solemn; I wanted to scream; I got desperate! So I came
out."
"Sit down, Impudence."
Impudence sat down a yard off, blushing hotly, her childlike face
full of reproach that she had been led astray from last night's fine
ideals. So this was the way she was playing the part of a grown
woman. Pretty chance there was if she behaved as it schoolgirl of
being Una with a growly Burrow!
"Miss Burrows," said the Blackguard, "ain't you ashamed of yourself?
You've interrupted the most serious thoughts, you've rumpled my hair,
you've put out my pipe, you've damaged my complexion. Nice sort of
girl you are!"
She looked at his wicked bronzed face--his complexion, indeed! Then
she laughed, not knowing that every note of her happiness went
through the man like an arrow.
"Do you know, young lady, that I'm dangerous, that I'm a bad lot,
that your mother, if you have one, would be afraid to see you sitting
near me, eh?"
"You needn't be conceited about it, anyway."
It was evidently no use trying to warn her--she did not believe in
evil, this sweet maid, but trusted herself in his bad company--ay,
and trusted him.
Clever women had played with him--had played with fire, but the wise
ladies had been badly burned. Her defenceless littleness was not
like their strong towers. They incited to attack, she to defence.
"Little woman," he said, "it's time for me to be going."
"Oh, but the sun's only just up, and I must make amends for my
Uncle's manners. I am going to make him apologise to you--I am
indeed. He shall go down on his bended knees. You must stay for
dinner."
"But if I am not back in camp by noon I shall be put under arrest,
then awful things will happen."
"What kind of things?"
"They'll clip my ears like a dog, they'll chain me up, and give me
bones to gnaw. It isn't as if I had a good character. A man with a
good character can get drunk whenever he likes, smash things, punch
people's heads, have a good time; but me--I'm the Blackguard, so if I
look crossways at the Colonel's tent it's mutiny."
"Ha, ha!--how I'd like to see you gnawing bones!"
"I'll kiss you unless you're civil."
"You daren't!"
"Eh?" The Blackguard sprang up as she fled like the wind before him
along the edge of the cliff; but then she turned, laughing over her
shoulder--the little flirt, at which he drew himself up, saluting as
though she were the Queen. "I forgot," said the Blackguard
regretfully.
"What?" asked the girl in fearless innocence.
"Why, that my horse is whinnying for me. He just loves to be saddled
up and ridden all day. Come, make friends with the Devil while I
saddle him."