"IT IS HOME!"
To those who loved the sensational in and about El Toyon the trial of
Wayne Shandon was a disappointment. Never had the courthouse been more
crowded, never had the setting been more stimulating to their highly
coloured imaginations. Red Reckless, looking to their eyes
picturesquely pale from his confinement and the sheriff's bullet;
Brisbane with his poker table face and his reputation; Edward Kinsell,
whose smiling manner no longer concealed the glamour which clung about
so distinguished a detective; Martin Leland apparently older, less
stern, his eyes gentler; Mrs. Leland, confident and happy from her talk
with Shandon's attorney; Wanda, her eyes very bright, her cheeks
flushed, her heart yearning, hoping, praying and a little afraid; Helga
Strawn, now known by her own name, and linked by rumour with the man
who had paid the penalty for the crime of which he had accused Wayne
Shandon, her manner cool, aloof; even Willie Dart, whom everybody knew
and who in some strange way had come to be looked upon as a special
detective, imported a year ago by the counsel for the defence.
The district attorney's argument was cool, dispassionate, perfunctory.
He showed no interest in securing a conviction for the very simple
reason that he felt none. Brisbane was a further, deeper
disappointment. He failed to live up to the reputation that had
preceded him. He constantly studied his watch and a time-table during
the argument of the prosecution and when it was done audibly asked the
district attorney concerning the best train out of El Toyon. He said
what he had to say to the jury in less than half an hour. When charged
by the judge the jury filed out with grave faces only to file back in
five minutes smilingly.
"Not guilty, your honour!"
Since the principals had seemed to put little fervour into the occasion
the good people of El Toyon supplied the deficit. Amid great shouting
and cheering Wayne Shandon made his smiling, hand-shaking way down
through his friends, coming straight to the girl whose eyes were the
happiest eyes that he had ever seen, shining through a mist of tears.
There was no hesitation now as Martin Leland put out his hand.
"I wronged you, Shandon," he said simply. "And I think that I knew it
all the time. It hasn't made me happy. I hope that you will accept my
congratulations."
"Thank you," answered Shandon. And he locked Leland's hand heartily in
his own.
Mrs. Leland had her motherly greeting to make and said it happily. Nor
did she use unnecessary words. In a moment she had slipped her arm
through her husband's and was moving with him through the surging
crowd, leaving Wayne with Wanda.
"Say, Red!" Mr. Dart, struggling valiantly with the crush, red faced
and triumphant, was screaming up into Shandon's face. "Some business,
ain't it, pal? Shake! Shake, Wanda! Where's old Mart? Good old
scout after all, ain't he? I want to go squeeze his flipper; I want to
go squeeze everybody's flipper. I want to go get drunk. Honest I do,
Red!"
Big Bill shoved a great, hard hand by Dart's shoulder, gripping
Shandon's. He didn't say anything, but his tightening hand, his
flashing eyes were eloquent.
Only when they had passed out into the courthouse yard, Wanda and Wayne
side by side, and had been left behind by the hat-tossing, clamorous
crowd, hastening out into the street, did Wanda speak.
"I am so happy, Wayne," she whispered. "Doesn't it seem as though life
were just beginning all over this morning?"
"Like just beginning!" he answered softly, drawing her arm tight, tight
to his side. "With you, Wanda."
There came a bright morning with the sun just blinking genially above
the tree tops, with the warm glory of the full summer in the air, and
under Wanda's window a voice calling softly. She had been asleep; she
was not certain that she had not been dreaming--
But the call came again, still softly, still ringing with a note which
sent a flutter into her breast.
"Awake at last?" and Wayne was laughing happily. "Ten minutes to
dress, my sleepy miss, and meet me at the stable. I'm going to saddle
Gypsy."
She heard him hurry away, and for a little she lay still, smiling.
He caught her up into his arms, as she came down the path, kissed her,
told her not to ask questions and helped her into the saddle. He swung
up to Little Saxon's back and together they rode out into the forest
through the brightening morning.
"Wayne," she said when he had done nothing but look at her and drive
the colour higher and higher into her cheeks. "Where are we going?"
"Can't you guess?" he teased her.
They were riding toward the north, toward the cliffs standing up about
Echo Creek Valley, toward the cave.
"Wayne," she said again, a little sadly, "I was going to tell you the
other day, but you were in such a hurry-- You are not going to the
cave?"
"Why not?" he asked lightly.
"I can't go there any more," she answered quickly. "I had come to love
it so, it was so entirely ours, dear. And now, I saw it the last time
I rode that way, there's a sign on the cliffs, 'No Hunting Allowed.' I
asked papa. He has sold all that side of the valley, the cliffs and
the flats beyond to some man in the city."
Shandon laughed.
"What's the odds?" as lightly as before. "Come right down to it,
Wanda, the cave has served its purpose, hasn't it? And, if you'd been
shut up in it like a prison, I wonder if you'd have any sentiment for
it left? Let's make the horses run a bit. I feel like a gallop, don't
you?"
She bent forward in the saddle hurriedly, hiding her face from him.
How should a man care for the little things which mean so much to a
girl?
But still they rode toward the cliffs. The sign was there, a black and
white monstrosity which hurt her but which seemed merely to interest
Shandon. He insisted on riding closer. And when, too proud to show
him all that she felt, she came with him to the big cedar, he
dismounted and put out his hands to her.
"Let's go up," he said lightly. "Just for fun."
She refused, and he insisted. And at last they climbed up.
Wayne was upon the ledge of rock before her, his eyes filled with a
love that shone sparklingly, laughingly into her troubled ones. She
began to wonder--
She turned swiftly toward the entrance of the cave. There was a door
now made of great rough hewn slabs of wood. Wayne slipped his arm
about her and drew her close to it.
"Will you open it?" he whispered.
"Wayne!" wonderingly, seeking to understand.
He took her hand in his, laid it for a moment upon his lips, then put
her fingers against the great door.
"Open it, dear," he told her.
Slowly the heavy, wide portal swung back to her touch. Her heart
beating madly, she scarce knew why, her step at once eager and
hesitant, she stepped by him. And he, close behind her, laughed softly
at her little cry, the one moment amply repaying the man for six months
of labour.
Now she understood everything; now her heart stood still and then
throbbed with a wonderful joy. And she turned and threw her arms about
his neck, crying softly: "Wayne! It is home!"
For the darkness which she had expected in the cavern's deep interior
had fled before the softly brilliant light that bathed it rosily, that
came from she did not yet know where. She saw a deep throated
fireplace, built of big granite blocks, a monster log blazing and
roaring mightily in it, the flames leaping up the rock chimney, drawn
upward and back into the sloping passage where the draft of air had in
the old days carried away the smoke from her rude stove. And she
guessed who had made the fireplace, piling stone on stone.
She saw a table, rustic, heavy, with legs of twisted cedar branches,
with books upon it, with a vase made of a hollowed out, gnarled limb
and choked with its great armful of valley flowers. She saw a chair
that patient, loving hands had made from what the winter-locked forest
had provided, seat and back covered with deerskin cushions, a chair
that opened its arms to her as though, still keeping its identity as a
part of her woodland, it were welcoming her to a world where love's
heart beat close to nature's. She saw that the hard floor had
disappeared under freshly strewn pine needles and under the two big
bear skin rugs which sprawled mightily before the table and before the
fireplace. She saw another chair, Wayne's chair it was going to be,
because it was such a monster.
She could only gasp as her dancing eyes tried to see everything at
once--flowers everywhere, hiding the walls, breathing perfume from the
corners, drooping from the ceiling.
"But the light!" she cried, wonderingly. "It is like day."
Then at last she saw how everywhere in the high ceiling he had
chiselled out deep inverted bowls, and in each cup-like cavity nothing
in the world other than a glowing electric bulb was shining, flooding
the room with a soft glow.
"And you did all of this yourself? While you were alone here in the
winter?"
His eyes were like hers, his own face flushed with the happiness of the
hour.
"I didn't make the bulbs," he laughed. "It's taken me a week playing
electrician to get the wires up, the dynamo running back there under
the water fall. Do you like it?"
She did not answer. She had no time to answer, she was so busy trying
the two chairs, inhaling the fragrance of the flowers, admiring the
fireplace, examining the reading lamp which hung over the table and
which he had constructed of wood, chosen for beauty of natural colour
and grain, the opaque sides shutting out the light which fell straight
down upon an open book.
Only now did she realise that the cave seemed smaller. There was a
partition running across it, a wide door standing ajar. He followed
her as she ran to it.
"My bedroom," he warned her. "I won't swear to its tidiness."
Here again was the soft glow of electric lights cunningly concealed
with nowhere a hint of the wires that ran in deeply chiseled grooves;
here was a wide couch, a bit of the woodland, as were the chairs and
table, the rough bark still upon the woodwork, cushions and coverlet of
bearskin; here a smaller table, a smaller chair.
"It's wonderful, you wonderful Wayne!" she cried delightedly.
But he had his arm about her again and was leading her toward the
fireplace, to it, through another door which opened to the passage
leading to the chasm where the water leaped down toward the bowels of
the earth. The door flung open, the passage filled with light and a
fresh surprise.
Across the chasm were logs as large as one man could handle, hewn so
that they lay close together, so that their upper surface made a level
floor. Wanda and Shandon crossed, hearing the water shouting under
them. And here, where Wanda had never been before, they came upon--
"The kitchen!" she cried. "A real kitchen!"
With a real stove, only that it was made of slabs and squares of
granite, a real kitchen table only that it was made from rough pine and
cedar, with the bark still on it; and very real dishes. Most of all
the real fragrance of coffee just boiling over. Wanda ran to retrieve
it and Wayne went on ahead of her. In a moment he called.
All new to her, the short climb upward along a flight of steps cut in
the rock, the little winding way up which she ran eagerly, the narrow
rock platform, the door against which he stood.
"First," he commanded gaily, "turn and look back."
She turned. Looking down she saw the kitchen; looking outward she saw
a great cut through the cliffs where they seemed to fall apart in a
steep sided ravine, and through this she looked out and down over her
forests.
"The view from My Lady's bedroom," he laughed. "And now My Lady's
bedroom, itself."
He threw open the door, standing aside to watch her pass.
A tiny rudely squared chamber, all in white. Countless warm, furry
pelts of the snowshoe rabbits he had trapped during the winter, made a
white carpet underfoot; a couch unlike the other in that this was
fashioned entirely of white pine, the smooth surfaces polished and
glistening under their many coats of shellac, a coverlet of countless
other white rabbit skins stitched together; a little dressing table of
glistening white pine, with a real mirror reflecting two flushed happy
faces, and on the floor a big white bearskin.
"And you did it all, every bit, yourself!"
That was the thought that flooded the caves for her with a light more
softly radiant than the glow of innumerable electric bulbs; the thought
which hid the little flaws in stone and woodwork and gave a gleam to
them that no mere shellac and white wood could have done.
They went back to the living room to stand, silent for a little, before
the fireplace. They watched the flames shoot upward through little
sprays and clusters of fiery sparks. Their hands crept together,
clinging close. Slowly their eyes came away from the fire and sought
each the other's. And she saw what he saw, a love that is eternal and
that understands.