OVER THE PASS
Through all the night following Dabney Mills’ veiled accusation of John
Herrick, Beatrice slept very little. A tireless procession of thoughts
went trooping through her weary mind: Aunt Anna’s story of her brother,
that strange vision of John Herrick walking back and forth in the
moonlight, the sight of his departure. What did all these things mean in
the end? Perhaps John Herrick had gone away forever, perhaps Dabney
Mills had real proofs of—no, no that could not be! Come what might, she
would never believe anything against John Herrick. It was a help, at
least, to think that next day she was to go over the pass to bring Nancy
back, and that she could ask the advice of Dr. Minturn. He alone could
be trusted with knowledge of both sides of the affair; he would give her
counsel from a wise and friendly heart. The comfort of this thought
brought her sleep at last.
As early as she could make ready, she set off next morning. She stopped
for a minute at the door of the Herrick’s house, hoping to hear that she
had been mistaken in her understanding of what she had seen. But no,
Hester met her at the door with heavy eyes and told her that John
Herrick had gone away very suddenly, “soon after that horrid boy, Dabney
Mills, had been here. He took his tent and quite a supply of food. He
may have been planning to camp several days, but he didn’t tell me where
or why. He just said, ‘so-long Hester; better luck by and by,’ and
galloped away.”
Much disheartened, Beatrice turned her horse’s head to the trail and
began to mount steadily the zigzag path that led to Gray Cloud Pass. The
way had grown familiar now, so that instead of looking out at the wide
panorama of mountains or gazing ahead to search out the trail, she was
free to observe smaller things: a hollow tree with an owl’s nest in it
from which a red-brown head with inquisitive round eyes was thrust to
watch her pass; the busy little gophers that popped in and out of their
holes at her approach, consumed by both curiosity and alarm; the
awkward, unhurried porcupine that crossed the trail ahead of her and
disappeared into the brush. She knew well that the forest about her must
be alive with tiny, bright eyes and sharp, peering little faces, but she
had neither time nor patience to watch for them. So full was she of
surging hopes and desires, her one idea was to push forward. To seek
advice, find out what was the best thing to do, and then do it—those
were the only things that would bring her peace of mind.
The day was not so clear as yesterday had been. The sun shone with less
warmth, even as noon approached, the hills were dun-color and the far
mountains purple instead of blue. Beatrice was not weather-wise enough
to know just what such conditions meant, nor could she have hurried
forward more impatiently if she had. Even the willing Buck finally
protested against the haste she demanded of him and refused to increase
his speed even when she touched him with the whip.
There was a certain level stretch of ground that she remembered, a nook
between two rocks, with the stream splashing below. She was determined
to reach this spot before she stopped to eat her lunch, although noon
had passed and she was beginning to be hungry. She finally came up the
last rise of the steep path, breathless with haste, and did not observe
the curl of blue smoke that was going up from behind the rocks.
Dismounting, and with Buck’s bridle over her arm, she turned the corner
of the wall of rock to find her picnic ground occupied. A little fire
was burning between two stones, a string of trout hung before it, and a
slim black mare grazed lazily beside the mountain wall. The man who
turned to greet her was John Herrick.
Her mind had been so full of thoughts of him that for a moment it seemed
impossible to speak to him naturally. He also stood, surprised and
nonplussed, apparently unable to utter a word. He took Buck’s bridle
from her at last and, still in silence, loosened the girths, lifted off
the saddle, and let the horse roll luxuriously on the grass.
“You have ridden him too hard,” he said at length, looking at Buck’s wet
sides and wide nostrils. “Not even a mountain-bred pony can stand such a
pace. Why, did you hurry so? Was there anything the matter?”
“N-no,” replied Beatrice doubtfully. She could not have told him why she
had been in such impatient haste; perhaps she could not even explain it
to herself. Certainly she was in no hurry to go forward now, but knelt
down by the fire and fell to turning the trout, while he picketed her
horse and spread a blanket for her to sit on. As she looked up to thank
him she saw that the heavy cloud that had been visible on his face when
she first saw him was lifted now, making him look his smiling, cheerful
self again. It was as though her chance coming had done him good.
The picnic yesterday had been merry, but this one, somehow seemed gayer
still. They joked and laughed as they shared in the preparations; he
tried to teach her how to make flapjacks and laughed at her awkwardness
when she attempted to toss them; she criticized his method of boiling
coffee and made him admit that hers was better. As they sat eating he
told her tales of past camping adventures; how he had once crawled into
a cavern under a cliff to take shelter from the rain and had discovered
that it was the home of a most unamiable mountain lion; how, in his
tent, far up on Gray Cloud Mountain, a grizzly bear cub had slipped
under the canvas and invited itself to share his bed.
“And I had to be polite to the pushing, grunting little beast,” he said,
“for its mother and my rifle were both outside.”
After they had finished their lunch they still sat lazily by the fire,
watching the thin smoke drift far across the depths below them until it
lost itself in the distant blue haze. Beatrice was leaning against the
warm rock while her companion sat upright, his clear-cut profile showing
against the vast blue sky.
“He looks hardly more than just grown up, when he talks and laughs like
that,” was her inward reflection. It seemed as though he had dropped the
burden that had been so heavy all these years, and, in this hour of
friendliness, had gone back to the boyhood he had cast from him.
He was pointing out to her the wide, dry lands of Broken Bow Valley,
which, with irrigation, were some day to be orchards and meadows and
rich farming land instead of a broad waste, polka-dotted with
sage-brush. At some length he told of the difficulty in getting the
irrigation project started, of how long it had taken to form a company
and to get construction under way. But of one thing he did not speak, of
the interruption in the work, of the threatened strike and the
disappearance of the company’s funds. Beatrice waited, hoping that he
would let fall some explanation, throw some light on that mystery, and
refute forever the dismaying suspicions of Dabney Mills. Of that phase
of the matter, however, he said no single word.
“When it is all finished and the valley is prosperous,” he said, “you
must be careful when sharp traders try to buy your cabin from you, or
make bids for your big pines. You must not part with them at once.”
“I think I could never part with them,” she assured him. “I did not know
how much I could learn to love the woods and the cabin and the
mountains.”
He sat for a little while, looking across to where the shadows of clouds
moved, one by one, across the dark slopes of the range opposite.
“They are friendly things, these mountains,” he observed. “They stand by
you when you are in trouble, somehow, they are so big and calm and
untroubled themselves.”
Their friendship and confidence had brought them so close together that
Beatrice felt suddenly the thrill of a bold impulse. She cast aside Dr.
Minturn’s advice to let John Herrick make the first move toward
reconciliation. It did not occur to her that the man beside her might be
talking so freely only because he meant so soon to close his friendship
to her forever. She reflected only on how triumphant she would be when
her management had brought the whole misunderstanding to a happy end.
Yet she did not dare speak out at once.
“Only think,” she began suddenly, “that you and I might be lunching
at—at the Manhattan together if things had been a little different.”
“Yes.” She was greatly encouraged by his immediate assent. He looked at
his gray flannel shirt and at her patched riding skirt and went on. “We
wouldn’t be dressed just as we are now, would we? And there would be
music, instead of the sound of a stream, and a hundred voices talking
all at once, instead of those two magpies chattering in the thicket. The
fat lady at the next table—there always is one—might be wearing a beaver
scarf made from the jacket of some furry little fellow that swam in that
very pool below us, and the waiter might tell us that there was an
unusual delicacy to-day—rainbow trout.”
She leaned forward, feeling bolder still.
“You haven’t forgotten,” she said, “and you will be coming back to it
all some day. We know who you are. We want so much to have you belong to
us again. Aren’t you coming back?”
“You know?”
He stood up suddenly and faced her. In that instant she knew that she
had done wrong. The shadow of unforgettable pain swept over his face and
the laughter died in his eyes.
“You know?” he repeated.
She did not trust herself to speak or even to look at him. Mutely she
nodded keeping her wide, unseeing eyes on the fire, clenching her hands,
holding her breath and waiting. There was a long, long pause.
He moved at last, strode to the fire and trod out the flames and the
smouldering coals with his big boots.
“It is time we were going on,” he said. “You must reach Dr. Minturn’s
before dark and I have none too much daylight left to climb my own
trail.”
Helplessly she stood watching while he caught the horses and saddled
them. The black one yielded quietly enough, but Buck, according to his
usual habit, filled the whole rock-walled space with his plunging and
rearing, a small but spirited sample of the Wild West. He had to yield
at last, however and was led to where his mistress was waiting. John
Herrick’s hat was off and his fair hair was ruffled by the wind and by
his struggles with the reluctant pony. Beatrice noticed as never before
how like he was to Aunt Anna. Since she had done so much harm already,
she felt she might make one more effort.
“Aren’t you coming back?” she questioned desperately.
“No,” he answered, “I am never coming back.”
He swung into the saddle and, with a great rattling of stones dislodged
by the pony’s hoofs, he was off up the steep trail. It might have been
that he looked back, once, to see a bright-haired girl hide her face in
her arm and bow her head against the rock, while a white-nosed pony
nuzzled her shoulder in vain effort to offer comfort. But if John
Herrick looked back he paid no heed.