A SIMPLE MANHOOD
All thought of Beasley Melford quickly became lost in feelings of a
deeper and stronger nature as Buck passed out into the open. His was
not a nature to dwell unnecessarily upon the clashings of every-day
life. Such pinpricks were generally superficial, to be brushed aside
and treated without undue consideration until such time as some
resulting fester might gather and drastic action become necessary. The
fester had not yet gathered, therefore he set his quarrel aside for
the time when he could give it his undivided attention.
As he strode away the world seemed very wide to Buck. So wide, indeed,
that he had no idea of its limits, nor any desire to seek them. He
preferred that his eyes should dwell only upon those things which
presented themselves before a plain, wholesome vision. He had no
desire to peer into the tainted recesses of any other life than that
which he had always known. And in his outlook was to be witnessed the
careful guidance of his friend, the Padre. Nor was his capacity
stunted thereby, nor his strong manhood. On the contrary, it left him
with a great reserve of power to fight his little battle of the
wilderness.
Yet surely such a nature as his should have been dangerously open to
disaster. The guilelessness resulting from such a simplicity of life
ought surely to have fitted him for a headlong rush into the pitfalls
which are ever awaiting the unwary. This might have been so in a man
of less strength, less reckless purpose. Therein lay his greatest
safeguard. His was the strength, the courage, the resource of a mind
trained in the hard school of the battle for existence in the
wilderness, where, without subtlety, without fear, he walked over
whatever path life offered him, ready to meet every obstruction, every
disaster, with invincible courage.
It was through this very attitude that his threat against Beasley
Melford was not to be treated lightly. His comrades understood it.
Beasley himself knew it. Buck had assured him that he would shoot him
down like a dog if he offended against the unwritten laws of
instinctive chivalry as he understood them, and he would do it without
any compunction or fear of consequences.
A woman's fame to him was something too sacred to be lightly treated,
something quite above the mere consideration of life and death. The
latter was an ethical proposition which afforded him, where a high
principle was in the balance against it, no qualms whatsoever. It was
the inevitable result of his harsh training in the life that was his.
The hot, rich blood of strong manhood ran in his veins, but it was the
hot blood tempered with honesty and courage, and without one single
taint of meanness.
As he passed down the river bank, beyond which the racing waters
flowed a veritable torrent, he saw the camp women moving about outside
their huts. He saw them wringing out their rain-drenched garments.
Thus he knew that the storm had served their miserable homes badly,
and he felt sorry for them.
For the most part they were heavy, frowsy creatures, slatternly and
uncouth. They came generally from the dregs of frontier cities, or
were the sweepings of the open country, gleaned in the debauched
moments of the men who protected them. Nor, as his eyes wandered in
their direction, was it possible to help a comparison between them and
the burden of delicate womanhood he held in his arms, a comparison
which found them painfully wanting.
He passed on under the bold scrutiny of those feminine eyes, but they
left him quite unconscious. His thoughts had drifted into a wonderful
dreamland of his own, a dreamland such as he had never visited before,
an unsuspected dreamland whose beauties could never again hold him as
they did now.
The sparkling sunlight which had so swiftly followed in the wake of
the storm, lapping up the moisture of the drenching earth with its
fiery tongue, shed a radiance over the familiar landscape, so that it
revealed new and unsuspected beauties to his wondering eyes. How came
it that the world, his world, looked so fair? The distant hills, those
hills which had always thrilled his heart with the sombre note of
their magnificence, those hills which he had known since his earliest
childhood, with their black, awe-inspiring forests, they were somehow
different, so different.
He traced the purple ridges step by step till they became a blurred,
gray monotony of tone fading away until it lost itself in the
glittering white of the snowcaps. Everything he beheld in a new light.
No longer did those hills represent the battle-ground where he and the
Padre fought out their meagre existence. They had suddenly become one
vast and beautiful garden where life became idyllic, where existence
changed to one long joy. The torrents had shrunk to gentle streams,
babbling their wonderful way through a fairy-land of scented gardens.
The old forceful tearing of a course through the granite hearts of the
hills was a thought of some long-forgotten age far back in the dim
recesses of memory. The gloom of the darkling forests, too, had passed
into the sunlit parks of delight. The rugged canyons had given place
to verdant valleys of succulent pasture. The very snows themselves,
those stupendous, changeless barriers, suggested nothing so much as
the white plains of perfect life.
The old harsh lines of life had passed, and the sternness of the
endless battle had given way to an unaccountable joy.
Every point that his delighted eyes dwelt upon was tinged with
something of the beatitude that stirred his senses. Every step he took
was something of an unreality. And every whispering sound in the
scented world through which he was passing found an echo of music in
his dreaming soul.
Contact with the yielding burden lying so passive in his strong arms
filled him with a rapture such as he had never known. The thought of
sex was still far from his mind, and only was the manhood in him
yielding to the contact, and teaching him through the senses that
which his upbringing had sternly denied him.
He gazed down upon the wonderful pale beauty of the girl's face. He
saw the rich parted lips between which shone the ivory of her perfect,
even teeth. The hair, so rich and flowing, dancing with glittering
beams of golden light, as, stirring beneath the breath of the
mountains, it caught the reflection of a perfect sun.
How beautiful she was. How delicate. The wonderful, almost transparent
skin. He could trace the tangle of small blue veins like a fairy web
through which flowed the precious life that was hers. And her
eyes--those great, full, round pupils hidden beneath the veil of her
deeply-fringed lids! But he turned quickly from them, for he knew that
the moment she awoke his dream must pass into a memory.
His gaze wandered to the swanlike roundness of her white throat, to
the gaping shirt-waist, where the delicate lace and tiny ribbon peeped
out at him. It was all so wonderful, so marvelous. And she was in his
arms--she, this beautiful stranger. Yet somehow she did not seem like
a stranger. To his inflamed fancy she seemed to have lain in his arms
all his life, all her life. No, she was no stranger. He felt that she
belonged to him, she was part of himself, his very life.
Still she slept on. He suddenly found himself moving with greater
caution, and he knew he was dreading the moment when some foolish
stumble of his should bring her back to that life which he feared yet
longed to behold. He longed for the delight of watching the play of
emotions upon her lovely features, to hear her speak and laugh, and to
watch her smile. He feared, for he knew that with her waking those
delicious moments would be lost to him forever.
So he dreamed on. In his inmost soul he knew he was dreaming, and, in
his reckless fashion, he desired the dream to remain unending. He saw
the old fur fort no longer the uncouth shelter of two lonely lives,
but a home made beautiful by a presence such as he had never dreamed
of, a presence that shed beauty upon all that came under the spell of
its influence. He pictured the warmth of delight which must be the
man's who lived in such an atmosphere.
His muscles thrilled at the thought of what a man might do under such
an inspiration. To what might he not aspire? To what heights might he
not soar? Success must be his. No disaster could come--
The girl stirred in his arms. He distinctly felt the movement, and
looked down into her face with sudden apprehension. But his anxiety
was swiftly dispelled, and a tender smile at once replaced the look in
his dark eyes. No, she had not yet awakened, and so he was content.
But the incident had brought him realization. His arms were stiff and
cramped, and he must rest them. Strong man that he was he had been
wholly unaware of the distance he had carried her.
He gently laid her upon the grass and looked about him. Then it was
that wonder crept into his eyes. He was at the ford of the creek, more
than two miles from the camp, and on the hither bank, where the road
entered the water, a spring cart lay overturned and broken, with the
team of horses lying head down, buried beneath the turbulent waters as
they raced on down with the flood.
Now he understood the full meaning of her presence in the camp. His
quick eyes took in every detail, and at once her coming was explained.
He turned back in the direction whence he had come, and his mind flew
to the distance of the ford from the camp. She had bravely faced a
struggle over two miles of a trail quite unknown to her when the worst
storm he had ever known was at its height. His eyes came back to the
face of the unconscious girl in even greater admiration.
"Not only beautiful but----"
He turned away to the wreck, for there were still things he wished to
know. And as he glanced about him he became more fully aware of the
havoc of the storm. Even in the brilliant sunshine the whole prospect
looked woefully jaded. Everywhere the signs told their pitiful tale.
All along the river bank the torn and shattered pines drooped
dismally. Even as he stood there great tree trunks and limbs of trees
were washed down on the flood before his eyes. The banks were still
pouring with the drainings of the hills and adding their quota to the
swelling torrent.
But the overturned spring cart held most interest just now, and he
moved over to it. The vehicle was a complete wreck, so complete,
indeed, that he wondered how the girl had escaped without injury. Two
trunks lay near by, evidently thrown out by the force of the upset,
and it pleased him to think that they had been saved to their owner.
He examined them closely. Yes, the contents were probably untouched by
the water. But what was this? The initials on the lid were "J. S." The
girl's name was Rest. At least so Mrs. Ransford had stated. He
wondered. Then his wonder passed. These were very likely trunks
borrowed for the journey. He remembered that the Padre had a leather
grip with other initials than his own upon it.
Where was the teamster? He looked out at the racing waters, and the
question answered itself. Then he turned quickly to the girl. Poor
soul, he thought, her coming to the farm had been one series of
disasters. So, with an added tenderness, he stooped and lifted her
gently in his arms and proceeded on his way.
At last he came to the farm, which only that morning he had so eagerly
avoided. And his feelings were not at all unpleasant as he saw again
the familiar buildings. The rambling house he had known so long
inspired him with a fresh joy at the thought of its new occupant. He
remembered how it had grown from a log cabin, just such as the huts of
the gold-seekers, and how, with joy and pride, he and the Padre had
added to it and reconstructed as the years went by. He remembered the
time when he had planted the first wild cucumber, which afterward
became an annual function and never failed to cover the deep veranda
with each passing year. There, too, was the cabbage patch crowded with
a wealth of vegetables. And he remembered how careful he had been to
select a southern aspect for it. The small barns, the hog-pens, where
he could even now hear the grunting swine grumbling their hours away.
The corrals, two, across the creek, reached by a log bridge of their
own construction. Then, close by stood the nearly empty hay corrals,
waiting for this year's crop. No, the sight of these things had no
regrets for him now. It was a pleasant thought that it was all so
orderly and flourishing, since this girl was its future mistress.
He reached the veranda before his approach was realized by the
farm-wife within. Then, as his footsteps resounded on the rough
surface of the flooring of split logs, Mrs. Ransford came bustling out
of the parlor door.
"Sakes on me!" she cried, as she beheld the burden in her visitor's
arms. "If it ain't Miss Rest all dead an' done!" Her red hands went up
in the air with such a comical tragedy, and her big eyes performed
such a wide revolution in their fat, sunburnt setting that Buck
half-feared an utter collapse. So he hurriedly sought to reassure
her, and offered a smiling encouragement.
"I allow she's mostly done, but I guess she's not dead," he said
quickly.
The old woman heaved a tragic sigh.
"My! but you made me turn right over, as the sayin' is. You should
ha' bin more careful, an' me with my heart too, an' all. The doctor
told me as I was never to have no shock to speak of. They might set
up hem--hemoritch or suthin' o' the heart, what might bring on
sing--sing--I know it was suthin' to do with singin', which means I'd
never live to see another storm like we just had, not if it sure come
on this minit----"
"I'm real sorry, ma'm," said Buck, smiling quietly at the old woman's
volubility, but deliberately cutting it short. "I mean about the shock
racket. Y' see she needs fixin' right, an' I guess it's up to you to
git busy, while I go an' haul her trunks up from the creek."
Again the woman's eyes opened and rolled.
"What they doin' in the creek?" she demanded with sudden heat. "Who
put 'em ther'? Some scallawag, I'll gamble. An' you standin' by seein'
it done, as you might say. I never did see sech a place, nor sech
folk. To think o' that pore gal a-settin' watchin' her trunks bein'
pushed into the creek by a lot o' loafin' bums o' miners, an' no one
honest enough, nor man enough to raise a hand to--to----"
"With respec', ma'm, you're talkin' a heap o' foolishness," cried Buck
impatiently, his anxiety for the girl overcoming his deference for the
other's sex. "If you'll show me the lady's room I'll carry her right
into it an' set her on her bed, an'----"
"Mercy alive, what's the world a-comin' to!" cried the indignant
farm-wife. "Me let the likes o' you into the gal's bedroom! You? Guess
you need seein' to by the State, as the sayin' is. I never heard the
like of it. Never. An' she jest a slip of a young gal, too, an' all."
But Buck's patience was quite exhausted, and, without a moment's
hesitation, he brushed the well-meaning but voluble woman aside and
carried the girl into the house. He needed no guidance here. He knew
which was the best bedroom and walked straight into it. There he laid
the girl upon an old chintz-covered settee, so that her wet clothes
might be removed before she was placed into the neat white bed waiting
for her. And the clacking tongue of Ma Ransford pursued his every
movement.
"It's an insult," she cried angrily. "An insult to me an' mine, as you
might say. Me, who's raised two daughters an' one son, all of 'em
dead, more's the pity. First you drown the gal an' her baggage, an'
then you git carryin' her around, an' walkin' into her virgin bedroom
without no by your leave, nor nuthin'."
But Buck quite ignored her protests. He felt it was useless to
explain. So he turned back and gave his final instructions from the
doorway.
"You jest get her right to bed, ma'm, an' dose her," he said amiably.
"I'd guess you best give her hot flannels an' poultices an' things
while I go fetch her trunks. After that I'll send off to Bay Creek fer
the doctor. He ain't much, but he's better than the hoss doctor fer
womenfolk. Guess I'll git back right away."
But the irate farm-wife, her round eyes blazing, slammed the door in
his face as she flung her final word after him.
"You'll git back nuthin'," she cried furiously. "You let me git you
back here agin an' you'll sure find a sort o' first-class hell runnin'
around, an' you won't need no hot flannels nor poultices to ke'p you
from freezin' stone cold."
Then, with perfect calmness and astonishing skill, she flung herself
to the task of caring for her mistress in that practical, feminine
fashion which, though he may appreciate, no man has ever yet quite
understood.