LOVE'S VICTORY
The rightness of Buck's conjecture was proved before evening, but not
without long and painful effort. Joan was utterly weary, and the man
was reduced to such weakness and disability as, in all his life, he
had never known.
But they faced their task with the knowledge that with every moment of
delay in procuring food their chances of escape from that land of ruin
were lessening. With food, and, consequently, with Buck's horse,
safety would be practically assured. They would then, too, be able to
prosecute a search for the man they both had learned to love so well.
With nightfall their hopes were realized, but only at a terrible cost
to the man. So great had become his weakness and suffering that it was
Joan who was forced to make provision for the night.
Both horses were grazing together with an unconcern that was truly
equine. Nor, when reviewed, was their escape the miracle it appeared.
At the height of the storm they had been left on the farthest confines
of the plateau of Devil's Hill, where no fire would reach them, and at
a considerable distance from the lake. Their native terror of fire
would have held them there in a state bordering on paralysis. In all
probability no power on earth could have induced them to stir from the
spot where they had been left, until the drenching rain had blotted
out the furnace raging below. This had been Buck's thought. Then,
perhaps, laboring under a fear of the quakings caused by the
subterranean fires of the hill, and their hungry stomachs crying out
for food, they had left the dreaded hill in quest of the pastures they
craved.
The well-stocked saddle-bags, which Buck's forethought had filled for
the long trail, now provided these lonely wanderers in the wilderness
with the food they needed, the saddle-blankets and the saddles
furnished their open-air couches, and the horses, well, the horses
were there to afford them escape when the time came, and, in the
meantime, could be left to recover from the effects of the storm and
stress through which they, too, had passed.
With the following dawn Buck's improvement was wonderful, and Joan
awoke from a deep, night-long slumber, refreshed and hopeful. An
overhauling of their supplies showed them sufficient food, used
sparingly, to last a week. And with this knowledge Buck outlined their
plans to the girl, who hung upon his every word.
"We can't quit yet," he said, when they had broken their fast.
The girl waited, watching his dark contemplative eyes as they looked
across the water at the diminished hill.
"Nope," he went on. "We owe him more'n that. We must chase around,
an'--find him. We must----"
"Yes," Joan broke in, her eyes full of eager acquiescence. "We must
not leave him--to--to--the coyotes." She shuddered.
"No. Guess I'll git the horses."
"You? Oh, Buck--let me. I am well and strong. It is my turn to do
something now. Your work is surely finished."
Her pleading eyes smiled up into his, but the man shook his head with
that decision she had come to recognize and obey almost without
question.
"Not on your life, little gal," he said, in his kindly, resolute
fashion, and Joan was left to take her woman's place in their scheme
of things.
But she shared in the search of the hill and the woods. She shared in
the ceaseless hunt for three long, weary, heart-breaking days over a
land of desolation and loneliness. She rode at Buck's side hour after
hour on the sturdy horse that had served the Padre so faithfully, till
her body was healthily weary, and her eyes grew heavy with straining.
But she welcomed the work. For, with the tender mother eye of the
woman in her, she beheld that which gladdened her heart, and made the
hardest work a mere labor of love. Each passing day, almost with each
passing hour, she witnessed the returning vigor of the man she loved.
His recuperative powers were marvelous, and she watched his bodily
healing as though he were her own helpless offspring.
For the rest their search was hopeless. The battling forces of a
storm-riven earth had claimed their toll to the last fraction, and
with the cunning of the miser had secreted the levy. Not a trace was
there of any human life but their own. The waters from the hill swept
the little valley, and hugged to their bosom the secrets that lay
beneath their surface. And the fall of rock held deeply buried all
that which it had embraced in its rending. The farm was utterly
destroyed, and with it had fallen victims every head of stock Joan had
possessed. The old fur fort had yielded to the fire demon, where, for
all the ages, it had resisted the havoc of storm. There was nothing
left to mark the handiwork of man, nothing but the terrible
destruction it had brought about.
Thus it was on the fourth morning, after breaking their fast, and the
horses had been saddled, Buck once more packed the saddle-bags and
strapped them into their places behind the saddles. Joan watched him
without question. She no longer had any question for that which he
chose to ordain.
When all was ready he lifted her into her saddle, which she rode
astride, in the manner of the prairie. She was conscious of his
strength, now returned to its full capacity. She was nothing in his
arms now, she might have been a child by the ease with which he lifted
her. He looked to her horse's bridle, he saw that she was comfortable.
Then he vaulted into Caesar's saddle with all his old agility.
"Which way, Buck?" The girl spoke with the easy manner of one who has
little concern, but her eyes belied her words. A strange thrill was
storming in her bosom.
"Leeson Butte," said Buck, a deep glow shining in his dark eyes.
Joan let her horse amble beside the measured, stately walk of Caesar.
Her reins hung loose, and her beautiful eyes were shining as they
gazed out eagerly ahead. She was thrilling with a happiness that
conflicted with a strange nervousness at the naming of their
destination. She had no protest to offer, no question. It was as if
the lord of her destiny had spoken, and it was her happiness and
desire to obey.
They rode on, and their way lay amidst the charred skeleton of a wide,
stately wood. The air was still faint with the reek of burning. There
was no darkness here beyond the blackened tree trunks, for the
brilliant summer sun lit up the glades, which, for ages, no sun's rays
had ever penetrated. The sense of ruin was passing from the minds of
these children of the wilderness. Their focus had already adapted
itself. Almost, even, their youthful eyes and hearts saw new beauties
springing up about them. It was the work of that wonderful fount of
hope, which dies so hardly in us all, and in youth never.
At length they left the mouldering skeletons behind them, and the
gracious, waving, tawny grass of the plains opened out before their
gladdened eyes. A light breeze tempered the glorious sunlight, and set
ripples afloat upon the waving crests of the motionless rollers of a
grassy ocean.
Buck drew his horse down to a walk beside the girl, and his look had
lost its reflection of the sadness they were leaving behind. He had no
desire now to look back. For all his life the memory of his "big
friend" would remain, for the rest his way lay directly ahead, his
life, and his--hope.
"It's all wonderful--wonderful out here, little Joan," he said,
smiling tenderly down upon her sweet face from the superior height at
which Caesar carried him. "Seems like we're goin' to read pages of
a--fresh book. Seems like the old book's all mussed up, so we can't
learn its lessons ever again."
Joan returned the warmth of his gaze. But she shook her head with an
assumption of wisdom.
"It's the same book, dear, only it's a different chapter. You see the
story always goes on. It must go on--to the end. Characters drop out.
They die, or are--killed. Incidents happen, some pleasant, some--full
of sadness. But that's all part of the story, and must be. The story
always goes on to the end. You see," she added with a tender smile,
"the hero's still in the picture."
"An' the--gal-hero."
Joan shook her head decidedly.
"There's no heroine to this story," she said. "You need courage to be
a heroine, and I--I have none. Do you know, Buck," she went on
seriously, "when I look back on all that's gone I realize how much my
own silly weakness has caused the trouble. If I had only had the
courage to laugh at my aunt's prophecies, my aunt's distorted
pronouncements, all this trouble would have been saved. I should never
have come to the farm. My aunt would never have found the Padre. Those
men would never have fired those woods when they burnt my farm,
and--and the gentle-hearted Padre would never have lost his life."
It was Buck's turn to shake his head.
"Wrong, wrong, little gal," he said with a warmth of decision. "When
you came to us--to me, an' we saw your trouble, we jest set to work to
clear a heap o' cobwebs from your mind. That was up to us, because you
were sure sufferin', and you needed help. But all we said, all we told
you not to believe, those things were sure marked out, an' you, an'
all of us had to go thro' with 'em. We can't talk away the plans o'
Providence. You jest had to come to that farm. You jest had to do all
the things you did. Maybe your auntie, in that queer way of hers, told
you the truth, maybe she saw things us others didn't jest see. Who can
tell?"
Joan's eyes lit with a startled look as she listened to the man's
words. They made her wonder at the change in him. Had that terrible
cataclysm impressed him with a new view of the life by which he was
surrounded? It might be. Then, suddenly, a fresh thought occurred to
her. A memory rose up and confronted her, and a sudden joyous anxiety
thrilled her.
"Do you really think that, Buck?" she cried eagerly. "Do you? Do you?"
"Things seem changed, little gal," he said, half ruefully. "Seems to
me the past week's been years an' years long." He laughed. "Maybe I
got older. Maybe I think those things now, same as most folks think
'em--when they get older."
But Joan was full of her own thought, and she went on eagerly, passing
his reasons by.
"Listen, Buck, when Aunt Mercy told me all my troubles, she told me
something else. But it seemed so small by the side of those other
things, that I--that I almost forgot it. What was it? Her words? Yes,
yes, I asked her, was there no hope for me? No means by which I could
be saved from my fate? And she said that my only hope lay in finding a
love that was stronger than death. These were her words----
"'I loved your father with a passion nothing, no disaster could
destroy. Go you, child, and find you such a love. Go you and find a
love so strong that no disaster can kill it. And maybe life may still
have some compensations for you, maybe it will lift the curse from
your suffering shoulders. It--it is the only thing in the world that
is stronger than disaster. It is the only thing in the world that is
stronger than--death.'"
Her words dropped to a whisper as she finished speaking, and she
waited, like a criminal awaiting sentence, for the man's judgment on
them. Her eyes were downcast, and her rounded bosom was stirring
tumultuously. What would he say? What would he think? And yet she must
have told him. Was he not the one person in the world who held her
fate in his hands? Yes, he must know all there was in her mind. And
she knew in her heart that he would understand as she wanted him to
understand.
Buck suddenly reined Caesar in, and brought him to a standstill,
turning him about so that he looked back upon the world they were
leaving behind them forever. In silence Joan responded to his
movement, and her horse closed up against the other.
"Guess your auntie's notions were all queer, so queer they're mighty
hard to understand," he said reflectively. "But seems to me she's hit
a big truth some way. That curse is sure lifted--sure, sure."
He pointed at the grim outline of Devil's Hill, now fading in the
distance.
"Look ther' yonder. Yonder's the disaster, yonder is--death. An'
we--we've sure passed through it. She's right. Our love is stronger
than disaster--stronger than death."
Then he turned and gazed ardently into her upturned face. "Guess we
sure found that love together, little gal. An' it's ours to keep
forever an' ever. Ther' ain't no other love comin' around. I'm yours
fer jest so long as I have life, an' you--wal, you're jest my whole,
whole world."
He leant toward her, his dark eyes shining with his great love.
Reaching out he drew her toward him, his strong, protecting arm
encircling her slim waist.
"Say, little gal," he went on urgingly, "we're goin' right on now to
Leeson Butte. Ther's a passon ther' who can fix us right. An' when
that's done, an' ther' ain't nuthin' in the world can come between us,
why, then I sure got two mighty strong hands yearnin' to git busy
handin' you those things which can make a woman's life easy, an'--an'
happy. Will you come, little Joan? Will you sure come?"
His eager young face was close to hers, and his deep breath fanned her
warm cheek. She gave him no verbal reply. At that moment she had no
words. But she turned toward him. And, as she turned, her lips met his
in one long, passionate kiss. He needed no other reply. She was giving
him herself. It was the soul of the woman speaking.
Some moments later their horses were again heading for Leeson Butte.
The eyes of the girl were shining with a happiness such as she had
never known before, and Buck sat with head erect, and the light of a
great purpose in his eyes. For a while they rode thus. Then the man's
eyes twinkled with a sudden thought. For a moment he glanced at the
golden head so close beside him. Then he smiled.
"Say, little Joan," he cried, "guess you're that gal-hero after all."
Joan responded to his look.
"How?" she inquired, with a heightened color.
"Why, jest git a look at me. Me! You're goin' to marry me! I'd sure
say you've a heap more grit than any gal-hero I've heard tell of."
Joan surveyed his unkempt figure,--the torn clothing, his unshaven
face; the bandages made of her own undergarments, which he still
wore,--and the happy smile on her young face broadened.
"Well, you see, Buck, dear," she said joyously, "you can't be a proper
hero if you don't carry the scars of battle on you." She sighed
contentedly. "No, I'm afraid it doesn't need much 'grit' to marry
you."
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors;
otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's
words and intent.