the gulping sobs of a frightened child, but even in extremity dabbing
her eyes from time to time with an absurd tiny handkerchief of
drawn-work border.
Poor little Barbara: she was lost!
II
After a while, subtly, she felt that someone was standing near her. She
looked up.
The somebody was a man. He was young. Barbara saw three things--that he
had kindly gray eyes, which just now were twinkling at her amusedly;
that the handkerchief about his neck was clean; and that the line of his
jaw was unusually clear cut and fine. An observant person would have
noticed further that the young man carried a rifle and a pack, that he
wore a heavily laden belt about his waist, and moccasins on his feet,
that his blue-flannel shirt, though clean, was faded, that his skin was
as brown as pine-bark. Barbara had no use for such details. The eye was
kindly, the jaw was strong, the neatness indicated the gentleman. And a
strong, kindly gentleman was just what poor little lost Barbara needed
the most. Unconsciously she tilted her pointed chin forward adorably,
and smiled.
"Oh, now it's all right, isn't it?" said she.
"I am glad," he replied, the look of amusement deepening in his gray
eyes. "And a moment ago it was all wrong. What was the matter?"
"I am lost," answered Barbara, contentedly, as one would say, "My shoes
are a little dusty."
"That's bad," sympathised the other. "Where are you lost from?"
"The Adamses' or the Maxwells', I don't know which. I started to go from
one to the other. Then there was the deer, and so I got lost."
"I see," he agreed with entire assurance. "And now what are you going to
do?"
"I am not going to do anything. You are to take me home."
"To the Adamses or the Maxwells?"
"To whichever is nearest."
The young man seemed to be debating. Barbara glanced at his thoughtful,
strong face from under the edge of her picture-hat, which slyly she had
rearranged. She liked his face. It was so good-humoured.
"It is almost sunset," replied the youth at length. "You can see the
shadows are low. How do you hope to push through the woods after dark?
There are wild animals--wolves!" he added, maliciously.
Barbara looked up again with sudden alarm.
"But what shall we do?" she cried, less composedly. "You _must_ take me
home!"
"I can try," said he, with the resignation of the man who can but die.
The tone had its effect.
"What do you advise?" she asked.
"That we camp here," he proposed, calmly, with an air of finality.
"_Oh!_" dissented Barbara in alarm. "Never! I am afraid of the woods! It
will be wet and cold! I am hungry! My feet are just sopping!"
"I will watch all night with my rifle," he told her. "I will fix you a
tent, and will cook you a supper, and your feet shall not be wet and
cold one moment longer than you will."
"Isn't your home nearer?" she asked.
"My home is where night finds me," he replied.
Barbara meditated. It was going to be dreadful. She knew she would catch
her death of cold. But what could she do about it?
"You may fix the wet-feet part," she assented at last.
"All right," agreed the young man with alacrity. He unslung the pack
from his back, and removed from the straps a little axe. "Now, I am not
going to be gone but a moment," he assured her, "and while I am away,
you must take off your shoes and stockings and put these on." He had
been fumbling in his pack, and now produced a pair of thick woollen
lumberman's socks.
Barbara held one at arm's length in each hand, and looked at them. Then
she looked up at the young man. Then they both laughed.
While her new protector was away, Barbara not only made the suggested
changes, but she did marvels with the chiffon. Really, it did not look
so bad, considering.
When the young man returned with an armful of hemlock bark and the
slivers of a pine-stump, he found her sitting bolt upright on a log, her
feet tucked under her. Before the fire he shortly hung the two webs of
gossamer and the two dear little ridiculous little high-heeled shoes,
with their silver buckles. Then in a most business-like fashion he
pitched a diminutive shelter-tent. With equal expedition he built a
second fire between two butternut-logs, produced a frying-pan, and set
about supper.
The twilight was just falling. Somehow the great forest had lost its air
of unfriendliness. The birds were singing in exactly the same way they
used to sing in the tiny woods of the Picnic Grounds. It was difficult
to believe in the wilderness. The young man moved here and there with
accustomed ease, tending his pot and pan, feeding the fire. Barbara
watched him interestedly. Gradually the conviction gained on her that he
was worth while, and that he had not once glanced in her direction since
he had begun his preparations. At the moment he was engaged in turning
over sizzling things in the pan.
"If you please," said Barbara, with her small air of decision, "I am
very thirsty."
"You will have to wait until I go to the spring," replied the man
without stirring.
Barbara elevated her small nose in righteous indignation. After a long
time she just peeped in his direction. He was laughing to himself. She
hastily elevated her nose again. After all it was very lonely in the
woods.
"Supper is ready," he announced after a time.
"I do not think I care for any," she replied, with dignity. She was very
tired and hungry and cross, and her eyes were hot.
"Oh, yes you do," he insisted, carelessly. "Come now, before it gets
cold."
"I tell you I do not care for any," she returned, haughtily.
For answer he picked her up bodily, carried her ten feet, and deposited
her on another log. Beside her lay a clean bit of bark containing a
broiled deer-steak, toasted bread, and a cup of tea. She struggled
angrily.
"Don't be a fool," the man commanded, sternly, "you need food. You will
eat supper, now!"
Barbara looked up at him with wide eyes. Then she began to eat the
venison. By and by she remarked, "You _are_ rather nice," and after she
had drained the last drop of tea she even smiled, a trifle humbly.
"Thank you," said she.
It was now dark, and the night had stolen down through the sentry trees
to the very outposts of the fire. The man arranged the rubber blanket
before it. Barbara sat upon the blanket and leaned her back against the
log. He perched above her, producing a pipe.
"May I?" he asked.
Then, when he had puffed a few moments in quiet content, he inquired:
"How did you come to get lost?"
She told him.
"That was very foolish," he scolded, severely. "Don't you know any
better than to go into the woods without your bearings? It was
idiotic!"
"Thank you," replied Barbara, meekly.
"Well, it was!" he insisted, the bronze on his cheek deepening a little.
She watched him for some time, while he watched the flames. She liked to
see the light defining boldly the clean-shaven outline of his jaw; she
liked to guess at the fire of his gray eyes beneath the shadow of his
brow. Not once did he look toward her. Meekly she told herself that this
was just. He was dreaming of larger things, seeing in the coals pictures
of that romantic, strenuous, mysterious life of which he was a part. He
had no room in the fulness of his existence for such as she--she, silly
little Barbara, whose only charm was a maddening fashion of pointing
outward her adorable chin. She asked him about it, this life of the
winds of heaven.
"Are you always in the woods?" she inquired.
"Not always," said he.
"But you live in them a great deal?"
"Yes."
"You must have a great many exciting adventures."
"Not many."
"Where did you come from just now?"
"South."
"Where are you going?"
"Northwest."
"What are you going to do there?"
There ensued a slight pause before the stranger's reply. "Walk through
the woods," said he.
"In other words, it's none of my business," retorted Barbara, a little
tartly.
"Ah, but you see it's not entirely mine," he explained.
This offered a new field.
"Then you are on a mission?"
"Yes."
"Is it important?"
"Yes."
"How long is it going to take you?"
"Many years."
"What is your name?"
"Garrett Stanton."
"You are a gentleman, aren't you?"
A flicker of amusement twinkled subtly in the corner of his eye. "I
suppose you mean gently bred, college-educated. Do you think it's of
vast importance?"
Barbara examined him reflectively, her chin in her hand, her elbow on
her knee. She looked at his wavy hair, his kindly, humorous gray eyes,
the straight line of his fine-cut nose, his firm lips with the quaint
upward twist of the corners, the fine contour of his jaw.
"No-o-o," she agreed, "I don't suppose it does. Only I know you _are_ a
gentleman," she added, with delightful inconsistence. Stanton bowed
gravely to the fire in ironic acknowledgment.
"Why don't you ever look at me?" burst out Barbara, vexed. "Why do you
stare at that horrid fire?"
He turned and looked her full in the face. In a moment her eyes dropped
before his frank scrutiny. She felt the glow rising across her forehead.
When she raised her head again he was staring calmly at the fire as
before, one hand clasped under his arm, the other holding the bowl of
his brier pipe.
"Now," said he, "I will ask a few questions. Won't this all-night
absence alarm your relatives?"
"Oh, no. I often spend the night at the Adamses'. They will think I am
there."
"Parents are apt to be anxious."
"But mine are not here, you see."
"What is your name?"
"Barbara Lowe."
He fell silent. Barbara was distinctly piqued. He might have exhibited
a more flattering interest.
"Is that all you want to know about me?" she cried in an injured tone.
"I know all about you now. Listen: Your name is Barbara Lowe; you come
from Detroit, where you are not yet 'out'; you are an only child; and
eighteen or nineteen years of age."
"Why, who has been telling you about me?" cried Barbara, astonished.
Stanton smiled. "Nobody," he replied. "Don't you know that we woodsmen
live by our observation? Do you see anything peculiar about that tree?"
Barbara examined the vegetable in question attentively. "No," she
confessed at last.
"There is an animal in it. Look again."
"I can see nothing," repeated Barbara, after a second scrutiny.
Stanton arose. Seizing a brand from the fire, he rapped sharply on the
trunk. Then slowly what had appeared to be a portion of the hole began
to disintegrate, and in a moment a drowsy porcupine climbed rattling to
a place of safety.
"That is how I know about you," explained the woodsman, returning to the
fire. "Your remark about staying overnight told me that you were
visiting the Maxwells rather than the Adamses; I knew the latter must be
relatives, because a girl who wears pretty summer dresses would not
visit mere friends in the wilderness; you would get tired of this life
in a few weeks, and so will not care to stay longer; you wear your
school-pin still, so you are not yet 'out'; the maker's name in your
parasol caused me to guess you from Detroit."
"And about my being an only child?"
"Well," replied Stanton, "you see, you have a little the manner of one
who has been a trifle----"
"Spoiled!" finished Barbara, with wicked emphasis.
Stanton merely laughed.
"That is not nice," she reproved, with vast dignity.
A cry, inexpressibly mournful, quivered from the woods close at hand.
"Oh, what is that?" she exclaimed.
"Our friend the porcupine. Don't be frightened."
Down through the trees sighed a little wind. "_Whoo! whoo! whoo_!"
droned an owl, monotonously. The sparks from the fire shot up and
eddied. A chill was in the air. Barbara's eyes grew heavier and heavier.
She tucked her feet under her and expanded in the warmth like a
fireside kitten. Then, had she known it, the man was looking at her,
looking at her with a strange, wistful tenderness in his gray eyes.
Dear, harmless, innocent little Barbara, who had so confidingly trusted
in his goodness!
"Come, little girl," he said, softly, at last.
He arose and held out his hand. Awakened from her abstraction, she
looked at him with a faint smile and eyes from which all coquetry had
gone, leaving only the child.
"Come," he repeated, "time to turn in."
She arose dutifully. The little tent really looked inviting. The balsam
bed proved luxurious, soft as feathers.
"When you are ready," he told her, "let me know. I want to open the
tent-flap for the sake of warmth."
The soft woollen blanket was very grateful. When the flap was open,
Barbara found that a second fire had been built with a backing of green
logs so arranged as to reflect the heat directly into her shelter.
She was very sleepy, yet for a long time she lay awake. The noises of
the woods approached mysteriously, and drew about the little camp their
mystic circle. Some of them were exceedingly terrifying, but Barbara
did not mind them, for he sat there, his strong, graceful figure
silhouetted against the light, smoking his pipe in contemplation.
Barbara watched him for a long time, until finally the firelight
blurred, and the great, solemn shadows stopped dancing across the
forest, and she dozed.
Hours later, as it seemed, some trifling sound awakened her. The heat
still streamed gratefully into the tiny shelter; the solemn shadows
still danced across the forest; the contemplative figure still stared
into the embers, strongly silhouetted by the firelight. A tender
compunction stole into Barbara's tender little heart.
"The poor dear," said she, "he has no place to sleep. He is guarding me
from the dangers of the forest." Which was quite ridiculous, as any
woodsman will know.
Her drowsy eyes watched him wistfully--her mystery, her hero of romance.
Again the fire blurred, again the solemn shadows paused. A last thought
shaped itself in Barbara's consciousness.
"Why, he must be very old," she said to herself. "He must be
twenty-six."
So she fell asleep.
III
Barbara awoke to the sun and the crisp morning air and a delightful
feeling that she had slept well and had not been uncomfortable at all.
The flap of the tent was discreetly closed. When ready she peeped
through the crack and saw Stanton bending over the fire.
In a moment he straightened and approached the tent. When within a few
feet he paused. Through the hollow of his hands he cried out the long,
musical, morning call of the woodsman.
"R-o-o-oll out!" he cried. The forest took up the sound in dying
modulations.
For answer Barbara threw aside the tent-flap and stepped into the sun.
"Good-morning," said she.
"_Salut!_" he replied. "Come and I will show you the spring."
"I am sorry I cannot offer you a better variety for your breakfast. It
is only the supper over again," he explained, after she had returned,
and had perched like a fluffy bird of paradise on the log. Her cheeks
were very pink from the cold water, and her eyes were very beautiful
from the dregs of dreams, and her hair very glittering from the kissing
of the early sun. And, wonderful to say, she forgot to thrust out her
pointed chin in the fashion so entirely adorable.
She ate with relish, for the woods-hunger was hers. Stanton said
nothing. The time was pregnant with unspoken things. All the charming
elements of the little episode were crystallising for them, and
instinctively Barbara felt that in a few moments she would be compelled
to read their meaning.
At last the man said, without stirring:
"Well, I suppose we'd better be going."
"I suppose so," she replied.
They sat there some time longer, staring abstractedly at the kindly
green forest; then Stanton abruptly arose and began to construct his
pack. The girl did not move.
"Come," he said at last.
She arose obediently.
"Follow close behind me," he advised.
"Yes," said she.
They set off through the greenery. It opened silently before them.
Barbara looked back. It had already closed silently behind them,
shutting out the episode forever. The little camp had ceased to exist;
the great, ruthless, calm forest had reclaimed its own. Nothing was
left.
Nothing was left but the memory and the dream--yes, and the Beginning.
Barbara knew it must be that--the Beginning. He would come to see her.
She would wear the chiffon, another chiffon, altogether glorious. She
would sit on the highest root of the old elm, and he would lie at her
feet. Then he could tell her of the enchanted land, of the life of the
winds of heaven. He would be her knight, to plunge into the wilderness
on the Quest, returning always to her. The picture became at once
inexpressibly dear to her.
Then she noticed that he had stopped, and was looking at her in
deprecation, and was holding aside the screen of moose-maples. Beyond
she could see the familiar clearing, and the smoke from the Maxwell
cabin.
She had slept almost within sight of her own doorstep.
"Please forgive me," he was saying. "I meant it only as an interesting
little adventure. It has been harmless enough, surely--to you."
His eyes were hungry. Barbara could not find words.
"Good-by," he concluded. "Good-by. You will forgive me in time--or
forget, which is much the same. Believe me, if I have offended you, my
punishment is going to be severe. Good-by."
"Good-by," said Barbara, a little breathlessly. She had already
forgotten the trick. She could think only that the forest, the
unfriendly forest, was about to recall her son.
"Good-by," he repeated again. He should have gone, but did not. The
situation became strained.
"When are you coming to see me?" she inquired at length. "I shall be
here two weeks yet."
"Never," he replied.
"What do you mean?" she asked after a moment.
"After Painted Rock, the wilderness," he explained, almost bitterly,
"the wilderness and solitude for many years--forever!"
"Don't go until to-morrow," she urged.
"I must."
"Why?"
"Because I must be at Painted Rock by Friday, and to reach it I must
travel fast and long."
"And if you do not?"
"My mission fails," he replied.
They stood there silent. Barbara dug tiny holes with the tip of her
parasol.
"And that is ruin?" she asked softly, without looking up.
"I have struggled hard for many years. The result is this chance."
"I see," she replied, bending her head lower. "It would be a very
foolish thing for you to stay, then, wouldn't it?"
He did not reply.
"But you are going to, aren't you?" she went on in a voice almost
inaudible. "You must not go like that. I ask you to stay."
Again the pause.
"I cannot," he replied.
She looked up. He was standing erect and tall, his face set in the
bronze lines of a resolution, his gray eyes levelled straight and steady
beyond her head. Instantly her own spirit flashed.
"I think now you'd better go!" said she superbly.
They faced each other for a moment. Then Barbara dropped her head again,
extending her hand.
"You do not know," she whispered, "I have much to forgive."
He hesitated, then touched the tips of her fingers with his lips. She
did not look up. With a gesture, which she did not see, he stooped to
his pack and swung into the woods.
Barbara stood motionless. Not a line of her figure stirred. Only the
chiffon parasol dropped suddenly to the ground.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
STORIES OF THE WILD LIFE
I
THE GIRL WHO GOT RATTLED
This is one of the stories of Alfred. There are many of them still
floating around the West, for Alfred was in his time very well known. He
was a little man, and he was bashful. That is the most that can be said
against him; but he was very little and very bashful. When on horseback
his legs hardly reached the lower body-line of his mount, and only his
extreme agility enabled him to get on successfully. When on foot,
strangers were inclined to call him "sonny." In company he never
advanced an opinion. If things did not go according to his ideas, he
reconstructed the ideas, and made the best of it--only he could make the
most efficient best of the poorest ideas of any man on the plains. His
attitude was a perpetual sidling apology. It has been said that Alfred
killed his men diffidently, without enthusiasm, as though loth to take
the responsibility, and this in the pioneer days on the plains was
either frivolous affectation, or else--Alfred. With women he was lost.
Men would have staked their last ounce of dust at odds that he had never
in his life made a definite assertion of fact to one of the opposite
sex. When it became absolutely necessary to change a woman's
preconceived notions as to what she should do--as, for instance,
discouraging her riding through quicksand--he would persuade somebody
else to issue the advice. And he would cower in the background blushing
his absurd little blushes at his second-hand temerity. Add to this
narrow, sloping shoulders, a soft voice, and a diminutive pink-and-white
face.
But Alfred could read the prairie like a book. He could ride anything,
shoot accurately, was at heart afraid of nothing, and could fight like a
little catamount when occasion for it really arose. Among those who
knew, Alfred was considered one of the best scouts on the plains. That
is why Caldwell, the capitalist, engaged him when he took his daughter
out to Deadwood.
Miss Caldwell was determined to go to Deadwood. A limited experience of
the lady's sort, where they have wooden floors to the tents, towels to
the tent-poles, and expert cooks to the delectation of the campers, had
convinced her that "roughing it" was her favorite recreation. So, of
course, Caldwell senior had, sooner or later, to take her across the
plains on his annual trip. This was at the time when wagon-trains went
by way of Pierre on the north, and the South Fork on the south.
Incidental Indians, of homicidal tendencies and undeveloped ideas as to
the propriety of doing what they were told, made things interesting
occasionally, but not often. There was really no danger to a good-sized
train.
The daughter had a fiance named Allen who liked roughing it, too; so he
went along. He and Miss Caldwell rigged themselves out bountifully, and
prepared to enjoy the trip.
At Pierre the train of eight wagons was made up, and they were joined by
Alfred and Billy Knapp. These two men were interesting, but tyrannical
on one or two points--such as getting out of sight of the train, for
instance. They were also deficient in reasons for their tyranny. The
young people chafed, and, finding Billy Knapp either imperturbable or
thick-skinned, they turned their attention to Alfred. Allen annoyed
Alfred, and Miss Caldwell thoughtlessly approved of Allen. Between them
they succeeded often in shocking fearfully all the little man's finer
sensibilities. If it had been a question of Allen alone, the annoyance
would soon have ceased. Alfred would simply have bashfully killed him.
But because of his innate courtesy, which so saturated him that his
philosophy of life was thoroughly tinged by it, he was silent and
inactive.
There is a great deal to recommend a plains journey at first. Later,
there is nothing at all to recommend it. It has the same monotony as a
voyage at sea, only there is less living room, and, instead of being
carried, you must progress to a great extent by your own volition. Also
the food is coarse, the water poor, and you cannot bathe. To a
plainsman, or a man who has the instinct, these things are as nothing in
comparison with the charm of the outdoor life, and the pleasing tingling
of adventure. But woman is a creature wedded to comfort. She also has a
strange instinctive desire to be entirely alone every once in a while,
probably because her experiences, while not less numerous than man's,
are mainly psychical, and she needs occasionally time to get "thought up
to date." So Miss Caldwell began to get very impatient.
The afternoon of the sixth day Alfred, Miss Caldwell, and Allen rode
along side by side. Alfred was telling a self-effacing story of
adventure, and Miss Caldwell was listening carelessly because she had
nothing else to do. Allen chaffed lazily when the fancy took him.
"I happened to have a limb broken at the time," Alfred was observing,
parenthetically, in his soft tones, "and so----"
"What kind of a limb?" asked the young Easterner, with direct brutality.
He glanced with a half-humourous aside at the girl, to whom the little
man had been mainly addressing himself.
Alfred hesitated, blushed, lost the thread of his tale, and finally in
great confusion reined back his horse by the harsh Spanish bit. He fell
to the rear of the little wagon-train, where he hung his head, and went
hot and cold by turns in thinking of such an indiscretion before a lady.
The young Easterner spurred up on the right of the girl's mount.