Blazed Trail Stories, and Stories of the Wild Life Part 11

"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 att.i.tude 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 a.s.sertion of fact to one of the opposite s.e.x. 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 coa.r.s.e, 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.

"He's the queerest little fellow _I_ ever saw!" he observed, with a laugh. "Sorry to spoil his story. Was it a good one?"

"It might have been if you hadn't spoiled it," answered the girl, flicking her horse's ears mischievously. The animal danced. "What did you do it for?"

"Oh, just to see him squirm. He'll think about that all the rest of the afternoon, and will hardly dare look you in the face next time you meet."

"I know. Isn't he funny? The other morning he came around the corner of the wagon and caught me with my hair down. I _wish_ you could have seen him!"

She laughed gayly at the memory.