Peak and Prairie Part 34

They had reached the ranch road now. She knew the general lay of the land well enough to recognize it, and she could trust Sunbeam to keep it. A dense black cloud, the rearguard of the storm, had covered the moon, but there were stars enough to light the way somewhat.

"Would you mind telling me why you risked your life for me?" Stephen asked abruptly.

Some seconds went by before she answered. Then: "I think there was reason enough in my being to blame for it all," she said; "I behaved outrageously."

"And the other reason? There was another reason, I take it."

His voice was not eager, not lover-like; there was more curiosity than anything else in the tone. Again the moon shone out, and lighted up her face distinctly, as she answered him, looking straight before her along the snowy road.

"I think," she said, speaking with a slow consideration of her words; "I think it was because I could not bear to have you--go out of the world, believing--what was not true! It seemed like a deceit going over into eternity!"

Would he say something very dreadful in reply, she wondered; something that would haunt her for the rest of her days?

She was still bracing herself for the worst,--for he had not yet broken the silence,--when they came to the gate, fixed there, half closed.

There was just room for Sunbeam to pa.s.s out, and Amy fell behind for a moment. Stephen drew rein and waited for her, while she vainly tried to close the gate.

"Don't mind that," he said. "It will close of itself when the snow melts."

She came obediently and walked beside him. They had turned aside from the direction of Springtown, toward a little house a few rods away. They were almost there when Stephen spoke again.

"You must be sorry about it all," he said, "though you very wisely leave that to be understood. You have made a mistake and you think you have caused another person great and lasting unhappiness. I can't tell to-night whether that is so or not, but there is one thing that I think you have a right to know."

"And that is?" She felt that she must fill in the pause, for he evidently found it difficult to go on.

"I think I know you well enough," he said; "to be sure of your feeling about it, though it is different from what some people would have under the circ.u.mstances. But somehow I am sure that you will be glad to know, that when I thought I was going to perish in the storm,--after I was thrown, and before I had seen that there was shelter near by,--it was _not you_ my thoughts were running on."

Again he paused while she lifted the latch of the little gate. Then, as Sunbeam pa.s.sed through, and Amy walked by his side up the snowy path, Stephen said:

"I think it must have been a good many minutes that I lay there, thinking that the end was coming, and the only person in the world that I seemed to care about was--_my mother_!"

At the word, the bond that had irked her was gently loosed, and he, for his part, could only wonder that he felt no pain. The great cold moonlit calm of the night seemed to enter into their hearts, swept clean by the storm. They looked into one another's faces in the solemn white light, with a fine new unconcern. Where were all their perplexities? What had it all been about?

It was as if the snow had melted, and the great gate had closed itself.

Was it Paradise or Purgatory they had shut themselves out from?

XIII.

A GOLDEN VISTA.

Tramp, tramp, tramp,--the heavy boots had sounded on the road,--tramp, tramp, tramp! since Sunday morning, and now it was Tuesday noon. Often for hours together there had been no witness to the steady march, save the lordly pine-trees, standing straight and grand in the mountain "parks," or scaling boldly the precipitate sides of the encroaching cliffs; the cliffs themselves, frowning sternly above the path; and always somewhere on the horizon, towering above the nearer hills or closing in the end of the valley, a snowy peak gleaming like a transcendent promise against the sky. Waldo Kean, as he strode steadily down from his father's mountain ranch toward a wonderful new future whose door was about to be flung wide to him, felt the inspiration of those rugged mountain influences, the like of which had been his familiars all the seventeen years of his life. The chattering brooks had nothing to say to him as they came dashing down from the hills to join the rollicking stream whose course his path followed; the sunflowers, gilding the edge of the road, were but frills and furbelows to his thinking. But in the pine-trees there was a perfectly clear significance,--in those hardy growths, finding a foothold among the rocks, drawing sustenance from Heaven knew where, yet ever growing skyward, straight and tall and strong. As he pa.s.sed among them, standing at gracious intervals in the broad "parks," they seemed to flush with understanding and sympathy. His way led from north to south and as often as he turned and looked back among the trees, the stems glowed ruddily and his heart warmed to them. He knew that it was merely the southern exposure that had tinged their bark and caused that friendly glow, but he liked it all the same.

Now and then the solitude was relieved by the appearance of a horseman riding with flapping arms and jingling spurs up the pa.s.s; or again the silence was broken by the inconsequent bleating of a flock of sheep wandering in search of their scant pasturage or huddling together, an agitated ma.s.s of grimy wool, its outskirts painfully exposed to the sharp but well-intentioned admonitions of a somewhat irascible collie.

Neither man nor beast took special note of the overgrown boy striding so confidently on his way, nor was one observer more likely than the other to guess what inspiring thoughts were animating the roughly clad, uncouth form. The boy's clothes were shabby and travel-stained, and over his shoulders was slung a canvas bag, its miscellaneous contents making sharp, angular protuberances on its surface. He had left the ranch with clothes and books enough to give the bag a pretty weight, and this he had unconcernedly increased by the insertion into the straining receptacle of many a "specimen" picked up by the way. For the eyes were keen and observant that looked out from under the strongly marked brows, and bits of fluorite and "fool's gold," and of rarer minerals as well, which had lain for years beside the road, noted as little by cowboy and ranchman and mountain tourist as by the redman whose feet first trod the pa.s.s, were destined to-day to start on their travels, enlisted in the service of Science.

It must have been a daring specimen indeed that should have thought of resisting its fate when it came at the hands of Waldo Kean. There was a certain rough strength not only in the muscular frame, but in the face itself, with its rude features, its determined outlines, its heavy under-lip; and in the stiff black hair roughly clipped on the ample skull, growing in a bushy thatch above the keen dark eyes. It seemed but natural that just that type of boy should feel himself drawn to the study of the rocky foundation of things.

Four years ago Waldo Kean had found out that he wanted to be a geologist, and that to this end he must go to college. Yet though the college was in Springtown, and though Springtown lies close to the foot of the "range," it had taken him four years to get there. During that enforced interval he had done his full share of the heavy ranch work, he had found one and another means of acc.u.mulating a little capital of his own; at off hours and off seasons he had cudgelled his brain over books with ugly difficult t.i.tles and anything but tractable contents. In short he had fairly earned his pa.s.sport, and now, at last, on this radiant October morning, he was striding over the few intervening miles that separated him from that wonderful Land of Promise, where Latin and Greek grew on every tree, and the air was electric with the secrets of Science itself. What wonder that he was unconscious of hardship and fatigue, that he counted as nothing the three days' tramp; the icy nights spent out under the chill stars; the only half-satisfied hunger of a healthy boy, living on food which the dry mountain air was rapidly reducing to a powdery consistency! He was going to College; he was going to be a Geologist. What did he care for any paltry details by the way?

He seated himself for his noon meal, the last crumbling sandwich of his store, at the foot of a big pine-tree, just where the pa.s.s narrows to a wild ravine. As he took out the slice of bread and meat neatly wrapped about with brown paper, his thoughts reverted with a certain sore compunction to the hand that had prepared it for him. It had been his mother's farewell service, and he somehow realized now as he had not realized at the time, how much all those careful preparations meant, to her and to himself. He remembered how, late Sat.u.r.day night, she had sat mending a new rip in his best coat, and that when she p.r.i.c.ked her finger, and a little bead of red blood had to be disposed of before she could go on with the work, he had wondered why women were always p.r.i.c.king their fingers when there was no need. It was not until the very moment of departure that the pain of it seized him. His mother was a quiet, undemonstrative woman of the New England race, and if mother and son loved each other,--as it now transpired that they did,--no mention had ever been made of the fact on either side. The consequence was, that when, at parting, an iron hand seemed to be gripping the boy's throat, he had been so taken at unawares, that he had found it impossible to articulate a single word. On the mother's part there had been one little, half-suppressed sob that sounded in his ears yet. It left an ache in him that he did not at first know what to do with, but which clearly called for heroic treatment. Accordingly, after much pondering the situation, he had adopted a great resolution,--a resolution which involved no less arduous a task than that of writing a letter to his mother and telling her that he loved her. He thought it possible that the confession might give her pleasure, coming from a safe distance and involving no immediate consequences, and in any case he did not feel justified in keeping to himself a discovery which so nearly concerned another person. He had thought a good deal about the letter and of how he should approach the subject, and he had about decided to make the momentous statement in a postscript down in one corner and to sign it "Waldy."

He was so near his journey's end that he allowed himself rather a longer nooning than usual. He stretched himself on his back on the pine needles, and with his hands clasped behind his head, he gazed up through the spreading branches to the marvellous blue of the sky. When he should be a scientific man and know all sorts of things besides geology,--meteorology and chemistry and the like,--perhaps he should find out why the sky looked so particularly deep and palpitating when you were lying flat on your back and there were some pine branches in between. He meant, one of these days, to know everything there was to be known, and to discover a little something new besides.

A train of cars thundered by on the other side of the brook not thirty yards from his feet. He did not change his position, but looking down the long length of his legs, he saw the roaring, snorting beast of an engine rush by, trailing its tail of cars behind it.

"And yet the power isn't in the steam," he thought to himself, "but in the brain that controls it. Just the brain. That's all." At the thought a sudden impatience seized him to arrive at that goal where the brain takes command, and he sprang to his feet, and shouldering his pack, strode on down the pa.s.s. Tramp, tramp, tramp! went the heavy boots; the great bag weighed like lead across his shoulders; a gnawing hunger had somehow got into him since he swallowed the crumbling bread and meat.

"The water was good, at any rate," he said to himself, glancing more appreciatively than before at the crystal stream that still raced on a level with the road. The way led across both brook and railroad just there, and there was a sharp turn in the walls of the canon. He looked back and saw a train rushing down the pa.s.s, swiftly,--surrept.i.tiously, it seemed, so curiously little noise did it make on the down-grade. An instant later he had turned the corner, and found himself face to face with a pair of horses harnessed to a buggy, trotting rapidly up the pa.s.s, straight toward that railroad crossing. They were already close upon him and he could see a man and woman seated in the buggy. He had only time to fling his pack to one side and wave his arms in warning, and then, his warning being unheeded, he sprang at the horses' heads and seized the bridles. The horses reared and plunged, there was the sharp whistle of a whiplash, a stinging blow cut him across the face. The blood rushed to his head in a sudden fury, but instinctively he kept his hold upon the plunging horses. They had all but dragged him to the track when the train rushed by. The whole thing had happened in twenty seconds of time.

He dropped his hold and sprang to one side while the horses dashed on and tore round the projecting corner of rock, the buggy slewing wildly after them.

Waldo Kean stood an instant with clenched hands and crimson face, a straight welt standing out white and angry across his cheek.

Then,--"Pooh! he muttered, I'm going to college all the same!"--and he picked up his hat which the horses had trampled out of shape, shouldered his pack and strode on down the pa.s.s. His cheek was smarting with pain, but he was hardly aware of that; there was a yawning rip in the arm-hole of his coat, but that was of still less consequence. He had all he could do to attend to the conflicting emotions of the moment; the sense of outraged dignity contending, not very successfully, with a lively concern for the fate of those people he had tried to rescue. He thought it more than likely that they would both get killed, for the horses were quite unmanageable when they disappeared around the corner, and he remembered an ugly bit of road just above that point. He was not a little disgusted with himself when he caught himself hoping that they might get out of the sc.r.a.pe alive. Well, if he could not "stay mad"

longer than that, he told himself, he might as well forget the whole business and be on the look-out for specimens.

Meanwhile the pa.s.s was getting grander every moment; the brook was working its way deeper below the level of the road, while here and there in this sombre defile a splash of yellow aspen gleamed like living gold on the face of the precipice. The wild and beautiful gorge interested him in spite of himself; it disengaged his thoughts alike from his personal grievance, and from his dissatisfied contemplation of his own lack of proper vindictiveness. There was nothing grand like this in the neighborhood of the ranch. It was more like his father's description of the "Flume" and the "Notch," those natural wonders of the White Hills which Waldo Kean the elder liked to talk about. "When I was a boy over in New Hampshire," he used to say; and to the children it seemed as if "over in New Hampshire" could not be more than a day's journey from the ranch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE WILD AND BEAUTIFUL GORGE."]

"When I was a boy over in New Hampshire," he would say, "I got it into my head that if I could only get away to a new place I sh'd get to be something big; and the farther away I got, the bigger I expected to be.

Colorado was a territory then, 'n I thought, 'f I could only get out here they'd make me gov'nor's like 's not. 'N I do' know but what I'd have looked to be made President of the United States 'f I'd sighted the Pacific Ocean!"

Then the s.h.a.ggy, keen-eyed mountaineer who made so light of boyish expectations would knock the logs together and take a puff or two at his pipe before coming to the climax of his remarks, which varied according to the lesson he wished to inculcate.

"It took me several years of wrastling with life," he was fond of saying, "to find out that it ain't so much matter _whar_ you be, as _what_ you be. 'N if I was you, Waldy,"--here was the application,--"I'd contrive to learn a little something on my own hook, before I aspired to go consorting with them as knows it all!"

When, however, the time was ripe, and "Waldy," having fulfilled these conditions, was fairly off for college, the ranchman had signified his approval of his son's course by escorting him a few miles on his way.

The boy had felt himself highly honored by the attention, yet when the time of parting came, it was with no such stricture about his throat as had taken him at unawares in the early morning, that he watched the tall form disappearing among the pine-trees. There was a certain self-sufficiency about the "old man,"--aged forty-five,--that precluded any embarra.s.sing tenderness in one's relations with him.

Waldo was thinking of his father as he strode down the pa.s.s with that welt on his cheek. He had an idea that his father would not make so much of the affair as he was taking himself to task for not doing. And up to this time his father had been his standard. He not only had a very high opinion of him as he was, but he had a boyish faith in what he might have been, a belief that if he had had half a chance he would have made his mark in the world. He was glad that he bore his father's name, and he was quite determined to make it stand for something in the minds of men before he got through with it. It sounded like a name that was to be made to mean something.

Suddenly the sound of wheels coming down the pa.s.s struck his ear. They were the wheels of a buggy, he thought, and of a buggy drawn by a pair of horses. The suggestion was distasteful to Waldo Kean just at that moment, and he quickened his pace somewhat. Presently the wheels stopped close behind him, a firm step sounded on the road, he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. He looked up, and his worst forebodings were realized.

It was the face he had caught sight of in that particular buggy which he did not like to think about, and the hand that rested on his shoulder was the one which had swung the whip to such good purpose.

A very hearty and pleasant voice was saying; "Do you know, I never did anything in all my life I was so sorry for!" but the boy strode on as stolidly as if he had been stone-deaf.

The other, though a man of heavy build, kept pace with him easily.

"You see," he remarked, after waiting a reasonable time for a reply; "I never knew what it was to owe any one so much as I owe you!"

Not being, in fact, stone-deaf, Waldo found himself obliged to make some response. As much from embarra.s.sment as from anger, he spoke gruffly.

"That's nothing," he said. "I'd have done as much for a stray dog,--and like as not I'd have got bit all the same!"

His companion was making a study of him rather than of his words;--of the defiant pose of the head above the shabby, uncouth figure,--of the stormy eyes set in the fiery crimson of the face. He could not resent the rough words, but neither could he help being amused at the tragic exaggeration of the figure.