The Emigrant Trail Part 25

"What is it? What's the matter?" she cried, raising wild eyes to Courant.

"Nothing at all," said that unmoved person, squatting down on his heels and thrusting his hand inside David's shirt. "Only a faint. Why, where's your nerve? You're nearly as white as he is."

His eyes were full of curiosity as he looked across the outstretched figure at her frightened face.

"I--I--thought for a moment he was dead," she faltered.

"And so you were going to follow his example and die on his body?" He got up. "Stay here and I'll go and get some water." As he turned away he paused and, looking back, said, "Why didn't you do the fainting?

That's more your business than his," gave a sardonic grin and walked off.

Susan raised the unconscious head and held it to her bosom. Alone, with no eye looking, she pressed her lips on his forehead. Courant's callousness roused a fierce, perverse tenderness in her. He might sneer at David's lack of force, but she understood. She crooned over him, moved his hair back with caressing fingers, pressing him against herself as if the strength of her hold would a.s.sure her of the love she did not feel and wanted to believe in. Her arms were close round him, his head on her shoulder when Courant came back with a dipper of water.

"Get away," he said, standing over them. "I don't want to wet you."

But she curled round her lover, her body like a protecting shield between him and danger.

"Leave go of him," said Courant impatiently. "Do you think I'm going to hurt him with a cup full of water?"

"Let me alone," she answered sullenly. "He'll be all right in a minute."

"You can be any kind of a fool you like, but you can't make me one.

Come, move." He set the dipper on the ground.

He leaned gently over her and grasped her wrists. The power of his grip amazed her; she was like a mouse in the paws of a lion. Her puny strength matched against his was conquered in a moment of futile resistance.

"Don't be a fool," he said softly in her ear. "Don't act like a silly baby," and the iron hands unclasped her arms and drew her back till David's head slid from her knees to the ground.

"There! We're all right now." He let her go, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the dipper and sent a splash of water into David's face.

"Poor David," he said. "This'll spoil his good looks."

"Stop," she almost screamed. "I'd rather have him lie in a faint for an hour than have you speak so about him."

Without noticing her, he threw another jet of water and David stirred, drew a deep breath and opened his eyes. They touched the sky, the wagon, the nearby sage, and then Susan's face. There they rested, recognition slowly suffusing them.

"What happened?" he said in a husky voice.

"Fainted, that was all," said Courant.

David closed his eyes.

"Oh, yes, I remember now."

Susan bent over him.

"You frightened me so!"

"I'm sorry, Missy, but it made me sick--the leg and those awful cries."

Courant emptied the dipper on the ground.

"I'll see if they've got any whisky. You'll have to get your grit up, David, for the rest of the trail," and he left them.

A half hour later the cry of "Roll out" sounded, and the Mormon camp broke. The rattling of chains and ox yokes, and the cursing of men ruptured the stillness that had gathered round the moment of death.

Life was a matter of more immediate importance. Tents were struck, the pots and pans thrown into the wagons, the children collected, the stock driven in. With ponderous strain and movement the great train formed and took the road. As it drew away the circle of its bivouac showed in trampled sage and gra.s.s bitten to the roots. In the clearing where the boy had lain was the earth of a new-made grave, a piece of wood thrust in at the head, the mound covered with stones gathered by the elder's young wife. The mountain tragedy was over.

By the fire that evening Zavier employed himself sc.r.a.ping the dust from a buffalo skull. He wiped the frontal bone clean and white, and when asked why he was expending so much care on a useless relic, shrugged his shoulders and laughed. Then he explained with a jerk of his head in the direction of the vanished Mormons that they used buffalo skulls to write their letters on. In the great emigration of the year before their route was marked by the skulls set up in prominent places and bearing messages for the trains behind.

"And are you going to write a letter on that one?" Susan asked.

"No; I do not write English good, and French very bad. But maybe some one else will use it," and he laughed boyishly and laid the skull by the fire.

In the depth of the night Susan was wakened by a hand on her shoulder that shook her from a dreamless sleep. She started up with a cry and felt another hand, small and cold on her mouth, and heard a whispering voice at her ear,

"Hush. Don't make a sound. It's Lucy."

She gripped at the figure, felt the clasp of trembling arms, and a cheek chill with the night cold, against her own.

"Lucy," she gasped, "what's the matter?"

"I want to speak to you. Be quiet."

"Has anything happened? Is some one sick?"

"No. It's not that. I'm going."

"Going? Going where--" She was not yet fully awake, filaments of sleep clouded her clearness.

"Into the mountains with Zavier."

The filaments were brushed away in a rough sweep. But her brain refused to accept the message. In the dark, she clutched at the body against her, felt the beat of pulses distinct through the clothing, the trembling of the hands going down through her flesh and muscle to her heart.

"What do you mean? Where?"

"I don't know, into the mountains somewhere."

"With Zavier? Why?"

"Because he wants me to and I must."

"But-- Oh, Lucy--" she struggled from the blanket to her knees--"Oh, Lucy!"

Her voice rose high and the hand felt for her mouth. She caught it and held it off, her head bent back straining her eyes for the face above her.

"Running away with him?"

"Yes. I couldn't go without telling you. I had to say good-by."

"Going with him forever, not coming back?"