The Forester's Daughter Part 19

His answer was humorous. "I am a soldier. I am on duty. I'm not at all sure that I shall have a moment's leave; but I will call if I can possibly do so."

They started off at last without having learned in detail anything of the intimate relationship into which the Supervisor's daughter and young Norcross had been thrown, and Mrs. Belden was still so much in the dark that she called to Berrie: "I'm going to send word to Cliff that you are over here. He'll be crazy to come the minute he finds it out."

"Don't do that!" protested Berrie.

Wayland turned to Berrie. "That would be pleasant," he said, smilingly.

But she did not return his smile. On the contrary, she remained very grave. "I wish that old tale-bearer had kept away. She's going to make trouble for us all. And that girl, isn't she a spectacle? I never could bear her."

"Why, what's wrong with her? She seems a very nice, sprightly person."

"She's a regular play actor. I don't like made-up people. Why does she go around with her sleeves rolled up that way, and--and her dress open at the throat?"

"Oh, those are the affectations of the moment. She wants to look tough and boisterous. That's the fad with all the girls, just now. It's only a harmless piece of foolishness."

She could not tell him how deeply she resented his ready tone of camaraderie with the other girl; but she was secretly suffering. It hurt her to think that he could forget his aches and be so free and easy with a stranger at a moment's notice. Under the influence of that girl's smile he seemed to have quite forgotten his exhaustion and his pain. It was wonderful how cheerful he had been while she was in sight.

In all this Berrie did him an injustice. He had been keenly conscious, during every moment of the time, not only of his bodily ills, but of Berrie, and he had kept a brave face in order that he might prevent further questioning on the part of a malicious girl. It was his only way of being heroic. Now that the crisis was pa.s.sed he was quite as much of a wreck as ever.

A new anxiety beset her. "I hope they won't happen to meet father on the trail."

"Perhaps I should go with them and warn him."

"Oh, it doesn't matter," she wearily answered. "Old Mrs. Belden will never rest till she finds out just where we've been, and just what we've done. She's that kind. She knows everything that goes on."

He understood her fear, and yet he was unable to comfort her in the only way she could be comforted. That brief encounter with Siona Moore--a girl of his own world--had made all thought of marriage with Berea suddenly absurd. Without losing in any degree the sense of grat.i.tude he felt for her protecting care, and with full acknowledgment of her heroic support of his faltering feet, he revolted from putting into words a proposal of marriage. "I love her," he confessed to himself, "and she is a dear, brave girl; but I do not love her as a man should love the woman he is to marry."

A gray shadow had plainly fallen between them. Berea sensed the change in his att.i.tude, and traced it to the influence of the coquette whose smiling eyes and bared arms had openly challenged admiration. It saddened her to think that one so fine as he had seemed could yield even momentary tribute to an open and silly coquette.

IX

FURTHER PERPLEXITIES

Wayland, for his part, was not deceived by Siona Moore. He knew her kind, and understood her method of attack. He liked her pert ways, for they brought back his days at college, when dozens of just such misses lent grace and humor and romance to the tennis court and to the football field. She carried with her the aroma of care-free, athletic girlhood.

Flirtation was in her as charming and almost as meaningless as the preening of birds on the bank of a pool in the meadow.

Speaking aloud, he said: "Miss Moore travels the trail with all known accessories, and I've no doubt she thinks she is a grand campaigner; but I am wondering how she would stand such a trip as that you took last night. I don't believe she could have done as well as I. She's the imitation--you're the real thing."

The praise involved in this speech brought back a little of Berrie's humor. "I reckon those brown boots of hers would have melted," she said, with quaint smile.

He became very grave. "If it had not been for you, dear girl, I would be lying up there in the forest this minute. Nothing but your indomitable spirit kept me moving. I shall be deeply hurt if any harm comes to you on account of me."

"If it hadn't been for me you wouldn't have started on that trip last night. It was perfectly useless. It would have been better for us both if we had stayed in camp, for we wouldn't have met these people."

"That's true," he replied; "but we didn't know that at the time. We acted for the best, and we must not blame ourselves, no matter what comes of it."

They fell silent at this point, for each was again conscious of their new relationship. She, vaguely suffering, waited for him to resume the lover's tone, while he, oppressed by the sense of his own shortcomings and weakness, was planning an escape. "It's all nonsense, my remaining in the forest. I'm not fitted for it. It's too severe. I'll tell McFarlane so and get out."

Perceiving his returning weakness and depression, Berea insisted on his lying down again while she set to work preparing dinner. "There is no telling when father will get here," she said. "And Tony will be hungry when he comes. Lie down and rest."

He obeyed her silently, and, going to the bunk, at once fell asleep. How long he slept he could not tell, but he was awakened by the voice of the ranger, who was standing in the doorway and regarding Berrie with a round-eyed stare.

He was a tall, awkward fellow of about thirty-five, plainly of the frontier type; but a man of intelligence. At the end of a brief explanation Berrie said, with an air of authority: "Now you'd better ride up the trail and bring our camp outfit down. We can't go back that way, anyhow."

The ranger glanced toward Wayland. "All right, Miss Berrie, but perhaps your tenderfoot needs a doctor."

Wayland rose painfully but resolutely. "Oh no, I am not sick. I'm a little lame, that's all. I'll go along with you."

"No," said Berrie, decisively. "You're not well enough for that. Get up your horses, Tony, and by that time I'll have some dinner ready."

"All right, Miss Berrie," replied the man, and turned away.

Hardly had he crossed the bridge on his way to the pasture, when Berrie cried out: "There comes daddy."

Wayland joined her at the door, and stood beside her watching the Supervisor, as he came zigzagging down the steep hill to the east, with all his horses trailing behind him roped together head-to-tail.

"He's had to come round by Lost Lake," she exclaimed. "He'll be tired out, and absolutely starved. Wahoo!" she shouted in greeting, and the Supervisor waved his hand.

There was something superb in the calm seat of the veteran as he slid down the slope. He kept his place in the saddle with the air of the rider to whom hunger, fatigue, windfalls, and snowslides were all a part of the day's work; and when he reined in before the door and dropped from his horse, he put his arm about his daughter's neck with quiet word: "I thought I'd find you here. How is everything?"

"All right, daddy; but what about you? Where have you been?"

"Clean back to Mill Park. The blamed cayuses kept just ahead of me all the way."

"Poor old dad! And on top of that came the snow."

"Yes, and a whole hatful. I couldn't get back over the high pa.s.s. Had to go round by Lost Lake, and to cap all, Old Baldy took a notion not to lead. Oh, I've had a peach of a time; but here I am. Have you seen Moore and his party?"

"Yes, they're in camp up the trail. He and Alec Belden and two women. Are you hungry?"

He turned a comical glance upon her. "Am I hungry? Sister, I am a wolf.

Norcross, take my horses down to the pasture."

She hastened to interpose. "Let me do that, daddy, Mr. Norcross is badly used up. You see, we started down here late yesterday afternoon. It was raining and horribly muddy, and I took the wrong trail. The darkness caught us and we didn't reach the station till nearly midnight."

Wayland acknowledged his weakness. "I guess I made a mistake, Supervisor; I'm not fitted for this strenuous life."

McFarlane was quick to understand. "I didn't intend to pitchfork you into the forest life quite so suddenly," he said. "Don't give up yet awhile.

You'll harden to it."

"Here comes Tony," said Berrie. "He'll look after the ponies."

Nevertheless Wayland went out, believing that Berrie wished to be alone with her father for a short time.