The Girl of the Golden West Part 28

Here was an appeal which could no longer be resisted, and though half-frightened by the tone of his voice and the look in his eye, the Girl let herself be taken into his arms as she murmured:

"'Tain't no use, I lay down my hands to you."

And so it was that, unconscious of the great havoc that was being wrought by the storm, unconscious of the danger that momentarily threatened their lives, they remained locked in each other's arms. The Girl made no attempt to silence him now or withdraw her hands from his.

Why should she? Had he not come to Cloudy Mountain to woo her? Was she not awaiting his coming? To her it seemed but natural that the conventions should be as nothing in the face of love. His voice, low and musical, charged with pa.s.sion, thrilled through her.

"I love you," said the man, with a note of possession that frightened her while it filled her with strange, sweet joy. For months she had dreamed of him and loved him; no wonder that she looked upon him as her hero and yielded herself entirely to her fate.

She lifted her eyes and he saw the love in them. She freed her hands from his grasp, and then gave them back to him in a little gesture of surrender.

"Yes, you're mine, an' I'm yours," she said with trembling lips.

"I have lived but for this from the moment that I first saw you," he told her, softly.

"Me, too--seein' that I've prayed for it day an' night," she acknowledged, her eyes seeking his.

"Our destinies have brought us together; whatever happens now I am content," he said, pressing his lips once more to hers. A little while later he added: "My darkest hour will be lightened by the memory of you, to-night."

XII.

The clock, striking the hour of two, filled in a lull that might otherwise have seemed to require conversation. For some minutes, Johnson, raised to a higher level of exaltation, even, than was the Girl, had been secretly rejoicing in the Fate that had brought them together.

"It's wonderful that I should have found her at last and won her love,"

he soliloquised. "We must be Fortune's children--she and I."

The minutes ticked away and still they were silent. Then, of a sudden, with infinite tenderness in his voice, Johnson asked:

"What is your name, Girl--your real name?"

"Min--Minnie; my father's name was Smith," she told him, her eyes cast down under delicately tremulous lids.

"Oh, Minnie Sm--"

"But 'twa'n't his right name," quickly corrected the Girl, and unconsciously both rose to their feet. "His right name was Falconer."

"Minnie Falconer--well, that is a pretty name," commented Johnson; and raising her hand to his lips he pressed them against it.

"I ain't sure that's what he said it was--I ain't sure o' anythin' only jest you," she said coyly, burying her face in his neck.

"You may well be sure of me since I've loved--" Johnson's sentence was cut short, a wave of remorse sweeping over him. "Turn your head away, Girl, and don't listen to me," he went on, gently putting her away from him. "I'm not worthy of you. Don't listen but just say no, no, no, no."

The Girl, puzzled, was even more so when Johnson began to pace the floor.

"Oh, I know--I ain't good enough for you !" she cried with a little tremour in her voice. "But I'll try hard, hard . . . If you see anythin' better in me, why don't you bring it out, 'cause I've loved you ever since I saw you first, 'cause I knowed that you--that you were the right man."

"The right man," repeated Johnson, dismally, for his conscience was beginning to smite him hard.

"Don't laugh!"

"I'm not laughing," as indeed he was not.

"O' course every girl kind o' looks ahead," went on the Girl in explanation.

"Yes, I suppose," he observed seriously.

"An' figgers about bein'--well, Oh, you know--about bein' settled. An'

when the right man comes, why, she knows 'im, you bet! Jest as we both knowed each other standin' on the road to Monterey. I said that day, he's good, he's gran' an' he can have me."

"I could have you," murmured Johnson, meditatively.

The Girl nodded eagerly.

There was a long silence in which Johnson was trying to make up his mind to tear himself away from her,--the one woman whom he loved in the world,--for it had been slowly borne in upon him that he was not a fit mate for this pure young girl. Nor was his unhappiness lessened when he recalled how she had struggled against yielding to him. At last, difficult though it was, he took his courage in both hands, and said:

"Girl, I have looked into your heart and my own and now I realise what this means for us both--for you, Girl--and knowing that, it seems hard to say good-bye as I should, must and will . . ."

At those clear words spoken by lips which failed so utterly to hide his misery, the Girl's face turned pale.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

Johnson coloured, hesitated, and finally with a swift glance at the clock, he briefly explained:

"I mean it's hard to go and leave you here. The clock reminded me that long before this I should have been on my way. I shouldn't have come up here at all. G.o.d bless you, dear," and here their eyes came together and seemed unable to part,--"I love you as I never thought I could . . ."

But at Johnson's queer look she hastened to inquire:

"But it ain't for long you're goin'?"

For long! Then she had not understood that he meant to go for all time.

How tell her the truth? While he pondered over the situation there came to him with great suddenness the thought that, perhaps, after all, Life never intended that she should be given to him only to be taken away almost as suddenly; and seized with a desire to hold on to her at any cost, he sprang forward as if to take her in his arms, but before he reached her, he stopped short.

"Such happiness is not for me," he muttered under his breath; and then aloud he added: "No, no, I've got to go now while I have the courage, I mean." He broke off as suddenly as he had begun, and taking her face in his hands he kissed her good-bye.

Now, accustomed as was the Girl to the strange comings and goings of the men at the camp, it did not occur to her to question him further when he told her that he should have been away before now. Moreover, she trusted and loved him. And so it was without the slightest feeling of misgiving that she watched her lover quickly take down his coat and hat from the peg on the wall and start for the door. On the other hand, it must have required not a little courage on the man's part to have torn himself away from this lovely, if unconventional, creature, just as he was beginning to love truly and appreciate her. But, then, Johnson was a man of no mean determination!

Not daring to trust himself to words, Johnson paused to look back over his shoulder at the Girl before plunging forth into the night. But on opening the door all the mult.i.tudinous wild noises of the forests reached his ears: Sounds of whispering and rocking storm-tossed pines, sounds of the wind making the rounds of the deep canyon below them, sounds that would have made the blood run cold of a man more daring, even, than himself. Like one petrified he stood blinded, almost, by the great drifts of snow that were being driven into the room, while the cabin rocked and shook and the roof cracked and snapped, the lights flickered, smoked, or sent their tongues of fire upward towards the ceiling, the curtains swayed like pendants in the air, and while baskets, boxes, and other small furnishings of the cabin were blown in every direction.

But it was the Girl's quick presence of mind that saved them from being buried, literally, under the snow. In an instant she had rushed past him and closed both the outer and inner doors of the cabin; then, going over to the window, she tried to look through the heavily frosted panes; but the falling of the sleet and snow, striking the window like fine shot, made it impossible for her to see more than a few inches away.

"Why, it's the first time I knew that it--" She cut her sentence short and ended with: "That's the way we git it up here! Look! Look!"

Whereupon, Johnson went over to the window and put his face close to hers on the frosted panes; a great sea of white snow met his gaze!

"This means--" he said, turning away from the window and meeting her glance--"surely it doesn't mean that I can't leave Cloudy to-night?"