The Innocent Adventuress Part 15

He put the cigarettes away and from an inner pocket drew out a cake of chocolate.

"Supper," he announced.

She broke the cake in two even halves, giving him back one. He took but half of that. With the cigarette between his lips he felt better. Slowly he relaxed.

"I'll have to teach you how to smoke," he said, blowing rings. "When we're rested we'll get some wood and build a fire. The others will see that and signal back and we'll make connections."

At that she stared, round-eyed. "Wait for a fire?" Incredulously she straightened. Her voice grew breathless. "Oh, no, we must go--we must go," she said with a hint of wildness in her urgency.

Deliberately Johnny leaned back. "Go? Go where?"

"Go down. Go to where the others are. We must find them."

"Nothing doing." Johnny rubbed a stout leg. "Your Uncle Dudley is all in. So are you."

"But I can go, I am able to go on," she insisted. "And I would rather--Oh, if you please, I would so much rather go on at once. We cannot wait like this."

"I'll say we can wait like this. Watch me."

"But we cannot stay----"

"Well, we cannot go," said Johnny mimicking. "We'd get nowhere if we did try. We'd just go round and round. Our best bet is to stay on this peak and signal. Believe me, I'm not going to stir for one long while."

Again the fear of tears choked back the words that rushed upon her. She told herself that she must not be weak and frantic and make a scene.

. . . Men abhorred scenes. And it would not help. It would only anger him. He was tired now. He was not thinking of her. He had not realized the situation.

Presently he would realize. . . . And, anyway, he was there with her, he would take care of her, protect her from the tongues of gossip.

Slowly Johnny smoked two cigarettes, then he rose and gathered sticks for a fire. It burned briskly, its swift flame throwing a glowing circle about them and extinguishing the rest of the world.

There had been no sunset. A bank of clouds had swallowed the last vestige of ruddy light. The mountain peaks darkened. It was growing night.

"We'll wait for moonlight," said Johnny Byrd.

But at that Maria Angelina's eyes came away from those mountains which she was unremittingly watching for an answering fire and fixed themselves upon his face in startled horror.

"Moonlight!" she gasped. "But no--no! We must not wait any more. It is too late now. We must get down as soon as we can."

"Why, you little baby!" Johnny Byrd moved nearer to her. "What you 'fraid of, Ri-Ri? We can't help how late it is, can we?"

He put an arm about her and drew her gently close, and because she was so tired and frightened and upset Maria Angelina could no longer resist the tears that came blinding her eyes.

"You little baby!" said Johnny again softly, and suddenly she felt his kiss upon her cheek.

"Poor little Ri-Ri! Poor tired little girl!"

"Oh, you must not. Signor, you must not."

"Signor," he said reproachfully.

"J-Johnny," she choked.

"That's better. . . . All right, I'll be good, Ri-Ri. Just sit still.

And I'll be good."

But firmly he kept his arm about her and soon her tense little figure relaxed in that strong clasp. She was not frightened, as last night at the dance, she felt utterly forlorn and comforted by his strength.

They sat very still, unspeaking in that silent embrace, and about them it grew colder and darker while the sky seemed to grow thinner and grayer and clear. And at last against the pallor of the sky, mountain after mountain lifted itself out of the shadowy cloud ma.s.s, and peak after peak defined itself, stretching on and on like an army of giants.

Then the ridges grew blacker again, and back of one edge a sharp flare of light flamed, and a blood red disc of a moon came pushing furiously up into the sky, flinging down a transforming radiance.

In the valley the silvery birches gleamed like wood nymphs against the ebony firs.

Beauty had touched the world again. A long breath came fluttering from the girl's lips; she felt strangely solaced and comforted. After all, it was Johnny with her . . . the fairy prince. Her dreams were coming true . . . even under the shadow of this tragedy.

Again she felt his lips upon her cheek and now he was trying to turn her head towards him. Mutely she resisted, drawing away, but his force increased. She closed her eyes; she felt his kiss upon her hair, her cheek, the corner of her unstirring mouth.

And she thought that it was his right--if she turned from him she would seem strangely refusing. An American, she knew, kissed his fiancee freely.

But it was a tremendous freedom. . . .

It would have been--knightlier, she thought quiveringly, if he had not done that, if he had revealed a more respectful homage.

But these were American ways . . . and he was a man and he loved her and he wanted to feel that she belonged to him utterly. It was comfort for her troubled spirit.

But when she felt his hand trying to turn up her chin, so that her young lips might meet his, she slipped decidedly away.

"No? All right." Johnny gave a short, uncertain laugh. "All right, little girl, I'll be good."

She had risen to her feet and he rose now and his voice changed to a heartier note.

"Ready for the going? We'll have to make a start, I suppose. I don't see any rescue expeditions starting this way. . . . Lordy, I'm a starved man! I could eat the side of a house."

"I could eat the other side," said Maria Angelina smiling shakily.

Johnny put out the fire, ground out its embers beneath his heels, and started down upon the trail that they had come. Closely after him came the girl. The moonlight flooded the mountain side with vague, uncertain light and the descent was a difficult and dangerous matter.

They tripped over rocks; they stumbled through underbrush. The moon was their only clue to direction and the moon seemed to be slipping past the peaks at a confusing speed.

"We're going down anyway," said Johnny Byrd grimly.

Sharply they were stopped. The ledge on which they found themselves ended abruptly, like a bluff, and peering over its edge they looked down into the dark tops of tall fir trees.

No more descent there.

In disgusted rage Johnny strode up and down the length of that ledge but it was a clear shelf, with no way out from it except the way that they had come. There was no approach from below.

"And some fools go in for mountaineering!" said Johnny Byrd bitterly.