The Man of the Desert Part 10

A great eagle appeared in the heaven above and sailed swiftly and strongly towards a mountain peak. Hazel had a sense of her own smallness, and of the fact that her words had made an exquisite anguish for the soul of her companion, yet she could not think of anything to say that would better matters. At last he spoke, and his voice was like one performing a sad and sacred rite for one tenderly beloved:

"And now that you know I love you can it possibly make any difference to you?"

Hazel tried three times to answer, but every time her trembling lips would frame no words. Then suddenly her face went into her hands and the tears came. She felt as if a benediction had been laid upon her head, and the glory of it was greater than she could bear.

The man watched her, his arms longing to enfold her and soothe her agitation, but he would not. His heart was on fire with the sweetness and the pain of the present moment, yet he could not take advantage of their situation upon the lonely plain, and desecrate the beauty of the trust she had put upon him.

Then her strength came again, and she raised her head and looked into his waiting eyes with a trembling, shy glance, yet true and earnest.

"It will make a difference--to me!" she said. "I shall never feel quite the same towards life again because I know there is such a wonderful man in the world."

She had fine control of her voice now, and was holding back the tears.

Her manner of the world was coming to her aid. He must not see how much this was to her, how very much. She put out a little cold hand and laid it timidly in his big brown one, and he held it a moment and looked down at it in great tenderness, closed his fingers over it in a strong clasp, then laid it gently back in her lap as though it were too precious to keep. Her heart thrilled and thrilled again at his touch.

"Thank you," he said simply, a great withdrawing in his tone. "But I cannot see how you can think well of me. I am an utter stranger to you.

I have no right to talk of such things to you."

"You did not tell me," answered Hazel. "You told--G.o.d." Her voice was slow and low with awe. "I only overheard. It was my fault--but--I am not--sorry. It was a great--thing to hear!"

He watched her shy dignity as she talked, her face drooping and half turned away. She was exquisitely beautiful in her confusion. His whole spirit yearned towards hers.

"I feel like a monster," he said suddenly. "You know I love you, but you do not understand how, in this short time even, you have filled my life, my whole being. And yet I may not ever try or hope to win your love in return. It must seem strange to you----"

"I think I understand," she said in a low voice; "you spoke of all that in the night--you know." It seemed as if she shrank from hearing it again.

"Will you let me explain it thoroughly to you?"

"If--you think best." She turned her face away and watched the eagle, now a mere speck in the distance.

"You see it is this way. I am not free to do as I might wish--as other men are free. I have consecrated my life to the service of G.o.d in this place. I know--I knew when I came here--that it was no place to bring a woman. There are few who could stand the life. It is filled with privations and hardships. They are inevitable. You are used to tender care and luxury. No man could ask a sacrifice like that of a woman he loved. He would not be a man if he did. It is not like marrying a girl who has felt the call herself, and loves to give her life to the work.

That would be a different matter. But a man has no right to expect it of a woman----" he paused to find the right words and Hazel in a small still voice of dignity reminded him:

"You are forgetting one of the reasons."

"Forgetting?" he turned towards her wonderingly and their eyes met for just an instant, then hers were turned away again.

"Yes," she went on inscrutably. "You thought I--was not--fit!"

She was pulling up bits of green from the ground beside her. She felt a frightened flutter in her throat. It was the point of the thorn that had remained in her heart. It was not in nature for her not to speak of it, yet when it was spoken she felt how it might be misunderstood.

But the missionary made answer in a kind of cry like some hurt creature.

"Not fit! Oh, my dear! You do not understand----"

There was that in his tone that extracted the last bit of rankling thorn from Hazel's heart and brought the quick blood to her cheeks again.

With a light laugh that echoed with relief and a deep new joy which she dared not face as yet, she sprang to her feet.

"Oh, yes, I understand," she said gaily, "and it's all true. I'm not a bit fit for a missionary. But oughtn't we to be moving on? I'm quite rested now."

With a face that was grave to sadness he acquiesced, fastening the canvas in place on the saddle, and putting her on her horse with swift, silent movements. Then as she gathered up the reins he lingered for an instant and taking the hem of her gown in his fingers he stooped and touched his lips lightly, reverently to the cloth.

There was something so humble, so pathetic, so self-forgetful in the homage that the tears sprang to the girl's eyes and she longed to put her arms about his neck and draw his face close to hers and tell him how her heart was throbbing in sympathy.

But he had not even asked for her love, and there must be silence between them. He had shown that it was the only way. Her own reserve closed her lips and commanded that she show no sign.

And now they rode on silently for the most part, the horses' hoofs beating rapidly in unison. Now and then a rabbit scuttled on ahead of them or a horned toad hopped out of their path. Short brown lizards palpitated on bits of wood along the way; now and then a bright green one showed itself and disappeared. Once they came upon a village of prairie dogs and paused to watch their antics for a moment. It was then as they turned away that she noticed the bit of green he had stuck in his b.u.t.tonhole and recognized it for the same that she had played with as they talked by the wayside. Her eyes charged him with having picked it up afterwards and his eyes replied with the truth, but they said no words about it. They did not need words.

It was not until they reached the top of a sloping hill, and suddenly came upon the view of the valley with its winding track gleaming in the late afternoon sun, the little wooden station and few cabins dotted here and there, that she suddenly realized that their journey together was at an end, for this was the place from which she had started two days before.

He had no need to tell her. She saw the smug red gleam of their own private car standing on the track not far away. She was brought face to face with the fact that her friends were down there in the valley and all the stiff conventionalities of her life stood ready to build a wall between this man and herself. They would sweep him out of her life as if she had never met him, never been found and saved by him, and carry her away to their tiresome round of parties and pleasure excursions again.

She lifted her eyes with a frightened, almost pleading glance as if for a moment she would ask him to turn with her back to the desert again.

She found his eyes upon her in a long deep gaze of farewell, as one looks upon the face of a beloved soon to be parted from earth. She could not bear the blinding of the love she saw there, and her own heart leaped up anew to meet it in answering love.

But it was only this one flash of a glance they had, when they were aware of voices and the sound of horses' hoofs, and almost instantly around the clump of sage-brush below the trail there swept into sight three hors.e.m.e.n, s.h.a.g Bunce, an Indian, and Hazel's brother. They were talking excitedly, and evidently starting out on a new search.

The missionary with quick presence of mind started the horses on, shouting out a greeting, and was answered with instant cheers from the approaching party, followed by shots from s.h.a.g Bunce in signal that the lost was found; shots which immediately seemed to echo from the valley and swell into shouting and rejoicing.

Then all was confusion at once.

The handsome, reckless brother with gold hair like Hazel's embraced her, talking loud and eagerly; showing how he had done this and that to find her; blaming the country, the horses, the guides, the roads; and paying little heed to the missionary who instantly dropped behind to give him his place. It seemed but a second more before they were surrounded with eager people all talking at once, and Hazel, distressed that her brother gave so little attention to the man who had saved her, sought thrice to make some sort of an introduction, but the brother was too much taken up with excitement, and with scolding his sister for having gotten herself lost, to take it in.

Then out came the father, who, it appeared, had been up two nights on the search, and had been taking a brief nap. His face was pale and haggard. Brownleigh liked the look of his eyes as he caught sight of his daughter, and his face lighted as he saw her spring into his arms, crying: "Daddy! Daddy! I'm so sorry I frightened you!"

Behind him, tall and disapproving, with an I-told-you-so in her eye, stood Aunt Maria.

"Headstrong girl," she murmured severely. "You have given us all two terrible days!" and she pecked Hazel's cheek stiffly. But no one heard her in the excitement.

Behind Aunt Maria Hazel's maid wrung her hands and wept in a kind of hysterical joy over her mistress' return, and back of her in the gloom of the car vestibule loomed the dark countenance of Hamar with an angry, red mark across one cheek. He did not look particularly anxious to be there. The missionary turned from his evil face with repulsion.

In the confusion and delight over the return of the lost one the man of the desert prepared to slip away, but just as he was about to mount his pony Hazel turned and saw him.

"Daddy, come over here and speak to the man who found me and brought me safely back again," she said, dragging her father eagerly across the platform to where the missionary stood.

The father came readily enough and Hazel talked rapidly, her eyes shining, her cheeks like twin roses, telling in a breath of the horrors and darkness and rescue, and the thoughtfulness of her stranger-rescuer.

Mr. Radcliffe came forward with outstretched hand to greet him, and the missionary took off his hat and stood with easy grace to shake hands. He was not conscious then of the fire of eyes upon him, cold society stares from Aunt Maria, Hamar and young Radcliffe, as if to say, How dared he presume to expect recognition for doing what was a simple duty! He noted only the genuine heartiness in the face of the father as he thanked him for what he had done. Then, like the practical man of the world that he was, Mr. Radcliffe reached his hand into his pocket and drew out his check book remarking, as if it were a matter of course, that he wished to reward his daughter's rescuer handsomely, and inquiring his name as he pulled off the cap from his fountain pen.

Brownleigh stood back stiffly with a heightened colour, and an almost haughty look upon his face.

"Thank you," he said coldly, "I could not think of taking anything for a mere act of humanity. It was a pleasure to be able to serve your daughter," and he swung himself easily into the saddle.

But Mr. Radcliffe was unaccustomed to such independence in those who served him and he began to bl.u.s.ter. Hazel, however, her cheeks fairly blazing, her eyes filled with mortification, put a hand upon her father's arm.

"Daddy, you don't understand," she said earnestly; "my new friend is a clergyman--he is a missionary, daddy!"

"Nonsense, daughter! You don't understand these matters. Just wait until I am through. I cannot let a deed like this go unrewarded. A missionary, did you say? Then if you won't take anything for yourself take it for your church; it's all the same in the end," and he gave a knowing wink towards the missionary whose anger was rising rapidly, and who was having much ado to keep a meek and quiet spirit.