The Man of the Forest Part 8

"I certainly could love that fellow," replied Bo, dreamily.

"Child, you've been saying that about fellows for a long time. And you've never looked twice at any of them yet."

"He was different.... Nell, I'll bet he comes to Pine."

"I hope he does. I wish he was on this train. I liked his looks, Bo."

"Well, Nell dear, he looked at ME first and last--so don't get your hopes up.... Oh, the train's starting!... Good-by, Albu-ker--what's that awful name?... Nell, let's eat dinner. I'm starved."

Then Helen forgot her troubles and the uncertain future, and what with listening to Bo's chatter, and partaking again of the endless good things to eat in the huge basket, and watching the n.o.ble mountains, she drew once more into happy mood.

The valley of the Rio Grande opened to view, wide near at hand in a great gray-green gap between the bare black mountains, narrow in the distance, where the yellow river wound away, glistening under a hot sun. Bo squealed in glee at sight of naked little Mexican children that darted into adobe huts as the train clattered by, and she exclaimed her pleasure in the Indians, and the mustangs, and particularly in a group of cowboys riding into town on spirited horses. Helen saw all Bo pointed out, but it was to the wonderful rolling valley that her gaze clung longest, and to the dim purple distance that seemed to hold something from her. She had never before experienced any feeling like that; she had never seen a tenth so far. And the sight awoke something strange in her. The sun was burning hot, as she could tell when she put a hand outside the window, and a strong wind blew sheets of dry dust at the train. She gathered at once what tremendous factors in the Southwest were the sun and the dust and the wind. And her realization made her love them. It was there; the open, the wild, the beautiful, the lonely land; and she felt the poignant call of blood in her--to seek, to strive, to find, to live. One look down that yellow valley, endless between its dark iron ramparts, had given her understanding of her uncle. She must be like him in spirit, as it was claimed she resembled him otherwise.

At length Bo grew tired of watching scenery that contained no life, and, with her bright head on the faded cloak, she went to sleep. But Helen kept steady, fa.r.s.eeing gaze out upon that land of rock and plain; and during the long hours, as she watched through clouds of dust and veils of heat, some strong and doubtful and restless sentiment seemed to change and then to fix. It was her physical acceptance--her eyes and her senses taking the West as she had already taken it in spirit.

A woman should love her home wherever fate placed her, Helen believed, and not so much from duty as from delight and romance and living. How could life ever be tedious or monotonous out here in this tremendous vastness of bare earth and open sky, where the need to achieve made thinking and pondering superficial?

It was with regret that she saw the last of the valley of the Rio Grande, and then of its paralleled mountain ranges. But the miles brought compensation in other valleys, other bold, black upheavals of rock, and then again bare, boundless yellow plains, and spa.r.s.ely cedared ridges, and white dry washes, ghastly in the sunlight, and dazzling beds of alkali, and then a desert s.p.a.ce where golden and blue flowers bloomed.

She noted, too, that the whites and yellows of earth and rock had begun to shade to red--and this she knew meant an approach to Arizona. Arizona, the wild, the lonely, the red desert, the green plateau--Arizona with its thundering rivers, its unknown s.p.a.ces, its pasture-lands and timber-lands, its wild horses, cowboys, outlaws, wolves and lions and savages! As to a boy, that name stirred and thrilled and sang to her of nameless, sweet, intangible things, mysterious and all of adventure. But she, being a girl of twenty, who had accepted responsibilities, must conceal the depths of her heart and that which her mother had complained was her misfortune in not being born a boy.

Time pa.s.sed, while Helen watched and learned and dreamed. The train stopped, at long intervals, at wayside stations where there seemed nothing but adobe sheds and lazy Mexicans, and dust and heat. Bo awoke and began to chatter, and to dig into the basket. She learned from the conductor that Magdalena was only two stations on. And she was full of conjectures as to who would meet them, what would happen. So Helen was drawn back to sober realities, in which there was considerable zest.

a.s.suredly she did not know what was going to happen. Twice Riggs pa.s.sed up and down the aisle, his dark face and light eyes and sardonic smile deliberately forced upon her sight. But again Helen fought a growing dread with contemptuous scorn. This fellow was not half a man. It was not conceivable what he could do, except annoy her, until she arrived at Pine. Her uncle was to meet her or send for her at Snowdrop, which place, Helen knew, was distant a good long ride by stage from Magdalena.

This stage-ride was the climax and the dread of all the long journey, in Helen's considerations.

"Oh, Nell!" cried Bo, with delight. "We're nearly there! Next station, the conductor said."

"I wonder if the stage travels at night," said Helen, thoughtfully.

"Sure it does!" replied the irrepressible Bo.

The train, though it clattered along as usual, seemed to Helen to fly.

There the sun was setting over bleak New Mexican bluffs, Magdalena was at hand, and night, and adventure. Helen's heart beat fast. She watched the yellow plains where the cattle grazed; their presence, and irrigation ditches and cottonwood-trees told her that the railroad part of the journey was nearly ended. Then, at Bo's little scream, she looked across the car and out of the window to see a line of low, flat, red-adobe houses. The train began to slow down. Helen saw children run, white children and Mexican together; then more houses, and high upon a hill an immense adobe church, crude and glaring, yet somehow beautiful.

Helen told Bo to put on her bonnet, and, performing a like office for herself, she was ashamed of the trembling of her fingers. There were bustle and talk in the car.

The train stopped. Helen peered out to see a straggling crowd of Mexicans and Indians, all motionless and stolid, as if trains or nothing else mattered. Next Helen saw a white man, and that was a relief. He stood out in front of the others. Tall and broad, somehow striking, he drew a second glance that showed him to be a hunter clad in gray-fringed buckskin, and carrying a rifle.

CHAPTER V

Here, there was no kindly brakeman to help the sisters with their luggage. Helen bade Bo take her share; thus burdened, they made an awkward and laborious shift to get off the train.

Upon the platform of the car a strong hand seized Helen's heavy bag, with which she was straining, and a loud voice called out:

"Girls, we're here--sure out in the wild an' woolly West!"

The speaker was Riggs, and he had possessed himself of part of her baggage with action and speech meant more to impress the curious crowd than to be really kind. In the excitement of arriving Helen had forgotten him. The manner of sudden reminder--the insincerity of it--made her temper flash. She almost fell, enc.u.mbered as she was, in her hurry to descend the steps. She saw the tall hunter in gray step forward close to her as she reached for the bag Riggs held.

"Mr. Riggs, I'll carry my bag," she said.

"Let me lug this. You help Bo with hers," he replied, familiarly.

"But I want it," she rejoined, quietly, with sharp determination. No little force was needed to pull the bag away from Riggs.

"See here, Helen, you ain't goin' any farther with that joke, are you?"

he queried, deprecatingly, and he still spoke quite loud.

"It's no joke to me," replied Helen. "I told you I didn't want your attention."

"Sure. But that was temper. I'm your friend--from your home town. An' I ain't goin' to let a quarrel keep me from lookin' after you till you're safe at your uncle's."

Helen turned her back upon him. The tall hunter had just helped Bo off the car. Then Helen looked up into a smooth bronzed face and piercing gray eyes.

"Are you Helen Rayner?" he asked.

"Yes."

"My name's Dale. I've come to meet you."

"Ah! My uncle sent you?" added Helen, in quick relief.

"No; I can't say Al sent me," began the man, "but I reckon--"

He was interrupted by Riggs, who, grasping Helen by the arm, pulled her back a step.

"Say, mister, did Auchincloss send you to meet my young friends here?"

he demanded, arrogantly.

Dale's glance turned from Helen to Riggs. She could not read this quiet gray gaze, but it thrilled her.

"No. I come on my own hook," he answered.

"You'll understand, then--they're in my charge," added Riggs.

This time the steady light-gray eyes met Helen's, and if there was not a smile in them or behind them she was still further baffled.

"Helen, I reckon you said you didn't want this fellow's attention."

"I certainly said that," replied Helen, quickly. Just then Bo slipped close to her and gave her arm a little squeeze. Probably Bo's thought was like hers--here was a real Western man. That was her first impression, and following swiftly upon it was a sensation of eased nerves.

Riggs swaggered closer to Dale.

"Say, Buckskin, I hail from Texas--"

"You're wastin' our time an' we've need to hurry," interrupted Dale. His tone seemed friendly. "An' if you ever lived long in Texas you wouldn't pester a lady an' you sure wouldn't talk like you do."