The Port of Adventure Part 35

"Am I all right?" she inquired modestly.

"Better than all right," he allowed himself to answer.

"I do think this hat of Hawaiian straw is a success. And you--well, I'm rather proud of my trail guide. Used you to dress like that in your cowboy days?"

Nick laughed. "Great Scot, no! I'd have been in rags in no time. Didn't you ever see a cowpuncher's 'shaps'?"

"No; I don't even know what they are. Have you kept your cowboy things?"

"Oh, yes. They're knocking around somewhere. I have to put them on once in a while."

"If I accept your invitation to come and see your place, will you 'dress up' in them?"

"Of course, if it'd please you. But I'd feel a fool rigging myself out just to show off, like an actor."

"Yet, that's the bribe you'll have to offer if you want me to pay you a visit."

"It's settled then. I hope the moths haven't got my 'shaps' since I had 'em on last."

They both laughed and went to breakfast. What a good world it was! Angela told Nick the tale of the mysterious apparition of a beauteous "nighty,"

and wondered how she could ever have felt unhappy, or depressingly grown up.

The others who were going to Mirror Lake were almost ready to start, and the "buckboard" which was to take Nick and Angela had come to the hotel door. But these two, at all times small eaters, were exhilarated by the wine of life, and a little milk and bread sufficed them. They did not keep the party waiting, and so they were regarded with favour--the handsome young man and the lovely girl about whose relations to each other people were quite good-naturedly speculating. Angela saw that she was regarded with interest, and that eyes turned from her to Nick. But she was "only Mrs. May, whom n.o.body knows." After the drive on the buckboard she and Nick would be separating from the rest. That night, at Glacier Point, she would find Kate, already arrived from El Portal; and then she would never see any of these pleasant questioning-eyed young people again. The most reckless part of the adventure would be over with this day--and she was rather sorry. After all, she did not much regret the wave of fate which had swept her and her maid-chaperon temporarily apart. There was a certain piquancy in travelling alone with this knight-errant.

Mirror Lake--well-named--was asleep still, and dreaming of the mountains which imprisoned it as dragons used to imprison princesses in gla.s.s retorts. There was the dream, lying deep down and visible under the clear surface; and when every one else had gone off to the trail ponies, Nick and Angela stayed to watch the water's waking. It was a darting fish which, with a splash and a ripple, shattered the picture; but the ripple died, and the lake slept again, taking up its dream where it had been broken off, as Angela had tried to do. She had failed, for her picture had changed for the worse when she found it again; but the second dream of Mirror Lake was fairer than the first. Into it there stole a joyous luminance which made saints' haloes for the reflected heads of mountains.

The sun rose, and stepped slowly into the water's dream. It flung the lake a golden loving cup, thrilling it to the heart with that bright gift.

A little farther on, by the Happy Isles--small, lovely islands of rock in the river's whirl--Nick and Angela found their trail ponies waiting in charge of a boy. But Nick knew the trail well, and was to be the sole guide, as they had always planned. He put Angela up on an intelligent brown bronco, which had to be ridden Mexican fashion; and they set off together, the boy looking after them as if he, too, would have liked to follow the trail.

Far ahead they could see the procession of their lost companions, just rounding a sharp corner. They were an admirable cavalcade in khaki, the men wearing sombreros, the girls with brilliant blue or green veils tied over big hats, and scarlet silk handkerchiefs knotted at their necks. The gaily coloured figures on horse or mule back fitted the picture as appropriately as if they had been Indians; and Angela gazed at them with pleasure; but she felt no wish to join the band.

Nick led; she rode close behind, sometimes mounting, sometimes descending the narrow trail toward Glacier Point. By and by Hall Dome, one of the great granite mountains, began to dominate the world; but though the cascades were in his kingdom they could not be governed by him, because spirits are not ruled by earthly kings. There was Vernal Fall, gentle in majesty; and Nevada, a wild and untamed water spirit; and retrospect glimpses of the Yosemite Falls.

Close to Nevada, they reached a famous viewpoint, and Nick took Angela off her pony that she might stand near the edge and see the white torrent plunge over an unthinkable abyss. Always she had hated to look down from heights, because they made her long to jump and end everything. But to-day she was in love with life, and the leap of the waters quickened her heart with a sense of power. On the pony again, as they went up and up, or down steep rocky ways on the verge of sheer abysses, she had no fear. She seemed to be learning a lesson of peace, a lesson such as only unspoiled nature can teach.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_The world was a sea, billowing with mountains_"]

From the high levels they had reached, they looked down on clouds that glittered silver-white as snow-capped mountain-heads. Among the rocks, where the ponies' hoofs picked their way, wild flowers sprang, strange and lovely blossoms such as Angela had never seen; but Nick knew most of them by name. Bird notes dropped like honey from fragrant shrubs and trees that hid the singers. Squirrels with plumed tails, and chipmunks striped white, gray, and brown, raced across the trail, or peered with the bright beads they had for eyes from piles of dead wood that lay gray as skeletons among the living green of the mountain forest. Far below, Silver Ap.r.o.n Fall splashed into the Emerald Pool and turned its green jewels to diamonds.

The near forests and faraway waters sang in the different voices the same song other waters and forests had sung yesterday; but this song of the High Sierra had wilder notes, above and beyond all knowledge of fleeting episodes such as human lives and civilizations. For the song had not changed since the world was young. The air was not mere air, but seemingly a conscious mingling of Divine Ether with the atmosphere. Though they ascended always, it was as if they rode through the depths of a crystal sea, unstirred by their presence, a sea as deep and as high as heaven, a blue that took the solidity of turquoise between tree-trunks and paled to opaline fire across the canon. Angela knew that never again, after these s.p.a.cious days, could she go back to her old self. She felt that she had mounted one step higher on the stage of development, and gained an ampler view. It was easier now than it had been to see how Nick Hilliard had become what he was. Nature, on the grandest scale and with the "grand manner," she thought, had given him his education; had been for him at once schoolmistress, guide, and companion. And no college built by man could give, for money, such knowledge as sky and wide s.p.a.ces had given Nick for love.

Early in the afternoon the ponies brought them to the high plateau of Glacier Point, where, looking down, the world was a sea billowing with mountains, foaming with cataracts.

Angela was deliciously tired; and the long low hotel, built of logs, with a huge veranda, seemed to promise the welcome she wanted: a cool, clean room, a warm bath, and afterward luncheon. Also, she expected to find Kate. Nick had wired, or telephoned, she was uncertain which; and though no answer had been received, Kate's silence might no doubt be easily explained later. Angela felt confident that she would have precisely the room she pictured; she rather hoped it would be white and green.

The manager met them on the veranda, but it was not the manager Nick had known.

"My name's Hilliard," Nick began.

"Oh, yes. I 'phoned an answer to you at the Sentinel Hotel this morning.

Something wrong with the wire between us yesterday."

"We must have started before you 'phoned."

"Well, I'm sorry. You wanted two rooms. But the best we can do for you and Mrs. Hilliard is one."

"Great Scot, you don't know what you're talking about!" gasped Nick. "This is Mrs. May."

"Beg your pardon, Mr. May. I thought you said your name was Hilliard."

"It is. But hers isn't. We--I--I'm only her guide," stammered Nick, so deeply embarra.s.sed for Angela's sake that for the moment he lost his presence of mind. "It's the last straw," he thought. "She'll never forgive me." And he dared not look to see how she had taken the blow, until she surprised him by laughing. She was blushing a little, too.

"Do you remember the laundry in New Orleans?" she asked. "I'm afraid it will have to be the laundry for you again, or else a refrigerator."

Nick was of opinion that the refrigerator would better suit the state of his complexion, which needed cooling, but his relief at seeing Angela amused, not offended, was too great for words. He mumbled something vague about any cupboard or cellar being good enough, and began to recover himself; but his confusion had been contagious. The hotel manager caught the disease, and hoped Mrs. Willard would excuse him--no, he meant Mrs.

Day--no, really he began to be afraid that he didn't remember rightly _what_ he meant! He'd got Mrs. Milliard and Mr. Hay mixed up, and would they sort themselves, please? Once he had them straightened out in his mind, he'd try to keep them straight.

"Has my maid come on from El Portal?" Angela thought this a propitious moment for a question on some other subject.

"Your maid? No, Mrs. Hill, she hasn't."

"And no message? How strange!"

"Nothing that I've heard of. But I'll let you know. If Mr. Mayard--Mr.

Mill, will come with me to the 'phone, when you're in his room--I mean, when you're in yours--we may get on to El Portal."

Angela was still laughing to herself, when word was brought by a chambermaid that Kate had telephoned from El Portal. She had hurt her ankle in getting into the stage (Angela could quite imagine that!), and had not been able to proceed. It was not, however, a regular sprain. She was in bandages, but better; and it was now settled that, without fail, she was to meet Mrs. May at Wawona to-morrow. "And your husband wants to know," added the chambermaid, "what time you would like to have your lunch."

"He is not my husband," said Angela.

The young woman froze.

"We are friends."

The scandalized muscles relaxed. There was a high n.o.bility in friendship.

The chambermaid herself had a friend, who talked a great deal about Plato, in the cheap edition.

"And will you please say I shall be ready in twenty minutes?"

Standing on the hotel veranda together, after luncheon, "Mrs. Mill and Mr.

Hayward"--he restored to calmness--could look thousands of feet down to the floor of the valley. Exactly how many thousands of feet there were Angela refused to be told, for the distance seemed illimitable, and cold facts might dwarf imagination. They saw the Yosemite Falls, a quivering white vein on a dark wall a million miles away. Mirror Lake was a splinter of gla.s.s on a pavement of green tiles. Nevada and Vernal Falls were pale yet bright as streaks of stardrift, in the blue haze of distance.

If it had not been for the episode of Mrs. Hilliard and Mr. May, Nick might have felt tempted to try his fate, and dare the dash across the "dead line," that evening of moonlight on the mountain-top. But it might, he thought, seem like presuming on what had happened; and having come, more or less safely, round an awkward turning, he was thankful to find himself on a narrow ledge of security. The moonshine, that turned mountains to marble and sky to pearl, was cold as it was pure; and in its bleaching radiance Angela seemed less woman than spirit. He dared not let that angel know how hot was his heart.

"I'll wait till we're among the Big Trees," he said to himself. "They're great, as great as the mountains in their way, but they're friendly and kind, as if they might help. That's where I'll risk it all: in the Mariposa Forest, the place I like better than any other in the world. So whatever happens, we shall have seen the best there is together, and all that will be mine to remember, if I lose everything else."

The next day was a day of forest and flowers.

They were not travelling this time in an ordinary stage, for Nick had secured a buckboard for themselves alone, with a driver who knew the country, with its beauties and legends, as well as he knew his big muscular gray horses.