The Soldier of the Valley Part 17

Hear them!" he cried.

I was up too. Away down the ridge we heard the bay of the hounds again.

"I want to tell you something," I said, pointing to the house by the clump of oaks. "I wish for your sake that there were two Marys, Weston. But there is only one, and she is good and beautiful, and for some reason--Heaven only knows why--she is going to be my wife."

Weston stepped hack and gazed at me. I did not blame him. He seemed to study me from head to foot, and I knew that he was trying to find some reason why the girl should care for me. It was natural. I had puzzled over the same problem and I had not solved it. Now I did not care.

"Stare on," I cried, laughing. "You can't think it queerer than I do.

It's hard for me to convince myself that it is true."

"I am glad," he said, taking my hand in a warm grasp. "It isn't strange at all, Mark, for Mary is a wise woman."

"There are the dogs," said I; "they are getting nearer."

"They are coming our way at last," he returned quietly. "But what's that to us when you are to be married? I wish you joy and I shall be at the wedding, and it must be soon, too, and Tim shall be here." He was speaking very rapidly; his face was pale and his hand trembled in mine. "I'll send for him. Tim must have a holiday, and perhaps he'll bring Miss--Miss Smyth." Weston laughed. "Parker," he corrected.

"He'll bring Miss Parker or Mrs. Tim."

Full and strong the bay of the hounds was ringing along the ridges.

Nearer and nearer they were coming. Now I could hear old Captain's deep tones, and the shorter, sharper tongue of Betsy, Mike, and Major.

The fox was keeping to the ridge-top and in a few moments he would be sweeping by us. I pointed through the woods to a bit of clearing made by a charcoal burner. If he kept his course the fox would cross it, and that meant a clear shot. Weston knew the place, and without a word he picked up his gun and hurried through the woods.

Nearer and nearer came the hounds. The woods were ringing with their music, and the sound of the chase swung to and fro, from ridge to ridge. Now I could hear the crashing of the underbrush.

Weston fired. The report rattled from hill to hill.

My own gun sprang to the shoulder, but it was too late. The fox, seeing me, veered down the slope, and swept on to safety or to death, for six more anxious hunters were watching for him somewhere in those woods.

The dogs swept by, old Captain as ever leading, with Betsy at his haunches and Mike and Major neck and neck behind.

I watched for little Colonel. A minute pa.s.sed and he did not come.

Poor puppy! He had learned that to live was to suffer. Somewhere in these woods he must be lying, resting those ponderous paws and licking his b.l.o.o.d.y flanks.

The hollow was alive with the bay of dogs; the ridges were ringing with the echoes of a gunshot; but above them all I heard a plaintive wail over there in the charcoal clearing. I called for Weston and I got no answer, only the cry of the little hound. I called again and I got no answer. Through the hushes I tore as fast as my crutches would take me, calling as I ran and hearing only the wail of the puppy, till I broke from the cover into the open.

On his haunches, his slantwise eyes half closed, his head lifted high in the bright sunlight, sat little Colonel, wailing. He heard me call.

He saw me. And when I reached him he was licking the white face of Whiskey Weston.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sat little Colonel, wailing.]

XIII

Hindsight is better than foresight. A foolish saying. By foresight we do G.o.d's will. By hindsight we would seek to better His handiwork.

Things are right as they are, I say, as I sit quietly of an evening smoking my pipe on my porch, watching the mountains in the west bathe in the gold and purple of the descending sun. What might have been, might also have been all wrong. A foolish saying, says Tim, for if what might have been should actually be, then we should have the realization of our fondest dreams. And with that realization might come a dreadful awakening from our dreams, say I. You might have become a tea-king, Tim, and measure your fortune in millions. I might have turned lawyer instead of soldier; I might have made a great name for myself in Congress by long speeches full of dry facts and figures, or short ones puffed up with pompous phrases. The fact that Six Stars existed might have gone beyond our valley because here you and I were born, and for a time we honored the place with our presence. Suppose all that had been, and you the tea-king and I the great lawyer sat here together as we sit now, smoking, could you add one note to the evening peace; would the night-hawk pay us homage by a single added ring as he circles among the clouds; would the bull-frogs in the creek sing louder to our glory; would the bleating of the sheep swing in sweeter to the music of the valley? And look at G.o.d's fireplace, I cry, pointing to the west, where the sun is heaping the glowing cloud coals among the mountains. G.o.d's fireplace? says Tim, with a queer look in his eyes.

Yes, say I, and the valley is the hearthstone. The mountains are the andirons. Over them, piled sky high, the cloud-logs are glowing, and never logs burned like those, all gold and red. Night after night I can sit here and warm my heart at that fireside. Could you, tea-king, buy for my eyes a picture more wonderful? The fire is dying. The cloud coals grow fainter--now purple; and now in ashes they float away into the chill blue. But they will come again. Could your millions, tea-king, buy for me a sweeter music than the valley's heart throb as it rocks itself to sleep?

"No," Tim answers, "but suppose----"

"And could I have better company to watch and listen with?" I exclaim.

"For with you a tea-king, Tim, and I a lawyer, it would be just the same, would it not?"

"That's just what I was trying to get at," says Tim. "Suppose that day of the fox-hunt you had not carried Weston----"

I hold up my hand to check him.

"Were it to happen a hundred times over, I would take him to Mary's," I cry. "Else he would have died."

"You are right, Mark," Tim says.

I took Weston to Mary's house that day when I found him lying in the charcoal clearing, with little Colonel standing over him wailing.

Tearing open his coat and shirt, I stanched his wound as best I could.

Then I called the others to me. Tip and Arnold picked him up and carried him, while Murphy Kallaberger and I broke a path through the bushes, and Aaron ran on to Warden's to tell them of the accident and have them prepare for the wounded man. Warden's was the nearest house, but that was a mile from the clearing, and in the woods our progress was slow. Once free of the ridges and in the open fields the way was easy, and Murphy could lend a hand to the others.

"He's monstrous light," Tip said. "He doesn't seem no more than skin and bones in fancy rags."

It is strange how even our clothes go back on us when we are down.

Weston I had always known as a lanky man, but about his loosely fitting garments there had been an air of careless distinction. Now that he was broken, they hung with such an odd perversion as to bring from its hiding-place every sharp angle in the thin frame. The best nine tailors living could not have clothed him better for that little journey, nor lessened a whit the pathos of the thin arms that lay limply across the shoulders of Tip and Arnold.

"He's a livin' skelington," old Arker whispered, as I plodded along at his side. "Poor devil!"

"Poor devil!" said I. For looking at the almost lifeless man I thought of my own good fortune. This morning I had envied him. Now he had nothing but his wealth, and his hold on that was weakening fast. I had everything--life and health, home and friends--I had Mary. As we parted a few minutes before, up there in the woods, I had pitied him.

He had seemed so lonely, so bitter in his loneliness, and yet at heart so good. Now his eyes half opened as they carried him on, his glance met mine in recognition, and it seemed to me that he smiled faintly.

But it was the same bitter smile. "Poor devil!" I said to myself.

And we carried him into Mary's house.

She was waiting for us, and without a word led us upstairs to a room where we laid him on a bed.

"I stumbled, Mark, I stumbled," he whispered, as I leaned over him.

"The fox came and I ran for it--then I fell--and then the little hound came, and then----"

Mary was bathing his forehead, and for the first time he saw her.

"I stumbled, Mary," he whispered. "I swear it."

It was nearly ten o'clock when I left Weston's room. The doctor was with him and was preparing to bivouac at the patient's side. He was a young man from the big valley. Luther Warden had driven to the county town and brought him back to us. The first misgivings I had when I caught sight of his youthful, beardless face were dispelled by the business-like way in which he went about his work. He had been in a volunteer regiment, he told me, as an a.s.sistant surgeon, but had never gone past the fever camps, as this was his first case of a gunshot wound. He had made a study of gunshot wounds, and deemed himself fortunate to be in when Mr. Warden called. Truly, said I to myself, one man's death is another man's practice. But it was best that he was so confident, and I found my faith in him growing as he worked. The wound was a bad one, he said, and the ball had narrowly missed the heart, but with care the man would come around all right. The main thing was proper nursing. The young doctor smiled as he spoke, for standing before him in a solemn row were half the women of Six Stars.

Mrs. Bolum was there with a tumbler of jelly; Mrs. Tip Pulsifer had brought her "paytent gradeated medicent gla.s.s," hoping it would be useful; Mrs. Henry Holmes had no idea what was needed, but just grabbed a hot-water bottle as she ran. Elmer Spiker's better half was there to demand her injured boarder at once; he paid for his room at the tavern; it was but right that he should occupy it and that she should care for him. When she found that she could not have him entirely, she compromised on the promise that she would be allowed to watch over him the whole of the next day. In spite of the jar of jelly, the doctor chose Mrs. Bolum to help him that night, and when I left them the old woman was sitting in a rocker at the bedside, her eyes watching every movement of the sleeping patient's drawn face.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The main thing was proper nursing.]

Outside, the wind was whistling. The steady heating of an oak branch on the porch roof told me it was blowing hard. It sounded cold. Mary stood tiptoe to reach my collar and turn it up. Then she b.u.t.toned me snug around the neck. It was the first time a woman had ever done that for me. How good it was! I absently turned the collar down again and tore my coat open. Then I smiled.

Again she raised herself tiptoe before me, and with a hand on each shoulder, she stood looking from her eyes into mine.