Told In The Hills Part 38

"Brother," she whispered, calling him by the name his mother had left her; "dear brother, don't you sit there like that;" and a vague terror came to her as he made no sign. "You--you frighten me."

She slipped her hand about his neck with a child's caressing sympathy, and then a wild scream brought the people hurrying into the room.

"He is dead!" she cried, as she dropped beside him; "sitting there cold as stone, and we thought he didn't care! And he is dead--dead!"

But he was not dead--the physician soon a.s.sured them of that. It was only a cataleptic fit. The emotion that had melted the one brother to tears had frozen the other into the closest semblance to stone that life can reach, and still be life.

The silence was thrilling as Stuart's voice ceased, and he stooped for the other pages laid by his chair.

A feeling that the story on paper could never convey was brought to every listener by the something in his voice that was not tears, but suggested the emotion back of tears. They had always acknowledged the magnetism of the man, but felt that he was excelling himself in this instance. Tillie and Fred were silently crying. Rachel was staring very steadily ahead of her, too steadily to notice that the hand laid on Genesee's revolver at the commencement of the story had gradually relaxed and dropped listless beside him. All the strength in his body seemed to creep into his eyes as he watched Stuart, trusting as much to his eyes as his ears for the complete comprehension of the object in or back of that story. In the short pause the author, with one sweeping glance, read his advantage--that he was holding in the bonds of sympathy this man whom he could never conquer through an impersonal influence.

The knowledge was a ten-fold inspiration--the point to be gained was so great to him; and with his voice thrilling them all with its intensity, he read on and on.

The story? Its finish was the beginning of this one; but it was told with a spirit that can not be transmitted by ink and paper, for the teller depended little on his written copy. He knew it by heart--knew all the tenderness of a love-story in it that was careless of the future as the b.u.t.terflies that coquette on a summer's day, pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing with a mere touch of wings, a challenge to a kiss, and then darting hither and yon in the chase that grows laughing and eager, until each flash of white wings in the sun bears them high above the heads of their comrades, as the divine pa.s.sion raises all its votaries above the commonplace. Close and closer they are drawn by the spirit that lifts them into a new life; high and higher, until against the blue sky there is a final flash of white wings. It is the wedding by a kiss, and the coquettings are over--the sky closes in. They are a world of their own.

Such a love story of summer was told by him in the allegory of the b.u.t.terflies; but the young heart throbbing through it was that of the woman-child who had wept while the two brothers had clasped hands and accepted her as the trust of the dying; and her joyous teacher of love had been the fair-haired, fine-faced boy whose grief had been so great and whose promises so fervent. It is a very old story, but an ever-pathetic one--that tragedy of life; and likewise this one, without thought of sin, with only a fatal fondness on her part, a fatal desire for being loved on his, and a season's farewell to be uttered, of which they could speak no word--the emotions that have led to more than one tragedy of soul. And one of the b.u.t.terflies in this one flitted for many days through the flowers of her garden, shy, yet happy, whispering over and over, "His wife, his wife!" while traveling southward, the other felt a pa.s.sion of remorse in his heart, and resolved on mult.i.tudinous plans for the following of a perfection of life in the future.

All this he told--too delicately to give offense, yet too unsparingly not to show that the evil wrought in a moment of idle pastime, of joyous carelessness, is as fatal in its results as the most deliberate act of preconceived wickedness.

And back of the lives and loves of those two, with their emotional impulses and joyous union of untutored hearts, there arose, unloved and seemingly unloving, the quiet, watchful figure of the Esau.

Looking at his life from a distance, and perhaps through eyes of remorse, the writer had idealized that one character, while he had only photographed the others; had studied out the deeds back of every decided action, and discovered, or thought he had, that it was the lack of sympathy in his home-life had made a sort of human porcupine of him, and none had guessed that, back of the keen darts, there beat a pulse hungry for words such as he begged from his mother at the last--and receiving, was ready to sacrifice every hope of his, present or future, that he might prove himself worthy of the trust she had granted him, though so late.

Something in the final ignoring of self and the taking on his own shoulders the responsibilities of those two whom his mother had loved--something in all that, made him appear a character of heroic proportions, viewed from Stuart's point of view. He walked through those pages as a live thing, the feeling in the author's voice testifying to his own earnestness in the portrayal--an earnestness that seemed to gain strength as he went along, and held his listeners with convincing power until the abrupt close of the scene between those two men in the old New Orleans house.

Everyone felt vaguely surprised and disturbed when he finished--it was all so totally unlike Stuart's stories with which he had entertained them before. They were unprepared for the emotions provoked; and there was in it, and in the reading, a suggestion of something beyond all that was told.

The silence was so long that Stuart himself was the first to lift his eyes to those opposite, and tried to say carelessly:

"Well?"

His face was pale, but not more so than that of Genesee, who, surprised in that intent gaze, tried to meet his eyes steadily, but failed, faltered, wavered, and finally turned to Rachel, as if seeking in some way his former a.s.surance. And what he saw there was the reaching out of her hand until it touched Stuart's shoulder with a gesture of approving comradeship.

"Good!" she said tersely; "don't ever again talk of writing for pastime--the character of that one man is enough to be proud of."

"But there are two men," said Fred, finding her voice again, with a sense of relief; "which one do you mean?"

"No," contradicted Rachel, with sharp decision; "I can see only one--the Esau."

Stuart shrank a little under her hand, not even thanking her for the words of praise; and, to her surprise, it was Genesee who answered her, his eyes steady enough, except when looking at the author of the story.

"Don't be too quick about playing judge," he suggested; and the words took her back like a flash to that other time when he had given her the same curt advice. "May be that boy had some good points that are not put down there. Maybe he might have had plans about doing the square thing, and something upset them; or--or he might have got tangled up in a lariat he wasn't looking for. It's just natural bad luck some men have of getting tangled up like that; and may be he--this fellow--"

Fred broke out laughing at his reasoning for the defense.

"Why, Mr. Genesee," she said gleefully, "an audience of you would be an inspiration to an author or actor; you are talking about the man as if he was a flesh and blood specimen, instead of belonging to Mr. Stuart's imagination."

"Yes, I reckon you're right, Miss," he said, rising to his feet, with a queer, half-apologetic smile; "you see, I'm not used to hearing folks read--romances." But the insolent sarcasm with which he had spoken of the word at first was gone.

The others had all regained their tongues, or the use of them, and comment and praise were given the author--not much notice taken of Genesee's opinion and protest. His theories of the character might be natural ones; but his own likelihood for entanglements, to judge by his reputation, was apt to prejudice him, rendering him unduly charitable toward any other fellow who was unlucky.

"My only objection to it," said Tillie, "is that there is not enough of it. It seems unfinished."

"Well, he warned us in the beginning that it was only a prologue,"

reminded her husband; "but there is a good deal in it, too, for only a prologue--a good deal."

"For my part," remarked the Lieutenant, "I don't think I should want anything added to it. Just as it stands, it proves the characters of the two men. If it was carried further, it might gain nothing, and leave nothing for one's imagination."

"I had not thought of that," said Stuart; "in fact, it was only written to help myself in a.n.a.lyzing two characters I had in my head, and could not get rid of until I put them on paper. Authors are haunted by such ghosts sometimes. It is Miss Fred's fault that I resurrected this one to-night--she thrust on me the accidental remembrance."

"There are mighty few accidents in the world," was Genesee's concise statement, as he pulled on his heavy buckskin gloves. "I'm about to cut for camp. Going?" This to the Lieutenant.

After that laconic remark on accidents, no further word or notice was exchanged between Stuart and Genesee; but it was easily seen that the story read had smoothed out several wrinkles of threatened discord and discontent. It had at least tamed the spirit of the scout, and left him more the man Rachel knew in him. Her impatience at his manner early in the evening disappeared as he showed improvement; and just before they left, she crossed over to him, asking something of the snows on the Scot Mountain trail, his eyes warming at the directness of her speech and movement, showing to any who cared to notice that she spoke to him as to a friend; but his glance turned instinctively from her to Stuart. He remembered watching them that day as they rode from camp.

"But what of Davy?" she repeated; "have you heard any word of him?"

"No, and I'm ashamed to say it," he acknowledged; "I haven't been to see him at all since I got back. I've had a lot of things in my head to keep track of, and didn't even send. I'll do it, though, in a day or so--or else go myself."

"I'm afraid he may be sick. If the snow is not bad, it's a wonder he has not been down. I believe I will go."

"I don't like you to go over those trails alone," he said in a lower tone; "not just now, at any rate."

"Why not now?"

"Well, you know these Indian troubles may bring queer cattle into the country. The Kootenai tribe would rather take care of you than do you harm; but--well, I reckon you had better keep to the ranch."

"And you don't reckon you can trust me to tell me why?" she said in a challenging way.

"It mightn't do any good. I don't know, you see, that it is really dangerous, only I'd rather you'd keep on the safe side; and--and--don't say I can't trust you. I'd trust you with my life--yes, more than that, if I had it!"

His voice was not heard by the others, who were laughing and chatting, it was so low; but its intensity made her step back, looking up at him.

"Don't look as if I frighten you," he said quickly; "I didn't come in here for that. You shouldn't have made me come, anyway--I belong to the outside; coming in only helps me remember it."

"So that was what put you in such a humor. I thought it was Stuart."

"You did?"

"Yes; I know you don't like him--but, I think you are prejudiced."

"Oh, you do?" And she saw the same inscrutable smile on his face that she had noticed when he looked at Stuart.

"There--there," she laughed, throwing up her hand as if to check him, "don't tell me again that I am too anxious to judge people; but he is a good fellow."

"And you are a good girl," he said warmly, looking down at her with so much feeling in his face that Stuart, glancing toward them, was startled into strange conjectures at the revelation in it. It was the first time he had ever seen them talking together.

"And you're a plucky girl, too," added Genesee, "else you wouldn't stand here talking to me before everyone. I'll remember it always of you.

Tillik.u.m, good-night."