Trailin'! Part 50

"Oh, Anthony, if you care for me, don't stay in reach of Drew! You're breaking--"

She stopped and closed her eyes.

"Breakin' all the rules, like any tenderfoot would be expected to do."

She glanced at him, wistful, to see whether or not she had smoothed it over; his face was a blank.

"You won't go?"

"Nope."

He insisted cruelly: "Why?"

"Because--because--well, can I leave a baby alone near a fire? Not me!"

Her voice changed. The light and the life was gone from it, but not all the music. It was low, a little hoa.r.s.e.

"I guess we can stay here tonight without no danger. And in the morning--well, the morning can take care of itself. I'm going to turn in."

He rose obediently and stood at the door, facing the night. From behind came the rustle of clothes, and the sense of her followed and surrounded and stood at his shoulder calling to him to turn. He had won, but he began to wonder if it had not been a Pyrrhic victory.

At length: "All right, Anthony. It's your turn."

She was lying on her side, facing the wall, a little heap of clothes on the foot of her bunk, and the lithe lines of her body something to be guessed at--sensed beneath the heavy blanket. He slipped into his own bunk and lay a moment watching the heavy drift of shadows across the ceiling. He strove to think, but the waves of light and dark blotted from his mind all except the feeling of her nearness, that indefinable power keen as the fragrance of a garden, which had never quite become disentangled from his spirit. She was there, so close. If he called, she would answer; if she answered------

He turned to the wall, shut his eyes, and closed his mind with a Spartan effort. His breathing came heavily, regularly, like one who slept or one who is running. Over that sound he caught at length another light rustling, and then the faint creak as she crossed the crazy floor. He made his face calm--forced his breath to grow more soft and regular.

Then, as if a shadow in which there is warmth had crossed him, he knew that she was leaning above him, close, closer; he could hear her breath.

In a rush of tenderness, he forgot her beauty of eyes and round, strong throat, and supple body--he forgot, and was immersed, like an eagle winging into a radiant sunset cloud, in a sense only of her being, quite divorced from the flesh, the mysterious rare power which made her Sally Fortune, and would not change no matter what body might contain it.

It was blindingly intense, and when his senses cleared he knew that she was gone. He felt as if he had awakened from a night full of dreams more vivid than life--dreams which left him too weak to cope with reality.

For a time he dared not move. He was feeling for himself like a man who fumbles his way down a dark pa.s.sage dangerous with obstructions. At last it was as if his hand touched the k.n.o.b of a door; he swung it open, entered a room full of dazzling light--himself. He shrank back from it; closed his eyes against what he might see.

All he knew, then, was an overpowering will to see her. He turned, inch by inch, little degree by degree, knowing that if, when he turned, he looked into her eyes, the end would rush upon them, overwhelm them, carry them along like straws on the flooding river. At last his head was turned; he looked.

She lay on her back, smiling as she slept. One arm hung down from the bunk and the graceful fingers trailed, palm up, on the floor, curling a little, as if she had just relaxed her grasp on something. And down past her shoulder, half covering the whiteness of her arm, fled the torrent of brown hair, with the firelight playing through it like a sunlit mist.

He rose, and dressed with a deadly caution, for he knew that he must go at once, partly for her sake that he must be seen apart from her this night--partly because he knew that he must leave and never come back.

He had hit upon the distinctive feature of the girl--a purity as thin and clear as the air of the uplands in which she drew breath. He stooped and smoothed down the blankets of his bunk, for no trace of him must be seen if any other man should come during this night. He would go far away--see and be seen--apart from Sally Fortune. He picked up his saddle.

Before he departed he leaned low above her as she must have done above him, until the dark shadow of lashes was tremulous against her cheek.

Then he straightened and stole step by step across the floor, to the door, to the night; all the myriad small white eyes of the heavens looked down to him in hushed surprise.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

JERRY WOOD

When he was at the old Drew place before, Logan had told him of Jerry Wood's place, five miles to the north among the hills; and to this he now directed his horse, riding at a merciless speed, as if he strove to gain, from the swift succession of rocks and trees that whirled past him, new thoughts to supplant the ones which already occupied him.

He reached in a short time a little rise of ground below which stretched a darkly wooded hollow, and in the midst the trees gave back from a small house, a two-storied affair, with not a light showing. He wished to announce himself and his name at this place under the pretence of asking harbourage for the brief remainder of the night. The news of what he had done at Drew's place could not have travelled before him to Wood's house; but the next day it would be sure to come, and Wood could say that he had seen Bard--alone--the previous night. It would be a sufficient shield for the name of Sally Fortune in that incurious region.

So he banged loudly at the door.

Eventually a light showed in an upper window and a voice cried: "Who's there?"

"Anthony Bard."

"Who the devil is Anthony Bard?"

"Lost in the hills. Can you give me a place to sleep for the rest of the night? I'm about done up."

"Wait a minute."

Voices stirred in the upper part of the house; the lantern disappeared; steps sounded, descending the stairs, and then the door was unbarred and held a cautious inch ajar. The ray of light jumped out at Bard like an accusing arm.

Evidently a brief survey convinced Jerry Wood that the stranger was no more than what he pretended. He opened the door wide and stepped back.

"Come in."

Bard moved inside, taking off his hat.

"How'd you happen to be lost in the hills?"

"I'm a bit of a stranger around here, you see."

The other surveyed him with a growing grin.

"I guess maybe you are. Sure, we'll put you up for the night. Where's your hoss?"

He went out and raised the lantern above his head to look. The light shone back from the l.u.s.trous wide eyes of the grey.

Wood turned to Bard.

"Seems to me I've seen that hoss."

"Yes. I bought it from Duffy out at Drew's place."

"Oh! Friend of Mr. Drew?"

Half a life spent on the mountain-desert had not been enough to remove from Drew that distinguishing t.i.tle of respect. The range has more great men than it has "misters."

"Not exactly a friend," answered Bard.