Virginia of Elk Creek Valley Part 18

Her box was filled with kinnikinnick and she would go back. If Carver were not at the ford, they must make the trip up the trail the next day in spite of Virginia's plan for a ride to Lone Mountain. If necessary, she would be brave enough to explain matters, and then they would understand.

She turned to go down the mountain, when suddenly from above her came a sound of breaking underbrush as though some creature were bursting from its covert. Vivian stood motionless, too terrified to move or to scream.

It was not Carver--that was certain. He would never be upon the mountain.

It was far more likely to be a bear. Why not one here as well as farther up the canyon where they had caught that monster from the sight of which she had not yet recovered? Thoughts pa.s.sed like flashes through her brain while that awful sound of breaking twigs continued. Hundreds and hundreds of them came, crowding one another for s.p.a.ce--thoughts of St. Helen's, s.n.a.t.c.hes of poems she had learned, memories of things which had frightened her as a child. And last of all, perhaps because without knowing it she had reached a great tree and sunk in a little heap at its foot, came the picture of a sallow youth in eye-gla.s.ses and a linen duster, who had once, ages ago, crashed through some underbrush somewhere else!

The crashing ceased. Some one stepped into the trail above her. The thought of a bear had somehow given place to her old knight-errant of the soda-fountain. And yet when she looked up, expecting to see his pale, sickly countenance, she saw instead the khaki-clad form and the surprised blue eyes of the Cinnamon Creek forest ranger!

He was the very person she had wished to see. She could make her speech now, and be spared her long ride, and yet she found herself studying the line between his eyes and wondering why other people did not have a line there, too. It was the Cinnamon Creek forest ranger who spoke first.

"If that were an oak tree," he said, "I'd think you were consulting an oracle; but since it isn't, maybe you're just a Dryad who's fallen out of the branches. What are you doing away up here anyway? I guess you startled me almost as much as I seem to have startled you. I'm mighty sorry I scared you though!"

His apology made Vivian remember her own, and though she quite forgot her speech and just stammered out how sorry she was, the ranger liked it quite as well and a.s.sured her he should never think of it again.

"And now," he said, "since you've come away off up here, I'm not going to let you go home until you've seen my garden."

"Your garden?" queried Vivian. "Why, your cabin isn't here! It's----"

"I know," he interrupted, "but my garden is. Follow me. I'll show you. I promise there aren't any bears."

She followed him for half a mile up the trail. They wound around great bowlders and along the edges of steep, forbidding places. Then the ranger paused before a thicket of yellow quaking-asps.

"This is the entrance," he explained. "Now prepare, for you're going to see something more wonderful than the hanging gardens of Nineveh."

Pushing aside the quaking-asps, he made a path for Vivian, who followed, mystified. A few moments more and they had pa.s.sed the portals, and stood in the ranger's garden.

Vivian caught her breath. Never in her life had she seen such grandeur of color. They stood in an open place--a tiny valley surrounded by brown foot-hills. Beyond, the higher pine-clad mountains shut off the valley from the eyes of all who did not seek it. Some great, gray, over-hanging rocks guarded the farther entrance. Within the inclosure, carpeting the valley and clothing the foot-hills, great ma.s.ses of color glowed in the gold of the sunlight. The ranger's garden was a flaming pageant of yellow and bronze and orange, crimson and scarlet and purple between a cloudless, turquoise sky.

"Oh!" cried Vivian. "It's just like a secret, isn't it, hidden away up here? I never saw such color in all my life, except in Thas, you know, where the women in Alexandria wore such beautiful gowns." Somehow she knew that the Cinnamon Creek forest ranger _did_ know.

"Yes," he said understandingly, "I remember, only this is better than grand opera, because it's real. You see, I spotted this place last spring.

I saw all the different shrubs--quaking-asp and buck-brush and Oregon grape and service-berry and hawthorn and wild currant--and I thought to myself that this would be some garden in September. It's cold nights up here in these hills, the frosts are early, and the sun strikes this valley all day. It's going to be even more gorgeous in two weeks more. It isn't exactly on my beat, but it's near enough so I can make it. Come on. I'll show you all the different things."

So he led her from golden quaking-asp to crimson hawthorn, and taught her the names of everything that grew in his wonderful garden. Before they had made the circle, Vivian mustered courage, and, seeing the jeweled pin upon the pocket of his rough shirt, which his coat had covered the evening before, asked him about himself, and if Wyoming were his home.

No, he said, glad to tell her. He was from Maine, and the pin he wore was his fraternity pin. He had studied forestry in the university there, and then, becoming ill, had been sent West to get rid of a nasty cough which didn't want to go away. But the mountains had proven the best doctors in the world, and he was only staying on a year in the cabin at Cinnamon Creek to learn the mountain trees, and to add a few more pounds before going back home again.

Vivian grew more and more confused as she listened. Here he was a New Englander like herself, and she had been so rude. What would Carver say when he knew?

"It just shows," she said, "that we never can tell about persons on first acquaintance. I'm doubly sorry I was rude last night. I thought you didn't talk like a Westerner, but I didn't dream you were from New England!"

He smiled.

"I've learned since I've been out here," he said, "that it doesn't make any difference where we're from. Wyoming hearts are just like New England ones, and the only safe way is never to be rude or unkind at all."

Vivian agreed with him. She never would be again, she said to herself, as they left the garden and went back down the trail to Siwash and the ford.

Carver was not there, and the ranger insisted upon walking home with her.

He would not have stayed for supper had not Virginia and Aunt Nan, meeting them at the mail-box, persuaded him.

So it was a very merry party that ate supper beneath the cottonwoods--a party saddened only by the early good-night of the Cinnamon Creek ranger, who wanted to make his mountain cabin before darkness quite obliterated the trail. As he swung into the main road after some cordial handshakes which warmed his heart, he met Carver Standish III.

It was too nearly dark for Carver to see the fraternity pin, and no one had yet told him that the ranger was from New England. Nevertheless, he straightened his shoulders, and held out his hand.

"I've wanted to see you, sir," he said, "to tell you that I was an awful cad last night, and that I'm dead ashamed of it!"

CHAPTER XVII

THE WINTHROP COAT-OF-ARMS

Priscilla, sitting under the biggest cottonwood, was writing to Miss Wallace, in her best handwriting, on her best stationery, in her best style. One unconsciously brought forth the best she had for Miss Wallace.

She was telling of the Emperor and of the Cinnamon Creek ranger, sure that Miss Wallace would be glad to add both to her collection of interesting people. Interruptions were many. Carver, moody and silent, rode over, looking for entertainment, and she did her best; Vivian, having reached a halt in her daily Latin review, asked a.s.sistance; little David, Alec's adorable son, had come over with his mother for the afternoon, and Priscilla found him irresistible; and at last Donald, riding homeward, hot and tired from working on the range, had stopped for rest and refreshment.

With Hannah's help Priscilla had provided the refreshment, and the ground beneath the cottonwood was giving the rest.

"Some stationery!" said Donald, raising himself on his elbow to look at the pile of sheets which Priscilla had placed in readiness on the gra.s.s.

"A shield and an eagle and a lion and a unicorn all at once, to say nothing of Latin. What does it say? '_Courage--my----_'"

"_Courage is my heritage_," translated Priscilla proudly. "It's our family coat-of-arms, and that's the motto. We've had it for years and years, ever since the Wars of the Roses. A Winthrop was shield-bearer for Edward, Duke of York, and Grandfather used to say we could be traced back to the Norman Conquest."

"I see," said Donald politely, but with something very like amus.e.m.e.nt in his blue eyes. "You New England folks are strong on crests and mottoes and that sort of thing, aren't you?"

"No more than we should be," announced Priscilla a little haughtily. "We are the oldest families for the most part, and I think we ought to remember all those things about our ancestors. It's--it's very--stimulating. The West is so excited over progress and developing the country and all that," she finished a little disdainfully, "that it doesn't care about family traditions or--or anything like that."

"Oh, I don't know," returned Donald. "It isn't so bad as that. We think a fine family history is a splendid thing. I venture I'm as proud of my Scotch forefathers as you are of the Duke of York's shield-bearer, though we haven't any coat-of-arms, and never did have any, I guess. Only back there you think it's a necessity to have a good ancestry, and out here we just consider it a help. I like what Burns said about a man being just a man. That's the way we feel out here. It isn't what you come from; it's what you _are_, and what you can do. Family mottoes are all right, if you live up to them. I knew a fellow at school when I was East two years ago.

He roomed with me. He had the family coat-of-arms framed and hung on the wall. 'Twas all red and silver, and the motto was '_Ne cede malis_'--'Yield not to difficulties.' The funny part was that he was the biggest quitter in school. You see, I think it's you who have to uphold the motto--not the motto that has to uphold you."

Priscilla ate a cookie silently. She wished Donald were not so convincing.

"For instance," Donald continued, "suppose _Courage is my heritage_ were Vivian's family motto. Do you think that fact would give Vivian an extra amount of courage if she said it over a thousand times? I don't. All the courage Vivian's got she's gained for herself without any motto to help her out. And I guess that's the way with most of us in this world."

He took his hat and rose to go.

"I've got to be making for home," he said. "Dave's gone, and I've an extra amount of work to do. Thanks awfully for the cookies, and don't think I'm too hard on the family motto business. I can see where your motto means a heap to you, but you're not a quitter anyway, Priscilla."

He jumped on MacDuff and rode down the lane with a final wave of his hat as he galloped homeward across the prairie. Priscilla's cheeks grew red as she watched him. She was not any too sure that she was not a quitter.

Disturbing memories came to trouble her--memories of occasions when she had not proven the truth of the motto, which had fired her ancestors.

Donald was right, too, about ancestry and coats-of-arms and mottoes being only helps. Her New England conscience told her that, and her weeks in Wyoming corroborated her conscience. Still she was averse to admitting it--even to Donald.

She returned to her unfinished letter, but Genius seemed on a vacation.

She could not picture the Emperor to Miss Wallace--could not give the impression which he had indelibly stamped upon her memory as he stood between Nero and Trajan at the palace entrance. The coat-of-arms seemed a disturbing element. She covered it with a strip of paper, but still thoughts would not come.

Disgruntled and out-of-sorts, she put away her letter, and started toward the house. Carver's mood was contagious, she said to herself. In Hannah's kitchen she found Mrs. Alec and little David, a roly-poly youngster of three who demanded too much attention for just one mother. Priscilla, seeing in David a sure antidote for introspection, offered to play the part of the necessary other mother, and took him out-of-doors, much to the relief of tired Mrs. Alec. She had no more time to think of family mottoes or coats-of-arms. David clamored for attention, begged to be shown the horse, the dogs, and all the live-stock which the ranch afforded.

Priscilla was an obedient guide. Nothing was omitted from the itinerary.

When David, satisfied as to the other four-footed possessions, said "Pigs"

in his funny Scotch way, pigs it was!

She led him down the hill to the corral, then off toward the right where the pigs had their abiding-place. A pile of rocks, the crevices of which were filled with all weeds infesting the neighborhood of pigs, offered a vantage-ground from which they might view the landscape so alluring to little David. With his hand in hers, she was helping him mount the rocks one by one.