Chapter XXV
Two and a Camp-Fire
Roy worked his way through the aspens and returned to the place wherehe had left Beulah. She was still sleeping soundly and did not stir athis approach. Quietly he built a fire and heated water for coffee.From his saddlebags he took sandwiches wrapped in a newspaper. Besidethe girl he put his canteen, a pocket comb, a piece of soap, and thebandanna he wore around his neck. Then, reluctantly, he awakened her.
"Supper will be served in just five minutes," he announced with a smile.
She glanced at the scant toilet facilities and nodded her headdecisively. "Thank you, kind sir. I'll be on hand."
The young woman rose, glanced in the direction of the aspens, gatheredup the supplies, and fled to the grove. The eyes of Beaudry followedher flight. The hour of sleep had been enough to restore herresilience. She moved with the strong lightness that always remindedhim of wild woodland creatures.
In spite of her promise Beulah was away beyond the time limit. Beaudrybecame a little uneasy. It was not possible, of course, that Meldrumcould have escaped from the pit. And yet--
He called to her. "Is every little thing all right, neighbor?"
"All right," she answered.
A moment later she emerged from the aspens and came toward the camp.She was panting a little, as if she had been running.
"Quite a hill," he commented.
She gave him a quick glance. There was in it shy curiosity, but herdark eyes held, too, an emotion more profound.
"Yes," she said. "It makes one breathe fast."
Miss Rutherford had improved her time. The disorderly locks had beenhairpinned into place. From her face all traces of the dried tearswere washed. Pit clay no longer stained the riding-skirt.
Sandwiches and coffee made their meal, but neither of them had evermore enjoyed eating. Beulah was still ravenously hungry, though sherestrained her appetite decorously.
"I forgot to tell you that I am lost," he explained. "Unless you canguide me out of this labyrinth of hills, we'll starve to death."
"I can take you straight to the park."
"But we're not going to the park. Everybody is out looking for you.We are to follow Del Oro down to the flats. The trouble is that I'velost Del Oro," he grinned.
"It is just over the hill."
After refreshments he brought up his pinto horse and helped her to thesaddle. She achieved the mount very respectably. With a confidentiallittle laugh she took him into the secret of her success.
"I've been practicing with dad. He has to help me up every time I goriding."
They crossed to Del Oro in the dusk and followed the trail by the creekin the moonlight. In the starlight night her dusky beauty set hispulses throbbing. The sweet look of her dark-lashed eyes stirredstrange chaos in him. They talked little, for she, too, felt adelicious emotion singing in the currents of her blood. When their shyeyes met, it was with a queer little thrill as if they had kissed eachother.
It was late when they reached the flats. There was no sign ofCharlton's party.
"The flats run for miles each way. We might wander all night and notfind them," Beulah mentioned.
"Then we'll camp right here and look for them in the morning," decidedRoy promptly.
Together they built a camp-fire. Roy returned from picketing the horseto find her sitting on a blanket in the dancing light of the flickeringflames. Her happy, flushed face was like the promise of a summer dayat dawn.
In that immensity of space, with night's million candles far above themand the great hills at their backs, the walls that were between themseemed to vanish.
Their talk was intimate and natural. It had the note of comradeship,took for granted sympathy and understanding.
He showed her the picture of his mother. By the fire glow she studiedit intently. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
"She's so lovely and so sweet--and she had to go away and leave herlittle baby when she was so young. I don't wonder you worship her. Iwould, too."
Roy did not try to thank her in words. He choked up in his throat andnodded.
"You can see how fine and dainty she was," the girl went on. "I'drather be like that than anything else in the world--and, of course, Inever can be."
"I don't know what you mean," he protested warmly. "You're as fine asthey grow."
She smiled, a little wistfully. "Nice of you to say so, but I knowbetter. I'm not a lady. I'm just a harum-scarum, tempery girl thatgrew up in the hills. If I didn't know it, that wouldn't matter. ButI do know it, and so like a little idiot I pity myself because I'm notlike nice girls."
"Thank Heaven, you're not!" he cried. "I've never met a girl fit tohold a candle to you. Why, you're the freest, bravest, sweetest thingthat ever lived."
The hot blood burned slowly into her cheek under its dusky coloring.His words were music to her, and yet they did not satisfy.
"You're wrapping it up nicely, but we both know that I'm a vixen when Iget angry," she said quietly. "We used to have an old Indian womanwork for us. When I was just a wee bit of a thing she called me LittleCactus Tongue."
"That's nothing. The boys were probably always teasing you and youdefended yourself. In a way the life you have led has made you hard.But it is just a surface hardness nature has provided as a protectionto you."
"Since it is there, I don't see that it helps much to decide why it isa part of me," she returned with a wan little smile.
"But it does," he insisted. "It matters a lot. The point is that itisn't you at all. Some day you'll slough it the way a butterfly doesits shell."
"When?" she wanted to know incredulously.
He did not look at her while he blurted out his answer. "When you arehappily married to a man you love who loves you."
"Oh! I'm afraid that will be never." She tried to say it lightly, buther face glowed from the heat of an inward fire.
"There's a deep truth in the story of the princess who slept the yearsaway until the prince came along and touched her lips with his. Don'tyou think lots of people are hampered by their environment? All theyneed is escape." He suggested this with a shy diffidence.
"Oh, we all make that excuse for ourselves," she answered with a touchof impatient scorn. "I'm all the time doing it. I say if things weredifferent I would be a nice, sweet-tempered, gentle girl and not flyout like that Katherine in Shakespeare's play. But I know all the timeit isn't true. We have to conquer ourselves. There is no city ofrefuge from our own temperaments."
He felt sure there was a way out from her fretted life for thisdeep-breasted, supple daughter of the hills if she could only find it.She had breathed an atmosphere that made for suspicion and harshness.All her years she had been forced to fight to save herself from shame.But Roy, as he looked at her, imaged another picture of BeulahRutherford. Little children clung to her knees and called her"Mother." She bent over them tenderly, her face irradiated with love.A man whose features would not come clear strode toward her and theeyes she lifted to his were pools of light.
Beaudry drew a deep breath and looked away from her into the fire. "Iwish time would solve my problem as surely as it will yours," he said.
She looked at him eagerly, lips parted, but she would not in wordsinvite his confession.
The young man shaded his eyes with his hand as if to screen them fromthe fire, but she noticed that the back of his hand hid them from her,too. He found a difficulty in beginning. When at last he spoke, hisvoice was rough with feeling.
"Of course, you'll despise me--you of all people. How could you helpit?"
Her body leaned toward him ever so slightly. Love lit her face like asoft light.
"Shall I? How do you know?"
"It cuts so deep--goes to the bottom of things. If a fellow is wild oreven bad, he may redeem himself. But you can't make a man out of ayellow cur. The stuff isn't there." The words came out jerkily as ifwith some physical difficulty.
"If you mea
n about coming up to the park, I know about that," she saidgently. "Mr. Dingwell told father. I think it was splendid of you."
"No, that isn't it. I knew I was right in coming and that some day youwould understand." He dropped the hand from his face and lookedstraight at her. "Dave didn't tell your father that I had to beflogged into going, did he? He didn't tell him that I tried to dodgeout of it with excuses."
"Of course, you weren't anxious to throw up your own affairs and runinto danger for a man you had never met. Why should you be wild forthe chance. But you went."
"Oh, I went. I had to go. Ryan put it up to me so that there was noescape," was his dogged, almost defiant, answer.
"I know better," the girl corrected quickly. "You put it up toyourself. You're that way."
"Am I?" He flashed a questioning look at her. "Then, since you knowthat, perhaps you know, too, what--what I'm trying to tell you."
"Perhaps I do," she whispered softly to the fire.
There was panic in his eyes. "--That . . . that I--"
"--That you are sensitive and have a good deal of imagination," thegirl concluded gently.
"No, I'll not feed my vanity with pleasant lies to-night." He gave alittle gesture of self-scorn as he rose to throw some dry sticks on thefire. "What I mean and what you mean is that--that I'm an arrantcoward." Roy gulped the last words out as if they burned his throat.
"I don't mean that at all," she flamed. "How can you say such a thingabout yourself when everybody knows that you're the bravest man inWashington County?"
"No--no. I'm a born trembler." From where he stood beyond the fire helooked across at her with dumb anguish in his eyes. "You say yourselfyou've noticed it. Probably everybody that knows me has."
"I didn't say that." Her dark eyes challenged his very steadily."What I said was that you have too much imagination to rush into dangerrecklessly. You picture it all out vividly beforehand and it worriesyou. Isn't that the way of it?"
He nodded, ashamed.
"But when the time comes, nobody could be braver than you," she wenton. "You've been tried out a dozen times in the last three months.You have always made good."
"Made good! If you only knew!" he answered bitterly.
"Knew what? I saw you down at Hart's when Dan Meldrum ordered you tokneel and beg. But you gamed it out, though you knew he meant to killyou."
He flushed beneath the tan. "I was too paralyzed to move. That's thesimple truth."
"Were you too paralyzed to move down at the arcade of the SilverDollar?" she flashed at him.
"It was the drink in me. I wasn't used to it and it went to my head."
"Had you been drinking that time at the depot?" she asked with a touchof friendly irony.
"That wasn't courage. If it would have saved me, I would have run likea rabbit. But there was no chance. The only hope I had was to throw afear into him. But all the time I was sick with terror."
She rose and walked round the camp-fire to him. Her eyes were shiningwith a warm light of admiration. Both hands went out to himimpulsively.
"My friend, that is the only kind of courage really worth having. Thatkind you earn. It is yours because it is born of the spirit. You havefought for it against the weakness of the flesh and the timidity ofyour own soul. Some men are born without sense or imagination. Theydon't know enough to be afraid. But the man who tramples down a greatfear wins his courage by earning it." She laughed a little, to makelight of her own enthusiasm. "Oh, I know I'm preaching like a littleprig. But it's the truth, just the same."
At the touch of her fingers his pulses throbbed. But once more hetried to make her understand.
"No, I've had luck all the way through. Do you remember that night atthe cabin--before we went up the canon?"
"Yes."
"Some one shot at me as I ran into the cabin. I was so frightened thatI piled all the furniture against the door and hid in the cellar. Itwas always that way with me. I used to jump if anybody rode upunexpectedly at the ranch. Every little thing set my nervesfluttering."
"But it isn't so now."
"No, not so much."
"That's what I'm telling you," she triumphed. "You came out here froma soft life in town. But you've grown tough because you set your teethto go through no matter what the cost. I wish I could show you howmuch I . . . admire you. Dad feels that way, too. So does Ned."
"But I don't deserve it. That's what humiliates me."
"Don't you?" She poured out her passionate protest. "Do you think Idon't know what happened back there at the prospect hole? Do you thinkI don't know that you put Dan Meldrum down in the pit--and him with agun in his hand? Was it a coward that did that?"
"So you knew that all the time," he cried.
"I heard him calling you--and I went close. Yes, I knew it. But youwould never have told me because it might seem like bragging."
"It was easy enough. I wasn't thinking of myself, but of you. He sawI meant business and he wilted."
"You were thinking about me--and you forgot to be afraid," the girlexulted.
"Yes, that was it." A wave of happiness broke over his heart as thesunlight does across a valley at dawn. "I'm always thinking of you.Day and night you fill my thoughts, hillgirl. When I'm riding therange--whatever I do--you're with me all the time."
"Yes."
Her lips were slightly parted, eyes eager and hungry. The heart of thegirl drank in his words as the thirsty roots of a rosebush do water.She took a long deep breath and began to tremble.
"I think of you as the daughter of the sun and the wind. Some day youwill be the mother of heroes, the wife of a man--"
"Yes," she prompted again, and the face lifted to his was flushed withinnocent passion.
The shy invitation of her dark-lashed eyes was not to be denied. Heflung away discretion and snatched her into his arms. An inarticulatelittle sound welled up from her throat, and with a gesture whollysavage and feminine her firm arms crept about his neck and fastenedthere.