CHAPTER XII.--INTO THE WILDERNESS.
Steptoe Lodge in the morning was very different from Steptoe Lodge atnight. The dark courtyard, full of shifting shadows, was now a clean andopen space bright with new light.
Miss Campbell alone of the motor party had not slept well because shehad been afraid to open her windows. She had cautioned the girls againstopening their's, but Billie had flatly rebelled.
"I cannot sleep in a vacuum, Cousin Helen, and if anyone were tallenough to crawl in the window, we could among us make enough noise toraise the roof off the house."
But the night had been peaceful and the cheerfulness of the June morningwith the sweet scents of the innumerable wild flowers which starred theplains, dispelled Miss Campbell's fears.
Someone was singing in the courtyard, a song which Elinor knew andloved.
"Hark, hark, the lark from Heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies; And winking Mary-buds begin to ope their golden eyes: With everything that pretty is, my lady sweet, arise, Arise, arise."
"It's Mr. Wins----," she broke off, "Mr. Blackstone, I mean."
"Isn't it strange that he should be here among these rough uneducatedpeople," observed Mary, thoughtfully. "Did he tell you anything abouthimself last night, Elinor?"
But Elinor kept her own counsel. She was not one to tell the secrets ofothers even to her own particular, intimate friends and she knew thatwhat Algernon Blackstone de Willoughby Winston had confided to her thenight before, he had meant for her ears alone.
A tap on the door, however, interrupted her guarded reply.
It was Barney McGee. Would any of the young ladies like a gallop on theplains before breakfast?
"I would, I would," cried Billie, instantly in a state of joyousanticipation.
"Now, Billie, dear," interrupted her cousin, "I am desperately afraid tohave you ride one of those wild untamed horses. Remember those animalswe saw in Buffalo Bill's Show. They were Western horses, all of them,and they jumped around like so many contortionists."
"We'll give her the tamest beast in the stable, ma'am," Barney assuredher.
"Not one of those frightful bronco creatures, Barney, I hope?"
"No, no, ma'am, a gentle little Texas horse that goes like the wind andnever balks or kicks----"
"How fast a wind, Barney? A cyclone?"
Barney laughed.
"He's a first rate little horse, ma'am and any lady could ride him--whoknows how to stick on," he added in a lower voice.
But Barney knew he could trust Billie on a Texas pony, having seen hertake a canter on his own lean animal.
"I haven't any habit," announced Billie.
"Rosina keeps this one for the ladies who stop here," said Barney,disclosing a khaki divided skirt which had been in a bundle under hisarm.
Ten minutes later, Billie was waiting at the long low shed whichanswered for a stable, while Barney led forth a small gray horse calledJocko. Two little impish devils peeped from the depths of Jocko's eyes,but he flicked his tail lazily and lowered his head in a deceivinglyhumble manner.
Rosina was to ride with them. Miss Campbell would on no account permitBillie to ride unchaperoned on the plains, even with the trustworthyBarney as a companion.
The mistress of the rancho presently emerged from the stable, leading asmall sorrel horse. She also wore divided skirts, and with one boundleapt into the saddle, a feat Billie had not expected from her awkward,rather dumpy appearance. But it was very evident Rosina enjoyed thesport. With a curious cry, not unlike that given by her brother,Blackthorn Hawkes, the night before, when he danced the Indian wardance, she flew over the plains, followed by Barney and Billie.
Never had Billie enjoyed anything so much as that wild morning ride. Theair was cool and crisp. The sky intensely blue, and everywhere, as faras the eye could see, were the rolling purple prairies, dotted with wildflowers.
She forgot Miss Campbell, forgot her three friends, indeed her mind wasfilled only with the joy of the moment.
Perhaps an Arabian horse on the desert might outstrip him, but indeedJocko's feet seemed hardly to touch the earth as he skimmed along.
Soon he was ahead of the others. Billie looked back over her shoulderand saw Barney making wild gesticulations as the distance between themwidened. But Jocko's mouth was as hard as steel, and when the young girlbegan presently to draw him in, she made no more impression on him thanthe wind along the waste.
"Whoa, Jocko," she cried. "Stop, stop, you little beast."
On went Jocko, swifter than the wind, swifter than anything Billie hadever imagined. Leaning far over, like a jockey, she pressed her kneesinto his sides and held to his mane for dear life.
"Perhaps he will tire out," she thought. "In the meantime, the best Ican do is to stick on."
Only once, did she give an upside-down, backward glance through thecrook in her elbow, but her companions were nowhere in sight. Just howlong Billie gripped the pony's neck in this manner and kept her seat,she hardly knew. It might have been five minutes and it might have beenthirty. She felt as a shooting star must feel as it flashes through theuniverse; a secret, blind exhilaration and an immense vacancy of spacewhich seemed to surround her, and withal an overpowering fear.
Then there came a sudden and utterly unexpected halt. At the same momentshe unconsciously loosened her grip on the horse's mane. Head over heelsshe went, straight over the pony's head, and lay huddled on the ground,limp and inert.
Jocko sniffed at her an instant and then turned and trotted away. Thetwo little imps in his eyes had retired, and he was once more amild-mannered demure gray pony.
Imagine yourself the one small human speck in a great vast wilderness ofprairie and you can form a vague idea of Billie's sensations when sheopened her eyes.
Trying to collect her scattered senses, she pulled herself together andstood up. Her head swam and she had a shaky sensation in her knees.
"Let me see," she said out loud in a puzzled voice. "Cousin Helen andthe girls are--well where are they? And----Oh," she cried, pressing herhands to her head as memory came back to her and she perceived herselfto be alone on the plains. Then she looked about for the treacherousJocko, but he had disappeared over the horizon.
When Billie's blood had resumed its normal tempo and her head had ceasedto throb, she began to walk in what she judged from the sun to be aSoutherly direction. She walked for a long time but nowhere could shesee signs of her friends.
"I might as well be a canoe in the middle of the ocean," she said atlength, sitting down on the ground in despair. "I don't seem to getanywhere, and--Oh, dear, how hot and tired and thirsty and hungry I am!"
Once she tried calling, but her voice seemed to her only a small pipingsound in the great emptiness.
"I declare, I feel about as large as a microscopic insect," sheexclaimed with a little sobbing laugh.
Then with a sudden resolution, she began to run.
"I won't be lost," she cried. "I won't! I won't! Haloo-oo-o,Barney--Rosina--where are you?"
Perhaps you have heard of the madness of people lost in a great forestor in the desert. It is a terrible growing fear which often turns intoinsanity unless it is held in check. Billie had heard of this madness.Her father had once told her of the sad case of a man lost in theAdirondacks who ran round and round in a circle, and when at last he wasfound, he was still running in a circle, completely out of his senses.
Checking her impulse to give way to this delirium, the young girl satdown and began to think.
"Now, Billie," she said out loud, as if she were addressing some oneelse, "don't go and make an idiot of yourself. Be silent and go quietly,or you'll be a raving lunatic in five minutes. Of course the whole ranchwill set out to find you as soon as they know you are actually lost. Andof course they will find you. There can be no doubt of that. You are notgoing to die yet. You are far too young and strong and fond of lifeand--and hungry," she added with a little quaver
in her voice.
But not again did Billie give way to the delirium of the lost. With herback to the sun she hurried on, not even a village of prairie dogsattracting her absorbed attention. As the sun began his afternooncourse, she became conscious of an intense, unconquerable thirst. Atfirst she fought against it, but at last she sat down and indulged inmemories of spring water. All the cool bubbling wells she had ever seencame back to her mind. Memories of a little trickling brook on SevenLeague Island beside which she had once knelt and taken deep longdraughts; then there was Cold Spring, where she had been on a picnic.What a spring that was! A perfect fountain of delicious clear water. Sherecalled a swim she had had in a mountain lake where the water was asclear as crystal and very cold. She had swallowed quite a mouthful whenshe dived off a rock, and she could still feel the coolness on her lips.
"But best of all," she murmured, "best of all was the water in thatsunken barrel spring on Percy's place. Oh, for a drop of it now," shecried.
She lay down on the ground and pillowed her head on her arms. Throughthe tall grasses she could see someone still a great way off comingtoward her so rapidly that the figure loomed larger and larger on thelandscape. She sat up and waited.
"Here I am," she heard herself calling. Then she laughed wildly. Whatshe had taken for a dumpy squat lady in a bonnet trimmed with twopointed velvet bows, turned out to be a great stupid jackrabbit withears as big as a mule's, who leaped on his hind legs with incrediblerapidity.
"Silly old thing," exclaimed Billie irritably. "I thought you were anice, kind, fat old person bringing me a glass of water."
The truth is the rabbit did bear a striking resemblance to the janitressat West Haven High School.
Billie fell asleep and dreamed she was in a fiery furnace calling to herfather, when suddenly a delicious wetness touched her lips and a fewdrops of water trickled down her parched throat. She opened her eyes.Buckthorne Hawkes, Rosina's brother, was leaning over her with a flaskof water in his hand.
Was she still dreaming or did she hear him say:
"Next time you will buy an opal of me, eh?"
She opened her eyes again and looked into the face of the peddler who,ages back, had cursed them and their ancestors.
But old Mrs. Jack Rabbit had come back. There she was, dark and blackand squat.
"Good day, Mrs. Jack Rabbit," Billie called, "did you bring the water?"and then she went to sleep with a feeling of security and peace.