CHAPTER XXVII
TWO ON THE TRAIL
A stress of emotion had swept her into his arms. Now she drew away fromhim shyly. The conventions in which she had been brought up assertedthemselves. Sheba remembered that they had been carried by the high waveof their emotion past all the usual preliminaries. He had not even toldher that he loved her. An absurd little fear obtruded itself into herhappiness. Had she rushed into his arms like a lovesick girl, taking itfor granted that he cared for her?
"You--came to look for us?" she asked, with the little shy stiffness ofembarrassment.
"For you--yes."
He could not take his eyes from her. It seemed to him that a bird wassinging in his heart the gladness he could not express. He had for manyhours pushed from his mind pictures of her lying white and rigid on thesnow. Instead she stood beside him, her delicate beauty vivid as theflush of a flame.
"Did they telephone that we were lost?"
"Yes. I was troubled when the storm grew. I could not sleep. So I calledup the roadhouse by long distance. They had not heard from the stage.Later I called again. When I could stand it no longer, I started."
"Not on foot?"
"No. With Holt's dog team. He is back there. His leg is broken. Asnow-slide crushed him this morning where we camped."
"Bring him to the cabin. I will tell the others you are coming."
"Have you had any food?" he asked.
A tired smile lit up the shadows of weariness under her soft, dark eyes."Boiled oats, plum pudding, and chocolates," she told him.
"We have plenty of food on the sled. I'll bring it at once."
She nodded, and turned to go to the cabin. He watched for a moment thelilt in her walk. An expression from his reading jumped to his mind.Melodious feet! Some poet had said that, hadn't he? Surely it must havebeen Sheba of whom he was thinking, this girl so virginal of body and ofmind, free and light-footed as a caribou on the hills.
Gordon returned to the sled and drove the team up the draw to the cabin.The three who had been marooned came to meet their rescuer.
"You must 'a' come right through the storm lickitty split," Swiftwatersaid.
"You're right we did. This side pardner of mine was hell-bent onwrestling with a blizzard," Holt answered dryly.
"Sorry you broke your laig, Gid."
"Then there's two of us sorry, Swiftwater. It's one of the best laigsI've got."
Sheba turned to the old miner impulsively. "If you could be knowing whatI am thinking of you, Mr. Holt,--how full our hearts are of thegratitude--" She stopped, tears in her voice.
"Sho! No need of that, Miss. He dragged me along." His thumb jerkedtoward the man who was driving. "I've seen better dog punchers thanElliot, but he's got the world beat at routin' old-timers out of bed andpersuadin' them to kick in with him and buck a blizzard. Me, o' course,I'm an old fool for comin'--"
The dark eyes of the girl were like stars in a frosty night. "Thenyou're the kind of a fool I love, Mr. Holt. I think it was just fine ofyou, and I'll never forget it as long as I live."
Mrs. Olson had cooked too long in lumber and mining camps not to knowsomething about bone-setting. Under her direction Gordon made splintsand helped her bandage the broken leg. Meanwhile Swiftwater Pete fedhis horses from the grain on the sled and Sheba cooked an appetizingbreakfast. The aroma of coffee and the smell of frying bacon stimulatedappetites that needed no tempting.
Holt, propped up by blankets, ate with the others. For a good many yearshe had taken his luck as it came with philosophic endurance. Now hewasted no time in mourning what could not be helped. He was lucky theice slide had not hit him in the head. A broken leg would mend.
While they ate, the party went into committee of the whole to decidewhat was best to be done. Gordon noticed that in all the tentativesuggestions made by Holt and Swiftwater the comfort of Sheba was thefirst thing in mind.
The girl, too, noticed it and smilingly protested, her soft hand lyingfor the moment on the gnarled one of the old miner.
"It doesn't matter about me. We have to think of what will be best forMr. Holt, of how to get him to the proper care. My comfort can wait."
The plan at last decided upon was that Gordon should make a dash forSmith's Crossing on snowshoes, where he was to arrange for a reliefparty to come out for the injured man and Mrs. Olson. He was to returnat once without waiting for the rescuers. Next morning he and Shebawould start with Holt's dog team for Kusiak.
Macdonald had taught Sheba how to use snowshoes and she had been anapt pupil. From her suitcase she got out her moccasins and put them on.She borrowed the snowshoes of Holt, wrapped herself in her parka, andannounced that she was going with Elliot part of the way.
Gordon thought her movements a miracle of supple lightness. Her lineshad the swelling roundness of vital youth, her eyes were alive withthe eagerness that time dulls in most faces. They spoke little as theyswept forward over the white snow-wastes. The spell of the great Northwas over her. Its mystery was stirring in her heart, just as it hadbeen when her lips had turned to his at the sunrise. As for him, loveran through his veins like old wine. But he allowed his feelings noexpression. For though she had come to him of her own accord for thatone blessed minute at dawn, he could not be sure what had moved her sodeeply. She was treading a world primeval, the wonder of it still inher soft eyes. Would she waken to love or to disillusion?
He took care to see that she did not tire. Presently he stopped and heldout his hand to say good-bye.
"Will you come back this way?" she asked.
"Yes. I ought to get here soon after dark. Will you meet me?"
She gave him a quick, shy little nod, turned without shaking hands, andstruck out for the cabin. All through the day happiness flooded herheart. While she waited on Holt or helped Mrs. Olson cook or watchedSwiftwater while he put up the tent in the lee of the cabin, littlesnatches of song bubbled from her lips. Sometimes they were bits of oldIrish ballads that popped into her mind. Once, while she was preparingsome coffee for her patient, it was a stanza from Burns:--
"Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi' the sun: I will luve thee still, my dear, While the sands o' life shall run."
She caught old Gideon looking at her with a queer little smile on hisweather-tanned face and she felt the color beat into her cheeks.
"I haven't bought a wedding present for twenty years," he told herpresently, apropos of nothing that had been said. "I won't know what'sthe proper thing to get, Miss Sheba."
"If you talk nonsense like that I'll go out and talk to Mr. SwiftwaterPete," she threatened, blushing.
Old Gid folded his hands meekly. "I'll be good--honest I will. Let'ssee. I got to make safe and sane conversation, have I? Hm! Wonder whenthat lazy, long-legged, good-for-nothing horsethief and holdup thatcalls himself Gordon Elliot will get back to camp."
Sheba looked into his twinkling eyes suspiciously as she handed him hiscoffee. For a moment she bit her lip to keep back a smile, then saidwith mock severity,--
"Now, I _am_ going to leave you to Mrs. Olson."
When sunset came it found Sheba on the trail. Swiftwater Pete hadoffered to go with her, but she had been relieved of his well-meantkindness by the demand of Holt.
"No, you don't, Pete. You ain't a-goin' off gallivantin' with no younglady. You're a-goin' to stay here and fix my game laig for me. What doyou reckon Miss Sheba wants with a fat, lop-sided lummox like you alongwith her?"
Pete grew purple with embarrassment. He had not intended anything morethan civility and he wanted this understood.
"Hmp! Ain't you got no sense a-tall, Gid? If Miss Sheba's hell-bent ongoin' to meet Elliot, I allowed some one ought to go along and keep thedark offen her. 'Course there ain't nothin' going to harm her, unlessshe goes and gets lost--"
Sheba's smile cooled the heat of the stage-driver. "Which she isn'tgoing to do. Good of you to offer to go with me. Don't mind Mr. Holt.Everybody knows he doesn't mean half of what he says
. I'd be glad tohave you come with me, but it isn't necessary at all. So I'll nottrouble you."
Darkness fell quickly, but Sheba still held to the trail. There was nosign of Elliot, but she felt sure he would come soon. Meanwhile shefollowed steadily the tracks he had made earlier in the day.
She stopped at last. It was getting much colder. She was miles from thecamp. Reluctantly she decided to return. Then, out of the darkness, hecame abruptly upon her, the man whom she had come out to meet.
Under the magic of the Northern stars they found themselves again ineach other's arms for that brief moment of joyful surprise. Then, as ithad been in the morning, Sheba drew herself shyly away.
"They are waiting supper for us," she told him irrelevantly.
He did not shout out his happiness and tell her to let them wait.For Gordon, too, felt awed at this wonderful adventure of love that hadbefallen them. It was enough for him that they were moving side by side,alone in the deep snows and the biting cold, that waves of emotioncrashed through his pulses when his swinging hand touched hers.
They were acutely conscious of each other. Excitement burned in the eyesthat turned to swift, reluctant meetings. She was a woman, and he washer lover. Neither of them dared quite accept the fact yet, but itfilled the background of all their thoughts with delight.
Sheba did not want to talk of this new, amazing thing that had come intoher life. It was too sacred a subject to discuss just yet even with him.So she began to tell him odd fancies from childhood that lingered in herCeltic heart, tales of the "little folk" that were half memories andhalf imaginings, stirred to life by some odd association of sky andstars. She laughed softly at herself as she told them, but Gordon didnot laugh at her.
Everything she did was for him divinely done. Even when his eyes were onthe dark trail ahead he saw only the dusky loveliness of curved cheek,the face luminous with a radiance some women are never privileged toknow, the rhythm of head and body and slender legs that was part of herindividual, heaven-sent charm.
The rest had finished supper before Gordon and Sheba reached camp, butMrs. Olson had a hot meal waiting for them.
"I fixed up the tent for the women folks--stove, sleeping-bags, plentyof wood. Touch a match to the fire and it'll be snug as a bug in a rug,"explained Swiftwater to Gordon.
Elliot and Sheba were to start early for Kusiak and later the rescueparty would arrive to take care of Holt and Mrs. Olson.
"Time to turn in," Holt advised. "You better light that stove, Elliot."
The young man was still in the tent arranging the sleeping-bags whenSheba entered. He tried to walk out without touching her, intending tocall back his good-night. But he could not do it. There was somethingflamey about her to-night that went to his head. Her tender, tremulouslittle smile and the turn of the buoyant little head stirred in him alover's rhapsody.
"It's to be a long trail we cover to-morrow, Sheba. You must sleep.Good-night."
"Good-night--Gordon."
There was a little flash of audacity in the whimsical twist of hermouth. It was the first time she had ever called him by his given name.
Elliot threw away prudence and caught her by the hands.
"My dear--my dear!" he cried.
She trembled to his kiss, gave herself to his embrace with innocentpassion. Tendrils of hair, fine as silk, brushed his cheeks and sentstrange thrills through him.
They talked the incoherent language of lovers that is compounded ofmurmurs and silences and the touch of lips and the meetings of eyes.There were to be other nights in their lives as rich in memories asthis, but never another with quite the same delight.
Presently Sheba reminded him with a smile of the long trail he hadmentioned. Mrs. Olson bustled into the tent, and her presence stressedthe point.
"Good-night, neighbors," Gordon called back from outside the tent.
Sheba's "Good-night" echoed softly back to him.
The girl fell asleep to the sound of the light breeze slapping the tentand to the doleful howling of the huskies.