The Everlasting Whisper

  _Chapter VII_

  Gloria was genuinely glad to see King returning to her. She came to meethim, smiling her glad welcome.

  "It seemed that you were gone _hours_," she explained. "I never saw sucha dreary, lonesome place as this sleepy little town. It gives me thefidgets," she concluded laughingly.

  "These old mining camps have atmospheres all their own," he admittedunderstandingly. "Once they were the busiest, most frantic spots of thewhole West; thousands of men hurrying up and down, all full of great,big, golden hopes. They're gone, but I sometimes half believe theirghosts hang on; the air is full of that sort of thing. A dead townturned into a ghost town. It gets on your nerves."

  She nodded soberly.

  "That's what I felt, though I didn't reason it all out." Her quick smilecame back as she looked up into his face and confessed: "My, it's goodto have you back."

  "Come," he said. "We'll go and have lunch. You've no idea how much gayerthings will look then."

  "We're not going to eat _here_," she announced, already gay. "I stoppedin at a little funny store and ordered some things. Let's start back,take them with us, and picnic in the first pretty spot out of sight ofold houses."

  As side by side they went along through the sunshine King noted howBrodie and a couple of men came out to look after them. He heard thelow, sullen bass of the unforgettable voice; saw that Brodie had lefthis companions and was going straight to old Honeycutt's shanty. Kingfrowned and for an instant hung on his heel, drawing Gloria's curiouslook.

  "You don't like that big man with the big voice," said Gloria.

  "No," he said tersely.

  "It is Swen Brodie?"

  "Yes. But how do you know?"

  "Oh, I know lots of things people don't think I know! All girls do.Girls are rather knowing creatures; I wonder if you realize that?"

  "I don't know much about girls," he smiled at her.

  She pondered the matter for a dozen steps, swinging her hat at her sideand looking away across the housetops to the mountains. She did not knowany other man who would have said that in just that way. The words werefrank; all sincerity; that is, nothing lay behind them. Archie andTeddy, any of her boy friends in town--they knew all about girls! Orthought that they did. Mr. Gratton with his smooth way; he led her tosuppose that he had been giving girls a great deal of studious thoughtfor many years, and that only after this thorough investigation did hefeel in a position to declare herself to be the most wonderful of hersex.

  "Don't you like girls?" she asked. For once she wasn't "fishing"; shewanted to know.

  "Of course I do," he told her heartily. "As well as a man can--under thecircumstances."

  "You mean not knowing them better?" When he nodded she looked up at himagain, hesitated, and then demanded: "You like me, don't you?"

  As the question popped out she understood even more clearly than beforethat Mark King was utterly different from her various "men friends." Shehad never asked a man that before; she was not accustomed to employingeither that direct method or matter-of-fact tone. Just now there was nohint of the coquette in her; she was just a very grave-eyed girl, asserious in her _tete-a-tete_ with an interesting male as she could havebeen were she sixty years old. And she was concerned with his answer;already she knew that he had a way of being very direct and straightfrom the shoulder.

  "Of course I do," he said heartily, a little surprised by the abruptnessof the question and yet without hesitation. "Very much."

  She flushed prettily; she, Gloria Gaynor, flushed up because Mark Kingsaid in blunt, unvarnished fashion: "I like you very much." The gravesobriety went out of her eyes; they shone happily. When they reached the"funny little store" she was humming a snatch of a bright little waltztune. And she was thinking, without putting the thought into words: "AndI like you very much. You are quite the most splendid man I ever saw."

  King laughed over Gloria's order. Some bars of sweetened chocolate, abag of cookies with stale frosting in pink and white, a diminutive tinof sardines, and two bottles of soda-water.

  "Fine," he chuckled, "as far as it goes. Now we'll complete the larder.A small coffee-pot, handful of coffee, a tin of condensed milk, a dime'sworth of sugar, can of corned beef, block of butter, loaf of bread, twotin cups. Your marketing," he grinned at her, "we'll have for dessert."

  "I didn't know," countered Gloria, making a face at him, "that I wasentertaining a starved wild man for lunch."

  "You'll eat your half, I'll bet, and be ready for more a long timebefore we get home."

  Gloria, impatient to be on the homeward trail, assumed command in a waywhich delighted King; he glimpsed the fact that she had always had herway and was thoroughly accustomed to the issuance of orders which wereto be obeyed; further, he found her little way of Princess Gloriaentirely captivating: already she was bullying him as all of her lifeshe had bullied his old friend Ben.

  "I'll get all of the parcels together," was what she said, "while you gofor the horses. And you'll hurry, won't you, Mark?"

  "On the run, Your Majesty," he laughed.

  When he had saddled and returned to her Gloria was waiting with thevarious purchases in a barley-sack; she made a great pretence of beingweighted down by the great bulk of provisions demanded by man'sappetite. He took the bag from her, lifted her into her saddle, and theyrode away. Gloria flicked her horse lightly with her whip and gallopedahead; as King followed he turned in the saddle and looked back towardHoneycutt's cabin. He was pulled two ways: by the girlish figure ahead,which he must follow, since it was his responsibility to bring her backto his friend Ben; by what he fancied happening between Brodie andHoneycutt. Brodie had been in ugly mood all along; he would be in ugliermood now after King's interruption and the shotgun episode. Nor couldKing forget what he had seen on Lookout Ridge. If Swen Brodie were sureenough of what he was about to rid himself of Andy Parker, what would henot do with old Honeycutt?

  "I ought to go back," was what King said over and over to himself as herode steadily on after Gloria. The last roof lost to sight as theyturned into the mouth of a canon, he shook off all thought of returning,overtook Gloria, and determined to forget both Honeycutt and Brodie forthe rest of the day. To-morrow would be another day.

  "There are hundreds of pretty places to picnic," said Gloria. "But it isso much jollier by running water."

  "If you can fight down that hunger of yours for a few miles," he toldher, "I'll show you the prettiest picnic spot you ever saw. And one, bythe way, that precious few folks know about. It's tucked away as if themountains had the notion to hide it from all invaders."

  She was immediately all eagerness to come to it. But she was quick tosee that, though King laughed with her, he retained certain seriousthoughts of his own. Thoughts which, of course, had to do with hiserrand to-day. She wondered what had happened at Honeycutt's; if Kinghad had any words with Swen Brodie. She had been wondering that eversince he rejoined her under the tree. But now, as then, she held backher question, since she was also wondering something else--if he wouldtell her without being asked.

  When they came to a spring freshet which they had crossed this morningKing turned off to the right, riding up-stream, his horse's hoofssplashing mightily in the water. Gloria, looking on ahead, saw onlyrock-bound canon walls on either hand and a tangle of alder-bushesacross the creek.

  "Come on," called King. "Keep your horse right in the water and in twoshakes I'll show you my Hidden Place. You are going to like it."

  Though she was little impressed by what she could see, she followed. Nowand then an alder brushed against her; once King waited, holding back agreen barrier which he had thrust to one side. The shrubbery thickened;in five minutes she could catch but broken glimpses of the slopes risingto right and left. Their horses splashed through a deep pool, and Kingtold Gloria to let her animal have his head so that he could pick hisway among submerged boulders. There came a spot where the banks slopedgently again, and here he rode out upon a bit of springy sward, ringedwith alder and willow. As he
dismounted Gloria looked uncertainly abouther. Damp underfoot and a paradise for mosquitoes, was her thought. Hecaught her look and laughed.

  "We get down here and leave the horses," he informed her. "They can topoff their grain and hay with grass while we dine. We go only about fiftysteps further but we go on foot."

  She came down lightly, again all eager curiosity. King carrying theirprovision-bag went ahead breaking aside the shrubbery for Gloria closeat his heels. They ploughed through what looked to her like animpenetrable thicket; they forded the stream where it widened outplacidly, stepping on boulders. Always King went ahead, holding out hishand to her. Once she slipped, but before her boot had broken thesurface of the water his arm was about her. He caught her up, holdingher an instant. Gloria began to laugh. Then, as she regarded it, athoroughly astonishing thing happened; she felt her face flushing,hotter and hotter, until it burned. She laughed again, a trifleuncertainly, and jumped unaided to the next boulder and across to thepebbly shallows, wading out through six inches of water.

  "Little fool!" she chided herself, hot with vexation. "What in the worlddid you want to blush like that for? He will think you are about tenyears old."

  For his part King stood stock-still a moment, regarding the waterrushing about him. He had caught her to save her from falling, he hadheld her for something less than a round second. And yet something ofher pervaded his senses, it had been a second fraught with intimacy, herhair had blown across his face, she had thrilled through him like asudden burst of music ... When he jerked his head up and looked at herhe could not see her face; she was very busy with a white pebble shehad picked up. He jumped across to land and went on, and the incidentsank away into silence.

  He was glad to come to what he called the door to the Hidden Place. Heopened it for her; that is, he shoved aside a mass of leaves, holdingthe branches back with his body. Gloria went through the opening thusafforded, climbed a long, slanting whitish granite slab, and cried outecstatically at the beauty of the spot. Before her was a tiny meadow, asgreen and smooth as velvet, thick with white and yellow violets. Aboutit, rimming it in clean lines which did not invade the sward, werepines, and beyond the pines, to be seen in broken glimpses among theirsturdy straight trunks, were the cliffs shutting all in. Through one ofthese vistas she saw a white waterfall, its wide-flung drops of sprayall the colours of the rainbow as the sun caught them. The water fellinto a green pool, spilled over, flowed through a rock channel of itsown ancient carving, and curved away through the meadow. On the edge ofthis granite basin, with showers of spray breaking over it, a littlebird bobbed and dipped and, lifting its head with its own inimitablybright gesture, broke into a sweet singing as liquidly musical as thefalling water.

  "The Water-Ouzel!" cried Gloria. "See, I remembered his name. And he ishere to welcome us."

  Under the pines, where the ground was dry, King made their camp-fire, asmall blaze of dry twigs between two flat stones. Gloria was every bitas exultantly delighted with the moment as she could have been were shereally "about ten years old."

  "I want to help. What can I do? Tell me, Mark, what can I do? Oh, thecoffee; you can't make coffee without water, can you?" She caught up thenew tin coffee-pot and ran across the meadow to the creek. The littlebird had given over singing and watched her; when she was mindful of hisprevious rights and did not come too near his waterfall, he gave overany foolish notion he may have had of flight and cocked his eye again atthe pool. Perhaps the coffee-pot put him in mind of his own dinner.Gloria, kneeling at her task, watched him. He seemed to reflect amoment; then with a sudden flirt and flutter he had broken the surfaceof the water and was gone out of sight. She gasped; he had gone rightunder the waterfall, a little bundle of feathers no bigger than herclenched hand. She knelt with one knee getting wet and never knowing it;she began to feel positive that the hardy, headlong little fellow surelymust be battered to death and drowned. Then with the abruptness of aflash of light there he was again, on the surface now, driving himselfforward toward the bank. And there he sat again on his rock, the waterflung from him to flash and mingle with the falling spray, his headback, his throbbing little throat pouring out his fluent melody. Glorialaughed happily and went back to King and the fire with her pot ofwater.

  * * * * *

  "I love this!" said Gloria softly.

  She was drinking a tin cup of strong cheap coffee cooled with condensedmilk; in her other hand was a thick man-made sandwich of bread, butter,and corned beef. King laughed.

  "What?" he demanded. "What particular article of my daintily servedluncheon has made the great hit with you? Is it, perhaps, the rancidbutter that you adore?"

  "You know. I love this." Her look embraced the universe--began with thedying fire, swept on beyond the tree-tops against the deep blue of sky."I don't know why people live in cities, with all of this shut out."

  "The call of the wild!" He spoke lightly and yet he glimpsed a soulreally stirred; saw that for the moment, if for no longer, the greatsolitudes held her enthralled. More seriously he added: "It's the bloodof your ancestors. It is just getting a chance to make itself heard. Theracket of Market Street drowns it out."

  She nodded thoughtfully. They did full justice to their lunch, finishedwith her purchases for dessert, quite as he had prophesied, and lazedthrough the nooning hour. Gloria lay on a yielding mat of pine-needles,her eyes grave as her spirit within her was grave, moved by influencesat once vague, restless, and tremendous. This was not her first day inthe woods, and yet she felt strangely that it was. He had spoken of her"ancestors." She knew little of her mother's and her father's forbears;she had never been greatly concerned with individuals whom she had neverknown. In a way she had been led to think, by her own mother, however soinnocently, that she was "living them down." They had been of a ruderrace that had lived in a ruder day. In San Francisco, to Miss GloriaGaynor in a pretty new gown, one of a cluster of dainty girls, thosegrandparents had seemed further away than the one step of removalbetween them and her nearer blood. To-day they came near her, very near,indeed, for the hour that she lay looking up at the sky. Not many wordspassed between her and King; he sat, back to tree, and smoked his pipeand was quite content with the silence.

  She started out of a reverie to find King standing up, his body rigid ashe stood in the attitude of one who listens, his head a little to oneside, his eyes narrowed.

  "Wait for me," he said. "I'll be back in just a minute."

  She sat up and watched him. He went back to the sloping granite slab,over it, down among the alders, and out of sight. For a moment she heardhim among the bushes; then as all sound made by him died away there wasonly the purl of the creek and the eternal murmur of the pines. Now itseemed to her more silent than before, even when King had sat wordlesslynear her. And yet, incongruously, whereas the silence was deepened byutter solitude, the voices of running water and stirring trees roseclearer, louder, more insistent. A falling pine-needle, striking all butnoiselessly at her side, made her turn swiftly.

  Only now did she hear that other sound, which King had detected. It wasthe thud of horses' hoofs; with it came men's voices faintly. King hadgone that way, Gloria stood up, smothered under a sense of alonenessShe resented his going; she was on the verge of calling to him; herheart began to beat faster. She wasn't afraid ... she didn't think shewas afraid....

  When he came up over the rock again, gone but a few moments, true to hisword, she ran to meet him. She had not been afraid, but engulfed by anemotion which had seemed not born within her but a mighty emanation ofthe woods themselves, and which in its effect was not unlike fear. Anemotion which, now that King was here, was lifted out of her and blownaway like a whiff of smoke before the mountain winds. She looked at himwith new curiosity, wondering at herself, wondering at him that hispresence or absence could make all this world of difference. She saw himin a new, bright light, as one may see for the first time a stranger onwhom much depends. He was strong, she thought; strong of body, of mind,of hear
t. He was like the mountains, which were not complete withouthim. His eyes were frank and clear and honest; and yet they were, forher, filled with mystery. For he was man, and his physical manhood wassplendidly, vigorously vital. She had danced with men and boys, flirtedwith them, made friends of a sort with them. Yet none of them had sether wondering as King did. The repressed curl of his short, crisp hair,the warm tan of his face and hands and exposed throat, the very gleam ofhis perfect teeth, and the flow of the muscles under his shirt--thesethings by the sheer trick of opposites sent her fancies scurrying. ToGratton. How unlike the two men were. And how glad she was that now itwas King coming up over the rock to her.... It had been to Gratton thatshe had said: "He is every inch a man!" She stopped abruptly and waitedfor him to come to her side.

  "We must be going," he said. "You have rested?"

  She nodded, and he began gathering up coffee-pot, cups, scraps of paper;bits of food he left for bird and chipmunk, but the tin cans weredropped behind an old log and covered over with leaves. She would nothave thought of that; she understood the reason and was glad that theirown arrival here had not been spoiled for them by finding a litter ofother campers' leavings. He stamped out the few embers of their fire,and, not entirely satisfied, though there was but little danger offorest fires here in green young June, nevertheless went to the creekfor water and doused the one or two black charred sticks which stillemitted thin wisps of smoke.

  "Those men?" queried Gloria when it was clear that he would requireprompting. "Who were they?"

  "Some chaps from Coloma, packing off into the woods."

  "Swen Brodie?" she demanded.

  "Yes. Swen Brodie and half a dozen of his ilk."

  "We will overtake them? Is that why you are in a hurry now?"

  "No. We won't see anything of them. That's what I went to find out. Weare within a few hundred yards of the fork in the trail; they turned offto the right, as I thought they would."

  "You would like to follow after them?" She gathered that from a vaguesomething in his voice and from a look, not so vague, in his eyes. "If Iwere not along you would go the way they have gone?"

  "Yes," he admitted. "But you are along, you know! What is more,"--as herealized that she might fear he resented her being with him,--"I am gladthat you are. And now shall we start? We've a long ride ahead of usyet."

  She followed him down through the alders; at the pool where she hadslipped before, and he had held her in his arms, she was very carefulnot to slip now. Nor did they look at each other while she lightlytouched his hand and they crossed over. For an hour, until thewilderness worked its green magic upon them again, they were a verysilent man and girl, he pondering on Brodie and his men pushing on intothe solitudes, she wondering many things about her companion--and aboutherself.