Chapter 18

He turned his horse about, for they had passed the spot by several lengths.

Sunbeam stood for a moment, obedient to his rider's hand, while Amy watched the storm close in about her departing cavalier. As he vanished from view, a sudden, overpowering impulse of flight seized her. Without daring to think of what she was doing, she bent down and whispered "_go!_" in the low sharp tone that Sunbeam knew. He was off like a shot.

"I don't care, I don't care," the girl said to herself, over and over again, as they bounded forward in the teeth of the storm. "Better now than later!"

She wondered whether Stephen would kill his horse endeavoring to overtake her; she wondered whether he would ever overtake her again! Somehow it seemed to her as if the storm had caught her up bodily and were bearing her away from a very perplexing world. After all, what an amenable, unexacting sort of thing a blizzard was! How very easy to deal with! You had only to duck your head, and screw up your eyes, and cleave your way through it, and on it went, quite unconcerned with your moods and tenses! If Stephen Burns were only more like that, she thought to herself! But, alas! poor Stephen, with all his strong claims to affection and esteem, could not assert the remotest kinship with the whistling winds and blinding snow which were proving such formidable rivals!

A narrow lane appeared at her right. Almost before she was aware that it was there, she had swung Sunbeam about; in another moment they were standing, with two other saddle-horses, in a little grove of trees, further protected by a small house close at hand. It seemed almost warm in that sheltered nook. Amy recognized the horses and knew that Harry de Luce and one of the girls must have taken refuge within.

The lane was a short one, and she and Sunbeam stood, trembling with excitement, until they saw the shadow of a horse and rider speeding along the road toward the town. Then Amy drew a long breath of relief. "It was all nothing but a shadow," she said to herself, "and I went and thought it was real!"

She slid stiffly down from the saddle and hobbled into the house, all the exultation gone from her bounding veins. It made her a bit dizzy to think of the rush of tumultuous emotions which had outvied the storm of the elements but now. By the time the friendly hostess had established her before the kitchen stove and taken away her dripping hat and coat, she felt too limp and spent to answer the eager questions that were asked.

"Do something for Sunbeam," she murmured weakly to Harry de Luce, in answer to his ready offers of help.

"They're going to send out a 'bus with four horses to pick up the remnants," de Luce assured her. "If you girls will go in the 'bus I will lead Sunbeam and Paddy home." And somehow it seemed so pleasant to be taken care of, just in a group with another girl and two horses, that Amy, with a faint, assenting smile, submitted to be classed with the "remnants."

She felt as if she were half asleep when, an hour or more later, she sat in the corner of the great omnibus, that went lurching along through the snow, like a mudscow gone astray among ocean waves. She had an idea that everybody was talking at once, but that was just as well, since not a syllable was audible above the creaking and rattling of the big ark.

Arrived at home she found the riding-crop, but no Stephen. He had called an hour ago, to ask if she had arrived safely, but he had said nothing about coming again.

"If he has an atom of spirit he will never come near me again," Amy thought to herself. And then; "Oh, that dear blizzard!" she exclaimed under her breath.

Sunbeam, she learned, had arrived before her. Thomas Jefferson, the black stable-man, reported him as partaking of a sumptuous supper with unimpaired relish. The thought of her favorite, crunching his feed in the stall close at hand, gave her a sense of companionship as she ate her own solitary meal. Her father had been called in consultation to a neighboring town and would not return until the following day.

After supper Amy curled herself up in an easy-chair under the drop-light, and opened a new novel which she had been longing to read, ever since Stephen Burns's arrival. She thought with strong disapproval of the manner in which he had been taking possession of her time for two weeks past. She looked at the clock; it was half-past-eight.

"Well! that's over with!" she thought, with a half guilty pang of conviction.

Somehow the novel was not as absorbing as she had anticipated. She let it drop on her lap, and sat for awhile listening to the storm outside, as she reviewed this strange, unnatural episode of half-betrothal which had turned out so queerly.

A sharp ring at the telephone in the adjoining room broke in upon her revery. She hastened to answer it. It was an inquiry from the livery-stable for Mr. Stephen Burns. He had not brought the horse back, nor had he returned to his hotel. Did Miss Lovejoy perhaps know of his whereabouts? Did she think they had better send out a search-party?

Miss Lovejoy knew nothing of his whereabouts, and she was strongly of the opinion that he had better be looked up. As she still stood listening at the telephone, her heart knocking her ribs in a fierce fright, she heard a voice in the distant stable, not intended for her ears, say: "Not much use to search! If he ain't under cover he ain't alive." Upon which the heart ceased, for several seconds, its knocking at the ribs, and Amy Lovejoy knew how novel-heroines feel, when they are described as growing gray about the lips.

She could not seem to make the telephone tube fit in its ring, and after trying to do so once or twice, she left it hanging by the cord, and went and opened the front door and stood on the veranda. It did not seem to her especially cold, but over there, in the light that streamed from the parlor window, the snow lay drifted into a singular shape, that looked as if it might cover a human form. She shuddered sharply and went into the house again. From time to time she telephoned to the stable. They had sent a close carriage out with a doctor and two other passengers, and Elliot Chittenden had gone in an open buckboard with a driver. By and by the buckboard had come back and another party had gone out in it. Then the carriage had returned and gone forth again with fresh horses and a fresh driver.

She played a good deal with the riding-crop during the evening, and now and then she went outside the door and took a look at the weird, shroud-like shape, there in the light of the window. Once she stepped up to it and pushed the riding-crop in, to its full length, just to make sure that there was nothing under the snow. After that she took the riding-crop in and dried it carefully on a towel.

Before she knew it the evening was far gone, and all but one carriage had returned.

"Guess Jim's turned in at some ranch," came the word from the livery-stable. "He'll be ready to start out again as soon as it's light."

If the evening had not seemed so miraculously short, Amy could not have forgiven herself for having been so slow in arriving at her own plan of action. As it was, the clock had struck twelve, before she found herself, clothed in two or three knit and wadded jackets under a loose old seal-skin sack, crossing the yard to the stable door. The maids had long since gone to bed, and Thomas Jefferson was a mile away, under his own modest roof.

Presently, with a clatter of hoofs, Sunbeam came forth from the stable door, bearing on his back, a funny, round, dumpy figure, very unlike in its outlines to the slender form which usually graced that seat. The gallant steed was still further encumbered by a fur-lined great coat of the doctor's, strapped on behind, its pockets well stocked with brandy flask and biscuits.

The storm had much abated, and there was already a break in the clouds over yonder. The air was intensely cold, but the wind had quite died down. Sunbeam took the road at a good pace, for he had a valiant spirit and would have scorned to remember the day's fatigues. His rider sat, a funny little ball of fur, looking neither to the right nor to the left. Stephen was nowhere on the open road; that was sure, for he was far too good a horseman to come to grief out there. There was but one place to look for him, and that was among the prairie-dog holes. She had told him of the danger there was among them, and he would have hastened there the moment he believed that she was lost.

Amy did not do very much thinking as she rode along; she did not analyze the feeling that drove her forth to the rescue. She only knew that she and she alone was responsible for any harm that might have come to one whose only fault was that he had taken her at her word; and that she would cheerfully break her own neck and Sunbeam's,--even Sunbeam's! for the sake of rescuing him.

The storm had ceased entirely now, and just as she reached the ranch gate, which had swung half to on its hinges and was stuck there in the snow, the moon came out and revealed the wide white expanse, unbroken by any sign of the road. She felt sure that the search-parties would have followed the road as closely as possible and that they would have tried not to stray off into the field. But that was just where Stephen Burns, mindful of the perils she had described to him, would naturally have turned. She blew the whistle in the end of her riding-crop, once, twice, three times. The sound died away in the wide echoless spaces. Then cautiously, slowly, she made Sunbeam feel his way across the snow. The moon was still riding among heavy clouds, but now and then it shone forth and flooded with light the broad white field, casting a sharp-cut, distorted shadow of horse and rider upon the snow.

Once or twice she stopped, and blew the whistle and hallooed, and each time the weird silence closed in again like an impenetrable veil. Sometimes she became impatient of her slow progress, but she knew too well the dangers of a misstep to risk the chance of success by any lack of caution. Even in her anxiety and distress of mind, she marked the intelligence with which Sunbeam picked his way, testing the firmness of each spot on which he trod, as if he had known the danger.

Presently they began the ascent of a long narrow ridge beyond which she knew there were no holes. As they paused for a moment on the crest, looking down into the moonlit hollow, she raised the riding-crop to her lips, and blew a long, shrill whistle; and promptly as an echo a voice returned the signal. Following the direction of the sound, her eyes discerned a dark shadow in the hollow forty rods away. She put Sunbeam into a canter, and as she approached the shadow, the outline defined itself, and she saw that it was a ruinous shed or hut.

"Hulloo!" came the voice again, and this time it was unmistakeably Stephen's.

A hundred yards from the shed, Sunbeam shied violently. Looking to one side, she beheld in the shadow of a mass of scrub-oaks the body of a horse lying stark and still. Close beside the head was a dark spot in the snow.

A moment later she had dismounted and was standing within the rickety hut, looking down upon another shadowy form that moved and spoke.

"Are you hurt?" she asked.

"Not much. I believe I have sprained my ankle. But the poor nag is done for," he added sorrowfully.

"Which foot have you hurt?"

"The right one."

"That's good. Then you can ride sidesaddle. Are you sure that is all?"

He was already consuming brandy and biscuit at a rate to dissipate all immediate anxiety.

"Yes; and I declare it's worth it!" he cried with enthusiasm; a statement which, if slightly ambiguous, conveyed a cheerful impression.

"Did the fall kill the horse?" Amy asked, with a little quiver in her voice, of pity for the poor beast.

"No; I thought it best to cut an artery for him. Poor boy! He floundered terribly before he went down."

"What threw him?"

"Something in the way of a branch or a piece of timber. Lucky it happened where it did," he added. "I couldn't have gone far looking for shelter."

"Poor old nag!" said Amy. Then, perceiving that she had not been altogether polite: "Aren't you nearly frozen?" she asked.

"No, it's very snug in here. Some other tramp must have been here before me, and got these leaves together. There's lots of warmth in them."

By this time Stephen had crawled out from among the oak-leaves and, having got himself into the doctor's fur-lined coat, stood on one foot, leaning heavily against the door-frame.

"A splendid night, isn't it?" he remarked in a conversational tone.

Amy, who was just leading Sunbeam up to the doorway, glanced at the young man, standing there in the bright moonlight,--at his sensitive, intelligent face, his finely-modelled head and brow,--and somehow she felt reinstated with herself. She had been fatally wrong in making choice so lightly, but at least the choice was, in itself, nothing to be ashamed of! As she helped Stephen in his painful transit to the saddle, she wondered if she were really a heartless person to take comfort in such a thought. But, in truth, since she had come to question the genuineness of her own part in their relation, she had lost faith in his share as well. There must have been something wrong about it from the beginning, and certainly, she reasoned, if she had lost interest in so admirable a being as he, it was not to be expected that he would be more constant to a trifling sort of person like herself. There was only a little awkwardness to be got over at first, but sooner or later he would bless her for his escape.

Stephen, meanwhile, was submitting to all her arrangements with neither protest nor suggestion. She had undertaken to rescue him, and she must do it in her own way. If he hated to see her ploughing through the snow by the side of the horse, he made no sign. If he would rather have been left to his fate than to have subjected her to exposure and fatigue, he was too wise to say so. Her wilfulness had been so thoroughly demonstrated in the course of that day that he merely observed her with an appreciation half amused, half admiring.

"There is a house just beyond the gate where we can go," she said; and then she did not speak again for many minutes.

As for her companion, he seemed inclined at first to be as taciturn as she. Whether or not he was suffering agony from his foot, she had no means of knowing, nor could she guess how he interpreted her own action. At last he broke the silence.

"Of course you meant to give me the slip," he said. "I half knew it all the time. I suppose that was the very reason why I persisted in acting as if I thought you had ridden back for me. One clings all the harder to one's illusions when,--well, when it's all up with them."

Amy could not seem to think of any suitable remark to make in reply.

They had reached the ranch road now. She knew the general lay of the land well enough to recognize it, and she could trust Sunbeam to keep it. A dense black cloud, the rearguard of the storm, had covered the moon, but there were stars enough to light the way somewhat.

"Would you mind telling me why you risked your life for me?" Stephen asked abruptly.

Some seconds went by before she answered. Then: "I think there was reason enough in my being to blame for it all," she said; "I behaved outrageously."

"And the other reason? There was another reason, I take it."

His voice was not eager, not lover-like; there was more curiosity than anything else in the tone. Again the moon shone out, and lighted up her face distinctly, as she answered him, looking straight before her along the snowy road.

"I think," she said, speaking with a slow consideration of her words; "I think it was because I could not bear to have you--go out of the world, believing--what was not true! It seemed like a deceit going over into eternity!"

Would he say something very dreadful in reply, she wondered; something that would haunt her for the rest of her days?

She was still bracing herself for the worst,--for he had not yet broken the silence,--when they came to the gate, fixed there, half closed. There was just room for Sunbeam to pass out, and Amy fell behind for a moment. Stephen drew rein and waited for her, while she vainly tried to close the gate.

"Don't mind that," he said. "It will close of itself when the snow melts."

She came obediently and walked beside him. They had turned aside from the direction of Springtown, toward a little house a few rods away. They were almost there when Stephen spoke again.

"You must be sorry about it all," he said, "though you very wisely leave that to be understood. You have made a mistake and you think you have caused another person great and lasting unhappiness. I can't tell to-night whether that is so or not, but there is one thing that I think you have a right to know."

"And that is?" She felt that she must fill in the pause, for he evidently found it difficult to go on.

"I think I know you well enough," he said; "to be sure of your feeling about it, though it is different from what some people would have under the circumstances. But somehow I am sure that you will be glad to know, that when I thought I was going to perish in the storm,--after I was thrown, and before I had seen that there was shelter near by,--it was _not you_ my thoughts were running on."

Again he paused while she lifted the latch of the little gate. Then, as Sunbeam passed through, and Amy walked by his side up the snowy path, Stephen said:

"I think it must have been a good many minutes that I lay there, thinking that the end was coming, and the only person in the world that I seemed to care about was--_my mother_!"

At the word, the bond that had irked her was gently loosed, and he, for his part, could only wonder that he felt no pain. The great cold moonlit calm of the night seemed to enter into their hearts, swept clean by the storm. They looked into one another's faces in the solemn white light, with a fine new unconcern. Where were all their perplexities? What had it all been about?

It was as if the snow had melted, and the great gate had closed itself. Was it Paradise or Purgatory they had shut themselves out from?

XIII.

A GOLDEN VISTA.

Tramp, tramp, tramp,--the heavy boots had sounded on the road,--tramp, tramp, tramp! since Sunday morning, and now it was Tuesday noon. Often for hours together there had been no witness to the steady march, save the lordly pine-trees, standing straight and grand in the mountain "parks," or scaling boldly the precipitate sides of the encroaching cliffs; the cliffs themselves, frowning sternly above the path; and always somewhere on the horizon, towering above the nearer hills or closing in the end of the valley, a snowy peak gleaming like a transcendent promise against the sky. Waldo Kean, as he strode steadily down from his father's mountain ranch toward a wonderful new future whose door was about to be flung wide to him, felt the inspiration of those rugged mountain influences, the like of which had been his familiars all the seventeen years of his life. The chattering brooks had nothing to say to him as they came dashing down from the hills to join the rollicking stream whose course his path followed; the sunflowers, gilding the edge of the road, were but frills and furbelows to his thinking. But in the pine-trees there was a perfectly clear significance,--in those hardy growths, finding a foothold among the rocks, drawing sustenance from Heaven knew where, yet ever growing skyward, straight and tall and strong. As he passed among them, standing at gracious intervals in the broad "parks," they seemed to flush with understanding and sympathy. His way led from north to south and as often as he turned and looked back among the trees, the stems glowed ruddily and his heart warmed to them. He knew that it was merely the southern exposure that had tinged their bark and caused that friendly glow, but he liked it all the same.

Now and then the solitude was relieved by the appearance of a horseman riding with flapping arms and jingling spurs up the pass; or again the silence was broken by the inconsequent bleating of a flock of sheep wandering in search of their scant pasturage or huddling together, an agitated mass of grimy wool, its outskirts painfully exposed to the sharp but well-intentioned admonitions of a somewhat irascible collie. Neither man nor beast took special note of the overgrown boy striding so confidently on his way, nor was one observer more likely than the other to guess what inspiring thoughts were animating the roughly clad, uncouth form. The boy's clothes were shabby and travel-stained, and over his shoulders was slung a canvas bag, its miscellaneous contents making sharp, angular protuberances on its surface. He had left the ranch with clothes and books enough to give the bag a pretty weight, and this he had unconcernedly increased by the insertion into the straining receptacle of many a "specimen" picked up by the way. For the eyes were keen and observant that looked out from under the strongly marked brows, and bits of fluorite and "fool's gold," and of rarer minerals as well, which had lain for years beside the road, noted as little by cowboy and ranchman and mountain tourist as by the redman whose feet first trod the pass, were destined to-day to start on their travels, enlisted in the service of Science.

It must have been a daring specimen indeed that should have thought of resisting its fate when it came at the hands of Waldo Kean. There was a certain rough strength not only in the muscular frame, but in the face itself, with its rude features, its determined outlines, its heavy under-lip; and in the stiff black hair roughly clipped on the ample skull, growing in a bushy thatch above the keen dark eyes. It seemed but natural that just that type of boy should feel himself drawn to the study of the rocky foundation of things.

Four years ago Waldo Kean had found out that he wanted to be a geologist, and that to this end he must go to college. Yet though the college was in Springtown, and though Springtown lies close to the foot of the "range," it had taken him four years to get there. During that enforced interval he had done his full share of the heavy ranch work, he had found one and another means of accumulating a little capital of his own; at off hours and off seasons he had cudgelled his brain over books with ugly difficult titles and anything but tractable contents. In short he had fairly earned his passport, and now, at last, on this radiant October morning, he was striding over the few intervening miles that separated him from that wonderful Land of Promise, where Latin and Greek grew on every tree, and the air was electric with the secrets of Science itself. What wonder that he was unconscious of hardship and fatigue, that he counted as nothing the three days' tramp; the icy nights spent out under the chill stars; the only half-satisfied hunger of a healthy boy, living on food which the dry mountain air was rapidly reducing to a powdery consistency! He was going to College; he was going to be a Geologist. What did he care for any paltry details by the way?