Chapter 32

About the middle of the next afternoon Lee Bryant was riding southward from camp on the main mesa trail. The road was difficult and his horse Dick made slow time along the snowy path broken by wagons through the drifts, but the rider let the animal choose his own gait, as he had done that hot July day when coming up from the south to buy the Perro Creek ranch. On reaching the ford Lee pulled rein. How different now the creek from on that burning afternoon of his encounter with Ruth Gardner and Imogene Martin! Snow covered its bed; the sands where he had knelt, the little pool, the foot-prints, lay hidden from sight. How much had happened since! And how different was his life! He had suffered much and learned much since that hour of meeting; and he should never henceforth view this spot without a little feeling of melancholy. The youth and two girls who drank there at the rill were no more: they had become other persons.

Presently he dismissed thoughts of this and set Dick wading across the ford. Yonder he now could see the three bare cottonwoods, with the low adobe house near by where he and Dave had lived and laboured at the surveys for the project. The bones of his dog Mike, too, rested there under the ground. This brought to mind the meeting with Louise upon the road--and it was Louise to whom at this moment he was going. He began to urge Dick to greater efforts. Once on a stretch of road, bare and wind-swept, he pushed him into a gallop. It seemed interminable, this snow-bound trail. But at last he crossed Sarita Creek (with but a single glance at the cañon's mouth where the two cabins stood untenanted and abandoned among the naked trees) and then covered the long miles to Diamond Creek, and rode up the lane between the rows of cottonwoods to the house, where Louise, who had perceived his approach from a window, appeared at the door to greet him.

"We were terribly alarmed for your safety the night of the blizzard," she said, "but the mail-man finally made his trip to Bartolo and back, and said you were still there and not blown away. And he also stated that you were working night and day."

"Not any more," said Lee, swinging from the saddle.

"You have finished! I can read it on your face!" she cried, joyfully.

"Yes; we threw out the last clod at one o'clock this morning."

"I needn't tell you that I'm proud and happy; you know that, Lee. Even happier than when I learned you were able to continue, at the time you supposed you were unable. Put up your horse and come in. You're half frozen."

Bryant endeavoured to discover from her face what he wished to know, but did not succeed. So he asked:

"Have you had your mail lately?"

"Not for three days. The mail-man made one trip and then the next snow closed the road again to Kennard."

Lee went off to stable Dick. On his return he found Louise at the door still waiting, and she helped him to remove his overcoat and scarf when they passed in to the fire. Then they pushed a divan forward and she bade him spread out his hands before the blaze.

"It wasn't so long ago that we agreed we mustn't see each other again, and here we are together," he stated, with a pretense of solemnity. He extended his hands to the heat and moved his fingers about to expel their numbness. "I don't know what your father would say if he knew all the circumstances."

"I--I don't know, either," Louise stammered, in dismay at the thought.

"How's Imogene?" he inquired.

"Improving slowly. All she needed was to get away from that horrid cabin and horrid--well, surroundings."

"And your father's here?"

"At one of the feed corrals, I think. He had all the cattle rounded up before the blizzard and held here and fed. A big task, with several thousand head."

"Then we're safe," said Lee.

Louise looked at him doubtfully. She knew not what to make of this talk and his portentous air, and felt a new apprehension rising in her mind.

"What is it? What has happened now, Lee?" she whispered.

But all at once he began to laugh. He caught her hand and holding it gazed, smiling, into her eyes. Then he drew from his pocket an envelope, which (still keeping prisoner the hand he had captured) he waved to and fro before her eyes.

"If I didn't know you well, I'd think you had lost your wits," she cried.

"I have--wits and heart both. With joy! Wait, I'll take the letter out so that you can read it. The only blessed thing I ever knew her to do! I bless her for it, at any rate." He pulled the letter and the clipping from their cover and laid them in Louise's hand. "Read, read the tidings!"

The girl's fingers began to tremble as her eyes flitted along the lines. But she read no more than the first part of the letter. She turned to him with her eyes misty, her face radiant.

"I could weep for happiness--but I'm not going to." She made a little dab with her handkerchief at her lashes. "Oh, Lee, to think you're free! And that now we may love each other!"

"I thought we did."

"Of course we did--but you know what I mean."

"You didn't read it all," said he. "You don't know yet the poor opinion she has of me."

Louise crumpled the letter in her hand and cast it into the flames.

"Nor do I want to know it," she exclaimed. "All I care about is my own opinion of you, and our love. That's enough. Perhaps we shall be all the happier for the little misery she caused us."

Her eyes dwelt proudly upon him, upon his face that showed new lines of strength, that was clear and calm, that revealed a spirit come to full manhood, that was luminous with the love she inspired. He had taken her hands and was regarding her tenderly.

"Ruth rendered me one service," said he. "She taught me that there's an appearance which may be mistaken for the substance. That shall be to her credit." He sat silent, smiling thoughtfully for a moment. Then he raised his eyes and drew Louise toward him. "But you, Louise, awoke real love."

His arms enclosed her fast and their lips met in a first kiss.

"We shall walk among the flowers and in the orchard again, Lee dear," she murmured, "as we did once before. And I shall bring you buttermilk as I did that morning--but there will be no Charlie Menocal."

"No. Charlie won't annoy us in the future."

"And when the snow is gone we'll ride along your canal----"

"Our canal now, sweetheart."

"Along our canal and see where you worked so hard and struggled and won, and I'll listen while you point here and there and tell of the obstacles overcome, and of all you did. We shall be gay and happy."

"As I'm happy now," he said, softly. "Do you know what I see there in the firelight? A building, a house--our home."

Louise's face lifted to his, all sweetness and trust.

"I see it, too," she murmured.

"On Perro Creek ranch," Lee continued, "with the sagebrush gone and in its place fields of grain and alfalfa spreading out to the horizon, with water rippling along in little canals and fat cows standing about, and contented farmers at work, and perhaps a railroad somewhere in the background, and ourselves in the foreground by our new home, where flowers are growing, too, and--and----"

Louise's arms slipped up and about his neck, until her cheek rested against his.

"You dream and then you build--you dream and make your dreams come true," she said. "You're my dreamer-builder."

Lee was smiling. The caress in her words, the warm touch of her cheek, her heart beating against his, all made his happiness complete.

"And your lover," he whispered.

THE END

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+------------------------------------------------------+ | Typographical errors corrected in text: | | | | page 19: mortage replaced by mortgage | | page 62: Monocal replaced by Menocal | | page 63: Monocal replaced by Menocal | | page 66: dissappointed replaced by disappointed | | page 130: Sante replaced by Santa | | | +------------------------------------------------------+

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