Told In The Hills Part 40

"I doubt na I've had a nap since she left;" and the Old man raised himself stiffly from the bunk. "I got none the night, for the sore pain o' my back, but the la.s.s helped me. She's a rare helpful one."

"Which trail did she take?" asked Genesee impatiently.

He saw the old man was not able to help him look for her, and did not want to alarm him; but to stand listening to comments when every minute was deepening the snow, and the darkness--well, it was a test to the man waiting.

"I canna say for sure, but she spoke o' the trail through the Maples being the quickest way home; likely she took it."

Genesee turned to the door with a gesture of despair. He had come that way and seen no sign of her; but the trail wound above gulches where a misstep was fatal, and where a horse and rider could be buried in the depths that day and leave no trace.

At the door he stopped and glanced at Davy MacDougall, and then about the cabin.

"Are you fixed all right here in case of being snowed in?" he asked.

"I am that--for four weeks, if need be; but does it look like that out?"

"Pretty much. Good-bye, Davy;" and he walked back and held out his hand to the old man, who looked at him wonderingly. Though their friends.h.i.+p was earnest, they were never demonstrative, and Genesee usually left with a careless klahowya!

"Why, lad--"

"I'm going to look for her, Davy. If I find her, you'll hear of it; if I don't, tell the cursed fools at the ranch that I--that I sent a guide who would give his life for her. Good-bye, old fellow--good-bye."

Down over the mountain he went, leading Mowitza, and breaking the path ahead of her--slow, slow work. At that rate of travel, it would be morning before he could reach the ranch; and he must find her first.

He found he could have made more speed with snow-shoes and without Mowitza--the snow was banking up so terribly. The valley was almost reached when a queer sound came to him through the thick veil of white that had turned gray with coming night.

Mowitza heard it, too, for she threw up her head and answered it with a long whinny, even before her master had decided what the noise was; but it came again, and then he had no doubt it was the call of a horse, and it was somewhere on the hill above him.

He fastened Mowitza to a tree, and started up over the way he had come, stopping now and then to call, but hearing no answer--not even from the horse, that suggested some phantom-like steed that had pa.s.sed in the white storm.

Suddenly, close to him, he heard a sound much more human--a whistle; and in a moment he plunged in that direction, and almost stumbled over a form huddled against a fallen tree. He could not see her face. He did not need to. She was in his arms, and she was alive. That was enough.

But she lay strangely still for a live woman, and he felt in his pocket for that whisky-flask; a little of the fiery liquor strangled her, but aroused her entirely.

"Jack?"

"Yes."

"I knew if I called long enough you would come; but I can only whisper now. You came just in time."

"How long have you been here?"

"Oh, hours, I think. I started for the gulch trail, and couldn't make it with snow on the ground. Then I tried for the other trail, but got lost in the snow--couldn't even find the cabin. Help me up, will you? I guess I'm all right now."

She was not, quite, for she staggered woefully; and he caught her quickly to him and held her with one arm, while he fumbled for some matches with the other.

"You're a healthy-looking specimen," was the rather depreciating verdict he gave at sight of the white, tired face. She smiled from the pillow of his shoulder, but did not open her eyes; then the match flickered and went out, and he could see her no more.

"Why didn't you stay at home, as I told you to?"

"Didn't want to."

"Don't you know I'm likely to catch my death of cold tramping here after you?"

"No," with an intonation that sounded rather heartless; "you never catch cold."

The fact that she had not lost her old spirit, if she had her voice, was a great point in her favor, and he had a full appreciation of it. She was tired out, and hoa.r.s.e, but still had pluck enough to attempt the trip to the ranch.

"We've got to make it," she decided, when the subject was broached; "we can make it to-night as well as to-morrow, if you know the trail. Did you say you had some biscuits? Well, I'm hungry."

"You generally are," he remarked, with a dryness in no way related to the delight with which he got the biscuits for her and insisted on her swallowing some more of the whisky. "Are you cold?"

"No--not a bit; and that seems funny, too. If it hadn't been such a soft, warm snow, I should have been frozen."

He left her and went to find the mare, which he did without much trouble; and in leading her back over the little plateau he was struck with a sense of being on familiar ground. It was such a tiny little shelf jutting out from the mountain.

Swathed in snow as it was, and with the darkness above it, he felt so confident that he walked straight out to where the edge should be if he was right. Yes, there was the sudden shelving that left the little plot inaccessible from one side.

"Do you know where we are, my girl?" he asked as he rejoined her.

"Somewhere on Scot's Mountain," she hazarded; the possessive term used by him had a way of depriving her of decided opinions.

"You're just about the same place where you watched the sun come up once--may be you remember?"

"Yes."

He had helped her up. They stood there silent what seemed a long time; then he spoke:

"I've come here often since that time. It's been a sort of a church--one that no one likely ever set foot in but you and me." He paused as if in hesitation; then continued: "I've wished often I could see you here again in the same place, just because I got so fond of it; and I don't know what you think of it, but this little bit of the mountain has something witched in it for me. I felt in the dark when my feet touched it, and I have a fancy, after it's all over, to be brought up here and laid where we stood that morning."

"Jack," and her other hand was reached impulsively to his, "what's the matter--what makes you speak like that now?"

"I don't know. The idea came strong to me back there, and I felt as if you--you--were the only one I could tell it to, for you know nearly all now--all the bad in me, too; yet you've never been the girl to draw away or keep back your hand if you felt I needed it. Ah, my girl, you are one in a thousand!"

He was speaking in the calmest, most dispa.s.sionate way, as if it was quite a usual thing to indulge in dissertations of this sort, with the snow slowly covering them. Perhaps he was right in thinking the place witched.

"You've been a good friend to me," he continued, "whether I was near or far--MacDougall told me things that proved it; and if my time should come quick, as many a man's has in the Indian country, I believe you would see I was brought here, where I want to be."

"You may be sure of it," she said earnestly; "but I don't like to hear you talk like that--it isn't like you. You give me a queer, uncanny feeling. I can't see you, and I am not sure it is Jack--nika tillik.u.m--I am talking to at all. If you keep it up, you will have me nervous."

He held her hand and drew it up to his throat, pressing his chin against the fingers with a movement that was as caressive as a kiss.

"Don't you be afraid," he said gently; "you are afraid of nothing else, and you must never be of me. Come, come, my girl, if we're to go, we'd better be getting a move on."

The prosaic suggestion seemed an interruption of his own tendencies, which were not prosaic. The girl slipped her fingers gently but decidedly from their resting-place so near his lips, and laid her one hand on his arm.

"Yes, we must be going, or"--and he knew she was smiling, though the darkness hid her--"or it will look as if there are two witched folks in our chapel--our white chapel--to-night. I'm glad we happened here, since the thought is any comfort to you; but I hope it will be many a day before you are brought here, instead of bringing yourself."

He took her hand, and through the white ma.s.ses turned their faces down the mountain. The mare followed meekly after. The stimulant of bread and whisky--and more, the coming of this man, of whom she was so stubbornly confident--had acted as a tonic to Rachel, and she struggled through bravely, accepting little of help, and had not once asked how he came to be there instead of the ranchmen.