A Virginia Scout Part 14

In this one sentence she tagged my forest work as being valueless. Had I been the boy who rode through the May suns.h.i.+ne frantically to announce his poverty, I might have accepted her verdict as a just sentence. Now there was a calculating light in her dark blue eyes that put me on my mettle.

She was throwing down a red ax.

"I am self-dependent," I said. "I never was that in Williamsburg. I have risked much. Before crossing the mountains, I did not dare risk even your displeasure. I have done things that men on the frontier think well of.

When you knew me back East I only succeeded in making a fool of myself.

The carrying of despatches between Fort Pitt and Botetourt County is considered to be rather important."

"But, please mercy, there's more important things for young men to do than these you've mentioned," she softly rebuked.

"If the work of surveying lands for homes and settlements, if the scouting of wild country to protect settlements already established, if keeping a line of communication open between the Ohio and the James are not important tasks, then tell me what are?" I demanded.

She was displeased at my show of heat.

"There's no call for your defending to me your work over the mountains,"

she coldly reminded. "As an old friend I was interested in you."

"But tell me what you would consider to have been more important work," I persisted. "I honestly believed I was working into your good opinion. I believed that once you knew how seriously I was taking life, you would be glad of me."

"Poor Basdel," she soothed. "I mustn't scold you."

"Pitying me is worse," I corrected. "If you can't understand a man doing a man's work at least withhold your sympathy. I am proud of the work I have done."

This ended her softer mood.

"You do right to think well of your work," she sweetly agreed. "But there are men who also take pride in being leaders of affairs, of holding office and the like."

"And going into trade," I was rash enough to suggest.

With a stare that strongly reminded me of her father she slowly said:

"In trade? Why not? Trade is most honorable. The world is built up on trade. Men in trade usually have means. They have comfortable homes. They can give advantages to those dependent upon them. Trade? Why, the average woman would prefer a trader to the wanderer, who owns only his rifle and what game he shoots."

"Patsy, that is downright savagery," I warmly accused. "Come, be your old self. We used to be mighty good friends three years ago. Be honest with me. Didn't you like me back in Williamsburg?"

The pink of her cheeks deepened, but she quietly countered:

"Why, Basdel, I like you now. If I didn't I never would bother to speak plainly to you."

Three years' picture-painting was turning out to be dream-stuff. I tried to tell myself I was foolish to love one so much like Ericus Dale; but the lure was there and I could no more resist it than a bear can keep away from a honey-tree.

She had shown herself to be contemptuous in reviewing the little I had done. She was blind to the glory of to-morrow and more than filled with absurd crotchets, and yet there was but one woman in America who could make my heart run away from control. If it couldn't be Patsy Dale it could be no one.

"Back in Williamsburg, before I made such a mess of my affairs, you knew I loved you."

"We were children--almost."

"But I've felt the same about you these three years. I've looked ahead to seeing you. I've--well, Patsy, you can guess how I feel. Do I carry any hope with me when I go back to the forest?"

The color faded from her face and her eyes were almost wistful as she met my gaze unflinchingly, and gently asked:

"Basdel, is it fair for a man going back to the forest to carry hope with him? The man goes once and is gone three years. What if he goes a second time and is gone another three years? And then what if he comes back, rifle in hand, and that's all? What has he to offer her? A home in the wilderness? But what if she has always lived in town and isn't used to that sort of life?"

"But if she loves the man----"

"But what if she believes she doesn't love him quite enough to take him and his rifle and live in the woods? Has he any more right to expect that sacrifice than she has the right to expect him to leave the forest and rifle and make his home where she always has lived?"

"I suppose not. But I, too, like the scenes and things you like. I don't intend spending all my life fighting Indians and living in the forest."

"If your absence meant something definite," she sighed.

"Meaning if I were in trade," I bitterly said.

The kindly mood was gone. She defiantly exclaimed:

"And why not? Trade is honorable. It gets one somewhere. It has hards.h.i.+ps but it brings rewards. You come to me with your rifle. You talk sentiment.

I listen because we were fond of each other in a boy-and-girl way. We mustn't talk this way any more. You always have my best wishes, but I never would make a frontier woman. I like the softer side of life too much."

"Then you will not wait? Will not give me any hope?"

"Wait for what? Another three years; and you coming back with your long rifle and horse. Is that fair to ask any woman?"

"No. Not when the woman questions the fairness. 'Another three years' are your words, not mine. I shall see this war through, and then turn selfish.

What I have done is good for me. It will serve to build on."

"I'm sure of it," she agreed. "And you always have my best--my best wishes."

"And down in your heart you dare care some, or you wouldn't talk it over with me," I insisted.

"We liked each other as boy and girl. Perhaps our talk is what I believe I owe to that friends.h.i.+p. Now tell me something about our backwoods settlements."

In story-writing the lover should, or usually does, fling himself off the scene when his attempt at love-making is thwarted. Not so in life with Patsy. I believed she cared for me, or would care for me if I could only measure up to the standard provided for her by her father's influence.

So instead of running away I remained and tried to give her a truthful picture of border conditions. She understood my words but she could not visualize what the cabins stood for. They were so many humble habitations, undesirable for the town-bred to dwell in, rather than the symbols of many, happy American homes. She pretended to see when she was blind, but her nods and bright glances deceived me none. She had no inkling of what a frontier woman must contend with every day, and could she have glimpsed the stern life, even in spots, it would be to draw back in disgust at the hards.h.i.+ps involved.

So I omitted all descriptions of how the newly married were provided with homes by a few hours' work on the part of the neighbors, how the simple furniture was quickly fas.h.i.+oned from slabs and sections of logs, how a few pewter dishes and the husband's rifle const.i.tuted the happy couple's worldly possessions. She wished to be nice to me, I could see. She wished to send me away with amiable thoughts.

"It sounds very interesting," she said. "Father must take me over the mountains before we return to town."

"Do not ask him to do that," I cried. And I repeated the message sent by Mrs. Davis.

She was the one person who always had her own way with Ericus Dale. She smiled tolerantly and scoffed:

"Father's cousin sees danger where there isn't any. No Indian would ever bother me once he know I was my father's daughter."

"Patsy Dale," I declared in my desperation. "I've loved you from the day I first saw you. I love you now. It's all over between us because you have ended it. But do not for your own sake cross the mountains until the Indian danger is ended. Howard's Creek is the last place you should visit.

Why, even this side of the creek I had to fight for my life. The Indians had murdered a family of four, two of them children."

She gave a little shudder but would not surrender her confidence in her father.

"One would think I intended going alone. I know the Indians are killing white folks, and are being killed by white folks. But with my father beside me----"