The Preacher of Cedar Mountain Part 33

The storm was over. The one plan was clear. That she would take--take and win; but, oh, how selfish she felt in taking it! She was sacrificing his career.

Yet ever she crushed the rising self-accusation with the "There are other colleges and other ways. I'll open the way for that." That was the sop to her inner judge, but the motive power was this: "At any price I must hold him." And convinced that the time had come to play her highest trump she fell asleep.

The following morning found Belle fully prepared for energetic action.

She cleared the table and washed the dishes, putting them in their accustomed places, and stopped suddenly with the last of the china in her hand, wondering how long it would be before she held it again.

Upstairs, she quickly packed her hand-bag for "a one-night camp" and, keeping ears and eyes alert, noted when at length her father had gone to his office and her mother had settled to her knitting. Then she went to her room and set about a careful toilet. The rebellious forelock was curled on a hot slate pencil and tucked back among its kind. Over each ear, she selected another lock for like elaboration. She put on her most becoming dress and studied the effect of her two brooches to make sure which one would help the most. She dashed a drop of "Violetta" on her handkerchief and pinched her cheeks to heighten their colour and remove the traces of the previous night's vigil. The beauty-parlour methods were not yet known in Cedar Mountain.

Jim always dropped in for a chat in the morning and it was not long before his cheery whistle sounded as down the street he came to the tune of "Merry Bandon Town." In his right hand he twirled a stout stick in a way that suggested a very practical knowledge of the s.h.i.+llelah. The flush of health and of youth suffused his cheeks and mounted to his forehead. All signs of worry over his impending fate were gone; indeed, no worry could live long in his buoyant mind; its tense electric chargement was sure death to all such microbes. Arrived at the Boyds', he did not stop to open the five-foot gate. Laying his fingers on the post, he vaulted over the pickets.

Belle met him on the porch. From somewhere back, Ma Boyd called out a thin-voiced "good morning," as they went into the front room.

"My little girl looks pale to-day," he said, as he held her at arm's length.

"Yes, I didn't sleep well. I wish I could get out for a few hours. Can't you take me?"

"Sure, that's what I came for," he answered gaily.

"I don't feel much like riding, Jim. Can you get a good buckboard?"

"Why, yes, of course I can. Carson says I can have his double-harness buckboard any time, ponies and all."

"Good! Just the thing. I want to go out to Bylow's Corner to make a call, and maybe farther, if we can manage. I'll be ready by the time you are here with the rig."

She went to her desk and wrote a note to her father. Somehow, mother didn't seem to count.

DEAR DAD: If I am not home to-night, I shall be with Aunt Collins.

Lovingly, BELLE.

Then she put it in his tobacco jar, where he would be certain to see it on coming home for dinner, and where Ma Boyd would never dream of looking.

When Jim returned she carried a hand-bag: "Some things I need," and she laughed happily as he lifted her into the rig and inquired if she wasn't taking a trunk. Then away they went, as they had so many times before.

Youth and health, love and beauty; October and the Dakota Hills--what a wonderful conjunction! The world can do no better to multiply the joy of being alive. If either had a care, it was quickly buried out of sight.

Jim was in rollicking mood. Not a prairie dog sat up and shook its tail in time to its voice, but Jim's humour suggested resemblances to some one that they knew; this one looked like Baxter, the fat parson of the Congregationalists; "that little one's name is likely Higginbotham; see how Hannah makes him skip around. And there goes Lawyer Scrimmons," he chuckled, as a blotched, bloated rattlesnake oozed along and out of sight at the hint of danger. Two owls that gazed and blinked in silence were named for a pair of fat twin sisters of their church; perfectly well-meaning, but without a word of conversation or any expression but their soulful eyes. And a solitary owl that gazed from the top of a post straight up in the sky was compared to an old-time Methodist woman with her eyes uplifted in prayer while the collection plate was shoved under her nose.

Bylow's Corner was reached all too soon. As Jim was about to draw up Belle said: "Let's go on farther; we can take them in on the road back.

Let's go as far as Lookout Mountain." And Jim was happy to go.

They were six miles from Cedar Mountain now, with no more houses by the road for miles. Belle had fallen silent. It was all as she had planned, but somehow the firm resolve of the night before seemed open to question now. She gazed absently away over the level, toward a distant hillside, and the smile faded from her lips. To his next light speech she barely made response. He threatened to charge a "thank you ma'am" at high speed if she didn't laugh. Then, getting no response, he burst out:

"What the divil is the matter with my little girl to-day? Have ye anything on your mind, Belle?"

This was the fork in their trail: either she must tell him or give him up. For a fraction of an instant she lived through the agony of doubt.

Then, with a certainty she had not thought possible, she said: "Yes, Jim, I surely have."

"Well, shake it off, Belle. Let some other mind have it. Use mine, if you'll allow that I have one."

"I haven't slept all night for thinking of it, Jim," she began.

"Thinking of what?"

"Your going away."

His face clouded; he became suddenly silent and she continued:

"Jim, dear, I've tried to keep my feelings out of it altogether; I've argued it out, using nothing but my judgment, and it seemed the wise thing for you to go back East to college. All my judgment says: 'send him back'; but, oh, all my instincts say 'keep him here.'" She covered both his hands with hers and put her cheek on them for a moment.

"I'm always trying to be wise, Jim, but I suppose I'm really very stupid and very weak like most humans; and there come times when I feel like kicking everything over and saying 'what's the use?' This time I'm going to let my feelings hold the reins."

"Why, Belle darling! That sounds more like me than you."

"Jim, as I lay awake last night, a voice seemed to be sounding in my heart: 'Don't let him go. If he goes, you'll lose him, you'll lose each other.' Jim, do you suppose G.o.d brought you and me together in this way, to be so much to each other, to be exactly fitted to round out each other's life, to let us separate now?"

"Belle, I believe He sent me out here to meet you, and any one coming between us is going against G.o.d."

"I know, Jim. And yet I have the feeling, which I can't shake off, that as sure as you go back to college, I shall lose you."

"Then, by Heaven! I won't go; and that settles it, Belle. I'll chuck the whole thing." And his forehead flushed with pa.s.sion.

She dropped her face on her knees and shook in a paroxysm of weeping.

All the emotional side of her nature--so carefully repressed throughout these weeks and months of struggle--swept away their barriers. Now that she had spoken the fear that was in her heart, the reality of the danger that threatened their happiness crushed her down. Jim threw his arm around her. "Belle, Belle, I can't see you cry that way. Belle, don't!

We are not going to part."

It was long before she found her voice. In broken sounds she sobbed: "I can't give you up now," and she leaned toward him though still she hid her face.

"Belle, why do you talk of such a thing? You won't give me up, because I won't let you. I won't go, Belle, that's settled."

Her only answer was to cling to him pa.s.sionately. After a long silence, during which the ponies dropped to a walk, she said half questioningly:

"Jim, we can't--give up all and--and--separate now."

"Belle darling," and Jim suddenly became calm and clear in thought, and a strange new sense of power came on him as he gripped himself, "there are times when a man must just take the bit in his teeth and break through everything, and I'm going to do that now. There's just one way out of this; we're half-way to Deadwood. Let's go right on and get married. The college and everything else can go to the divil so long as I can be with you.

"Will you agree to that?" he asked, lifting her head from his shoulder and looking into her eyes.

"Jim," she said, pus.h.i.+ng him gently away from her and leaning back so that they occupied the sides of the wide seat, "let's be fair with each other. For a long time you've had your fling at the hards.h.i.+p of going back to Coulter while I have urged you to go. This is my fling at it"--she smiled at him through her tears--"my rebellion, so perhaps we're quits. But the problem still remains. I thought about it all last night and I decided I could not let you go--that it meant the end of our hopes. When you first asked me, up the road, I doubted my right to tell you the fears I had. But, oh, Jim, it is _our_ happiness, _ours_, not yours or mine alone. If we have that we can _make_ the rest come right.

If we lose that----"

"But we're not going to lose it," he cried, "if you'll only answer my question, Will you marry me to-day if we go on to Deadwood?" He put out his arms to her and she yielded with a happy sob to his ardour. Holding her and pressing his lips to hers, he said simply: "I am very happy."

After a little while she took his head between her palms and looking into his face with eyes that sought his spirit, as though she would pledge her faith to his, she said: "You will never be sorry for this, darling."

At Lookout Mountain was the half-way house. They fed their horses, rested an hour, and then sped on. At four o'clock they reached Deadwood.

Jim put up the horses at the little inn, whose parlour he remembered; together they went to the jeweller's shop, purchased a ring, and then to the mayor's office.