The question was a challenge. Murray sat up. A tinge of red crept into his cheek. "Yes, I know," he answered. "So do you, I think. You put it into my head. Am I a coward, that I can"t decide to give myself over to my father and the business?"
"No. But you are planning to put your shoulder to his wheel somehow--I know you are, or you would n"t be trying so hard to strengthen that shoulder."
"You"re a wizard--or a witch." Murray spoke soberly; then he laughed, as the two pairs of eyes met, and he caught the fire in Jane"s. "Are you always so sure of your friends?"
"Always. If I have a friend, I believe in--her--whether she wants me to or not. She always proves me right."
"Suppose it "him"?
"I don"t know so much about the "hims,"" said Jane, "except my brothers.
The rule works with them."
"You must be an inspiring sister. You "ve brothers enough already, I suppose, but I wish you "d adopt another. My sister--she can"t be far from your age, but she seems years younger. She has n"t thought about things the way you have. Look here! If I go to Montana for a year, I shall be pretty lonesome sometimes, I expect. Will you let me write to you?"
"It would be great fun," answered Jane, simply, "to have letters from a real cowboy with six-shooters in his belt."
"I "ll take them out when I write to you. Must we go back? Well, if you think we ought--though I "d like to lie here all day and dream dreams about the great things I "m going to do. But a fellow can"t dream much in the society of the Bells--he has to be up and doing."
"With a heart for any fate," quoted Jane, blithely, as she led the way.
"I "ll tell you a better motto than that, though, fine as it is."
"What is it? Give it to me, will you?"
"I "ll write it out for you."
"When?"
"To-morrow, perhaps."
"To-day, please. I "m an impatient chap."
"Very well. You shall have it when we get home. It"s one I can"t talk about, somehow--it gives me a choke in my throat--I don"t know why."
Hours later Murray found out why. By the time he and Jane had rejoined the rest of the party the threatening storm-clouds had brought the promised rain. The lunch had to be eaten in Grandmother Bell"s pleasant kitchen, but the guests enjoyed it almost as much as they could have done in the sylvan spot that Peter had picked out. By three o"clock in the afternoon the storm had pa.s.sed. It had cooled the air a little, so that it was possible for the party to spend three long and delightful hours upon the river before going home.
"We three in what was once white," said Murray, as he stood by the trap, "are a pretty sorry-looking crowd to go back all together. Why may I not change places with Peter, and drive the Bell family home?"
Ross chuckled as he winked at Jane, and she recalled his prophecy of some days earlier. But it was he and Nancy who took the back seat of the trap, leaving Rufus and Shirley in the surrey, to carry on an acquaintance which had developed to great friendliness in the Townsend tennis-court, where the children had played every evening throughout the summer.
Up in his own room Murray took from his pocket a slip of paper Jane had given him as she said good night, and unfolding it as if it were a message from a royal hand, he read it slowly through. The expectation of this message had been warm all through the pleasant drive home in the twilight.
The words of Jane"s quotation were these:--and as it happened that he had never seen them before, they came to him at this crisis of his life with peculiar force.
"Life is an arrow--therefore you must know What mark to aim at, how to use the bow-- Then draw it to the head, and let it go!"
There was a little constriction in Murray"s own throat as he studied the brave words. He saw at a flash their deeper meaning. "Make myself fit to live my life," he thought "and then--whether it"s the life I want to live or not--let it go! Jane, you know how to fit the arrow to my hand--bless you! I will _draw_ it to the head--_and let it go_!"
CHAPTER IX
SNAP SHOTS
"A letter from Montana for Miss Jane Bell," observed Peter, distributing the mail at the breakfast-table one May morning, nine months after the picnic at Grandfather Bell"s farm. "It strikes me these Montana letters are beginning to arrive with astonishing regularity."
"They began," declared Ross, enjoying the sight of the sudden colour in Jane"s face, as she tucked the letter into her belt and tried vainly to look unconscious as she went on serving the family from a big dish of oatmeal porridge, "by coming modestly once in about three or four weeks.
Then they got to once a fortnight--that was in midwinter. Along about April----"
"If I were a big, grown man," murmured Jane, "I "d never condescend to keep track of----"
"Along in April," pursued Ross, unmoved, "once in ten days was the schedule. But this last, coming as it does just one short week after its predecessor, and carrying, as it does, two large red postage-stamps--which, I am confident, is underpayment----"
"Stop teasing!" cried Nancy, always loyal to her sister. "Every one of you is envying Jane, wishing you could have letters from a real cowboy."
"A real cowboy!" laughed Ross. "I think I see Murray Townsend getting himself up in that rig. With his pale face and thin shoulders he "d look like the tenderest kind of a tenderfoot."
Jane pulled the letter out of her belt. The previous letter had promised that this one should bring some snap-shot pictures of the writer and his surroundings. She hoped, as she broke the seal, that she should find them, feeling sure that the extra thick letter indicated that it carried the promised enclosures.
As she pulled out the sheets a little packet of blue-prints dropped into her lap. She picked them up and fell to looking at them. Peter, sitting next to her, laughed to himself, as he reached for his dish of oatmeal, Jane having forgotten to serve him. But everybody forgot breakfast, as the blue-prints went round the table. All but one were scenes of ranch and camp life, bringing into view horses and cowboys of all sorts and conditions, each carefully labelled with its descriptive t.i.tle. But the one at the bottom of the pack was called "the tenderfoot"--the only one of the set in which Jane"s correspondent was in evidence.
"Can it be possible this is Murray?" exclaimed Mrs. Bell, studying incredulously the erect figure on horseback, life and energy in every outline, from the tilt of the wide hat to the set of the leg in the saddle. "Why, he looks as if he weighed thirty pounds more than when he went away."
"By George, the fellow has n"t roughed it nearly a year for nothing, has he?" admitted Ross. "He doesn"t look the stage cowboy, either--I "ll say that for him. Those clothes have seen wear and rain, and that hat has had the true Western shape knocked into it. It makes you envy him, does n"t it?"
Peter said nothing, but his eyes dwelt upon the figure in the saddle with a look of longing so intense that if anyone had been observing him it must have told his story plainly. One person was observing him, and as Peter looked up at last, with an involuntary glance at his father, who had just made some observation on the advantage it had been to the rich man"s son to get out among the ranchmen and gain a new view of life, he met his father"s eyes. Joseph Bell understood just what it meant to Peter to stay at home and work as foreman in a note-paper factory when there were such places as Montana in the world waiting for young men to come and explore them. And there was that in his father"s look which told Peter that his sacrifice was appreciated.
Up in her own room, when a dozen duties had been done, Jane read her letter. It was to her a deeply interesting letter, as had been all those which came before it, for Murray wielded a graphic pen, and his pictures of the sort of life he had been living were vivid as colour-sketches. He was rejoicing in the coming of spring and summer, after the long, cold winter, and his delight seemed to Jane so unlike any pleasure in outdoor life she had seen him show at home that it filled her with joy. The letter said, as it neared the close and fell into the personal vein, as letters do:
I never knew before what it was to breathe way down to the bottom of my lungs. My existence--after my accident, and up to the time I came here--seems now to me like that of some pale monk in his cell, feeding on other men"s thoughts, but never living them himself. I"ve learned to live! You, who have long known that secret, will be glad with me, won"t you?
All through the winter I was wrapped to the eyes whenever I put my head out of the cabin door. Men dress warmly here in the winter--flannel-lined canvas overcoats--"blanket coats" they call them--felt boots, and all that. But they don"t make grannies of themselves as I did--at first. As the winter advanced, though, I began to get hardened to it, and before spring I could stand a pretty low temperature without feeling my blood congeal. But when spring came--spring in this Western country! I wish I could describe it. The air like wine, the sunshine like--nothing I can think of. When spring came I began to expand mentally and physically--and in still another way, I think. Anyhow, I "m not the same fellow who went to the doctor for an outfit of drugs before he dared start West.
I "ve learned a lot from these men I "ve been a.s.sociated with. A rough set they would seem to you, most of them--they did to me at first. But when I got to know them, underneath the roughness I found--men. It"s no use trying to put it into a letter. I must talk with you, face to face--and just what that means to me when I think of it I won"t venture to say. I "ll be home in the fall, and then--I "m going into my father"s business. I have n"t said that before, have I? You "ll please not mention it to anyone, except Peter, if you like; I want to surprise father. That"s going to be my reward for doing my duty. It is my duty--I see it plainly at last, and every ounce of determination I can grow from now till fall is going to be just so much more to offer him.
But I won"t brag about that. Do the best I can, it won"t be a wonderful gift, for I "m afraid my talents don"t lie in that direction. But if honest effort can make up--Jane, I have n"t watched some of these heroic chaps for nothing. I "m simply shamed into taking my medicine, and shutting my mouth tight after it. And that"s the last word about it"s being medicine. I "m going to get interested in the business if pitching in all over will do it.
This is a long letter, and I "m done--except to tell you that the West does n"t deserve all the credit for my altered views of life. A certain girl I know, who wanted to go to college, but gave up all thought of it because, besides the family, her father and brothers had half a dozen helpless elderly relatives to support, isn"t the poorest sort of inspiration to her friend, when he happens to be a fellow who never gave up anything for anybody in his life. He values her friendship far more than he dares to tell her now. Somebody--Ruskin?--said a knight"s armour never fitted him quite so well as when the lady"s hand had braced it--and I "m beginning to understand what that rather picturesque metaphor may mean. Do I sound sentimental, and are you laughing at me?
Don"t do it! I "ve not a "gun" in my belt, but I"m rather a rough looking customer nevertheless. I came in an hour ago, wet to the skin--caught out in a cloudburst without my slicker--and while my clothes dry am attired in my cousin"s (seven sizes too big!) being averse to putting on any of the clothes in my trunk, the foolish clothes of civilisation.
I weigh one hundred and sixty-five. What do you think of that? And it"s not flesh, but worked-on muscle and sinew. Did I say I was done? I am. But I am also
Faithfully your friend, MURRAY TOWNSEND.
"You look it," agreed Jane, studying the photograph. "You certainly look it." She gave the little print one more careful examination, noting the steady gaze the pictured face gave back, a spirited expression very different from the half-moody look she had first known; then she put the photographs away and went about her work. And as she went, a little song sang itself over and over in her heart--the song of trust in a ripening friendship of the sort that makes life worth living.