But it was no secret to old Miller, nor to any native in the country-side for a radius of forty miles. No modern invention can equal the wireless celerity that distributes information concerning other people"s business throughout the rural wastes of this great and gossipping nation.
She made him release her, blushing hotly as she remembered that Miller was behind them, and she scolded her lover roundly, until later, in a moment of thoughtlessness, she leaned close to his shoulder and told him she adored him with every breath she drew, which was no sillier than his reply.
The long blue shadows on the snow and the pink bars of late sunlight had died out together. It had grown warmer and grayer in the forest; and after a little one or two snow-flakes came sifting down through the trees.
They had not jumped the big silver boar, nor had they found a trace of him among the trails that crossed and recrossed the silent reaches of the forest. Light was fading to the colourless, opaque gray which heralded a snow-storm as they reached the feeding-ground, spread out their fur coats, and dropped, belly down, to reconnoitre.
Nothing moved among the oaks. They lay listening minute after minute; no significant sound broke the silence, no dead branch cracked in the hemlocks.
She lay close to him for warmth, chin resting on his shoulder, her cheek against his. Their snow-shoes were stuck upright in a drift behind them; beside these squatted old Miller, listening, peering, nostrils working in the wind like an old dog"s.
They waited and watched through a fine veil of snow descending; in the white silence there was not a sound save the silken flutter of a lonely chickadee, friendly, inquiring, dropping from twig to twig until its tiny bright eyes peered level with Geraldine"s.
Evidently the great boar was not feeding before night. Duane turned his head restlessly; old Miller, too, had become impatient and they saw him prowling noiselessly down among the rocks, scrutinising snow and thickets, casting wise glances among the trees, shaking his white head as though communing with himself.
"Well, little girl," breathed Duane, "it looks doubtful, doesn"t it?"
She turned on her side toward him, looking him in the eyes:
"Does it matter?"
"No," he said, smiling.
She reached out her arms; they settled close around his neck, clung for a second"s pa.s.sionate silence, released him and covered her flushed face, all but the mouth. Under them his lips met hers.
The next instant she was on her knees, pink-cheeked, alert, ears straining in the wind.
"Miller is coming back very fast!" she whispered to her lover. "I believe he has good news!"
Miller was coming fast, holding out in one hand something red and gray--something that dangled and flapped as he strode--something that looked horrible and raw.
"d.a.m.n him!" said the old man fiercely, "no wonder he ain"t a-feedin"!
Look at this, Miss Seagrave. There"s more of it below--a hull mess of it in the snow."
"It"s a big strip of deer-hide--all raw and bleeding!" faltered the girl. "What in the world has happened?"
"_His_ work," said Miller grimly.
"The--the big boar?"
"Yes"m. The deer yard over there. He sneaked in on "em last night and this doe must have got stuck in a drift. And that devil caught her and pulled her down and tore her into bits. Why, the woods is all scattered with shreds o" hide like this! I wish to G.o.d you or Mr. Mallett could get one crack at him! I do, by thunder! Yes"m!"
But it was already too dusky among the trees to sight a rifle. In silence they strapped up the coats, fastened on snow-shoes, and moved out along the bare spur of the mountain, where there was still daylight in the open, although the thickening snow made everything gray and vague.
Here and there a spectral tree loomed up among the rocks; a white hare"s track, paralleled by the big round imprints of a lynx, ran along the unseen path they followed as Miller guided them toward Westgate.
Later, outlined in the white waste, ancient apple-trees appeared, gnarled relics of some long-abandoned clearing; and, as they pa.s.sed, Duane chanced to glance across the rocks to the left.
At first he thought he saw something move, but began to make up his mind that he was deceived.
Noticing that he had halted, Geraldine came back, and then Miller returned to where he stood, squinting through the falling flakes in the vague landscape beyond.
"It moved; I seen it," whispered Miller hoa.r.s.ely.
"It"s a deer," motioned Geraldine; "it"s too big for anything else."
For five minutes in perfect silence they watched the gray, flat forms of scrub and rock; and Duane was beginning to lose faith in everybody"s eyes when, without warning, a huge, colourless shape detached itself from the flat silhouettes and moved leisurely out into the open.
There was no need to speak; trembling slightly, he cleared his rifle sight of snow, steadied his nerves, raised the weapon, and fired.
A horrid sort of scream answered the shot; the boar lurched off among the rocks, and after him at top speed ran Duane and Miller, while Geraldine, on swift skis, sped eastward like the wind to block retreat to the mountain. She heard Duane"s rifle crack again, then again; heard a heavy rush in the thicket in front of her, lifted her rifle, fired, was hurled sideways on the rocks, and knew no more until she unclosed her bewildered eyes in her lover"s arms.
A sharp pain shot through her; she gasped, turned very white, and lay with wide eyes and parted lips staring at Duane.
Suddenly a penetrating aroma filled her lungs; with all her strength she pushed away the flask at her lips.
"No! No! Not that! I _will_ not, Duane!"
"Dear," he said unsteadily, "you are very badly hurt. We are trying to carry you back. You must let me give you this----"
"No," she sobbed, "I will not! Duane--I--" Pain made her faint; her grasp on his arm tightened convulsively; with a supreme effort she struck the flask out of his hand and dropped back unconscious.
CHAPTER XXIII
SINE DIE
The message ran:
"My sister badly hurt in an accident; concussion, intermittent consciousness. We fear spinal and internal injury. What train can you catch?
SCOTT SEAGRAVE."
Which telegram to Josiah Bailey, M.D., started that eminent general pract.i.tioner toward Roya-Neh in company with young Dr. Goss, a surgeon whose brilliancy and skill did not interfere with his self-restraint when there were two ways of doing things.
They were to meet in an hour at the 5.07 train; but before Dr. Bailey set out for the rendezvous, and while his man was still packing his suit-case, the physician returned to his office, where a patient waited, head hanging, picking nervously at his fingers, his prominent, watery eyes fixed on vacancy.
The young man neither looked up nor stirred when the doctor entered and reseated himself, picking up a pencil and pad. He thought a moment, squinted through his gla.s.ses, and continued writing the prescription which the receipt of the telegram from Roya-Neh had interrupted.
When he had finished he glanced over the slip of paper, removed his gold-rimmed reading spectacles, folded them, balanced them thoughtfully in the palm of his large and healthy hand, considering the young fellow before him with grave, far-sighted eyes:
"Stuyvesant," he said, "this prescription is not going to cure you. No medicine that I can give you is going to perform any such miracle unless you help yourself. Nothing on earth that man has invented, or is likely to invent, can cure your disease unless by G.o.d"s grace the patient pitches in and helps himself. Is that plain talk?"
Quest nodded and reached shakily for the prescription; but the doctor withheld it.
"You asked for plain talk; are you listening to what I"m saying?"