"But your father and sister----"
"Oh, she isn"t worryin" any about me; I haven"t had a letter from her for two years. All I"ve got now is Jack, and he"d be no earthly good on the trail. He"d sure lose his gla.s.ses in a fight, and then he couldn"t tell a grizzly from a two-year-old cow. So you see, there"s nothing to hinder me from going anywhere. I"m footloose. I want to spend one summer in the Flat Top country. Ute Jim tells me it"s fine. Then I want to go into the Wind River Mountains for elk. Old Talfeather, chief of the Ogallalahs, has promised to take me into the Big Horn Range. After that I"m going down into the southwest, down through the Uncompagre country.
Reynolds says they"re the biggest yet, and I"m going to keep right down into the Navajo reservation. I"ve got a bid from old Silver Arrow, and then I"m going to Walpi and see the Mokis dance. They say they carry live rattlesnakes in their mouths. I don"t believe it: I"m going to see.
Then I swing "round to the Grand Canon of the Colorado. They say that"s the sorriest gash in the ground that ever happened. Reynolds gave me a letter to old Hance; he"s the man that watches to see that no one carries the hole away. Then I"m going to take a turn over the Mohave desert into Southern California. I"m due at the Yosemite Valley about a year from next fall. I"ll come back over the divide by way of Salt Lake."
He was on his feet, and his eyes were glowing. He seemed to have forgotten all women in the sweep of his imaginative journey.
"Oh, that will be grand! How will you do it?"
"On old Kintuck, if his legs don"t wear off."
"How will you live?"
"Forage where I can. Turn to and help on a "round-up," or "drive" where I can--shoot and fish--oh, I"ll make it if it takes ten years."
"Then what?" Mary asked, with a curious intonation.
"Then I"ll start for the Northwest," he replied after a little hesitation--"if I live. Of course the chances are I"ll turn up my toes somewhere on the trail. A man is liable to make a miss-lick somewhere, but that"s all in the game. A man had better die on the trail than in a dead furrow."
Mary looked at him with dreaming eyes. His strange moods filled her with new and powerful emotions. The charm of the wild life he depicted appealed to her as well as to him. It was all a fearsome venture, but after all it was glorious. The placid round of her own life seemed for the moment intolerably commonplace. There was epic largeness in the circuit of the plainsman"s daring plans. The wonders of Nature which he catalogued loomed large in the misty knowledge she held of the West. She cried out:
"Oh, I wish I could see those wonderful scenes!"
He turned swiftly: "You can; I"ll take you."
She shrank back. "Oh, no! I didn"t mean that--I meant--some time----"
His face darkened. "In a sleeping car, I reckon. That time"ll never come."
Then a silence fell on them. Harold knew that his plans could not be carried out with a woman for companion--and he had sense enough to know that Mary"s words were born of a momentary enthusiasm. When he spoke it was with characteristic blunt honesty.
"No; right here our trails fork, Mary. Ever since I saw you in the jail the first time, you"ve been worth more to me than anything else in the world, but I can see now that things never can go right with you and me.
I couldn"t live back here, and you couldn"t live with me out there. I"m a kind of an outlaw, anyway. I made up my mind last night that I"d hit the trail alone. I won"t even ask Jack to go with me. There"s something in me here"--he laid his hand on his breast--"that kind o" chimes in with the wind in the pinons and the yap of the ky-ote. The rooster and the church bells are too tame for me. That"s all there is about it.
Maybe when I get old and feeble in the knees I"ll feel like pitchin" a permanent camp, but just now I don"t; I want to be on the move. If I had a nice ranch, and you, I might settle down now, but then you couldn"t stand even a ranch with nearest neighbors ten miles away." He turned to take his hat. "I wanted to see you--I didn"t plan for anything else--I"ve seen you and so----"
"Oh, you"re not going now!" she cried. "You haven"t told me your story."
"Oh, yes, I have; all that you"d care to hear. It don"t amount to much, except the murder charges, and they are wrong. It wasn"t my fault. They crowded me too hard, and I had to defend myself. What is a man to do when it"s kill or be killed? That"s all over and past, anyway. From this time on I camp high. The roosters and church bells are getting too thick on the Arickaree."
He crushed his hat in his hand as he turned to her, and tears were in her eyes as she said:
"Please don"t go; I expected you to stay to dinner with me."
"The quicker I get out o" here the better," he replied hoa.r.s.ely, and she saw that he was trembling. "What"s the good of it? I"m out of it."
She looked up at him in silence, her mind filled with the confused struggle between her pa.s.sion and her reason. He allured her, this grave and stern outlaw, appealing to some primitive longing within her.
"I hate to see you go," she said slowly. "But--I--suppose it is best. I don"t like to have you forget me--I shall not forget you, and I will sing for you every Sunday afternoon, and no matter where you are, in a deep canon, or anywhere, or among the Indians, you just stop and listen and think of me, and maybe you"ll hear my voice."
Tears were in her eyes as she spoke, and he took a man"s advantage of her emotion.
"Perhaps if I come back--if I make a strike somewhere--if you"d say so----"
She shook her head sadly but conclusively. "No, no, I can"t promise anything."
"All right--that settles it. Good-by."
And she had nothing better to say than just "Good-by, good-by."
CHAPTER XIV
THE YOUNG EAGLE RETURNS TO HIS EYRIE
It was good to face the West again. The wild heart of the youth flung off all doubt, all regret. Not for him were the quiet joys of village life. No lane or street could measure his flight. His were the gleaming, immeasurable walls of the Sangre de Cristo range, his the gra.s.sy mountain parks and the silent canons, and the peaks. "To h.e.l.l with the East, and all it owns," was his mood, and in that mood he renounced all claim to Mary.
He sat with meditative head against the windowpane, listless as a caged and sullen eagle, but his soul was far ahead, swooping above the swells that cut into the murky sky. His eyes studied every rod of soil as he retraced his way up that great wind-swept slope, noting every change in vegetation or settlement. Five years before he had crept like a lizard; now he was rushing straight on like the homing eagle who sees his home crag gleam in the setting sun.
The cactus looked up at him with spiney face. The first prairie dog sitting erect uttered a greeting to which he smiled. The first mirage filled his heart with a rush of memories of wild rides, and the grease wood recalled a hundred odorous camp fires. He was getting home.
The people at the stations grew more unkempt, untamed. The broad hats and long mustaches of the men proclaimed the cow country at last. It seemed as though he might at any moment recognize some of them. At a certain risk to himself he got off the train at one or two points to talk with the boys. As it grew dark he took advantage of every wait to stretch his legs and enjoy the fresh air, so different in its clarity and crisp dryness from the leaf-burdened, mist-filled atmosphere of Marmion. He lifted his eyes to the West with longing too great for words, eager to see the great peaks peer above the plain"s rim.
The night was far spent when the brakeman called the name of the little town in which he had left his outfit, and he rose up stiff and sore from his cramped position.
Kintuck, restless from long confinement in a stall, chuckled with joy when his master entered and called to him. It was still dark, but that mattered little to such as Mose. He flung the saddle on and cinched it tight. He rolled his extra clothes in his blanket and tied it behind his saddle, and then, with one hand on his pommel, he said to the hostler, moved by a bitter recklessness of mind:
"Well, that squares us, stranger. If anybody asks you which-a-way "Black Mose" rode jist say ye didn"t notice." A leap, a rush of hoofs, and the darkness had eaten both horse and man.
It was a long ride, and as he rode the dawn came over the plains, swift, silent, majestic with color. His blood warmed in his limbs and his head lifted. He was at home in the wild once more, all ties were cut between him and the East. Mary was not for him. Maud had grown indifferent, Jack would never come West, and Mr. and Mrs. Burns were merely cheery memories. There was nothing now to look backward upon--nothing to check his career as hunter and explorer. All that he had done up to this moment was but careful preparation for great journeys. He resolved to fling himself into unknown trails--to know the mountains as no other man knew them.
Again he rode down into the valley of the Arickaree, and as the boys came rolling out with cordial shouts of welcome, his eyes smarted a little. He slipped from his horse and shook hands all around, and ended by s.n.a.t.c.hing Pink and pressing her soft cheek against his lips--something he had never done before.
They bustled to get his breakfast, while Reynolds took care of Kintuck.
Cora, blushing prettily as she set the table for him, said: "We"re mighty glad to see you back, Mose. Daddy said you"d never turn up again, but I held out you would."
"Oh, I couldn"t stay away from Kintuck and little Pink," he replied.
"How"d they feed ye back there?" inquired Mrs. Reynolds.
"Oh, fair to middlin"--but, of course, they couldn"t cook like Ma Reynolds."
"Oh, you go hark!" cried Mrs. Reynolds, vastly delighted. "They"ve got so much more to do with."
It was good to sit there in the familiar kitchen and watch these simple, hearty women working with joy to feed him. His heart was very tender, and he answered most of their questions with unusual spirit, fending off, however, any reference to old sweethearts. His talk was all of absorbing interest to the women. They were hungry to know how people were living and dressing back there. It was so sweet and fine to be able to return to the East--and Mrs. Reynolds hoped to do so before she died.
Cora drew from Mose the information that the lawns were beautifully green in Marmion, and that all kinds of flowers were in blossom, and that the birds were singing in the maples. Even his meagre descriptions brought back to the girl the green freshness of June.