"No, no. I cannot go there--not near it--no!"
"Oh, you brave, sweet woman! It is only a skin. Don"t look at it, then. You have been frightened. I see how you have suffered. Wait.
There--no, don"t put your foot to the ground. Sit on this hillock while I take it away."
But she only clung to him the more, and sobbed convulsively. "I am afraid--"Arry King. Oh, if--if--they are there still! Those Indian! Do not go there."
"But they are gone; I have been in and they are not there. I won"t take you into that place until I have made it fit for you again. Sit here awhile. Amalia Manovska,--I can"t see you weep." So tenderly he spoke her name, with quivering lips, reverently. With all his power he held himself and would dare no more. If only once more he might touch her lips with his--only once in his renunciation--but no. His conscience forbade him. Memory closed upon him like a deadening cloud and drenched his hurt soul with sorrow. He rose from stooping above her and looked back.
"Your mother is coming. She will be here in a moment and then I will set that room in order for you, and--" his voice shook so that he was obliged to pause. He stooped again to her and spoke softly: "Amalia Manovska, stop weeping. Your tears fall on my heart."
"Ah, what have happen, to you--to Amalia--? Those terrible men "rouge"!" cried Madam Manovska, hurrying forward.
"Oh, Madam, I am glad you have come. The Indians are gone, never fear.
Amalia has hurt her foot. It is very painful. You will know what to do for her, and I will leave her while I make things more comfortable in there."
He left them and ran to the cabin, and hastily taking the hideous pelt from the wall, hid it, and then set himself to cleaning the room and burning the litter of bones and sc.r.a.ps left from the feast. It was horrible--yes, horrible, that they should have had such a fright, and alone there. Soon he went back, and again taking her in his arms, unresisted now, he laid her on the bunk, then knelt and removed her worn shoe.
"Little worn shoe! It has walked many a mile, has it not? Did you think to ask Larry Kildene to bring you new ones?"
"No, I forgot my feet." She laughed, and the spell of tears was broken. The long strain of anxiety and fear and then the sudden release had been too much. Moreover, she was faint with hunger.
Without explanation Harry King understood. He looked to the mother for help and saw that a change had come over her. Roused from her apathy she was preparing food, and looking from her to Amalia, they exchanged a glance of mutual relief.
"How it is beautiful to see her!" Amalia spoke low. "It is my hurt that is good for her mind. I am glad of the hurt."
He sat with the shoe in his hand. "Will you let me bind your ankle, Amalia? It will grow worse unless something is done quickly." He spoke humbly, as one beseeching a favor.
"Now it is already better, you have remove the shoe." How he loved her quaint, rapid speech! "Mamma will bind it, for you have to do for those horse and the mule. I know--I have seen--to take them to drink and eat, and take from them the load--the burden. It is the box--for that have you risk your life, and the gladness we feel to again have it is--is only one greater--and that is to have you again with us. Oh, what a sorrow and terror--if you had not come--I can never make you know. When I see those Indian come walking after each other so as they go--my heart cease to beat--and my body become like the ice--for the fear. When fearing for myself, it is bad, but when for another it is much--much--more terrible. So have I found it."
Her mother came then to attend to her hurt, interrupting Amalia"s flow of speech, and Harry went out to the animals, full of care and misgiving. What now could he do? How endure the days to come with their torture of repression? How shield her from himself and his love--when she so freely gave? What middle course was possible, without making her suffer?
That afternoon all the events of his journey were told to them as they questioned him keenly, and he learned by little words and looks exchanged between them how great had been their anxiety for him, and of their night of terror on the mountain. But now that it was past and they were all unhurt except for Amalia"s accident, they made light of it. He dragged in the box, and before he left them that night he prepared Larry"s gun, and told Amalia to let nothing frighten her.
"Don"t leave the bunk, nor put your foot to the ground. Fire the gun at the slightest disturbance, and I will surely hear. I have another in the shed. Or I will roll myself in my blanket, and sleep outside your door. Yes, I will do that."
Then the mother turned on him and spoke in her deep tones: "Go to your bed, "Arry King, and sleep well. You have need. We asked of the good G.o.d your safety, and our fear is gone. Good night."
"Good-night."
CHAPTER XXI
THE VIOLIN
While Amalia lay recovering from the sprained ankle, which proved to be a serious hurt, Madam Manovska continued to improve. She took up the duties which had before occupied Amalia only, and seemed to grow more cheerful. Still she remained convinced that Larry Kildene would return with her husband, and her daughter"s anxiety as to what might be the outcome, when the big man should arrive alone, deepened.
Harry King guardedly and tenderly watched over the two women. Every day he carried Amalia out in the sun to a sheltered place, where she might sit and work at the fascinating lace with which her fingers seemed to be only playing, yet which developed into webs of most intricate design, even while her eyes were not fixed upon it, but were glancing about at whatever interested her, or up in his face, as she talked to him impulsively in her fluent, inverted English.
Amalia was not guarded; she was lavish with her interest in all he said, and in her quick, responsive, and poetic play of fancy--ardent and glowing--glad to give out from her soul its best to this man who had befriended her father in their utmost need and who had saved her own and her mother"s life. She knew always when a cloud gathered over his spirit, and made it her duty to dispel such mists of some possible sad memory by turning his thoughts to whatever of beauty she found around them, or in the inspiration of her own rich nature.
To avoid disquieting her by the studied guardedness of his manner, Harry employed himself as much of the time as possible away from the cabin, often in providing game for the winter. Larry Kildene had instructed him how to cure and dry the meat and to store it and also how to care for the skins, but because of the effect of that sight of the b.l.o.o.d.y sheep"s pelt on Amalia, he never showed her a poor little dead creature, or the skin of one. He brought her mother whatever they required of food, carefully prepared, and that was all.
He constructed a chair for her and threw over it furs from Larry Kildene"s store, making it soft and comfortable thereby. He made also a footstool for the hurt ankle to rest upon, and found a beautiful lynx skin with which to cover her feet. The back of the chair he made high, and hinged it with leather to the seat, arranging it so that by means of pegs it might be raised or lowered. Without lumber, and with the most simple tools, he sawed and hewed the logs, and lacking nails he set it together with pegs, but what matter? It was comfortable, and in the making of it he eased his heart by expressing his love without sorrowful betrayal.
Amalia laughed as she sat in it, one day, close to the open door, because the air was too pinching cold for her to be out. She laughed as she put her hands in the soft fur and drew her fingers through it, and looked up in Harry"s face.
"You are thinking me so foolish, yes, to have about me the skins of poor little killed beasts? Yet I weeped all those tears on your coat because to see the other--yes,--hanging beside the door. It is so we are--is not?"
"I"m glad enough you"re not consistent. It would be a blot on your character."
"But for why, Mr. "Arry?"
"Oh, I couldn"t stand it."
Again she laughed. "How it is very peculiar--that reason you give. Not to stand it! Could you then to sit it?" But Harry only laughed and looked away from her. She laid her face against the soft fur. "Good little animals--to give me your life. But some time you would die--perhaps with sorrow of hunger and age, and the life be for nothing. This is better."
"There you"re right. Let me draw you back in the room and close the door. It will freeze to-night, I"m thinking."
"Oh, not yet, please! I have yet to see the gloryful sky of the west.
Last evening how it was beautiful! To-night it will be more lovely to look upon for the long line of little cloud there on which the red of the sun will burn like fire in the heaven over the mountain."
"You must enjoy the beauty, Amalia, and then pray that there may be no snow. It looks like it, and we want the snow to hold off until Larry comes back."
"We pray, always, my mamma and I. She that he come back quickly, and me--I pray that he come back safely--but to be soon--it is such terror to me."
"Larry will find a way out of the difficulty. He will have an excuse all thought out for your mother. I am more anxious about the snow with a sunset sky like that, but I don"t know anything about this region."
"Mr. "Arry, so very clever you are in making things, can you help me to one more thing? I like very much to have the sticks for lame walking,--what you call--the crutch? Yes. I have for so long time spoken only the Polish that I forget me greatly the English. You must talk to me much, and make me reproof of my mistakes. Do you know for why I like the crutch? It is that I would go each day--many times to see the water fall down. Ah, how that is beautiful! In the sun, or early in the morning, or in the night, always beautiful!"
"You shall have the crutches, Amalia, and until I get them made, I will carry you to the fall each day. Come, I will take you there now.
I will wrap these furs around you, and you shall see the fall in the evening light."
"No, "Arry King. To-morrow I will try to ride on the horse if you will lift me up on him. I will let you do this. But you may not carry me as you have done. I am now so strong. You may make me the crutch, yes."
Of all things he wished her to let him carry her to the fall, but her refusal was final, and he set about making the crutches immediately.
Through the evening he worked on them, and at nightfall the next day he brought them to her. As he came down from his shed, carrying the crutches proudly, he heard sweet, quavering tones in the air wafted intermittently. The wind was still, and through the evening hush the tones strengthened as he drew nearer the cabin, until they seemed to wrap him in a net of interwoven cadences and fine-spun threads of quivering melody--a net of sound, inclosing his spirit in its intricate mesh of sweetness.
He paused and breathed deeply, and turned this way and that, as if he would escape but found no way; then he walked slowly on. At the door of the cabin he paused again. The firelight shone through from underneath, and a fine thread of golden light sifted through the latch of the door and fell on the hand that held Amalia"s crutches. He looked down on the spot of light dancing over his hand as if he were dazed by it. Very gently he laid the crutches across the threshold, and for a long time stood without, listening, his head bowed as if he were praying.
It was her father"s violin, the one she had wept at leaving behind her. What was she playing? Strange, old-world melodies they seemed, tossed into the air, now laughing, now wailing like sorrowing women voices. Oh, the violin in her hands! Oh, the rapture of hearing it, as her soul vibrated through it and called to him--called to him!--But he would not hear the call. He turned sorrowfully and went down again to the shed and there he lay upon his face and clasped his hands above his head and whispered her name. It was as if his heart were beating itself against prison walls and the clasped hands were stained with blood.
He rose next morning, haggard and pale. The snow was falling--falling--softly and silently. It fell like lead upon his heart, so full of anxiety was he for the good friend who might even then be climbing up the trail. Madam Manovska observed his drawn face, and thought he suffered only from anxiety and tried to comfort him.
Amalia also attempted to cover her own anxiety by a.s.surances that the good St. Christopher who watches over travelers would protect Larry Kildene, because he knew so well how many dangers there were, and that he, who had carried the Christ with all his burden of sorrows could surely keep "Sir Kildene" even through the snows of winter. In spite of an inherent and trained disbelief in all supposed legends, especially as tenets of faith, Harry felt himself comforted by her talk, yet he could not forbear questioning her as to her own faith in them.
"Do you truly believe all that, Amalia?"