"Well, I dee-clare to gracious!" she began, "if here ain"t the man I met on the boat! How"d you git away out here ahead of us? Have you saw airy buffeler? I"m gettin" plumb wolfish fer something to shoot at. Where all you goin", anyhow? An" whut you doin" out here?"
What I was doing at that precise moment, as I must confess, was taking a half unconscious look once more toward the tail of the ambulance, where Orme and the young woman stood chatting. But it was at this time that Orme first saw or seemed to see me. He left the ambulance and came rapidly forward.
"By Jove!" he said, "here you are again! Am I your shadow, Mr. Cowles, or are you mine? It is really singular how we meet. I"m awfully glad to meet you, although I don"t in the least see how you"ve managed to get here ahead of us."
Belknap by this time had turned away about his duties, and Orme and I spoke for a few minutes. I explained to him the changes of my plans which had been brought about by the accident to the _River Belle_.
"Lieutenant Belknap tells me that you are going through to Laramie with him," I added. "As it chances, we have the same errand--it is my purpose also to call on Colonel Meriwether there, in case we do not meet him coming down."
"How extraordinary! Then we"ll be fellow travelers for a time, and I hope have a little sport together. Fine young fellow, Belknap. And I must say that his men, although an uncommonly ragged looking lot and very far from smart as soldiers, have rather a workmanlike way about them, after all."
"Yes, I think they would fight," I remarked, coolly. "And from the look of things, they may have need to." I told him then of what he had discovered at the station house near by, and added the caution not to mention it about the camp. Orme"s eyes merely brightened with interest.
Anything like danger or adventure had appeal to him. I said to him that he seemed to me more soldier than preacher, but he only laughed and evaded.
"You"ll eat at our mess to-night, of course" said he. "That"s our fire just over there, and I"m thinking the cook is nearly ready. There comes Belknap now."
Thus, it may be seen, the confusion of these varied meetings had kept me from learning the name or ident.i.ty of the late pa.s.senger of the ambulance. I presume both Orme and Belknap supposed that the young lady and I had met before we took our places on the ground at the edge of the blanket which served as a table. She was seated as I finally approached, and her face was turned aside as she spoke to the camp cook, with whom she seemed on the best of terms. "Hurry, Daniels," she called out. "I"m absolutely starved to death!"
There was something in her voice which sounded familiar to me, and I sought a glance at her face, which the next instant was hid by the rim of her hat as she looked down, removing her long gloves. At least I saw her hands--small hands, sun-browned now. On one finger was a plain gold ring, with a peculiar setting--the figure of a rose, carved deep into the gold!
"After all," thought I to myself, "there are some things which can not be duplicated. Among these, hair like this, a profile like this, a figure like this." I gazed in wonder, then in certainty.
No there was no escaping the conclusion. This was not another girl, but the same girl seen again. A moment"s reflection showed how possible and indeed natural this might be. My chance companion in the river accident had simply gone on up the river a little farther and then started west precisely as Mandy McGovern had explained.
Belknap caught the slight restraint as the girl and I both raised our eyes. "Oh, I say, why--what in the world--Mr. Cowles, didn"t you--that is, haven"t you--"
"No," said I, "I haven"t and didn"t, I think. But I think also--"
The girl"s face was a trifle flushed, but her eyes were merry. "Yes,"
said she, "I think Mr. Cowles and I have met once before." She slightly emphasized the word "once," as I noticed.
"But still I may remind you all, gentlemen," said I, "that I have not yet heard this lady"s name, and am only guessing, of course, that it is Miss Meriwether, whom you are taking out to Laramie."
"Why, of course," said Belknap, and "of course," echoed everybody else.
My fair _vis-a-vis_ looked me now full in the face and smiled, so that a dimple in her right cheek was plainly visible.
"Yes," said she, "I"m going on out to join my father on the front. This is my second time across, though. Is it your first, Mr. Cowles?"
"My first; and I am very lucky. You know, I also am going out to meet your father, Miss Meriwether."
"How singular!" She put down her tin cup of coffee on the blanket.
"My father was an a.s.sociate of Colonel Meriwether in some business matters back in Virginia--"
"Oh, I know--it"s about the coal lands, that are going to make us all rich some day. Yes, I know about that; though I think your father rarely came over into Albemarle."
Under the circ.u.mstances I did not care to intrude my personal matters, so I did not mention the cause or explain the nature of my mission in the West. "I suppose that you rarely came into our county either, but went down the Shenandoah when you journeyed to Washington?" I said simply, "I myself have never met Colonel Meriwether."
All this sudden acquaintance and somewhat intimate relation between us two seemed to afford no real pleasure either to Belknap or Orme. For my part, with no clear reason in the world, it seemed to me that both Belknap and Orme were very detestable persons. Had the framing of this scene been left utterly to me, I should have had none present at the fireside save myself and Ellen Meriwether. All these wide gray plains, faintly tinged in the hollows with green, and all this sweeping sky of blue, and all this sparkling river, should have been just for ourselves and no one else.
But my opportunity came in due course, after all. As we rose from the ground at the conclusion of our meal, the girl dropped one of her gloves. I hastened to pick it up, walking with her a few paces afterward.
"The next time we are shipwrecked together," said I, "I shall leave you on the boat. You do not know your friends!"
"Why do you say that?"
"And yet I knew you at once. I saw the ring on your hand, and recognized it--it is the same I saw in the firelight on the river bank, the night we left the _Belle_."
"How brilliant of you! At least you can remember a ring."
"I remember seeing the veil you wear once before--at a certain little meeting between Mr. Orme and myself."
"You seem to have been a haberdasher in your time, Mr. Cowles! Your memory of a lady"s wearing apparel is very exact. I should feel very much nattered." None the less I saw the dimple come in her cheek.
She was pulling on her glove as she spoke. I saw embroidered on the gauntlet the figure of a red heart.
"My memory is still more exact in the matter of apparel," said I. "Miss Meriwether, is this your emblem indeed--this red heart? It seems to me I have also seen _it_ somewhere before!"
The dimple deepened. "When Columbus found America," she answered, "it is said that the savages looked up and remarked to him, "Ah, we see we are discovered!""
"Yes," said I, "you are fully discovered--each of you--all of you, all three or four of you, Miss _Ellen Meriwether_."
"But you did not know it until now--until this very moment. You did not know me--could not remember me--not even when the masks were off! Ah, it was good as a play!"
"I have done nothing else but remember you."
"How much I should value your acquaintance, Mr. Cowles of Virginia! How rare an opportunity you have given me of seeing on the inside of a man"s heart." She spoke half bitterly, and I saw that in one way or other she meant revenge.
"I do not understand you," I rejoined.
"No, I suppose you men are all alike--that any one of you would do the same. It is only the last girl, the nearest girl, that is remembered. Is it not so?"
"It is not so," I answered.
"How long will you remember me this time--me or my clothes, Mr. Cowles?
Until you meet another?"
"All my life," I said; "and until I meet you again, in some other infinite variety. Each last time that I see you makes me forget all the others; but never once have I forgotten _you_."
"In my experience," commented the girl, sagely, "all men talk very much alike."
"Yes, I told you at the masked ball," said I, "that sometime I would see you, masks off. Was it not true? I did not at first know you when you broke up my match with Orme, but I swore that sometime I would know you.
And when I saw you that night on the river, it seemed to me I certainly must have met you before--have known you always--and now--"
"You had to study my rings and clothing to identify me with myself!"
"But you flatter me when you say that you knew me each time," I ventured. "I am glad that I have given you no occasion to prove the truth of your own statement, that I, like other men, am interested only in the last girl, the nearest girl. You have had no reason--"
"My experience with men," went on this sage young person, "leads me to believe that they are the stupidest of all created creatures. There was never once, there is never once, when a girl does not notice a man who is--well, who is taking notice!"