From Jest to Earnest Part 67

Addie and Bel were crying bitterly, while De Forrest was groaning and cursing from where he stood, behind the sleigh.

"Come," he shouted, "what's to be done?"

"I will go straight up the bank. I may find a ledge, or some rocks, under which we may cower," said Hemstead.

"Don't go far," said Lottie, eagerly. "I should, indeed, lose hope, if you became separated from us."

He soon returned with the joyful news that a little way up the bank was a high ledge, where they would be completely sheltered from the wind.

Soon he had them all under it, and the respite from the driving gale was welcomed by none more than by Lottie, who, in spite of her courage and sustaining excitement, was beginning to suffer greatly.

De Forrest, being a smoker, had matches; but, in his impatience to light a fire, destroyed most of them.

"Here, Julian, give them to me," said Lottie, most decisively.

Then, after all the dry material which could be collected, by groping round in the dark, was gathered in the most sheltered nook, she took from her pocket a delicate lace handkerchief, and, by means of that, lighted the sticks and leaves. Soon they were warming their numb hands and chilled bodies beside a cheerful blaze.

Hemstead watched Lottie with wondering and increasing admiration.

In securing a fire, they escaped all immediate danger, and she became as cheery as if the disaster, which had threatened even a fatal termination, were only an episode, and the long, wintry bivouac, in that desolate place, but a picnic in the woods.

"You are the queerest girl I ever knew, Lottie," said Bel.

"She means by that, you are the best," Hemstead added.

"Come, this is no time for compliments, but for work," said Lottie, energetically, and she set De Forrest at it also.

The robes were brought from the sleigh, and after the snow had been trampled down and cleared away between the fire and the ledge, here they were spread. Addie and Bel were, at first, terror-stricken at the thought of spending the night in the mountains, but were made so comfortable that, at last, their tears ceased.

"Our best hope is this brandy," said De Forrest, drawing a flask from his pocket.

"Nonsense!" said Lottie. "Our best hope is keeping our senses and a good fire."

But Bel and Addie were ready enough to take the brandy, and were soon sleeping heavily from its effects, combined with their exposure to the cold wind. Lottie could not be prevailed upon to take any.

"I want the use of my senses to-night, if ever," she said. "We must take turns in keeping awake, and you shall have the first watch, Julian."

Hemstead, at this time, was down getting the horses out of the drift, that he might tie them near the fire and also under the ledge. De Forrest set to work very zealously under the stimulus of Lottie's words and the brandy combined, and gathered the brush-wood that lay near, and piled it on the fire. Everything seemed to promise well, and the wearied girl laid herself down by the side of Bel and Addie, and was soon sleeping as naturally and peacefully as if in her luxurious apartment at home.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

IN EARNEST.

When Lottie awoke the storm had pa.s.sed away. The moon, in her last quarter, was rising in pale, unclouded light over eastern mountains, and bringing into dusky outline many intervening hills.

At first, bewildered, and not knowing where she was, she rose up hastily, but after a moment the events of the preceding evening came to her, and she remembered, with grat.i.tude, how they had found partial shelter from the storm.

With something of a child's wonder and pleasure, she looked around upon a scene more wild and strange than any she had ever seen, even in pictures of gypsy encampments. Bel and Addie were sleeping by her side as soundly as if such a nightly bivouac were an ordinary experience. In like heavy stupor De Forrest lay near the fire, though the music of his dreams was by no means sweet. He had made his watch a very brief one, and, having piled the fire high with light brush-wood that would soon be consumed, and leaving no supply on hand, he had succ.u.mbed to the combined influence of the cold and the brandy; and now, with the flames lighting up his face, he looked like a handsome bandit.

The patient horses stood motionless and shadowy, a little at one side. Above her head rose high, rocky crags, from whose crevices clung bushes and stunted trees with their crest of snow. And snow, bright and gleaming near the fire, but growing pale and ghostly, dull and leaden, in the distance, stretched away before her, as far as she could see, while from this white surface rose shrubs, evergreens, and the gaunt outline of trees, in the hap-hazard grouping of the wilderness. Where, before, the storm had rushed, with moan and shriek, now brooded a quiet which only the crackling of the flames and De Forrest's resonant nasal organ disturbed.

But Hemstead was nowhere to be seen. She was becoming very solicitous, fearing that he had straggled off alone, in order to bring them relief, when a sound caught her attention, and she saw him coming with a load of cord-wood upon his shoulder.

She reclined again, that she might watch him a few moments unperceived.

He threw his burden down, and put a stick or two of the heavy wood on the fire. Then Lottie noticed that the genial heat no longer came from the quickly-consumed brush, but from solid wood, of which there was a goodly store on hand.

The student stood a few moments looking at the fire; then his eyes drooped, and he swayed back and forth as if nearly overpowered by sleep and weariness. Then he would straighten himself up in a way that made Lottie feel like laughing and crying at the same time, so great was his effort to patiently maintain his watch. At last he tried the expedient of going to the horses and petting them, but, before he knew it, he was leaning on the neck of one of them half asleep. Then Lottie saw him come directly toward her, and half closed her eyes. The student looked long and fixedly at her face, as the firelight shone upon it; then drew himself up straight as a soldier, and marched back and forth like a sentinel on duty. But after a little while his steps grew irregular, and he was evidently almost asleep, even while he walked. Then she saw him turn off abruptly and disappear in the shadowy forest.

She sprang up, and, secreting herself behind an adjacent evergreen, waited for his return. Soon she saw him staggering back under another great load of cord-wood.

He at once noticed her absence, and was wide awake instantly. He seized a heavy stick for a club, as if he would pursue an enemy who might have carried her off, when her low laugh brought him to her side.

"Don't you hit me with that," she said, advancing to the fire.

"I thank you very cordially for waking me up so thoroughly,"

he said, delighted at finding her so bright and well, and in such good spirits, after all her exposure. "I admit, to my shame, that I was almost asleep two or three times."

"Here is another a.s.sertion of your masculine superiority," she replied, in mock severity. "I may sleep, as a matter of course; but you, as a man, are to rise superior, even to nature herself, and remain awake as long as your imperious will dictates."

"I am much afraid," he said, ruefully, "if you had not spoken to me, my imperious will would soon have tumbled helplessly off its throne, and you would have found your watchman and protector little better than one of these logs here."

"Who has decreed that you must watch all night, while the rest of us sleep? Come, it's my turn now, and I will watch and protect you for a little while."

"Do you mean for me to sleep while you sit here alone and watch?"

"Certainly."

"I'll put my hand in the fire first, if in no other way I can keep awake."

"Didn't you call me 'captain'? You will have to obey your orders."

"I'll mutiny in this case, rest a.s.sured. Besides, I'm not sleepy any more."

"Why, what's the matter?"

"Do you think I could sleep while you were awake and willing to talk to me?"

"I slept a long time while you were awake." She pulled out her watch, and exclaimed: "Mr. Hemstead! in ten minutes more we enter on a new year."

"How much may happen within a year, and even a few days of a year,"

he said, musingly. "It seems an age since I tossed my books aside, and yet, it was within this month. The whole world has changed to me since that day."