The High Calling Part 28

Clifford picked himself up and came limping along to where Paul and Esther were sitting. He was all right himself excepting a few minor bruises and was overjoyed to find that Mr. and Mrs. Douglas had escaped serious injury. But when the three of them came to Helen they found her almost in a swoon.

"I think I sprained my ankle," she said with a faint attempt at a smile.

"Thank G.o.d we are not all killed!" exclaimed Esther, but before she could say another word Helen had fainted. Her father and mother were busy over her, Bauer had run up with a water canteen and Clifford was ruefully regarding the wreck of the wagon when the sound of wheels was heard.

"There's Peshlekietsetti," he said. "We'll have to put Miss Helen in the chuck wagon. But how on earth are we going to get to Oraibi now?"

A large wagon turned the bend and the driver pulled up sharply. It was not Peshlekietsetti, but the tourist party from Canyon Diablo. Bauer, as he anxiously stood by Mrs. Douglas trying to restore Helen, was conscious that a group of astonished and interested tourists had climbed down from the wagon and had come up to the scene of the accident. As he looked up he saw Van Shaw and heard him say, "Why, h.e.l.lo, Bauer! Didn't expect to see you here. Had bad accident, haven't you? Anything we can do to help?"

CHAPTER XIV

"IT'S very kind of you, and------" Mr. Douglas began. It is astonis.h.i.+ng how commonplace most people are in moments of accident. Paul had never seen Van Shaw, did not know him in the least and simply saw a good-looking young man dressed in a serviceable camping suit, who had appeared at a moment when help of some kind was imperatively needed.

"You seem to be acquainted, Felix. One of your cla.s.smates at Burrton?

Oh, you're the Pittsburgh party?"

Felix hesitated and Van Shaw saved him the trouble of an introduction.

"Yes, I'm Van Shaw, you know. Our outfit can take care of everything without any trouble. Mr. Douglas of Milton? You're with the Tolchaco party, aren't you? Yes, we'll be glad to be of service."

Van Shaw's glance travelled to Helen, who after a brave effort to keep from fainting again, had finally succ.u.mbed and lay back against the bank. Her mother was calm, and although this was the first time in all Helen's life that she had ever shown any such physical yielding to pain, Esther accepted the situation, and with Paul's help did the only thing obvious and soon had the girl resting, after the fainting spell, in one of the chuck wagons belonging to Van Shaw's party.

After that, events seemed to follow in a natural sequence, that could not reasonably have occurred in any other way. The frightened horses soon overtook and ran into the wagon in front. Masters and Walter caught them and as soon as possible came running back up the gorge, panting and fearful. Their surprise and relief when they learned that no one was seriously injured were great. The broken wagon was, however, such a wreck, that not even Elijah Clifford's ingenuity could repair it sufficiently for use, and with the exception of a few serviceable pieces, it was left behind. The two parties brought together by the quick process of accident, at last continued the journey in company, but for Felix Bauer a cloud had come up over the clear sky of his pleasure.

He had never been able to endure Van Shaw, and it was exasperating to him and annoying to Walter to be under any obligations to one who, back in the old school, had moved in another circle and lived according to other moral codes.

Van Shaw on meeting Walter had simply said, "h.e.l.lo, Douglas! Great place this old desert, hey?" He did not wait for Walter to say anything but rattled on. "This snake dance we're going to is said to be a corker.

It's a beastly old distance to come to see it. I don't mind. But the camp grub gets the mater pretty bad."

The other members in the Pittsburgh party were Van Shaw's mother, just referred to as "mater," his aunt, a Mrs. Waldron, two young men, friends of Van Shaw, Mrs. Waldron's two nieces, and a cook and three drivers.

They had fitted out at Canyon Diablo and crossed the Little Colorado at the upper ford, several hours after the Tolchaco party had pa.s.sed, but owing to better equipment in the matter of horses and wagons they had overtaken the latter just as Touchiniteel and his two Indians had entered the gorge.

By noon the wagons were all out of the gorge and in full view of the Crested b.u.t.tes. Helen was resting as well as could be expected but was evidently in great pain. Masters, who was something of a doctor and surgeon, did the best he could with the simple remedies he carried, but declared the sprain to be a very serious one, and at a little consultation held at lunch time, the feasibility of abandoning the trip and turning back to Tolchaco on account of Helen's condition was discussed.

When Helen heard of it she emphatically objected.

"I won't listen to such a thing. I'm very comfortable. I don't want the rest of you to lose the enjoyment of the trip on my account. The only thing that worries me is the fear I am causing trouble to these other people."

The "other people," represented by Van Shaw and the young men friends, were near the chuck wagon when Helen made this last remark. Van Shaw hastened to a.s.sure her that no one was put out in the least by her presence there.

"I don't feel sure of that. It seems to me that more than one person must have been 'put out' of here when I was put in. I take up a great deal of room and I am sure there were some seats in this wagon."

Van Shaw protested that his party had two extra saddle horses and that as for himself he preferred to walk. He needed the exercise.

The other young men joined in gallantly. Miss Douglas was free to ride in any or all of the wagons as long as she chose.

Helen smiled at all of them impartially and expressed her thanks to Van Shaw in particular. Felix Bauer who with Walter was standing in the group with the rest during this little conversation, wondered for the first time in his life if Helen Douglas was a coquette. If she knew Van Shaw as well as he and Walter knew him would she smile so sweetly at him, and on such brief acquaintance? To Felix Bauer the whole thing was incomprehensible. Even allowing something for the swiftness with which acquaintances can be made in the desert during a camping experience, especially under circ.u.mstances favoured by such an accident as had occurred, it still was not seemly that a girl like Helen Douglas should even in the slightest degree encourage the attention of fellows like Van Shaw.

Felix was so disturbed by his own feelings over the affair that during the whole of the afternoon he avoided the wagon where Helen was. Once, however, as he looked back, to his indignant surprise he noted Van Shaw driving the team and turning about from time to time as if to converse with Helen, who was lying on a camp bed under the canopy cover which had been pulled back, on account of the heat, so as to allow Helen a glance now and then of some pa.s.sing point of interest. Once Felix was sure he heard her laugh at some remark made by Van Shaw in comment perhaps on Touchiniteel's curious sailor made costume.

As soon as he could get a chance to speak to Walter, Felix gave voice to his feelings, for the time being entirely forgetful of the very important fact that up to this time he had never by word or look betrayed to Walter his feeling for his sister.

"Do you see that?" he spoke to Walter as they walked along together a little distance from the wagons. The men had nearly all got down to walk over a piece of particularly hard going for the teams.

Walter looked over in the direction of Helen where Bauer was looking as he spoke, and shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes, but what of it?"

"You know Van Shaw?"

"Well, I don't like it, of course, but Helen is old enough to look out for herself."

"Do you mean that you are willing to have her become friendly with him?"

said Felix, his simple clean mind horrified at the apparent indifference of Walter to Van Shaw's general looseness of moral habits as they knew him in Burrton.

"Well, what can I do?" said Walter with some show of irritation. "Do you want me to go back there, politely ask Van Shaw to stop the team, and say to Helen in his hearing: 'Dear sister, the young man who is amusing you so finely this afternoon is the son of the greatest and most notorious railroad wrecker in America. He himself is known in the school at Burrton as the fastest and most vulgar youth in the inst.i.tution. He drinks, he gambles, he is famous for the number of indecent stories he can tell, he has his rooms adorned with pictures of variety actresses, he has no high aims in life and never earned a cent since he was born, although he spends several thousands of dollars every year which his father makes for him by ruining other people. In short, sister, he is the last young man in all the universe with whom I, your brother, would desire you to become acquainted. Therefore, I am going to ask Mr. Van Shaw to wait until with the help of Mr. Bauer who knows all these facts about Mr. Van Shaw as well as I do, we transfer you from this wagon to one of ours, although owing to our comparative poverty as measured by this Pittsburgh outfit our wagons are not at all fitted to carry beautiful young ladies who have sustained severe ankle sprains.' Do you want me to go over to Van Shaw and get off a speech like that in order to save Helen?"

Bauer stared at Walter in solemn surprise. Then to Walter's surprise he said curtly:

"Every word of it is true."

"Yes, but you can't always say everything that's true. I wish for the life of me that Van Shaw had never put in an appearance. It has spoiled the trip for me. Besides, you never can tell what a girl will do.

They're all romantic and above all, unreasonable. Van Shaw is good looking and he's got money coming to him like the sand of this desert.

And I don't forget a story Clifford was telling us this morning. It was about some American girl very much like Helen, in a book, who said to another girl that all she wanted of a husband in New York was a man to go down town in the morning to earn enough money for her to spend up town in the afternoon."

"You don't mean to say that your sister has any such ambition as that, do you?" asked Felix even slower than usual.

Walter looked at him curiously.

"You don't know Helen very well. She is very ambitious, and she has great respect for wealth. She thinks money can do most anything in this old world. There's no telling what Helen will do when it comes to marrying. I can't imagine her marrying a poor man."

"I would rather see her married to Touchiniteel than to Van Shaw!" said Bauer with a savage outburst that accelerated his speech and changed his entire countenance.

Walter looked at Felix again, with the same curious regard.

"You seem to be a good deal disturbed over the matter, old man. What difference does it make to you whether Helen marries Van Shaw or Touchiniteel?"

Bauer turned his face toward Walter with a look Walter never forgot.

They were walking near one of the old ruins of an abandoned village.

Pieces of broken pottery and grinders were littered over the ground.

Felix motioned to Walter to go farther up into the mound where these ruins were scattered.

"We can catch up with the teams. The folks will think we are looking for specimens," he said. Walter antic.i.p.ated Bauer's story as he sat down by him and in the midst of an ancient cliff dwellers century old debris of a home, heard his chum's simple story. After it was told in Bauer's slow but in this case intense manner, Walter said:

"I'm awfully sorry, old man; but I don't believe you stand a ghost of a chance with Helen."

"I don't suppose I do," a.s.sented Bauer humbly. "But you can see now why I feel as I do and what it means to me to see a fellow like Van Shaw with her. It is not only torture to me. I think some one ought to tell her."

"Tell her what?"