The High Calling Part 34

"Yes," she said, as she put the jar on her back after pa.s.sing the cord through the ears of it, "I am going down to the spring. How glad I am to be so well. Jesus helps me to bear all things."

She went out and half an hour later, Helen, lying on her cot outside the tent, saw her again coming up the trail with the swinging trot peculiar to the Hopi women, the full jar on her back, and she was singing, not the old song that her mother still sung, but a Christian hymn, "A little talk with Jesus makes it right, all right."

Helen watched her until she vanished behind the first cl.u.s.ter of grey houses. Talavenka had gone back to her people for awhile. But her torch was aflame, the torch of that faith that is destined in time to kindle the grey rock of Oraibi into a beacon of illumination that shall give healing and salvation to all those darkened minds and make the desert to blossom like the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley.

The second day Elijah Clifford and Paul began to pack up, ready to break camp the following morning and start back to Oraibi. Van Shaw's condition was not much changed except that he was more rational. This was a hopeful symptom and the doctor made the most of it, encouraging Mrs. Van Shaw all he could.

Mr. Van Shaw was expected the next day, coming from Winslow. Van Shaw's friends, after learning that there was nothing special for them to do, had already made their plans to leave when the Tolchaco party went, going in company with Clifford.

Helen was nervous and unhappy. She had begun to brood over matters. Her mother had not said any more after that night's talk, but she could easily see that Helen was still going over the same ground, and that the chapter had not yet been closed for her. The thought gave Esther much uneasiness and yet she thought it unwise to open the subject again and so maintained a discreet silence, trusting to absence from the scene and the return to Milton to do what only time could effect in the girl's mind.

It lacked an hour or two of the time for departure the next morning when Mrs. Van Shaw came over to the camp with marks of trouble in her looks as she came into the tent where Mrs. Douglas and Helen were sitting.

Mrs. Douglas was an energetic camper and had completed her packing early and was ready for the wagons as soon as the horses had been hitched in.

Mrs. Van Shaw was a showy woman who had done her best to spoil her son ever since his birth, by giving him everything he wanted, simply because he asked for it.

On this occasion she came at once to the point of her errand.

"Mrs. Douglas, my boy wants to see Miss Douglas before you go. He says he wants to say something to her in our presence. He has been begging me to come and see you all the morning. Can you come over now before you leave?"

Helen sat up a little higher on her cot, and her cheeks flamed. Mrs.

Douglas looked at her, hesitated, and then answered Mrs. Van Shaw.

CHAPTER XVII

"WHAT does your son want to say to my daughter?" asked Esther. The thought of a dramatic interview between them was exceedingly distasteful to her.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Van Shaw guardedly. "He has been begging me to come and see you. Oh, he is very ill!" and at that the mother in her, mistaken and distorted though it were, in her training of the boy, broke down and she began to sob.

Esther was moved at the sight, and after a moment she said gently, "We are all so sorry for you, Mrs. Van Shaw. The shock of it all must have been terrible for you."

"I am just about prostrated by it. Mr. Van Shaw is expected to-day. He was in New York when the news reached him. But it surely is not asking anything improper to ask Miss Douglas to see my boy before you leave. We shall be obliged to remain here in this dreadful place until the doctor says Ross can be moved."

"Will you see him?" asked Esther, turning to Helen, and speaking quietly.

"Yes, I am willing to go," replied Helen in a very low voice. She dreaded and at the same time courted the interview. It had just the tinge of dramatic setting in it that appealed to her highly romantic imagination. She did not know what he wanted to say to her and she was not in the least prepared for the interview. But it seemed to her that it would be a piece of foolish affectation to refuse his request and especially since she would in all probability not have any occasion to meet him again.

Esther went out of the tent and in a few words told Paul of Mrs. Van Shaw's visit and its object. Helen would have to be carried over to the government farmer's house. Clifford called up two of the Indians and with their help, he and Paul carried Helen over. Bauer, who was hardly yet fit to sit up, but had already climbed into his place in one of the chuck wagons, saw the whole thing from where he sat, and again his mind went into a whirl with jealousy and anger. If Helen's mother had told her of Van Shaw's character, how could the girl, in spite of all that, go and see him now? It seemed to him like an indication of something coa.r.s.e and low in Helen's nature, something which contradicted his pure thought of her. He could not understand it, and being ignorant of the fact that Helen was going in response to Mrs. Van Shaw's request, he brooded miserably over the whole affair and sat there gazing gloomily at the little stone house into which the group with Helen had gone.

Paul and Clifford and the Indians soon came out and went on completing their preparations for the departure.

Meanwhile, in the little room where Ross Van Shaw lay, tortured in mind and body, a remarkable scene was being enacted.

There was just room close by the door for the cot on which Helen was sitting, and the moment she was placed there, she was aware of Van Shaw's face staring at her. The sight of it shocked her almost to the verge of hysterics. She instantly controlled herself as she quickly noted the fact that both her mother and Mrs. Van Shaw were watching her.

"I wanted to see you before you went away," Van Shaw was saying, and his voice sounded very weak and a long ways off to Helen as she saw the tremble of his hands and the uncertain glance he cast at her, so sharply different from his previous bold and positive att.i.tude towards her.

"We are so sorry for you," said Helen. "It was a miracle you were not killed."

"Yes. Thanks to Mr. Clifford, mother tells me. I want to thank him before he goes. Mother, won't you ask him to come in?"

"Yes, Ross. But do you think you can bear all this excitement? I am afraid it will be too much for you." The government farmer's wife, who was acting as nurse, added a word of objection.

"No, it won't," he said irritably. "I want to see him. Didn't you tell me he saved my life? I ought at least to thank him for it."

"I'll tell him, yes I will!" Mrs. Van Shaw spoke in the hurried, anxious tone of one who feared a scene if she refused his request.

"Tell him now, then mother. Ask him to come in now."

"I will. I will." Mrs. Van Shaw rose and went out of the room, leaving Mrs. Douglas and Helen staring at Van Shaw and wondering how he had not heard the news of his rescue by Bauer.

Van Shaw turned his look again towards Helen. And she saw then, even in her agitation, that he was moved by the excitement of his fever. As a matter of fact, the doctor, when he came the next day, was in a towering rage with Mrs. Van Shaw over what he called her insane yielding to the request of a delirious patient.

"I wanted to see you, Miss Douglas, before you went and warn you about that German fellow Bauer. He's been telling you stories about me, and trying to b.u.t.t into my affairs and I just won't stand for it. You ought to know that his father and mother are in disgrace over a great scandal------"

Esther could not bear any more. She stood up and started to speak, just as Mrs. Van Shaw came hurrying in with Elijah Clifford. Helen was looking at Van Shaw with a different look from that which she had given him when she entered. It seemed as if a veil had been suddenly torn away from the girl's face and she was seeing something clearly which she had seen only dimly heretofore.

Before Esther could say what was on her lips, Van Shaw had gone on. But it was evident to all of them now that he was becoming delirious.

"Bauer hasn't any business to b.u.t.t into my affairs. He's a sneaking cur.

I won't stand for it. I'll get even with him. I'll tell Miss Douglas about his family. She'll never look at him again after that. I'll cook his job."

Mrs. Van Shaw looked uncertainly from one face to another.

"Here's Mr. Clifford, Ross. You wanted to see him."

"Clifford! Clifford!" Van Shaw turned his burning eyes on Clifford, who stood at the end of the bed gravely looking at him, and for a moment the delirium cleared and he spoke quietly.

"Oh! I wanted to thank you for pulling me up that cliff. It was a mighty brave thing to do and I won't forget it."

Elijah Clifford was not a cultured man as the word is ordinarily used, but he was more than that. He "sensed" things. He knew what to do in awkward situations. He did not know what had been said before he came but he saw in one swift glance that matters were in a delicate and critical state. He also saw in a moment what Van Shaw's condition was.

He was not in a mental att.i.tude to be reasoned with. So Clifford walked quietly up to the bedside, put one of his strong, firm hands on Van Shaw's trembling fingers as he had clasped them together and said:

"If I had anything to do with helping to save your life, I am very thankful the good G.o.d used me. But your mother will tell you when you get well enough to hear it that you owe your life, not to me, but to a braver man, Felix Bauer. I can't help hoping--" Elijah said it with an indescribable accent of tenderness--"that when you get well again, you will make the most of your life to the glory of G.o.d!"

For a moment Van Shaw looked up at Clifford in a bewildered manner, but as if he partly understood. Then he turned his head towards Helen and his glance wandered uncertainly about the room. Then he burst into a delirious laugh.

"Bauer saved me! That sneaking cur! Why, he pushed me over the cliff!

I'll get even with him! b.u.t.ting into my affairs! I won't stand for it.

His father and mother------"

But Helen could not bear any more. She had cowered down when Van Shaw spoke the first word. Now she whispered to her mother, "Take me out, mother, I cannot bear it."

Clifford simply said to Mrs. Van Shaw:

"We had better go, Mrs. Van Shaw. If you and the nurse need any help, call us."