The High Calling Part 37

"You know what I meant. Should I make a mistake in marrying him or does it seem to you that I should run the risk of being disappointed in him all the time simply because I am college bred and he is not?"

"No," said Helen frankly. "I believe Mr. Clifford is the kind of man to satisfy you in that respect. He is studying all the time. Have you noticed he has learned an astonis.h.i.+ng lot of German from Baeur since he came? I believe he can almost read Hermann and Dorothea now." Helen said it with a significant emphasis which made Miss Gray blush again. And then she added--"Lucy, you said you thought you did not love him and that was the reason you said no. Have you changed your mind?"

"Yes. Oh, I can't help myself! Let me tell you. That night at Oraibi when I first knew that Elijah had gone down there to rescue Bauer and Van Shaw I learned how much he meant to me. I believe I would have gone there myself if Mr. Masters and your father had not been quick witted enough to take the rope the workmen had left out there by the great rock cistern, the first one in all Oraibi. When the three men were pulled up you remember Mr. Clifford was the last. I know that I pulled with the others, but I believe I never thought of either Bauer or Van Shaw. All I cared for was Elijah. I blistered my hands, see!" She opened her palms for Helen to look. "But I never told anyone. And even when he was telling that night about it, I seemed to see him slipping, slipping over that horrible ledge and I just couldn't help actually putting out my hand to draw him back. They say that college graduate young women don't know how to fall in love and that they don't get married because young men are afraid of them, they are so prim and intellectual and superior, but, oh, Helen, I am almost ready to propose to Elijah myself. I love him so much. Isn't that dreadful for a schoolma'am and a college graduate, and especially after she has refused him twice? What would he say?"

"I think he would say yes," replied Helen, delighted to be the confidant in this desert romance.

"I didn't mean that. I mean what would he say if he knew what I have been confessing to you? I would lose his respect."

"And gain his love," laughed Helen. "Lucy, I don't believe it is all hopeless. And you don't need to fear that you are too intellectually superior to Mr. Clifford. After you are married you will find that he will go on developing mentally."

"He is my superior now in nearly every true thing," said Miss Gray. The blush was still on her cheek and the love light in her eye. At that moment she was recalled to the mission building by one of the children.

As she left Helen she said to her, "I trust you to respect my confidence."

Helen sat on the old cottonwood, her eyes on the river, her thoughts musing over her friend's story. She was so absorbed in it that she did not notice Bauer until he was near the end of the log.

"Oh!" she said a little nervously and then quickly, "Won't you sit down?

This seems to be the only seat in the park."

Bauer sat down gravely and Helen asked him politely how he was feeling.

Bauer's face lightened so that for a second he looked almost handsome.

"That is partly what I came down to tell you. Dr. West has given me a very careful examination. He says any hemorrhages are not permanent.

There is no reason, he says, why I may not entirely recover, even to the extent of going back to school again."

"Will you go back soon?"

"No, he advises me to stay here this winter. I can help Mr. Masters with the trading, handling the rugs that are sold for profit for the mission work. I begin to feel quite strong again."

He sat there silently watching the thick muddy flow of the stream. His face in repose was almost stern. Helen glanced at it timidly and could hardly realise that she was sitting so near to a real hero, one who had risked his life to save an enemy.

"I haven't ever told you, Mr. Bauer, what admiration I feel for your act that night, I think it was the most courageous thing I ever knew."

Bauer turned his head and looked full at her. His eyes were, as Helen had once said, the most splendid she had ever seen. This time they looked at her with a calm sadness that compelled her own to waver and finally to drop.

"Loben ist nicht lieben," said Bauer firmly. It was the nearest he had ever come to declaring himself, in words. And Helen was the most deficient girl, Walter always said, when it came to languages. She did not know German and did not care to learn. Miss Gray had laughed at her more than once on account of her obtuseness. So Helen now, with some heightened colour, said as she raised her eyes.

"What does that mean?"

"Loben ist nicht Lieben," repeated Bauer.

"Won't you translate it?" asked Helen petulantly. "You know I never understood German."

"I--can't," said Bauer. And to Helen's surprise, he abruptly got up and walked away.

"Loben ist nicht lieben," she softly murmured. "I'll ask Lucy what it means. But he needn't have gone so. He has no manners. I do not think he is nice."

That night after supper she found Miss Gray alone in the school room.

"Lucy, what does this German mean. As near as I can p.r.o.nounce it, it sounds like this. 'Loben ist nicht lieben'?"

"Say it again."

Helen repeated the sentence.

"Oh! Why, it sounds like 'praising is not loving.' Where did you hear it?"

"Oh, I heard it. I wondered what it meant. You know I don't care for German."

"Nor for _the_ German?" Miss Gray ventured.

"Nor for _the_ German," Helen said after a pause. And that was as near as she came to exchanging confidences with Miss Gray. But was there anything to give in exchange?

She asked the question several times on the way home. Her good-bye to Bauer had been commonplace enough. He had ventured at the last moment after the party was seated in the wagon ready for the drive to Canyon Diablo to hand up a book to Helen.

"Would you accept this to use on your journey? You may find it help pa.s.s the time. It's the collection of desert flowers I've been making."

Helen was really pleased and expressed her thanks warmly. But nothing more was said except the regular good-byes as the Douglases waved their farewells to all the mission people on the little knoll.

When she was on the train and started for home Helen found on examination that Bauer's modest volume was in reality composed of a rare collection of desert plants, and in the back leaves of the book were several photographs of desert scenes, including a dozen of Oraibi and the snake dance itself. She found her own person in several of the pictures, and the farther she travelled from Tolchaco the more persistently her mind travelled back to that enchanted land of adventure and heroism and love of humanity. She sighed to think that her own life seemed so commonplace. And always there obtruded on her mind the thought of Bauer as he sat there by the river looking at her out of his great brown eyes and saying, "Loben ist nicht lieben." And always as the days flew by and she resumed her special work in music at home, the figure grew more heroic and dignified the longer she mused upon it, while over all shone the desert sun and the white translucent light, with the San Francisco mountains calmly lifting up their cool blackness against a turquoise sky.

Two months later it was Thanksgiving time at the Mission. Somehow, Elijah Clifford gradually became aware that things were going on that were being kept from him. Bauer made a mysterious trip to Flagstaff and when he came back, Mrs. Masters and Miss Clifford carried several packages into the house which Elijah never had a chance to examine. His Yankee curiosity finally got the better of him.

"What is all this?" he asked Bauer one evening. "Is someone going to get married? They needn't keep it from me. But I would like to be invited."

"You'll be invited all right," said Bauer with his rare smile.

When Thanksgiving Day dawned, Masters succeeded with what seemed like a perfectly natural excuse to get Clifford to take a forenoon trip with him up to Touchiniteel's hogan to see the old man and take him a few luxuries for his dinner. When they returned, the Thanksgiving dinner was all ready.

It was impossible to surprise Elijah Clifford entirely, for before he and Masters had stepped into the house he said, "I smell turkey."

Masters laughed. And as Clifford stepped into the dining room everyone greeted him with a shout of welcome.

There on the table in all its glory was a fourteen pound turkey surrounded by all the "fixin's." Elijah Clifford was simply overcome.

"Evidently," he said when the mission family was all seated and were being served, "Mr. Van Shaw has sold one of his railroads and bought this bird to express his grat.i.tude to Mr. Bauer for his recent trapeze performance. Otherwise I don't see how we can afford such hilarious luxury."

"This is Mr. Bauer's treat to you and us on your birthday," said Mr.

Masters. "Felix, I'm going to tell. Your modesty will not save you. It seems that our friend's incubator has begun its sales in fine shape and the first royalties came in to Mr. Bauer a few days ago. What does he do but come to me and tell me what you said the other day about wanting a taste of turkey again. So this is Mr. Bauer's treat. He insisted on getting everything down to the nuts and raisins."

"You have all been so good to me that I couldn't repay it if I bought turkeys for every meal. And I don't forget, of course," he added with a grateful look at Elijah, "that I owe my life to you. I am not trying to pay even with fabulously high priced turkeys."

"Well, of course, I had the advantage over you down there in having a lantern to brace my feet against. You hadn't a thing. Not even Van Shaw.

But don't mention it. It was no trouble. 'Don't think of such a thing,'

as Miss Gray says. And after all, I don't know what would have happened to all of us down there if the folks at the top hadn't let that rope down just in time."

"Everybody is a hero in this country," said Bauer.