The Rim of the Desert Part 24

She turned into the dressing-room, and it was then Banks stopped and brought out the loose change in his pockets. There was a ten dollar piece, to which he added two and a half in silver. He started back up the room, but the girl had disappeared, and, while he stood hesitating, a floor-walker approached.

"Have you forgotten something?" he asked politely.

"Yes," answered Banks, "I forgot to give this money to the young lady who was waiting on me. She's likely gone to take off a pink dress I bought.

But she's the one with lots of black hair and pink cheeks and a real nice smile; you couldn't miss her. And you might as well give her this; tell her it's the other twelve and a half to make up the price of that hat; a duplicate of the one we were talking about. She'll understand."

He called these final words over his shoulder, for the elevator had stopped, and he hurried to catch it. Going down, he looked at his watch; he had spent an hour buying that dress. But on the lower floor he noticed a telephone booth and saw a way to make up the time.

"h.e.l.lo!" he called, pitching his voice to a treble. "This is Banks, the miner you was trying to talk into buying that little red car last week; roadster I think you said 'twas. Well, I want you to fire up and run down to the Rainier-Grand quick as you can."

He listened a moment, then: "Yes, likely I'll change my mind, if I get so's I can drive her all right by three p.m. I'm going east of the mountains, and if I buy I've got to s.h.i.+p her on the four-ten train--Yes, I mean the little one with a seat to accommodate two, with a place to carry a trunk behind. Now get busy and rush her down. I've got some errands to do, and I want you to hurry me around; then we'll get away from the crowd out on the boulevard where I can have a clear track to break her on."

The sale was made, and the mining man must have applied himself successfully to his lesson, for the following morning, when the red car spun out of Wenatchee and up the lifting valley road, a snug steamer-trunk was stowed in the box behind, and Banks at the steering gear was traveling alone. To be sure the rising curves were made in sudden spurts and jerks, but his lack of skill was reinforced by a tireless vigilance gathered through breaking days of driving and mus.h.i.+ng over hazardous trails. And he had made an early start; few wayfarers were yet astir. But at last, high up where the track doubled the summit of a slope that lifted in a bluff overhead, and on the other hand dropped precipitously to the river, the little man barely averted catastrophe. The driver and the vehicle were hidden by the curve, but at his warning honk, two percherons that blocked the way halted and, lunging at his repeated note, crowded back on the team they led. Then a woman's voice shrilled: "I've got the heaviest load; you give me right of way."

Banks sprang out and ran forward past the horses. The driver, dressed in a skirt and blouse of khaki, was seated on a load of lumber. She held the reins high in yellow-gauntleted hands, and a rope of loosened red hair hung below a smart campaign hat. "I can't back," she exclaimed aggressively. "You got to give me right of way."

"Ain't there a man with the outfit?" he asked uncertainly.

"No," she snapped. "Do I look like I need one?" But she hurried on tremulously: "My husband's running the mill night and day, and Bryant, down the valley, had to have his boxes for the apple crop. He said send the boards down, and he'd let a couple of his j.a.ps knock 'em together. So I thought with an early start and a clear track, I could drive. But you've got to turn out. I've got the heavy load."

Banks shook his head.

"It's my first trip," he said dubiously, "and I ain't learned to back her only enough to turn 'round; and it's too narrow. But I used to drive pretty good seven or eight years ago; and I've been managing a dog team off and on ever since. Let me climb up there and back your load."

"You can't do it," she cried. "It's up-grade and a mean curve, and that nigh leader, for a first-cla.s.s draught horse, has the cussedest disposition you ever saw. You can't back him short of a gunshot under his nose, and you got to get that buzz-wagon of yours out of sight before I can get him past."

"Then," said Banks, and smiled grimly, "I guess it's up to me to back." He started to return to the machine but paused to add over his shoulder: "It's all right; don't you be scared. No matter what happens, you forget it and drive straight ahead."

But destiny, who had scourged and thwarted the little man so many years, was in a humorous mood that day. The little red car backed down from the bend in zigzag spurts, grazing the bluff, sheering off to coast the river-ward brink; then, in the final instant, when the machine failed to respond to the lever speedily enough, a spur of rock jutting beyond the roadway eased the outer wheel. It rolled up, all but over, while the next tire met the obstruction and caught. Banks laughed. "Hooray!" he piped.

"Now swing the corner, lady! All circle to the left."

"Get up!" the driver shrilled. "Get up, now, Duke, you imp!" And the leader, balking suspiciously at the explosive machine, felt a smart touch of the whip. He plunged, sidled against the bluff and broke by. There was barely room to make that turn; the tailboard of the wagon, grating, left a long blemish on the bright body of the car, but as the load rolled on down the incline, Banks churned gayly up around the bend.

In less than an hour Hesperides Vale stretched behind him, and the bold front of Cerberus lifted holding the gap. Tisdale had warned him of the barbed-wire fence, and while he cautiously rounded the mountain, his old misgiving rose. What though he had made good; what though the Iditarod had filled his poke many times over, the north had taken heavy toll. He had left his youth up there, and what would this smart little automobile count against a whole right hand? And this trunkful of clothes--what would it weigh against a good-sized man? Still, still, though she might have taken her pick of 'em all, Annabel had never married, and she had kept his goats. Then he remembered Tisdale had said that she too had had a hard fight, and the years must have changed her. And hadn't she herself told him, in that letter he carried in his breast pocket, that if he cared to come and see the goats, he would find his investment was turning out fine, but he needn't expect she had kept her own good looks?

The little man smiled with returning confidence and, lifting his glance, saw the cabin and the browsing flock cut off by the barbed-wire fence from the road. Then as he brought the car to a stop, the collie flew barking against the wicket, and a gaunt woman rose from a rock and stood shading her eyes from the morning sun.

He sprang down and spoke to the dog, and instantly his tone quieted the collie, but the woman came nearer to point at the sign. "You better read that," she threatened.

His hand dropped from the wicket, and he stood staring at her across the barbed wire. "I was looking for a lady," he said slowly, "but I guess likely I've made a mistake."

She came another step and, again shading her eyes, stared back. A look half eager, half wistful, trembled for a moment through the forbidding tenseness of her face. "All the men I've seen in automobiles up here were looking for land," she replied defiantly.

He nodded; his eyes did not move from her face, but they shone like two chippings of blue glacier ice, and his voice when he spoke piped its sharpest key. "So am I. I've got an option on a pocket somewheres in this range, and the lady I'm inquiring for happened to homestead the quarter below. It sort of overlaps, so's she put her improvements on the wrong edge. Yes, ma'am, I've likely made a mistake, but, you see, I heard she had a bunch o' goats."

There was a brief silence then. "Anyhow, you must o' come from that surveyor," she said. "Maybe he was just a smooth talker, but he had a nice face; laughing crinkles around his eyes and a way of looking at you, if you'd done a mean thing, to make you feel like the sc.u.m of the earth. But he happened to be acquainted with the man that made me a present of my first billy and ewes, and you--favor him a little." She paused, then went on unsteadily, while her eyes continued to search him. "He was about your size, but he's been up in Alaska, way in the interior somewheres for years, and the letter I wrote him couldn't have reached him inside a month. I figured if he came out, he would just about catch the last steamer in October."

"So he would, if he hadn't come down to Seattle already." He stopped, fumbling with the pin, and threw open the wicket. "I guess I ain't changed much more'n you, Annabel."

The woman was silent. Her chin dropped; her glance sought the earth. Then Banks turned to fasten the gate behind him, and she started to stalk mechanically up the field towards the cabin. "I feel all broke up," he said, overtaking her; "like I'd been struck by a blizzard. Why, there was a girl down in Seattle, she sold me a bill of goods that looked more like you than you do yourself. I know I got myself to blame, but I never counted for a minute on your keeping the goats."

The woman stalked on a little faster, but she could not outstrip the prospector; she turned her face, in refuge, to the flock. "Goats," she said unsteadily, "goats--are all right when you get used to 'em. They're something like children, I guess; a sight of trouble but good company and mighty comforting to have 'round. And they're just as different. There's old Dad, the cautious looking one standing off there watching us and chewing the end of a thistle. It might as well be a toothpick, and I'll bet he's thinking: 'You can't get the best of me, no, sir.' And that piece of wisdom next to him is the Professor. Don't he remind you of the old schoolmaster down at the Corners? And there goes Johnny Banks. See him?

The pert little fellow chasing up the field. You never can tell where he'll turn up or what he'll do next."

She laughed a dry, forced laugh, and Banks echoed it in his strained key.

"But we are going to get rid of 'em. They're a fine bunch--you've brought 'em up splendid, made a sight better showing than I could--but we are going to get rid of 'em, yes, ma'am, and forget 'em as quick's we can. We are going to start right now to make up those seven years."

They had reached the cabin, and he stopped on the threshold. "My, my," he said softly, "don't it look homey? There's your Dad's old chair, and the dresser and the melodion. I was 'fraid you'd sold that, Annabel."

"I could have, there's been plenty of chances, but Dad gave it to me, don't you remember? the Christmas I was sixteen."

"My, yes, and you opened it right there, under the cherry tree, and started _Home, Sweet Home_. I can hear it now, and the crowd joining in.

I'm glad you kept it, Annabel; a new one wouldn't seem just the same."

"It's traveled though. You ought to have seen me moving from Oregon. The old delivery wagon was heaping full." Her laugh this time was spontaneous.

"And old Kate couldn't make more than ten miles a day. But I had a good tent, and when she had done her day's stunt, I just tied her out to feed and made camp. The hardest was keeping track of the goats, but the flock was small then, and I had two dogs."

"I see," said Banks. "You kept 'em ahead of the wagon when you was on the road and let 'em forage for themselves. But I'd like to have a look at old Kate. She came of good stock."

Annabel went over and, seating herself in her father's chair, untied her sunbonnet. "Kate died," she said. "I hired her out to a man down the valley, and he worked her too hard in the heat."

There was a silent moment. She took off the bonnet and laid it in her lap.

The light, streaming through a small window, touched her hair, which was bound in smooth, thick braids around her head.

"My, my," the little man said, "ain't it a sight? I'd have known you in a minute without that bonnet down at the gate. My, but don't it make a difference what a woman wears? I'll bet I can't tell you from the girl I left in Oregon when you've changed your clothes."

She shook her head. "This denim is all I've got," she said, with a touch of defiance. "I wore out all I had; goats are hard on clothes."

"I thought likely." His bleak face began to glow. "And I knew you was out of town away from the stores, so's I brought along a little outfit. You wait a minute, and I'll fetch it right in."

He was gone before he finished speaking and returned in an incredibly short time with the trunk, which he deposited on the floor before her.

Then he felt in his pocket and, finding the key, fitted it and lifted the lid. It was then, for the first time, she noticed the maimed hand.

"Johnny!" she cried, and the pent emotion surged in her voice. "Johnny, you've been--hurt."

"Oh, that don't amount to anything now, only the looks. I can turn out just as much work."

He hurried to open the tray, but before he could remove the packing of tissue paper that enveloped the hat, she reached and took the crippled hand between her own. Her fingers fluttered, caressing, while with maternal protectiveness they covered it, and she drew him back to the broad arm of her chair. The defiance had gone out of her face; her eyes were misty and tender. "You tell me what happened," she said.

So came Lucky Banks' hour. He saw this woman who had been fond of pretty clothes, who had once worn them but was now reduced to a single frock of coa.r.s.e denim, turn from the fine outfit before it was even displayed; waiting, with a wondrously comforting solicitude he never had suspected in the girl whom he had left in Oregon, to hear first that miserable story of the trail. He told it briefly, but with the vividness of one whose words are coined straight from the crucible of bitter experience, and while she listened, her heart shone in her pa.s.sionate eyes. "What if it had happened," she broke out at last. "If it had, Johnny, it would have been my fault. I drove you into going up there. I'm responsible for this hand.

I--I couldn't have stood worse than that."

The little man beamed. "Is that so, Annabel? Then I'm mighty glad Weatherbee followed that stampede. n.o.body else would have seen my hand sticking up through the snow and stopped to dig me out. Unless--" he added thoughtfully, "it was Hollis Tisdale. Yes, likely Hollis would. He was the only man in Alaska fit to be Dave's running mate."

"Do you mean that surveyor?" she asked.

Banks nodded.

"I thought so," she said with satisfaction. "Dad taught me to size people up on sight. He could tell the first minute he saw a man's face whether he was good for a bill of groceries or not; and I knew that surveyor was straight. I bet he knew you was in Seattle when he got me to write. But I wish I could have a look at the other one. He must be--great."