The Golden Woman Part 62

The girl waited, watching his dark contemplative eyes as they looked across the water at the diminished hill.

"Nope," he went on. "We owe him more'n that. We must chase around, an'--find him. We must----"

"Yes," Joan broke in, her eyes full of eager acquiescence. "We must not leave him--to--to--the coyotes." She shuddered.

"No. Guess I'll git the horses."

"You? Oh, Buck--let me. I am well and strong. It is my turn to do something now. Your work is surely finished."

Her pleading eyes smiled up into his, but the man shook his head with that decision she had come to recognize and obey almost without question.

"Not on your life, little gal," he said, in his kindly, resolute fas.h.i.+on, and Joan was left to take her woman's place in their scheme of things.

But she shared in the search of the hill and the woods. She shared in the ceaseless hunt for three long, weary, heart-breaking days over a land of desolation and loneliness. She rode at Buck's side hour after hour on the st.u.r.dy horse that had served the Padre so faithfully, till her body was healthily weary, and her eyes grew heavy with straining.

But she welcomed the work. For, with the tender mother eye of the woman in her, she beheld that which gladdened her heart, and made the hardest work a mere labor of love. Each pa.s.sing day, almost with each pa.s.sing hour, she witnessed the returning vigor of the man she loved.

His recuperative powers were marvelous, and she watched his bodily healing as though he were her own helpless offspring.

For the rest their search was hopeless. The battling forces of a storm-riven earth had claimed their toll to the last fraction, and with the cunning of the miser had secreted the levy. Not a trace was there of any human life but their own. The waters from the hill swept the little valley, and hugged to their bosom the secrets that lay beneath their surface. And the fall of rock held deeply buried all that which it had embraced in its rending. The farm was utterly destroyed, and with it had fallen victims every head of stock Joan had possessed. The old fur fort had yielded to the fire demon, where, for all the ages, it had resisted the havoc of storm. There was nothing left to mark the handiwork of man, nothing but the terrible destruction it had brought about.

Thus it was on the fourth morning, after breaking their fast, and the horses had been saddled, Buck once more packed the saddle-bags and strapped them into their places behind the saddles. Joan watched him without question. She no longer had any question for that which he chose to ordain.

When all was ready he lifted her into her saddle, which she rode astride, in the manner of the prairie. She was conscious of his strength, now returned to its full capacity. She was nothing in his arms now, she might have been a child by the ease with which he lifted her. He looked to her horse's bridle, he saw that she was comfortable.

Then he vaulted into Caesar's saddle with all his old agility.

"Which way, Buck?" The girl spoke with the easy manner of one who has little concern, but her eyes belied her words. A strange thrill was storming in her bosom.

"Leeson b.u.t.te," said Buck, a deep glow s.h.i.+ning in his dark eyes.

Joan let her horse amble beside the measured, stately walk of Caesar.

Her reins hung loose, and her beautiful eyes were s.h.i.+ning as they gazed out eagerly ahead. She was thrilling with a happiness that conflicted with a strange nervousness at the naming of their destination. She had no protest to offer, no question. It was as if the lord of her destiny had spoken, and it was her happiness and desire to obey.

They rode on, and their way lay amidst the charred skeleton of a wide, stately wood. The air was still faint with the reek of burning. There was no darkness here beyond the blackened tree trunks, for the brilliant summer sun lit up the glades, which, for ages, no sun's rays had ever penetrated. The sense of ruin was pa.s.sing from the minds of these children of the wilderness. Their focus had already adapted itself. Almost, even, their youthful eyes and hearts saw new beauties springing up about them. It was the work of that wonderful fount of hope, which dies so hardly in us all, and in youth never.

At length they left the mouldering skeletons behind them, and the gracious, waving, tawny gra.s.s of the plains opened out before their gladdened eyes. A light breeze tempered the glorious sunlight, and set ripples afloat upon the waving crests of the motionless rollers of a gra.s.sy ocean.

Buck drew his horse down to a walk beside the girl, and his look had lost its reflection of the sadness they were leaving behind. He had no desire now to look back. For all his life the memory of his "big friend" would remain, for the rest his way lay directly ahead, his life, and his--hope.

"It's all wonderful--wonderful out here, little Joan," he said, smiling tenderly down upon her sweet face from the superior height at which Caesar carried him. "Seems like we're goin' to read pages of a--fresh book. Seems like the old book's all mussed up, so we can't learn its lessons ever again."

Joan returned the warmth of his gaze. But she shook her head with an a.s.sumption of wisdom.

"It's the same book, dear, only it's a different chapter. You see the story always goes on. It must go on--to the end. Characters drop out.

They die, or are--killed. Incidents happen, some pleasant, some--full of sadness. But that's all part of the story, and must be. The story always goes on to the end. You see," she added with a tender smile, "the hero's still in the picture."

"An' the--gal-hero."

Joan shook her head decidedly.

"There's no heroine to this story," she said. "You need courage to be a heroine, and I--I have none. Do you know, Buck," she went on seriously, "when I look back on all that's gone I realize how much my own silly weakness has caused the trouble. If I had only had the courage to laugh at my aunt's prophecies, my aunt's distorted p.r.o.nouncements, all this trouble would have been saved. I should never have come to the farm. My aunt would never have found the Padre. Those men would never have fired those woods when they burnt my farm, and--and the gentle-hearted Padre would never have lost his life."

It was Buck's turn to shake his head.

"Wrong, wrong, little gal," he said with a warmth of decision. "When you came to us--to me, an' we saw your trouble, we jest set to work to clear a heap o' cobwebs from your mind. That was up to us, because you were sure sufferin', and you needed help. But all we said, all we told you not to believe, those things were sure marked out, an' you, an'

all of us had to go thro' with 'em. We can't talk away the plans o'

Providence. You jest had to come to that farm. You jest had to do all the things you did. Maybe your auntie, in that queer way of hers, told you the truth, maybe she saw things us others didn't jest see. Who can tell?"

Joan's eyes lit with a startled look as she listened to the man's words. They made her wonder at the change in him. Had that terrible cataclysm impressed him with a new view of the life by which he was surrounded? It might be. Then, suddenly, a fresh thought occurred to her. A memory rose up and confronted her, and a sudden joyous anxiety thrilled her.

"Do you really think that, Buck?" she cried eagerly. "Do you? Do you?"

"Things seem changed, little gal," he said, half ruefully. "Seems to me the past week's been years an' years long." He laughed. "Maybe I got older. Maybe I think those things now, same as most folks think 'em--when they get older."

But Joan was full of her own thought, and she went on eagerly, pa.s.sing his reasons by.

"Listen, Buck, when Aunt Mercy told me all my troubles, she told me something else. But it seemed so small by the side of those other things, that I--that I almost forgot it. What was it? Her words? Yes, yes, I asked her, was there no hope for me? No means by which I could be saved from my fate? And she said that my only hope lay in finding a love that was stronger than death. These were her words----

"'I loved your father with a pa.s.sion nothing, no disaster could destroy. Go you, child, and find you such a love. Go you and find a love so strong that no disaster can kill it. And maybe life may still have some compensations for you, maybe it will lift the curse from your suffering shoulders. It--it is the only thing in the world that is stronger than disaster. It is the only thing in the world that is stronger than--death.'"

Her words dropped to a whisper as she finished speaking, and she waited, like a criminal awaiting sentence, for the man's judgment on them. Her eyes were downcast, and her rounded bosom was stirring tumultuously. What would he say? What would he think? And yet she must have told him. Was he not the one person in the world who held her fate in his hands? Yes, he must know all there was in her mind. And she knew in her heart that he would understand as she wanted him to understand.

Buck suddenly reined Caesar in, and brought him to a standstill, turning him about so that he looked back upon the world they were leaving behind them forever. In silence Joan responded to his movement, and her horse closed up against the other.

"Guess your auntie's notions were all queer, so queer they're mighty hard to understand," he said reflectively. "But seems to me she's. .h.i.t a big truth some way. That curse is sure lifted--sure, sure."

He pointed at the grim outline of Devil's Hill, now fading in the distance.

"Look ther' yonder. Yonder's the disaster, yonder is--death. An'

we--we've sure pa.s.sed through it. She's right. Our love is stronger than disaster--stronger than death."

Then he turned and gazed ardently into her upturned face. "Guess we sure found that love together, little gal. An' it's ours to keep forever an' ever. Ther' ain't no other love comin' around. I'm yours fer jest so long as I have life, an' you--wal, you're jest my whole, whole world."

He leant toward her, his dark eyes s.h.i.+ning with his great love.

Reaching out he drew her toward him, his strong, protecting arm encircling her slim waist.

"Say, little gal," he went on urgingly, "we're goin' right on now to Leeson b.u.t.te. Ther's a pa.s.son ther' who can fix us right. An' when that's done, an' ther' ain't nuthin' in the world can come between us, why, then I sure got two mighty strong hands yearnin' to git busy handin' you those things which can make a woman's life easy, an'--an'

happy. Will you come, little Joan? Will you sure come?"

His eager young face was close to hers, and his deep breath fanned her warm cheek. She gave him no verbal reply. At that moment she had no words. But she turned toward him. And, as she turned, her lips met his in one long, pa.s.sionate kiss. He needed no other reply. She was giving him herself. It was the soul of the woman speaking.

Some moments later their horses were again heading for Leeson b.u.t.te.

The eyes of the girl were s.h.i.+ning with a happiness such as she had never known before, and Buck sat with head erect, and the light of a great purpose in his eyes. For a while they rode thus. Then the man's eyes twinkled with a sudden thought. For a moment he glanced at the golden head so close beside him. Then he smiled.

"Say, little Joan," he cried, "guess you're that gal-hero after all."

Joan responded to his look.

"How?" she inquired, with a heightened color.

"Why, jest git a look at me. Me! You're goin' to marry me! I'd sure say you've a heap more grit than any gal-hero I've heard tell of."