The Cattle-Baron's Daughter Part 36

"Don't talk nonsense, Flo," said Hetty. "You'll just have to."

Clavering's fingers were very cold, and the girls' still colder, before he had somehow girthed a rug about each of the horses and ruthlessly cut and knotted the reins. The extemporized saddles did not look very secure, but Hetty lightly swung herself into one, though Miss Schuyler found it difficult to repress a cry, and was not sure that she quite succeeded, when Clavering lifted her to the other.

"I'm quite sure I shall fall off," she said.

Hetty was evidently very much displeased at something, for she seemed to forget Clavering was there. "If you do I'll never speak to you again," she said. "You might have been fond of him, Flo. There wasn't the least necessity to put your arm right around his neck."

Clavering wisely stooped to do something to one of his moccasins, for he saw an ominous sparkle in Miss Schuyler's eyes, but he looked up prematurely and the smile was still upon his lips when he met Hetty's gaze.

"How are you going to get anywhere?" she asked.

"Well," said Clavering, "it is quite a long while now since I was able to walk alone."

Hetty shook her bridle, and the Badger started at a trot; but when Miss Schuyler followed, Clavering, who fancied that her prediction would be fulfilled, also set off at a run. He was, however, not quite fast enough, for when he reached her Miss Schuyler was sitting in the snow. She appeared to be unpleasantly shaken and her lips were quivering. Clavering helped her to her feet, and then caught the horse.

"The wretched thing turned round and slid me off," she said, when he came back with it, pointing to the rug.

Clavering tugged at the extemporized girth. "I am afraid you can only try again. I don't think it will slip now," he said.

Miss Schuyler, who had evidently lost her nerve, mounted with difficulty and after trotting for some minutes pulled up once more, and was sitting still looking about her hopelessly when Clavering rejoined her.

"I am very sorry, but I really can't hold on," she said.

Clavering glanced at the prairie, and Hetty looked at him. Nothing moved upon all the empty plain which was fading to a curious dusky blue.

Darkness crept up across it from the east, and a last faint patch of orange was dying out on its western rim, while with the approaching night there came a stinging cold.

"It might be best if you rode on, Miss Torrance, and sent a sleigh back for us," he said. "Walk your horse, Miss Schuyler, and I'll keep close beside you. If you fell I could catch you."

Hetty's face was anxious, but she shook her head. "No, it was my fault, and I mean to see it through," she said. "You couldn't keep catching her all the time, you know. I'm not made of eider-down, and she's a good deal heavier than me. It really is a pity you can't ride, Flo."

"Nevertheless," said Miss Schuyler tartly, "I can't--without a saddle--and I'm quite thankful I can't drive."

Hetty said nothing, and they went on in silence, until when a dusky bluff appeared on the skyline, Clavering, taking the bridle, led Miss Schuyler's horse into a forking trail.

"This is not the way to Allonby's," said Hetty.

"No," said Clavering quietly. "I'm afraid you would be frozen before you got there. The homestead-boys who chop their fuel in the bluff have, however, some kind of shelter, and I'll make you a big fire."

"But----" said Hetty.

Clavering checked her with a gesture. "Please let me fix this thing for you," he said. "It is getting horribly cold already."

They went on a trifle faster without another word, and presently, with crackle of dry twigs beneath them, plodded into the bush. Dim trees flitted by them, branches brushed them as they pa.s.sed, and the stillness and shadowiness affected Miss Schuyler uncomfortably. She started with a cry when there was a sharp patter amidst the dusty snow; but Clavering's hand was on the bridle as the horse, snorting, flung up its head.

"I think it was only a jack-rabbit; and I can see the shelter now," he said.

A few moments later he helped Miss Schuyler down, and held out his hand to Hetty, who sprang stiffly to the ground. Then, with numbed fingers, he broke off and struck a sulphur match, and the feeble flame showed the refuge to which he had brought them. It was just high enough to stand in, and had three sides and a roof of birch logs, but the front was open and the soil inside it frozen hard as adamant. An axe and a saw stood in a corner, and there was a hearth heaped ready with kindling chips.

"If you will wait here I'll try to get some wood," he said.

He went out and tethered the horses, and when his footsteps died away, Miss Schuyler s.h.i.+vering crept closer to Hetty, who flung an arm about her.

"It's awful, Flo--and it's my fault," she said. Then she sighed. "It would all be so different if Larry was only here."

"Still," said Flora Schuyler, "Mr. Clavering has really behaved very well; most men would have shown just a little temper."

"I almost wish he had--it would have been so much easier for me to have kept mine and overlooked it graciously. Flo, I didn't mean to be disagreeable, but it's quite hard to be pleasant when one is in the wrong."

It was some time before Clavering came back with an armful of birch branches, and a suspiciously reddened gash in one of his moccasins--for an axe ground as the Michigan man grinds it is a dangerous tool for anyone not trained to it to handle in the dark. In ten minutes he had a great fire blazing, and the s.h.i.+vering girls felt their spirits revive a little under the cheerful light and warmth. Then, he made a seat of the branches close in to the hearth and glanced at them anxiously.

"If you keep throwing wood on, and sit there with the furs wrapped round you, you will be able to keep the cold out until I come back," he said.

"Until you come back!" said Hetty, checking a little cry of dismay. "Where are you going?"

"To bring a sleigh."

"But Allonby's is nearly eight miles away. You could not leave us here three hours."

"No," said Clavering gravely. "You would be very cold by then. Still, you need not be anxious. Nothing can hurt you here; and I will come, or send somebody for you, before long."

Hetty sat very still while he drew on the fur mittens he had removed to make the fire. Then, she rose suddenly.

"No," she said. "It was my fault--and we cannot let you go."

Clavering smiled. "I am afraid your wishes wouldn't go quite as far in this case as they generally do with me. You and Miss Schuyler can't stay here until I could get a sleigh from Allonby's."

He turned as he spoke, and was almost out of the shanty before Hetty, stepping forward, laid her hand upon his arm.

"Now I know," she said. "It is less than three miles to Muller's, but the homestead-boys would make you a prisoner if you went there. Can't you see that would be horrible for Flo and me? It was my wilfulness that made the trouble."

Clavering very gently shook off her grasp, and Miss Schuyler almost admired him as he stood looking down upon her companion with the flickering firelight on his face. It was a striking face, and the smile in the dark eyes became it. Clavering had shaken off his furs, and the close-fitting jacket of dressed deerskin displayed his lean symmetry, for he had swung round in the entrance to the shanty and the shadows were black behind him.

"I think the fault was mine. I should not have been afraid of displeasing you, which is what encourages me to be obstinate now," he said. "One should never make wild guesses, should they, Miss Schuyler?"

He had gone before Hetty could speak again, and a few moments later the girls heard a thud of hoofs as a horse pa.s.sed at a gallop through the wood. They stood looking at each other until the sound died away, and only a little doleful wind that sighed amidst the birches and the snapping of the fire disturbed the silence. Then, Hetty sat down and drew Miss Schuyler down beside her.

"Flo," she said, with a little quiver in her voice, "what is the use of a girl like me? I seem bound to make trouble for everybody."

"It is not an unusual complaint, especially when one is as pretty as you are," said Miss Schuyler. "Though I must confess I don't quite understand what you are afraid of, Hetty."

"No?" said Hetty. "You never do seem to understand anything, Flo. If he goes to Muller's the homestead-boys, who are as fond of him as they are of poison, might shoot him, and he almost deserves it. No, of course, after what he is doing for us, I don't mean that. It is the meanness that is in me makes me look for faults in everybody. He was almost splendid--and he has left his furs for us--but he mayn't come back at all. Oh, it's horrible!"

Hetty's voice grew indistinct, and Flora Schuyler drew the furs closer about them, and slipped an arm round her waist. She began to feel the cold again, and the loneliness more, while, even when she closed her eyes, she could not shut out the menacing darkness in front of her. Miss Schuyler was from the cities, and it was not her fault that, while she possessed sufficient courage of a kind, she shrank from the perils of the wilderness. She would have found silence trying, but the vague sounds outside, to which she could attach no meaning, were more difficult to bear. So she started when a puff of wind set the birch twigs rattling or something stirred the withered leaves, and once or twice a creaking branch sent a thrill of apprehension through her and she almost fancied that evil faces peered at her from the square gap of blackness. Now and then, a wisp of pungent smoke curled up and filled her eyes, and little by little she drew nearer to the fire with a physical craving for the warmth of it and an instinctive desire to be surrounded by its brightness, until Hetty shook her roughly by the arm.

"Flo," she said, "you are making me almost as silly as you are, and that capote--it's the prettiest I have seen you put on--is burning. Sit still, or I'll pinch you--hard."

Hetty's grip had a salutary effect, and Miss Schuyler, shaking off her vague terrors, smiled a trifle tremulously.

"I wish you would," she said. "Your fingers are real, any way. I can't help being foolish, Hetty--and is the thing actually burning?"