The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail Part 4

"Do as you like. You can handle him. Just watch and wait--feel him all the time. Ah-h-h! For Heaven's sake don't let him into that jam! There he goes up stream! That's better! Good!"

"Don't get so excited! Don't yell so!" again admonished Mandy. "Tell me quietly."

"Quietly? Who's yelling, I'd like to know? Who's excited? I won't say another word. I'll get the landing-net ready for the final act."

"Don't leave me! Tell me just what to do. He's getting tired, I think."

"Watch him close. Wind him up a bit. Get all the line in you can.

Steady! Let go! Let go! Let him run! Now wind him again. Wait, hold him so, just a moment--a little nearer! Hurrah! Hurrah! I've got him and he's a beauty--a perfectly typical Rainbow trout."

"Oh, you beauty!" cried Mandy, down on her knees beside the trout that lay flapping on the gra.s.s. "What a shame! Oh, what a shame! Oh, put him in again, Allan, I don't want him. Poor dear, what a shame."

"But we must weigh him, you see," remonstrated her husband. "And we need him for tea, you know. He really doesn't feel it much. There are lots more. Try another cast. I'll attend to this chap."

"I feel just like a murderer," said Mandy. "But isn't it glorious? Well, I'll just try one more. Aren't you going to get your rod out too?"

"Well, rather! What a pool, all unspoiled, all unfished!"

"Does no one fish up here?"

"Yes, the Police come at times from the Fort. And Wyckham, our neighbor.

And old man Thatcher, a born angler, though he says it's not sport, but murder."

"Why not sport?"

"Why? Old Thatcher said to me one day, 'Them fish would climb a tree to get at your hook. That ain't no sport.'"

But sport, and n.o.ble sport, they found it through the long afternoon, so that, when through the scraggy pines the sun began to show red in the western sky, a score or more l.u.s.ty, glittering, speckled Rainbow trout lay on the gra.s.s beside the shady pool.

Tired with their sport, they lay upon the gra.s.sy sward, luxuriating in the warm sun.

"Now, Allan," cried Mandy, "I'll make tea ready if you get some wood for the fire. You ought to be thankful I taught you how to use the ax. Do you remember?"

"Thankful? Well, I should say. Do YOU remember that day, Mandy?"

"Remember!" cried the girl, with horror in her tone. "Oh, don't speak of it. It's too awful to think of."

"Awful what?"

"Ugh!" she shuddered, "I can't bear to think of it. I wish you could forget."

"Forget what?"

"What? How can you ask? That awful, horrid, uncouth, sloppy girl." Again Mandy shuddered. "Those hands, big, coa.r.s.e, red, ugly."

"Yes," cried Allan savagely, "the badge of slavery for a whole household of folk too ignorant to know the price that was being paid for the service rendered them."

"And the hair," continued Mandy relentlessly, "uncombed, filthy, horrid.

And the dress, and--"

"Stop it!" cried Allan peremptorily.

"No, let me go on. The stupid face, the ignorant mind, the uncouth speech, the vulgar manners. Oh, I loathe the picture, and I wonder you can ever bear to look at her again. And, oh, I wish you could forget."

"Forget!" The young man's lean, swarthy face seemed to light up with the deep glowing fires in his dark eyes. His voice grew vibrant. "Forget!

Never while I live. Do you know what _I_ remember?"

"Ah, spare me!" moaned his wife, putting her hands over his mouth.

"Do you know what _I_ remember?" he repeated, pulling her hands away and holding them fast. "A girl with hands, face, hair, form, dress, manners d.a.m.ned to coa.r.s.eness by a cruel environment? That? No! No! To-day as I look back I remember only two blue eyes, deep, deep as wells, soft, blue, and wonderfully kind. And I remember all through those days--and hard days they were to a green young fool fresh from the Old Country trying to keep pace with your farm-bred demon-worker Perkins--I remember all through those days a girl that never was too tired with her own unending toil to think of others, and especially to help out with many a kindness a home-sick, hand-sore, foot-sore stranger who hardly knew a buck-saw from a turnip hoe, and was equally strange to the uses of both, a girl that feared no shame nor harm in showing her kindness. That's what I remember. A girl that made life bearable to a young fool, too proud to recognize his own limitations, too blind to see the gifts the G.o.ds were flinging at him. Oh, what a fool I was with my silly pride of family, of superior education and breeding, and with no eye for the pure gold of as true and loyal a soul as ever offered itself in daily unmurmuring sacrifice for others, and without a thought of sacrifice.

Fool and dolt! A self-sufficient prig! That's what I remember."

The girl tore her hands away from him.

"Ah, Allan, my boy," she cried with a shrill and scornful laugh that broke at the end, "how foolishly you talk! And yet I love to hear you talk so. I love to hear you. But, oh, let me tell you what else I remember of those days!"

"No, no, I will not listen. It's all nonsense."

"Nonsense! Ah, Allan! Let me tell you this once." She put her hands upon his shoulders and looked steadily into his eyes. "Let me tell you. I've never told you once during these six happy months--oh, how happy, I fear to think how happy, too much joy, too deep, too wonderful, I'm afraid sometimes--but let me tell you what I see, looking back into those old days--how far away they seem already and not yet three years past--I see a lad so strange, so unlike all I had known, a gallant lad, a very knight for grace and gentleness, strong and patient and brave, not afraid--ah, that caught me--nothing could make him afraid, not Perkins, the brutal bully, not big Mack himself. And this young lad, beating them all in the things men love to do, running, the hammer--and--and fighting too!--Oh, laddie, laddie, how often did I hold my hands over my heart for fear it would burst for pride in you! How often did I check back my tears for very joy of loving you! How often did I find myself sick with the agony of fear that you should go away from me forever! And then you went away, oh, so kindly, so kindly pitiful, your pity stabbing my heart with every throb. Why do I tell you this to-day? Let me go through it.

But it was this very pity stabbing me that awoke in me the resolve that one day you would not need to pity me. And then, then I fled from the farm and all its dreadful surroundings. And the nurse and Dr. Martin, oh how good they were! And all of them helped me. They taught me.

They scolded me. They were never tired telling me. And with that flame burning in my soul all that outer, horrid, awful husk seemed to disappear and I escaped, I became all new."

"You became yourself, yourself, your glorious, splendid, beautiful self!" shouted Allan, throwing his arms around her. "And then I found you again. Thank G.o.d, I found you! And found you for keeps, mine forever. Think of that!"

"Forever." Mandy shuddered again. "Oh, Allan, I'm somehow afraid. This joy is too great."

"Yes, forever," said Allan again, but more quietly, "for love will last forever."

Together they sat upon the gra.s.s, needing no words to speak the joy that filled their souls to overflowing. Suddenly Mandy sprang to her feet.

"Now, let me go, for within an hour we must be away. Oh, what a day we've had, Allan, one of the very best days in all my life! You know I've never been able to talk of the past to you, but to-day somehow I could not rest till I had gone through with it all."

"Yes, it's been a great day," said Allan, "a wonderful day, a day we shall always remember." Then after a silence, "Now for a fire and supper. You're right. In an hour we must be gone, for we are a long way from home. But, think of it, Mandy, we're going HOME. I can't quite get used to that!"

And in an hour, riding close as lovers ride, they took the trail to their home ten miles away.

CHAPTER IV

THE BIG CHIEF

When on the return journey they arrived upon the plateau skirting the Piegan Reserve the sun's rays were falling in shafts of slanting light upon the rounded hilltops before them and touching with purple the great peaks behind them. The valleys were full of shadows, deep and blue. The broad plains that opened here and there between the rounded hills were still bathed in the mellow light of the westering sun.

"We will keep out a bit from the Reserve," said Cameron, taking a trail that led off to the left. "These Piegans are none too friendly. I've had to deal with them a few times about my straying steers in a way which they are inclined to resent. This half-breed business is making them all restless and a good deal too impertinent."

"There's not any real danger, is there?" inquired his wife. "The Police can handle them quite well, can't they?"