A Waif of the Mountains Part 13

"Max, I reckon you haven't forgot when I done something like that some four years ago," said the man, turning toward the astonished host.

CHAPTER XI

WAITING

"Wade Ruggles, as I'm alive!" exclaimed the delighted landlord, rus.h.i.+ng forward and grasping his hand. Instantly the group closed in, and there was such laughing and handshaking that for a time nothing was clearly distinguished.

"I was suspicious," remarked the parson; "but, though you both had beards when you went away, these have grown so much that they have greatly altered your appearance."

He scanned the other man closely, but before the parson had identified him, several others had done so.

"It's Al Bidwell!"

"Yes," replied the laughing Ruggles; "that's the fellow, but I'm sorry to say that since they made a major-general of him, he's become a reg'lar dude. He doesn't go out when it rains for fear of soiling his uniform, and the noise of powder makes him sick, so be careful how you handle the delicate fellow."

"Well, you do not need to be told," was the hearty response of the parson, "that no one could be more welcome than you; let's shake hands all around again."

It was some minutes before the flurry was over, for the delight on both sides was unbounded and the joy of the reunion great.

One member of the group lingered in the background. Her face was flushed with delighted expectancy, but with a coyness unknown in her earlier years, she hesitated on the outer edge of the circle. She could not mingle with the rush and waited until the flurry was over.

The men were scarcely less embarra.s.sed than she, and while not appearing to see her, both were watching her every movement. When the time came that the meeting could no longer be delayed, Ruggles walked to her and extended his hand.

"Well, Nellie, aren't you glad to see me?"

The crinkling of the whiskers at the side of the invisible mouth showed that he was laughing, and indeed his white teeth gleamed through his wealth of beard. Nellie promptly advanced and met him half way.

"Mr. Ruggles, I can't tell you how glad I am to meet you again."

He had been asking himself whether it would do to kiss this vision of loveliness. He wished to do so, but was afraid. However, the question was settled by the girl, who, instead of taking the hand, flung her arms about his neck and saluted him fervently, that is as well as she could under the conditions.

Al Bidwell came forward and was received in the same manner. Then, as the two men stepped back and looked admiringly at her, she said:

"I can see you are the same and yet those beards make you look different; I love to think of you as you were when you bade us good-by and rode off four years ago."

"We shall be glad to fix up our faces in the old style," said Ruggles, while his companion nodded a.s.sent. If she had asked them to cut off their heads they would have unhesitatingly agreed to do it.

"No doubt we've changed somewhat," said Bidwell, "but not one half so much as you."

"As I!" she repeated in astonishment; "why, I am just the same," and she looked down at her dress, as if seeking the explanation of his remark; "I haven't changed a bit."

"Not in goodness and all that sort of thing, but we left a little girl and now I'm blessed if we don't find a young woman, and yet it's the same little girl after all."

The maidenly blush darkened her face and she laughed.

"You couldn't expect me to stand still all these years."

"No; though we would have been glad if you had done so."

The three were standing apart, the others with commendable delicacy leaving them to themselves. Nellie laid her arm on the sleeve of Ruggles, and looking up yearningly in his face she asked:

"Can you give me any news of father?"

"Being as him and me was on different sides, I haven't seen or heard a thing of him since we parted in San Francisco, but I hope all has gone well with him."

She turned to Bidwell, who said:

"Me and him was thrown together once or twice and I met him after Gettysburg, where neither of us got a scratch, which is more than tens of thousands of others can say. Then I seen him in front of Petersburg, where we had the same good luck agin, but in the fighting round there we lost track of each other. Are you worried about him, little gal?"

"Very much," she mournfully replied; "never once did Vose Adams come back from Sacramento without one or two letters from him, but he has now done so twice, and I haven't heard a word. I fear father is dead; if he is, my heart is broken and I shall die too."

What could they say to cheer her, for Vose Adams made still another journey westward with the same dismal emptiness of the mail bag, so far as she was concerned. Every one did his utmost to cheer her, but none succeeded. The ground taken was that the parent had set out on his return, but had been hindered by some cause which would be explained when he finally arrived. When not one of the men himself believed the story, how could he hope to make the mourning daughter believe it?

Felix Brush took a different stand from the others. He early settled into the belief that Captain Dawson was dead, and that it was wrong to encourage hope on the part of the child when the disappointment must be more bitter in the end.

"If you are never to see him again in this world," he said, at the close of a sultry afternoon, as the two were seated on a rocky ledge near the cabin in which she had made her home all alone during her parent's long absence, "what a blessed memory he leaves behind him!

Died on the field of battle, or in camp or hospital, in the service of his country,--what more glorious epitaph can patriot desire?"

"If he is dead then I shall die; I shall pray that I may do so, so that I shall soon see him again."

"My dear child, you must show some of the courage of your parent and prove that you are a soldier's daughter. Your blow is a severe one, but it has fallen upon thousands of others, and they have bravely met it. You are young; you have seen nothing of the great world around you--"

"I do not care to see anything of it," she interrupted with a sigh.

"You will feel different when you have recovered from the blow. It is an amazing world, my dear. The cities and towns; the great ocean; the works of art; the s.h.i.+ps and steamboats; the vast structures; the railways; the mult.i.tudes of people; the lands beyond the seas, with still more marvelous scenes,--all these will expand like fairy land before you and make you wonder that you ever should have wished to leave such a realm of beauty and miracles while in your youth."

Nellie sat for some time in silence, and then rose to her feet with a weary sigh. Without speaking, she turned to walk away, but not in the direction of her own home.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"To look for him," was her sorrowful reply.

It was what he suspected and feared. He knew she had done the same thing night after night for weeks past, even when the rains fell and the chilling blasts made her s.h.i.+ver with discomfort. He could not interpose, and with the reflection that perhaps it was as well, he turned mournfully aside and walked slowly toward the cabins.

Meanwhile, Nellie Dawson pa.s.sed beyond the limits of the settlement until all the houses were behind her. She did not sit down, but folding her arms, after gathering her shawl about her, bent her gaze upon the trail, which wound in and out at the bottom of the canon below, for a fourth of a mile, when a ma.s.s of projecting rocks hid it from sight.

Night was closing in. Already the grim walls, thousands of feet in height, were wrapped in gloom, and few eyes beside hers could have traced the devious mule path for more than a hundred yards from where she stood. The clear sky was studded with stars, but the moon had not yet climbed from behind the towering peaks, which would shut out its light until near the zenith.

The soft murmur of the distant waterfall, the sound of voices behind her, the faint, hollow roar, which always is present in a vast solitude, filled the great s.p.a.ce around her and made the stillness grander and more impressive.

All this had been in her ears many a time before, and little heed did she give to it now. Her musings were with that loved one, who had been silent for so many weeks, and for whose coming she longed with an unspeakable longing. She knew the course of the trail so well, though she had never been far over it, that she was aware at what point he must first appear, if he ever appeared, and upon that point she centered her attention.

"Something tells me that when father comes it will be in the night time," she said; "I know he has tried hard to reach me, and what could it be that held him back? I will not believe he is dead until--"

Her heart gave a quicker throb, for surely that was a faint sound in the path, though too far off for her to perceive the cause. She could not tell its precise nature, but fancied it was the footfall of some animal. She took several quick steps forward on tiptoe, with head extended, peering and listening, with all her senses at the highest tension.