They Of The High Trails Part 35

"I'm sure Freeman--Professor Ward--will know you, for he also saw the placard."

"That's no sign. Suppose he does--maybe he won't think it is his job to interfere. Anyway"--here his voice became decisive--"I won't leave you in such a fix as this." His eyes spoke to her of that which his tongue could not utter. "I wanted an excuse to come back, anyway," he concluded. "No matter what comes now, my job is here to protect you."

She did not rebuke him, and Peggy--though she wondered at his tone--was too grateful for his presence even to question Alice's motive in permitting such remarks.

As for Alice, she felt herself more and more involved in the tangled skein of his mysterious life. His sudden and reckless abandonment of the old love which had ruined him, and the new and equally irrational regard which he now professed for her, filled her with a delicious marveling.

He appealed to a woman's imagination. He had the spice of the unknown.

In her relations.h.i.+p with Ward there was no danger, no mystery--his courts.h.i.+p narrowly escaped being commonplace. She had accepted his attentions and expected to marry him, and yet the thought of the union produced, at its warmest, merely a glow of comfort, a sense of security, whereas the hint of being loved and protected by this Rob Roy of the hills, this reckless Rough Rider of the wilderness, was instinct with romance. Of course his devotion was a crazy folly, and yet, lying there in her rough bunk, with an impenetrable wall of snow shutting out the rest of the world, it was hard not to feel that this man and his future had become an inescapable part of her life--a part which grew in danger and in charm from hour to hour.

Full two miles above the level of her own home, surrounded by peaks unscalably wild and lonely, deserted by those who should care for her, was it strange that she should return this man's adoring gaze with something of the primal woman's grat.i.tude and submission?

The noon darkened into dusk as they talked, slowly, with long pauses, and one by one the stirring facts of the rover's life came out. From his boyhood he had always done the reckless thing. He had known no restraint till, as a member of the Rough Riders, he yielded a partial obedience to his commanders. When the excitement of the campaigns was over he had deserted and gone back to the round-up wagon and the camp-fire.

In the midst of his confidences he maintained a reserve about his family which showed more self-mastery than anything else about him. That he was the black sheep of an honorable flock became increasingly evident. He had been the kind of lad who finds in the West a fine field for daredevil adventure. And yet there were unstirred deeps in the man. He was curious about a small book which Alice kept upon her bed, and which she read from time to time with serene meditation on her face.

"What is that?" he asked.

"My Bible."

"Can I see it?"

"Certainly."

He took it carefully and read the t.i.tle on the back, then turned a few of the leaves. "I'm not much on reading," he said, "but I've got a sister that sends me tracts, and the like." He returned to the fly-leaf.

"Is this your name?"

"Yes."

"'Alice Mansfield,'" he read; "beautiful name! 'New York City'! That's pretty near the other side of the world to me." He studied the address with intent look. "I'd like to buy this book. How much will you take for it?"

"I'll trade it for your weapon," she replied.

He looked at her narrowly. "You mean something by that. I reckon I follow you. No, I can't do that--not now. If I get into business over the line I'll disarm, but in this country a fellow needs to be protected. I want this book!"

"For the fly-leaf?"

He smiled in return. "You've hit it."

She hesitated. "I'll give you the book if you'll promise to read it."

He clapped the covers together and put the volume in his pocket. "It's mine! I'll read every word of it, if it takes an age, and here's my hand on it."

She gave him her hand, and in this clasp something came to her from his clutching fingers which sobered her. She drew her hand away hastily and said: "If you read that book--and think about it--it will change your whole world."

He, too, lost his brightness. "Well, I'm not so anxious to keep up this kind of life. But if anybody changes me it will be you."

"Hus.h.!.+" she warned with lifted finger.

He fell back, and after a little silence went out to wait upon the fire.

"It seems to me," said Peggy, reprovingly, "that you're too gracious with this mountaineer; he's getting presumptuous."

"He doesn't mean to be. It's his unsophisticated way. Anyhow, we can't afford to be captious to our host."

"That's true," admitted Peggy.

The night shut down with the snow still falling, but with a growing chill in the air.

"The flakes are finer," the outlaw announced, as he came in a little later. "That is a good sign. It is growing colder and the wind is changing. It will pinch hard before sun-up, and the worst of it, there's no way to warm the cabin. We can't have the door open to-night. I'm worried about you," he said to Alice. "If only those chumps had left a man-size ax!"

The two women understood that this night was to bring them into closer intimacy with the stranger than before. He could not remain outdoors, and though they now knew something of his desperate character, they had no fear of him. He had shown his chivalry. No one could have been more considerate of them, for he absented himself at Peggy's request instantly and without suggestion of jocularity, and when he came in and found them both in bed he said:

"I reckon I'll not make down to-night--you'll need all your blankets before morning"; and thereupon, without weighing their protests, proceeded to spread the extra cover over them.

Alice looked up at him in the dim light of the candle and softly asked: "What will you do? You will suffer with cold!"

"Don't worry about me; I'm an old campaigner. I still have a blanket to wrap around my shoulders. I'll snooze in a corner. If you hear me moving around don't be worried; I'm hired to keep the fire going even if it doesn't do us much good inside."

The chill deepened. The wind began to roar, and great ma.s.ses of snow, dislodged from the tall trees above the cabin, fell upon its roof with sounds like those of soft, slow footfalls. Strange noises of creaking and groaning and rasping penetrated to Alice's ears, and she cowered half in fear, half in joy of her shelter and her male protector. Men were fine animals for the wild.

She fell asleep at last, seeing her knight's dim form propped against the wall, wrapped in a blanket Indian-wise, his head bowed over the book she had given him, a candle smoking in his hand.

She woke when he rose to feed the fire, and the current of cold air which swept in caused her to cover her mouth with the blanket. He turned toward her.

"It's all over for sure, this time," he said. "It's cold and goin' to be colder. How are you standing it? If your feet are cold I can heat a stone. How is the hurt foot?" He drew near and looked down upon her anxiously.

"Very much easier, thank you."

"I'm mighty glad of that. I wish I could take the pain all on myself."

"You have troubles of your own," she answered, as lightly as she could.

"That's true, too," he agreed in the same tone. "So many that a little one more or less wouldn't count."

"Do you call my wound little?"

"I meant the foot was little--"

She checked him.

"I didn't mean to make light of it. It sure is no joke." He added, "I've made a start on the book."

"How do you like it?"

"I don't know yet," he answered, and went back to his corner.

She snuggled under her warm quilts again, remorseful, yet not daring to suggest a return of the blanket he had lent. When she woke again he was on his feet, swinging his arms silently. His candle had gone out, but a faint light was showing in the room.