Told in the Hills: A Novel

CHAPTER VII.

"A WOMAN WHO WAS LOST – LONG AGO!"

The next morning, bright and early, Kalitan called at the ranch; and Miss Fred, accustomed as she was to the red men, grew rather enthusiastic over this haughty, graceful specimen, who gave her one glance at the door and walked past her into the house – as she afterward described it, "just as if she had been one of the wooden door-posts."

"Rashell Hardy?" was all he said; and without more ado Miss Fred betook herself up the stairs to do his implied bidding and hunt Miss Hardy.

"I rather think it's the grand mogul of all the Kootenais," she said, in announcing him. "No, he didn't give any card; but his personality is too striking to be mistaken, if one has ever seen him or heard him speak. He looked right over my head, and made me feel as if I was about two feet high."

"Young Indian?"

"Yes, but he looks like a young faun. That one never came from a scrub race."

"I'll ask him to stay to dinner," laughed Rachel; "if anything will cure one of a tendency to idealize an Indian, it is to see him satisfying the inner man. Come down and talk to him. It is Kalitan."

"Oh, it is Kalitan, is it? And pray what it is that – a chief rich in lineage and blooded stock? His assurance speaks of wealth and power, I should say, and his manner shows one a Fenimore Cooper spirit come to life. How am I as a guesser?"

"One of the worst in the world. Kalitan is really a handsome humbug in some ways. That superb manner of his is the only stock in trade he possesses beyond his swift feet; but the idea of importance he manages to convey speaks wonders for his strength of will. Come along!"

"Klahowya, Rashell Hardy?" he said; and stepping solemnly forward, shook her hand in a grave, ceremonious fashion. Rachel told him the other lady was her friend, by way of introduction, and he widened his mouth ever so little in a smile, but that was the only sign of acknowledgement he gave; and when Rachel spoke to him in English he would not answer, but sat stolidly looking into the fire until she saw what was wrong and addressed him in Chinook. "Rashell Hardy need not so soon forget," he reminded her briefly; and then went on with his speech to her of where he had been; the wonders he had done in the way of a runner, and all else of self-glorification that had occurred in the past months. Many times the name of his chief was uttered in a way that impressed on a listener the idea that among the troops along the frontier there were two men who were really worthy of praise – a scout and a runner. "Kalitan tired now – pretty much," he wound up, as a finale; "come up Kootenai country to rest, may be, while spring comes. Genesee he rest, too, may be – may be not."

"Where, Kalitan?"

"S'pose camp – s'pose may be Tamahnous cabin; not here yet."

"Coming back?"

Kalitan nodded, and arose.

"Come see you, may be, sometime, often," he said as if conferring a special honor by promised visits; and then he stalked out as he had stalked in, only checking his gait at sight of Aunty Luce coming in from the kitchen with a dish of cold meat. She nearly dropped it in her fright, and closed her eyes in silent prayer and terror; when she opened them the enemy had left the porch.

"Good Lawd, Miss Rache!" she gasped. "He's skeered me before bad enough, but this the fust time he evah stopped stock an' glare at me! I's gwine to complain to the milantary – I is, shuah."

"You are a great old goose!" said Rachel brusquely. "He wasn't looking at you, but at that cold meat."

There seemed a general gathering of the clans along the Kootenai valley that winter. With the coming north of Genesee had come the troops, then Kalitan, then their mercurial friend of the autumn – the Stuart; and down from Scot's Mountain came Davy MacDougall, one fair day, to join the circle that was a sort of reunion. And among the troops were found many good fellows who were so glad of an evening spent at the ranch that never a night went by without a party gathered there.

"The heft o' them does everything but sleep here," complained Aunty Luce; "an' all the other ones look jealous 'cause Mr. Stuart does that."

For Hardy and his wife had insisted on his stopping with them, as before, though much of his time was spent at the camp. There was something about him that made him a companion much desired by men; Rachel had more opportunity to observe this now than when their circle was so much smaller. That gay good-humor, with its touches of serious feeling, and the delicate sympathy that was always alive to earnest emotion – she found that those traits were keys to the hearts of men as well as women; and a smile here, a kind word there, or a clasp of the hand, were the only arts needed to insure him the unsought friendship of almost every man in the company.

"It's the gift that goes wi' the name," said MacDougall one day when someone spoke of the natural charm of the man's manner. "It's just that – no less. No, o' course he does na strive for it; it's but a bit o' nature. A blessin', say you, Miss? Well, mayhaps; but to the old stock it proved but a curse."

"It seems a rather fair life to connect the idea of a curse with," remarked the Major; "but I rather think he has seen trouble, too. Captain Sneath said something to that effect, I believe – some sudden death of wife and children in an epidemic down in Mexico."

"Married! That settles the romance," said Fred; "but he is interesting, anyway, and I am going immediately to find out what he has written and save up my money to buy copies."

"I may save you that expense in one instance," and Rachel handed her the book Stuart had sent her. Tillie looked at her in astonishment, and Fred seized it eagerly.

"Oh, but you are sly!" she said, with an accusing pout; "you've heard me puzzling about his work for days and never gave me a hint."

"I only guessed it was his, he never told me; but this morning I charged him with it, and he did not deny. I do not think there is any secret about it, only down at the Fort there were several ladies, I believe, and – and some of them curious – "

"You're right," laughed the Major; "they would have hounded him to death. Camp life is monotonous to most women, and a novelist, especially a young, handsome fellow, would have been a bonanza to them. As it was, they tried to spoil him; and look here!" he said suddenly, "see that you say nothing of his marriage to him, Babe. As he does not mention it himself, it may be that the trouble, or – well, just remember not to broach the subject."

"Just as if I would!" said his daughter after he had left. "Papa never realizes that I have at all neared the age of discretion. But doesn't it seem strange to think of Mr. Stuart being married? He doesn't look a bit like it."

"Does that state of existence impress itself so indelibly on one's physical self?" laughed Rachel.

"It does – mostly," affirmed Fred. "They get settled down and prosy, or else – well, dissipated."

"Good gracious! Is that the effect we are supposed to have on the character of our lords and masters?" asked Mrs. Hardy unbelievingly.

"Fred's experience is confined to barrack life and its attendant evils. I don't think she makes allowance for the semi-artistic temper of the Stuart. He strikes me as having just enough of it to keep his heart always young, and his affections too – on tap, as it were."

"What queer ideas you have about that man!" said Fred suddenly. "Don't you like him?"

"I would not dare say no with so many opposing me."

"Oh, you don't know Rachel. She is always attributing the highest of virtues or the worst of vices to the most unexpected people," said Tillie. "I don't believe she has any feeling in the question at all, except to get on the opposite side of the question from everyone else. If she would own up, I'll wager she likes him as well as the rest of us."

"Do you, Rachel?" But her only answer was a laugh. "If you do, I can't see why you disparage him."

"I did not."

"Well, you said his affections were always on tap."

"That was because I envy him the exhaustless youth such a temperament gives one. Such people defy time and circumstances in a way we prosaic folks can never do. It is a gift imparted to an artist, to supply the lack of practical ingredients that are the prime ones to the rest of creation."

"How you talk! Why, Mr. Stuart is not an artist!"

"Isn't he? There are people who are artists though they never draw a line or mix a color; but don't you think we are devoting a great deal of time to this pill-peddler of literary leanings?"

"You are prejudiced," decided Fred. "Leanings indeed! He has done more than lean in that direction – witness that book."

"I like to hear him tell a story, if he is in the humor," remarked Tillie, with a memory of the cozy autumn evenings. "We used to enjoy that so much before we ever guessed he was a story-teller by profession."

"Well, you must have had a nice sort of a time up here," concluded Fred; "a sort of Tom Moore episode. He would do all right for the poet-prince – or was it a king? But you – well, Rachel, you are not just one's idea of a Lalla."

"You slangy little mortal! Go and read your book."

Which she did obediently and thoroughly, to the author's discomfiture, as he was besieged with questions that taxed his memory and ingenuity pretty thoroughly at times.

He found himself on a much better footing with Rachel than during his first visit. It may have been that her old fancy regarding his mission up there was disappearing; the fancy itself had always been a rather intangible affair – a fabrication wrought by the shuttle of a woman's instinct. Or, having warned Genesee – she had felt it was a warning – there might have fallen from her shoulders some of the responsibility she had so gratuitously assumed. Whatever it was, she was meeting him on freer ground, and found the association one of pleasure.

"I think Miss Fred or your enlarged social circle has had a most excellent influence on your temper," he said to her one day after a ride from camp together, and a long, pleasant chat. "You are now more like the girl I used to think you might be – the girl you debarred me from knowing."

"But think what an amount of time you had for work in those days that are forfeited now to dancing attendance on us women folk!"

"I do not dance."

"Well, you ride, and you walk, and you sing, and tell stories, and manage at least to waste lots of time when you should be working."

"You have a great deal of impatience with anyone who is not a worker, haven't you?"

"Yes," she said, looking up at him. "I grow very impatient myself often from the same cause."

"You always seem to me to be very busy," he answered half-vexedly; "too busy. You take on yourself responsibilities in all directions that do not belong to you; and you have such a way of doing as you please that no one about the place seems to realize how much of a general manager you are here, or how likely you are to overburden yourself."

"Nonsense!"

She spoke brusquely, but could not but feel the kindness in the penetration that had given her appreciation where the others, through habit, had grown to take her accomplishments as a matter of course. In the beginning they had taken them as a joke.

"Pardon me," he said finally. "I do not mean to be rude, but do you mind telling me if work is a necessity to you?"

"Certainly not. I have none of that sort of pride to contend with, I hope, and I have a little money – not much, but enough to live on; so, you see, I am provided for in a way."

"Then why do you always seem to be skirmishing around for work?" he asked, in a sort of impatience. "Women should be home-makers, not – "

"Not prospectors or adventurers," she finished up amiably. "But as I have excellent health, average strength and understanding, I feel they should be put to use in some direction. I have not found the direction yet, and am a prospector meanwhile; but a contented, empty life is a contemptible thing to me. I think there is some work intended for us all in the world; and," she added, with one of those quick changes that kept folks from taking Rachel's most serious meanings seriously – "and I think it's playing it pretty low down on Providence to bluff him on an empty hand."

He laughed. "Do you expect, then, to live your life out here helping to manage other people's ranches and accumulating that sort of Western logic in extenuation?"

She did not answer for a little; then she said:

"I might do worse."

She said it so deliberately that he could not but feel some special thing was meant, and asked quickly:

"What?"

"Well, I might be given talents of benefit to people, and fritter them away for the people's pastime. The people would never know they had lost anything, or come so near a great gain; but I, the cheat, would know it. After the lights were turned out and the curtain down on the farce, I would realize that it was too late to begin anew, but that the same lights and the same theater would have served as well for the truths of Christ as the pranks of Pantaloon – the choice lay only in the will of the worker."

Her eyes were turned away from him, as if she was seeking for metaphors in the white stretch of the snow-fall. He reached over and laid his hand on hers.

"Rachel!"

It was the only time he had called her that, and the caress of the name gave voice to the touch of his fingers.

"Rachel! What is it you are talking about? Look around here! I want to see you! Do you mean that you think of – of me like that – tell me?"

If Miss Fred could have seen them at that moment it would have done her heart good, for they really looked rather lover-like; each was unconscious of it, though their faces did not lack feeling. She drew her hand slowly away, and said, in that halting yet persistent way in which she spoke when very earnest yet not very sure of herself:

"You think me egotistical, I suppose, to criticise work that is beyond my own capabilities, but – it was you I meant."

"Well?"

His fingers closed over the arm of the chair instead of her hand. All his face was alight with feeling. Perhaps it was as well that her stubbornness kept her eyes from his; to most women they would not have been an aid to cool judgment.

"Well, there isn't anything more to say, is there?" she asked, smiling a little out at the snow. "It was the book that did it – made me feel like that about you; that your work is – well, surface work – skimmed over for pastime. But here and there are touches that show how much deeper and stronger the work you might produce if you were not either lazy or careless."

"You give one heroic treatment, and can be merciless. The story was written some time ago, and written under circumstances that – well, you see I do not sign my name to it, so I can't be very proud of it."

"Ah! that is it? Your judgment, I believe, is too good to be satisfied with it; I shouldn't waste breath speaking, if I was not sure of that. But you have the right to do work you can be proud of; and that is what you must do."

Rachel's way was such a decided way, that people generally accepted her "musts" as a matter of course. Stuart did the same, though evidently unused to the term; and her cool practicalities that were so surely noting his work, not himself, had the effect of checking that first impulse of his to touch her – to make her look at him. He felt more than ever that the girl was strange and changeable – not only in herself, but in her influence. He arose and walked across the floor a couple of times, but came back and stood beside her.

"You think I am not ambitious enough; and you are right, I suppose. I have never yet made up my mind whether it was worth my while to write, or whether it might not be more wise to spare the public."

"But you have the desire – you must feel confidence at times."

"How do you know or imagine so much of what I feel?"

"I read it in that book," and she nodded toward the table. "In it you seem so often just on the point of saying or doing, through the people, things that would lift that piece of work into a strong moral lesson; but just when you reach that point you drop it undeveloped."

"You have read and measured it, haven't you?" and he sat down again beside her. "I never thought of – of what you mention in it. A high moral lesson," he repeated; "but to preach those a man should feel himself fit; I am not."

"I don't believe you!"

"What do you know about it?" he demanded so sharply that she smiled; it was so unlike him. But the sharpness was evidently not irritation, for his face had in it more of sadness than any other feeling; she saw it, and did not speak.

After a little he turned to her with that rare impetuosity that was so expressive.

"You are very helpful to me in what you have said; I think you are that to everyone – it seems so. Perhaps you are without work of your own in the world, that you may have thought for others who need help; that is the highest of duties, and it needs strong, good hearts. But do you understand that it is as hard sometimes to be thought too highly of as to be accused wrong-fully? It makes one feel such a cheat – such a cursed liar!"

"I rather think we are all cheats, more or less, in that respect," she answered. "I am quite sure the inner workings of my most sacred thought could not be advertised without causing my exile from the bosom of my family; yet I refuse to think myself more wicked than the rest of humanity."

"Don't jest!"

"Really, I am not jesting," she answered. "And I believe you are over-sensitive as to your own short-comings, whatever they happen to be. Because I have faith in your ability to do strong work, don't think I am going to skirmish around for a pedestal, or think I've found a piece of perfection in human nature, because they're not to be found, my friend."

"How old are you?" he asked her suddenly.

She laughed, feeling so clearly the tenor of his thought.

"Twenty-two by my birthdays, but old enough to know that the strongest workers in the world have not been always the most immaculate. What matter the sort of person one has been, or the life one has lived if he come out of it with knowledge and the wish to use it well? You have a certain power that is yours, to use for good or bad, and from a fancy that you should not teach or preach, you let it go to waste. Don't magnify peccadillos!"

"You seem to take for granted the fact that all my acts have been trifling – that only the promises are worthy," he said impatiently.

"I do believe," she answered smiling brightly, "that you would rather I thought you an altogether wicked person than an average trifler. But I will not – I do not believe it possible for you deliberately to do any wicked thing; you have too tender a heart, and – "

"You don't know anything about it!" he repeated vehemently. "What difference whether an act is deliberate or careless, so long as the effect is evil? I tell you the greater part of the suffering in the world is caused not by wicked intents and hard hearts, but by the careless desire to shirk unpleasant facts, and the soft-heartedness that will assuage momentary pain at the price of making a life-long cripple, either mentally, morally, or physically. Nine times out of ten the man whom we call soft-hearted is only a moral coward. Ah, don't help me to think of that; I think of it enough – enough!"

He brought his clenched hand down on the arm of the chair with an emphasis that was heightened by the knitted brow and compressed lips. He did not look at her. The latter part of the rapid speech seemed more to himself than to her. At least it admitted of no answer; the manner as much as the words kept her silent.

"Come! come!" he added, after a little, as if to arouse himself as well as her. "You began by giving me some good words of advice and suggestion; I must not repay you by dropping into the blues. For a long time I've been a piece of drift-wood, with nothing to anchor ambition to; but a change is coming, I think, and – and if it brings me fair weather, I may have something then to work for; then I may be worth your belief in me – I am not now. My intentions to be so are all right, but they are not always to be trusted. I said, before, that you had the faculty of making people speak the truth to you, if they spoke at all, and I rather think I am proving my words."

He arose and stood looking down at her. Since he had found so many words, she had seemed to lose hers; anyway, she was silent.

"It can't be very pleasant for you," he said at last, "to be bored by the affairs of every renegade to whom you are kind, because of some fancied good you may see in him; but you are turning out just the sort of woman I used to fancy you might be – and – I am grateful to you."

"That's all right," she answered in the old brusque way. To tell the truth, a part of his speech was scarcely heard. Something in the whole affair – the confidence and personal interest, and all – had taken her memory back to the days of that cultus corrie, when another man had shared with her scenes somewhat similar to this. Was there a sort of fate that had set her apart for this sort of thing? She smiled a little grimly at the fancy, and scarcely heard him. He saw the ghost of a smile, and it made him check himself in something he was about to say, and walk toward the door.

She neither spoke nor moved; her face was still toward the window. Turning to look at her, his indecision disappeared, and in three steps he was beside her.

"Rachel, I want to speak to you of something else," he said rapidly, almost eagerly, as if anxious to have it said and done with; "I – I want to tell you what that anchor is I've been looking for, and without which I never will be able to do the higher class of work, and – and – "

"Yes?"

He had stopped, making a rather awkward pause after his eager beginning. With the one encouraging word, she looked up at him and waited.

"It is a woman."

"Not an unusual anchor for mankind," she remarked with a little laugh.

But there was no answering smile in his eyes; they were very serious.

"I never will be much good to myself, or the rest of the world, until I find her again," he said, "though no one's words are likely to help me more than yours. You would make one ambitious if he dared be and – "

"Never mind about that," she said kindly. "I am glad if it has happened so. And this girl – it is someone you – love?"

"I can't talk to anyone of her – yet," he answered, avoiding her eyes; "only I wanted you to understand – it is at least a little step toward that level where you fancy I may belong. Don't speak of it again; I can hardly say what impelled me to tell you now. Yes, it is a woman I cared for, and who was – lost – whom I lost – long ago."

A moment later she was alone, and could hear his step in the outer room, then on the porch. Fred called after him, but he made no halt – did not even answer, much to the surprise of that young lady and Miss Margaret.

The other girl sat watching him until he disappeared in the stables, and a little later saw him emerge and ride at no slow gait out over the trail toward camp.

"It only needed that finale," she soliloquized, "to complete the picture. Woman! woman! What a disturbing element you are in the universe – man's universe!"

After this bit of trite philosophy, the smile developed into a noiseless laugh that had something of irony in it.

"I rather think Talapa's entrance was more dramatic," was one of the reflections that kept her company; "anyway, she was more picturesque, if less elegant, than Mrs. Stuart is likely to be. Mrs. Stuart! By the way, I wonder if it is Mrs. Stuart? Yes, I suppose so – yet, 'a woman whom I cared for, and who was lost – long ago!' – Lost? lost?"

CHAPTER VIII.

"I'LL KILL HIM THIS TIME!"

Rumors were beginning to drift into camp of hostile intents of the Blackfeet; and a general feeling of uneasiness became apparent as no word came from the chief of their scouts, who had not shown up since locating the troops.

The Major's interest was decidedly alive in regard to him, since not a messenger entered camp from any direction who was not questioned on the subject. But from none of them came any word of Genesee.

Other scouts were there – good men, too, and in the southern country of much value; but the Kootenai corner of the State was almost an unknown region to them. They were all right to work under orders; but in those hills, where everything was in favor of the native, a man was needed who knew every gully and every point of vantage, as well as the probable hostile.