Part 50 (2/2)
At the close of the meal, as they set out to walk across the sand to the switch, he said to her: ”Am I never to see you again?”
”I hope so--somewhere, somehow,” she replied, evasively.
”I wish you'd set a time and place,” he persisted. ”I can't bear to see you go. You can't realize how I shall miss you.”
A fleeting gleam of amus.e.m.e.nt lighted her face. ”You have known me only a few days.”
”Oh yes, I have. I've known you all summer. You kept me busy thinking about you. The whole country will seem empty now.”
She smiled. ”I didn't know I filled so much s.p.a.ce in the landscape. I thought I was but a speck in it.” She hesitated a moment, then added: ”I came out to lose myself in nature. I had come to hate men and to despise women. I was sick of my kind. I wanted to live like a savage, a part of the wild, and so--forget.”
”Animals sometimes live alone; savages never do,” he corrected, ”unless they are outlawed from their tribe.”
”That's what I tried to do--outlaw myself from my tribe. I wanted to get away from foolish comment, from malicious gossip.”
”Are you ready to go back to it now--I mean to the city?”
”No, not quite; and yet this week's experience has shaken me and helped me. You have helped me, and I want to thank you for it. I begin to believe once more in good, brave, simple manhood. You and daddy have revived my faith in men.”
”Some man must have hurt you mighty bad,” he said, simply. Then added: ”I can't understand that. I don't see how any man could do anything but just naturally _wors.h.i.+p_ you.”
She was moved by the sincerity of his adoration, but she led him no farther in that direction. ”At first I thought I had won a kind of peace. I was almost content in a benumbed way. Then came my arrest--and you. It was a rough awakening, but I begin to see that I still live, that I am young, that I can become breathless with excitement. This raid, this ride, has swept away all that deathlike numbness which had fallen upon me. I've had my lesson. Now I can go back. I must get away from here.”
Under the spell of her intense utterance the ranger's mind worked rapidly, filling in the pauses. ”Yes, you'd better go away, but I'm not going to let you pa.s.s out of my life--not if I can help it! I'm going to resign and go where you go--”
She laid a protesting hand upon his arm. ”No, no!” she said. ”Don't do that. Don't resign. Don't change your plans on my account. I'm not worth such a sacrifice, such risk.”
”You're worth any risk,” he stoutly retorted, with some part of her own intensity in his voice. ”I can't think of letting you go. I need you in my business.” He smiled wanly. ”I'm only a forest ranger at ninety dollars per month, but I'm going to be something else one of these days.
I won't mind a long, rough trail if I can be sure of finding you at the end of it.”
The far-away whistle of the train spurred him into fierce demand.
”You'll let me write to you, and you will reply once in a while, won't you? It will give me something to look forward to. You owe me that much!” he added.
”Yes, I will write,” she promised. ”But I think it better that you should forget me. I hope we have not involved you in any trouble with your neighbors or with the coroner.”
”I am not worrying about that,” he answered. ”I am only concerned about you. I would go to jail in a minute to save you any further worry.”
”You are putting me so deeply in your debt that I can never repay you,”
she replied.
”A letter now and then will help,” he suggested.
The train, panting, wheezing, hot with speed, came to a creeping halt, and the conductor, swinging out upon the side track, greeted the ranger pleasantly. ”h.e.l.lo, Hans! What are you doing here?”
Hanscom returned his greeting gravely. ”Billy, here are some friends of mine, just down from the hills. Take good care of them for me, will you?”
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