Part 14 (2/2)

”Nonsense, man!” returned Tom, sharply, ”it lies in precisely the opposite direction. Our adventures have turned your brain, I think.

Come, don't let us lose time. Think of Betty; that poor girl may be killed if there is another attack. She was slightly wounded last time.

Come!”

Fred looked quickly in his friend's face. It was deeply flushed, and his eye sparkled with unwonted fire.

”Poor fellow! his case is hopeless; she will never wed him,” thought Fred, but he only said, ”I, too, would not waste time, but it seems to me we shall lose much if we go in that direction. The longer I study the nature of the ground, and calculate our rate of travelling since we left the diggings, the more am I convinced that our way lies westward.”

”I feel as certain as you do,” replied Tom with some asperity, for he began to chafe under the delay. ”But if you are determined to go that way you must go by yourself, old boy, for I can't afford to waste time on a wrong road.”

”Nay, if you are so sure, I will give in and follow. Lead on,” returned Tom's accommodating friend, with a feeling of mingled surprise and chagrin.

In less than an hour they reached a part of the rocky ridge before mentioned, from which they had a magnificent view of the surrounding country. It was wilderness truly, but such a wilderness of tree and bush, river and lake, cascade and pool, flowering plant and festooned shrub, dense thicket and rolling prairie, backed here and there by cloud-capped hills, as seldom meets the eye or thrills the heart of traveller, except in alpine lands. Deep pervading silence marked the hour, for the air was perfectly still, and though the bear, the deer, the wolf, the fox, and a mult.i.tude of wild creatures were revelling there in the rich enjoyment of natural life, the vast region, as it were, absorbed and dissipated their voices almost as completely as their persons, so that it seemed but a grand untenanted solitude, just freshly laid out by the hand of the wonder-working Creator. Every sheet of water, from the pool to the lake, reflected an almost cloudless blue, excepting towards the west, where the sun, by that time beginning to descend, converted all into sheets of liquid gold.

The two friends paused on the top of a knoll, more to recover breath than to gaze on the exquisite scene, for they both felt that they were speeding on a mission that might involve life or death. Fred's enthusiastic admiration, however, would no doubt have found vent in fitting words if he had not at the moment recognised a familiar landmark.

”I knew it!” he cried, eagerly. ”Look, Tom, that is Ranger's Hill on the horizon away to the left. It is very faint from distance, but I could not mistake its form.”

”Nonsense, Fred! you never saw it from this point of view before, and hills change their shape amazingly from different points of view. Come along.”

”No, I am too certain to dispute the matter any longer. If you will have it so, we must indeed part here. But oh! Tom, don't be obstinate!

Why, what has come over you, my dear fellow? Don't you see--”

”I see that evening is drawing on, and that we shall be too late.

Good-bye! One friendly helping hand will be better to her than none. I _know_ I'm right.”

Tom hurried away, and poor Fred, after gazing in mingled surprise and grief at his comrade until he disappeared, turned with a heavy sigh and went off in the opposite direction.

”Well,” he muttered to himself, as he sped along at a pace that might have made even a red man envious, ”we are both of us young and strong, so that we are well able to hold out for a considerable time on such light fare as the shrubs of the wilderness produce, and when Tom discovers his mistake he'll make good use of his long legs to overtake me. I cannot understand his infatuation. But with G.o.d's blessing, all shall yet be well.”

Comforting himself with the last reflection, and offering up a heartfelt prayer as he pressed on, Fred Westly was soon separated from his friend by many a mile of wilderness.

Meanwhile Tom Brixton traversed the land with strides not only of tremendous length, but unusual rapidity. His ”infatuation” was not without its appropriate cause. The physical exertions and sufferings which the poor fellow had undergone for so long a period, coupled with the grief, amounting almost to despair, which tormented his brain, had at last culminated in fever; and the flushed face and glittering eyes, which his friend had set down to anxiety about Bevan's pretty daughter, were, in reality, indications of the gathering fires within. So also was the obstinacy. For it must be admitted that the youth's natural disposition was tainted with that objectionable quality which, when fever, drink, or any other cause of madness operates in any man, is apt to a.s.sert itself powerfully.

At first he strode over the ground with terrific energy, thinking only of Betty and her father in imminent danger; pausing now and then abruptly to draw his hand across his brow and wonder if he was getting near Bevan's Gully. Then, as his mind began to wander, he could not resist a tendency to shout.

”What a fool I am!” he muttered, after having done this once or twice.

”I suppose anxiety about that dear girl is almost driving me mad. But she can never--never be mine. I'm a thief! a thief! Ha! ha-a-a-ah!”

The laugh that followed might have appalled even a red and painted warrior. It did terrify, almost into fits, all the tree and ground squirrels within a mile of him, for these creatures went skurrying off to holes and topmost boughs in wild confusion when they heard it echoing through the woods.

When this fit pa.s.sed off Tom took to thinking again. He strode over hillock, swamp, and plain in silence, save when, at long intervals, he muttered the words, ”Think, think, thinking. Always thinking! Can't stop think, thinking!”

Innumerable wild fowl, and many of the smaller animals of the woods, met him in his mad career, and fled from his path, but one of these seemed at last inclined to dispute the path with him.

It was a small brown bear, which creature, although insignificant when compared with the gigantic grizzly, is, nevertheless, far more than a match for the most powerful unarmed man that ever lived. This rugged creature chanced to be rolling sluggishly along as if enjoying an evening saunter at the time when Tom approached. The place was dotted with willow bushes, so that when the two met there was not more than a hundred yards between them. The bear saw the man instantly, and rose on its hind legs to do battle. At that moment Tom lifted his eyes.

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