Part 12 (2/2)

Charles-Norton stood there motionless a while, a bit disturbed. Then his lower jaw advanced; he shrugged his shoulders: ”Well--I'll see about it; to-morrow,” he said airily, and was off.

But he didn't see about anything ”to-morrow” or after. He had a fine time that day. A snow-flurry was pa.s.sing down the Sierra, and he went with it along the crest, mile after mile, to the South, the center of its soft white whirl, its winged tutelary G.o.d. When he returned, that night, a snow-carpet extended down from the top of the chain, down the slopes, to the edge of the meadow. Dolly was inside of the cabin, close to the fireplace. ”Ooh, Goosie, but it's cold,” she cried. ”Yes,” admitted Charles-Norton; ”it is cold.” His wings were encased in ice, and he sparkled rosily in the fire's glow.

The next day, though, was warmer; the carpet of snow gradually retreated up the slopes. It remained on the crest, however, frozen and scintillating. It was a world of increased beauty that now spread beneath Charles-Norton. The crest glittered from horizon to horizon; here and there little lakes gleamed like hard diamonds; and lower, the willows in the hollows lay very light, like painted vapor.

The next morning Dolly said: ”There's no sugar, Goosie.”

”Coffee is better without sugar,” said Charles-Norton, sententiously.

For a few days the young couple, with wry faces, drank unsweetened coffee. Then this difficulty disappeared. Taking up the tin before breakfast, Dolly discovered that there was no more coffee.

The last of the canned fruit followed, and the last slice of bacon.

”Thank the Lord we can live on trout,” said Charles-Norton, piously.

As if in answer, the next morning, the trout refused to take his bait of red flannel.

Alone there on the sh.o.r.e of the lake, while Dolly waited within the cabin, Charles-Norton pa.s.sed a bad quarter-of-an-hour. Then he went up the slopes back of the meadow and captured a handful of gra.s.shoppers springing there in the rising sun. The trout took them with grat.i.tude.

”Whee!” said Charles-Norton, when at last he had his catch.

And then, to a cold blast from the East, a few days later, the gra.s.shoppers all disappeared. Charles-Norton took his axe, went into the woods, and chopping open mouldy logs, obtained a store of white grub. The trout took them.

But Fatality now was d.o.g.g.i.ng him close. When, with tingling skin, he opened the cabin-door a few mornings later, a cry escaped him. A snow-carpet spread from the crest over the face of the whole visible world, clear down to the western plain. It covered deep the meadow, hung in miniature mountain-chains on the boughs of the pines, filigreed the lake. The lake was frozen.

Charles-Norton chopped a hole in the ice, then chopped logs and replenished his supply of grubs. The trout refused them. They could not be blamed; the grubs, hibernating, had shrunk themselves into hard little sticks devoid of the least suspicion of succulence.

Charles-Norton and Dolly went breakfastless that morning. All day Charles-Norton roamed above the land with a vague idea of catching something. But living creatures seemed to have withdrawn into the earth; the few still out had put on white liveries; when Charles-Norton flew low, they fled him, and when he flew high, he could not distinguish them from the earth's impa.s.sive mantle. He thought once of the ranch in the plain and of its chicken-yard, but dropped the idea immediately. Dolly's vigorous little New England conscience would never accept a compromise such as this.

Charles-Norton and Dolly that night went supperless to bed; they arose in the morning with no prospect of breakfast. Charles-Norton moped long at the fire while Dolly, very wisely silent, trotted about her work.

Suddenly Charles-Norton rose with a smothered exclamation. In two strides he made for the door, opened it, and took wing; Dolly saw him flitting among the branches of the pines in mysterious occupation. He returned in great triumph and threw on the table a double handful of small, dry objects that looked like wooden beans. ”We'll eat pine-nuts!”

he cried enthusiastically. ”Pine-nuts are just chuck full of protein!”

For three days they lived on pine-nuts. And then, as on the third evening, they sat before the little heap which made their meal, Dolly fell forward on the table with a wide movement of her arms that scattered the supper in a dry tinkle to the floor, and remained thus with heaving shoulders.

Charles-Norton rose and stood above her. Dolly was weeping this time, truly weeping, beyond the slightest doubt, openly and freely. This was the end; he was cornered at last, his last twisting over. She wept there in an abandonment of woe, her face in her arms, her hair desolate on the surface of the table, her shoulders palpitating. And as he gazed down upon her, a great, vague mournfulness slowly rose through him, a mournfulness part regret, part sacrifice; he stood there gazing down upon her as a child gazing down on a broken toy, a broken toy in the ruin of which lay the ruin of his dreams. She wept; and he felt as if a wreath, a wreath soft and flowery but very heavy, had fallen about his neck and were drawing him down, down out of the alt.i.tudes of his will.

And so, gently, he asked the question, the answer of which he knew, the asking of which was renunciation.

”Dolly, Dolly,” he whispered; ”what is the matter, Dolly?”

”Ooh, ooh, ooh,” sobbed Dolly; ”ooh, Goosie, I can't--can't eat pine-nuts, Goosie! I can't!”

Her shoulders shook, the table trembled, her wail rose to a perfect little whistle of woe. Charles-Norton sat down by her and took her in his arms. ”Well, we won't have to, Dolly,” he said gently; ”us won't have to.

We--we'll go back!”

They remained thus long, entwined, while little by little the violence of Dolly's despair moderated. At length she freed herself, with a smile like the sunlight of an April shower, and still with a little catch in her throat, took the lamp from the table and set it on the sill of the western window.

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