Part 9 (1/2)

In his days in prison he had given up all dream of this happiness; but now he could begin to dream again. Everything was changed now that he had come home. The girl's regard for him was friendly, even somewhat admiring, and the speculations of ripening womanhood were in her eyes.

He returned her gaze with frankest interest and admiration. His senses had been made sharp in his wilderness life; and his respect for her grew apace. She was not only innocent and girlish; she had those traits, innate, that a strong man loves in women: such worth and depth of character as he wishes bequeathed to his children.

Ben drew a long breath. It was good to be home. He had not only found his forests, just as he had left them, but now again he was among the forest people. This girl was of his own breed, not a stranger; her standards were his; she was a woods girl no less than he was a woodsman.

It is good to be among one's own people, those who can follow through and understand. She too knew the urge of unbridled vitality and spirit, common to all the woods children; and life's vivid meaning was her inheritance, no less than his. Her arms and lips were warm from fast-flowing blood, her nerves were vibrant and singing like his own. A virgin still, her eyes were tender with the warmheartedness that is such a dominant trait of frontier peoples; but what fire, what pa.s.sion might burn in them to-morrow! They were dark, lovely eyes, rather somber now in their earnestness, seeming shadowed by the dark shadows of the spruce themselves.

No human face had ever given him such an image of beauty as that of this dark-eyed forest child before him. Yet she was not piquant, demure, like the girls he had met in France; not stylish and sophisticated like those of the great cities he had visited since his return. Her garb became her: simple, not holding the eye in itself but calling attention to the brunette beauty of her throat and face, the warm redness of her childish mouth, and the brown, warm color of her arms. She had dark, waving hair, lovely to touch, wistful red lips. Because he was the woodsman, now and always, he marked with pleasure that there was no indication of ill-health or physical weakness about her. Her body was lithe and strong, with the grace of the wild creatures.

It would be good to know her, and walk beside her in the tree aisles.

All manner of delectable possibilities occurred to him. But all at once he checked his dreams with an iron will.

There must be no thought of women in his life--for now. He still had his way to make. A few hours more would find him plunging deeper into the forest, perhaps never to see her again. He felt an all-pervading sense of regret.

”There's nothing I can say--to thank you,” the girl was murmuring. ”I never saw anything like it; it was just as if the wolf understood every word you said.”

”Old Hiram had him pretty well trained, I suspect.” The man's eyes fell to the s.h.a.ggy form at his feet. ”I'm glad I happened along Miss--”

”Miss Neilson,” the girl prompted him. ”Beatrice Neilson. I live here.”

Neilson! His mind seemed to leap and catch at the name. Just that day he had heard it from the lips of the merchant. And this was the house next door where dwelt his fellow traveler for the morrow.

”Then it's your father--or brother--who's going to the Yuga--”

”No,” the girl answered doubtfully. ”My father is already there. I'm here alone--”

Then the gray eyes lighted and a smile broke about Ben's lips. Few times in his life had he smiled in quite this vivid way.

”Then it's you,” he exulted, ”who is going to be my fellow traveler to-morrow!”

XI

Ben found, rather as he had expected, that the girl was not at all embarra.s.sed by the knowledge that they were to have a lonely all-day ride together. She looked at the matter from a perfectly natural and wholesome point of view, and she could see nothing in it amiss or improper. The girls of the frontier rarely feel the need of chaperones.

Their womanhood comes early, and the open places and the fresh-life-giving air they breathe give them a healthy confidence in their ability to take care of themselves. Beatrice had a pistol, and she could shoot it like a man. She loved the solitude of the forest, but she also knew it was good to hear the sound of a human voice when journeying the lonely trails.

The frontier had also taught her to judge men. Here foregathered many types, strong-thewed frontiersmen whose reverence for women surpa.s.sed, perhaps, that of any other cla.s.s of men on earth, as well as the most villainous renegades, brutish offspring of the wilds, but she knew them apart. She realized from the first that this tall woodsman would have only kindness and respect for her; and that he was to be trusted even in those lonely forest depths beyond Spruce Pa.s.s.

Ben knew the wild beasts of the field better than he knew women, so her actual reception of the plan was lost to him. He felt that she was not displeased: in reality the delight and antic.i.p.ation she felt were beyond any power of hers to tell. She had been tremendously thrilled and impressed by his dominance over the wolf. She liked his bright, steady, friendly eyes; because she was a woods girl her heart leaped at the sight of his upright, powerful body; but most of all she felt that he was very near indeed to an ideal come true, a man of terrific strength and prowess yet not without those traits that women love best in men,--courage and character and gentleness.

”I'm surely glad I'm going to have a companion,” he told her. ”I won't miss Ez--”

But just then remembrance came to him, cutting the word off short. The letter he carried in his pocket contained certain advice in regard to silence, and perhaps now was a good time to follow it. There was no need to tell the people of Snowy Gulch about Ezram and the claim. He remembered that he had been warned of the danger of claim jumpers.

For an instant his mind seemed to hover at the edge of a more elusive memory; but he could not quite seize upon it. He only knew that it concerned the matter in hand, and that it left him vaguely troubled.

”You were saying,” the girl prompted him.

”Nothing very important--except how glad I am you are going my way. The woods are certainly lonesome by yourself. I suppose you'll be willing to make an early start.”

”The earlier the better. I've got a long way to go.”