Part 24 (2/2)

”Of course. I hardly know the month.”

”I've notched each day, you know. And maybe you've forgotten--on the ride out from Snowy Gulch--we talked of birthdays. To-day is yours.”

She stared at him in genuine astonishment. She had not dreamed that this little confidence, given in a careless moment of long weeks before, had lingered in the man's memory. She had supposed that the fury and savagery of his war with her father and the latter's followers had effaced all such things as this.

And it was true that had this birthday come a few weeks before, on the river journey and previous to their occupation of the cave, Ben would have let it pa.s.s unnoticed. The smoldering fire in his brain would have seared to ashes any such kindly thought as this. But when the wild hunter leaves his leafy lair and goes to dwell, a man rather than a beast, in a permanent abode, he has thought for other subjects than his tribal wars and the blood-l.u.s.t of his hates. The hearth, and the care and friends.h.i.+p of the girl had tamed Ben to this degree, at least.

But wonders were not done. The look in the girl's eyes suddenly melted, as the warm sun melts ice, some of the frozen bitterness of his spirit.

”It's your birthday--and I hope you have many of 'em,” he went on. ”No more like this--but all of 'em happy,--as you deserve.”

He walked toward her, and her eyes could not leave his. He bent soberly, and brushed her lips with his own.

There were always worlds to talk about in the warm gleam of their fire.

When the day's work was done, and the hush of early night gathered the land to its arms, they would sit on their fireside seats and settle all problems, now and hereafter, to the perfect satisfaction of them both.

From Ben, Beatrice gained a certain strength of outlook as well as depth of insight, but she gave him in return more than she received. He felt that her influence, in his early years, would have worked wonders for him. She straightened out his moral problems for him, taught him lessons in simple faith; and her own childish sweetness and absolute purity showed his whole world in a new light.

Sometimes they talked of religion and ethics, sometimes of science and economics, and particularly they talked of what was nearest to them,--the mysteries and works of nature. She had been a close observer of the forest. She had received some glimpse of its secret laws that were, when all was said and done, the basic laws of life. But for all her love of science she was not a mere biologist. She had a full and devout faith in Law and Judgment beyond any earthly sphere.

”No one can live in this boundless wilderness and not believe,” she told him earnestly, her dark eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with her fervor. ”Perhaps I can't tell you why--maybe it's just a feeling of need, of insufficiency of self. Besides, G.o.d is close, like He was to the Israelites when they were in the wilderness; but you will remember that He never came close again.--This forest is so big and so awful, He knows he must stay close to keep you from dying of fear.--G.o.d may not be a reality to the people of the cities, where they see only buildings and streets, but Ben, He is to me. You can't forget Him up here. He stands on every mountain, just as the sons of Aaron saw Him.”

He found, to his surprise, that she was not ill-read, particularly in the old-time cla.s.sics. But her environment had also influenced her choice of reading. She loved the old legends in the minor,--far-off and plaintive things that reflected the mood of the dusky forest in which she lived.

One night, when the moon was in the sky, he told her of his war record, of the sh.e.l.l-shock and the strange, criminal mania that followed it; and then of his swift recovery. With an over-powering need of self-justification he told her of his further adventures with Ezram, of the old man's murder and the theft of the claim. She heard him out, listening attentively; but in loyalty to her father she did not let herself believe him entirely. The answer she gave him was the same as she had always given at his every reference to his side of the case.

”If you were in the right, you'd take me back and let the law take its course,” she told him. ”You'd not be out here laying an ambush for them, to kill them when they try to rescue me.”

He could never make her understand how, by the intricacies of law, it would be a rare chance that he would be able to fasten the crime on the murderers: that he had taken the only sure way open to make them pay for Ezram's death. He told her of the old man's, final request; how that his war with her father and his men was a debt that, by secret, inscrutable laws of his being, could never be written off or disavowed. But he could never fully find words to uphold his position. The thing went back to his instincts, traced at last to the remorseless spirit of the wolf that was his heritage.

Yet these hours of talk were immensely good for him. While they never met on common grounds, the girl's true outlook and n.o.bility of character were ever more manifest to him; and were not without a gentling, healing influence upon him. He could not blind himself to them. And sometimes when he sat alone by his dying fire, as the dark menaced him, and the girl that was his charge slept within the portals of stone, he had the unescapable feeling that the very structure of his life was falling and shattering down; but even now he could see, an enchanted vista in the distance, a mightier, more glorious tower, builded and shaped by this woman's hand.

x.x.xI

While Beatrice was at her household tasks--cooking the meals, cleaning the cave, was.h.i.+ng and repairing their clothes--Ben never forgot his more serious work. Certain hours every day he spent in exploration, seeking out the pa.s.ses over the hills, examining every possible means of entrance and egress into his valley, getting the lay of the land and picking out the points from which he would make his attack. Already he knew every winding game trail and every detail of the landscape for five miles or more around. His ultimate vengeance seemed just as sure as the night following the day.

Ever he listened for the first sound of the pack train in the forest; and even in his hours of pleasure his eyes ever roamed over the sweep of valley and marsh below. He was prepared for his enemies now. One or five, they couldn't escape him. He had provided for every contingency and had seemingly perfected his plan to the last detail.

He had not the slightest fear that his eagerness would cost him his aim when finally his eye looked along the sights at the forms of his enemies, helpless in the marsh. He was wholly cold about the matter now.

The l.u.s.t and turmoil in his veins, remembered like a ghastly dream from that first night, returned but feebly now, if at all. This change, this restraint had been increasingly manifest since his occupation of the cave, and it had marked, at the same time, a growing barrier between himself and Fenris. But he could not deny but that such a development was wholly to have been expected. Fenris was a child of the open forest aisles, never of the fireside and the hearth. It was not that the wolf had ceased to give him his dint of faithful service, or that he loved him any the less. But each of them had other interests,--one his home and hearth; the other the ever-haunting, enticing call of the wildwood.

Lately Fenris had taken to wandering into the forest at night, going and coming like a ghost; and once his throat and jowls had been stained with dark blood.

”It's getting too tame for you here, old boy, isn't it?” Ben said to him one hushed, breathless night. ”But wait just a little while more. It won't be tame then.”

It was true: the hunting party, if they had started at once, must be nearing their death valley by now. Except for the absolute worst of traveling conditions they would have already come. Ben felt a growing impatience: a desire to do his work and get it over. His pulse no longer quickened and leaped at the thought of vengeance; and the wolflike pleasure in simple killing could no longer be his. It would merely be the soldier's work--a dreadful obligation to perform speedily and to forget. Even the memory of the huddled form of his savior and friend, so silent and impotent in the dead leaves, did not stir him into madness now.

Yet he never thought of disavowing his vengeance. It was still the main purpose of his life. He had no theme but that: when that work was done he could conceive of nothing further of interest on earth, nothing else worth living for. Not for an instant had he relented: except for that one kiss, on the occasion of her birthday, he had never broken his promise in regard to his relations with Beatrice. His first trait was steadfastness, a trait that, curiously enough, is inherent in all living creatures who are by blood close to the wild wolf, from the German police dog to the savage husky of the North. But he was certainly and deeply changed in these weeks in the cave. He no longer hated these three murderous enemies of his. The power to hate had simply died in his body. He regarded their destruction rather as a duty he owed old Ezram, an obligation that he would die sooner than forego.

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