Part 21 (1/2)
”An' if I don't want to--get busy?” Buck's dark eyes were alight with a curious, intense warmth.
The Padre shrugged and pushed his pipe into the corner of his mouth.
”There's nothing more to be said,” he replied.
”But ther' is, Padre. There sure is,” cried Buck, stepping over to him and laying one hand on the great shoulder nearest him. ”I get all you say. I've got it long ago. You bin worryin' to say all this since ever you got back from sellin' the farm. An' it's like you. But you an' me don't jest figger alike. You got twenty more years of the world than me, so your eyes look around you different. That's natural. You're guessin' that hill is an opportunity for me. Wal, I'm guessin' it ain't. Mebbe it is for others, but not for me. I got my opportunity twenty years ago, an' you give me that opportunity. I was starvin' to death then, an' you helped me out. You're my opportunity, an' it makes me glad to think of it. Wher' you go I go, an' when we both done, why, I guess it won't be hard to see that what I done an' what you done was meant for us both to do. We're huntin' pelts for a livin' now, an'
when the time comes for us to quit it, why, we'll both quit it together, an' so it'll go on. It don't matter wher' it takes us. Say,”
he went on, turning away abruptly. ”Guess I'll jest haul the drinkin'
water before I get.”
The Padre turned his quiet eyes on the slim back.
”And what about when you think of marrying?” he asked shrewdly.
Buck paused to push the boiler off the stove. He shook his head and pointed at the sky.
”Guess the sun's gettin' up,” he said.
The Padre laughed and prepared to depart.
”Where you off to this morning?” he inquired presently.
”That gal ain't got a hired man, yet,” Buck explained simply, as he picked up his saddle. Then he added ingenuously, ”Y' see I don't guess she ken do the ch.o.r.es, an' the old woman ain't got time to--for talkin'.”
The Padre nodded while he bent over the breech of his Winchester. He had no wish for Buck to see the smile his words had conjured.
Buck swung his saddle on to his shoulder and pa.s.sed out of the hut in the direction of the building he had converted into a barn. And when he had gone the Padre looked after him.
”He says she's handsome, with red-gold hair and blue eyes,” he murmured. Then a far-away look stole into his steady eyes, and their stare fixed itself upon the doorway of the barn through which Buck had just vanished. ”Curious,” he muttered. ”They've nicknamed her 'Golden,' which happened to be a nickname--her father gave her.”
He stood for some moments lost in thought. Then, suddenly pulling himself together, he shouldered his rifle and disappeared into the woods.
CHAPTER XIV
A WHIRLWIND VISIT
Joan was idling dispiritedly over her breakfast. A long, wakeful night had at last ended in the usual aching head and eyes ringed with shadows. She felt dreary, and looked forward drearily to inspecting her farm--which, in her normal state, would have inspired nothing but perfect delight--with something like apprehension.
Her beginning in the new life had been swamped in a series of disastrous events which left her convinced of the impossibility of escape from the painful shadow of the past. All night her brain had been whirling in a perfect chaos of thought as she reviewed her advent to the farm. There had been nothing, from her point of view, but disaster upon disaster. First her arrival. Then--why, then the ”luck”
of the gold find. In her eyes, what was that but the threat of disaster to come? Had not her aunt told her that this extraordinary luck that she must ever bring was part of the curse shadowing her life? Then the coincidence of her nickname. It was truly hideous. The very incongruity of it made it seem the most terrible disaster of all.
Surely, more than anything else, it pointed the hand of Fate. It was her father's nickname for her, and he--he had been the worst sufferer at her hands.
The whole thing seemed so hopeless, so useless. What was the use of her struggle against this hateful fate? A spirit of rebellion urged her, and she felt half-inclined to abandon herself to the life that was hers; to harden herself, and, taking the cup life offered her, drain it to the dregs. Why should she waste her life battling with a force which seemed all-powerful? Why should she submit to the terror of it? What were the affairs of these others to her? She was not responsible. Nothing in the whole sane world of ethics could hold her responsible.
The spirit of rebellion, for the moment, obtained the upper hand. She had youth; Fortune had bestowed a face and figure upon her that she need not be ashamed of, and a healthy capacity for enjoyment. Then why should she abandon all these gifts because of a fate for which she was in no way responsible?