Part 39 (1/2)
”Yes. I ought to get here soon after dark. Will you meet me?”
She gave him a quick, shy little nod, turned without shaking hands, and struck out for the cabin. All through the day happiness flooded her heart. While she waited on Holt or helped Mrs. Olson cook or watched Swift.w.a.ter while he put up the tent in the lee of the cabin, little s.n.a.t.c.hes of song bubbled from her lips. Sometimes they were bits of old Irish ballads that popped into her mind. Once, while she was preparing some coffee for her patient, it was a stanza from Burns:--
”Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi' the sun: I will luve thee still, my dear, While the sands o' life shall run.”
She caught old Gideon looking at her with a queer little smile on his weather-tanned face and she felt the color beat into her cheeks.
”I haven't bought a wedding present for twenty years,” he told her presently, apropos of nothing that had been said. ”I won't know what's the proper thing to get, Miss Sheba.”
”If you talk nonsense like that I'll go out and talk to Mr. Swift.w.a.ter Pete,” she threatened, blus.h.i.+ng.
Old Gid folded his hands meekly. ”I'll be good--honest I will. Let's see. I got to make safe and sane conversation, have I? Hm! Wonder when that lazy, long-legged, good-for-nothing horsethief and holdup that calls himself Gordon Elliot will get back to camp.”
Sheba looked into his twinkling eyes suspiciously as she handed him his coffee. For a moment she bit her lip to keep back a smile, then said with mock severity,--
”Now, I _am_ going to leave you to Mrs. Olson.”
When sunset came it found Sheba on the trail. Swift.w.a.ter Pete had offered to go with her, but she had been relieved of his well-meant kindness by the demand of Holt.
”No, you don't, Pete. You ain't a-goin' off gallivantin' with no young lady. You're a-goin' to stay here and fix my game laig for me. What do you reckon Miss Sheba wants with a fat, lop-sided lummox like you along with her?”
Pete grew purple with embarra.s.sment. He had not intended anything more than civility and he wanted this understood.
”Hmp! Ain't you got no sense a-tall, Gid? If Miss Sheba's h.e.l.l-bent on goin' to meet Elliot, I allowed some one ought to go along and keep the dark offen her. 'Course there ain't nothin' going to harm her, unless she goes and gets lost--”
Sheba's smile cooled the heat of the stage-driver. ”Which she isn't going to do. Good of you to offer to go with me. Don't mind Mr. Holt.
Everybody knows he doesn't mean half of what he says. I'd be glad to have you come with me, but it isn't necessary at all. So I'll not trouble you.”
Darkness fell quickly, but Sheba still held to the trail. There was no sign of Elliot, but she felt sure he would come soon. Meanwhile she followed steadily the tracks he had made earlier in the day.
She stopped at last. It was getting much colder. She was miles from the camp. Reluctantly she decided to return. Then, out of the darkness, he came abruptly upon her, the man whom she had come out to meet.
Under the magic of the Northern stars they found themselves again in each other's arms for that brief moment of joyful surprise. Then, as it had been in the morning, Sheba drew herself shyly away.
”They are waiting supper for us,” she told him irrelevantly.
He did not shout out his happiness and tell her to let them wait.
For Gordon, too, felt awed at this wonderful adventure of love that had befallen them. It was enough for him that they were moving side by side, alone in the deep snows and the biting cold, that waves of emotion crashed through his pulses when his swinging hand touched hers.
They were acutely conscious of each other. Excitement burned in the eyes that turned to swift, reluctant meetings. She was a woman, and he was her lover. Neither of them dared quite accept the fact yet, but it filled the background of all their thoughts with delight.
Sheba did not want to talk of this new, amazing thing that had come into her life. It was too sacred a subject to discuss just yet even with him.
So she began to tell him odd fancies from childhood that lingered in her Celtic heart, tales of the ”little folk” that were half memories and half imaginings, stirred to life by some odd a.s.sociation of sky and stars. She laughed softly at herself as she told them, but Gordon did not laugh at her.
Everything she did was for him divinely done. Even when his eyes were on the dark trail ahead he saw only the dusky loveliness of curved cheek, the face luminous with a radiance some women are never privileged to know, the rhythm of head and body and slender legs that was part of her individual, heaven-sent charm.
The rest had finished supper before Gordon and Sheba reached camp, but Mrs. Olson had a hot meal waiting for them.
”I fixed up the tent for the women folks--stove, sleeping-bags, plenty of wood. Touch a match to the fire and it'll be snug as a bug in a rug,”