Part 7 (2/2)

Miss Armitage sat obliviously looking off once more across the valley. The thunder-heads, denser now and driving in legions along the opposite heights, stormed over the snow peak and a.s.sailed the far, s.h.i.+ning dome.

”Oh,” she exclaimed, ”see Rainier now! That blackest cloud is lifting over the summit. Rain is streaming from it like a veil of gauze; but the dome still s.h.i.+nes through like a transfigured face!”

Tisdale's glance rested a moment on the wonder. His face cleared. ”If we were on the other side of the Cascades,” he said, ”that weather-cap would mean a storm before many hours; but here, in this country of little rain, I presume it is only a threat.”

The bays began to round a curve and presently Rainier, the lesser heights, all the valley of Kitt.i.tas, closed from sight. They had reached the timber belt; poplars threaded the parks of pine, and young growths of fir, like the stiff groves of a toy village, gathered hold on the sharp mountain slopes. Sometimes the voice of a creek, hurrying down the canyon to join the Yakima, broke the stillness, or a desert wind found its way in and went wailing up the water-course. And sometimes in a rocky place, the hoof-beats of the horses, the noise of the wheels, struck an echo from spur to spur. Then Tisdale commenced to whistle cautiously, in fragments at first, with his glance on the playing ears of the colts, until satisfied they rather liked it, he settled into a definite tune, but with the flutelike intonations of one who loves and is accustomed to make his own melody.

He knew that this woman beside him, since they had left the civilization of the valley behind, half repented her adventure. He felt the barrier strengthen to a wall, over which, uncertain, a little afraid, she watched him. At last, having finished the tune, he turned and surprised the covert look from under her curling black lashes.

”I hope,” he said, and the amus.e.m.e.nt broke softly in his face, ”all this appraisal is showing a little to my credit.”

The color flamed pinkly in her face. She looked away. ”I was wondering if you blamed me. I've been so unconservative--so--so--even daring. Is it not true?”

”No, Miss Armitage, I understand how you had to decide, in a moment, to take that eastbound train in Snoqualmie Pa.s.s, and that you believed it would be possible to motor or stage across to Wenatchee from the Milwaukee road.”

”Yes, but,” she persisted, ”you think, having learned my mistake, I should have stayed on the freight train as far as Ellensburg, where I could have waited for the next pa.s.senger back to Seattle.”

”If you had, you would have disappointed me. That would have completely spoiled my estimate of you.”

”Your estimate of me?” she questioned.

”Yes.” He paused and his glance moved slowly, a little absently, up the unfolding gorge. ”It's a fancy of mine to compare a woman, on sight, with some kind of flower. It may be a lily or a rose or perhaps it's a flaunting tulip. Once, up in the heart of the Alaska forest, it was just a sweet wood anemone.” He paused again, looking off through the trees, and a hint of tenderness touched his mouth. ”For instance,” he went on, and his voice quickened, ”there is your friend, Mrs. Feversham. I never have met her, but I've seen her a good many times, and she always reminds me of one of those rich, dark roses florists call Black Prince. And there's her sister, who makes me think of a fine, creamy hyacinth; the st.u.r.dy sort, able to stand on its own stem without a prop. And they are exotics, both of them; their personality, wherever they are, has the effect of a strong perfume.”

He paused again, so long that this time his listener ventured to prompt him. ”And I?” she asked.

”You?” He turned, and the color flushed through his tan. ”Why, you are like nothing in the world but a certain Alaska violet I once stumbled on.

It was out of season, on a bleak mountainside, where, at the close of a miserable day, I was forced to make camp. A little thing stimulates a man sometimes, and the sight of that flower blooming there when violet time was gone, lifting its head next to a snow-field, nodding so pluckily, holding its own against the bitter wind, buoyed me through a desperate hour.”

She turned her face to look down through the treetops at the complaining stream. Presently she said: ”That is better than an estimate; it is a tribute. I wish I might hope to live up to it, but sooner or later,” and the vibration played softly in her voice, ”I am going to disappoint you.”

Tisdale laughed, shaking his head. ”My first impressions are the ones that count,” he said simply. ”But do you want to turn back now?”

”N--o, unless you--do.”

Tisdale laughed again mellowly. ”Then it's all right. We are going to see this trip through. But I wish I could show you that Alaska mountainside in midsummer. Imagine violets on violets, thousands of them, springing everywhere in the vivid new gra.s.s. You can't avoid crus.h.i.+ng some, no matter how carefully you pick your steps. There's a rocky seat half-way up on a level spur, where you might rest, and I would fill your lap with those violets, big, long-stemmed ones, till the blue lights danced in your eyes.”

They were doing that now, and her laugh fluted softly through the wood.

For that moment the barrier between them lost substance; it became the sheerest tissue, a curtain of gauze. Then the aloofness for which he waited settled on her. She looked away, her glance again seeking the stream. ”I can't imagine anything more delightful,” she said.

A rough and steep breadth of road opened before them, and for a while the bays held his attention, then in a better stretch, he felt her swift side-glance again reading his face. ”Do you know,” she said, ”you are not at all the kind of man I was led to expect.”

”No?” He turned interestedly, with the amus.e.m.e.nt shading the corners of his mouth. ”What did you hear?”

”Why, I heard that you were the hardest man in the world to know; the most elusive, shyest.”

Tisdale's laugh rang, a low note from the depths of his mellow heart. ”And you believed that?”

She nodded, and he caught the blue sparkles under her drooping lids. ”You know how Mrs. Feversham has tried her best to know you; how she sent you invitations repeatedly to dinner or for an evening at Juneau, Valdez, Fairbanks, and you invariably made some excuse.”

”Oh, but that's easily explained. Summers, when she timed her visits to Alaska, I was busy getting my party into the field. The working season up there is short.”

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