Part 12 (1/2)

Mother! Grieving for me. Alice a big girl. And a baby boy! This is too good for a prodigal like me.

All else he had forgotten for the moment. Shadows of memories overhung his consciousness, striving for entrance, but he denied them. How shaken his father had been at sight of him! Poor old Dad! And then what was the significance of all that talk about his range name, Panhandle Smith, and his father's strange fascinated handling of Pan's gun? Would his mother know him at first glance? Oh! no doubt of that!

But Alice would not; she had been a child; and he had grown, changed.

While his thoughts raced he kept gazing near and far. The farm land showed a fair degree of cultivation. Gra.s.sy hills shone in the bright morning sun; high up, flares of gold spoke eloquently of aspen thickets tinged by the frost; purple belts crossing the mountains told of forests. The wall of rock that he had observed from Moran's camp wound away over the eastern horizon. A new country it was, a fair and wild country, rugged and hard on the uplands, suitable for pasture and cultivation in the lowlands.

Pan pa.s.sed the first farmhouse. Beyond that he could make out only a green patch, where he judged lay the home he was hunting. His buoyant step swallowed up the rods. Cattle and horses grazed in a pasture.

The road turned to the right, round the slope of a low hill. Pan's quick eye caught a column of curling blue smoke that rose from a grove of trees. The house would be in there. Pasture, orchard, cornfield, ragged and uncut, a grove of low trees with thick foliage, barns and corrals he noted with appreciative enthusiasm. The place did not have the bareness characteristic of a ranch.

At last Pan reached the wagon gate that led into the farm. It bordered an orchard of fair-sized trees, the leaves of which were colored. He cut across the orchard so as to reach the house more quickly. It was still mostly hidden among the trees. Smell of hay, of fruit, of the barnyard a.s.sailed his nostrils. And then the fragrance of wood smoke and burning leaves! His heart swelled full high in his breast. He could never meet his mother with his usual cool easy nonchalance.

Suddenly he espied a woman through the trees. She was quite close. He almost ran. No, it could not be his mother. This was a girl, lithe, tall, swift stepping. His mother had been rather short and stout.

Could this girl be his sister Alice? The swift supposition was absurd, because Alice was only about ten, and this girl was grown. She had a grace of motion that struck Pan. He hurried around some trees to intercept her, losing sight of her for a moment.

Suddenly he came out of the shade to confront her, face to face in the open sunlight. She uttered a cry and dropped something she had been carrying.

”Don't be scared, Miss,” he said, happily. ”I'm no tramp, though I did rant in like a trespa.s.ser. I want to find Mrs. Bill Smith. I'm--”

But Pan got no farther. The girl had reason to be scared, but should her hands fly to her bosom like that, and press there as if she had been hurt. He must have frightened her. And he was about to stammer his apologies and make himself known, when the expression on her face struck him mute. Her healthy golden skin turned white. Her lips quivered, opened. Then her eyes--their color was violet and something about them seemed to stab Pan. His mind went into a deadlock--seemed to whirl--and to flash again into magnified thoughts.

”_Pan! Pan!_” she cried, and moved toward him, her eyes widening, s.h.i.+ning with a light he had never seen in another woman's.

”Pan! Don't you--know me?”

”Sure--but I don't know _who_ you are,” Pan muttered in bewilderment.

”I'm Lucy! ... Oh, Pan--you've come back,” she burst out, huskily, with a deep break in her voice.

She seemed to leap toward him--into the arms he flung wide, as with tremendous shock he recognized her name, her voice, her eyes. It was a moment beyond reason.... He was crus.h.i.+ng her to his breast, kissing her in a frenzy of sudden realization of love. Lucy! Lucy! Little Lucy Blake, his baby, his child sweetheart, his schoolmate! And the hunger of the long lonely years, never realized, leaped to his lips now.

She flung her arms round his neck, and for a few moments gave him kiss for kiss. Then suddenly she s.h.i.+vered and her head fell forward on his breast.

Pan held her closely, striving for self-control. And he gazed out into the trees with blurred eyes. What a home-coming! Lucy, grown into a tall beautiful girl who had never forgotten him. He was shaken to his depths by the revelation that now came to him. He had always loved Lucy! Never anyone else, never knowing until this precious moment!

What a glorious trick for life to play him. He held her, wrapped her closer, bent his face to her fragrant hair. It was dull gold now.

Once it had been bright, s.h.i.+ny, light as the color of gra.s.s on the hill. He kissed it, conscious of unutterable grat.i.tude and exaltation.

She stirred, put her hands to his breast and broke away from him, tragic eyed, strange.

”Pan, I--I was beside myself,” she whispered. ”Forgive me.... Oh, the joy of seeing you. It was too much.... Go to your mother.

She--will--”

”Yes, presently, but Lucy, don't feel badly about this--about my not recognizing you at once,” he interrupted, in glad swift eagerness.

”How you have grown! Changed! ... Lucy, your hair is gold now. My little white-headed kid! Oh, I remember. I never forgot you that way.

But you're so changed--so--so--Lucy, you're beautiful.... I've come back to you. I always loved you. I didn't know it as I do now, but I've been true to you. Lucy, I swear.... I'm Panhandle Smith and as wild as any of that prairie outfit. But, darling, I've been _true_ to you--_true_.... And I've come back to love you, to make up for absence, to take care of you--marry you. Oh, darling, I know you've been true to me--you've waited for me.”

Rapture and agony both seemed to be struggling for the mastery over Lucy. Pan suddenly divined that this was the meaning of her emotion.