The Silent Battle. Gibbs George

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СКАЧАТЬ flitted with meddlesome agility from one thought to another; and so before he had lain long, he was aware that he was entirely at the mercy of his imagination.

      One by one the pictures emerged—the girl’s flight, the wild disorder of her appearance, her slender figure lying helpless in the leaves, the pathos of her streaming eyes, and the diminutive proportions of her slender foot. It was curious, too, how completely his own difficulties and discomforts had been forgotten in the mitigation of hers. Their situation he was forced to admit was not as satisfactory as his confident words of assurance had promised.

      He had not forgotten that most of his back-trail had been laid in water, and it was not to be expected that Joe Keegón could perform the impossible. Their getting out by the way he had come must largely depend upon his own efforts in finding the spot up-stream where he had come through. The help that could be expected from her own people was also problematical. She had come a long distance. That was apparent from the condition of her gaiters. For all Gallatin knew, her camp might be ten, or even fifteen miles away. Something more than a mild curiosity possessed him as to this camp and the people who were using it; for there was a mystery in her sudden separation from the “companion” to whom she had so haltingly and vaguely alluded.

      It was none of his business, of course, who this girl was or where she came from; he was aware, at this moment of vagrant visions, of an unequivocal and not unpleasant interest in this hapless waif whom fortune, with more humor than discretion, had so unceremoniously thrust upon his mercies. She was very good to look at. He had decided that back in the gorge where she had first raised her elfin head from the leaves. And yet, now as he lay there in the dark, he could not for the life of him guess even at the color of her eyes or hair. Her hair at first had seemed quite dark until a shaft of the declining light in the west had caught it, when he had decided that it was golden. Her eyes had been too light to be brown and yet—yes, they had been quite too dark to be blue. The past perfect tense seemed to be the only one which suited her, for in spite of the evidences of her tangibility close at hand, he still associated her with the wild things of the forest, the timid things one often heard at night but seldom glimpsed by day. Cautiously he turned his head and looked into the shelter. She lay as he had seen her last, her eyes closed, her breath scarcely stirring her slender body. Her knees were huddled under her skirt and she looked no larger than a child. He remembered that when she had stood upright she had been almost as tall as he, and this metamorphosis only added another to the number of his illusions.

      With an effort, at last, he lowered his head and closed his eyes, in angry determination. What the devil had the troubles of this unfortunate female to do with him? What difference did it make to him if her hair and eyes changed color or that she could become grown up or childish at will? Wasn’t one fool who lost himself in the woods enough in all conscience! Besides he had a right to get himself lost if he wanted to. He was his own master and it didn’t matter to any one but himself what became of him. Why couldn’t the little idiot have stayed where she belonged? A woman had no business in the woods, anyway.

      With his eyes closed it was easy to shut out sight, but the voices of the night persisted. An owl called, and far off in the distance a solitary mournful loon took up the plaint. There were sounds close at hand, too, stealthy footfalls of minute paws, sniffs from the impertinent noses of smaller animals; the downward fluttering of leaves and twigs all magnified a thousandfold, pricked upon the velvety background of the vast silence. He tried to relax his muscles and tipped his head back upon the ground. As he did so his lids flew up like those of a doll laid upon its back. The moon was climbing now, so close to the tree tops that the leaves and branches looked like painted scrolls upon its surface. In the thicket shapes were moving. They were only the tossing shadows from his fire, he knew, but they interested him and he watched them for a long time. It pleased him to think of them as the shadows of lost travelers. He could hear them whispering softly, too, in the intervals between the other sounds, and in the distance, farther even than the call of the whippoorwill, he could hear them singing:

      À la claire fontaine

      M’en allant promener

      J’ai trouvé l’eau si belle

      Que je m’y suis baigné

      Il y a longtemps que le t’aime

      Jamais je ne t’oublierai.

      The sound of the rapids, too, or was it only the tinkle of the stream?

      He raised his head and peered around him to right and left. As he did so a voice joined the lesser voices, its suddenness breaking the stillness like the impact of a blow.

      “Aren’t you asleep?” She lay as he had seen her before, with her cheek pillowed upon her hand, but the firelight danced in her wide-open eyes.

      “No,” he said, straightening slowly. “I don’t seem to be sleepy.”

      “Neither am I. Did you hear them—the voices?”

      “Yes,” in surprise. “Did you? You’re not frightened at all, are you?”

      “Not at the voices. Other things seem to bother me much more. The little sounds close at hand, I can understand, too. There was a four-legged thing out there where you threw the fish offal a while ago. But you didn’t see him–”

      “I heard him—but he won’t bother us.”

      “No. I’m not frightened—not at that.”

      “At what, then?”

      “I don’t—I don’t think I really know.”

      “There’s nothing to be frightened at.”

      “It—it’s just that I’m frightened at—nothing—nothing at all.”

      A pause.

      “I wish you’d go to sleep.”

      “I suppose I shall after a while.”

      “How is your foot?”

      “Oh, better. I’m not conscious of it at all. It isn’t my foot that keeps me awake. It’s the hush of the stillnesses between the other sounds,” she whispered, as though the silence might hear her. “You never get those distinctions sleeping in a tent. I don’t think I’ve ever really known the woods before—or the meaning of silence. The world is poised in space holding its breath on the brink of some awful abyss. So I can’t help holding mine, too.”

      She sat upright and faced him.

      “You don’t mind if I talk, do you? I suppose you’ll think I’m very cowardly and foolish, but I want to hear a human voice. It makes things real somehow–”

      “Of course,” he laughed. He took out his watch and held it toward the fire with a practical air. “Besides it’s only ten o’clock.”

      “Oh,” she sighed, “I thought it was almost morning.”

      He silently rose and kicked the fire into a blaze.

      “It’s too bad you’re so nervous.”

      “That’s it. I’m glad you called it by a name. I’m glad you looked at your watch and that you kicked the fire. I had almost forgotten that there were such things as watches. I seem to have been poised in space, too, waiting and listening for something—I don’t know what—as though I had asked a great question which must in some way be answered.”

      Gallatin glanced at her silently, then slowly took out his pipe and tobacco.

      “Let’s talk,” СКАЧАТЬ