The Emigrant Trail. Bonner Geraldine

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СКАЧАТЬ to do this all winter, and I'm going to do it right."

      And even then it was less an excuse for her abruptness than the announcement of a compact with herself, steadfast, almost grim.

      After supper they sat by the fire, silent with fatigue, the scent of the men's tobacco on the air, the girl, with her hands clasping her knees, looking into the flames. In the shadows behind the old servant moved about. They could hear him crooning to the mules, and then catch a glimpse of his gnomelike figure bearing blankets from the wagon to the tent. There came a point where his labors seemed ended, but his activity had merely changed its direction. He came forward and said to the girl,

      "Missy, your bed's ready. You'd better be going."

      She gave a groan and a movement of protest under which was the hopeless acquiescence of the conquered:

      "Not yet, Daddy John. I'm so comfortable sitting here."

      "There's two thousand miles before you. Mustn't get tired this early. Come now, get up."

      His manner held less of urgence than of quiet command. He was not dictatorial, but he was determined. The girl looked at him, sighed, rose to her knees, and then made a last appeal to her father:

      "Father, do take my part. Daddy John's too interfering for words!"

      But her father would only laugh at her discomfiture.

      "All right," she said as she bent down to kiss him. "It'll be your turn in just about five minutes."

      It was an accurate prophecy. The tent flaps had hardly closed on her when Daddy John attacked his employer.

      "Goin' now?" he said, sternly.

      The doctor knew his fate, and like his daughter offered a spiritless and intimidated resistance.

      "Just let me finish this pipe," he pleaded.

      Daddy John was inexorable:

      "It's no way to get cured settin' round the fire puffin' on a pipe."

      "Ten minutes longer?"

      "We'll roll out to-morrer at seven."

      "Daddy John, go to bed!"

      "I got to see you both tucked in for the night before I do. Can't trust either of you."

      The doctor, beaten, knocked the ashes out of his pipe and rose with resignation.

      "This is the family skeleton," he said to the young men who watched the performance with curiosity. "We're ground under the heel of Daddy John."

      Then he thrust his hand through the old servant's arm and they walked toward the wagon, their heads together, laughing like a pair of boys.

      A few minutes later the camp had sunk to silence. The doctor was stowed away in the wagon and Miss Gillespie had drawn the tent flaps round the mystery of her retirement. David and Leff, too tired to pitch theirs, were dropping to sleep by the fire, when the girl's voice, low, but penetrating, roused them.

      "Daddy John," it hissed in the tone children employ in their games of hide-and-seek, "Daddy John, are you awake?"

      The old man, who had been stretched before the fire, rose to a sitting posture, wakeful and alert.

      "Yes, Missy, what's the matter? Can't you sleep?"

      "It's not that, but it's so hard to fix anything. There's no light."

      Here it became evident to the watchers that Miss Gillespie's head was thrust out through the tent opening, the canvas held together below her chin. Against the pale background, it was like the vision of a decapitated head hung on a white wall.

      "What is it you want to fix?" queried the old man.

      "My hair," she hissed back. "I want to put it up in papers, and I can't see."

      Then the secret of Daddy John's power was revealed. He who had so remorselessly driven her to bed now showed no surprise or disapprobation at her frivolity. It was as if her wish to beautify herself received his recognition as an accepted vagary of human nature.

      "Just wait a minute," he said, scrambling out of his blanket, "and I'll get you a light."

      The young men could not but look on all agape with curiosity to see what the resourceful old man intended getting. Could the elaborately complete Gillespie outfit include candles? Daddy John soon ended their uncertainty. He drew from the fire a thick brand, brilliantly aflame, and carried it to the tent. Miss Gillespie's immovable head eyed it with some uneasiness.

      "I've nothing to put it in," she objected, "and I can't hold it while I'm doing up my hair."

      "I will," said the old man. "Get in the tent now and get your papers ready."

      The head withdrew, its retirement to be immediately followed by her voice slightly muffled by the intervening canvas:

      "Now I'm ready."

      Daddy John cautiously parted the opening, inserted the torch, and stood outside, the canvas flaps carefully closed round his hand. With the intrusion of the flaming brand the tent suddenly became a rosy transparency. The young' girl's figure moved in the midst of the glow, a shape of nebulous darkness, its outlines lost in the mist of enfolding draperies.

      Leff, softly lifting himself on his elbows, gazed fascinated upon this discreet vision. Then looking at David he saw that he had turned over and was lying with his face on his arms. Leff leaned from the blankets and kicked him, a gentle but meaning kick on the leg.

      To his surprise David lifted a wakeful face, the brow furrowed with an angry frown.

      "Can't you go to sleep," he muttered crossly. "Let that girl curl her hair, and go to sleep like a man."

      He dropped his face once more on his arms. Leff felt unjustly snubbed, but that did not prevent him from watching the faintly defined aura of shadow which he knew to be the dark young woman he was too shy to look at when he met her face to face. He continued watching till the brand died down to a spark and Daddy John withdrew it and went back to his fire.

CHAPTER IV

       Table of Contents

      In their division of labor David and Leff had decided that one was to drive the wagon in the morning, the other in the afternoon. This morning it was David's turn, and as he "rolled out" at the head of the column he wondered if Leff would now ride beside Miss Gillespie and lend attentive ear to her family chronicles. But Leff was evidently not for dallying by the side of beauty. He galloped off alone, vanishing through the thin mists that hung like a fairy's draperies among the trees. The Gillespies rode at the end of the train. Even if he could not see them David felt their nearness, and it added to the contentment that always came upon him from a fair prospect lying under a smiling sky. At harmony with the moment and the larger life outside it, he leaned back against the canvas hood and let a dreamy gaze roam over the serene and СКАЧАТЬ