The Deer Stalker Page 9

  The time came when Patricia no longer gazed upward; not even when Sue called back: “Hang on. We’re almost up.” The last zigzags, especially those that faced toward the canyon, were endurable because again Patricia saw the glamour of sunset on the upper slopes and walls. She was still climbing when the colors died, when the cold grays and purples predominated as dusk mantled the abyss. And it was nearly dark when Sue and her aunt and Mrs. Price dismounted before Bright Angel Inn.

  “Shore it was dandy,” said Sue. “Shall I say good night now, or come over to the El Tovar after dinner? You’re mighty tired.”

  “Come to dinner, and bring your aunt and Mrs. Price,” replied Patricia.

  “Many thanks, Miss Clay,” returned Sue’s aunt, as she limped painfully up the steps. “I’m near dead an’ I reckon Mrs. Price is too. But Sue can go…. We had a fine ride. I wouldn’t have missed it for worlds.”

  “I’ll be right over,” added Sue gladly.

  Patricia was almost the last rider to dismount at the corral and creep with little stiff steps into the hotel. She found herself chafed, bruised, blistered, and full of pangs. No active pursuit in which she had ever engaged had cost her so much effort and endurance. Yet she had imagined herself as strong, tireless. It hurt her pride and vanity and stirred more resentment against the butterfly life she had led. Bathing and dressing alleviated her discomfort somewhat, but after sitting for a few moments in the chair by the window, she found it difficult to get on her feet. Her face was smarting with sunburn. Patricia stared at her reflection in the mirror and could not help feeling good in body and soul despite the stiffness in her muscles. All day out in the open! Already the West was having its healing effect upon her spirit. Suddenly she found herself thinking of the coming excursion to the North Rim, to the forest where the herds of deer were starving because nature let them be born and failed to supply the food necessary for their existence.

  Sue was waiting for her in the lobby, and her devouring look did not need her accompanying words: “If I were a man it’d shore be all day with me!”

  “Sue, I fear you are a sad little flatterer,” smiled Patricia.

  “Sad? I’m the happiest one you ever saw. Wait till I get so I’m not afraid to say what I feel!”

  “Don’t be afraid of me. I’ll welcome your confidences— Come, let’s go in to dinner. And afterward—shall I show you some of my dude finery, which you seem to admire so much, or will you take me to see the Hopis dance?”

  “Let’s do both,” replied Sue shyly.

  Later they went to the Hopi house, where Patricia found herself enchanted with the cavelike rooms, the colorful baskets and blankets, her first sight of real Indians, and the primitive dancing to the cadence of the drums, and above all the round-faced, brown-eyed Indian children. They looked so serious as they tried to imitate the motions of their elders. When they danced, Patricia could not refrain from laughter as she joined in the applause and the showering of pennies and nickels upon the floor. What fun to see the little rascals dart like mice and pounce upon the money. Indeed, they knew or had been taught what Uncle Sam’s coins meant.

  But Patricia’s enjoyment was nothing compared to the delight Sue expressed when she saw some of Patricia’s jewels and gowns and lingerie. Sue had the eternal feminine love of beautiful things; her heart, however, felt no trace of envy. At length she laid down the last shimmering fabric and said, “We western girls must shore seem to you to be campin’ out in the woods.”

  “Sue, you are many times happier than I am, for all these possessions,” replied Patricia earnestly. “I hope we become friends and that I may share some of your happiness.”

  “If that’s what you hope, then we’re friends right now,” declared the girl, with her shining eyes on Patricia. “Things happen quick out west. You like people or you don’t; there’s no two-facedness, no kiddin’ people along, that is, among my kind. The West is honest, open, big—raw I s’pose, to people when they first land heah. Somethin’ like today! I saw how hard it was on you, and how crude my folks and the cowboys, and I too, must have seemed to you. But the way you stood the trip and us—why, shore that satisfied me that you are as game and fine as you are lovely.”

  Patricia put her arm round this gallant, outspoken young girl and did not trust herself to make any reply.

  After Sue had gone, Patricia thoughtfully put her dresses away. She recalled the look of unconcealed admiration in the young Texas girl’s eyes. There had been no trace of envy in them. She compared this unspoiled straightforward schoolgirl with the friends she had known in the East. She might do much for this little western girl, in the doing of which she would find forgetfulness of self and true happiness for the first time in her life. She divined that time would be generous with her, provided she avoided brooding introspection and idleness. One hard day in the open had given her a glimpse of the power of physical effort over self-pity. Within a span of twenty-four hours, tremendous and vital issues had dawned upon her; and she was humbly grateful for the new promise life held out to her. Just as the canyon had seemed to her last night to be a symbol of the chasm between the life she had known and the new life ahead, so this sweet, free-handed and free-hearted western girl was a symbol of her own new freedom from something evil that was gone from her life forever. In those old days Patricia would never have believed that she could have found so much in common with a normal-school girl so many years her junior.

  Next morning she planned what to do with her time for the ensuing week. She would spend the morning hours walking and horseback riding to prepare herself for the hard trip to the North Rim with Sue Warren; each afternoon she would take one of the several bus drives along the rim; and in the evenings she would read books on the geological history of the Grand Canyon.

  On her walks along the canyon rim, she met many tourists clicking cameras in each other’s faces, usually with their backs to the awesome beauty of view, and she found it easy to be impatient with them at first. In the main they were all good-natured sight-seeing people, hail-fellow-well-met, ready to talk at the least encouraging look, and certainly she appreciated that they had as much right to the canyon as she. But most of them were not serious, and as she was alone, and unfortunately one of those women who attract, she met with many situations that she would rather have avoided. These, however, only occurred on the drives; when she walked or rode she seldom met anyone. People made fun of the canyon, indulged in jokes relative to its color, depth, width, and raved about it. But some were awed by its grandeur, and these individuals always got off by themselves.

  Of all points on the rim that she saw, Patricia liked Desert View the best. It was over twenty miles by automobile from the hotel and overlooked the Painted Desert and the confluence of the Little Colorado Canyon with the Grand Canyon. Moreover, there was ample room to get off by herself. Here she could look across and up at Greenland Point, a great promontory that stood out over the vast red chasm in lonely magnificence. The thought that she was soon to camp on Greenland Point stirred her with impatience for the journey to come.

  Only one incident marred the all-satisfying pleasure of these days, and that had to do with Miss Hilton. Patricia had to consult her about the hiring of saddle horses, and on one occasion, when no other person happened to be near, the agent looked at Patricia with curious bright eyes.

  “Think I’ve seen your picture in some paper,” she said.

  “Indeed. Surely not a western paper,” rejoined Patricia.

  “No. It was in the Sunday supplement of some New York paper. An eastern tourist left it here. The picture favored you. But I’m sure the name wasn’t Clay.”

  Patricia passed the matter off with some casual answer, but later she pondered over it. That perhaps had been the cause of this woman’s rather inquisitive manner, probably augmented by the fact that the eastern girl had not responded to her first ingratiating advances. Patricia did not like Miss Hilton’s reference to the picture because it recalled the past and, especially, the
scandal in which her name had become involved. As a matter of fact, one of New York’s scandal sheets had published a picture of Patricia, together with a story by a clever and unscrupulous reporter. That had been one of the things Patricia had endured for the sake of her friend.

  “I wonder—could this Miss Hilton have seen that newspaper?” mused Patricia. “It’s possible, but…. Well, it doesn’t matter. What do I care what she thinks or knows?—But still, there’s Sue—”

  It occurred to Patricia that really annoying circumstances might grow out of such a possibility. A jealous, gossipy woman could make her visit at the El Tovar unpleasant and might curtail it. There were, too, other considerations. She had Sue Warren to think of. She did not want it to become known that Sue had taken a trip with a woman of questionable repute. Therefore she made it a point to match wits with Miss Hilton, with the result that she discovered the woman felt no certainty about the thing at which she had hinted. So, reassured, Patricia dismissed the incident and worry from her mind.

  The morning arrived at last on which Patricia was to drive over to Flagstaff for Sue. She ate an early breakfast and started at once so that she could return that same night before dark.

  The day had broken cool and rosy, like early spring in the East. She had engaged a touring-car and a driver well recommended by the hotel manager for the eighty-mile drive. Patricia was quite familiar now with the first fifteen miles of the road, which led through a magnificent pine forest. Beyond Grand View, the road turned away from the canyon and wound downgrade and soon left the pines for cedars. These failed, also, at length, and Patricia found the way proceeding between low gray hills.

  Suddenly the car left the cedar forest and shot out into the open desert, dazzling in the sunlight, a vast sweeping floor that extended down and down, gray, drab, and white, to lead Patricia’s fascinated gaze on to an upsweep of land, spotted and patched with green, which in turn rose to join the sweeping line of timbered mountains, rising black and ragged to sharp snow-capped peaks that split the blue sky. On the right, far distant, gray hills, marvelously symmetrical and bare, scalloped the horizon. To the left, the gray floor descended endlessly to vanish in purple haze and then rise again in brightly colored steps, surmounted by black buttes—the Painted Desert.

  The driver drew Patricia’s attention to Sunset Peak, explaining that its hues of red and gold and purple came from the fact that it was a mountain of volcanic cinders and, no matter what the time of day, it always shone with sunset colors. Far distant as it was, it loomed high, dome-shaped, and bright.

  The scene changed with every mile. Patricia regretted the swift car and the way it swallowed up the long winding road. The air grew hot. She saw dust clouds down on the desert. It took an hour to traverse that vast shallow bowl of valley between the gray hills and the green cedars, yet for Patricia the time was all too short. Then soon again the cedars obstructed the distant view, and the car hummed on like the wind, up a winding grade, once more into a pine forest. She saw a signboard informing the traveler that it was twenty miles to Flagstaff. She could see nothing but trees, and the gray grassy slopes rising to either side and in front. There appeared to be a pass between two foothills, and when the car had wound up through the notch, the road pitched downward once more, winding through the forest for miles. It crossed a white-grassed park where cattle grazed, plunged into woods again, and passed a huge sawmill to run parallel with a railroad. Soon Patricia saw smoke, and then fences and ranch houses, and at last the outskirts of Flagstaff.

  The town was ideally located in the pine belt that sloped down from the mountains. Patricia liked the broad main street, where autoists vied with Indian teamsters, and along which mounted cowboys loped with jingling spurs. Some of them waved as the car swept past, and she thought of Sue’s friends Nels and Tine, and the canyon adventure so near at hand. Patricia discovered she was impatient to be off on that ride. Recalling Tine’s moving description of the great forest and the vast herd of starving deer and the ranger who was in charge of them—she could not remember his name—she found herself strangely looking forward to the trip. She called at the hotel where Mrs. Price and Sue’s aunt were staying, to find Sue with them, wistfully eager and glad, though changed somewhat to Patricia’s remembering eye. Sue’s cheeks were neither so full nor warm-tinted as they had been. The girl’s face, when in repose, seemed somewhat sad.

  The four had luncheon together, during which the amiable talk of the elder women added much to Patricia’s knowledge of Sue’s affairs. Later, when Patricia and Sue’s aunt were alone for a moment, the older woman grew confidential.

  “Sue’s worked awful hard. An’ she’s been worried. Reckon you noticed that she looks fagged. Well, the fact is she’s had bad news. Don’t let on I told you. Sue has got to get right down to work, to care for her mother. They’re poor an’ it took all they had an’ all I could afford to give Sue an education…. I’m glad you’re takin’ Sue on this wonderful trip. She loves this country. An’ she needs a rest an’ change. It’ll buck her up. Reckon you’re very kind to take such an interest in Sue.”

  “Thank you for confiding in me,” replied Patricia. “I’m sorry about Sue. Perhaps I can cheer her up, at least make her forget her worries until we return. Then we’ll see what’s to be done.”

  Not long afterward, Patricia and Sue were speeding along the level road on the way back toward the green-forested mountains. The western girl took off her hat and leaned her blond head back against the cushion.

  “Oh, shore it’s too good to be true,” she exulted. “I was so tired and—and … I’ll forget it. Heah I am with you again! I was half afraid you might not come.”

  “I did, though,” replied Patricia, laughing. “Tell me about your school work.”

  “It was hard and hateful. But I passed. I’m a full-fledged teacher,” she returned. “Can you imagine me with a room full of boys and girls—especially boys? Oh, golly Ned!”

  “Yes, I can imagine that, and I can see what a perfectly splendid little teacher you’ll make.”

  “I shore hope you’re right,” replied Sue with a thoughtful look.

  Patricia laid her hand upon Sue’s. “Will you do something for me?” she asked earnestly.

  “I shore will,” answered Sue quickly, turning her face in eager surprise.

  “Forget all the hard work you’ve had—and your present worries.”

  “Ab-so-lute-ly!” declared Sue. “I meant to, without your asking. Shore it’s good of you…. Reckon my face gives me away. I look horrid.”

  “Oh, no—just a little weary,” returned Patricia. “Now that’s settled. You’ve forgotten…. We’re going to have a wonderful time together. For me it will be an adventure like the fulfillment of a dream that dwelt unknown in my heart…. Who knows, indeed, what may not come of it?”

  “Quien sabe?” said Sue, with her sweet, soft, deep-toned laugh. “You said a lot. And you were only thinking of us.”

  “Well, young lady, who else is there to think of?”

  “I was just thinking of Nels Stackhouse, and that ranger friend of his. Nels will hunt him up.”

  “Suppose he does? It would be quite natural,” replied Patricia slowly. “And I’m sure I’ll be pleased to meet your deer stalker.”

  “Shore, but I was thinking of the hard luck it’ll be for Nels and Thad,” rejoined Sue with a merry laugh. She blushed slightly, and a roguish gleam twinkled in her eyes.

  “Hard luck?” queried Patricia musingly. “I don’t quite follow you, Sue.”

  “Listen. That North Rim is the widest, most beautiful and romantic place in the West. Now as far as I’m concerned, poor Nels is in a bad way already. Well, I’m not going to run from him, or be cross or nasty or distant, or anything but my best and happiest self. That’s for you. I don’t care a rap what it does to Nels. I’ve a hunch, though, he’ll be funny. Cowboys are all funny. They fall in love and out of it same as they fall off a horse. So much for Nels…. Now if Thad Eburne does turn up at
our camp, which is a safe bet, he’s shore going to see you, isn’t he?”

  “Why, of course. I’ll not be invisible. But what of it?”

  “Shore that lonely deer-loving ranger will be the same as struck by lightning,” replied Sue soberly, as if she had just realized the possibility of a catastrophe for which she would be partially responsible.

  “Child, you speak in riddles,” said Patricia.

  “I’m no child, Miss Clay,” returned Sue. “I’m a western girl who knows the West and western men. Thad Eburne will fall in love with you. I’ll bet he hasn’t seen a half-dozen girls in a dozen years. You’re so lovely—so different—so—oh, any man would! I’d not give two bits for one who wouldn’t…. Then Thad, poor devil, would have your face to haunt his lonely campfire!—Still, I don’t know but what that’d be better for him.”

  Patricia found herself surprised, not at Sue’s half playful, half serious words, but at their unaccountable effect. She discovered that she was looking forward to meeting this mysterious deer stalker, she who had been so sure that she never wanted to meet another man in her life.

  “Sue Warren, I begin to sympathize with Nels,” declared Patricia. “If I were he, or any young man, I’d—I’d— Well, no matter. Mr. Eburne will weather this crisis as he must have weathered many others. Meanwhile you’re going to teach me about the West. I want to know everything about everything. Name the green things, the birds and animals and places, the stories, legends, gossip, facts—all about all that makes up the West.”

  “Shore I was trying to tell you about what a pretty dude should know about the West,” replied Sue archly. “And I reckon to be on the safe side I’d better let you ask some questions.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THAD EBURNE had not returned to V. T. Park from Kanab but had taken a middle course through Buckskin Forest, and on the evening of the fourth day he camped at a spring above the Saddle.