CHAPTER NINE
LIKE THE BOY HE WAS
Down the balsam and manzanita slope toward the little valley where shelived, Jack stared hungrily during many an empty, dragging hour. Untilthe darkness had twice drawn down the black curtain that shut him awayfrom the world, he had hoped she would come. She had been so friendly,so understandingly sympathetic--she must know how long the days wereup there.
On the third day Hank came riding up the trail that sought the easiestslopes. He brought coal-oil and bacon and coffee and smoking tobaccoand the week's accumulation of newspapers, and three magazines; but hedid not bring any word from Marion Rose, nor the magazines she hadpromised. When Hank had unsaddled the horses to rest their backs, andhad eaten his lunch and had smoked a cigarette in the shade of a rock,his slow thoughts turned to the gossip of his little world.
He told of the latest encounter with the crabbed fireman on Claremont,grinning appreciatively because the fireman's ill temper had beendirected at a tourist who had gone up with Hank. He related a smallscandal that was stirring the social pond of Quincy, and at last heswung nearer to the four who had taken mining claims along Toll GateCreek.
"Too bad you can't go down to Toll-house an' git acquainted with yourneighbors," he drawled half maliciously. "There's a girl in the bunchthat's sure easy to look at. Other one is an old maid--looks too muchlike a schoolma'm to suit me. But say--I'm liable to make a trip uphere twice a week, from now on! I'm liable to eat my dinner 'fore Igit here, too. Some class to that girl, now, believe me! Only troubleis, I'm kinda afraid one of the men has got a string on her. There'stwo of 'em in the outfit. One is one of them he schoolma'ms that goesaround in a boiled shirt and a hard-boiled hat, buzzin' like amosquito. He's sweet on the old maid. It's the other one I'm leery of.He's the brother of the old maid, and he's the kind that don't saymuch but does a lot uh thinkin'. Big, too.
"They've took up a bunch of minin' claims around there and are livin'in that cabin. Goin' to winter there, the old maid was tellin' me. Ibrought out their mail to 'em. Marion Rose is the girl's name. I guessshe's got a feller or two down in Los Angeles--I brought out a coupleletters today in men's writin'--different hands, at that.
"They's somethin' queer about 'em that I can't see through. They wasboth settin' out in the sun--on that log right by the trail as you goin to the cabin--and they'd washed their hair and had it all downtheir backs dryin' it. And the girl was cleanin' the old maid's fingernails for her! I come purty near astin' the old maid if she had tohave somebody wash her face for her too. But they didn't seem to thinkit was anything outa the way at all--they went right to talkin' andvisitin' like they was fixed for company. I kinda s'picion Marionbleaches her hair. Seems to me like it's a mite too yeller to begrowed that way. Drugstore blonde, I'd call her. You take notice firsttime you see her. I'll bet you'll say--"
"Aw, can that chatter, you poor fish!" Jack exploded unexpectedly, andsmote Hank on his lantern jaw with the flat of his palm. "You hickfrom hick-town! You brainless ape! You ain't a man--you're a missinglink! Give you a four-foot tail, by harry, and you'd go down themountain swinging from branch to branch like the monkey that you are!What are _you_, you poor piece of cheese, to talk about a woman?"
His hand to his jaw, Hank got up from where he had sprawled on hisback. He was not a fighting man, preferring to satisfy his grudges byslurring people behind their backs. But Jack smacked him again andthought of a few other things to which he might liken Hank, and afterthat Hank fought like a trapped bobcat, with snarls and kicks andgouging claws. He scratched Jack's neck with his grimy fingernails,and he tried to set his unwashed teeth into Jack's left ear while thetwo of them rolled over and over on the slippery mat of squaw-carpet.And for that he was pummeled unmercifully before Jack tore himselfloose and got up.
"Now, you beat it!" Jack finished, panting. "And after this you keepyour tongue off the subject of women. Don't dare to mention even asquaw to me, or I'll pitch you clean off the peak!"
Hank mumbled an insult, and Jack went after him again. All the misery,all the pent-up bitterness of the past three months rose within him ina sudden storm that clouded his reason. He fought Hank like a crazyman--not so much because Hank was Hank and had spoken slightingly ofthat slim girl, but because Hank was something concrete, somethingwhich Jack could beat with his fists and that could give back blow forblow. Too long had he waged an unequal conflict with his own thoughts,his aloneness; with regrets and soul hunger and idleness. When he hadspent his strength and most of his rage together, he let Hank go andfelt tenderly his own bruised knuckles.
He never knew how close he was to death in the next five minutes,while Hank was saddling up to go. For Hank's fingers went severaltimes to his rifle and hovered there, itching to do murder, whileHank's mind revolved the consequences. Murder would bemadness--suicide, practically. The boy would be missed when he did notanswer the telephone. Some one would be sent up from the ForestService and the murder would be discovered, unless--unless Hank couldhide the body. There was the lake--but the lake was so clear! Besides,there was always the chance at this season of the year that sometourist would be within sight. Some tourist might even hear the shot.It would be risky--too risky. Like Jack's, his rage cooled while hebusied himself mechanically with saddling his horse. After all, Hankwas not criminally inclined, except as anger drove him. He set thepack-saddle and empty sacks on the pack horse, led his horse a fewfeet farther away and mounted, scowling.
In the saddle he turned and looked for the first time full at Jack."You think you're darn smart!" he snarled wryly because of a cut lipthat had swollen all on one side. "You may think you're smart, butthey's another day comin'. You wait--that's all I got to say!"
It did not make him feel any better when Jack laughed suddenly andloud. "_R-r-r-evenge_! By my heart's blood, I shall have r-r-evenge!"he intoned mockingly. "Gwan outa my sight, Hank. You ain't making anyhit with me at all. _Scat!"_
"All right fer you!" Hank grumbled, in the futile repartee of thestupid. "You think you're smart, but I don't. You wait!" Then he rodeaway down the trail, glowering at the world through puffy lids andrepeating to himself many crushing things he wished he had thought tosay to Jack.
Jack himself had recourse to a small bottle of iodine left there by apredecessor, painting his scratches liberally, and grinning at himselfin the little mirror because Hank had not once landed a bruising blowon his face. After that he washed the dishes and went to the springfor a bucket of fresh water, whistling all the way. It was amazing howthat fight had cleared his mental atmosphere.
After that, he perched up on the little rock pinnacle just behind thestation, and stared down the mountain toward Toll-Gate Flat, where shelived. He saw Hank ride into the balsam thicket; and he, too, thoughtof several things he regretted not having said to Hank. What rottenluck it was that he should be held up here on that pinnacle while HankBrown could ride at his leisure down into that tiny valley! Thegovernment ought to gather up all the Hank Browns in the country andput them up on such places as these, and let decent fellows do theriding around.
Down there, beyond the trail, on a slope where the manzanita was notquite so matted together, he saw something move slowly. Then itstopped, and he got a gleam of light, the reflection, evidently ofsome bright object. He lifted the telescope and focussed it, and hisheart came leaping up into his throat just as the figure came leapinginto close view through the powerful lense.
It was Marion Rose, up by the hydrometer that looked something like alone beehive perched on a wild slope by itself. She was sitting on arock with her feet crossed, and she was inspecting her chin in thetiny mirror of her vanity bag. Some blemish--or more likely an insectbite, from the way her fingertip pressed carefully a certain point ofher chin--seemed to hold all her attention. It was the sun flashing onthe bit of mirror that had made the gleam.
Jack watched her hungrily; her slim shape, leaning negligentlysidewise; her hat pushed back a little; her hair, the color of ripecorn, fluffed where the wind had b
lown it; the clear, delicate, creamytint of her skin, her mouth curved in soft, red lines that held one'seyes fascinated when they moved in speech. He watched her, neverthinking of the rudeness of it.
And then he saw her lift her face and look up to the peak, directly athim, it seemed to him. His face turned hot, and he lowered the glassguiltily. But of course she could not see him--or if she could, helooked no more than a speck on the rock. He lifted the telescopeagain, and her face jumped into close view. She was still looking uphis way, the little mirror turning idly in her hand. Her face wasthoughtful; almost wistful, he dared to think. Perhaps she waslonesome, too. She had told him that she had spells of being terriblylonesome.
Jack had an inspiration. He climbed hurriedly down off the rock, gothis own looking glass and climbed back again. He turned the glass sothat the sun shown on it aslant and threw a glare toward her. Then helifted the telescope quickly to see if she noticed the sparkle. Aftera moment he decided that she had seen it but did not quite know whathad caused it. At any rate, she was still looking that way, which wassomething.
Like the boy he was, he lay down on his stomach, balanced thetelescope across a splintered notch in the rock so that he couldsteady it with one hand, and with the other he tilted the mirror;inadvertently tilted the telescope also, and came near smashing themirror before he got the two balanced again. Well, she was stilllooking, at any rate. And now she was frowning a little, as thoughshe was puzzled.
He signalled again, and this time he managed to keep her in the fieldof the telescope. He saw her smile suddenly and glance down at hervanity mirror. Still smiling, she lifted it and turned it to the sun,looking from it to the peak.
"She's on! I'll be John Browned if she ain't on to it already!" Jackchortled to the birds, and sent her a signal. She answered that with aflash. He managed two flashes without losing her in the telescope, andshe immediately sent two flashes in reply. Three he gave, and sheanswered with three. He could see her laughing like a child with a newgame. He could see the impish light in her eyes when she glanced up,like a woman engrossed in her favorite pastime of be-deviling someman. He laughed back at her, as though she was as near to him as shelooked to be. He quite forgot that she was not, and spoke to heraloud.
"Some little heliographing--what? Come on up, and we'll make up acode, so we can talk! Aw, come on--it ain't so far! Husky girl likeyou can climb it in no time at all. Aw, come on!"
A couple of tourists, panting up to the peak with unsightly ambergoggles and a kodak and a dog, found him addressing empty air andlooked at him queerly. Jack could have murdered them both when heturned his head and saw them gaping open-mouthed at his performance.But he did not. He climbed shame-facedly down and answered the usualquestions with his usual patient courtesy, and hoped fervently thatthey would either die at once of heart failure or go back to the lakeand leave him alone. Instead, they took pictures of the station andthe rocks and of him--though Jack was keen-witted enough to keep inthe shade and turn his face away from the camera.
They were such bores of tourists! The woman was sunburned and frowsy,and her khaki outing suit was tight where it should be loose, and hungin unsightly wrinkles where it should fit snugly. Her high-lacedmountain boots were heavy and shapeless, and she climbed here andthere, and stood dumpily and stared down at Jack's beloved woodsthrough her amber glasses until she nearly drove him frantic. She keptsaying: "Oh, papa, don't you wish you could get a snap of that?" and"Oh, papa, come and see if you can't snap this!"
Papa was not much better. Papa's khaki suit had come off a pile on thecounter of some department store--the wrong pile. Papa kept taking offhis hat and wiping his bald spot, and hitching his camera case into adifferent position, so that it made a new set of wrinkles in themiddle of his back. The coat belt strained against its buttons overpapa's prosperous paunch, and he wheezed when he talked.
And down there on the manzanita slope, little flashes of light keptcalling, calling, and Jack dared not answer. One, two--one, two,three--could anything in the world be more maddening?
Then all at once a puff of smoke came ballooning up through the trees,down beyond the girl and well to the right of the balsam thicket. Jackwhirled and dove into the station, his angry eyes flashing at thetourists.
"There's a forest fire started, down the mountain," he told themharshly. "You better beat it for Keddie while you can get there!" Heslammed the door in their startled faces and laid the pointer on itspivot and swung it toward the smoke.
The smoke was curling up already in an ugly yellowish brown cloud,spreading in long leaps before the wind. Jack's hand shook when hereached for the telephone to report the fire. The chart and his ownfirst-hand knowledge of the mountainside told him that the fire wassweeping down north of Toll-Gate Creek toward the heavily timberedridge beyond.
Heedless of the presence or absence of the tourists, he snatched thetelescope and climbed the rock where he could view the slope where thegirl had been. The smoke was rolling now over the manzanita slope,and he could not pierce its murkiness. He knew that the slope was notyet afire, but the wind was bearing the flames that way, and themanzanita would burn with a zipping rush once it started. He knew. Hehad stood up there and watched the flames sweep over patches of theshrub.
He rushed back into the station, seized the telephone and called againthe main office.
"For the Lord sake, hustle up here and do something!" he shoutedaggressively. "The whole blamed mountain's afire!" That, of course,was exaggeration, but Jack was scared.
Out again on the rock, he swept the slope beneath him with histelescope. He could not see anything of the girl, and the swirlingsmoke filled him with a horror too great for any clear thought. Heclimbed down and began running down the pack trail like one gone mad,never stopping to wonder what he could do to save her; never thinkingthat he would simply be sharing her fate, if what he feared wastrue--if the flames swept over that slope.
He stumbled over a root and fell headlong, picked himself up and wenton again, taking great leaps, like a scared deer. She was down there.And when the fire struck that manzanita it would just go _swoosh_ inevery direction at once.... And so he, brave, impulsive young foolthat he was, rushed down into it as though he were indeed a god andcould hold back the flames until she was safe away from the place.