Hope Hathaway Part 6

Perhaps after all he was not dead, but suffering terribly while she lingered!

She rose quickly with new courage. As she turned a hand touched her on the shoulder, and she fell back weak against the house.

"I beg your pardon! I did not know--could scarcely believe that it was you--Miss--Hathaway! Won't you come into the house?"

"_You!_" she cried as in a dream. "_Where_ have you been?"

His tone, quiet, polite, hid the surprise that her question caused.

"I've been back there in the hills hunting chickens. You see I have been fortunate enough to get some. I followed them a great distance, and night overtook me up there so suddenly that I've had some difficulty in finding my way back. Now may I ask to what I owe the honor of this--visit?"

All fear and weakness had gone. She stood erect before him, her head thrown back from her shoulders, her position, as it must appear to him, driving all else from her mind.

"In other words, you want to know why I was peeking into your window at this time of the day!"

"Just so, if you put it that way. At least I should be pleased to know the nature of your visit." He threw the prairie chickens down beside the house, watching meanwhile the girl's erect figure. The soft, quiet grace he had seen at the spring had given place to something different--greater.

"Not a very dignified position in which to be caught--and I do not like you any better for having caught me so!" she finally flashed back at him. "I have no apologies to offer you, and wouldn't offer one, anyway--under the circ.u.mstances. I'll tell you what brought me here, though. While pa.s.sing by your corral, down the road, I heard a great commotion, and some shooting, so I came over here to tell you. Perhaps I was afraid to pa.s.s the corral after that." She smiled wickedly, but he, innocently believing, exclaimed:

"Why were you alone? Where were the boys that I saw with you this morning? It isn't right that you should be out alone after night like this."

"They went on--ahead of me. I rode slowly," she replied hesitatingly. He did not notice her nervous manner of speech.

"They ought to have stayed with you," he declared. "You should never ride alone, particularly after dark. Don't do it again."

"But the shooting," she interrupted. "I came to tell you about it.

Someone may have been hurt."

"It was kind of you to come. There may be trouble of some sort. I heard shooting, too, but thought it must be down at Harris'. There is very often a commotion down there, and sometimes the air carries sound very clearly. You are sure it was at the corrals?"

She became impatient. "Positively! I not only heard the shots plainly, but saw men ride away. Please lose no more time, but get your men and a lantern, and come on. There's evidently been trouble down there, Mr.

Livingston, and your herder may have been hurt. They are not all good people in these mountains, by any means."

"Is that so? I had not discovered it. Probably some of them thought they would like mutton for their Sunday dinner. It seemed to me there was considerable firing, though. You are perfectly sure it was at the corrals?"

"That was my impression, Mr. Livingston," she replied briefly.

His face suddenly became anxious. "They may have hurt Fritz. If anything has happened to that boy there will be something to pay! But unless something occurred to delay the sheep they should have been put in before dark. I will go at once. Will you come in the house and stay until my return? It might not be safe for a lady down there."

"No!" Then, less fiercely: "Have your men bring their guns and hurry up!

I'm going along with you;" adding: "It's on my way back."

She waited outside while Livingston informed his men, who secured rifles, and started at once for the corrals; then leading her horse she walked on ahead with him, followed closely by the two men, who carried lanterns, which they decided not to light until they reached the sheep.

Hope never could define her feelings when she found Livingston safe and unhurt, though she made a careless attempt at doing so that night, and afterwards. She walked beside him in absolute silence. They were going to see if the herder had been injured in any way. She knew that he was not only hurt, but in all likelihood fatally so. His groans rang continually in her ears, yet it brought her not the least pain, only a horror, such as she had experienced when it happened. It was a relief to her that it had not been Livingston. She felt sorry, naturally, that a man had been shot, but what did it matter to her--one man more or less?

She had never known him.

When they reached the sheep-corrals the moon still shone brightly, and Hope was filled with a new fear lest some of the ruffians had remained behind, and would pick off Livingston. After the lanterns were lighted she felt still more nervous for his safety, and could not restrain her foolish concern until she had mounted her horse, and made a complete circuit of the corrals, riding into every patch of brush about; then only did this fear, which was such a stranger to her, depart. She rode in haste back to the corrals, satisfied that the men had all left, probably badly frightened.

To one side of the paneled enclosure the men held their lanterns over an inert figure stretched upon the ground. Livingston was kneeling beside it. The girl got down from her horse, and came near them.

"Is he dead?" she asked.

"_Dead_--yes! The poor boy! May G.o.d have mercy on the brute who committed this crime! It is terrible--_terrible!_ Poor faithful Fritz!

Scarcely more than a boy, yet possessing a man's courage and a man's heart!" He looked up at the girl's face, and was amazed at her indifference. Then he spoke to the men: "Go back and get a wagon and my saddle horse. I will stay here until you return. Leave one of the lanterns."

They hurried away, while the man continued to kneel by the side of the dead herder. Hope watched him, wondering at his depth of feeling.

Finally she asked: "Was he some relative of yours?"

"No, only one of my herders--Fritz, a bright, good German boy. Why did you ask, Miss Hathaway?"

"I thought because you cared so much,--seemed to feel so badly,--that he must be very near to you."

"He is near to me," he replied, "only as all children of earth should be near to one another. Are you not also pained at this sight--this boy, in the very beginning of his manhood, lying here dead?"

"Not _pained_--I can't truthfully say that I am pained--or care much in that way. He is dead, so what is the use of caring or worrying about it.

That cannot bring him back to life again. Of course I would rather he had lived--that this had never happened, yet I do not feel pain, only an abhorrence. I couldn't touch him as you are doing, not for anything!"

"And you are not pained! _You_, a woman with a white soul and a clean heart--one of G.o.d's choicest creations--_you_ stand there without a pang of sorrow--dry-eyed. Haven't you a heart, girl?" He rose to his feet, holding up the lantern until it shone squarely in her face. "Look at him lying there! See the blood upon his clothes--the look on his face! What he suffered! See what he holds so tightly in his hand,--his last thought,--a letter from his sweetheart over in Germany, the girl he was to have married, who is even now on her way to him. He had been reading her letter all day. It came this morning, and he held it in his hand planning their future with a happy heart, when some brute sent a bullet here. If it could have been me, how gladly I would make the exchange, for I have nothing that this poor boy possessed--mother, sweetheart--no one. Yet _you_, a girl, can see him so, unmoved! Good G.o.d, what are you, _stone_? See his face, he did not die at once, and suffering, _dying_, still held that letter. If not his story, then does not his suffering appeal to you? His dying groans, can you not hear them?"

"Stop!" she cried, backing away from him until she leaned against her horse for support. "Stop! How _dare_ you talk like that to me! His _groans_----" She sobbed wildly, her face buried in her saddle, which she clutched.

He came close beside her, touching her lightly, wondering. "I am so sorry, forgive me! I did not realize what I was doing. I did not wish to frighten you, believe me!"

The sobs were hushed instantly. She raised her head, and looked at him, still dry-eyed.

"You were right," she said. "I do not even now _feel_ for him--perhaps some for the little girl now on her way to him; but it is all unreal. I have seen men dead like this before, and I could not feel anything but horror--no sorrow. I am as I am. It makes no difference what you say,--what anyone says,--I cannot change. I am not tender--only please do not terrify me again!"

"I was a brute!" he exclaimed, then left her and returned to the dead man's side.

The girl stood for some time quietly beside her horse, then began to loosen the cinch. Livingston watched her wonderingly as she drew out the blanket, and secured the saddle once more into place. He did not realize her motive until she stood beside him, holding in her hand the gayly colored saddle blanket. Kneeling opposite him, beside the body of the boy, she tenderly lifted the long hair from his forehead, spread over his face a white handkerchief, then stood up and unfolded the blanket, covering the rigid form with it.

"You have a heart!" exclaimed Livingston softly. "You are thinking of him tenderly, as a sister might, and of his sweetheart coming over the water to him!"

"No, not of that at all," said the girl simply, "nor of him, as you think; but of one who might be lying here in his place--one who has no sweetheart, near or far away, to cover him with the mantle of her love."

CHAPTER VII

She stood up, listening. From the distance came the low rumble of a wagon. The men were returning. For some time she kept her face from him, in att.i.tude intent upon the distant rumble. She was thinking hard. She could not be rude to Livingston, she could not very well explain, yet she dared not allow him to accompany her back to Harris' ranch. What should she do? Naturally he would insist, yet how could she tell him that she feared for his safety? That would sound idiotic without a complete explanation, for she was almost a total stranger to him. She was concerned, that was the worst of it; but not without reason.

To-night the men were in a fever of revenge. If he were seen that would settle it. To-morrow not one of them but would hesitate a long time before committing such a crime; so, she argued, she had a right to be concerned. But, after all, how foolish of her! Surely he was not a baby that he could not protect himself! Did she expect to worry about him during the whole summer? As she stood there gazing into the darkness, he watched her, speechless, something that was not sorrow piercing his heart with a greater pain. In her moment of tenderness she had become to him a woman divine. He not only loved her, and knew it, but felt the hopelessness of ever winning her. It was not exactly new, only revealed to him, for it had come upon him gradually since the evening that she had given him the water at the spring. He had cursed himself that night for thinking of an Indian girl, he, a man with a name to sustain--a name which counted little in this new country of the West. He tried to imagine her as married to Carter. The thought sickened him. Carter might be all right,--he had met him when he first came into the country; he undoubtedly was all right,--but married to this girl! As he thought, bitterly, forgetting even the dead young German at his feet, Hope was alternately calling herself a fool and wondering what she could do to prevent him from taking her home. But her fertile brain could not solve it. She turned toward him with manner constrained and frigid. It was shyness, nothing less, yet it affected him unpleasantly.

"The wagon is coming." Relief sounded in her tone, giving the lie to her moment of tenderness. "You can hear it quite plainly. These corrals should not be so far from the house. It must be nearly a mile. I suppose you've not been in the business very long or you wouldn't have put it here, on the edge of this cut-bank."

"You are right, Miss Hathaway, I have not been long in the business nor in your country. This is quite new to me. Any place seemed good enough for a corral, to my ignorant mind. Are you interested in the sheep industry?" He spoke pleasantly. She threw back her head as she always did when angered or excited.