THE WORLD'S GREAT SNARE. E. Phillips Oppenheim
with wonder. She had expected this, and was gratified.
“Yes! You didn’t think I was plucky enough for that, I guess! It’s been pretty bad—worse than I thought it would be, when I started. I didn’t mind so much until Johnny—that was my mule—died. He seemed sorter company, and he was a real good one. Afterwards it got lonesome, and the nights were so dark and long, I was scared sometimes. I used to lie quite still, with my face turned to the east, and as soon as the first streak of light came I could go to sleep. Then, the day before yesterday, I finished up all the food I had! I don’t believe I want to talk about the time since then,” she concluded, with a little shiver. “I guess I won’t, anyway!”
He sat and looked at her for a moment without speaking. He was not a man of quick comprehension, and the thing amazed him.
“Five hundred miles all alone, and a beastly rough track too,” he said at last. “Why, child, it seems impossible. And why on earth have you come?”
The colour rushed into her dusky cheeks, and her eyes, soft and dark now that the gleam of famine had fled, filled with tears.
“You—you are not glad to see me!” she exclaimed piteously.
He was not. That was a fact. But he began to see that it would not do to let her know it. He swore a great inward oath, but he leaned over and took her hand as tenderly as he could.
“Of course I’m glad, Myra! If you knew how beastly dull it was here, month after month with never a soul to speak to, you wouldn’t wonder at that. But what beats me is, why you’ve come! You haven’t risked your life to come to such a picnic as we’re having out here! You’ve got a reason for coming!”
She nodded, with her eyes anxiously fixed upon him. “Yes! I’ve brought you something. Guess what!” His expression changed. A sudden light leaped into his eyes.
“Is it a letter?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He held out his hand.
“Where is it?
“Give me a knife and I will get it,” she answered.
He handed her one. She felt up one side of her tattered coat, and cut a little slit near the shoulder. Through the opening she drew a long envelope, and held it out to him; her lips slightly parted, and her eyes eagerly watching for his approval.
He took it into his hand and looked at it almost as though he feared to break the seal. It was yellow with age, and the postmark was ancient. He looked from it into the girl’s face. Her eyes were full of tears.
“You are not glad that I brought it,” she faltered. “It isn’t of any importance after all. You haven’t thanked me, you haven’t said a single kind word to me, and—and you haven’t even kissed me! I—I wish I had died and not got here at all!” she wound up with a little sob.
He passed his arm around her waist and drew her lips to his.
“There, don’t cry, Myra,” he said kindly. “I’m not an eloquent chap, you know, and I was kind of dazed. You’re a regular brick, little woman, to bring me that letter. I don’t believe there’s another girl in the States would have had so much pluck. Cheer up now, do. Of course I’m glad to see you. You know that.”
She listened to him eagerly, and gave a little sigh of relief. Then she swept the tears away, and smiled up at him faintly.
“I think I was pretty glad to have an excuse to come,” she whispered in his ear. “I was weary of waiting for you to come back, and—oh, it was all such a bother. I would sooner have died than gone back to the old life, the life from which you saved me, Bryan. It was all horrid. Oh, aren’t I glad I’m here! You won’t send me back, will you?” she exclaimed, in sudden alarm.
“We’ll talk about that in the morning,” he answered. “I haven’t read my letter yet. I may not be stopping here myself much longer.”
“Say that I may stay as long as you do,” she persisted. “Tell me that when you go, you will take me with you. Just let me hear you say that, and I won’t worry you any more. I’ll do everything you tell me. You say that.”
He frowned and looked away from her great eager eyes on to the floor. Here was a pretty mess for him. What could he say to her?
“You’ll have to be reasonable, Myra,” he said slowly. “I don’t see how you can stop. What on earth could I do with you? Do you know that there are four or five hundred men down in the valley there, and not a woman amongst them? How could I keep you here?
“No one would know that I was a woman,” she pleaded piteously. “I would never go outside the door, if you like.”
“They’d soon find out. They’d want to know why you didn’t work, and what was the meaning of those pretty hands and feet,” he said indulgently. “No, we couldn’t keep the secret if you stayed, Myra. They’re a rough lot down there, too, I can tell you. Besides, what on earth would you wear?” he added, with masculine irrelevance.
She glanced down at the rents in her rough attire, and blushed.
“You have a needle and thread here,” she said. “I could patch these things up somehow. I—I brought a gown with me in my bundle there, but I suppose I mustn’t wear that?”
He shook his head and glanced towards the bundle, which was lying upon the floor half-open. Something he saw seemed to him familiar. He touched it with his foot and leaned forward.
“What dress did you bring?” he asked.
Her eyes sought his appealingly, and the deep colour stained her cheeks. A little tremulous smile parted the corners of her lips.
“It is—the blue serge one, the one you liked. I had put it away until you came back. Kind of silly to bring it, wasn’t it?”
He looked at her for a moment, and his own eyes grew misty. The pathos of the whole thing, as he alone could understand it, was irresistibly borne in upon him. Like a swift vision he seemed to see her struggling across that great rocky plain, day after day, night after night, fighting against the horrible loneliness, braving dangers and enduring privations which might have daunted many a man, and all the while clinging to her poor little bundle, never parting with it even in those last dreadful hours of exhaustion and despair. Poor child! He remembered the gown well. It was one which he had bought for her himself, the straight tailor-made folds pleasing his English eye. He remembered, too, how proud she had been when he had admired it, and how she had worn it on every possible occasion. There it lay before him, carefully folded and rolled up, and carried for more than five hundred miles in the hope that to see her in it might awaken some of that old tenderness which with him, alas! was almost a thing of the past. He looked into her strained, plaintive face, and did what, as yet, of his own accord he had not done or desired to do. He kissed her.
* * * * *
She laughed softly, and glanced up at him from his shoulder, pointing to her clothes.
“Do these things look very awful?”
He affected not to notice the look which pleaded for some consoling speech, and gently detaching himself from her embrace, he stooped down and drew from underneath the plank bed a long white linen coat which he had bought in San Francisco, but had found far too small for him. He shook it, and held it out to her.
“They want stitching, then they’d be all right,” he declared. “You’d better put this on for a bit, and try to go to sleep. You’ve talked more than enough now, and you look deadly tired. Good night.”
She sat up and looked at him for a moment, but he kept his head turned resolutely away.
“Where are you—going to sleep?” she asked quietly.
“Outside. I generally do. We are too high up here for the dews to hurt, you know. Call out if you are frightened, or if you want anything. I shall hear you.”
“Thank