Told in the Hills: A Novel. Ryan Marah Ellis
were all right; but you must have got hurt more than you owned up to. Why didn't you tell me?"
"But I am not – indeed I am not!" she persisted. "I was not at all injured except for the jar of the fall; it leaves me dizzy and sick when I sit upright in the saddle – that is all."
"And it is enough," he returned decidedly; "do you 'spose, if you'd told me just how you felt, I should have set you there to ride through these hills and hollows?"
"What else could you do?" she asked; "you couldn't bring a carriage for me."
"May be not, but I could have ridden Mowitza myself and carried you."
"That would be funny," she smiled. "Poor Mowitza! could she carry double?"
"Yes," he answered curtly; perhaps the situation did not strike him in a humorous light. "Yes, she can, and that's what she will have to do. Let me know when you feel able to start."
"I think I do now," she said, raising herself from the ground; "I am a little shaky, but if I do not have to sit upright I can keep my wits about me, I believe. Will you help me, please?"
He lifted her into the saddle without a word, and then mounting himself, he took her in front of him, circling her with one arm and guiding Mowitza with the other, with as much unconcern as if he had carried damsels in like cavalier fashion all his life.
They rode on in silence for a little through the shadows of the valley, where the moon's light only fell in patches. His eyes were straight ahead, on the alert for gullies and pitfalls along the blind trail. He seemed to have no glances for the girl whose head was on his shoulder, but whom he held most carefully. Once he asked how she felt, and if she was comfortable; and she said "Yes, thank you," very demurely, with that mocking smile about her lips. She felt like laughing at the whole situation – all the more so because he looked so solemn, almost grim. She always had an insane desire to laugh when in circumstances where any conventional woman would be gathering up her dignity. It had got her into scrapes often, and she felt as if it was likely to do so now. The movement of the horse no longer made her ill, since she did not have to sit upright; she was only a little dizzy at times, as if from the rocking of a swing, and lazily comfortable with that strong arm and shoulder for support.
"I am afraid I am getting heavy," she remarked after a while; "if I could get my arm around back of you and hold either the saddle or reach up to your shoulder, I might not be such a dead weight on your arm."
"Just as you like," was the brief reply that again aroused her desire to laugh. It did seem ridiculous to be forced into a man's arms like that, and the humorous part of it was heightened, in her eyes, by his apparent sulkiness over the turn affairs had taken.
She slipped her arm across his back, however, and up to his shoulder, thus lightening her weight on the arm that circled her, an attempt to which he appeared indifferent. And so they rode on out of the valley into the level land at the foot of the hills, and then into the old trail where the route was more familiar and not so much care needed.
The girl raised her head drowsily as she noted some old landmarks in the misty light.
"Poor Mowitza!" she said; "she did not have such a load when she came over this road before; it was the day after you joined us, do you remember?"
"Yes."
Remember! It had been the gateway through which he had gained a glimpse into a new world – those days that were tinged with the delightful suggestions of dawn. He smiled rather grimly at the question, but she could not see his face very well, under the shadow of his wide hat.
"Has Mowitza ever before had to carry double?"
There was a little wait after her question – perhaps he was trying to remember; then he said:
"Yes."
She wanted to ask who, and under what circumstances, but someway was deterred by his lock-and-key manner, as she called it. She rather commended herself for her good humor under its influence, and wondered that she only felt like laughing at his gruffness. With any other person she would have felt like retaliating, and she lay there looking up into the shadowy face with a mocking self-query as to why he was made an exception of.
"Genesee!" she began, after one of those long spells of silence; and then the utterance of the name suggested a new train of thought – "by the way, is your name Genesee?"
He did not answer at once – was he trying to remember that also?
"I wish you would tell me," she continued, more gently than was usual with her. "I am going away soon; I should like to know by what real name I am to remember you when I am back in Kentucky. Is your name Jack Genesee?"
"No," he said at last; "Genesee is a name that stuck to me from some mines where I worked, south of this. If I went back to them I would be called Kootenai Jack, perhaps, because I came from here. Plenty of men are known by names out here that would not be recognized at home, if they have a home.
"But your name is Jack" she persisted.
"Yes, my name is Jack."
But he did not seem inclined to give any further information on the subject that just then was of interest to her, and she did not like to question further, but contented herself with observing:
"I shan't call you Genesee any more."
"Just as you like, Miss."
Again came that crazy desire of hers to laugh, and although she kept silent, it was a convulsive silence – one of heaving bosom and quivering shoulders. To hide it, she moved restlessly, changing her position somewhat, and glancing about her.
"Not much farther to go," she remarked; "won't they be surprised to find you carrying me into camp like this? I wonder if Betty came this way, or if they found her – the little vixen! There is only one more hill to cross until we reach camp – is there not?"
"Only one more."
"And both Mowitza and yourself will need a good rest when we get there," she remarked. "Your arm must feel paralyzed. Do you know I was just thinking if you had found me dead in that gulch, you would have had to carry me back over this trail, just like this. Ugh! What a dismal ride, carrying a dead woman!"
His arm closed around her quickly, and he drew a deep breath as he looked at her.
"I don't know," he said in a terse way, as if through shut teeth; "perhaps it wouldn't have been so dismal, for I might never have come back. I might have staid there – with you."
She could see his eyes plainly enough when he looked at her like that; even the shadows could not cover their warmth; they left little to be expressed in words, and neither attempted any. Her face turned away from him a little, but her hand slipped into the clasp of his fingers, and so they rode on in silence.
The brow of the last hill was reached. Down below them could be seen the faint light from the camp-fire, and for an instant Mowitza was halted for a breathing-spell ere she began the descent. The girl glanced down toward the fire-light, and then up to his face.
"You can rest now," she said, with the old quizzical smile about her lips, even while her fingers closed on his own. "There is the camp; alta nika wake tsolo" (now you no longer wander in the dark).
But there was no answering smile on his face – not even at the pleasure of the language that at times had seemed a tacit bond between them. He only looked at her in the curious way she had grown accustomed to in him, and said:
"The light down there is for you; I don't belong to it. Just try and remember that after – after you are safe with your folks."
"I shall remember a great deal," returned the girl in her independent tone; "among other things, the man who brought me back to them. Now, why don't you say, 'Just as you like, Miss?' You ought to – to be natural."
But her raillery brought no more words from him. His face had again its sombre, serious look, and in silence he guided Mowitza's feet down toward the glow-light. Once a puff of wind sent the girl's hair blowing across her face, and he smoothed it back carefully that he might see her eyes in the moonlight; but the half-caress in the movement was as if given to a child. All the quick warmth was gone from his eyes