Hidden Creek. Katharine Newlin Burt
Dickie was not sure that it would do the same for his. He tried it carefully. It held, and he followed the faint track of small feet. It did not occur to him, dazed as he was by the fumes of whiskey and the heady air, that the sight of a man in swift pursuit of her loneliness might frighten Sheila. For some reason he imagined that she would know that he was Sylvester's son, and that he was possessed only by the most sociable and protective impulses.
He was, besides, possessed by a fateful feeling that it was intended that out here in the brilliant night he should meet her and talk to her. The adventurous heart of Dickie was aflame.
When the hurrying figure stopped and turned quickly, he did not pause, but rather hastened his steps. He saw her lift her muff up to her heart, saw her waver, then move resolutely toward him. She came thus two or three steps, when a treacherous pitfall in the snow opened under her frightened feet and she went down almost shoulder deep. Dickie ran forward.
Bending over her, he saw her white, heart-shaped face, and its red mouth as startling as a June rose out here in the snow. And he saw, too, the panic of her shining eyes.
"Miss Arundel"—his voice came thin and tender, feeling its way doubtfully as though it was too heavy a reality—"let me help you. You are Miss Arundel, aren't you? I'm Dickie—Dickie Hudson, Pap Hudson's son. You hadn't ought to be scared. I saw you coming out alone and took after you. I thought you might find it kind of lonesome up here on the flat at night in all the moonlight—hearing the coyotes and all. And, look-a-here, you might have had a time getting out of the snow. Oncet a fellow breaks through it sure means a floundering time before a fellow pulls himself out—"
She had given him a hand, and he had pulled her up beside him. Her smile of relief seemed very beautiful to Dickie.
"I came out," she said, "because it looked so wonderful—and I wanted to see—" She stopped, looking at him doubtfully, as though she expected him not to understand, to think her rather mad. But he finished her sentence.
"—To see the mountains, wasn't it?"
"Yes." She was again relieved, almost as much so, it seemed, as at the knowledge of his friendliness. "Especially that big one." She waved her muff toward the towering peak. "I never did see such a night! It's like—it's like—" She widened her eyes, as though, by taking into her brain an immense picture of the night, she might find out its likeness.
Dickie, moving uncertainly beside her, murmured, "Like the inside of a cold flame, a very white flame."
Sheila turned her chin, pointed above the fur collar of her coat, and included him in the searching and astonished wideness of her look.
"You work at The Aura, don't you?" she asked with childlike brusquerie.
Dickie's sensitive, undecided mouth settled into mournfulness. He looked away.
"Yes, ma'am," he said plaintively.
Sheila's widened eyes, still fixed upon him, began to embarrass him. A flush came up into his face.
She moved her look across him and away to the range.
"It is like that," she said—"like a cold flame, going up—how did you think of that?"
Dickie looked quickly, gratefully at her. "I kind of felt," he said lamely, "that I had got to find out what it was like. But"—he shook his head with his deprecatory smile—"but that don't tell it, Miss Arundel. It's more than that." He smiled again. "I bet you, you could think of somethin' better to say about it, couldn't you?"
Sheila laughed. "What a funny boy you are! Not like the others. You don't even look like them. How old are you? When I first saw you I thought you were quite grown up. But you can't be much more than nineteen."
"Just that," he said, "but I'll be twenty next month."
"You've always lived here in Millings?"
"Yes, ma'am. Do you like it? I mean, do you like Millings? I hope you do."
Sheila pressed her muff against her mouth and looked at him over it. Her eyes were shining as though the moonlight had got into their misty grayness. She shook her head; then, as his face fell, she began to apologize.
"Your father has been so awfully kind to me. I am so grateful. And the girls are awfully good to me. But, Millings, you know?—I wouldn't have told you," she said half-angrily, "if I hadn't been so sure you hated it."
They had come to the edge of the mesa, and there below shone the small, scattered lights of the town. The graphophone was playing in the saloon. Its music—some raucous, comic song—insulted the night.
"Why, no," said Dickie, "I don't hate Millings. I never thought about it that way. It's not such a bad place. Honest, it isn't. There's lots of fine folks in it. Have you met Jim Greely?"
"Why, no, but I've seen him. Isn't that Girlie's—'fellow'?"
Dickie made round, respectful eyes. He was evidently very much impressed.
"Say!" he ejaculated. "Is that the truth? Girlie's aiming kind of high."
It was not easy to walk side by side on the rutted snow of the road. Sheila here slipped ahead of him and went on quickly along the middle rut where the horses' hoofs had beaten a pitted path.
She looked back at him over her shoulder with a sort of malice.
"Is it aiming high?" she said. "Girlie is much more beautiful than
Jim Greely."
"Oh, but he's some looker—Jim."
"Do you think so?" she said indifferently, with a dainty touch of scorn.
Dickie staggered physically from the shock of her speech. She had been speaking—was it possible?—of Jim Greely. …
"I mean Mr. James Greely, the son of the president of the Millings
National Bank," he said painstakingly, and a queer confusion came to him
that the words were his feet and that neither were under his control.
Also, he was not sure that he had said "Natural," or "National."
"I do mean Mr. James Greely," Sheila's clear voice came back to him. "He is, I should think, a very great hero of yours."
"Yes, ma'am," said Dickie.
Astonished at the abject humility of his tone, Sheila stopped and turned quite around to look at him. He seemed to be floundering in and out of invisible holes in the snow. He stepped very high, plunged, put out his hand, and righted himself by her shoulder. And he stayed there, lurched against her for a moment. She shook him off and began to run down the hill. His breath had struck her face. She knew that he was drunk.
Dickie followed her as fast as he could. Several times he fell, but, on the whole, he made fairly rapid progress, so that, by the time she dashed into the Hudsons' gate, he was only a few steps behind her and caught the gate before it shut. Sheila fled up the steps and beat at the door with her fist. Dickie was just behind her.
Sylvester himself opened the door. Back of him pressed Babe.
"Why, say," she said, "it's Sheila and she's got a beau already. You're some girl—"
"Please let me in," begged Sheila; "I—I am frightened. It's your brother, Dickie—but I think—there's something wrong—"
Sylvester put his hand on her and pushed her to one side.
He strode out on the small porch. Dickie wavered before him on the top step.
"I thought I'd make the ac-acquaintance of the young lady," he began doubtfully. "I saw her admiring at the stars and I—"
"Oh, you did!" snarled Hudson. "All right. Now go and make acquaintance with the bottom step." He thrust a long, hard hand at Dickie's chest, and the boy fell backward, clattering ruefully down the steps with a rattle of thin knees and elbows. At the bottom he lay for a minute, painfully huddled in the snow.