When Zen came to herself it was with a sense of a strange swimming in her head. Gradually it resolved itself into a sound of water about her head; a splashing, fighting water; two heads in the water; two heads in the water; a lash floating in the water—
“Oh!” She was sure she felt water on her face....
“Where am I?”
“You’re all right—you’ll be all right in a little while.”
“But where am I? What has happened?” She tried to sit up. All was dark. “Where am I?” she demanded.
“Don’t be alarmed, Zen—I think your name is Zen,” she heard a man’s voice saying. “You’ve been hurt, but you’ll be all right presently.”
Then the curtain lifted. “You are Dennison Grant,” she said. “I remember you now. But what has happened? Why am I here—with you?”
“Well, so far, you’ve been enjoying about three hours’ unconsciousness,” he told her. “At a distance which seems about a mile from here—although it may be less—is a little pond. I’ve carried water in the sleeve of my coat—fortunately it is leather—and poured it somewhat generously upon your brow. And at last I’ve been rewarded by a conscious word.”
She tried to sit up, but desisted when a sudden twitch of pain held her fast.
“Let me help you,” he said, gently. “We have camped, as you may notice, on a big, flat rock. I found it not far from the scene of the accident, so I carried you over to it. It is drier than the earth, and, for the forepart of the night at least, will be warmer.” With a strong arm about her shoulders he drew her into a sitting posture.
Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness. “What’s wrong with my foot?” she demanded. “My boot’s off.”
“I’m afraid you turned your ankle getting free from your stirrup,” he explained. “I had to do a little surgery. I could find nothing broken. It will be painful, but I fear there is nothing to do but bear it.”
She reached down and felt her foot. It was neatly bandaged with cloth very much like that which she had used to blindfold Quiver. It was easy to surmise where it came from. Evidently her protector had stopped at nothing.
“Well, are we to stay here permanently?” she asked, presently.
“Only for the night,” he told her. “If we’re lucky, not that long. Search parties will be hunting for you, and they will doubtless ride this way. Both of our horses bolted in the fire—”
“Oh yes, the fire! Tell me what happened.”
He hesitated.
“I remember riding into the fire,” she continued, “and then next thing I was on this rock. How did it all happen?”
“Your horse fell,” he explained, “just as you reached the fire, and threw you, pretty heavily, to the ground. I was behind, so I dismounted and dragged you through.”
“Oh!” She felt her face. “But I am not even singed!” she exclaimed.
It was plain that he was holding something back. She turned and laid her fingers on his arm. “Tell me how you did it,” she pressed.
The darkness hid his modest confusion. “It was really nothing,” he stammered. “You see, I had a leather coat, and I just threw it over your head—and mine—and dragged you out.”
She was silent for a moment while the meaning of his words came home to her. Then she placed her hand frankly in his.
“Thank you,” she said, and even in the darkness she knew that their eyes had met.
“You are very resourceful,” she continued presently. “Must we sit here all night?”
“I can think of no alternative,” he confessed. “If we had fire-arms we could shoot a signal, or if there were grass about we could start a fire, although it probably would not be noticed with so many glows on the horizon to-night.” He stopped to look about. Dull splashes of red in the sky pointed out remnants of the day’s conflagration still eating their way through the foothills. The air was full of the pungent but not unpleasant smell of burnt grass.
“A pretty hard night to send a signal,” he said, “but they’re almost sure to ride this way.”
She wondered why he did not offer to walk to the camp for help; it could not be more than four or five miles. Suddenly she thought she understood.
“I am not afraid to stay here alone,” she said, with a little laugh. It was the first time Grant had heard her laugh, and he thought it very musical indeed. “I’ve slept out many a night, and you would be back within a couple of hours.”
“I’m quite sure you’re not afraid,” he agreed, “but, you see, I am. You got quite a tap on the head, and for some time before you came to you were talking—rather foolishly. Now if I should leave you it is not only possible, but quite probable, that you would lapse again into unconsciousness.... I really think you’ll have to put up with me here.”
“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of that!... Did I—did I talk—foolishly?”
“Rather. Seemed to think you were swimming—or fighting—I couldn’t be sure which. Sometimes you seemed to be doing both.”
“Oh!” With a cold chill the events of the day came back upon her. That struggle in the water; it came to her now like a bad dream out of the long, long past. How much had she said? How much would she have given to know what she said? She felt herself recounting events....
Presently she pulled herself up with a start. She must not let him think her moody.
“Well, if we MUST enjoy each other’s company, we may as well do so companionably,” she said, with an effort at gaiety. “Let us talk. Tell me about yourself.”
“First things first,” he parried.
“Oh, I’ve nothing to tell. My life has been very unromantic. A few years at school, and the rest of it on the range. A very every-day kind of existence.”
“I think it’s the ‘every-day kind of existence’ that IS romantic,” he returned. “It is a great mistake to think of romance as belonging to other times and other places. Even the most commonplace person has experienced romance enough for a dozen books. Quite possibly he has not recognized the romance, but it was there. The trouble is that with our limited sense of humor, what we think of as romance in other people’s lives becomes tragedy in our own.”
How much DID he know?... “Yes,” she said, “I suppose that is so.”
“I know it is so,” he went on. “If we could read the thoughts—know the experiences—of those nearest to us, we would never need to look out of our own circles for either romance or tragedy. But it is as well that we can’t. Take the experience of to-day, for example. I admit it has not been a commonplace day, and yet it has not been altogether extraordinary. Think of the experiences we have been through just this day, and how, if they were presented in fiction they would be romantic, almost unbelievable. And here we are at the close, sitting on a rock, matter-of-fact people in a matter-of-fact world, accepting everything as commonplace and unexceptional.”
“Not quite that,” she said daringly. “I see that you are neither commonplace nor unexceptional.” She spoke with sudden impulse out of the depth of her sincerity. She had not met a man like this before. In her mind she fixed him in contrast with Transley, the self-confident and aggressive, and Linder, the shy and unassertive. None of those adjectives seemed to fit this new acquaintance. Nevertheless, he suffered nothing by the contrast.
“If I had been bright enough I would have said that first,” he apologized, “but I got rather carried away in one of my pet theories about romance. Now my life, I suppose, to many people would seem quite tame and unromantic, but to me it has been a delightful succession of somewhat placid adventures. It began in a very orthodox way, in a very orthodox family. My father, under the guidance, no doubt, of whatever star governs such lucky affairs, became possessed of a piece of land. In doing so he contributed to society no service whatever, so far as I have been able to ascertain. But it so fell about that society, in considerable numbers, wanted his land to live on, so society made of my father a wealthy man, and gave him power over many people. Could anything be more romantic than that? Could the fairy tales of your childhood surpass it for benevolent irresponsibility?”
“My father has also become wealthy,” she said, “although I never thought of it in that way.”
“Yes, but in exchange for his wealth your father has given service to society; supplied many thousands of steers for hungry people to eat. That’s a different story, but not less romantic.
“Well, to proceed. I was brought up to fit my station in life, whatever that means. There were just two boys of us, and I was the elder. My father had become a broker. I believe he had become quite a successful broker, using the word in its ordinary sense, which denotes the making of money. You see, he already had too much money, so it was very easy for him to make more. He wanted me to go into the office with him, but some way I didn’t fit in. I’ve no doubt there was lots of romance there, too, but I was of the wrong nature; I simply couldn’t get enthusiastic over it. As we already had more money than we could possibly spend on things that were good for us, I failed to see the point in sitting up nights to increase it. Being of a frank disposition I confided in my father that I felt I was wasting my time in a broker’s office. He, being of an equally frank disposition, confided in me that he entertained the same opinion.
“Then I delivered myself of some of my pet theories about wealth. I told him that I didn’t believe that any man had a right to money unless he earned it in return for service given to society, and I said that as society had to supply the money, society should determine the amount. I confessed that I was a little hazy about how that was to be carried out, but I insisted that the principle was right, and, that being so, the working of it out was only a matter of detail. I realize now that this was all fanatical heresy to my father; I remember the pained look that came into his eyes. I thought at the time that it was anger, but I know now that it was grief—grief and humiliation that a son of his should entertain such wild and unbalanced ideas.
“Well, there was more talk, and the upshot of it was that I got out, accompanied by an assurance from my father that I would never be burdened with any of the family ducats. Roy—my younger brother—succeeded to the worries of wealth, and I came to the ranges where, no doubt to the deep chagrin of my father, I have been able to make a living, and have, incidentally, been profoundly happy. I’ll take a wager that to-day I look ten years younger than Roy, that I can lick him with one hand, that I have more real friends than he has, and that I’m getting more out of life than he is. I’m a man of whims. When they beckon I follow.”
Grant had been talking intensely. He paused now, feeling that his enthusiasm had carried him into rather fuller confidences than he had intended.
“I’m sorry I bored you with that harangue,” he said contritely. “You couldn’t possibly be interested in it.”
“On the contrary, I am very much interested in it,” she protested. “It seems so much finer for a man to make his own way, rather than be lifted up by someone else. I am sure you are already doing well in the West. Some day you will go back to your father with more money than he has.”
Grant uttered an amused little laugh.
“I was afraid you would say that,” he answered. “You see, you don’t understand me, either. I don’t want to make money. Can you understand that?”
“Don’t want to make money? Why not?”
“Why should I?”
“Well, everybody does. Money is power—it is a mark of success. It would open up a wider life for you. It would bring you into new circles. Some day you will want to marry and settle down, and money would enable you to meet the kind of women—”
She stopped, confused. She had plunged farther than she had intended.
“You’re all wrong,” he said amusedly. It did not even occur to Zen that he was contradicting her. She had not been accustomed to being contradicted, but then, neither had she been accustomed to men like Dennison Grant, nor to conversations such as had developed. She was too interested to be annoyed.
“You’re all wrong, Miss—?”
“I don’t wonder that you can’t fill in my name,” she said. “Nobody knows Dad except as Y.D. But I heard you call me Zen—”
“That was when you were coming out of your unconsciousness. I apologize for the liberty taken. I thought it might recall you—”
“Well, I’m still coming out,” she interrupted. “I am beginning to feel that I have been unconscious for a very long time indeed. Let me hear why you don’t want money.”
Grant was aware of a pleasant glow excited by her frank interest. She was altogether a desirable girl.
“I have observed,” he said, “that poor people worry over what they haven’t got, and rich people worry over what they have. It is my disposition not to worry over anything. You said that money is power. That is one of its deceits. It offers a man power, but in reality it makes him its slave. It enchains him for life; I have seen it in too many cases—I am not mistaken. As for opening up a wider life, what wider life could there be than this which I—which you and I—are living?”
She wondered why he had said “you and I.” Evidently he was wondering too, for he fell into reflection. She changed her position to ease the dull pain in her ankle, which his talk had almost driven from her mind. The rock had a perpendicular edge, so she let her feet hang over, resting the injured one upon the other. He was sitting in a similar position. The silence of the night had gathered about them, broken occasionally by the yapping of coyotes far down the valley. Segments of dull light fringed the horizon; the breeze was again blowing from the west, mild and balmy. Presently one of the segments of light grew and grew. It was as though it were rushing up the valley. They watched it, fascinated; then burst into laughter as the orb of the moon became recognizable.... There was something very companionable about watching the moon rise, as they did.
“The greatest wealth in the world,” he said at length, as though his thoughts had been far afield, searching, perchance, the mazy corridors of Truth for this atom of wisdom; “the greatest wealth in the world is to be able to do something useful. That is the only wealth which will not be disturbed in the coming reorganization of society.”
Zen did not reply. For the first time in her life she stood convicted, before her own mind, of a very profound ignorance. Dennison Grant had been drawing back the curtain of a world of the existence of which she had never known. He had talked to her about “the coming reorganization of society”? What did it mean? She was at home in discussions of herds or horses; she was at home with the duties of kitchen or reception-room; she was at home with her father or Transley or Linder or Drazk or Tompkins the cook, but Dennison Grant in an hour had carried her into a far country, where she would be hopelessly lost but for his guidance.... Yet it seemed a good and interesting country. She wanted to enter in—to know it better.
“Tell me about the coming reorganization of society,” she said.
“That is an all-night order,” he returned. “Besides, I can’t tell you all, because I don’t know all. I know only very, very little. I see my little gleam of light and keep my eye close upon it. But you must know that society is always in a state of reorganization. Nothing continues as it was. Those who dismiss a problem glibly by saying it has always been so and always will be so don’t read history and don’t understand human nature.”
He turned toward her as interest in his theme developed. The moonlight was now pouring upon them; her face was beautiful and fine as marble in its soft rays. For a moment he hesitated, overwhelmed by a sudden realization of her attractiveness. He had just been saying that the law of nature was the law of change, and nature itself stood up to refute him.
He brought himself back to earth. “I was saying that everything changes,” he continued. “Look at our economic system, for instance. Not so many centuries ago the man who got the most wealth was the man with the biggest muscle and the toughest skin. He wielded a stout club, and what he wanted, he took. His system of operation was simple and direct. You have money, you have cattle, you have a wife—I’m speaking of the times that were. I am stronger than you. I take them. Simplicity itself!”
“But very unjust,” she protested.
“Our sense of justice is due to our education,” he continued. “If we are taught to believe that a certain thing is just, we believe it is just. I am convinced that there is no sense of justice inherent in humanity; whatever sense we have is the result of education, and the kind of justice we believe in is the kind of justice to which we are educated. For example, the justice of the plains is not the justice of the cities; the justice of the vigilance committee is not the justice of judge and jury. Now to get back to our subject. When Baron Battle Ax, back in the fifth or sixth century, knocked all his rivals on the head and took their wealth away from them, I suppose there was here and there an advanced thinker who said the thing was unjust, but I am quite sure the great majority of people said things had always been that way and always would be that way. But the little minority of thinkers gradually grew in strength. The Truth was with them. It is worthy of notice that the advance guard of Truth always travels with minorities. And the day came that society organized itself to say that the man who uses physical force to take wealth from another is an enemy of society and must not be allowed at large.
“But we have passed largely out of the era of physical force. To-day, an engineer presses a button and releases more physical force than could be commanded by all the armies of Rome. Brain power is to-day the dominant power. And just as physical force was once used to take wealth without earning it, so is brain force now used to take wealth without earning it. And just as the masses in the days of Battle Ax said things had always been that way and always would be that way, just so do the masses in these days of brain supremacy say things have always been that way and always will be that way. But just as there was a minority with an advanced vision of Truth in those days, so is there a minority with an advanced vision of Truth in these days. You may be absolutely sure that, just as society found a way to deal with muscle brigands, so also it will find a way to deal with brain brigands. I confess I don’t see how the details are to be worked out, but there must be a plan under which the value of the services rendered to society by every man and every woman will be determined, and they will be rewarded according to the services rendered.”
“Is that Socialism?” she ventured.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Certainly it does not contemplate an equal distribution of the world’s wealth. Some men are a menace to themselves and society when they have a hundred dollars. Others can be trusted with a hundred million. All men have not been equally gifted by nature—we know that. We can’t make them equal. But surely we can prevent the gifted ones from preying upon those who are not gifted. That is what the coming reorganization of society will aim to do.”
“It is very interesting,” she said. “And very deep. I have never heard it discussed before. Why don’t people think about these things more?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, “but I suppose it is because they are too busy in the fight. When a self was dodging Battle Ax he hadn’t much time to think about evolving a Magna Charta. But most of all I suppose it is just natural laziness. People refuse to think. It calls for effort. Most people would find it easier to pitch a load of hay than to think of a new thought.”
The moon was now well up; the smoke clouds had been scattered by the breeze; the sky was studded with diamonds. Zen had a feeling of being very happy. True, a certain haunting spectre at times would break into her consciousness, but in the companionship of such a man as Grant she could easily beat it off. She studied the face in the moon, and invited her soul. She was living through a new experience—an experience she could not understand. In spite of the discomfort of her injuries, in spite of the events of the day, she was very, very happy....
If only that horrid memory of Drazk would not keep tormenting her! She began to have some glimpse of what remorse must mean. She did not blame herself; she could not have done otherwise; and yet—it was horrible to think about, and it would not stay away. She felt a tremendous desire to tell Grant all about it.... She wondered how much he knew. He must have discovered that her clothing had been wet.
She shivered slightly.
“You’re cold,” he said, as he placed his arm about her, and there was something very far removed from political economy in the timbre of his voice.
“I’m a little chilly,” she admitted. “I had to swim my horse across the river to-day—he got into a deep spot—and I got wet.” She congratulated herself that she had made a very clever explanation.
He put his coat about her shoulders and drew it tight. Then he sat beside her in silence. There were many things he could have said, but this seemed to be neither the time nor the place. Grant was not Transley. He had for this girl a delicate consideration which Transley’s nature could never know. Grant was a thinker—Transley a doer. Grant knew that the charm which enveloped him in this girl’s presence was the perfectly natural product of a set of conditions. He was worldly-wise enough to suspect that Zen also felt that charm. It was as natural as the bursting of a seed in moist soil; as natural as the unfolding of a rose in warm air....
Presently he felt her head rest against his shoulder. He looked down upon her in awed delight. Her eyes had closed; her lips were smiling faintly; her figure had relaxed. He could feel her warm breath upon his face. He could have touched her lips with his.
Slowly the moon traced its long arc in the heavens.
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