Snow-Blind

CHAPTER IX

They came down the hill rapidly and carelessly. Hugh, stung by pain and anger, threw himself over the rocks, and Sylvie was too proud to show her timidity or to ask for help. She crept and climbed up and down, saving herself with groping hand, letting one foot test the distances before she put the other down. At last the rattle of his progress sounded so far below that she quavered: “Aren’t you going to wait for me, Hugh?”

He stopped short, and for a moment watched her silently; then, smitten by the pathos of her progress—a little child, she seemed, against the mountain toppling so close behind her—he came swinging up to her and gave her his hand.

“You need me, anyway, don’t you?” he asked with a tender sort of roughness.

She couldn’t answer because she didn’t want him to know that he had made her cry. She kept her face turned from him and hurried along at his side.

“Why do you go so fearfully fast?” she was forced at last to protest.

“Because I want to get down from this accursed mountain. I want to get down into the woods again where I was happy.”

“Hugh”—she pulled at his arm—“you are only a child after all.”

“Perhaps.”

“Well—” She stopped. “Go home alone, then. I’ll be no worse off than when you found me the first time. Pete will come out and hunt for me. He has a far sweeter temper than you, Hugh, and doesn’t think only of himself.”

He swung away at that, resting his hand against a big rock to clear a hole; then, seeing her about to step down into it, he pivoted back, caught her up bodily in his arms, and, laughing, ran with her down the hill, bounding over the rocks, leaping over the crevices, while she clung to him in fright.

“You silly child!” he cried. “This is the way I’ll take you home. Now I’ve got you, and I’ll punish you well, too.” She clung to him and begged him to stop. She was frightened by their rash, plunging progress, by his speech. She struggled. “Let me down. I won’t be carried like this against my will. Hugh, let me down!”

“All right!” He fairly flung her from him on a grassy spot. He was about to leave her when a rushing rattle sounded above them. The boulder he had twice used to turn his own weight upon was charging down the hillside! Just in time he caught Sylvie, threw her to one side and fell prone, helpless, in the path of the slide. He cried out, flinging up his arm, and, as though his cry had been of magic, the boulder faltered and stopped. A root half buried just above his body had made a hollow and a ledge; it had rocked the rolling fragment back up on its haunches, so to speak, and balanced it to a stop.

“Hugh! Hugh!” sobbed Sylvie. “What was it? Are you hurt?”

She crept up to him.

“No,” Hugh told her, breathing heavily. “It was a rolling rock.”

“How did you stop it? You must be hurt, crushed, bruised.”

“My arm’s wrenched—not badly.” He had in fact wrenched it slightly.

“Your poor arm! You were so quick, so strong. You didn’t think of your own life. And I’ve been so cruel. Hugh, Hugh, kiss me.”

Hugh took his reward, none the less sweet to his strange nature, in that it was only potentially earned. And joy, like a warm flood, crept up again to his heart. He sat on the hillside and held his small love close. One of his arms moved stiffly, and he groaned a little. She rubbed it for him.

“You’d better come home and let Bella and me fix it. It may be badly hurt. You’re sure it isn’t broken?” she asked.

“Quite sure.”

“Lean on me! I’ll help you down. You can tell me where to step.”

“Nonsense,” he laughed, his very blood singing warm with relief. “A strained arm won’t hurt my walking apparatus. We had a lover’s quarrel, didn’t we? And the boulder was peacemaker. Bless the boulder!”

“Don’t joke, dear. You saved my life at the risk of your own. Are you always doing insane, generous, dangerous things? Think if you had been—” She shivered.

“Do you suppose my life is worth anything to me without yours, Sylvie?” He bent his head and kissed her again, but he had learned his lesson, and there was restraint and timidity in that kiss.

“The sun’s come out,” cried Sylvie.

“Yes, it’s splendidly bright. There’s a clean slit in the sky; there at the western edge the dark gray cap is being lifted inch by inch, the way a boy lifts his cap to see the butterfly he’s caught. All’s gold behind it, Sylvie, burning gold. The rocks are like bright copper. And the pines, they’re incandescent, phosphorescent green—”

“If I could only see it!”

Down near the pines a tall, still figure stood watching them. It was Pete, and his smile, usually so frank and sweet, had now a sardonic twist. As they came down out of their sun into his shadow, he spoke with a drag to his syllables.

“Hullo,” he said. “That was a narrow escape you had, you two!”

The voice might have been a pistol-shot for the start it gave to Hugh.

“Why, it’s Pete. We must be late, Pete,” Sylvie called joyously. “Did you see how Hugh saved my life? He threw himself down before the rock and stopped it. He’s hurt his poor arm. The great stone was right on top of us, and he threw me out of the way and set his own strength against it. I couldn’t see the rock, Pete, but it felt like a mountain.”

“It was big enough to smash you both,” said Pete.

He looked at Hugh, whose eyes glared in a strained, shamed face. The older man’s fingers worked nervously; he opened his lips and closed them again. It was easy to understand the travail of his mind, unwilling to forego the imaginary bit of heroism, and yet abashed by the boy’s awareness of the lie.

Pete gave one short laugh; then, springing suddenly across a fallen tree that separated them, he caught Sylvie up into his arms.

“You can’t carry her with a wrenched arm,” he said, half gayly, half tauntingly, “and at the best rate she can go, it will be night before we get her home. I’m strong. I’ll carry her myself.”

Sylvie laughed protesting that she was being treated like a doll, and resigned herself to Pete’s swift, smooth stride. It was as though she were skimming through space, so quietly did his moccasined feet press the pine-needled earth, so exquisitely did his young strength save her from any jar. He whistled softly through his teeth as he ran in long, swift strides. And as he did not speak to her, she lay silent, yet strangely peaceful and happy. Hugh was left far behind. The forest fragrance moved cool and resinous against her face.

“I feel as if we could go on and on forever,” she said with a sigh, “forever and ever and ever.”

“We will,” he answered through his teeth, hardly pausing in his whistling for the odd reply. “We will.”

But for all that, he set her gently and suddenly down, and she knew that she stood again at the cabin door.

“Pete, where are you?” she asked.

But he had disappeared, still in utter silence, like a genie whose task is done.