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A Night On The Divide
by
“I have done scarcely anything,” he said, glancing away towards the fire, “and–your father has thanked me.”
“You have saved my life!”
“No! no!” he said quickly. “Not that! You were in no danger, except from my rifle, had I missed.”
“I see,” she said eagerly, with a little posthumous thrill at having been after all a kind of heroine, “and it was a wonderful shot, for you were so careful not to touch me.”
“Please don’t say any more,” he said, with a slight movement of half awkwardness, half impatience. “It was a rough job, but it’s over now.”
He stopped and chafed his red hands abstractedly together. She could see that he had evidently just washed them–and the glaring ring was more in evidence than ever. But the thought gave her an inspiration.
“You’ll at least let me shake hands with you!” she said, extending both her own with childish frankness.
“Hold on, Miss Forester,” he said, with sudden desperation. “It ain’t the square thing! Look here! I can’t play this thing on you!–I can’t let you play it on me any longer! You weren’t in any danger,–you NEVER were! That bear was only a half-wild thing I helped to ra’r myself! It’s taken sugar from my hand night after night at the door of this cabin as it might have taken it from yours here if it was alive now. It slept night after night in the brush, not fifty yards away. The morning’s never come yet–till now,” he said hastily, to cover an odd break in his voice, “when it didn’t brush along the whole side of this cabin to kinder wake me up and say ‘So long,’ afore it browsed away into the canyon. Thar ain’t a man along the whole Divide who didn’t know it; thar ain’t a man along the whole Divide that would have drawn a bead or pulled a trigger on it till now. It never had an enemy but the bees; it never even knew why horses and cattle were frightened of it. It wasn’t much of a pet, you’d say, Miss Forester; it wasn’t much to meet a lady’s eye; but we of the woods must take our friends where we find ’em and of our own kind. It ain’t no fault of yours, Miss, that you didn’t know it; it ain’t no fault of yours what happened; but when it comes to your THANKING me for it, why–it’s–it’s rather rough, you see–and gets me.” He stopped short as desperately and as abruptly as he had begun, and stared blankly at the fire.
A wave of pity and shame swept over the young girl and left its high tide on her cheek. But even then it was closely followed by the feminine instinct of defence and defiance. The REAL hero–the GENTLEMAN–she reasoned bitterly, would have spared her all this knowledge.
“But why,” she said, with knitted brows, “why, if you knew it was so precious and so harmless–why did you fire upon it?”
“Because,” he said almost fiercely, turning upon her, “because you SCREAMED, and THEN I KNEW IT HAD FRIGHTENED YOU!” He stopped instantly as she momentarily recoiled from him, but the very brusqueness of his action had dislodged a tear from his dark eyes that fell warm on the back of her hand, and seemed to blot out the indignity. “Listen, Miss,” he went on hurriedly, as if to cover up his momentary unmanliness. “I knew the bear was missing to-night, and when I heard the horses scurrying about I reckoned what was up. I knew no harm could come to you, for the horses were unharnessed and away from the wagon. I pelted down that trail ahead of them all like grim death, calkilatin’ to get there before the bear; they wouldn’t have understood me; I was too high up to call to the creature when he did come out, and I kinder hoped you wouldn’t see him. Even when he turned towards the wagon, I knew it wasn’t YOU he was after, but suthin’ else, and I kinder hoped, Miss, that you, being different and quicker-minded than the rest, would see it too. All the while them folks were yellin’ behind me to fire–as if I didn’t know my work. I was half-way down–and then you screamed! And then I forgot everything,–everything but standing clear of hitting you,–and I fired. I was that savage that I wanted to believe that he’d gone mad, and would have touched you, till I got down there and found the honey-pot lying alongside of him. But there,–it’s all over now! I wouldn’t have let on a word to you only I couldn’t bear to take YOUR THANKS for it, and I couldn’t bear to have you thinking me a brute for dodgin’ them.” He stopped, walked to the fire, leaned against the chimney under the shallow pretext of kicking the dull embers into a blaze, which, however, had only the effect of revealing his two glistening eyes as he turned back again and came towards her. “Well,” he said, with an ineffectual laugh, “it’s all over now, it’s all in the day’s work, I reckon,–and now, Miss, if you’re ready, and will just fix yourself your own way so as to ride easy, I’ll carry you down.” And slightly bending his strong figure, he dropped on one knee beside her with extended arms.