Under the Tonto Rim

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Zane Grey (1926)
Country of origin: USA
Available texts by the same author here

Chapter 8

   The news that Lucy's sister was coming spread all over the immediate country. Lucy was hugely amused at the number of gallants who visited Denmeade's on Sunday and found transparent excuses to interview her. There was no use to try to avoid them on the issue that portended.
   Lucy exhibited Clara's picture with conscious pride, and did not deem it necessary to explain that the likeness dated back several years. She was both delighted and concerned over the sensation it created. Of all the boys she had met there, Joe Denmeade appeared to be the quietest and nicest, the least given to dances, white mule, and girls. Lucy experienced one acute qualm of conscience before she approached Joe to ask him to meet her sister at Cedar Ridge. That qualm was born of a fear that Joe might meet his downfall in Clara. She silenced it with the resigned conviction that circumstances were beyond her. What a feeble little woman she was!
   Sunday afternoon on the Denmeade porch found the usual visiting crowd largely augmented. Sam Johnson paid his first call for weeks, this time without Sadie. He seemed less debonair and obtrusive than had been his wont. Least of all did he question Lucy about the pretty sister, but he drank in all that was said. Lucy watched Sam closely as he looked at Clara's picture; and soberly she judged by his expression that, unless, as she devoutly hoped, Clara had changed, there would be some love-lorn gallants haunting the Denmeade homestead.
   "When's she comin'?" queried Sam.
   "I'll hear in to-morrow's mail. Wednesday or Saturday," replied Lucy.
   "Reckon you're goin' in to meet her?"
   "Indeed I am. Joe will drive me to town from the school-house. Mr. Jenks has offered his buckboard."
   "Joe! So he's the lucky cub?" snorted Sam. "Reckon you'd need a man."
   Lucy's choice was news to all the listeners, including Joe himself, who, as usual, sat quietly in the background. She had shot him a quick glance, as if to convey they had an understanding. Whereupon Joe exhibited surprising qualifications for the trust she had imposed upon him.
   "Sam, you don't get the hunch," he drawled. "Miss Lucy's sister isn't a well girl. She's goin' to need rest!"
   The crowd was quick to grasp Joe's import, and they laughed their glee and joined in an unmerciful bantering of the great backwoods flirt.
   After supper, as Lucy sat on the steps of her tent, Joe approached her.
   "Now, teacher, how'd you come to pick on me?" he asked plaintively.
   "Pick on you! Joe, you don't mean--"
   "Reckon I mean pick me out, as the lucky boy," he interrupted. "I'm just curious about it."
   Lucy liked his face. It was so young and clean and brown, square-jawed, fine-lipped, with eyes of grey fire!
   "Joe, I chose you because I think you will give my sister a better impression than any other boy here," replied Lucy with deliberation.
   "Aw, teacher!" he protested, as shyly as might have a girl. "Are you jokin' me? An' what you mean by this heah impression?"
   "Joe, I ask you to keep what I tell you to yourself. Will you?"
   "Why, shore!"
   "My sister is not well and she's not happy. It would give her a bad impression to meet first thing a fellow like Sam or Gerd or Hal, who would get mushy on sight. Edd now would be too cold and strange. I ask you because I know you'll be just the same to Clara as you are to me. Won't you?"
   "An' how's that, teacher?" he queried, with his frank smile.
   "Why, Joe, you're just yourself!" answered Lucy, somewhat taken at a disadvantage.
   "Never thought aboot bein' just like myself. But I'll try. I reckon you're not savvyin' what a big job you're givin' me. I mean pickin' me out to take you to town. If your sister comes on Saturday's stage every boy under the Rim will be there in Cedar Ridge. Reminds me of what I heard teacher Jenks say once. Some men are born great an' some have greatness thrust on them. Shore I'm goin' to be roped in that last outfit."
   "I like you, Joe, and I want you to live up to what I think of you."
   "Miss Lucy, are you shore aboot me bein' worth it?" he asked solemnly.
   "Yes, I am...To-morrow you stay till the mail comes for Mr. Jenks. He'll have mine. Then we'll know whether Clara is coming Wednesday or Saturday. I'd like you to borrow Edd's horse Baldy for Clara to ride up from the school-house. Any horse will do for me. We'll have to leave early."
   "It'd be better. I can drive in from the school-house in three hours. The stage arrives anywheres from eleven to four. I'm givin' you a hunch. We want to be there when it comes."
   The following day when Joe rode home from school he brought Lucy's mail, among which was the important letter from Clara--only a note, a few lines hastily scrawled, full of a wild gratitude and relief, with the news that she would arrive at Cedar Ridge on Saturday.
   "It's settled, then, she's corning," mused Lucy dreamily. "I don't believe I was absolutely sure. Clara was never reliable. But now she'll come. There seems some kind of fate in this. I wonder will she like my wild, lonesome country."
   Lucy had imagined the ensuing days might drag; she had reckoned falsely, for they were singularly full of interest and work and thought. Edd had taken to coming home early in the afternoons, serious and moody, yet intent on making up for his indifference toward Lucy's activities with his family. He veered to the opposite extreme. He would spend hours listening to Lucy with the children. He was not above learning to cut animals and birds and figures out of paper, and his clumsy attempts roused delight. Lucy had, in a way vastly puzzling to the Denmeades, succeeded in winning Mertie to a great interest in manual training, which she now shared with Mary. Edd wanted to know the why and wherefore of everything. He lent Dick a hand in the carpentry work, of which Lucy invented no end. And he showed a strange absorption at odd moments in the children's fairy-story books. He was a child himself.
   Naturally, during the late afternoon and early evening hours of the long summer days he came much in contact with Lucy. She invited his co-operation in even the slightest tasks. She was always asking his help, always inventing some reason to include him in her little circle of work and play. She found time to ask him about his bee hunting, which was the one subject that he would talk of indefinitely. Likewise she excited and stimulated an interest in reading. As he read very slowly and laboriously, he liked best to listen to her, and profited most by that, but Lucy always saw he was left to finish the passage himself.
   At night when all was dark and still, when she lay wide-eyed and thoughtful under the shadowy canvas, she would be confronted by an appalling realisation. Her sympathy, her friendliness, her smiles and charms, of which she had been deliberately prodigal, her love for the children and her good influence on Mertie--all these had begun to win back Edd Denmeade from the sordid path that had threatened to lead to his ruin. He did not know how much of this was owing to personal contact with her, but she knew. Edd was unconsciously drawn toward a girl, in a way he had never before experienced. Lucy felt he had no thought of sentiment, of desire, of the old obsession that he "must find himself a woman." Edd had been stung to his soul by his realisation of ignorance. She had pitied him. She had begun to like him. Something of pride, something elevating, attended her changing attitude toward him. What would it all lead to? But there could be no turning back. Strangest of all was for her to feel the dawn of real happiness in this service.
   Saturday morning arrived earlier for Lucy than any other she remembered. It came in the dark hour before dawn, when Joe called her to get up and make ready for the great ride to Cedar Ridge--to meet Clara Lucy dressed by lamp-light and had her breakfast in the dim, pale obscurity of daybreak. Mrs. Denmeade and Edd were the only others of the household who had arisen. Even the dogs and the chickens were asleep.
   It was daylight when Lucy arrived at the corrals, where the boys had the horses saddled.
   "I'd like to ride Baldy as far as we go horseback," said Lucy.
   "Shore," replied Edd. "An' I reckon you'd better ride him back. For he knows you an' he might not like your sister. Horses have likes an' dislikes, same as people."
   "Oh, I want Clara to have the pleasure of riding him."
   "Shore she'll take a shine to him, an' then you'll be out of luck," drawled Edd as he held the corral gate open.
   "Indeed, I hope she takes a shine to Baldy and everything here," declared Lucy earnestly.
   "Me an' Joe, too?" he grinned.
   "Yes, both of you."
   "Wal, I reckon it'll be Joe...Good-bye. We'll be lookin' for you all about sundown."
   Joe rode into the trail, leading an extra horse, which would be needed upon the return; and he set off at a gait calculated to make time. Lucy followed, not forgetting to wave a gloved hand back at Edd; then she gave herself up to the compelling sensations of the hour and thoughts of the day.
   There were scattered clouds in the sky, pale grey, pearly white where the light of dawn touched their eastern edges, and pink near the great bright flare above the Rim. The forest seemed asleep. The looming wall wandered away into the soft misty distance.
   Joe did not take the school-house trail, but the wilder and less travelled one toward Cedar Ridge. The woodland was dark, grey, cool. Birds and squirrels had awakened noisily to the business of the day. Deer and wild turkeys ran across the trail ahead of the horses. The freshness and fragrance of the forest struck upon Lucy as something new and sweet. Yet the wildness of it seemed an old familiar delight. Green and brown and grey enveloped her. There were parts of the trail where she had to ride her best, for Joe was making fast time, and others where she could look about her, and breathe freely, and try to realise that she had grown to love this wilderness solitude. Her grandfather had been a pioneer, and her mother had often spoken of how she would have preferred life in the country. Lucy imagined she had inherited instincts only of late cropping out. How would her sister react to this lonely land of trees and rocks? Lucy hoped against hope. There was a healing strength in this country. If only Clara had developed mind and soul enough to appreciate it!
   Lucy well remembered the dark ravine, murmurous with its swift stream, and the grand giant silver spruces, and the mossy rocks twice as high as her head, and the gnarled roots under banks suggestive of homes for wild cats, and the amber eddying pools, deep like wells, and the rushing rapids.
   The climb out of this deep endlessly sloped canyon brought sight of sunrise, a rose and gold burst of glory over the black-fringed Rim. Then a brisk trot through a lighter and drier forest ended in the clearing of the Johnsons.
   Early as was the hour, the Johnsons were up, as was evidenced by curling blue smoke, ringing stroke of axe, and the clatter of hoofs. Mr. Jenks, too, was stirring, and soon espying Lucy, he hastened to come out to the fence.
   "Mawnin', folks," he drawled, imitating the prevailing mode of speech. "Miss Lucy, I shore forgot this was your great day. Reckon I'm out of luck, for I'll not be here when you drive back. I'm going to visit Spralls', to see why their children are absent so much from school."
   "Mr. Jenks, will you please take note of these Spralls, so you can tell me about them?" asked Lucy eagerly. "I feel that I must go there, in spite of all I hear."
   "Yes, I'll get a fresh line on them," he replied. "And if that isn't enough to keep you away I'll find other means."
   "Oh, you are conspiring against me," cried Lucy reproachfully.
   "Yes, indeed. But listen, I've news for you," he went on as Joe led the unsaddled horses inside the fence. "Your sister's coming has given me a wonderful idea. When she gets well, which of course she will do here very quickly, why not let her take my school? Affairs at my home are such that I must return there, at least for a time, and this would provide me with a most welcome opportunity."
   "I don't know," replied Lucy doubtfully. "Clara had a good education. But whether or not she could or would undertake such a work, I can't say. Still, it's not a bad idea. I'll think it over, and wait awhile before I speak to her."
   Mr. Jenks made light of Lucy's doubts, and argued so insistently that she began to wonder if there were not other reasons why he wanted a vacation. She had an intuitive feeling that he wanted to give up teaching, at least there, for good. They conversed a few moments longer, until Joe drove up in the buckboard. Then Mr. Jenks helped Lucy to mount the high seat beside Joe, and bade them a merry good-bye.
   Whatever the trail had been, the road was jarringly new to Lucy. There developed ample reason for Joe's advice to "hang on to the pommel," by which he must have meant anything to hold on to, including himself. The big team of horses went like the wind, bowling over rocks, ruts, and roots as if they were not there at all. Lucy was hard put to it to remain in her seat; in fact, she succeeded only part of the time.
   "Say--Joe," cried Lucy, after a particularly sharp turn, which the buckboard rounded on two wheels, and Lucy frantically clung to Joe, "are you--a regular--driver?"
   "Me? Say, I'm reckoned the best driver in this heah country," he declared.
   "Heaven preserve me--from the worst," murmured Lucy.
   "You picked me out, Miss Lucy, an' I shore mean to beat that outfit of boys in to Cedar Ridge," said Joe. "The whole darned caboodle of them will be there. Gerd an' Hal slept heah all night with Sam. An' they're already gone. Suppose the stage beats us to Cedar Ridge!...Say, Sam is up to anythin'."
   "Drive as fast as you want, only don't upset me--or something awful!" returned Lucy desperately.
   On the long descent of the cedared ridge Joe held the big team to a trot. Lucy regained her breath and her composure. When at last they turned out of the brush into the main road of the little town Lucy was both thrilled and relieved.
   "Wal, heah we are, an' we beat the stage," drawled Joe.
   "You must be a wonderful driver, Joe, since we actually got here," averred Lucy. "But there'll be no need to drive that way going back--will there?"
   "Reckon we want Clara to know she's had a ride, don't we?" he queried coolly.
   "Joe!"
   "What'd you pick me out for? Reckon I've got to be different from that outfit. Look at the hosses. Whole string of them!"
   "You mean the boys will waylay us?" queried Lucy, anxiously.
   "Like as not they'd bust this heah buckboard if I left it long enough. Shore they'll expect to meet Clara an' have a chance to show off. But we'll fool them. When the stage comes you grab her. Go in to Mrs. Lynn's an' get some grub to pack with us. Don't eat in there. Sam'll be layin' for that. Hurry out an' we'll leave pronto, before the gang get their breath."
   "But, Joe, why all this--this fear of the boys, and the rush?" queried Lucy.
   "Reckon you know the boys. They'll be up to tricks. An' on my side, since you picked me, I want to have Clara first."
   "Oh, I--see!" ejaculated Lucy. "Very well, Joe. I trust you, and we'll do your way."
   They reached the post office, where Joe reined in the team. Lucy espied a porch full of long-legged, big-sombreroed, clean-shaven young men, whose faces flashed in the sun.
   "Miss Lucy, I'll feed an' water the hosses," said Joe. "Reckon you need a little stretch after that nice easy ride."
   "It'll be welcome," declared Lucy, getting down. "You keep an eye open for the stage while I run in to see Mrs. Lynn."
   By going into the hotel entrance Lucy avoided the boys slowly gravitating toward her. Mrs. Lynn greeted her most cordially, and was equally curious and informative. Lucy took advantage of the moment, while she was chatting, to peep out of the window. The cavaliers of Cedar Ridge lounged on the porch, and stalked to and fro. One group in particular roused Lucy's amused suspicions. Sam Johnson was conferring most earnestly with several of his cronies, two of whom were Hal Miller and Gerd Claypool. They were not particularly amiable, to judge from their faces. A gesture of Sam's attracted Lucy's gaze toward two picturesque riders, lean and dark and striking. She recognised the handsome face and figure of one of them. Bud Sprall! The other was a taller, lither man, with flashing red face and flaming hair of gold. Young, bold, sinister, dissipated as he appeared, the virility and physical beauty of him charmed Lucy's eye.
   "Who is that man--there, with Bud Sprall?" queried Lucy, trying to appear casual.
   Mrs. Lynn peeped out. "I was askin' my husband that very question. He didn't know the fellow's name. Pard of Bud's, he said. Two of a kind! Some of the boys told him Bud was thick with cowboys of the Rim outfit. This one is new in Cedar Ridge."
   Presently as Joe appeared driving the buckboard to a shady place under a cottonwood, some rode from the front of the post office. Through the window, which was open, Lucy caught amusing and significant remarks.
   "Howdy, boys!" drawled Joe, in answer to a unit of greetings.
   "What you-all doin' here with them work clothes on?" queried one.
   "Joe, yore shore kinda young to tackle this hyar city proposition," said another.
   "Wal, Joe, I reckon you can't drive that big team with your left hand," asserted a third banteringly.
   "Hey, Joe, I see you're a Denmeade all over," said another. "But take a hunch from Edd's cold tricks."
   These remarks and others in similar vein attested the dominant idea in the minds of these young countrymen--that a new girl was soon to appear upon the scene, and that only one attitude was possible. She was to be seen, fought over humorously and otherwise, and to be won. It afforded Lucy much amusement, yet it was also thought-arresting.
   She went out and climbed to a seat beside Joe, careful to appear very vivacious and smiling. The effect was to silence the bantering boys and to cause, on the part of Sam and several others, a gradual edging toward the buckboard. Lucy appeared not to notice the attention she was receiving, and she quite bewildered Joe with a flood of rather irrelevant talk. Then one of the boys shouted that the stage was coming.
   That checked all fun-loving impulses in Lucy. Her heart gave a lift and began to pound against her side. Glimpses she caught of the dusty well-remembered stage, while many thoughts flashed through her mind. Would Clara come, after all? How much had she changed? Would she be as sweet and repentant and appealing as her letters had implied? What a situation would arise if she did not like this wilderness country! Then a thrilling, palpitating joy that Clara had at last yearned for her!
   The stage wheeled round the corner of cottonwoods, and the old driver, with great gusto and awareness of his importance, hauled the sweaty horses to a halt in front of the post office.
   Lucy leaped down and ran. There were four or five passengers, and a great store of bags, boxes, and bundles, all of which she saw rather indistinctly. But as she reached the stage she cleared her eyes of tears and gazed up expectantly, with a numbness encroaching upon her tingling nerves. Clara might not have come.
   There was a hubbub of voices. Manifestly others of these passengers had friends or relatives waiting.
   "Hallo--Lucy!" cried a girl's excited, rather broken voice.
   Lucy almost screamed her reply. Behind a heavy old woman, laboriously descending the stage steps, Lucy espied a slim, tall, veiled girl clad in an ultra-fashionable gown and hat the like of which had not been seen at Cedar Ridge. Lucy knew this was her sister, but she did not recognise her. As the girl stepped down to the ground she threw back her veil, disclosing a pale face, with big haunting blue eyes that seemed to strain at Lucy with hunger and sadness. Indeed it was Clara--vastly changed!
   "Sister!" cried Lucy, with a sudden rush of tenderness. Clara met her embrace, mute and shaking. How strange and full that moment! Lucy was the first to think of the onlookers, and gently disengaging herself from clinging hands she burst out: "Oh, I didn't know you. I was afraid you'd not be in the stage...I'm so glad I'm half silly....Come, we'll go in the hotel a moment...Don't mind all this crowd."
   Thus Lucy, talking swiftly, with no idea of what she was saying, led Clara away; but she was acutely aware of the fierce clutch on her arm and the pearly whiteness of her sister's cheek. Lucy did not dare look at her yet. The sitting-room inside the hotel happened to be vacant. Clara did not seem to be able to do anything but cling mutely to Lucy.
   "You poor dear! Are you that glad to see me?" murmured Lucy, holding her close.
   "Glad--My God!" whispered Clara huskily. "You'll never--know how glad. For you've never--been without--friends, love, home, strength."
   "Oh, Clara, don't--don't talk so!" cried Lucy, in distress. "Don't break down here. Outside there are a lot of young backwoods boys, curious to see you. We can't avoid that. They are nice, clean, fine chaps, but crazy over girls...Don't cry. I'm so glad to see you I could cry myself. Brace up. We'll hurry away from here. There's a long ride in a buckboard and a short one on horseback. You'll love the horse you're to ride. His name is Baldy. You'll love the woods. I live in a tent, right in the pines."
   This meeting had proved to be unexpectedly poignant. Lucy had prepared herself for a few moments of stress, but nothing like this. Clara seemed utterly changed, a stranger, a beautiful, frail, haunted-eyed young woman. Lucy was deeply shocked at the havoc in that face. It told her story. But strange as Clara seemed, she yet radiated something Lucy had never felt in the old days, and it was love of a sister. That quite overpowered Lucy's heart. It had come late, but not too late.
   "Clara, I hope you're strong enough to go on to-day--to my home," said Lucy gently.
   "I'm not so weak as that," replied Clara, lifting her face from Lucy's shoulder. It was tear-stained and convulsive. "I was overcome. I--I never was sure--till I saw you."
   "Sure of what?" asked Lucy.
   "That you'd take me back."
   "You can be sure of me for ever. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to know you want to come...Let us sit here a few moments. As soon as you rest a little and compose yourself we'll start. I've ordered a lunch which we'll eat as we ride along."
   "Ought I not to tell you--about my trouble--my disgrace--before we go?" asked Clara, very low.
   "Why should you--now?" rejoined Lucy, in surprise.
   "It might--make a difference."
   "Oh no! You poor unhappy girl. Do you imagine anything could change me? Forget your troubles," returned Lucy tenderly.
   "I wanted to--at least when I met you after so long a separation. But those tall queer men outside. Such eyes they had! They must know about me."
   "Only that you're my sister and coming to stay with me," said Lucy hurriedly. "They've ridden into town to see you--meet you. Don't worry. They won't meet you. I have told only that you were ill."
   Clara seemed passionately grateful for Lucy's thoughtfulness. She had little to say, however, yet listened strainingly to Lucy.
   A little later, when they left the hotel, Clara had dropped the veil over her white face, and she clung closely to Lucy. Meanwhile Joe had driven up to the high porch, from which Lucy helped her sister into the buckboard.
   "Clara, this is Joe Denmeade," said Lucy, as she stepped in beside Clara.
   Joe quaintly doffed his huge sombrero and spoke rather bashfully. Lucy was pleased to see his fine brown, frank face smile in the sunlight.
   "Wal, reckon we're all heah," he said briskly. "The stage driver gave me five valises--four big an' one small. They were tagged Clara Watson. I packed them in. An' if that's all the baggage we can be movin' along."
   "That is all, thank you," returned Clara.
   "Miss Lucy, did you fetch the lunch?" asked Joe, with his eye on the boys, who had nonchalantly sauntered closer to the buckboard.
   "I have it, Joe. Drive away before--" whispered Lucy.
   Sam Johnson, the foremost of the group, stepped forward to put a foot on the wheel of the buckboard. His manner was supremely casual. No actor could have done it better.
   "Howdy, Joe! Good afternoon, Miss Lucy," he drawled blandly.
   Lucy replied pleasantly, and introduced him to Clara, and after they had exchanged greetings she added: "Sorry we've no time to chat. We must hurry home."
   Sam made rather obtrusive efforts to pierce Clara's veil. Then he addressed Joe: "My hoss went lame comin' in, an' I reckon I'll ride out with you."
   "Awful sorry, Sam," drawled Joe, "but I've got a load. Heah's Miss Clara's five valises, an' a pack of truck for ma."
   "I won't mind ridin' in the back seat with the girls," rejoined Sam, in the most accommodating voice.
   "Shore reckon you wouldn't," returned Joe dryly. "But this heah's Mr. Jenks's buckboard an' he asked me particular not to load heavy. So long, Sam."
   Joe whipped the reins smartly, and the team started so suddenly that Sam, who had been leaning from the porch with one foot on the wheel, was upset in a most ridiculous manner. The boys on the porch let out a howl of mirth. Lucy could not repress a smile.
   "Serves him right," said Joe. "Sam's shore got a nerve. All the time with Sadie in town!"
   "Joe! Did you see her?" asked Lucy quickly.
   "I shore did. She was across the road, peepin' out of Bell's door when Sam got that spill."
   Lucy, relieved as well as amused at the quick start, turned to find Clara removing the veil. Her face was lightened by a smile. Slight as it was, it thrilled Lucy.
   "Young men are--funny," she said, with a tinge of bitterness.
   "Indeed they are," vouchsafed Lucy heartily; "Well, we're free of that crowd. Joe, are they apt to ride after us?"
   "Like as not," drawled Joe. "But the road is narrow. They shore can't pass us, an' all they'll get will be our dust."
   "Suppose we eat lunch while we don't have to hold on," suggested Lucy. "Presently the road will be rough, and--to say the least, Joe drives."
   "Let him drive as fast as he can," replied Clara tensely. "Oh--the breeze feels so good! The air seems different."
   "Clara, you'll find everything different up here. But I'm not going to say a word till you ask me....Now, let's eat. We'll not get supper till dark or later...Biscuits with jam. Chicken--and pie. Joe, I overheard one of those boys speak of your driving with one hand. So, surely you can drive and eat at the same time?"
   "I reckon," rejoined Joe. "But see heah, Miss Lucy. Gerd Claypool said that, an' he shore didn't mean I'd be usin' my free hand to eat."
   "Joe, do you think me so dense? Don't those boys ever think sense about girls?"
   "Never that I reckoned. Edd used to lie worse than any of them. But he's over it, I guess, since you same, Miss Lucy!"
   Whereupon Clara's quick glance caught Lucy blushing, though she laughed merrily.
   "Joe Denmeade! That is a doubtful compliment...Come, you'd better begin to eat--this and this and this...Clara, I get ravenously hungry up here. It's the wonderful air. I hope it will affect you that way."
   Whereupon they fell to eating the ample lunch, during which time Lucy made merry. Nevertheless she took occasion now to observe Clara, unobtrusively, at opportune moments. Out in the clear bright sunlight Clara seemed indeed a pale frail flower. Always as a girl she had been pretty, but it would have been trivial to call her so now. Her face had strangely altered, and the only features remaining to stir her memory were the violet eyes and golden hair. They were the same in colour, though Clara's eyes, that had once been audacious, merry, almost bold in their bright beauty, were now shadowed deeply with pain. Clara had been an unconscionable flirt; to-day no trace of pert provocativeness was manifest. Indeed, suffering, shock, whatever had been the calamity which was recorded there, had removed the callow coarseness of thoughtless adolescence, and had left a haunting, tragic charm. Lucy thought the transformation almost incredible. It resembled that birth of soul she had divined in Clara's letters. What had happened to her? Lucy shrank from the truth. Yet her heart swelled with wonder and ache for this sister whom she had left a wild girl and had found a woman.
   By the time the lunch had vanished Joe was driving up the narrow zigzag road leading to the height of the cedared ridge. Here he ceased to look back down the road, as if no longer expecting the boys to catch up with him. But he lived up to his reputation as a driver.
   "Reckon you froze them off," he said at length. "Sam, anyhow. He'll shore never get over bein' dumped on the porch."
   Lucy, talking at random, discovered that Clara was intensely interested in her welfare work in this backwoods community. Thus encouraged, Lucy began at the beginning and told the story of her progress in every detail possible, considering that Joe was there to hear every word. In fact, she talked the hours away and was amazed when Joe drove into the Johnson clearing.
   "What a hideous place!" murmured Clara as she gazed around. "You don't live here?"
   "No, indeed!" replied Lucy. "This is where Sam Johnson lives. We have a few miles to go on horseback. Clara, have you anything to ride in?"
   "Yes; I have an old riding suit that I hate," said her sister.
   "It doesn't matter how you feel about it," laughed Lucy. "Where's it packed? We can go into Mr. Jenks's tent while Joe tends to the horses."
   Lucy conducted Clara to the teacher's lodgings, and then made some pretext to go outside. She wanted to think. She had not been natural. Almost fearing to look at Clara, yearning to share her burdens, hiding curiosity and sorrow in an uninterrupted flow of talk, Lucy had sought to spare her sister. What a situation! Clara the incorrigible, the merciless, the imperious, crawling on her knees! Lucy divined it was love Clara needed beyond all else. She had been horribly cheated. She had cheated herself. She had flouted sister, mother, home. Lucy began to grasp here the marvellous fact that what she had prayed for had come. Years before she had tried in girlish unformed strength to influence this wayward sister. When she gave up city life to come to the wilderness it had been with the settled high resolve to do for others what she had been forced to do for herself. The failure of her home life had been its sorrow, from which had sprung this passion to teach. She had prayed, worked, hoped, despaired, struggled. And lo! as if by some omniscient magic, Clara had been given back to her. Lucy choked over the poignancy of her emotion. She was humble. She marvelled. She would never again be shaken in her faith in her ideals. How terrible to contemplate now her moments of weakness when she might have given up!
   Her absorption in thought and emotion was broken by Clara emerging from the tent.
   "Lucy, here's all that's left of me," she said whimsically.
   It was not possible then for Lucy to say what she thought. Clara's remark about an old riding suit had been misleading. It was not new, but it was striking. Clara's slenderness and fragility were not manifest in this outdoor garb. If she was bewitching to Lucy, what would she be to these simple girl-worshipping backwoodsmen?
   When Joe came up with the horses, and saw Clara, there was no need for Lucy to imagine she exaggerated. The look in his eyes betrayed him. But if he had been struck as by lightning it was only for a moment. "Reckon I can pack one of the valises on my saddle, an' carry another," he said practically. "To-morrow I'll fetch a burro to pack home the rest. I'll put them in Mr. Jenks's tent."
   "This is Baldy. Oh, he's a dear horse!" said Lucy. "Get up on him, Clara....Have you ridden lately?"
   "Not so--very," replied Clara, with voice and face sharply altering. Then she mounted with a grace and ease which brought keenly home to Lucy the fact that Clara had eloped with a cowboy and had gone to live on a ranch south of Mendino. Clara had always been an incomparable rider.
   Soon they were travelling down the road, Joe in the lead, Lucy and Clara side by side. For Lucy there was an unreality about the situation, a something almost like a remembered dream. Clara's reticence seemed rather to augment this feeling. Gradually there welled into Lucy's mind a happy assurance, tinged perhaps with sadness.
   Once Clara remarked that it was new to her to ride in the shade. She began to show interest in the trees, and when they turned off on the trail into the forest she exclaimed, "Oh, how beautiful!"
   Lucy was quick to observe that Clara managed Baldy perfectly, but she was not steady in the saddle. She showed unmistakable weakness. They rode on, silent, on and on, and then down into the deep green forest, so solemn and stately, murmurous with the hum of the stream. Clara subtly changed.
   "If anything could be good for me, it would be this wild forest," she said.
   "Don't say 'if,' dear. It will be," responded Lucy.
   "It makes me feel like going out of the cruel hateful light--that I hate to face--down into cool sweet shadow. Where I can feel--and not be seen!"
   At the fording of the rushing brook Clara halted her horse as if compelled to speak. "Lucy, to be with you here will be like heaven," she said, low and huskily. "I didn't think anything could make me really want to live. But here!...I'll never leave these beautiful, comforting woods. I could become a wild creature."
   "I--I think I understand," replied Lucy falteringly. From the last crossing of the rocky brook Clara appeared perceptibly to tire. Lucy rode behind her. Half way up the long benched slope Clara said, with a wan smile:
   "I don't know--I'm pretty weak."
   Lucy called a halt then, and Joe manifested a silent solicitude. He helped Clara dismount and led her off the trail to a little glade carpeted with pine needles. Lucy sat down and made Clara lay her head in her lap. There did not seem to be anything to say. Clara lay with closed eyes, her white face and golden hair gleaming in the subdued forest light. Her forehead was wet. She held very tightly to Lucy's hand. Lucy was not unaware of the strange, rapt gaze Joe cast upon the slender form lying so prone. Several times he went back to the horses, and returned restlessly. On the last of these occasions, as he reached Lucy's side Clara opened her eyes to see him. It was just an accident of meeting glances, yet to Lucy, in her tense mood, it seemed an unconscious searching, wondering.
   "You think me--a poor weak creature--don't you?" asked Clara, smiling.
   "No. I'm shore sorry you're sick," he replied simply, and turned away.
   Presently they all mounted again and resumed the journey up the slope. When they reached the level forest and above, Clara had to have a longer rest.
   "What's that awful wall of rock?" she asked, indicating the towering Rim.
   "Reckon that's the fence in our back yard," replied Joe.
   "I couldn't very well jump that, could I?" murmured Clara.
   Meanwhile the sun sank behind scattered creamy clouds that soon turned to rose and gold, and beams of light stretched along the wandering wall. Lucy thrilled to see how responsive Clara was to the wildness and beauty of the scene. Yet all she said was, "Let me live here."
   "It'll be dark soon, and we've still far to go," returned Lucy, with concern.
   "Oh, I can make it," replied Clara, rising. "I meant I'd just like to lie here--for ever."
   They resumed the ride. Twilight fell and then the forest duskiness enveloped them. The last stretch out of the woods and across the Denmeade clearing, up the lane, was ridden in the dark. Lucy leaped off and caught Clara as she reeled out of the saddle, and half carried her into the tent to the bed. The hounds were barking and baying; the children's voices rang out; heavy boots thumped on the cabin porch.
   Lucy hastened to light her lamp. Joe set the valises inside the tent.
   "Is she all right?" he asked, almost in a whisper.
   "I'm--here," panted Clara, answering for herself, and the purport of her words was significant.
   "She's worn out," said Lucy. "Joe, you've been very good. I'm glad I 'picked you,' as you called it."
   "What'll I tell ma?" he asked.
   "Just say Clara can't come in to supper. I'll come and fetch her something."
   Joe tramped away in the darkness, his spurs jingling. Lucy closed the door, brightened the lamp, threw off gloves, hat, coat, and bustled round purposely finding things to do, so that the inevitable disclosure from Clara could be postponed. Lucy did not want to know any more.
   "Come here--sit by me," said Clara weakly.
   Lucy complied, and felt a constriction in her throat. Clara clung to her. In the lamplight the dark eyes looked unnaturally big in the white face.
   "I'm here," whispered Clara.
   "Yes, thank Heaven, you are," asserted Lucy softly.
   "I must tell you--about--"
   "Clara, you needn't tell me any more. But if you must, make it short."
   "Thank you...Lucy, you never saw Jim Middleton but once. You didn't know him. But what you heard was true. He's no good--nothing but a wild rodeo cowboy--a handsome devil...I ran away with him believing in him--thinking I loved him. I was crazy. I might have--surely would have loved him--if he had been what I thought he was...We went to a ranch, an awful hole, in the desert out of Mendino. The people were low trash. He told them we were married. He swore to me we would be married next day. I refused to stay and started off. He caught me, threatened me, frightened me. I was only a kid...Next day we went to Mendino. There was no preacher nearer than Sanchez. We went there, and found he was out of town. Jim dragged me back to the ranch. There I learned a sheriff was looking for him. We had a terrible quarrel...He was rough. He was not at all--what I thought. He drank--gambled...Of course he meant to marry me. He wanted to do so in Felix. But I was afraid. We hurried away from there. But afters...he didn't care--and I found I didn't love him...To cut it short I ran away from him. I--couldn't go home. So I went to work at Kingston. I tried several jobs. They were all so hard--the last one too much for me. I went downhill...Then--"
   "Clara," interrupted Lucy, distraught by the husky voice, the torture of that face, the passion to confess what must have been almost impossible, "never mind any more. That's enough...You poor girl! Indeed you were crazy! But, dear, I don't hold you guilty of anything but a terrible mistake. You thought you loved this Jim Middleton. You meant well. If he had been half a man you would have turned out all right. God knows, no one can judge you harshly for your error. It certainly does not matter to me, unless to make me love you more."
   "But--sister--I must tell you," whispered Clara faintly.
   "You've told enough. Forget that story. You're here with me. You're going to stay. You'll get well. In time this trouble will be as if it had never been!"
   "But Lucy--my heart is broken--my life ruined," whispered Clara. "I begged to come to you--only for fear of worse."
   "It's bad now, I know," replied Lucy stubbornly. "But it's not as bad as it looks. I've learned that about life. I can take care of you, get back your health and spirit, let you share my work. Sister, there's no worse, whatever you meant by that. This wilderness, these backwoods people, will change your whole outlook on life. I know, Clara. They have changed me."
   Mutely, with quivering lips and streaming eyes, Clara drew Lucy down to a close embrace.