CHAPTER IX.
FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
My steps are turned away;
Yet my eyes linger still
On their beloved hill,
In one long, last survey;
Gazing, through tears that multiply the view,
Their passionate adieu.—MRS. BARRETT.
"THERE is a train starts homeward to-morrow, Elizabeth. We can not have a better opportunity for going East under good protection. It will be no easier for you to part from your friends a month or a year from now—so I think best to warn you of my decision. You'll be happy with your father, will you not? I am sure you will. This is no place for you. I can surround you with circumstances which will make you as glad and gay as the birds; and you will be my darling, my life, my all, my daughter!"
The deep feeling with which Dr. Carollyn spoke made his voice tremble and stirred the heart of the young girl strangely. She raised her wistful eyes to his; she pressed his hand to assure him of her gratitude and affection—but what little light and color still remained in her pale face faded out, leaving it as white and fixed as death. First she glanced into the little log-cabin where Mrs. Wright was too busy over the wash-tub to hear what had been said, then out in the sunshine where the children were playing, and then her gaze wandered to the pine-forests far away. Wreaths of blue smoke still curled from the charred trunks of millions of trees and floated like a thin haze in the west and south. The settlement had been excited for many days, by melancholy reports of the loss of life occasioned by that disastrous fire.
The charred remains of a company of four persons had been found in one spot, whose names and history must forever remain unknown—strangers in a strange land—so perishing as to leave no link by which to connect them with their friends, whoever these might be. Wild rumors, setting the loss of life from thirty to a hundred, as already known, floated about, growing from day to day.
The fate of Nat Wolfe had made a profound impression, and still cast a shadow upon the thoughts of his former friends. Buckskin Joe had himself undertaken to communicate the tidings to the Wrights, feeling more than any other person that the news would harrow one young heart most cruelly. He had watched, with sagacious quiet, the progress of affairs between the young people—had secretly chafed at the cold repulsion of Dr. Carollyn's manner toward the haughty hunter who would not make a single concession in advance—had thought he saw that Elizabeth was the deepest sufferer by this state of things—and had been making up his mind to tell Nat that he was a great fool not to take the young girl, in despite of her father—when the events of the last chapter so tragically cut short his plans for the two lovers.
"I'll be danged if I hadn't rather face the fire ag'in than to tell her," said the guide to himself, feeling wretchedly, "but thar's no one will break it so easy, mebbe—and I've got to out with it—that's all!"
He went straight to the log-cabin, in which the Wrights were established, more through the energy of Dr. Carollyn than any exertion of their own. The sunset streamed pleasantly into the little room, whose entrance-way was unopposed by other door than a piece of wagon-cover, which was let down at night.
Elizabeth was spreading a cloth on the grass outside, and Mrs. Wright was coming out with a tin plate heaped with biscuits and another with fried pork. Timothy was putting away his pipe, preparatory to supper.
"You're just in time, Joe," said the matron; "set by, and have somethin' to eat. You haven't been to supper, I hope."
The maiden had colored rose-red when she saw him coming; in her thoughts he was associated with Nat; she knew they had gone off on some kind of an expedition together, and she half expected to see the hunter in his wake. Joe saw the blush and groaned inwardly. Famished as he was, for he had stopped for no refreshment except a glass of whisky, he felt as if he could swallow nothing for the great lump that came up in his tough old throat. But so absolutely faint was he from exhaustion that he sunk down by the cloth, and stretching out his hand for a biscuit, began to eat it before the others were helped, or before he had made any answer to the hostess. Accustomed to the free-and-easy manners of his class, Mrs. Wright pushed the plate near him with a smile, called her husband and the children, and was pouring out the black coffee into tin cups, before she addressed her guest further:
"How's our friend, Nat Wolfe? He went 'long with you, didn't he?"
Joe swallowed his cup of scalding coffee, got up, and went into the cabin to light his pipe.
"I wish you'd eat your supper, Miss 'Lizabeth," he said, coming out and looking at her moodily.
She raised her eyes to his with a bright smile, but when she met his look, she startled, and grew anxious; the biscuit and bacon grew distasteful to her—she sipped her coffee, but not as if she cared for it.
"Did you have any luck, or wasn't you looking for a lead?" asked Mr. Wright, as the guide smoked in silence.
"Had some awful bad luck," answered Joe, letting his pipe fall and break to pieces. "We got caught in that fire, ye see. I got out of the scrape by hard scratching," here he paused entirely and stared at Elizabeth, who had set down her cup and was also staring at him.
"But what?" cried Mr. Wright. "My God! you don't mean to say that—that Nat Wolfe is lost!"
"Look out for that girl," called Joe, to Mrs. Wright, who turned and found Elizabeth fallen upon her face.
"I s'pose I've killed her, after all," muttered the guide, "it's my luck with that gal. Yes, Wright, Wolfe's gone, no mistake. I don't believe she's comin' to, right away; I guess I'll go for the Doctor."
"Yes, do—her father'll know just what to do. She's in a dead faint. It come on her so sudden."
"I hain't got sense to break any thing softly," muttered the old fellow, starting off in the direction of a cluster of tents, in one of which he had seen Dr. Carollyn as he passed by it. When he returned with that gentleman, the maiden was still unconscious; and it required time and skill to revive her from the deathly stupor into which she had been stricken.
Dr. Carollyn was shocked when he learned the cause of his daughter's illness; he had admired the hunter's brave and chivalric character, and felt grateful to him for the priceless service he had rendered in the rescue of his child—while he could not make up his mind to receive him as a son and a rival in the affections of that child. His awful and tragic fate affected him deeply; while he was pained to see the evidence of Elizabeth's interest in the lost one.
He hoped that a great part of the effect of the news upon her was owing to the weakened, excited state of her nerves, her mind and body having been overwrought by the occurrences of the past few weeks. That it was more a shock to her nerves than a fatal blow to her heart, he allowed himself to believe. He himself felt appalled by the sudden and terrible nature of the catastrophe.
With the utmost gentleness and tenderness he won her back to consciousness, and soothed and strengthened her through the two or three days' prostration which followed. During these days he made up his mind to wait no longer, before urging the necessary step of a parting from her old friends, than until she should be strong enough to undertake the return journey.
It was now a week since the news of the accident. Elizabeth was about her little duties, pale and quiet; and her father was making all needful preparations for a speedy departure. Having learned of a train that was about to start eastward, he had taken this time to give her warning of his intentions. Had such a dazzling change in her prospects occurred a month ago, she would have welcomed it with all the delight and eagerness of her age. When oppressed with the dreariness of that long journey, tired of the homely fare, the rough company, if she had been told that such a father as this—a man to whom she could cling with all the fondness of her wild young heart—would come to her and offer all those splendors after which she had vaguely pined, her fancy would have reveled in happy enchantments—her dull life would have opened into a magic land, out of that monotonous desert.
Now her eyes fixed themselves upon the blackened forest with a gaze that could not be torn away; they seemed to say in that expression of mute longing and despair, that it would be sweeter to her to go there and throw herself, like the Hindoo widow, on that smoldering pyre, than to take her father's hand and go with him where every thing that makes life beautiful to the young awaited her. Such a depth of feeling in the breast of one who had been but a child a little while ago, proved that the character written in those mobile features and singularly expressive eyes was one of no ordinary power. She was one that, loving once, like her mother, would love so purely and deeply that to jar or rudely to doubt or destroy, would be death; and with this fondness was blended much of the passionate tenacity of her father's nature.
When Nat Wolfe, holding her, dying, in his arms, in the burning, solitary desert, sealed her soul with the impress of his own, that impress was eternal.
Finally, with a long, gasping sigh she withdrew her gaze, and trying to smile, said in a low voice:
"You are right, father. It is well to go at once, since we must go. It will not take much time to complete my preparations;" and truly, the gathering up of two calico frocks, and the precious box of mementoes left by her mother, constituted the whole of Elizabeth's trouble in the matter.
When Mrs. Wright heard the decision in favor of immediate departure, she left off wringing her clothes, and took to wringing her hands and crying in her demonstrative way.
"Don't, auntie, don't—it will make me more unhappy," said the maiden, so pitifully, that she made a great effort to restrain herself.
Timothy Wright didn't weep or wring his hands, but he walked about in a meaningless way, did every thing wrong that he tried to do, and made himself as useless and forlorn as usual.
Grieved as the couple were to part with their adopted niece, they never thought of opposing the step; they loved her too sincerely to oppose their claims against the prospect of her being placed as they had always felt she needed and deserved. Lizzie had been a rare and misplaced exotic in their homely garden, and they had no wish to withhold her from the warmth and light and beauty necessary to her. They rejoiced heartily in her good fortune, trying to put their own loss out of sight.
Feeling how much he was taking from them, Dr. Carollyn did not prepare to leave them, without substantial tokens of his esteem and gratitude. He told Mr. Wright that farming was his legitimate business, not mining, and that there was a hundred-fold more gold to be found in carrots and corn and potatoes, than in the quarter of the ravines. The rich character of the land immediately at the foot of the mountain, and the fabulous prices which fruits and vegetables would bring for years to come, would insure a fortune to any farmer who would give his attention to the cultivation of articles needed in the market. Getting Wright's consent to the wisdom of the plan, he selected a suitable farm, bought cattle and utensils to enable him to work it, gave him money enough to live on for the winter, providing him fully with the ways and means for doing well.
The hour of parting came swiftly—was over—and Elizabeth, sundered from the past, completely, even in name—her father called her Annie—set out to recross those desert plains to the unknown realms of the great world which lay beyond—so near, so far away—so long dreamed of, so utterly unknown.
Buckskin Joe insisted upon being one of the party across the plains; he could not give up his oversight of the maiden whom he had taken in such special charge since the first glimpse into her young face had won him into her service; and when, after duly and safely seeing her as far on her way as the first steamboat landing on the route, he bade her farewell, tears stood in his eyes, as he gave her, with extra fervor, his parting benediction:
"The Lord bless and preserve ye, and keep ye from the bite of a rattlesnake!”