The Fighter

The ensuing fortnight was at once the longest and the shortest fourteen days Conover had ever known. So far as his companionship with Desirée was concerned, the hours had sped with bewildering haste. But, otherwise, time had limped on leaden feet. The message of the hills was not for him.

Green mountains, blue sky and bluer water. And the smell of balsam that had grown to be dully irritating to him. His senses instinctively strained for the roar of traffic, the stark hurry of men, the smell of cities. Throughout the day the universal stillness of the wilds was broken only by the occasional “tck-tck-tck” of launches. By night, even this was absent; and as Desirée said, “God seemed very near.” But the hush, the eternal calm of it all wore upon the Fighter’s nerves. As well have expected the south wind to draw whispering melodies from a barrel-organ as for the spell of the forest to lay its blesséd and blessing hand on the brain of this Man of Cities.

At times he caught himself counting the days that remained, and there was an impatient eagerness in the count. Then, ever, would come the thought that each passing day brought him twenty-four hours nearer to his parting from Desirée. And eagerness would give way to a sharp, if undefined pain.

Another thing wore on him. To prevent Desirée from guessing at his boredom he was forced to be always on guard. She had at first been half-afraid he might not be sufficiently alive to the beauty of it all; and had exhibited to him her adored woodland treasures with the wistful pride of a child that shows an interested stranger its most cherished toys.

To drive the latent wistfulness from her eyes, Conover had soon entered effusively into the spirit of everything. And Desirée, usually so mercilessly keen to note his every clumsy effort at deception, was too happy nowadays to observe his enthusiasm’s mechanical tenor. Hence, believing she had made a convert, she redoubled her efforts in educating him up to the loveliness of the place. And, with the heroism of a Regulus, he suffered himself to be educated.

At times of course he struck the wrong note. Once, for instance, at sunset they paddled through the keel-wide sandbar channel from Raquette into Eldon Lake and found themselves in an unrippled basin of black water set in a circle of forest and “clearing.” The silence hung heavy as velvet. It was the hush of a newborn, unknown world. The mystic wonder of it all, beneath the setting sun, caught Desirée by the throat and held her trembling,—speechless. Caleb, splashing time with his oar, began to sing.

“Oh, don’t!” she breathed; as though protesting against sacrilege.

“Gee! Was I off the blamed key, again?” he asked.

“No, no,” she answered, the wonder-light dying from her face as the spell dissolved. “It’s all right,” she went on, seeing his chagrin. “It’s all right. I’m sorry I was cross. You were so busy with the boat you didn’t get a chance to notice what a magic lake this is we’ve come into; or you couldn’t have broken the charm. Look! Can’t you see Siegfried running through the hemlocks, on his way to Mime’s cave? And that band of dead gray tamaracks down there with the single flaming maple in the foreground! Isn’t it like an army of tree-ghosts with the red standard in its van?”

So she prattled on, seeking to keep him from seeing how he had jarred upon her mood. But he knew, none the less. And he realized that there were times, even on vacation, when one must be silent. But what those times might be he could not guess. Nor did he dare ask.

When next day they climbed the Crags and looked down on the gleaming lake with the scattered green of its islands, she looked at him in eager expectation of his delight. He surveyed the lake in stony silence. Then let his gaze run expressionless over the lines of mountain ramparts far to southward that rose in ever higher swells until the farthest was half lost in haze. No word did he speak. He felt he was rising to the occasion. If one must not speak on Eldon Lake at sunset it followed that one should be equally reticent on the Crags by the brighter light of morning.

“Say something!” she commanded, keenly disappointed at his apathy.

“Noo York must be somewheres in a line with that biggest mountain over there to the south,” he hazarded; glad to learn that the present was, for some reason, not one of those mysterious speechless occasions.

In the evenings, as a rule, they went to the “open camp.” There in the big three-sided log shed with its evergreen-lined walls and its deep, blanket-covered floor of soft balsam boughs, a dozen or more people were wont to congregate by night. In front of the shed blazed a Homeric camp fire that tempered the mountain chilliness and made the whole place light as day. The young people,—Desirée and Jack among them,—usually spent the short evenings in singing and story-telling. Caleb felt less at his ease here than anywhere else. For the young folk talked a language of Youth, that he did not understand. The stories he found somewhat mild, and the point of several of them he failed to catch. A sense of strangeness prevented him from joining in the songs. He had had no youth; save that which Desirée had imparted to him. And he knew himself out of place among the carefree, jolly crowd. It made him feel ponderous, aged, taciturn. The easy laughter of youth only perplexed him. His sole joy during these open camp evenings was to lie in a shadowed corner of the “lean-to” and watch the firelight play on Desirée’s bright face; to hear her infectious laugh; to see how popular she was among the youngsters of her own age. So long as she did not seek to ease his boredom by dragging him into the talk, he was well content to lie thus and drink the delight of her fresh loveliness. When she made him talk, he straightway became pompously shy; and managed to convey his sense of acute discomfort to everyone about him.

Altogether, the Adirondacks, for perhaps the first time since that wonderland’s discovery, had found a visitor who did not speedily become a worshipper.

“Receive news!” announced Desirée, one evening as she met Caleb on her return from a conference with Mrs. Hawarden. “To-morrow’s my birthday.”

“Did you s’pose I’d forgot?” he asked in reproach,—“There’s two dates I always manage to remember. One’s your birthday. The other’s the day you’re comin’ back to Granite.”

“But that isn’t the news,” she went on. “It’s only a running start to get you ready for it. Mrs. Hawarden’s going to celebrate by the gorgeousest picnic you ever heard of.”

“Last one we went on,” began Caleb, “I burnt two of my fingers; an’ there was sand in the lem’nade. But,” he broke off just in time, “it’ll be great to go on another. Where’s it to be?”

“To Brown’s Tract pond. ’Way up at the head of Brown’s Tract Inlet. You remember? The inlet that twists around like a snake that’s swallowed a corkscrew? We’re going to spend the night. Just think of that! All four of us. The guide is going up early in the morning to pitch the two tents and get everything ready. And we’re to stramble along at our leisure and get there about noon. Think! We’re actually to camp overnight. I wish there were bears or catamounts or something, to come not too near and growl dreadfully. I’m going to take Rex along if Mr. Bennett will let me. And—isn’t it a nice way to wind up your vacation? You’ll have plenty of time. We’ll be back here by noon next day, and your train doesn’t go till night.”

“Let’s not talk about my going away,” he replied. “I thought I’d be tickled to death to get back to the fight. But for the past two days I’ve been tryin’ to frame up an excuse to myself that’d let me stay longer.”

“Oh, why don’t you? Why don’t you?” she cried, all eagerness. “I stump you to! Please stay!”

“Don’t, little girl!” he urged. “If I could stay with you an extra hour, d’you s’pose I’d need to be begged to? It’ a case of must. I got to be on deck day after to-morrow. That special session of the Legislature I was tellin’ you about meets week after next. An’ I’ve got to work like a dog till then to lick my crowd into line an’ frame up a stiff enough defence against your friend, Blacarda. I’ll be as busy as a one-armed paper-hanger that’s got hives.”

“But why?” she persisted. “You’ve been working away with both hands all your life. You’re rich. What’s the use of all that money if you can’t have some fun?”

“I get my fun in the winnin’. Not in the holdin’.”

“But you don’t even know how to rest. And now, just as I’m teaching you, you run away. You could wait perfectly well, three weeks longer, and then go back to Granite with us. Just think what a sumptuous time we’d have here! I’m very wise,” she coaxed. “Won’t you take my advice and stay?”

“I’d take it in a minute if I could, girl,” he answered.

“Oh, dear! That means you won’t. Advice is something everybody asks, everybody gives—and nobody takes. I wish you’d stay. This has been the beautifullest, happiest two weeks I ever spent.”

“Has it, honest, Dey?” he asked, his heavy face of a sudden alight. “Honest? It’s been ’bout the only long stretch of happy time I c’n remember.”

“Then why don’t you stay?” she demanded. “Can’t you see?”—

He hesitated.

“I’ve a good mind to,” he said at last.

She clapped her hands, then squeezed his arm as they swung down the hill together.

“Yes,” he went on. “I b’lieve I’ll do it. It’d be fun to see what’d happen if I was to cut loose from work for once. An’ you an’ me could be together—”

“Would you lose so very much?” she asked doubtfully, in belated concern.

“No more’n I could afford. Nowhere near so much as it’s worth to have that extry time with you. My own Steeloid holdin’s are pretty well covered. It won’t be me that goes broke. I own my stock outright; an’ before the winter’s over I’ll get the bill declared unconstitootional. That’ll bring the price up again. I c’n afford to let up on Blacarda for once. I’m dead sure to get him later on the same game, as well as on somethin’ else.”

“You say it won’t be you who go broke,” she interposed. “Will anyone? I mean if you don’t go back day after to-morrow.”

“Well,” grinned Caleb, “If Blacarda’s bill passes, our Steeloid stock’ll will take a big tumble, of course. For those that owns it outright that’ll be no great loss; ’cause it’ll rocket again as soon as I sick one of my judges onto the bill’s constitootionality. But the fellers I’ve tipped off to buy on margin—d’you understand all this line of talk?—those fellers are plungin’ pretty deep, I hear, an’—”

“Will they lose much?”

“Some of ’em are li’ble to be ’bout wiped out, I guess. The el’gant Amzi Nicholas Caine, f’r instance, an’ old Reuben Standish. He’ll go to pot, sure. An’ Mr.—”

“You mean they went into this on your advice, and if you aren’t there to stand by them they will be ruined?”

“Just ’bout that, I guess. Don’t blame me. They wasn’t ’bliged to take my tips an’ I’m not responsible for ’em. Anyhow, they’ve made enough off me this year to—”

“You must go back,” she declared. “I was very wrong. It just shows what harm a fluff-brained girl can do by poking her fingers into business she doesn’t understand. Why, Caleb” she added, with a startled awe: “If you’d done as I asked, who knows how many families might have been made horribly poor? And it would all have been my fault. You must go back.”

“But, Dey!” he protested, “You’re all off. It’s no affair of mine what that gold-shirt crowd put their cash on. I don’t owe anything to ’em. An’ if I can give you a good time by stayin’, the whole bunch of ’em can hire a brass band an’ march to the poorhouse, for all I care. If you say ‘stay’, I’ll stay.”

“I say you mustn’t,” she insisted, “And it was dear of you to be willing to, for my sake. Anyway, I’ll see you again in three weeks. That won’t be so very long.”

“No longer’n three years is gen’rally” grumbled Caleb; and the subject dropped.

They were on their way to the pretty waterside building that served the quadruple purpose of casino, store, post-office and boathouse, for the Antlers. The arrival of the evening mail was one of the day’s two great events; the other being the morning mail’s advent. The night had a sting to its air; and the mail-time gathering was held in the lamplit store instead of on the porch or dock. A tall clerk was busy sorting letters and packages to eager groups of sweater-clad girls and to men in cold-weather outing garb. Conover and Desirée, awaiting their turn, leaned against the glass cases opposite the post-office counter and watched the laughing, excited guests.

“What I can’t see” commented Caleb, “is why ev’rybody’s always in such a sweat about their mail. What is there in it for anyone? To ev’ry env’lope that’s got a check in it there’s three that has bills; an’ a dozen with adv’tisements. To ev’ry letter that’s worth readin’ there’s ten that’s stoopid or grouchy or makin’ a hard-luck touch. An’ as for soov’nir postals—the only folks they int’rest is those that sends ’em. People come up here to get away from the world they’ve been livin’ in. Yet they scramble for noospapers an’ letters from that same world, like they was stranded on a desert island.—Here’s our chance.”

The crowd had thinned. Caleb and Desirée went forward to the mail counter. For Conover there were a sheaf of letters in business envelopes. He thrust them without a glance into the pocket of his tweed coat. Desirée’s sole mail consisted of a long pasteboard box thickly strewn with vari-colored stamps and bearing the gold-lettered legend of a New York florist.

In a second her quick fingers had torn away the wrappings. As the box was lifted, a whiff of warm fragrance rushed out; filling the room.

“Oh!” gasped Desirée, burying her face rapturously in a crimson nest of American Beauty roses.

Then, her cheeks aglow and her eyes shining, she lifted her head and faced Conover.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!” she exclaimed. “It was perfectly darling of you to remember my birthday so beautifully. And I love American Beauties so. I might have known you would think of that. It’s just like you. Smell them! What a dear, thoughtful blesséd old—”

She checked herself at sight of Conover’s blank expression. If her own face had borrowed the flush of her armful of roses, Caleb had exacted similar tribute from a whole wagonload of imaginary peonies.

“I’m—I’m sorry, Dey,” he blurted out at last, “But they ain’t from me. I—, well, they must be from somebody who’s got more sense. I didn’t think to get you anything at all. I didn’t ever know folks gave reg’lar presents on birthdays.”

He stopped abruptly. For the fading of the happy light from Desirée’s eyes had its usual effect of leaving him wordless and miserable.

The girl, embarrassed, fell to turning the flowers over in their long box. She looked a little tired and her arrangement of the blossoms was perfunctory. A card was dislodged from among stems and fell to the floor. Caleb, picking it up, read Jack Hawarden’s name.

“The measly brat!” raged Conover, to himself. “He ain’t got a dollar to his back; an’ yet he can bring off a grandstand play like this, an’ make her look like she was a kid seein’ her first Christmas Tree! An now I’ve made her look like she wanted to cry! Lord! If I don’t give her a whole joolry store for Christmas, I’m a Chinaman!”

“Never mind, dear old boy!” she whispered, pressing close to his arm as they turned to mount the hill on the way to the Hawarden Cottage, “I’ll make believe they’re from you and that will be every bit as nice as if they really were. And you’ve done more lovely things for me than everybody else put together. And I won’t have you looking pathetic. Stop it! Now, smile! Oh, what a squidgy, weak sort of a smile! It’s all right, I tell you. I know you’d have given me much lovelier roses than these if you’d thought.”

“That’s just it!” he growled bitterly, “I don’t think. I never think. I guess you know I’d let ’em cut me up into city blocks if it’d make a hit with you, Dey. But what good does that do? When it comes to bein’ on hand with the million dinky little stunts that women likes, I’m always a mile away, somewhere, hoein’ corn. I wouldn’t blame you if you—”

“Stop!” she cried, a break in her clear voice, “You shan’t talk that way. Do you suppose all the presents in the world would have made me half as happy as having you here, this two weeks? Would any present have cost you one tenth the sacrifice of giving up your work for my sake? And just now you offered to throw away thousands of dollars and wreck half a dozen of people’s fortunes in order to please me by staying longer at the Antlers. What more could anyone do for me than you do?”

“I don’t know,” he answered simply, “But some day I may find out. An’ when I do,—why, I’ll do it. You can gamble on that, you little girl.”