CHAPTER XXX
THE COMING OF THE STORM
Winter was slow in claiming sovereignty over Nebraska in the year of which we write, and coquetted with summer through all the weeks of November and December. Such snows as had come were light and short-lived, and the winds had been less furious and threatening than usual at this season of the year.
Donald and Tibby had enjoyed many rides over the gray plains and river wold, and were apparently the best of friends, notwithstanding Donald’s premature declaration. But their camaraderie was far from sweethearting. It looked as if Tibby had decided to put their acquaintance on the I’ll-be-a-sister-to-you footing.
To a less determined man than Donald this might have been disheartening, but he had firm faith in the efficacy of persistence, and though he never annoyed Tibby with declarations of love, he made her ever conscious of him as the considerate, attentive lover.
As for Tibby, she badgered, cajoled, teased, and tried his temper and patience in the manner for which girls have been noted since the world began. Why it is that the average girl delights in such actions has never been satisfactorily explained, the parallel of such conduct being found only in the cat playing with the live mouse.
With Tibby the feline nature seemed fully developed, and she toyed with the victim in her claws most exasperatingly. Never consciously had she given Donald reason to think, or flatter himself, that she cared for him except as a good comrade with whom to pass the winter and summer of her sojourn in this western land.
But when Tibby behaved worst there lurked a smile of conscious power in the unrevealed depths of Donald’s gray eyes, much to the girl’s vexation and discomfiture, while he remained outwardly unruffled. He had entered the race to win, and his nature was buoyant and strong. Why need he be discouraged? Physically strong, handsome, and athletic, he was possessed of average ability, enjoyed a good income, and his future looked promising. Why should he fail? Thus he reasoned.
A fortuitous chain of events had thrown Donald into Tibby’s society and kept him in close communication with her until he felt that he knew her better, appreciated more her real worth, of nature and character, than any one else about her. She had challenged him to win her. He would make it the business of his life to do so.
Mrs. Wylie’s change of plans had aided him in keeping Tibby in the community, though had she gone away he doubtless would have followed her. The bereaved woman shrank from meeting her society friends in Forest City, and to go to the Pacific Slope was to put her in proximity to her recreant husband, and—sadder to contemplate—his newly wedded wife. And Elinor had listened to her brother’s persuasions to spend the winter in their home. Thus, much to Donald’s satisfaction, Tibby had remained to be his daily companion in this isolated region. The world, with its modern pleasures, seemed far away from them. He need fear no competitor while she remained here. For this reason Donald could bide his time, free from anxious disquietude.
“How lovely the air is this morning,” cried Tibby one day in early January as she stepped from the door of Mark’s home and looked across the farm-lit plains to the brightening glory of the winter sun in a sky of cloud-fleeced blue. The low-lying ridge of hills skirting the eastern horizon gave the effect of a mural and fortress-crowned landscape, and Tibby’s eyes glowed with pleasure as she gazed about her.
“You should not brave, bare-headed, even the winter’s mildness,” said Donald, who had come over early to bring a message from Lissa.
“Since when were you called Dr. Bartram?” asked Tibby mockingly.
“I was only prescribing the ounce of prevention,” returned Donald.
“O, the cure comes later, I suspect.”
“I am afraid it will have to, for one so careless as you are inclined to be.”
“This is a lovely day for a ride. I am going to ride Tempest over to Anna Falkner’s,” Tibby continued, ignoring his remark.
“Better not go so far. This bright morning is a weather breeder. I can feel snow in the air.”
“Mr. Bartram, the role of mentor does not become you.”
“Think not? How am I as a weather prophet?”
“Worse and worse! One could have no faith in your predictions.”
“Not until they have been proven correct, perhaps.”
“Tibby,” said Elinor Wylie, interrupting them, “hadn’t you better come in and make an angel-food cake this morning? Alice is busy and the girl doesn’t know how.”
“Certainly, there’s nothing I like to do so well,” responded Tibby cheerfully, springing up the steps and starting toward the kitchen.
“Sha’n’t I come too?” asked Donald. “I want to learn to cook; besides, you don’t know how useful I can make myself.”
“Do you hear that, Mrs. Wylie? The audacity of the man! As chief cook I am queen of the kitchen and no intruder dare enter its precincts.”
“Without invitation, of course. But I expect to be invited.”
“O, you do? The conceit of some people is unbearable. Well, if you will be upon your good behavior I’ll not be inhospitable. But see that you don’t talk too much and make me spoil the cake. What do you expect to do to help me?”
“O, stone raisins, and build fires, and—and—look at you.”
“Stone raisins? We don’t use them in this kind of cake, you ignorant fellow.”
“Donald sat down by the stove and watched the girl as she broke the eggs and separated the yolks from the white, and dexterously whipped the latter to a snowy froth; then sifted the flour.
“Whew! What a lot of eggs you use!” he exclaimed.
“The whites of eleven only, and I’ll make a gold cake of the yolks. That’s economy.”
“Ah, I understand.”
“As you do the magic of Hermann. You wouldn’t know how to make this if you watched me make a dozen, I am sure.”
“The whites of eleven eggs,” began Donald.
“Yes, and one glass of flour sifted five times, with a teaspoonful of cream of tartar.”
“But cream of tartar is sour, and cakes should be sweet, shouldn’t they?” questioned Donald.
Tibby looked at him with an expression of pitying contempt.
“I told you, you couldn’t understand it. It’s beyond your comprehension.”
“Try me and see! What else do you put in this wonderful compound? Sugar, of course?”
“Yes, one and one-half cups of sugar and a teaspoonful of flavoring. That’s all.”
“O, that’s easy to remember,” said Donald, repeating it glibly.
“Good boy! You’ll do with good tuition. Then you must beat, not stir, the sugar and flour and beaten eggs together in this way. See?”
“Yes,” answered Donald, noting with admiring eyes the movements of the rounded wrists as she exemplified her instructions.
“And now you must put the batter into a bright cake pan, perfectly dry, and bake fifty minutes in a slow oven.”
“But how can I tell whether the oven is slow or quick?” he asked.
“That is something beyond your comprehension. One of the things out of your reach, you know.”
“Ah, I see! I confess I have my limitations. But what is the name of this snowy creation? Didn’t I hear Mrs. Wylie speak of angels?”
“Certainly! This is angel’s food.”
“Ah! Food for angels, or made by them? Which?”
“Neither. It is of the earth, earthy. Even you can safely eat it.”
But Donald was watching the graceful contour of the dimpled elbow beneath the uprolled sleeve, and did not for a moment respond to her retort.
“Yes—ah—what is it?” he asked, recalling himself.
Tibby’s pink chin was elevated. “Shakespeare never repeats,” she said sententiously.
“But you are not Shakespeare.”
“Well, I’m nearly the same thing. I’m bakin’,” she said with a giggle.
“O, you’re too bad! Such a pun as that is atrocious! Bacon? Oh!” And Donald sank back in his chair and made a feint of fanning himself. “I’m struck all in a heap.”
“Well, when young men are so impolite one feels like throwing puns, or any handy weapon, at their heads. I may take the rolling pin next,” said Tibby.
“Really, Miss Tibby, I beg your pardon for my inattention, but the fact is, I was following a train of thought which was—”
“Composed of empty cars,” put in Tibby.
“No, I assure you, heavily freighted.”
“Indeed!” with an exasperating lifting of the brows. “No doubt you were reflecting upon your past misdeeds.”
“I was thinking of you.”
“Then your thoughts were not worth questioning. Your train was surely overloaded. To punish you, I shall bid you adieu, and go to get ready for my ride,” replied Tibby, with a severe tightening of her pretty lips, as she went over to the sink and began to wash the dusting of flour from her arms and hands.
“I suppose you do not intend to invite me to ride with you,” Donald remarked tentatively.
“No, indeed. You might take cold. And besides you prophesied a storm.”
“If you should be caught out in a blizzard I might be of some help to you.”
Tibby turned and faced him, her mischievous, glowing eyes holding his.
“You?” she said.
“Yes, even I.”
“But if I don’t want you along?”
“I shall meekly stay at home, of course. But it strikes me you are extremely unkind.”
“Not to myself. Besides, I do not want you to run into danger. See?” She gave him a sidelong glance from the corner of her eyes. “Mr. Bartram, I am going to ride and meditate all by myself to-day.”
“If I withdrew to a safe distance couldn’t you meditate at home?”
Donald looked through half-closed lids at the mocking eyes and pouting lips before him.
“There is nothing like a canter over the prairies to aid one’s meditation.”
“I wish I could persuade you to stay at home to-day. You are certainly taking a great risk in going, at least in going so far.”
“It is my risk. No one else need worry about it.”
“You are of too much value to your friends to expect their unconcern in what affects you so seriously. Even I am anxious, you see,” continued Donald, speaking quietly.
“Even you? Of all persons in the world least interested, or ought to be. Since when have you become responsible for my actions?”
“Since I learned to care for you more than all others.”
“Mr. Bartram, you are melodramatic. I shall not listen to you any longer,” said Tibby, a flush dyeing her cheeks as she gathered up the discarded apron and hung it up.
“Will you not shorten your ride and come home before the storm?” Donald asked persistently.
“I shall not measure the length of my rides by your tape measure,” retorted Tibby, tossing her head, while the crimson spot on her cheek deepened; “neither shall I let you accompany me, even if you rode behind me. Your presence would mar all my pleasure.”
Tibby felt the tactless impertinence of her words, and her eyes fell beneath the gray ones fixed questioningly upon her.
“That’s pretty severe, if you mean it,” Donald replied, speaking with great deliberation. “Thank you for your frank manner of telling truths, however. It is good of you. One would rather be hit straight in the forehead than in the back. Is it George Eliot that says, ‘Truth has rough flavors if we bite it through’?”
“Why don’t you get angry with me?” Tibby tapped the floor impatiently with the toe of her boot.
“Because you are trying to make me so, and besides, it isn’t my year to be angry,” he said with a drawl, his gray eyes still upon her.
“O, you insufferable prig!” exclaimed the girl desperately. “As if the man ever lived who didn’t get angry. Tell me, were you never angry?”
“Yes, I think so—once,” he drawled. “Yes, now I reflect upon the matter, I remember I was once, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I’d rather not repeat it, even to please you, Miss Tibby.”
The girl turned from him petulantly.
“I think it would please me very much,” she said. “Such even tempers are abominable. Good-by!” And Tibby backed out of the room, waving her hand dramatically toward him. “Dryden tells us to ‘Beware the fury of a patient man,’ and I will run before your wrath breaks forth.”
“Is Tibby more perverse than usual this morning?” Alice asked as Donald buttoned up his coat preparatory to departure.
“Yes, in tempting Providence by riding to the fort this morning. If I am not very much mistaken, we are to have a small blizzard before night.”
“O! I hope not,” sighed Mrs. Wylie. “I have never experienced one, but Alice has been telling me of blizzards, and of people perishing in them not far from their own doors. I cannot realize such a thing possible.”
“Wait until you’ve seen one,” said Donald soberly. He shook his head as he stepped out of doors. “Tell that wilful girl to take no chances,” he said, turning back. “There’s surely a storm coming. She will not listen to me.”
“Don’t forget, Mrs. Cramer, to take my cake from the oven in fifteen minutes,” Tibby said a little later, entering the room.
“Why do you go when there is a storm coming?” inquired Mrs. Wylie.
“Who says there is a storm coming? No one but Donald, and he is a croaker. I’m not afraid. Tempest will be a match for any storm that ever blew.” And a few moments afterwards Tibby tripped gaily down the path to the horse’s stable, her riding-skirt thrown over her arm, and her whole figure alert with joyous anticipation. As she emerged upon the back of her favorite horse and swept past the pedestrian, Donald, she called out saucily:
“Isn’t a Tempest more in evidence to-day than a blizzard, Mr. Bartram?”
Donald waved his hand at her, and she was gone, her low, rich laugh coming back to him in the moist air.
Before Donald reached Nathan’s the sky had begun to be flecked with clouds, light and fleecy, that seemed to speed swiftly high in the air. Then he felt drops of rain that seemed to come out of the somewhere. At intervals the sun would shine brightly and warm. As the hours wore away Donald’s anxiety increased.
Lissa looked out at three o’clock, to see the sky overcast with clouds, and large scattering flakes of snow floating about in the chill air. At the same moment Donald rode up from the stables on the back of his favorite horse, Duke, a large, powerful animal, of great intelligence and endurance.
“I am going over to Mark’s, Lissa,” he cried, “to see if Tibby has returned. Within a half hour it will be impossible to see a rod ahead of one. If that wilful girl should attempt to start back in the face of the storm, as she is almost sure to do, she can never get home alone. Don’t go out of doors yourself. I’ve made all secure at the stables. If Tibby has returned I shall be back in a few moments. If not, I shall go to meet her.”
Lissa’s face paled.
“I know the danger, Donald. I hope, oh, I hope you’ll find her all right at Mark’s!”
Donald was already far down the road, when the wind, suddenly veering, swept the house with such a shock Lissa was glad to close the door and draw up to the great stove for warmth.
A few moments later Donald was at Mark’s door, and the swift-falling snowflakes were already obscuring the landscape when he rapped with his riding-whip and met the startled face of Mrs. Cramer.
“Has Miss Waring returned?” he asked anxiously, searching Alice’s countenance.
“No, and I am becoming worried about her. She would be sure to start home when she saw the storm coming up.”
“Yes, I am going to try to find her. The wind is rising fast. Can you lend me a couple of blankets?”
Alice flew to an adjoining room, and quickly returned with a bright woolen parcel, which Donald strapped to his saddle securely, while a wild gust of wind swept past him and struggled and tugged with him for their possession.
“Why are you carrying your rifle?” Alice asked, noting his strange accoutrement.
“I will tell you,” said Donald, again seating himself firmly in the saddle. “Have you a gun here?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“And you know how to use it?”
“Most assuredly.”
“Then you must help me to find my way. I want you to fire it every time you hear the report of my rifle. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Don. Do you think the danger is so great?”
“Yes, we are in for a furious storm. Now remember, answer all my signals, and—if you should not hear from me for a time, keep firing every few moments anyway.”
“Yes, Don. Heaven help you to find Tibby and bring her home safely to us!”
A moment later Donald was lost to view in the whirling, swirling masses of snow that filled the air, and Alice, taking down the heaviest gun from the wall, examined it carefully, and loaded it with a charge of powder.
“What are you doing with that gun, Alice?” asked Mrs. Wylie, who, hearing the sound of voices, had risen from her couch and now came into the room.
“I am going to answer Donald’s signals to guide him through the storm.”
Mrs. Wylie’s eyes opened wide with alarm.
“But why has Donald gone out in it?” she questioned, looking from the window into the impenetrable, snow-filled air.
“To find Tibby, Elinor.”
Mrs. Wylie sank down in a chair and pressed her hands to her side, while her lips grew white.
“Why—Alice, do you suppose Tibby can be out in this terrible storm? I have been sleeping and did not realize it was upon us until the gusts struck the house and I heard you talking with some one—Donald, was it?”
“I hope, Elinor, that Tibby has not started out in this, but if she has she may lose her way and freeze if some one does not find her. I have been very uneasy about her for some time.”
“Oh, how dreadful, dreadful!” And as Mrs. Wylie continued to gaze out into the opaque snow-world about her she began to realize for the first time what a western blizzard might mean. “Why did I not have sense enough to keep that child at home?” she moaned. “I shall never forgive myself if she is lost.”
“We should both of us have seconded Donald’s caution, I’m afraid,” replied Alice. “I am not so weather-wise as he, yet I should have known what such a morning in midwinter portended here. Tibby delights in teasing Donald, and of course would not heed his warning; but she would have listened to us had we been persistent.”
“I don’t know. I’m afraid I am the one who always listens to her. I don’t see why she treats Don so,” Mrs. Wylie said.
“Don’t you? I think I do. It is because she cares for him, and will not acknowledge it, even to herself. But do look at the storm, Elinor. Is it not terrifying? Where does all this snow come from? The ground is already heavily sheeted with it. And listen to the wind. How it wails and shrieks, buffets and pounds. We are fortunate in being safely housed, Elinor.”
“But if Tibby is out in it! Oh, I cannot bear the thought!”
“Hark! there is the report of Donald’s rifle. I must answer it.” And Alice sprang to the window, and raising it a little way, put forth the heavy gun and discharged it, its detonation bringing an answering shriek from Mrs. Wylie.