“I’m sorry this is our last day in camp, aren’t you, ‘Peter Pan’? We have had such a splendid time and it seems all too short.”
Bess and “Peter Pan,” together with one of the dogs, were left alone in camp while the rest of the party had gone on their last shoot. The little girl was feeling slightly indisposed after the last few strenuous days, so Bess asked to be permitted to stay “at home” with her for the day, as she could not, or rather would not, shoot the chickens; anyway, Mrs. Bland, too, might enjoy one more day with her gun and the birds.
“Yes, I am just dreadfully sorry that we shall have to go home, ’cause then I won’t see you any more, and I feel as if I love you next to my mother,” answered “Peter Pan,” and she put up a pair of puckered lips for a kiss as she hastily swallowed the last bit of her apple pie.
“Really—Miss Bess, do you—do you think that a little girl ought to have only one piece of pie?” she asked, so entreatingly that Bess, injudiciously, she feared, gave her another large, juicy triangle.
Laughingly she said: “There are times, dear, and this is one of them, when I think a little girl may have all the pie she wants.” But before the last crumb had been safely stored away, black lashes were drooping languidly over a pair of deep blue eyes, and a sleepy little girl was carried into the tent where she might sleep and dream of apple pies—p-i-e-s.
Bess sat beside the sleeper with an unopened magazine on her knee.
Just then her eyes rested on one of the air-beds, and immediately she began to wonder why it shouldn’t make a good boat. The more she thought of it the more she determined to try it and see.
Without much trouble she arrayed herself in an improvised bathing suit and removed the canvas cover from the inflated rubber bed. She felt a reluctance in leaving “Peter Pan” alone, but she thought she would be gone only a few moments and would be in full view of the tent all the time.
“Here, Lady!” Calling to the drowsy dog, she placed the animal with the sleeping child.
Lifting the bed upon her back and shoulders she proceeded to the beach, after procuring two of the granite plates for paddles. Far down near the water’s edge she could see Joe busy dressing birds for dinner. She soon had her craft safely launched and was paddling about with great glee. Its motion was susceptible to the slightest stroke of the paddles, and try as she would she could not make it tip.
“Oh, it’s such fun! I wish little ‘Peter Pan’ were here, too, to enjoy it,” she said aloud as she circled and splashed about in the water. Now she would sit on one corner and dangle her feet in the water, now slide completely in while clinging firmly to the float.
An unceremonious barking from the tent caused her to scramble quickly onto the bobbing craft and look to see what or who might be the intruder.
“Goodness!” she exclaimed, as she saw Dave Davis leap from his horse and fasten the reins about a tree. He was just about to proceed toward the tent when she called loudly to him, that he might not awake the sleeping child. At first he did not locate the direction of the call, then soon discovered the voyager and her ship.
“Ship ahoy!” he called, as he made hurried strides over the round pebbles and larger stones on the beach.
“I am proxene in camp today; but I must confess no visitors were expected,” said Bess, slipping into the water to cover her confusion, as she remembered too late her dishabille.
“What are you to be next, I wonder! One day I find a squaw and another a mermaid!”
“Come on in—the water’s fine,” said Bess, making foaming eddies.
“It’s rather dangerous—”
“Oh, no!” interrupted the girl. “See, she can’t tip,” as she tried to convince him by her varied maneuvers.
“Be serious a moment, Bess, and come out; I have something very important to tell you.”
“Oh! I can’t come out with this rig on. Really, I can’t,” answered the girl.
“I am in a hurry, but must talk with you while we are alone.”
“Then tell me here. I can hear it—anything—begin,” humorously replied Bess, splashing vigorously.
He deliberately stepped upon a large boulder which projected out of the water not far from the air-bed boat.
“Bess,” he began seriously; and then added slowly as he held her eyes firmly with his own, “you and I are to be married next month—the fifteenth!”
“Wh—,” came in a gasp to the girl’s parted lips; but no further sound could she utter. For a full moment she stared at the man standing so resolutely, as if he were a part of the very rock itself, his large, splendid form drawn to its full height, till he seemed like a giant towering above her. His eyes were intense with passion, and his voice trembled with emotion when he again repeated: “We are to be married in a month, dear. I am going away from this place, and you are going with me.”
The astonished girl gave a nervous gasp as she cleared her throat, trying to make her words audible.
“I do not seem to—to understand! I—am—to—go—away—go—with you?” she asked, as her face grew pale and her lips became almost blue.
“Yes, dear—as my wife—I cannot go without you—I could not live without you now!”
Stooping down he caught hold of the floating “boat,” which had drifted quite against the rock upon which he stood. Stretching forth the other hand he caught the girl by the arm and lifted her upon the rock close beside himself. The water from her soaked garments trickled down as he held her in a tight embrace. At length he ceased to blind and to smother her with ardent kisses, and whispered, “Tell me yes—yes!”
“I’m—cold! Please go.” Her quivering form and blue lips accentuated her words.
“First say that you love me—that you do care.”
“Care? Oh! yes—I care! Love?—I do not know!”
“When are you to return to the ranch? Shall I wait and come then for my reply?” asked Davis, earnestly; and Bess, hoping that her answer might cause him to hasten away, said eagerly: “Yes—do—tomorrow.”
She did not resist the parting kiss, but her lips did not respond to his pressure. She heard him hurrying over the pebbles, heard him speak to his horse, knew that he had gone, but still she stood facing the lake, looking at, yet beyond the mountains. A feeling of numbness crept over her body and chilled her soul. A child’s voice calling aroused her from her lethargy, and with a quick bound she sprang forward and ran to the tent. After all, she had not been gone so very long, though it seemed as if an eternity had been crowded into the half hour.
While she was dressing “Peter Pan” had gone to view the wonderful boat which Bess had told her of, and soon came hurrying back with the entreaty to “let’s try it again—please.”
“The water is too cold for you, dearie—and besides, I am tired from my long voyage, you see. Come, we will go down by the water and wait until the hunters come back, and I’ll tell you stories of ships—and seas—and everything, ’neverything else.”
COPYRIGHT APPLIED FOR BY J. R. WHITE
SUNSET ON FLATHEAD LAKE
Sitting side by side with a warm blanket about them, they watched the sunset. The mountains were tipped in varying hues of purple and lavender. Streams of glowing reds and yellows burned at their bases like huge fairy fires. The clouds were delicate tints of pink and coral upon the softer white and grey. The tiny ripples over the broad expanse of water were an ever-changing kaleidoscope,—first a tender, blue sapphire, then an immense emerald, now an opal with its evasive colors beautifully blended. Soon the sun, like a great ball of rusted brass, slid down behind the mighty hills, leaving but the glowing embers of a smoldering day. Softly the vermillion changed into lavender, deepened into purple and fell into charred umber. All the western sky was but a blackened, cheerless grate, and another day vanished into ashes and oblivion.
“Was it not beautiful?” said the little watcher, as she looked into the soft, brown eyes of her companion. “Don’t you feel glad that you live here where everything is so beautiful?”
“Yes, dearie—I want to stay here—here—near the mountains, always!” And the child brushed away Bess’ tears, wondering why she should cry.
Oh! the reluctance with which good-byes were said the next morning as camp was broken up and all departed for home. Plans for next year were already projected and promises half made to come again. But who could know where all would be when again the autumn leaf should fall and the whir of wings should call?