Ridgwell Cullum - The Trail of the Axe - A Story of Red Sand Valley

Then he possessed a rare gift in medicine. He had purposely studied it and taken his degrees, for no one knew better than he the strength this added to his position. He shed his healing powers upon his people, a gift that reaped him a devotion no sanctity and godliness could ever have brought him. Parson Tom was a practical Christian first, and attended only to spiritual welfare when the body had been duly cared for.

Dave went on to the depot, where he despatched his messages. Then he extracted from Jenkins Mudley all the information he possessed upon the matter of the plate-layers' strike, and finally took the river trail back to the mills.

His way took him across the log bridge over the river, and here he paused, leaning upon the rail, and gazed thoughtfully down the woodland avenue which enclosed the turbulent stream.

Somehow he could never cross that bridge without pausing to admire the wonderful beauty of his little friend's surroundings. He always thought of this river as his friend. How much it was his friend only he knew. But for it, and its peculiarities, his work would be impossible. He did not have to do as so many lumbermen have to, depend on the spring freshet to carry his winter cut down to his mill. The melting snows of the mountains kept the river flowing, a veritable torrent, during the whole of the open season, and at such time he possessed in it a never-failing transport line which cost him not one cent.

The hour he had allowed for his dinner was not yet up, and he felt that he could indulge himself a little longer, so he refilled his pipe and smoked while he gazed contemplatively into the depths of the dancing waters below him.

But his day-dreaming was promptly interrupted, and the interruption was the coming of Betty, on her way home to her dinner from the schoolhouse up on the hillside. He had seen her only once since the day that brought him the news of his contract. That was on the following Sunday, when he went, as usual, to Tom Chepstow's for supper.

Just at that moment Betty was the last person he wanted to see. That was his first thought when he heard her step on the bridge. He had forgotten that this was her way home, and that this was her dinner-time. However, there was no sign of his reluctance in his face when he greeted her.

"Why, Betty," he said, as gently as his great voice would let him, "I hadn't thought to see you coming this way." Then he broke off and studied her pretty oval face more closely. "What's wrong?" he inquired presently. "You look – you look kind of tired."

He was quite right. The girl looked pale under her tan, and there was an unusual darkness round her gentle brown eyes. She looked very tired, in spite of the smile of welcome with which she greeted him.

"Oh, I'm all right, Dave," she said at once. But her tone was cheerless, in spite of her best effort.

He shook his great head and knocked his pipe out.

"There's something amiss, child. Guess maybe it's the heat." He turned his eyes up to the blazing sun, as though to reassure himself that the heat was there.

Betty leant beside him on the rail. Her proximity, and the evident sadness of her whole manner, made him realize that he must not stay there. At that moment she looked such a pathetic little figure that he felt he could not long be responsible for what he said. He longed to take her in his arms and comfort her.

He could think of nothing to say for a long time, but at last he broke out with —

"You'd best not go back to the school this afternoon."

But the girl shook her head.

"It's not that," she said. Then she paused. Her eyes were fixed on the rushing water as it flowed beneath the bridge.

He watched her closely, and gradually a conviction began to grow in his mind.

"Dave," she went on at last, "we've always been such good friends, haven't we? You've always been so patient and kind with me when I have bothered you with my little troubles and worries. You never fail to help me out. It seems to me I can never quite do without your help. I – I" – she smiled more like her old self, and with relief the man saw some of the alarming shadows vanishing from her face, "I don't think I want to, either. I've had a long talk with Susan Hardwig this morning."

"Ah!"

The man's growing conviction had received confirmation.

"What did that mean?" Betty asked quickly.

Dave was staring out down the river.

"Just nothing. Only I've had a goodish talk with Joe Hardwig."

"Then I needn't go into the details. I've heard the news that Dick Mansell has brought with him."

It was a long time before either spoke again. For Dave there seemed so little to say. What could he say? Sympathy was out of the question. He had no right to blame Jim yet. Nor did he feel that he could hold out hope to her, for in his heart he believed that the man's news was true.

With Betty, she hardly knew how to express her feelings. She hardly knew what her feelings were. At the time Mrs. Hardwig poured her tale into her ears she had listened quite impersonally. Somehow the story had not appealed to her as concerning herself, and her dominant thought had been pity for the man. It was not until afterward, when she was alone on her way to the school, that the full significance of it came to her; and then it came as a shock. She remembered, all of a sudden, that she was promised to Jim. That when Jim came back she was to marry him. From that moment the matter had never been out of her mind; through all her school hours it was with her, and her attention had been so distracted from her work that she found her small pupils getting out of hand.

Yes, she was to marry Jim, and they told her he was a drunkard, a gambler, and a "crook." She had given him her promise; she had sent him away. It was her own doing. Her feelings toward him never came into her thoughts. During the long five years of his absence he had become a sort of habit to her. She had never thought of her real feelings after the first month or two of his going. She was simply waiting for him, and would marry him when he came. It was only now, when she heard this story of him, that her feelings were called upon to assert themselves, and the result was something very like horror at her own position.

She remembered now her disappointment at the first realization of all her hopes, when Jim had asked her to marry him. She had not understood then, but now – now she did. She knew that she had never really loved him. And at the thought of his return she was filled with horror and dread.

She was glad that she had met Dave; she had longed to see him. He was the one person she could always lean on. And in her present trouble she wanted to lean on him.

"Dave," she began at last, in a voice so hopeless that it cut him to the heart, "somehow I believe that story. That is, in the main. Don't think it makes any difference to me. I shall marry him just the same. Only I seem to see him in his real light now. He was always weak, only I didn't see it then. He was not really the man to go out into the world to fight alone. We were wrong. I was wrong. He should have stayed here."

"Yes," Dave nodded.

"He must begin over again," she went on, after a pause. "When he comes here we must help him to a fresh start, and we must blot his past out of our minds altogether. There is time enough. He is young. Now I want you to help me. We must ask him no questions. If he wants to speak he can do so. Now that you are booming at the mills we can help him to reopen his mill, and I know you can, and will, help him by putting work in his way. All this is what I've been thinking out. When he comes, and we are – married," there was the slightest possible hesitation before the word, and Dave's quick ears and quicker senses were swift to hear and interpret it, "I am going to help him with the work. I'll give up my school. I've always had such a contingency in my mind. That's why I got you to teach me your work when he first went away. Tell me, Dave, you'll help me in this. You see the boy can't help his weakness. Perhaps we are stronger than he, and between us we can help him."