第44章 CHAPTER X(2)

"But after you've rested you must be active," said Dale, seriously. "You must do things. It doesn't matter what, just as long as you don't sit idle.""Why?" queried Helen, in surprise. "Why not be idle here in this beautiful, wild place? just to dream away the hours --the days! I could do it."

"But you mustn't. It took me years to learn how bad that was for me. An' right now I would love nothin' more than to forget my work, my horses an' pets -- everythin', an' just lay around, seein' an' feelin'.""Seeing and feeling? Yes, that must be what I mean. But why -- what is it? There are the beauty and color -- the wild, shaggy slopes -- the gray cliffs -- the singing wind -- the lulling water -- the clouds -- the sky. And the silence, loneliness, sweetness of it all.""It's a driftin' back. What I love to do an' yet fear most.

It's what makes a lone hunter of a man. An' it can grow so strong that it binds a man to the wilds.""How strange!" murmured Helen. "But that could never bind ME. Why, I must live and fulfil my mission, my work in the civilized world."It seemed to Helen that Dale almost imperceptibly shrank at her earnest words.

"The ways of Nature are strange," he said. "I look at it different. Nature's just as keen to wean you back to a savage state as you are to be civilized. An' if Nature won, you would carry out her design all the better."This hunter's talk shocked Helen and yet stimulated her mind.

"Me -- a savage? Oh no!" she exclaimed. "But, if that were possible, what would Nature's design be?""You spoke of your mission in life," he replied. "A woman's mission is to have children. The female of any species has only one mission -- to reproduce its kind. An' Nature has only one mission -- toward greater strength, virility, efficiency -- absolute perfection, which is unattainable.""What of mental and spiritual development of man and woman?"asked Helen.

"Both are direct obstacles to the design of Nature. Nature is physical. To create for limitless endurance for eternal life. That must be Nature's inscrutable design. An' why she must fail.""But the soul!" whispered Helen.

"Ah! When you speak of the soul an' I speak of life we mean the same. You an' I will have some talks while you're here.

I must brush up my thoughts."

"So must I, it seems," said Helen, with a slow smile. She had been rendered grave and thoughtful. "But I guess I'll risk dreaming under the pines."Bo had been watching them with her keen blue eyes.

"Nell, it'd take a thousand years to make a savage of you,"she said. "But a week will do for me."

"Bo, you were one before you left Saint Joe," replied Helen.

"Don't you remember that school-teacher Barnes who said you were a wildcat and an Indian mixed? He spanked you with a ruler.""Never! He missed me," retorted Bo, with red in her cheeks.

"Nell, I wish you'd not tell things about me when I was a kid.""That was only two years ago," expostulated Helen, in mild surprise.

"Suppose it was. I was a kid all right. I'll bet you -" Bo broke up abruptly, and, tossing her head, she gave Tom a pat and then ran away around the corner of cliff wall.

Helen followed leisurely.

"Say, Nell," said Bo, when Helen arrived at their little green ledge-pole hut, "do you know that hunter fellow will upset some of your theories?""Maybe. I'll admit he amazes me -- and affronts me, too, I'm afraid," replied Helen. "What surprises me is that in spite of his evident lack of schooling he's not raw or crude. He's elemental.""Sister dear, wake up. The man's wonderful. You can learn more from him than you ever learned in your life. So can I.

I always hated books, anyway."

When, a little later, Dale approached carrying some bridles, the hound Pedro trotted at his heels.

"I reckon you'd better ride the horse you had," he said to Bo.

"Whatever you say. But I hope you let me ride them all, by and by.""Sure. I've a mustang out there you'll like. But he pitches a little," he rejoined, and turned away toward the park. The hound looked after him and then at Helen.

"Come, Pedro. Stay with me," called Helen.

Dale, hearing her, motioned the hound back. Obediently Pedro trotted to her, still shy and soberly watchful, as if not sure of her intentions, but with something of friendliness about him now. Helen found a soft, restful seat in the sun facing the park, and there composed herself for what she felt would be slow, sweet, idle hours. Pedro curled down beside her. The tall form of Dale stalked across the park, out toward the straggling horses. Again she saw a deer grazing among them. How erect and motionless it stood watching Dale! Presently it bounded away toward the edge of the forest. Some of the horses whistled and ran, kicking heels high in the air. The shrill whistles rang clear in the stillness.

"Gee! Look at them go!" exclaimed Bo, gleefully, coming up to where Helen sat. Bo threw herself down upon the fragrant pine-needles and stretched herself languorously, like a lazy kitten. There was something feline in her lithe, graceful outline. She lay flat and looked up through the pines.

"Wouldn't it be great, now," she murmured, dreamily, half to herself, "if that Las Vegas cowboy would happen somehow to come, and then an earthquake would shut us up here in this Paradise valley so we'd never get out?""Bo! What would mother say to such talk as that?" gasped Helen.

"But, Nell, wouldn't it be great?"

"It would be terrible."