The Other Girl

: The Forester's Daughter

The girl's voice stirred the benumbed youth into action again, and he

followed her mechanically. His slender stock of physical strength was

almost gone, but his will remained unbroken. At every rough place she

came back to him to support him, to hearten him, and so he crept on

through the darkness, falling often, stumbling against the trees,

slipping and sliding, till at last his guide, pitching down a sharp

slope, cam directly upon a wire fence.



"Glory be!" she called. "Here is a fence, and the cabin should be near,

although I see no light. Hello! Tony!"



No voice replied, and, keeping Wayland's hand, she felt her way along the

fence till it revealed a gate; then she turned toward the roaring of the

stream, which grew louder as they advanced. "The cabin is near the falls,

that much I know," she assured him. Then a moment later she joyfully

cried out: "Here it is!"



Out of the darkness a blacker, sharper shadow rose. Again she called, but

no one answered. "The ranger is away," she exclaimed, in a voice of

indignant alarm. "I do hope he left the door unlocked."



Too numb with fatigue, and too dazed by the darkness to offer any aid,

Wayland waited--swaying unsteadily on his feet--while she tried the door.

It was bolted, and with but a moment's hesitation, she said: "It looks

like a case of breaking and entering. I'll try a window." The windows,

too, were securely fastened. After trying them all, she came back to

where Wayland stood. "Tony didn't intend to have anybody pushing in," she

decided. "But if the windows will not raise they will smash."



A crash of glass followed, and with a feeling that it was all part of a

dream, Wayland waited while the girl made way through the broken sash

into the dark interior. Her next utterance was a cry of joy: "Oh, but

it's nice and warm in here! I can't open the door. You'll have to come in

the same way I did."



He was too weak and too irresolute to respond immediately, and, reaching

out, she took him by the arms and dragged him across the sill. Her

strength seemed prodigious. A delicious warmth, a grateful dryness, a

sense of shelter enfolded him like a garment. The place smelled

deliciously of food, of fire, of tobacco.



Leading him toward the middle of the room, Berrie said: "Stand here till

I strike a light."



As her match flamed up Norcross found himself in a rough-walled cabin, in

which stood a square cook-stove, a rude table littered with dishes, and

three stools made of slabs. It was all very rude; but it had all the

value of a palace at the moment.



The girl's quick eye saw much else. She located an oil-lamp, some

pine-wood, and a corner cupboard. In a few moments the lamp was lit, the

stove refilled with fuel, and she was stripping Wayland's wet coat from

his back, cheerily discoursing as she did so. "Here's one of Tony's old

jackets, put that on while I see if I can't find some dry stockings for

you. Sit right down here by the stove; put your feet in the oven. I'll

have a fire in a jiffy. There, that's right. Now I'll start the

coffee-pot." She soon found the coffee, but it was unground. "Wonder,

where he keeps his coffee-mill." She rummaged about for a few minutes,

then gave up the search. "Well, no matter, here's the coffee, and here's

a hammer. One of the laws of the trail is this: If you can't do a thing

one way, do it another."



She poured the coffee beans into an empty tomato-can and began to pound

them with the end of the hammer handle, laughing at Wayland's look of

wonder and admiration. "Necessity sure is the mother of invention out

here. How do you feel by now? Isn't it nice to own a roof and four walls?

I'm going to close up that window as soon as I get the coffee started.

Are you warming up?"



"Oh yes, I'm all right now," he replied; but he didn't look it, and her

own cheer was rather forced. He was in the grasp of a nervous chill, and

she was deeply apprehensive of what the result of his exposure might be.

It seemed as if the coffee would never come to a boil.



"I depend on that to brace you up," she said.



After hanging a blanket over the broken window, she set out some cold

meat and a half dozen baking-powder biscuits, which she found in the

cupboard, and as soon as the coffee was ready she poured it for him; but

she would not let him leave the fire. She brought his supper to him and

sat beside him while he ate and drank.



"You must go right to bed," she urged, as she studied his weary eyes.

"You ought to sleep for twenty-four hours."



The hot, strong coffee revived him physically and brought back a little

of his courage, and he said: "I'm ashamed to be such a weakling."



"Now hush," she commanded. "It's not your fault that you are weak. Now,

while I am eating my supper you slip off your wet clothes and creep into

Tony's bunk, and I'll fill one of these syrup-cans with hot water to put

at your feet."



It was of no use for him to protest against her further care. She

insisted, and while she ate he meekly carried out her instructions, and

from the delicious warmth and security of his bed watched her moving

about the stove till the shadows of the room became one with the dusky

figures of his sleep.



A moment later something falling on the floor woke him with a start, and,

looking up, he found the sun shining, and Berrie confronting him with

anxious face. "Did I waken you?" she asked. "I'm awfully sorry. I'm

trying to be extra quiet. I dropped a pan. How do you feel this

morning?"



He pondered this question a moment. "Is it to-morrow or the next week?"



She laughed happily. "It's only the next day. Just keep where you are

till the sun gets a little higher." She drew near and put a hand on his

brow. "You don't feel feverish. Oh, I hope this trip hasn't set you

back."



He laid his hands together, and then felt of his pulse. "I don't seem to

have a temperature. I just feel lazy, limp and lazy; but I'm going to get

up, if you'll just leave the room for a moment--"



"Don't try it now. Wait till you have had your breakfast. You'll feel

stronger then."



He yielded again to the force of her will, and fell back into a luxurious

drowse hearing the stove roar and the bacon sizzle in the pan. There was

something primitive and broadly poetic in the girl's actions. Through the

haze of the kitchen smoke she enlarged till she became the typical

frontier wife, the goddess of the skillet and the coffee-pot, the consort

of the pioneer, equally skilled with the rifle and the rolling-pin. How

many millions of times had this scene been enacted on the long march of

the borderman from the Susquehanna to the Bear Tooth Range?



Into his epic vision the pitiful absurdity of his own part in the play

broke like a sad discord. "Of course, it is not my fault that I am a

weakling," he argued. "Only it was foolish for me to thrust myself into

this stern world. If I come safely out of this adventure I will go back

to the sheltered places where I belong."



At this point came again the disturbing realization that this night of

struggle, and the ministrations of his brave companion had involved him

deeper in a mesh from which honorable escape was almost impossible. The

ranger's cabin, so far from being an end of their compromising intimacy,

had added and was still adding to the weight of evidence against them

both. The presence of the ranger or the Supervisor himself could not now

save Berea from the gossips.



She brought his breakfast to him, and sat beside him while he ate,

chatting the while of their good fortune. "It is glorious outside, and I

am sure daddy will get across to-day, and Tony is certain to turn up

before noon. He probably went down to Coal City to get his mail."



"I must get up at once," he said, in a panic of fear and shame. "The

Supervisor must not find me laid out on my back. Please leave me alone

for a moment."



She went out, closing the door behind her, and as he crawled from his bed

every muscle in his body seemed to cry out against being moved.

Nevertheless, he persisted, and at last succeeded in putting on his

clothes, even his shoes--though he found tying the laces the hardest task

of all--and he was at the wash-basin bathing his face and hands when

Berrie hurriedly re-entered. "Some tourists are coming," she announced,

in an excited tone. "A party of five or six people, a woman among them,

is just coming down the slope. Now, who do you suppose it can be? It

would be just our luck if it should turn out to be some one from the

Mill."



He divined at once the reason for her dismay. The visit of a woman at

this moment would not merely embarrass them both, it would torture

Berrie. "What is to be done?" he asked, roused to alertness.



"Nothing; all we can do is to stand pat and act as if we belonged here."



"Very well," he replied, moving stiffly toward the door. "Here's where I

can be of some service. I am an excellent white liar."



As our hero crawled out into the brilliant sunshine some part of his

courage came back to him. Though lame in every muscle, he was not ill.

That was the surprising thing. His head was clear, and his breath full

and deep. "My lungs are all right," he said to himself. "I'm not going to

collapse." And he looked round him with a new-born admiration of the

wooded hills which rose in somber majesty on either side the roaring

stream. "How different it all looks this morning," he said, remembering

the deep blackness of the night.



The beat of hoofs upon the bridge drew his attention to the cavalcade,

which the keen eyes of the girl had detected as it came over the ridge to

the east. The party consisted of two men and two women and three

pack-horses completely outfitted for the trail.



One of the women, spurring her horse to the front, rode serenely up to

where Wayland stood, and called out: "Good morning. Are you the ranger?"



"No, I'm only the guard. The ranger has gone down the trail."



He perceived at once that the speaker was an alien like himself, for she

wore tan-colored riding-boots, a divided skirt of expensive cloth, and a

jaunty, wide-rimmed sombrero. She looked, indeed, precisely like the

heroine of the prevalent Western drama. Her sleeves, rolled to the elbow,

disclosed shapely brown arms, and her neck, bare to her bosom, was

equally sun-smit; but she was so round-cheeked, so childishly charming,

that the most critical observer could find no fault with her make-up.



One of the men rode up. "Hello, Norcross. What are you doing over here?"



The youth smiled blandly. "Good morning, Mr. Belden. I'm serving my

apprenticeship. I'm in the service now."



"The mischief you are!" exclaimed the other. "Where's Tony?"



"Gone for his mail. He'll return soon. What are you doing over here,

may I ask?"



"I'm here as guide to Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore, this is Norcross, one of

McFarlane's men. Mr. Moore is connected with the tie-camp operations of

the railway."



Moore was a tall, thin man with a gray beard and keen blue eyes. "Where's

McFarlane? We were to meet him here. Didn't he come over with you?"



"We started together, but the horses got away, and he was obliged to go

back after them. He also is likely to turn up soon."



"I am frightfully hungry," interrupted the girl. "Can't you hand me out a

hunk of bread and meat? We've been riding since daylight."



Berrie suddenly appeared at the door. "Sure thing," she called out.

"Slide down and come in."



Moore removed his hat and bowed. "Good morning, Miss McFarlane, I didn't

know you were here. You know my daughter Siona?"



Berrie nodded coldly. "I've met her."



He indicated the other woman. "And Mrs. Belden, of course, you know."



Mrs. Belden, the fourth member of the party, a middle-aged, rather flabby

person, just being eased down from her horse, turned on Berrie with a

battery of questions. "Good Lord! Berrie McFarlane, what are you doing

over in this forsaken hole? Where's your dad? And where is Tony? If Cliff

had known you was over here he'd have come, too."



Berrie retained her self-possession. "Come in and get some coffee, and

we'll straighten things out."



Apparently Mrs. Belden did not know that Cliff and Berrie had quarreled,

for she treated the girl with maternal familiarity. She was a

good-natured, well-intentioned old sloven, but a most renowned tattler,

and the girl feared her more than she feared any other woman in the

valley. She had always avoided her, but she showed nothing of this

dislike at the moment.



Wayland drew the younger woman's attention by saying: "It's plain that

you, like myself, do not belong to these parts, Miss Moore."



"What makes you think so?" she brightly queried.



"Your costume is too appropriate. Haven't you noticed that the women who

live out here carefully avoid convenient and artistic dress? Now your

outfit is precisely what they should wear and don't."



This amused her. "I know, but they all say they have to wear out their

Sunday go-to-meeting clothes, whereas I can 'rag out proper.' I'm glad

you like my 'rig.'"



"When I look at you," he said, "I'm back on old Broadway at the Herald

Square Theater. The play is 'Little Blossom, or the Cowgirl's Revenge.'

The heroine has just come into the miner's cabin--"



"Oh, go 'long," she replied, seizing her cue and speaking in character,

"you're stringin' me."



"Not on your life! Your outfit is a peacherino," he declared. "I am glad

you rode by."



At the moment he was bent on drawing the girl's attention from Berrie,

but as she went on he came to like her. She said: "No, I don't belong

here; but I come out every year during vacation with my father. I love

this country. It's so big and wide and wild. Father has built a little

bungalow down at the lower mill, and we enjoy every day of our stay."



"You're a Smith girl," he abruptly asserted.



"What makes you think so?"



"Oh, there's something about you Smith girls that gives you dead away."



"Gives us away! I like that!"



"My phrase was unfortunate. I like Smith girls," he hastened to say; and

in five minutes they were on the friendliest terms--talking of mutual

acquaintances--a fact which both puzzled and hurt Berea. Their laughter

angered her, and whenever she glanced at them and detected Siona looking

into Wayland's face with coquettish simper, she was embittered. She was

glad when Moore came in and interrupted the dialogue.



Norcross did not relax, though he considered the dangers of

cross-examination almost entirely passed. In this he was mistaken, for no

sooner was the keen edge of Mrs. Belden's hunger dulled than her

curiosity sharpened.



"Where did you say the Supervisor was?" she repeated.



"The horses got away, and he had to go back after them," again responded

Berrie, who found the scrutiny of the other girl deeply disconcerting.



"When do you expect him back?"



"Any minute now," she replied, and in this she was not deceiving them,

although she did not intend to volunteer any information which might

embarrass either Wayland or herself.



Norcross tried to create a diversion. "Isn't this a charming valley?"



Siona took up the cue. "Isn't it! It's romantic enough to be the

back-drop in a Bret Harte play. I love it!"



Moore turned to Wayland. "I know a Norcross, a Michigan lumberman,

Vice-President of the Association. Is he, by any chance, a relative?"



"Only a father," retorted Wayland, with a smile. "But don't hold me

responsible for anything he has done. We seldom agree."



Moore's manner changed abruptly. "Indeed! And what is the son of W. W.

Norcross doing out here in the Forest Service?"



The change in her father's tone was not lost upon Siona, who ceased her

banter and studied the young man with deeper interest, while Mrs. Belden,

detecting some restraint in Berrie's tone, renewed her questioning:

"Where did you camp last night?"



"Right here."



"I don't see how the horses got away. There's a pasture here, for we rode

right through it."



Berrie was aware that each moment of delay in explaining the situation

looked like evasion, and deepened the significance of her predicament,

and yet she could not bring herself to the task of minutely accounting

for her time during the last two days.



Belden came to her relief. "Well, well! We'll have to be moving on. We're

going into camp at the mouth of the West Fork," he said, as he rose.

"Tell Tony and the Supervisor that we want to line out that timber at the

earliest possible moment."



Siona, who was now distinctly coquetting with Wayland, held out her hand.

"I hope you'll find time to come up and see us. I know we have other

mutual friends, if we had time to get at them."



His answer was humorous. "I am a soldier. I am on duty. I'm not at all

sure that I shall have a moment's leave; but I will call if I can

possibly do so."



They started off at last without having learned in detail anything of the

intimate relationship into which the Supervisor's daughter and young

Norcross had been thrown, and Mrs. Belden was still so much in the dark

that she called to Berrie: "I'm going to send word to Cliff that you are

over here. He'll be crazy to come the minute he finds it out."



"Don't do that!" protested Berrie.



Wayland turned to Berrie. "That would be pleasant," he said, smilingly.



But she did not return his smile. On the contrary, she remained very

grave. "I wish that old tale-bearer had kept away. She's going to make

trouble for us all. And that girl, isn't she a spectacle? I never could

bear her."



"Why, what's wrong with her? She seems a very nice, sprightly person."



"She's a regular play actor. I don't like made-up people. Why does she go

around with her sleeves rolled up that way, and--and her dress open at

the throat?"



"Oh, those are the affectations of the moment. She wants to look tough

and boisterous. That's the fad with all the girls, just now. It's only a

harmless piece of foolishness."



She could not tell him how deeply she resented his ready tone of

camaraderie with the other girl; but she was secretly suffering. It hurt

her to think that he could forget his aches and be so free and easy with

a stranger at a moment's notice. Under the influence of that girl's smile

he seemed to have quite forgotten his exhaustion and his pain. It was

wonderful how cheerful he had been while she was in sight.



In all this Berrie did him an injustice. He had been keenly conscious,

during every moment of the time, not only of his bodily ills, but of

Berrie, and he had kept a brave face in order that he might prevent

further questioning on the part of a malicious girl. It was his only way

of being heroic. Now that the crisis was passed he was quite as much of a

wreck as ever.



A new anxiety beset her. "I hope they won't happen to meet father on the

trail."



"Perhaps I should go with them and warn him."



"Oh, it doesn't matter," she wearily answered. "Old Mrs. Belden will

never rest till she finds out just where we've been, and just what we've

done. She's that kind. She knows everything that goes on."



He understood her fear, and yet he was unable to comfort her in the only

way she could be comforted. That brief encounter with Siona Moore--a girl

of his own world--had made all thought of marriage with Berea suddenly

absurd. Without losing in any degree the sense of gratitude he felt for

her protecting care, and with full acknowledgment of her heroic support

of his faltering feet, he revolted from putting into words a proposal of

marriage. "I love her," he confessed to himself, "and she is a dear,

brave girl; but I do not love her as a man should love the woman he is to

marry."



A gray shadow had plainly fallen between them. Berea sensed the change in

his attitude, and traced it to the influence of the coquette whose

smiling eyes and bared arms had openly challenged admiration. It saddened

her to think that one so fine as he had seemed could yield even momentary

tribute to an open and silly coquette.