WHEN WE GOT BACK that evening Tish was in camp. She stated that Mr. Armstrong was on the way, and that he had wanted to come in the car, but she had persuaded him otherwise.
“If he is to rescue her,” she said, “it should be done gallantly. And this is his one chance to assert his superiority. He should dash in and, more or less, throw her over his saddle and gallop away.”
I regret to say that here Aggie laughed. Tish looked at her coldly.
“You think it funny?” she inquired. “With two young lives to make or break, you can laugh?”
Aggie sobered at once, and we made our reports. Tish seemed satisfied, and in the glow of her approval we sat about preparing the evening meal. It was after we had eaten that an incident occurred which had an important bearing on the next event. Susie had come in and was looking for scraps, and as she got in the way Aggie struck her sharply on the nose. But it was not Susie. It reared up to an enormous height, and we then saw that it was a silvertip, or grizzly, the most dangerous of all bears.
However, our dear Tish is always reliable in an emergency. While it was still standing, waving its paws and growling, she hurriedly took the top off the pepperbox and flung several handfuls of pepper toward it. It at once began to sneeze and soon beat a retreat, but our poor Aggie also inhaled some and was in great distress for several hours.
It was late that night when Mr. Armstrong got in, and I don’t know when I’ve seen a man look so unhappy. The way he glared at his horse when he had crawled off it was simply poisonous.
“Aren’t you going to unsaddle him?” Tish asked.
“No,” he said bitterly. “Let him sleep in his clothes. I do.”
“Sit down and you’ll feel better.”
“Sit?” he said. “Sit! I don’t wish to be indelicate, ladies, but to the best of my knowledge and belief my sitting days are over.” He then looked about him, and sighed. “But if you have a nice hollow somewhere handy for my right hipbone, I’ll lie down.”
Well, he looked terrible. I don’t know when he had shaved, and the orange fur of his chaps was simply filled with burrs. Also, he said that he felt itchy all over and that he was liable to poison ivy.
“But it may only be hives again,” he observed gloomily. “I’ve had them off and on, or rather in and out, for a week.”
He was more cheerful after we’d made him some coffee. He said that if he had the luck to get home with his sanity intact the only horse he would ride hereafter would plug into a lamp socket, and at last he asked about Suzanne. He listened intently while we told him.
“And no rangers?” he asked wonderingly. “No ukulele and no Dipper? Are you sure you got the right girl?”
When we reassured him he drew a long breath. “Ladies,” he said, “you have worked a miracle. And beans? You said beans? She hates ’em. She always did. And they’re starchy too. She doesn’t eat starches.”
And then at last he lay back and laughed, for the first time since we had known him. He was quite nice when he laughed. He had good teeth and he really looked very boyish.
“Now let me get this,” he said. “All I have to do is to ride in, throw her over the pommel of the saddle—or the cantle, I never can remember which it is—and carry her off. Is that it?”
“You’ll have to carry her off from something,” Tish observed.
“You bet your sweet life I will,” he said heartily. “From rangers and cowboys and all the male sons of guns who have turned her pretty little head out here.”
“You’ll have to rescue her.”
“Rescue’s my middle name.” He lay still and looked up at the sky. “You see,” he said, “she’s all right, back home. She’s more than that; she’s wonderful. And I had her, all right. No Dipper business either. I never could find the damned thing in the sky. It’s only this summer—”
His voice trailed off, and Aggie, who always loves a lover, put a blanket over him as he slept.
While I worked over his chaps that night, combing them and removing the dead leaves, small twigs, burrs, and certain insects which he had picked up, Tish at last told us of her plan. On the following night, from the hillside, we were to fire a number of shots, being careful to shoot into the air. Then, in the midst of what must appear to be a deadly attack, Mr. Armstrong was to ride to the rescue.
“He ought to be able to do that,” she said. “Even a man in the bond business should be able to ride a hundred yards. But he must shave and have a haircut. I can cut his hair; I used to do Charlie Sands’ when he was small.”
Naturally, she emphasized the need of haste. Nobody could tell when some ranger would ride in, or a tourist disregard the sign and discover Suzanne. We retired at last, although I have reason to believe that Tish made a final excursion that night, scattering marshmallows around the cabin as well as on the roof, and that to this may be laid certain of our later difficulties.
Unfortunately, when Mr. Armstrong wakened the next morning it was evident that the attack would have to be delayed. Poison ivy or hives, both his eyes were swollen almost shut; after retiring into the woods, he returned to say that his entire body was in a similar condition. He had even lost interest in Suzanne, and as he felt better in water, he spent a part of the day immersed in the creek.
Tish carried his lunch there, and placed it on a boulder at a distance. She said he was quite pathetic, and that even if Suzanne wandered so far—which was unlikely—she would never recognize him. Also, that he was almost frozen as the water came from a glacier above.
The delay was trying, but by the next day, Aggie having made him starch poultices for the worst spots, he was much better.
We made a reconnaissance that day, and my notes are as follows:
“Friday: She has apparently taken a dislike to the cabin, and has spent most of the day in her car, with doors and windows closed. So far as observable has eaten nothing all day, nor built a fire. Through glasses her expression is desperate. Advise immediate action.”
As a result, the attack was set for that night, and we spent the remainder of the day in grooming Mr. Armstrong. Fortunately, Tish found a pair of clippers in her odds-and-ends box and was able to give him an excellent western haircut, running the clippers well up the back of his head and over his ears and leaving a heavy thatch above. This so changed his appearance that when she gave him the mirror he almost dropped it.
He did not seem very pleased, observing that his hair grew slowly and that it was all right to be thorough, but not too damned thorough. And when he found that his hat was now slightly too large for him he seemed even more upset.
“Well,” he said, “thank God I’ve got ears. If I hadn’t I’d have to wear it around my neck and cut eyeholes in the crown. However—”
By nightfall everything was ready, and we moved in single file to the brow of the hill. All was still below, and a young moon bathed the landscape in faint beauty. But all was not well with us. As we approached the edge Mr. Armstrong’s horse gave undeniable signs of being nervous, and Mr. Armstrong himself was undoubtedly uneasy.
“See here,” he said, “why can’t I simply run down after the shooting and save her? What do I need a horse for? I’ve about as much chance of carrying her off on the cantle—”
“Pommel,” Tish corrected him.
“On the pommel, as I have of growing an extra pair of legs. Not that I couldn’t use ’em if I had them. It would take a fellow with four legs to sit this beast.”
But Tish was insistent, and he was finally able to mount. None of us, I fear, had the faintest idea of what was to come, but we had no more than fired the first volley when the horse bolted at a terrific rate. Luckily, if there can be any luck in such a situation, it headed directly down the hillside and toward the cabin, and Tish directed us to hold our fire and to listen. So far as we could tell, however, it did not pause at the cabin, or even hesitate, and we were left to face a dire and ignominious failure.
It was not until we had waited for some hours, and neither Mr. Armstrong nor the horse had returned, that our brave Tish decided to make an investigation, creeping down the hillside, she disappeared from our sight.
We did not see her again for many hours!
Never shall I forget those hours of tension. Dawn found us still there, and revealed no sign of life below. Our dear Tish, Mr. Armstrong, and his horse had vanished, and our hearts were fairly sick with apprehension.
Nor was this lessened when Aggie suddenly caught me by the arm and, sneezing violently, pointed beneath.
Suzanne was getting out of the car and slowly and warily approaching the cabin. When almost there, we saw her stop and pick up something; catching up the field glasses, we saw that it was a revolver. Undoubtedly the one we had lent Mr. Armstrong, and which must have been shaken from its holster during his wild ride.
But what was our horror to see her level the gun at the cabin door, and pull the trigger, not once but twice. Had she heard movement within, and was Tish, that dauntless woman, inside the cabin and at her mercy? We could not tell.
I draw a curtain over the following three hours. Suzanne had once more retired to her car, but never relaxed her vigilance. However, from where she sat the roof of the cabin was hidden from her, and it was here that we at last perceived signs of life. A shingle or two were seen to move, and through this came a dear familiar hand, waving cautiously to us. She lived. Our beloved Tish lived and awaited rescue.
“We must save her, Aggie,” I said. “We must get that girl away.”
“I’m not going near her,” Aggie retorted. “She’s dangerous. Anyhow, that’s Mr. Armstrong’s job, although what he wants of a hellcat like that is beyond me.”
“She’d be gentle enough if she had some real food, Aggie.”
“She can starve to death for all of me,” Aggie retorted bitterly.
But what else was there to do? I finally proposed that we wander in on her from the rear, pretending to be picking flowers, and that we then attempt to coax her with us to camp, holding out the inducement of a hot meal. This we proceeded to do. We had one bad moment, however, for we were close behind her when Aggie, who is susceptible to certain of the wild flowers, sneezed violently. Suzanne whirled and fired at us point-blank, and the bullet knocked my flowers out of my hand. But the next moment she had dropped the revolver, and such a look of relief was observable in her face that my heart was touched.
“Sorry!” she said. “Apologies and so on. I didn’t sleep last night and I’m a trifle nervy.”
“Dervy!” said Aggie, sneezing again. “If that’s all you cad say, after tryig to shoot two idoffedsive wobed—”
“This is no place for inoffensive women,” she said briskly. “With game poachers shooting all around and a grizzly bear in my cabin.”
Aggie opened her mouth to speak, but I silenced her.
“A bear? Are you sure it is a bear?” I asked gently.
“Of course, it’s a bear,” she said, eying me. “This place is full of bears. I didn’t know there were so many bears in the world. When I get out of here I’m heading back east, and the only reason I’m not flying there this minute is because I haven’t got wings. By the way,” she added, trying to look casual, “I’m offering a premium on ham and eggs and twenty gallons of gas, if you know of either in these parts.”
When I said we had both, she almost burst into tears. She didn’t look or act like the girl with the ukulele, and later on we found the thing; it looked as though she had deliberately put her foot through it. She went with us without a question; indeed, she said very little on the way to camp, except once when Aggie mentioned rangers.
“Rangers!” she said. “Don’t talk to me about rangers. I’ve been kidnaped, starved, and lost for a week, and has any ranger taken the trouble to look me up? He has not.”
Well, she was half famished, and after she had eaten, and borrowed some soap and taken a bath, she looked like a different girl. But she stuck to her story about a grizzly bear in her cabin, and both Aggie and I began to grow uneasy. We knew it was not Susie, as Susie had been carefully tied up in the woods and was still there, and at last Aggie slipped away and came back with a white face.
“It’s true!” she gasped. “And they’re both there with it, Tish and Mr. Armstrong. They’re in the upper bunk. Oh, Lizzie, Lizzie, to think of her at the mercy of that savage beast!”
“Nonsense! What did she say?”
Suzanne was asleep by that time, and Aggie cautiously felt in her pocket.
“I got on the roof,” she said, “and she gave me this list. She says not to give the girl any coffee tonight so that she will sleep, and we’re to bring her these things. She hasn’t given up, Lizzie. She said she means to turn defeat into victory. She made the list with Mr. Armstrong’s fountain pen.”
“Yes,” I said scornfully. “He’d lose his revolver, but he’d keep his fountain pen. That’s men for you!”
But I confess that the list puzzled me. It, too, lies before me on my desk, written on the back of an old envelope. It runs as follows:
(a) Ropes from trailer.
(b) Provisions: flour, baking powder, salt, coffee, condensed milk, bacon, eggs.
(c) Hammer and nails.
(d) Sewing basket.
(e) Reflector oven.
(f) Bottle of glue. (Mr. A’s library paste lost from pockets when horse ran away.)
(g) Bottle of cordial.
(h) Large skinning knife.
(i) Revolver.
(j) Bottle of chloroform liniment. (This last being used on occasion by Aggie for her rheumatism.)
(k) Bath sponge.
As Suzanne roused just then, I put the list away, and we prepared supper. It was evident that Tish, while uncomfortable, was in no immediate danger, and so Aggie baked some of her delicious cup custards, and once more Suzanne ate heartily.
But we gave her no coffee, and soon she was yawning again.
“Sorry,” she said. “If I ever get back to a decent bed, believe me I’ll stay there.” She was thoughtful for a moment. “Queer thing, life,” she said. “I turned down a—well, a boy friend in the East after I came out here. But he doesn’t look so bad to me now. Maybe golf and bonds—They’re not exciting, but they’re safe.”
Here she yawned once more and before long was asleep.
We lost no time in preparing to depart, and soon we were on our way. We were hardly out of camp, however, before Aggie tripped over something and dropped the tin oven, and Suzanne sat up and yelled. I went back and quieted her, and so at last we reached the cabin.
Tish heard us and called to bring the chloroform liniment, sponge, and ropes to the roof. This we did. There followed, in a very short time, a terrific commotion within; indeed, from the voices, it was at one time apparent that the positions had been reversed; that the bear was in the upper bunk and our friends below. But following that came a period of quiet, and the soothing odor of chloroform was noticeable.
It was not long afterward that Tish’s buoyant voice called us in, and we were able to light a portion of candle left uneaten by the bear and survey the scene.
The bear, roped and tied, was lying on the floor, and a sponge soaked in liniment was fastened to his nose. The remainder of the cabin was completely wrecked, and standing with his back to a corner was Mr. Armstrong.
“Ladies,” he said, “someone has said that the farther he went west the more convinced he felt that the wise men came from the East. In the vernacular, he said a mouthful. I’m through. I’m done. Henceforth I am for the great open spaces of civilization.”
But Tish looked at him coldly.
“On the contrary,” she said, “you love the West. It cannot be too western for you. You hate selling bonds. You are never going back. You are henceforth a free and untrammeled spirit.”
“Oh, have it your own way,” he agreed, without enthusiasm, “But it’s going pretty strong to tell any man he’s a free and untrammeled spirit when he’s had the seat clawed out of his breeches.”
“Your breeches will be repaired as soon as you give them to us.”
“Ladies!” he said in a shocked voice. “Even a free and un—”
“You can go outside and hand them in.”
“Outside?” he said. “In that wind? I don’t want to seem to complain, but I’m liable to colds, and as all I have underneath is a pair of unmentionables and one or two adhesive plaster dressings—”
Well, he went finally, but not before he had asked all about Suzanne.
“So she’s all right,” he said, when we had told him. “And she hates the West, does she? Well, that makes two of us, bless her little heart. And if that’s the case, Miss Tish, why anymore?”
But Tish was firm. She said that Suzanne was only convalescent, not cured, and that the only thing now was to go on to the bitter end. He agreed finally, and having handed in his garments for repair, proceeded to the roof. As he hammered he insisted that what we heard was his teeth chattering, but Tish ignored this and together we put the cabin in order.
I must confess that we were still in the dark as to what she intended, and it was with some bewilderment that we observed certain of her actions. For example, it will be recalled that, although she never smokes and indeed considers it degrading in a woman, she had learned some years ago to roll a cigarette in western fashion. This she now proceeded to do, rolling a dozen or so and carefully-fastening them with glue. At the same time she instructed me to mix up and cut out a batch of biscuits, and to place them in the reflector oven, ready for baking, and when Mr. Armstrong returned she gave him a careful lesson in how to slice bacon and properly break eggs into a frying pan, and also in making coffee.
“If I go on I’ll be a good wife for somebody someday,” he said.
But he seemed quite cheerful, once indeed standing with his arms folded and his foot on the prostrate bear and asking to have his picture taken.
It was daylight when we left him, and when Suzanne wakened we were getting breakfast. Well, the sleep and a little soap had done wonders for her, and she looked quite pretty again. She eyed Tish, but without suspicion.
“I didn’t see you yesterday, did I?” she said.
“No,” Tish told her. “I was not here. I was studying the wild life of the West.”
Suzanne only yawned and stretched.
“You can have it,” she said.
It was after breakfast that Tish told her she had been over to look at the cabin, and there was certainly no bear there. Only a good-looking young man who was building a fire.
“Quite handsome,” she said, “and evidently a Westerner from the way he went about things.”
Well, Suzanne had brightened at the start, but at the word Westerner her face fell.
“You can have him too,” she said morosely.
But later on she stuck her hands in her breeches pockets and started off, and as soon as we were certain she was going to the cabin we followed her at a safe distance. Tish went and got Susie, and took her along on a rope, for some reason of her own, and we were able to get fairly close.
I must say that Mr. Armstrong did us credit. Tish had fixed him before we left, and his chaps were where they ought to be and he had taken off his nose glasses. He had a revolver hanging on his hip and one of the cigarettes Tish had made in his mouth; he had built a fire in front of the cabin and was turning over frying bacon with the skinning knife, which is about a foot long.
Maybe he really did not see her at first without his glasses, for he gave a fine start and said:
“You!”
Well, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a mortal being look as astonished as she did when she recognized him.
“Jim,” she exclaimed. “What in the world—”
“Just a moment,” he said. “I don’t want these biscuits to burn. Well, this is a surprise! Who’d have expected to see you in this part of the world!”
“You knew I was out here.”
“That’s so too, when I think about it,” he said. “Look at those biscuits, little girl. Ever see better biscuits? Yes, I knew you were in the West, but the West’s a big place. When I think how much of it I have yet to see—I want to put some eggshells in the coffee.”
She stared at him as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.
“When did you get here? To this cabin?”
“I dropped in—let’s see! It was some time yesterday, wasn’t it? Or the day before. I don’t pay much attention to time when I’m out like this.”
“Was there a bear here when you came?”
“Sure was. Would you like a cup of coffee? I think coffee’s at its best in the open, don’t you?”
“If you’d only quit babbling,” she said angrily. “What became of the bear?”
“He’s inside. Roped up. Can’t kill a park bear, you know.”
Suddenly she sat down on the trunk of a tree and ran her hand over her eyes.
“I think if I had a cigarette—” she said weakly.
“Surest thing you know. Wait a minute and I’ll roll one for you. That’s what you like, I believe.”
He went into the cabin, and coming back presented her with one. He stood watching while she took a puff or two.
“When I think of the Turkish and Egyptian cigarettes I used to smoke,” he began, “I—What’s the matter with it?”
“It’s simply poisonous,” she said weakly. “It—it tastes like glue.”
He looked offended at that and asked her if she would have some breakfast, but she only shook her head.
“You’re sure? No bacon and eggs?”
“Nothing, thanks.”
“Well, you don’t mind if I eat, do you? One thing I’ve found out. This open-air life does give one an appetite.”
“Does it?” she said without any spirit whatever. “I’m glad you like it. I never thought you would.”
“Like it? It’s the only life, my dear.”
He had poured himself some coffee, and now he sat down on his heel. Unluckily he had forgotten his spurs, and he jumped and dropped his cup. But our dear Tish fortunately created a diversion at the moment. She loosed Susie, and Susie went toward them on the run.
Suzanne leaped and shrieked, but Mr. Armstrong only smiled.
“What!” he said playfully. “Afraid of a common, everyday black bear! Now a grizzly, that’s different, but this sort—!”
Here he hit Susie a smart smack on the nose and I thought the girl’s eyes would pop out of her head.
“Go away and be a good bear,” he said. “Don’t you see we have distinguished company? Go in and look at big brother inside, all nicely roped up and everything.”
Suzanne was gazing at him fixedly.
“It is you, I suppose?” she said. “It looks like you. It sounds like you. But if it is you—”
“Why, of course it is, my dear child. If there is any difference, it is that you only knew the office slave, not the man. Thank God, that’s over.”
“The office slave would at least have asked how I got here.”
“But, my dear,” he said in a hurt voice, “what business is that of mine? Once, I grant you, I had the right, but now—! You see, Suzanne dear, the East without you was empty, so I came west. Here I have found myself, and here I shall probably stay. I find that I love the wild and the creatures of the wild—just a moment: I’ll give the little bear a biscuit—and I dote on the open spaces. Give me a horse and some cans of beans, and I ask no more. Let me sleep under the stars, gazing up at the Dipper and—and the rest of them, and I am happy and content.”
“And that’s all?”
“That’s all, lacking you, my dear.”
“And if you had me?”
“I love you, of course,” he said. “Perhaps I never really found you until I lost you, if you know what I mean. Alone under the—the Dipper, I can think of you. On my stanch and sturdy horse, following the white trail over the hills, you have belonged to me as never before. I shall always remember you, my dear.”
“You’d rather dream of me than have me, I dare say,” she said sharply.
“A dream is better than nothing, my darling.”
And then she began to cry.
“I can’t do it,” she wailed. “I love you. I was just a fool, that’s all. But I can’t stay out here. I want to go home. I want to sleep in a bed and sit in a chair. I want a decent haircut and a manicure, and if I ever see another bean I’ll scream. You can take your choice. Me or—or the Dipper.”
“And that’s final?”
“That’s final.”
He drew a long breath. Then he started toward her. His spurs caught in a twig and almost threw him, but when he recovered his balance his arms were around her. I looked at our dear Tish, and she was faintly smiling.