The Sky Pilot: A Tale of the Foothills

by Ralph Connor

  CHAPTER XI

  GWEN'S CHALLENGE

  Gwen was undoubtedly wild and, as The Sky Pilot said, wilful and wicked.Even Bronco Bill and Hi Kendal would say so, without, of course, abatingone jot of their admiration for her. For fourteen years she had livedchiefly with wild things. The cattle on the range, wild as deer, thecoyotes, the jack-rabbits and the timber wolves were her mates and herinstructors. From these she learned her wild ways. The rolling prairieof the Foothill country was her home. She loved it and all things thatmoved upon it with passionate love, the only kind she was capable of.And all summer long she spent her days riding up and down the rangealone, or with her father, or with Joe, or, best of all, with TheDuke, her hero and her friend. So she grew up strong, wholesome andself-reliant, fearing nothing alive and as untamed as a yearling rangecolt.

  She was not beautiful. The winds and sun had left her no complexion tospeak of, but the glory of her red hair, gold-red, with purple sheen,nothing could tarnish. Her eyes, too, deep blue with rims of gray, thatflashed with the glint of steel or shone with melting light as of thestars, according to her mood--those Irish, warm, deep eyes of hers wereworth a man's looking at.

  Of course, all spoiled her. Ponka and her son Joe grovelled in abjectestadoration, while her father and all who came within touch of her simplydid her will. Even The Duke, who loved her better than anything else,yielded lazy, admiring homage to his Little Princess, and certainly,when she stood straight up with her proud little gold-crowned headthrown back, flashing forth wrath or issuing imperious commands, shelooked a princess, all of her.

  It was a great day and a good day for her when she fished The Sky Pilotout of the Swan and brought him home, and the night of Gwen's first"prayers," when she heard for the first time the story of the Man ofNazareth, was the best of all her nights up to that time. All throughthe winter, under The Pilot's guidance, she, with her father, the OldTimer, listening near, went over and over that story so old now to many,but ever becoming new, till a whole new world of mysterious Powersand Presences lay open to her imagination and became the home of greatrealities. She was rich in imagination and, when The Pilot read Bunyan'simmortal poem, her mother's old "Pilgrim's Progress," she moved andlived beside the hero of that tale, backing him up in his fights andconsumed with anxiety over his many impending perils, till she had himsafely across the river and delivered into the charge of the shiningones.

  The Pilot himself, too, was a new and wholesome experience. He was thefirst thing she had yet encountered that refused submission, and thefirst human being that had failed to fall down and worship. There wassomething in him that would not ALWAYS yield, and, indeed, her prideand her imperious tempers he met with surprise and sometimes with a pitythat verged toward contempt. With this she was not well pleased and notinfrequently she broke forth upon him. One of these outbursts is stampedupon my mind, not only because of its unusual violence, but chieflybecause of the events which followed. The original cause of her rage wassome trifling misdeed of the unfortunate Joe; but when I came upon thescene it was The Pilot who was occupying her attention. The expressionof surprise and pity on his face appeared to stir her up.

  "How dare you look at me like that?" she cried.

  "How very extraordinary that you can't keep hold of yourself better!" heanswered.

  "I can!" she stamped, "and I shall do as I like!"

  "It is a great pity," he said, with provoking calm, "and besides, it isweak and silly." His words were unfortunate.

  "Weak!" she gasped, when her breath came back to her. "Weak!"

  "Yes," he said, "very weak and childish."

  Then she could have cheerfully put him to a slow and cruel death. Whenshe had recovered a little she cried vehemently:

  "I'm not weak! I'm strong! I'm stronger than you are! I'm strongas--as--a man!"

  I do not suppose she meant the insinuation; at any rate The Pilotignored it and went on.

  "You're not strong enough to keep your temper down." And then, as shehad no reply ready, he went on, "And really, Gwen, it is not right. Youmust not go on in this way."

  Again his words were unfortunate.

  "MUST NOT!" she cried, adding an inch to her height. "Who says so?"

  "God!" was the simple, short answer.

  She was greatly taken back, and gave a quick glance over her shoulder asif to see Him, who would dare to say MUST NOT to her; but, recovering,she answered sullenly:

  "I don't care!"

  "Don't care for God?" The Pilot's voice was quiet and solemn, butsomething in his manner angered her, and she blazed forth again.

  "I don't care for anyone, and I SHALL do as I like."

  The Pilot looked at her sadly for a moment, and then said slowly:

  "Some day, Gwen, you will not be able to do as you like."

  I remember well the settled defiance in her tone and manner as she tooka step nearer him and answered in a voice trembling with passion:

  "Listen! I have always done as I like, and I shall do as I like till Idie!" And she rushed forth from the house and down toward the canyon,her refuge from all disturbing things, and chiefly from herself.

  I could not shake off the impression her words made upon me. "Prettydirect, that," I said to The Pilot, as we rode away. "The declarationmay be philosophically correct, but it rings uncommonly like a challengeto the Almighty. Throws down the gauntlet, so to speak."

  But The Pilot only said, "Don't! How can you?"

  Within a week her challenge was accepted, and how fiercely and howgallantly did she struggle to make it good!

  It was The Duke that brought me the news, and as he told me the storyhis gay, careless self-command for once was gone. For in the gloomof the canyon where he overtook me I could see his face gleaming outghastly white, and even his iron nerve could not keep the tremor fromhis voice.

  "I've just sent up the doctor," was his answer to my greeting. "I lookedfor you last night, couldn't find you, and so rode off to the Fort."

  "What's up?" I said, with fear in my heart, for no light thing moved TheDuke.

  "Haven't you heard? It's Gwen," he said, and the next minute or two hegave to Jingo, who was indulging in a series of unexpected plunges. WhenJingo was brought down, The Duke was master of himself and told his talewith careful self-control.

  Gwen, on her father's buckskin bronco, had gone with The Duke to the bigplain above the cut-bank where Joe was herding the cattle. The daywas hot and a storm was in the air. They found Joe riding up and down,singing to keep the cattle quiet, but having a hard time to hold thebunch from breaking. While The Duke was riding around the far side ofthe bunch, a cry from Gwen arrested his attention. Joe was in trouble.His horse, a half-broken cayuse, had stumbled into a badger-hole and hadbolted, leaving Joe to the mercy of the cattle. At once they began tosniff suspiciously at this phenomenon, a man on foot, and to followcautiously on his track. Joe kept his head and walked slowly out, tillall at once a young cow began to bawl and to paw the ground. In anotherminute one, and then another of the cattle began to toss their heads andbunch and bellow till the whole herd of two hundred were after Joe.Then Joe lost his head and ran. Immediately the whole herd broke into athundering gallop with heads and tails aloft and horns rattling like theloading of a regiment of rifles.

  "Two more minutes," said The Duke, "would have done for Joe, for I couldnever have reached him; but, in spite of my most frantic warnings andsignalings, right into the face of that mad, bellowing, thunderingmass of steers rode that little girl. Nerve! I have some myself, but Icouldn't have done it. She swung her horse round Joe and sailed out withhim, with the herd bellowing at the tail of her bronco. I've seen somecavalry things in my day, but for sheer cool bravery nothing touchesthat."

  "How did it end? Did they run them down?" I asked, with terror at such aresult.

  "No, they crowded her toward the cut-bank, and she was edging them offand was almost past, when they came to a place where the bank bit in,and her iron-mouthed brute wouldn't swerve, but went pounding
on, brokethrough, plunged; she couldn't spring free because of Joe, and pitchedheadlong over the bank, while the cattle went thundering past. I flungmyself off Jingo and slid down somehow into the sand, thirty feet below.Here was Joe safe enough, but the bronco lay with a broken leg, and halfunder him was Gwen. She hardly knew she was hurt, but waved her hand tome and cried out, 'Wasn't that a race? I couldn't swing this hard-headedbrute. Get me out.' But even as she spoke the light faded from her eyes,she stretched out her hands to me, saying faintly, 'Oh, Duke,' and layback white and still. We put a bullet into the buckskin's head, andcarried her home in our jackets, and there she lies without a sound fromher poor, white lips."

  The Duke was badly cut up. I had never seen him show any sign of griefbefore, but as he finished the story he stood ghastly and shaking. Heread my surprise in my face and said:

  "Look here, old chap, don't think me quite a fool. You can't know whatthat little girl has done for me these years. Her trust in me--it isextraordinary how utterly she trusts me--somehow held me up to my bestand back from perdition. It is the one bright spot in my life in thisblessed country. Everyone else thinks me a pleasant or unpleasant kindof fiend."

  I protested rather faintly.

  "Oh, don't worry your conscience," he answered, with a slight returnof his old smile, "a fuller knowledge would only justify the opinion."Then, after a pause, he added: "But if Gwen goes, I must pull out, Icould not stand it."

  As we rode up, the doctor came out.

  "Well, what do you think?" asked The Duke.

  "Can't say yet," replied the old doctor, gruff with long army practice,"bad enough. Good night."

  But The Duke's hand fell upon his shoulder with a grip that must havegot to the bone, and in a husky voice he asked:

  "Will she live?"

  The doctor squirmed, but could not shake off that crushing grip.

  "Here, you young tiger, let go! What do you think I am made of?" hecried, angrily. "I didn't suppose I was coming to a bear's den, or Ishould have brought a gun."

  It was only by the most complete apology that The Duke could mollify theold doctor sufficiently to get his opinion.

  "No, she will not die! Great bit of stuff! Better she should die,perhaps! But can't say yet for two weeks. Now remember," he addedsharply, looking into The Duke's woe-stricken face, "her spirits must bekept up. I have lied most fully and cheerfully to them inside; you mustdo the same," and the doctor strode away, calling out:

  "Joe! Here, Joe! Where is he gone? Joe, I say! Extraordinary selectionProvidence makes at times; we could have spared that lazy half-breedwith pleasure! Joe! Oh, here you are! Where in thunder--" But here thedoctor stopped abruptly. The agony in the dark face before him was toomuch even for the bluff doctor. Straight and stiff Joe stood by thehorse's head till the doctor had mounted, then with a great effort hesaid:

  "Little miss, she go dead?"

  "Dead!" called out the doctor, glancing at the open window. "Why,bless your old copper carcass, no! Gwen will show you yet how to rope asteer."

  Joe took a step nearer, and lowering his tone said:

  "You speak me true? Me man, Me no papoose." The piercing black eyessearched the doctor's face. The doctor hesitated a moment, and then,with an air of great candor, said cheerily:

  "That's all right, Joe. Miss Gwen will cut circles round your old cayuseyet. But remember," and the doctor was very impressive, "you must makeher laugh every day."

  Joe folded his arms across his breast and stood like a statue till thedoctor rode away; then turning to us he grunted out:

  "Him good man, eh?"

  "Good man," answered The Duke, adding, "but remember, Joe, what he toldyou to do. Must make her laugh every day."

  Poor Joe! Humor was not his forte, and his attempt in this directionin the weeks that followed would have been humorous were they not sopathetic. How I did my part I cannot tell. Those weeks are to me nowlike the memory of an ugly nightmare. The ghostly old man moving outand in of his little daughter's room in useless, dumb agony; Ponka'swoe-stricken Indian face; Joe's extraordinary and unusual but loyalattempts at fun-making grotesquely sad, and The Duke's unvarying andinvincible cheeriness; these furnish light and shade for the picture mymemory brings me of Gwen in those days.

  For the first two weeks she was simply heroic. She bore her pain withouta groan, submitted to the imprisonment which was harder than pain withangelic patience. Joe, The Duke and I carried out our instructions withcareful exactness to the letter. She never doubted, and we never let herdoubt but that in a few weeks she would be on the pinto's back again andafter the cattle. She made us pass our word for this till it seemed asif she must have read the falsehoods on our brows.

  "To lie cheerfully with her eyes upon one's face calls for more than Ipossess," said The Duke one day. "The doctor should supply us tonics. Itis an arduous task."

  And she believed us absolutely, and made plans for the fall "round-up,"and for hunts and rides till one's heart grew sick. As to the ethicalproblem involved, I decline to express an opinion, but we had no needto wait for our punishment. Her trust in us, her eager and confidentexpectation of the return of her happy, free, outdoor life; thesebrought to us, who knew how vain they were, their own adequatepunishment for every false assurance we gave. And how bright and braveshe was those first days! How resolute to get back to the world of airand light outside!

  But she had need of all her brightness and courage and resolution beforeshe was done with her long fight.