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.
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Copyright © 1929, 1930, 1936, 1937 by Mary Roberts Rinehart
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Tish Marches On Page 20
