``Good Heavens!’’ muttered the colonel, setting down his bowl of milk and twisting around to stare out of the window behind him.
``Poor thing! she can’t help it!’’ murmured Ruth.
``No more she can, you dear, good girl!’’ said Rex, and his eyes shone very kindly. Ruth caught her breath at the sudden beating of her heart.
What was left of daylight came through the little window and fell upon her face; it was as white as a flower, and very quiet.
Dusk was setting in when Sepp made his appearance. He stood about in some hesitation, and finally addressed himself to Ruth as the one who could best understand his dialect. She listened and then turned to her father.
``Sepp doesn’t exactly know where to lodge me. He had thought I could stay here with Nani—’’
``Not if I can help it!’’ cried the colonel.
``While,’’ Ruth went on — ``while you and Rex went up to the Jaeger’s hut above there on the rocks. He says it’s very rough at the Jagd-hütte.’’
``Is anyone else there? What does Sepp mean by telling us now for the first time? ‘‘ demanded the colonel sharply.
``He says he was afraid I wouldn’t come if I knew how rough it was — and that—’’ added Ruth, laughing — ``he says would have been such a pity! Besides, he thought Nani was alone — and I could have had her room while she slept on the hay in the loft. I’m sure this is as neat as a mountain shelter could be,’’ said Ruth — looking about her at the high piled feather beds, covered in clean blue and white check, and the spotless floor and the snow white pine table. ``I’d like to stay here, only the — the other lady has just arrived too!’’
``The lady in the blue overalls?’’
``Yes — and—’’ Ruth stopped, unwilling to say how little relish she felt for the society of the second Sennerin. But Rex and her father were on their feet and speaking together.
``We will go and see about the Jagd-hütte. You don’t mind being left for five minutes?’’
``The idea! go along, you silly boys!’’
The colonel came back very soon, and in the best of spirits.
``It’s all right, Daisy! It’s a dream of luxury!’’ and carried her off, hardly giving her time to thank Nani and to say a winningly kind word to the hideous one, who gazed back at her, pitchfork in hand, without reply. No one will ever know whether or not she felt any more cheered by Ruth’s pleasant ways than the cows did who were putting their heads out from the stalls where she was working.
The dream of luxury was a low hut of two rooms. The outer one had a pile of fresh hay in one corner and a few blankets. Some of the dogs were already curled up there. The inner room contained two large bunks with hay and rugs and blankets; a bench ran where the bunks were not, around the sides; a shelf was above the bunks; there was a cupboard and a chest and a table.
``Why, this is luxury!’’ cried Ruth.
``Well — I think so, too. I’m immensely relieved. Sepp says artists bring their wives up here to stay over for the sunrise. You’ll do? Eh?’’
``I should think so!’’
``Good! then Rex and I and Sepp and the Dachl’’ — he always would say ``Dockles’’ — ``will keep guard outside against any wild cows that may happen to break loose from Nani. Good night, little girl! Sure you’re not too tired?’’
Rex stood hesitating in the open door. Ruth went and gave him her hand. He kissed it, and she, meaning to please him with the language she knew he liked best, said, smiling, ``Bonne nuit, mon ami!’’ At the same moment her father passed her, and the two men closed the door and went away together. The last glimmer of dusk was in the room. Ruth had not seen Gethryn’s face.
``Bonne nuit, mon ami!’’ Those tender, half forgotten — no! never, never forgotten words! Rex threw himself on the hay and lay still, his hands clenched over his breast.
The kindly colonel was sound asleep when Sepp came in with a tired but wagging hound, from heaven knows what scramble among the higher cliffs by starlight. The night air was chilly. Rex called the dog to his side and took him in his arms. ``We will keep each other warm,’’ he said, thinking of the pups. And Zimbach, assenting with sentimental whines, was soon asleep. But Gethryn had not closed his eyes when the Jaeger sprang up as the day broke. A faint gray light came in at the little window. All the dogs were leaping about the room. Sepp gave himself a shake, and his toilet was made.
``Colonel,’’ said Rex, standing over a bundle of rugs and hay in which no head was visible, ``Colonel! Sepp says we must hurry if we want to see a `gams.’’’
The colonel turned over. What he said was: ``Damn the Gomps!’’ But he thought better of that and stood up, looking cynical.
``Come and have a dip in the spring,’’ laughed Rex.
When they took their dripping heads out of the wooden trough into which a mountain spring was pouring and running out again, leaving it always full, and gazed at life — between rubs of the hard crash towel — it had assumed a kinder aspect.
Half an hour later, when they all were starting for the top, Ruth let the others pass her, and pausing for a moment with her hand on the lintel, she looked back into the little smoke-blackened hut. The door of the inner room was open. She had dreamed the sweetest dream of her life there.
Before the others could miss her she was beside them, and soon was springing along in advance, swinging her alpenstock. It seemed as if she had the wings as well as the voice of a bird.
Der Jaeger zieht in grünem Wald
Mit frölichem Halloh!
she sang.
Sepp laughed from the tip of his feather to the tip of his beard.
``Wie’s gnädige Fraulein hat G’müth!’’ he said to Rex.
``What’s that?’’ asked the colonel.
``He says,’’ translated Rex freely, ``What a lot of every delightful quality Ruth possesses!’’
But Ruth heard, and turned about and was very severe with him. ``Such shirking! Translate me Gemüth at once, sir, if you please!’’
``Old Wiseboy at Yarvard confessed he couldn’t, short of a treatise, and who am I to tackle what beats Wiseboy?’’
``Can you, Daisy?’’ asked her father.
``Not in the least, but that’s no reason for letting Rex off.’’ Her voice took on a little of the pretty bantering tone she used to her parents. She was beginning to feel such a happy confidence in Rex’s presence.
They were in the forest now, moving lightly over the wet, springy leaves, probing cautiously for dangerous, loose boulders and treacherous slides. When they emerged, it was upon a narrow plateau; the rugged limestone rocks rose on one side, the precipice plunged down on the other. Against the rocks lay patches of snow, grimy with dirt and pebbles; from a cleft the long greenish white threads of ``Peter’s beard’’ waved at them; in a hollow bloomed a thicket of pink Alpen-rosen.
They had just reached a clump of low firs, around the corner of a huge rock, when a rush of loose stones and a dull sound of galloping made them stop. Sepp dropped on his face; the others followed his example. The hound whined and pulled at the leash.
On the opposite slope some twenty Hirsch-cows, with their fawns, were galloping down into the valley, carrying with them a torrent of earth and gravel. Presently they slackened and stopped, huddling all together into a thicket. The Jaeger lifted his head and whispered ``Stück’’; that being the complimentary name by which one designates female deer in German.
``All?’’ said Rex, under his breath. At the same moment Ruth touched his shoulder.
On the crest of the second ridge, only a hundred yards distant, stood a stag, towering in black outline, the sun just coming up behind him. Then two other pairs of antlers rose from behind the ridge, two more stags lifted their heads and shoulders and all three stood silhouetted against the sky. They tossed and stamped and stared straight at the spot where their enemies lay hidden.
A moment, and the old stag disappeared; the others followed him.
``If they come
again, shoot,’’ said Sepp.
Rex passed his rifle to Ruth. They waited a few minutes; then the colonel jumped up.
``I thought we were after chamois!’’ he grumbled.
``So we are,’’ said Rex, getting on his feet.
A shot rang out, followed by another. They turned, sharply. Ruth, looking half frightened, was lowering the smoking rifle from her shoulder. Across the ravine a large stag was swaying on the edge; then he fell and rolled to the bottom. The hound, loosed, was off like an arrow, scrambling and tumbling down the side. The four hunters followed, somehow. Sepp got down first and sent back a wild Jodel. The stag lay there, dead, and his splendid antlers bore eight prongs.
When Ruth came up she had her hand on her father’s arm. She stood and leaned on him, looking down at the stag. Pity mingled with a wild intoxicating sense of achievement confused her. A rich color flushed her cheek, but the curve of her lips was almost grave.
Sepp solemnly drew forth his flask of Schnapps and, taking off his hat to her, drank ``Waidmann’s Heil!’’ — a toast only drunk by hunters to hunters.
Gethryn shook hands with her twenty times and praised her until she could bear no more.
She took her hand from her father’s arm and drew herself up, determined to preserve her composure. The wind blew the little bright rings of hair across her crimson cheek and wrapped her kilts about her slender figure as she stood, her rifle poised across her shoulder, one hand on the stock and one clasped below the muzzle.
``Are you laughing at me, Rex?’’
``You know I am not!’’
Never had she been so happy in her whole life.
The game drawn and hung, to be fetched later, they resumed their climb and hastened upward toward the peak.
Ruth led. She hardly felt the ground beneath her, but sprang from rock to moss and from boulder to boulder, till a gasp from Gethryn made her stop and turn about.
``Good Heavens, Ruth! what a climber you are!’’
And now the colonel sat down on the nearest stone and flatly refused to stir.
``Oh! is it the hip, Father?’’ cried Ruth, hurrying back and kneeling beside him.
``No, of course it isn’t! It’s indignation!’’ said her father, calmly regarding her anxious face. ``If you can’t go up mountains like a human girl, you’re not going up any more mountains with me.’’
``Oh! I’ll go like a human snail if you want, dear! I’ve been too selfish! It’s a shame to tire you so!’’
``Indeed, it is a perfect shame!’’ cried the colonel.
Ruth had to laugh. ``As I remarked to Rex, early this morning,’’ her father continued, adjusting his eyeglass, ``hang the Gomps!’’ Rex discreetly offered no comment. ``Moreover,’’ the colonel went on, bringing all the severity his eyeglass permitted to bear on them both, ``I decline to go walking any longer with a pair of lunatics. I shall confide you both to Sepp and will wait for you at the upper Shelter.’’
``But it’s only indignation; it isn’t the hip, Father?’’ said Ruth, still hanging about him, but trying to laugh, since he would have her laugh.
He saw her trouble, and changing his tone said seriously, ``My little girl, I’m only tired of this scramble, that’s all.’’
She had to be contented with this, and they separated, her father taking a path which led to the right, up a steep but well cleared ascent to a plateau, from which they could see the gable of a roof rising, and beyond that the tip-top rock with its white cross marking the highest point. The others passed to the left, around and among huge rocks, where all the hollows were full of grimy snow. The ground was destitute of trees and all shrubs taller than the hardy Alpen-rosen. Masses of rock lay piled about the limestone crags that formed the summit. The sun had not yet tipped their peak with purple and orange, but some of the others were lighting up. No insects darted about them; there was not a living thing among the near rocks except the bluish black salamanders, which lay here and there, cold and motionless.
They walked on in silence; the trail grew muddy, the ground was beaten and hatched up with small, sharp hoof prints. Sepp kneeled down and examined them.
``Hirsch, Reh, and fawn, and ja! ja! Sehen Sie? Gams!’’
After this they went on cautiously. All at once a peculiar shrill hiss, half whistle, half cry, sounded very near.
A chamois, followed by two kids, flashed across a heap of rocks above their heads and disappeared. The Jaeger muttered something, deep in his beard.
``You wouldn’t have shot her?’’ said Ruth, timidly.
``No, but she will clear this place of chamois. It’s useless to stay here now.’’
It was an hour’s hard pull to the next peak. When at last they lay sheltered under a ledge, grimy snow all about them, the Jaeger handed his glass to Ruth.
``Hirsch on the Kaiser Alm, three Reh by Nani’s Hütterl, and one in the ravine,’’ he said, looking at Gethryn, who was searching eagerly with his own glass. Ruth balanced the one she held against her alpenstock.
``Yes, I see them all — and — why, there’s a chamois!’’
Sepp seized the glass which she held toward him.
``The gracious Fraülein has a hunter’s eyesight; a chamois is feeding just above the Hirsch.’’
``We are right for the wind, but is this the best place?’’ said Rex.
``We must make the best of it,’’ said Sepp.
The speck of yellow was almost imperceptibly approaching their knoll, but so slowly that Ruth almost doubted if it moved at all.
Sepp had the glass, and declining the one Rex offered her, she turned for a moment to the superb panorama at their feet. East, west, north and south the mountain world extended. By this time the snow mountains of Tyrol were all lighted to gold and purple, rose and faintest violet. Sunshine lay warm now on all the near peaks. But great billowy oceans of mist rolled below along the courses of the Alp-fed streams, and, deep under a pall of heavy, pale gray cloud, the Trauerbach was rushing through its hidden valley down to Schicksalsee and Todtstein. There was perfect silence, only now and then made audible by the tinkle of a distant cowbell and the Jodel of a Sennerin. Ruth turned again toward the chamois. She could see it now without a glass. But Sepp placed his in her hand.
The chamois was feeding on the edge of a cliff, moving here and there, leaping lightly across some gully, tossing its head up for a precautionary sniff. Suddenly it gave a bound and stood still, alert. Two great clumsy ``Hirsch-kühe’’ had taken fright at some imaginary danger, and, uttering their peculiar half grunt, half roar, were galloping across the alm in half real, half assumed panic with their calves at their heels.
The elderly female Hirsch is like a timorous granny who loves to scare herself with ghost stories, and adores the sensation of jumping into bed before the robber under it can catch her by the ankle.
It was such an alarm as this which now sent the two fussy old deer, with their awkward long legged calves, clattering away with terror-stricken roars which startled the delicate chamois, and for one moment petrified him. The next, with a bound, he fairly flew along the crest, seeming to sail across the ravine like a hawk, and to cover distances in the flash of an eye. Sepp uttered a sudden exclamation and forgot everything but what he saw. He threw his rifle forward, there was a sharp click! — the cartridge had not exploded. Next moment he remembered himself and turned ashamed and deprecating to Gethryn. The latter laid his hand on the Jaeger’s arm and pointed. The chamois’ sharp ear had caught the click! — he swerved aside and bounded to a point of rock to look for this new danger. Rex tried to put his rifle in Ruth’s hands. She pressed it back, resolutely. ``It is your turn,’’ she motioned with her lips, and drew away out of his reach. That was no time for argument. The Jaeger nodded, ``Quick!’’ A shot echoed among the rocks and the chamois disappeared.
``Is he hit? Oh, Rex! did you hit him?’’
``Ei! Zimbach!’’ Sepp slipped the leash, the hound sprang away, and in a moment his bell-like voice announced Rex�
�s good fortune.
Ruth flew like the wind, not heeding their anxious calls to be careful, to wait for help. It was not far to go, and her light, sure foot brought her to the spot first. When Rex and Sepp arrived she was kneeling beside the dead chamois, stroking the ``beard’’ that waved along its bushy spine. She sprang up and held out her hand to Gethryn.
``Look at that beard — Nimrod!’’ she said. Her voice rang with an excitement she had not shown at her own success.
``It is a fine beard,’’ said Rex, bending over it. His voice was not quite steady. ``Herrlich!’’ cried Sepp, and drank the ``Waidmann’s Heil!’’ toast to him in deep and serious draughts. Then he took out a thong, tied the four slender hoofs together and opened his game sack; Rex helped him to hoist the chamois in and onto his broad shoulders.
Now for the upper Shelter. They started in great spirits, a happy trio. Rex was touched by Ruth’s deep delight in his success, and by the pride in him which she showed more than she knew. He looked at her with eyes full of affection. Sepp was assuring himself, by all the saints in the Bavarian Calendar, that here was a ``Herrschaft’’ which a man might be proud of guiding, and so he meant to tell the duke. Ruth’s generous heart beat high.
Their way back to the path where they had separated from Colonel Dene was long and toilsome. Sepp did his best to beguile it with hunter’s yarns, more or less true, at any rate just as acceptable as if they had been proved and sworn to.
Like a good South German he hated Prussia and all its works, and his tales were mostly of Berliners who had wandered thither and been abused; of the gentleman who had been told, and believed, that the ``gams’’ slept by hooking its horns into crevices of the rock, swinging thus at ease, over precipices; of another whom Federl once deterred from going on the mountains by telling how a chamois, if enraged, charged and butted; of a third who went home glad to have learned that the chamois produced their peculiar call by bringing up a hind leg and whistling through the hoof.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 14
