“How?” said the Indian politely.
“Tiger-tail, a big cat took my turkeys last night,” said the girl, “and I’ve been looking for him.”
“No good hunt’um: got no dog,” remarked the Seminole.
“If I get the hounds out this week will you come?” asked Damaris.
“When?”
“Any time. I’ll make ring-smoke on Palmetto Island so you can see the signal.”
“Me hurry. Goo’bye,” said the Indian briefly, and sent his canoe gliding north.
“I’ve a beautiful new red turban for you! I bought it in New York!” called the girl after him.
“Make ring-smoke! Me come!” he answered promptly. Which settled it. No Seminole ever lies.
So Damaris, pondering annihilation for his predatory catship, paddled slowly homeward.
Her mother met her on the veranda:
“There is a Mr. Smith here,” she said.
“What!” exclaimed the girl, flushing scarlet.
“A Mr. George Smith,” repeated her mother mildly. “He came in a canoe from the Inlet.”
The girl stood silent, the high colour pulsating in her cheeks.
Her mother said:
“He brought a letter from the Winthrops. I asked him to remain with us at Carondelet while his shooting trip lasted.”
“Where is he?” asked Damaris in an odd voice.
“In his room.... Damaris, had you met him before he came here?”
“I — no.... That is, I think I saw him once — met him — at Queens Landing — if he is the same man.”
Her mother said:
“He is a painter. Are there any reasons you know of why we should not entertain him?”
“No-no — Oh, not at all! He — as I remember — he seemed to be a — a very agreeable man — not in any way remarkable — just nice — presentable—”
“Perhaps,” said her mother, “this is not the same young man — because he is rather remarkable for his good looks and his very delightful manners.... And, from her letter, I should imagine that Clarissa Winthrop is quite crazy about him.”
“Probably,” said her daughter coldly, “he is not the George Smith I — met — at Queens Landing.”
Nevertheless, Damaris went straight to her room and summoned her maid. When she entered her boudoir there seemed to be nothing the matter with her personal appearance, but it was a full hour before her mirror and her maid consented to let her go.
He was in white serge when she came out on the veranda. She had never realized that he was so good-looking.
As she made not the slightest reference to any previous meeting, he also ignored that fact.
A little later he took her mother in to luncheon in a manner that slightly troubled her, because it was so formally, so charmingly, so subtly Southern. And she conceded him good manners, and a tact verging on cleverness. Her mother had already capitulated.
“That young man,” thought Damaris to herself, “is entirely too adroit. I am sure that we are not going to get on together.”
Such an attitude does not make for any very cordial understanding. And it took Damaris only a little while to discover how to relieve him of some of his superfluous self-possession and ease.
For example, intuition taught her that he didn’t want to talk about himself or his art; and she made him do both.
Encouraged by his reticence and modesty on such matters, she extracted from him the unwilling admission that he had exhibited frequently in the Salon, had received medals of silver and gold, was hors-concours, and that the French Government had acquired from him a picture which now hung in the Luxembourg.
Men of attainment are shy and chary of self-exploitation. Damaris knew it, and deliberately made him suffer, sticking to her questions until even her mother became vaguely conscious of some intent and glanced at her animated daughter in perplexity and disapproval.
Which recalled Damaris within bounds, and the punishment of Smith was temporarily suspended.
The next day Damaris took him snipe shooting in her canoe. He made a fist at it, and she very seriously but kindly advised him to take a course at trap shooting; but reddened to her hair when he looked at her coolly, and accepted her suggestion with a smile that bordered too closely on a grin.
On the way home she said abruptly:
“Of course you remember me perfectly well!”
“Not unless you desire it,” he replied very gravely. “Desire it! How can I help your recollecting me?”
“Merely by not wishing me to.”
“But you do! What difference do my wishes make! Besides, you asked Clarissa Winthrop for that letter. Didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“That shows that you recollected me, doesn’t it?”
“No, it shows that I had planned a shooting trip to the Gold Lagoon.”
“You could have camped.”
“Too many mosquitoes,” he said solemnly.
“That is where you are mistaken, Mr. Smith. There are no mosquitoes at Carondelet.”
He smiled, politely incredulous.
“It’s quite true,” she said. “There is no stagnant water here; no place for them to breed. This region is free from them. So you could have camped had you cared to.”
“Cornered!” he admitted cheerfully.
“Certainly you are cornered. Why did you ask for that letter?”
“To see you again,” he admitted.
“I thought,” she said with heightened colour, “it might have been to collect damages.”
“Oh, no,” he said. “I collected whatever was damaged. And I restored — it — to the back of the damager.”
“I was not damaged!” she said hotly.
“Oh, I know that. You were merely scared—”
“I was not!”
“Of course you have plenty of courage—”
“It requires none to ride a cow like that! I was angry and mortified, Mr. Smith. Your advice concerning horsemanship was inopportune and not welcome.”
“I knew that was it,” he murmured.
“What?”
“I knew you resented it. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“But you are still very certain that a few lessons in riding can do me no harm?”
“Not unless you fall off while taking them,” he said, laughing.
“That,” she retorted between compressed lips, “is the limit! Listen to me, Mr. Smith: I have long chafed under the humiliating knowledge that you considered my horsemanship poor. I have wished very earnestly for an opportunity to enlighten you. I am glad you came — for that reason. Because I am going to take you tomorrow on a gallop that will set your doubts concerning me at rest.”
“Delighted,” he said, smiling.
“I don’t know whether you will be. Do you ride well?”
“I — ride.”
“That,” she said dangerously, “remains to be seen.” And she drove the canoe on the beach of a little island, balanced, sprang out, and watched him land and drag up the canoe.
“Please make me a Seminole fire,” she said sweetly. “A — what?”
“A Seminole fire.... Surely,” she added, “you know what a Seminole fire is — being the excellent and seasoned sportsman that you are.”
He grinned, enjoying his punishment. Her pretty eyebrows arched in surprise:
“Is it possible you don’t know what a Seminole fire is, Mr. Smith?”
“It’s just possible,” he admitted.
“How strange. Perhaps a few lessons in woodcraft — when you have leisure—”
“Certainly. Now, tell me what a Seminole fire is.”
“I’ll show you.”
She began to gather dry sticks of wood and to arrange them on the ground in a star pattern, so that they radiated from the centre like the spokes of a wheel.
When they were properly placed she lighted a blaze in the centre with a great armful of sun-dried Spanish moss; then, walking around the circle, she shoved the
end of each stick a little nearer to the centre until they caught fire.
“Now,” she said, “some green wood, please. And bring the poncho from the canoe.”
When the green wood began to send up a thick column of smoke, Damaris took the poncho, spread it to the wind with a flirt of her wrists, and, still manoeuvring the blanket as deftly as she might have kept a handkerchief fluttering, flashed it to and fro over the column of smoke.
And Smith, watching her, saw great, wavering rings of smoke ascend high into the still air.
“Would you tell me what you are doing?” he asked politely.
“I am making ring-smoke for a gentleman named Tiger-foot.”
“A signal?”
“Yes.”
“To an Indian?”
“To a Seminole.”
“Oh. Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will he see your smoke rings?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Every Seminole in the region will see them. Tiger-foot will answer them.”
“With more smoke rings?”
“Exactly. You are learning woodcraft, Mr. Smith.”
“I’d like to learn how to wave that blanket and make a column of smoke turn into rings.”
“Would you care to try? It is very easy,” she said with adorable malice; and sent the blanket scaling across the fire toward him.
He caught it and began to wave it, but the results were pitiable, and the girl hastily retired from the choking smoke.
After he had sufficiently demonstrated his utter inability, she made him lay aside the blanket, cover the fire, and embark with her. And, as they lay afloat in the home lead, she pointed to the northeast.
Very far away ascending rings of smoke stained the pure horizon. Tiger-foot was saying to Damaris:
“Me see; me come; goo’bye!”
Presently the girl turned to Smith:
“Have you,” she asked, “any riding clothes with you?”
It appeared that he had brought riding breeches. “Very well,” said Damaris, smiling a singular smile upon Smith, “now we shall see what we shall see.... You may pole the canoe — if you know how.”
And that night she said to her mother:
“He doesn’t seem to be very clever after all. He’s a rotten shot. I hope he sticks to his saddle tomorrow. I’ve sent for Tiger-foot.”
Her mother sighed her resignation. Tiger-foot meant hunting, and hunting in that country meant a reckless, breakneck gallop through open but pathless woods, over rough hammock land, through cypress branches, across dunes set with a tangle of scrub more or less thorny — anywhere, in fact, that the game led and the dogs followed.
And Mrs. Caron mildly said she didn’t like it.
But she was a wise mother and she had never yet set a trap for a sunbeam or tried to catch the wind in a net.
Damaris was that kind of girl; that was all there could be said about it. Besides, she had very great faith in Tiger-foot.
And so it happened that in the morning Smith found himself aboard a powerful horse beside Damaris mounted on another, and all around them wagged and whined and leaped a half-dozen big-jowled, heavy-shouldered hounds, controlled by a negro called Sammy.
And beside him, in flaming scarlet turban and shirt, stood Tiger-foot, his bronze legs naked, the clout-cloth hanging below his gaudy shirt.
All around them stretched the seaward wilderness, set thick with saw-palmetto in sunny glades, choked with brier in gullies where little silvery threads from the lagoon flowed away, following one crest or the other of the strange watershed.
“Cast out, Sammy!” said Damaris. The pink of excitement tinted her cheeks; her eyes of purest sapphire were like rain-washed gems.
Sammy uncoupled the dogs; Bouncer immediately ran along the top of a fallen log, sniffing; and Billy Bowlegs, a big, black hound with tan points and basset-set legs, joined him.
“It’s a cat,” said Damaris, looking at Smith.
“Really!”
“Is the trail cold?” she called to Sammy, who had found it on a bit of sandy soil and was investigating, nose to the ground.
“Fresh!” said Tiger-foot, calmly. “Big-cat walk here.”
“A tiger?”
“Tiger,” nodded the Seminole. “Hark um dogs!”
To Smith, Damaris said:
“By ‘tiger’ he means panther, not wildcat.”
Then she turned her pretty head, listening to the dogs.
They were running in a cypress cover, apparently at random but much excited. And presently Billy Bowlegs gave magnificent tongue and started westward.
“Now!” said Damaris. “Follow me—” she turned and looked Smith straight in the eyes— “if you can!”
“That’s my business in life,” he said quietly, looking at her.
“What!”
“My business in life — to follow you. You know perfectly well it is.”
The bright colour flew into her face; then a breathless little laugh came:
“I hope you can ride! You’ll need to — in your business!”
Her horse bounded forward and his followed, straight into the forest, thrashing across the cypress branch, crashing through glade after glade of scrub palmetto, floundering in windfalls, turned by briers, checked amid rough hammock land where vines and trailers hung crisscrossing every avenue.
Far ahead the hounds were yelling; Smith caught glimpses on either side of Sammy running, of the Seminole’s scarlet turban a blaze of colour through the trees.
A tough creeper nearly jerked Smith from his saddle; another almost decapitated him. Twice briers scored his legs and arms; he lost his hat and a tree branch, whipping back, laid his right cheek open for an inch.
Far ahead of him he saw Damaris riding like a demon, cool, collected, unmarked by such accidents as had befallen him, although she also rode cross-saddle and wore only a skirted riding coat of thin solaro cloth, and breeches of the same.
No tree limb whacked her, no creepers attempted to strangle her; the little maidens of the briers laid no violent fingers on her pretty legs, nor tore her clothes nor clutched at her stirrups.
Riding up to her horse’s withers at last, he saw her white stock framing her throat as though it had just been tied: nothing of disarrangement was visible about her anywhere: her fiat helmet, chin-strapped, remained unmarked by twig or leaf, her rifle lay snug in its leather boot.
She glanced sideways at him. He was not a dainty sight. One side of his countenance was painted with dry blood: his hat was gone, his shirt tom; rags fluttered at elbow and knee.
“My life’s business!” he nodded gaily to her.
His eyes were steady and amused; the short, bright hair ruffled by the wind; and on his battered visage was a smile.
As she looked at him a shaft of fear shot through Damaris; and, for a moment, she felt like the hunted panther, fleeing, yet conscious that her doom was upon her.
She set spurs to her mount; he kept abreast of her. Twice branches hit him; once he was almost knocked flat on his cantle, and she stifled a cry; but he was up, regaining his stirrups, a trifle dazed but smiling.
“Lord! How you ride!” he said. “You are the best ever!”
And Damaris knew that she could fall in love.
Which scared her, and she raced away from him through the flat-woods where, a half-mile away, she could see the dogs running round and round a tall pignut tree.
Following a short cut from the north came the swift Seminole afoot, turban gleaming above the tall dead grass; and Sammy, mounted, galloped from the south, cheering on his dogs.
Up in the tree, standing with fore feet planted on an outshooting limb, stood a big, flat-flanked, ruddy-coloured panther.
Neither dogs nor hunters appeared to trouble him in the least; he cast about uneasily for further foothold, and turned his grim head left and right as though searching. Only the furry ears were flattened with annoyance — the o
ne sign visible that his majesty heard the frantic uproar of the dogs below him; and the extreme tip of his tail twitched at intervals.
Suddenly, as Smith galloped up, loosening his rifle, the panther turned, snarled at the dogs, and took a flying leap of thirty feet straight out into the cypress thicket.
As he landed on the ground the dogs were upon him, but he whirled about, struck right and left, then bounded into the tangle and was gone.
Damaris was already down on the ground, rifle out, throwing a cartridge into the magazine.
The Indian glided to her side and pointed; but she turned and looked at Smith.
“Come with me,” she called back to him. “I want you to kill this panther.”
“He is yours!”
“Please?” she insisted.
Tiger-foot regarded Smith superciliously as he started toward them:
“Ride very burn; heap damfool,” he remarked to Damaris. “No can shoot, p’raps; no catch-um tiger!”
“Tiger-foot,” she said, turning scarlet, “he is my very best friend! Do you understand?”
“Goo’night!” said the Seminole disgustedly, turning into the thicket.
Damaris caught Smith by the hand:
“Follow with me,” she said excitedly. “Do you hear that dreadful uproar? The dogs have cornered him and he’s fighting them.”
Into the thorny thicket they wriggled, crossed the branch, then, free of the briers, they pressed forward behind the Indian, through close-grown thickets, clumps of palmetto, over fallen trees, until the Indian halted and dropped on his knees.
Just ahead of them a dog’s tail was waving in the bushes; beyond lay piled up a vast windfall where a tree, still bearing green leaves, had crashed earthward.
From this windfall came the deafening racket of the dogs, and, through the tumult, at intervals, Smith caught the deep, menacing growling and loud explosive snarling of the panther.
“No can see,” whispered the Seminole, working his way forward on his knees.
Damaris followed; but Smith bore to the left, generously permitting her the coupe-de-grâce.
A dog ran past him howling and frantically licking his wounds; a terrific uproar followed.
Smith, dropping flat, saw the panther charge the pack, but instead of retreating again to cover the snarling cat came bounding forward.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1194
