Part 54

It was with no counterfeit grief that they heard this news. The ladies had added brightness and variety to a most toilsome campaign, and their daily travel would seem very black indeed without them. Even Churchill was loud in his regrets, because Churchill had some of the instincts of a gentleman, and he never failed in what was due to Mrs. Grayson and Sylvia. But he could not keep from making one nasty little stab at Harley.

"Harley," he said, "do you know that they are going to have a very stalwart escort to Salt Lake?"

"I do not," replied Harley, in some surprise. "I think they are quite able to take care of themselves."

"Perhaps they are, but 'King' Plummer is going with them, nevertheless. At his age it is well for a man to keep watch over a young girl whom he expects to marry, or some husky youth may carry her off."

Harley was surprised at the strength of his desire to strike Churchill in the face, and he was also surprised at the fact that he resisted it. He accounted for it by his theory that Churchill could not help being mean at times, and, therefore, was not wholly responsible. So he contented himself with saying:

"Churchill, you are a fool now and then, but you never know it."

Then he walked carelessly away before Churchill had made up his mind whether to get angry or to return a sarcastic reply. Churchill liked to use sarcasm, as it made him feel superior.

But Harley was much disturbed by Churchill's statement. Sylvia was going away, and her stay of two weeks might lengthen into months or become permanent. And Mr. Plummer was going with her. Harley's own absence would put him at a great disadvantage, and for a moment he suspected that this stop at Salt Lake City was an artful movement on the part of the "King," but reflection made him acquit Mr. Plummer, first, because the "King" was too honest to do such a thing, and, second, because he was not subtle enough to think of it.

While he was planning what he would do to face this unforeseen development, a boy from the hotel handed him a note. Harley's heart jumped when he saw that it was in the handwriting of Sylvia Morgan, and it fluttered still further when she asked to see him in the hotel parlor for a few minutes. He was apprehensive, too, because if she had anything good to tell him she certainly would not send for him.

Sylvia was sitting in the parlor beside a window that looked out upon a vast range of snow-covered mountains, rising like the serrated teeth of a saw, and, although she heard his footsteps, she did not turn her face until Harley stood beside her. Then she said, irrelevantly:

"Isn't that a grand view!"

"You did not send for me to tell me that," said Harley, with a certain protecting tenderness in his tone, because what he took to be the sadness in her face appealed to his manly qualities.

"No, I did not. I have been thinking over what we said to each other when we were coming back from Crow's Wing, and I have concluded that it was wrong."

"Why was it wrong? I love you, and I had the right to tell you so."

"No, you did not. You would have had were I free, but I am promised to another. I was wrong to let you speak; I was wrong to listen to you."

"I will not admit it," said Harley, doggedly, "because Mr. Plummer is going to give you up. He will see that he ought not to hold you to this promise."

She smiled sadly.

"I must be loyal to him," she said, "and before starting for Salt Lake City I want to tell you that you must not again speak to me of this."

"But I shall write to you in Salt Lake."

"You must not write of this. If you do, I will not open another one of your letters."

"I promise not to write to you of love, but I make no promise after that. You are not going from Salt Lake to Idaho? This is not an excuse to leave us for good?"

Her eyes wavered before his. It may be that she had intended to abandon the campaign permanently, but, with his straight and masterful glance demanding an honest answer, she could not say it.

"Yes, I will come back," she said, and then, with a sudden burst of feeling: "Oh, I like your group; I like all of you. This great journey has been something fresh and wonderful to me, and I do not want to leave it!"

"I thought not," said Harley, with returning confidence, "and I am glad that you sent for me here, because it has given me a chance to tell you that, while you mean to keep your promise, I also mean to keep mine. Mr. Plummer will yet yield you up. You are mine, not his, you know you are!"

He bent suddenly and kissed her lightly on the forehead, and every nerve in her tingled at the first touch of the lips of the man whom she loved. Yet with the sense of right, of loyalty to another, strong within her, she was about to protest, but he was gone, and the first kiss still tingled on her forehead. She felt as if he had put there an invisible seal, and that now in very truth she belonged to him.

The two ladies under the escort of Mr. Plummer left an hour later for Salt Lake City, and everybody was at the station to see them go. Mrs. Grayson was quiet as usual, and Sylvia was noticeably subdued, a fact which most of them ascribed to the tragedy of Flying Cloud and her coming absence of two weeks from a most interesting campaign.

"You ought to cheer up, Miss Sylvia," said Hobart, "because you are not half as unlucky as we are. You can spare us much more easily than we can spare you."

"I am really sorry that I must go," she said, sincerely.