Part 44

"He is not related to me."

Her tone amazed him. "You know what I mean."

"Of course I do, but you're mistaken. We're not related that way any longer."

This silenced him for a few moments, then he said: "I'm rather glad of that. He isn't anything like the man you thought he was--I couldn't say these things before--but he is as greedy as Alec, only not so open about it."

All this comment, which moved the forester so deeply to utter, seemed not to interest Berea. She sat staring at the fire with the calm brow of an Indian. Clifford Belden had passed out of her life as completely as he had vanished out of the landscape. She felt an immense relief at being rid of him, and resented his being brought back even as a subject of conversation.

Wayland, listening, fancied he understood her desire, and said nothing that might arouse Nash's curiosity.

Nash, on his part, knowing that she had broken with Belden, began to understand the tenderness, the anxious care of her face and voice, as she bent above young Norcross. As the night deepened and the cold air stung, he asked: "Have you plenty of blankets for a bed?"

"Oh yes," she answered, "but I don't intend to sleep."

"Oh, you must!" he declared. "Go to bed. I will keep the fire going."

At last she consented. "I will make my bed right here at the mouth of the tent close to the fire," she said, "and you can call me if you need me."

"Why not put your bed in the tent? It's going to be cold up here."

"I am all right outside," she protested.

"Put your bed inside, Miss Berrie. We can't let conventions count above timber-line. I shall rest better if I know you are properly sheltered."

And so it happened that for the third time she shared the same roof with her lover; but the nurse was uppermost in her now. At eleven thousand feet above the sea--with a cold drizzle of fine rain in the air--one does not consider the course of gossip as carefully as in a village, and Berrie slept unbrokenly till daylight.

Nash was the first to arise in the dusk of dawn, and Berrie, awakened by the crackle of his fire, soon joined him. There is no sweeter sound than the voice of the flame at such a time, in such a place. It endows the bleak mountainside with comfort, makes the ledge a hearthstone. It holds the promise of savory meats and fragrant liquor, and robs the frosty air of its terrors.

Wayland, hearing their voices, called out, with feeble humor: "Will some one please turn on the steam in my room?"

Berrie uttered a happy word. "How do you feel this morning?" she asked.

"Not precisely like a pugilist--well, yes, I believe I do--like the fellow who got second money."

"How is the bump?" inquired Nash, thrusting his head inside the door.

"Reduced to the size of a golf-ball as near as I can judge of it. I doubt if I can wear a hat; but I'm feeling fine. I'm going to get up."

Berrie was greatly relieved. "I'm so glad! Do you feel like riding down the hill?"

"Sure thing! I'm hungry, and as soon as I am fed I'm ready to start."

Berrie joined the surveyor at the fire.

"If you'll round up our horses, Mr. Nash, I'll rustle breakfast and we'll get going," she said.

Nash, enthralled, lingered while she twisted her hair into place, then went out to bring in the ponies.

Wayland came out a little uncertainly, but looking very well. "I think I shall discourage my friends from coming to this region for their health," he said, ruefully. "If I were a novelist now all this would be grist for my mill."

Beneath his joking he was profoundly chagrined. He had hoped by this time to be as sinewy, as alert as Nash, instead of which here he sat, shivering over the fire like a sick girl, his head swollen, his blood sluggish; but this discouragement only increased Berea's tenderness--a tenderness which melted all his reserve.

"I'm not worth all your care," he said to her, with poignant glance.