Part 47 (1/2)

And Jack, patting her cheek, said, ”I know all about him.”

”Do you, indeed?” she answered, with a knowing smile. ”I doubt.

But oh! he has broken his foot or something. And oh, Jack, he has got a mine!”

And Jack, not knowing what she meant, looked curiously into her face and wondered, till Brown, examining Kalman's foot and finding a broken bone, exclaimed wrathfully, ”Say, boy, you don't tell me you have been walking on this foot?”

But Kalman answered nothing.

”He came for me--for us, Mr. Brown, through that awful storm,”

cried Marjorie penitently; ”and is it broken? Oh, Kalman, how could you?”

But Kalman still answered nothing. His dream was pa.s.sing from him.

She was restored to her world and was no longer in his care.

”And here's his mine,” cried Marjorie, turning Jack toward the black seam.

”By Jove!” cried Mr. Penny, ”and I never saw it. You never showed it to me.”

But during those hours spent in the cave Kalman and Marjorie had something other to occupy their minds than mines. Jack French examined the seam closely and in growing excitement.

”By the Lord Harry! Kalman, did you find this?”

Kalman nodded indifferently. Mines were nothing to him now.

”How did you light upon it?”

And Kalman told him how.

”He's just half dead and starved,” said Marjorie in a voice that broke with pity. ”He watched all last night while we slept away like a pair o' stirks.”

At the tone in her voice, Jack French turned and gave her a searching look. The quick, hot blood flamed into her cheeks, and in her eyes dawned a frank shyness as she gave him back his look.

”I don't care,” she said at length; ”he's fair dune oot.”

But Jack only nodded his head sagely while he whispered to her, ”Happy boy, happy boy! Two mines in one night!”

At which the red flamed up again and she fell to examining with greater diligence the seam of black running athwart the cave side.

In a few minutes they were mounted and away, Brown riding hard to bring the great news to the engineer's camp and recall the hunting parties; the rest to make the ranch, Marjorie in front in happy sparkling converse with Jack French, and Kalman, haggard and gloomy, bringing up the rear. A new man was being brought to birth within him, and sore were the parturition pangs. For one brief night she had been his; now back to her world, she was his no more.

It was quite two days before the s.h.i.+ning sun and the eager air had licked up from earth the drifts of snow, and two days before Marjorie felt quite sure she was able to bear again the rigours of camp life, and two days before Aunt Janet woke up to the fact that that foreign young man was altogether too handsome to be riding from morning till night with her niece. For Jack, meanwhile, was attending with a.s.siduous courtesy the Aunt and receiving radiant looks of grat.i.tude from the niece. Two days of Heaven, when Kalman forgot all but that she was beside him; two days of h.e.l.l when he remembered that he was but a poor foreign boy and she a great English lady. Two days and they said farewell. Marjorie was the last, turning first to French, who kissed her, saying, ”Come back again, little girl,” and then to Kalman, sitting on his broncho, for he hated to go lame before them all.

”Good-by, Kalman,” she said, smiling bravely, while her lips quivered. ”I'll no forget yon awful and,” leaning slightly toward him as he took her hand, ”yon happy night. Good-by for now.

I'll no forget.”

And Kalman, looking straight into her eyes, held her hand without a word till, withdrawing it from his hold, she turned away, leaving the smile with him and carrying with her the quivering lips.

”I shall ride a bit with you, little girl,” said Jack French, who was ever quick with his eyes.