CHAPTER VIII
THE BLONDE HEAVER
“Isn’t it remarkable,” asked Mrs. Bruce, “that we were just talking about the Inferno?”
She, with her companions, had come down from the hotel into the hissing, steaming tract of the Norris Basin.
Deep rumblings were in their ears. Narrow plank-walks formed a footing amid innumerable tiny boiling springs, while the threatening roar of larger ebullitions and the heavy sulphurous odors of the air gave every indication that here indeed was the gateway to that region where our forefathers believed that the unlucky majority paid the uttermost farthing.
The Nixons had also elected to walk through the Basin, meeting the stage at a point farther on.
“Say, Brute,” called Robert, “doesn’t this beat New Year’s for the time, the place, and the good resolution?”
Mrs. Nixon’s nostrils dilated in disgust at the evil smells.
Irving caught a glimpse of her expression.
“Mrs. Nixon is making up her mind never again to do anything wrong,” he remarked.
“I always said my Hades would be noise,” she replied, “but I begin to think it will be odors.”
“I always said mine would be dirt,” declared Mrs. Bruce, “but I believe I’d prefer that to being boiled. Irving, don’t you let go of me. This is the wickedest place I ever saw. Those little sizzling springs are just hissing to catch my feet.”
The party stopped to watch the heavy plop-plop of a mud geyser.
“Now,” said Robert, “while we’re all thinking on our sins and properly humble, is the time to get acquainted. Mrs. Bruce, this is my mother, and my uncle Mr. Derwent, and Miss Maynard; and Mr. Bruce you all know by reputation.”
Betsy had moved to a remote corner of the geyser.
“I never know just how to address that member of your party,” said Robert to Irving.
The latter smiled. “She would tell you she was just Betsy. She’s such a good soul that down East, in the village where she comes from, they call her Clever Betsy; and she’s all that New England means by the adjective, and all that Old England means, too.”
Meanwhile Rosalie Vincent was making her hasty preparations for another move, and to her came Miss Hickey in a state of high satisfaction.
“I’m staying, Baby,” she cried, her eyes snapping. “I guess there must be a lot of lay-overs. Anyway they need me, and there’s a Swattie ball to-night. Hurray!” Miss Hickey executed a triumphant two-step and knocked over a chair.
Rosalie seized her arm. “Can’t I stay too, then?” she asked anxiously.
“No, you can’t, Blue-eyes. You’re to go.”
“Oh, you go and let me stay!” begged Rosalie nervously.
“And lose the ball?” exclaimed Miss Hickey. “Well, believe me, you’ve got nerve!”
Rosalie looked as if she were going to cry, and Miss Hickey’s good-nature prompted a bit of comfort.
“Besides, if you’re afraid of the lock-up, this is your chance to side-step those folks. More’n as like as not they’re among the lay-overs.”
At this consideration Rosalie did brighten, and when the last stage came around, Miss Hickey was present to speed the parting heaver whose apprehensive glance about her saw no familiar figure.
“Oh, they are staying, Miss Hickey!” she exclaimed, in hushed tones.
The sophisticated Miss Hickey did not respond, but nodded affably to the driver.
Rosalie breathed a relieved farewell as she left the big-boned bulwark of her friend and obeyed the agent’s signal to enter the back seat of the stage. The vehicle was empty but for a stout man with a field glass strapped across his shoulders who mounted to the seat beside the driver, and they started.
The whole stage to herself! Rosalie could scarcely believe it.
She listened to the strange noises in the air and watched the steam which, mounting high, would make one believe that the locality was alive with factories. The girl’s curious gaze roamed about, and she thought wistfully of such travelers as might visit at their leisure the wonders about her.
There were great beauties, however, even for a heaver to enjoy. The morning’s ride had been a keen pleasure in the intervals of her embarrassment. The profusion of wild flowers; monk’s-hood, hare-bells, and Indian paintbrush, had fed her eyes with their splashes of color; and the behavior of the wild animals made one think of the millennium. Sure of protection from being hunted and slain, the chipmunks sat up on their hind legs close to the road, to watch the stage go by, clasping their tiny hands beneath their chins, like children in ecstasy at seeing a pretty show. Frequently one would be seen sitting up and nibbling the seeds from a long stem of grass, which he held in such a manner that he appeared to be playing a flute. A big marmot here and there lay along a bough or rock, turning his head lazily to view the tourists through his Eden. Boiling springs and boiling rivers, hill, vale, mountain, and waterfall – all these had Rosalie enjoyed, even with the fear that the Bruces would turn around; and now! Think of making one stage of the picturesque journey with no companion but her own thoughts! It seemed too good to be true; and she soon found that indeed it was so.
The driver drew his horses to a walk, and Rosalie perceived that many of the other stages were in sight, some of them stopping, and that tourists were entering them from the roadside.
Soon it became the turn of the last stage, and Rosalie’s heart bounded to recognize all the companions of the morning.
She saw Mrs. Bruce gaze sharply at the stout man in her seat by the driver.
“Won’t your mother go up there, Nixie?” asked Irving.
Mrs. Nixon refusing, her son put Miss Maynard up, the young woman climbing to the place with alacrity.
Rosalie turned her head to gaze fixedly at the other side of the road. She grew warm as she felt some one climb into the seat beside her, but did not turn her head back, even when the coach started.
Finding herself not addressed, presently she turned about and looked squarely into the eyes of Betsy Foster.
“How do you do, Rosalie?” said the latter composedly.
“O Betsy!” exclaimed the girl softly, and seized the older woman’s hand with an appealing grasp.
Betsy gave her one-sided smile, and Rosalie’s eyes filled.
“You don’t seem surprised!” she said unsteadily.
“I am, though,” returned Betsy. “I supposed we’d left you behind at Norris.”
“You saw me there! Did the – did Mrs. Bruce?”
Betsy shook her head. “No; and she hasn’t yet; but I was thinkin’ about you as we came up to the stage, and when all of a sudden I saw you, I thought I’d get in here.”
The Nixon party were directly in front of them, and the Bruces in the next seat, and all were conversing busily among themselves.
“I’m so glad to see you, Betsy, that I can hardly bear it;” and a bright tear rolled swiftly down Rosalie’s cheek, as she leaned back in her corner to regain her self-control.
“I’ve thought about you considerable,” returned Betsy, “and I haven’t been any too easy.”
“I told Mrs. Pogram, I promised her, that if I were in any trouble I would write. How kind of you!” with a sudden burst of gratitude and a continued clinging to Betsy’s slender fingers. “How kind of you to care!”
“Of course I cared, child,” returned the other.
“And you saw me being a waitress!”
“Yes. First-rate idea for college boys,” answered Betsy quietly. “It’s quite the fashion for a lot of ’em to help themselves through school that way. I don’t know about it exactly for girls in a strange land, – little country girls that don’t know anything about the world; I don’t know whether I like it or not.”
“It’s a good way to see the world,” said Rosalie, without enthusiasm.
“Yes; and ain’t it a beautiful one out here? Is that what you did it for, Rosalie?”
“Partly – not exactly. I was getting away from Loomis.”
Betsy nodded. “I heard he pestered you.”
Rosalie looked off reminiscently. “I didn’t tell Auntie Pogram, because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings; but the reason Loomis began being so unkind to me was because I wouldn’t marry him.”
“I suspected as much,” said Betsy.
“So long as he was Auntie Pogram’s brother I knew there was no hope of escaping him if I stayed there, and so – I ran away. It was selfish. My conscience has never felt easy; but I couldn’t endure his insults.”
“I suppose not,” returned Betsy. Her tone was quiet, but there were sparks in her usually inexpressive eyes, and had Loomis Brown suddenly appeared it might have gone ill with his rapidly thinning hair.
“What did you do? How did you manage to get so far from home?” continued Betsy.
“I first went to a boarding-house that I knew of in Portland, and there I met a lady who had been taken ill and wanted to go back to her home in Chicago; but she had a little child and didn’t feel able to travel with him alone; so she agreed to pay my fare to Chicago if I would help her home. I didn’t know how I would ever get back, but it was getting away from Loomis, so I went. On the train I met a woman who spoke of a place in Chicago where they took girls to wait on table in the Yellowstone; so as soon as I could, I applied, and they took me and sent me out here.”
“And do you like it?” asked Betsy, eyeing the mignonne face closely.
“No, of course I don’t like it, exactly, and I’ve been frightened ever since I saw you all at the Mammoth Hot Springs, for I was sure Mrs. Bruce would be disgusted with me. She expected me to make some use of her kindness.”
“Don’t worry,” returned Betsy dryly. “She’s short-sighted, and ten to one she won’t see you; and if she does, she probably won’t remember you.”
“I may yet, you know,” said Rosalie eagerly, “I may yet reward her kindness; but I had no money, so I couldn’t stop to see about any school position; and besides, Loomis lives in Portland.”
“Oh, don’t bother about him,” said Betsy carelessly. “One donkey more or less that you meet in the street isn’t goin’ to affect you. He’ll be busy wavin’ his long ears at Mrs. Pogram’s new help; for she’ll have to get somebody. I went to see her just before we left, and heard the whole story.”
Rosalie laughed softly, and her eyes filled again. “O Betsy, it’s so long since I laughed!” she said; and her tone was so earnest and sad that Betsy averted her head and saw the scenery through a blur. “I was in the stage all this morning. It’s a wonder you didn’t feel how longingly I looked at the back of your head.”
“You were?” asked Betsy, surprised. “Are you goin’ with us all the way?”
“I don’t know. I may be left anywhere. I thought I had left you this time and hoped so, Betsy, because I was afraid of Mrs. Bruce; but oh, how glad I am now! for it’s such a comfort to see you, since you’re not angry with me.”
“Not a bit,” replied Miss Foster, going to the length of patting the hand that held hers. “I would be, though, if you’d gone off and didn’t write me or let me know where you were; but you didn’t know that we were home.”
“No. That’s why I was so startled to see you at the Hot Springs. I had thought I was thousands of miles from any one who knew me.”
“I shan’t lose track of you again,” declared Betsy quietly.
“O Betsy, do you care?” The girl drew closer to her neighbor’s angular shoulder. The expression in her lovely eyes disconcerted Betsy as she met it. “There isn’t any one else in the world to care. I’ve had lots of time since I left Chicago to think how alone I am, and I’ve been as disappointed in myself as Mrs. Bruce could be because I’m not brave about it. There have been moments at night when I was sorry, Loomis and all, that I ever left Fairport.”
Betsy patted the hand again. “I do care, Rosalie. I won’t ask you to promise me, because if you need to be bound by a promise you don’t want me for a friend; but I tell you now that I expect you to keep in touch with me. I wish I could stay by you or keep you near me, but I can’t. I can, though, be some help to you perhaps, one way or another, and I’ll be glad to have you feel that way, and never get into a tight place without letting me know.”
“I do promise, Betsy, so gratefully,” began Rosalie; and then Mr. Derwent turned around and met her eyes with a kind smile in his. He indicated a point in the woods. Rosalie looked and descried the spreading antlers of a deer, which stood bright-eyed and motionless in the shadow and watched the stage go by. Mr. Derwent had been the first to discover the animal, but soon everybody in the stage was alert.
“Oh, the deer! Look at the deer!” sped from mouth to mouth.
“What a sermon to men-folks!” exclaimed Betsy. “The way the critters act in this Park is a wonder, just because men’s savage instincts are restrained.”
“Yes,” said Rosalie. “I’ve been saying to myself over and over Emerson’s poem, —
‘Who hath named the birds without a gun?’”
Betsy regarded her with the one-sided smile.
“Still speak poetry, do you, even though you do bring folks their soup?”
“Oh, yes.” Rosalie gave her head a sad little shake. “When I stop thinking and feeling poetry, I shall have stopped breathing.”
Everybody was commenting on the curious action of the beautiful wild creature in the forest, Robert declaring that he had buck fever.
When the excitement had subsided, he leaned forward to Irving’s ear.
“Your faithful retainer has found her tongue,” he said. “She and Uncle Henry’s Hebe are talking thirteen to the dozen.”
“Has Mr. Derwent a Hebe on board?”
“Yes. A genius who has brought him good coffee for two meals. Watch him head for her table this noon; and she’s unnecessarily pretty.”
Upon this Irving turned around and caught Betsy’s eye; then a glimpse of the blond young girl who was her companion.
“Glad she’s having a good time,” he said, turning back. Then to Mrs. Bruce, “Betsy has made friends with a pretty waitress back there.”
“Oh, we still have the domestics, the heavers, with us, have we?” laughed Mrs. Bruce.
“Is that what they call them!” exclaimed Robert alertly, but continuing to speak softly. “Didn’t you see the other one we had this morning? The spearmint expert? Alas, she is no more; but if this one had stayed, I can tell you Uncle Henry would have stayed too.”
“O Robert!” exclaimed Mrs. Nixon, anxious to make a diversion, “could you get me some of that very peculiar red flower?”
The stage was climbing a gentle incline and Robert swung himself out and gathered the blossoms.
“Want some?” asked Irving of his companion.
Mrs. Bruce certainly did, and Irving accordingly jumped out, also. She turned to Mrs. Nixon, smiling.
“We’re pretty fortunate women,” she said.
Mrs. Nixon sighed. “Robert is such a scatterbrain,” she returned.
Mrs. Bruce continued her glance around, curious to see the waitress who had been the subject of remark. She saw a fair young girl wearing a veil; but her near-sighted glance awakened no memory.
“I’m glad,” she thought, “that Betsy has some one to talk to.”
CHAPTER IX
THE FOUNTAIN HOUSE
It was late and cold when the party reached the Fountain House, and the big open fire burning in the office was a welcome sight.
Robert Nixon’s prophecy was fulfilled, and Mr. Derwent managed to be waited upon by Rosalie at supper. The Bruce party happened to sit with their backs to that table, and indeed Betsy did not expect either of her companions to recognize the girl in this place and position so remote from the spot where they had known her but slightly.
Mrs. Pogram had often in past days spoken to Betsy of her husband’s distant relatives the Vincents, once wealthy and highly placed, then reduced to financial ruin, illness, and death, leaving this pretty blossom alone on the family tree. The good lady had often mentioned, as being to Rosalie’s credit, that she was without false pride or foolish reverting to the past of her luxurious childhood; and the situation had appealed to whatever was romantic in Betsy Foster’s breast. There had always been for her some atmosphere about Rosalie Vincent as of the exiled Princess in servitude, and the sweetness with which the girl undertook Mrs. Pogram’s drudgery had oftentimes excited an admiration in Betsy which she never put into words.
She fought now with a sense of pathos that Rosalie should be hurrying back and forth under the orders of hungry travelers.
Irving commented at supper upon Betsy’s sociability with the pretty waitress in the stage, and some instinct bade the good woman guard her secret.
“She is a very intelligent girl,” Betsy replied. “It seems it’s quite a common thing for nice poor girls to see the Park in this way.”
“A very good idea, too,” remarked Mrs. Bruce. “Just as the college boys wait on table in the White Mountain resorts.”
Betsy breathed more freely. If Mrs. Bruce were going to approve this move of Rosalie’s, it would be a relief. Fully able to fight her own battles, she shrank sensitively from hearing this girl discussed and criticised.
“That’s what I say, too,” she returned. “I think it shows good courage in a girl to strike out and see something of the world. It shows character and enterprise.”
Irving looked at his old friend curiously. It was unlike her to express so much. It was some embarrassment to Betsy to take her meals with her employers, as the herding together of crowds for food on this trip made necessary; and this was the first time she had opened her lips voluntarily at table.
In the mean time Rosalie was again winning laurels from the Nixons, and Helen Maynard looked up at her as she gave her orders.
When the party left the table, Helen lagged behind.
“Miss Vincent, Rosalie,” she said low to the waitress, “don’t you remember me at Lambeth?”
Rosalie colored.
“Yes; but please don’t remember me!” she returned.
Helen eyed her sharply.
“I mean it,” said Rosalie. “You’re very kind, but I’ll tell you some time.”
She turned away, and Robert Nixon advanced toward them.
“Pardon me, Miss Maynard, I thought you were ahead of me.” Then when they had moved toward the door, he laughed. “Have you caught the infection? Mother is gravely considering getting the girl’s address and having her come to Boston.”
“She blushed like the traditional rose when I spoke to her,” returned Helen, and said no more.
The recognition of her school-friend put Rosalie in a new flutter; and yet such was the joy of sitting on the back seat of the stage with Betsy that she had not the heart to hope for orders to stay at the Fountain House.
For the hundredth time she calculated what money Mrs. Bruce had expended on her course in English, and for the hundredth time felt herself wither under the scorn of that lady’s eyes should she recognize her and discover that, after all, she had not been able to rise above the level where she was found.
“If I could only pay her! If I could only pay her!” sang through the girl’s head like an ever-recurring refrain.
The sudden announcement that the Fountain Geyser was about to play caused a stampede among the guests of the hotel, and everybody who had wraps to withstand the cold of the July evening hastened out to be in time for the show.
Mrs. Bruce was greatly excited. “It’s a shame, a perfect shame that the Company don’t warn people to bring flannels and furs,” she said. “Even my sweater feels like muslin.”
“You’re going to wear my overcoat, Madama,” said Irving, beginning to put it about her.
“No indeed, Mr. Irving,” burst forth Betsy, and was rewarded by a flash behind Mrs. Bruce’s eyeglasses.
“Do you suppose I should allow him, Betsy? What are you thinking of!”
As she spoke sharply, the offended woman drew away from her son, and Betsy hastened to mollify her.
“I’m going to wrap you up in my things, Mrs. Bruce,” she said.
The lady made a faint protest.
“Yes, ma’am, you let me, because you couldn’t drag me away from this fire anyway. I’d rather see flames spout than water to-night.”
Irving frowned. “You didn’t come across the continent for that, Betsy,” he began.
She gave him her one-sided smile. “I came across the continent because I had to,” she returned, meanwhile making her slender mistress shapeless under a large golf-cape. “I’ve been readin’ the guide-book; and I’ve got lots o’ geysers comin’ to me yet.”
“I do think,” said Mrs. Bruce, when she and Irving were out of doors and hastening on their way to the widespread crust of the formation, “I do think Betsy might be more appreciative of her advantages. Almost any one else would value more the privilege of a visit to the Yellowstone.”
“Yes,” returned Irving dryly, “and the more the other one appreciated it, the less she’d lend you her golf-cape.”
Mrs. Bruce looked at him. “You always take Betsy’s part!” she exclaimed.
“I’m only showing you that you chose your companion wisely,” was the quiet reply. “There, Madama, it’s beginning. Can you sprint?”
Mrs. Bruce could sprint with any girl that lived, and they were soon on the outskirts of the shivering, eager crowd, and Mrs. Bruce was making little ineffectual hops in the endeavor to see over and between the heads of those in front of her. But instantly the fountain shot into the air and played in the mysterious twilight under a cold pale moon, and a hush fell upon all.
Betsy had the open fire practically to herself; and she sat before it, ruminating deeply. It seemed strange to think of Rosalie so near and yet so far. How she longed to get out into that forbidden department and lend the aid of her capable hands to whatever work the young girl was doing. She wondered what a day would bring forth. Possibly she should not see Rosalie again; and if the girl were sent on with them to-morrow to the Old Faithful Inn, she knew that the Bruces’ plan was to remain there for a few days, and there she would doubtless lose her definitely.
“Mrs. Bruce used to call her her protégée!” she thought. A long determined breath came from Betsy’s breast. “She’s goin’ to be Betsy Foster’s protégée now, and I ain’t goin’ to lose sight of her.”
She continued to look thoughtfully into the leaping flames, and even her practical common sense was not proof against their age-long ability to show the gazer alluring possibilities.
A certain rough seaman mending his sail in far-off Yankee land little realized that, could his canvas be turned into a magic carpet, this was his psychological moment.
“I suppose,” Betsy was reflecting, “’tain’t Mrs. Pogram’s fault that she hasn’t as much backbone as a jelly-fish.”
A broad, strong flame flew squarely up toward the chimney. “I suppose if – if I ever was – soft enough – to – Well, Hiram’s a good soul. He’d be kind as any father to Rosalie.”
Betsy suddenly realized that the fire was making her face hot, and she put up her hand to shield it.
Meanwhile Hiram Salter was placidly sitting cross-legged over his prostrate sail. A piece of twine held in his lips fell down each side of his chin, giving him some resemblance to a gigantic catfish.
A few days later he received a picture-postal from the Fountain House Hotel in the Yellowstone. It was dated on the evening when Betsy sat so long before the fire; and it read, —
Dear H.:
Cold as Xmas here.
B. F.
And the good man never suspected that in reality it had never been as little cold for him in all his years of courtship as on the evening when that postal card was bought; and that in place of the curt message might truly have run a bit from Rosalie Vincent’s repertoire: —
Never the time and the place,
And the loved one, all together.
The next morning dawned bright. If Rosalie was in the breakfast-room, Betsy did not see her.
When later she entered the back seat of the last stage, Betsy looked about anxiously. Irving came to the step.
“Mrs. Bruce and Nixie are up there with the driver. I’m coming in with you,” he said.
“Just wait one minute, Mr. Irving,” returned Betsy. “If – if that young – waitress is going along with us, she’d feel – sort of embarrassed if – ”
“Well – well,” – Irving looked up into the narrow face and laughed, – “this is the first time you ever turned me down.”
He looked about. Mrs. Nixon, Miss Maynard, and Mr. Derwent were in the middle seat as before. The stout gentleman and another man were in the seat in front of them.
“And you’d put me in there with four hundred pounds of tourist?” went on Irving. “Nay, nay, Betsy. I’ll get over there in the corner beyond you and promise to keep my place.”
“Oh, they’re going to start,” said Betsy in trepidation, “and – and she isn’t here. Couldn’t you get him to wait, Mr. Irving? I – ”
Irving swung into the stage as the horses moved.
“My dear Betsy, we’ve ceased to be individuals. We’re part of a system,” he said as he seated himself beside her. “When the Park authorities say this stage moves, it moves.”
Betsy leaned back, her lip caught under her teeth and her expression so abstracted that Irving stared at her curiously.
“I do believe,” he said incredulously, “that Betsy Foster, clever Betsy, has fallen in love.”
“How you talk!” returned his companion, recovering herself; and being quite conscious of Rosalie and a little conscious of her fire-lit fancies, an astonishing color rose under her sallow skin.
Irving laughed. “After all these years, our sedate Betsy – ”
“How you act, Mr. Irving!”
The speaker tried not to smile, but continued to look so guilty and red-faced that Irving’s laughter grew.
“After all these years; the heart that I thought was mine – given to a heaver!”
“I’d like to have said good-by to her,” said Betsy. “She’s – she ain’t the – the independent kind – and I – ”
Irving looked at her kindly. “How does that big heart of yours find room in that slender body?” he asked. “Cats and dogs and horses and humans – it’s all one to you. You’ve taken a brief to defend them all.”
“Oh, Mr. Irving!” – Betsy looked off at the landscape, – “if I could defend them all!”
“Why that tragic look?”
“Your words made me think again, as I so often do, that in a world full of so much beauty as this, people are cuttin’ up live animals in the name of science, and the law permits it.”
Irving shook his head. He had heard before Betsy’s horror-stricken views of vivisection.
“Human life is the most precious of all,” he reminded her, now.
“Yes, but don’t just as fine physicians as any say that the unnatural conditions in vivisection prevent any good coming from it? Yes, they do; and supposing it did do any good! Don’t most civilized people believe in an after-life? If they’re going to live to eternity anyway, and have got to pass through death some time, how can they be willing to have their lives in this world prolonged a few years at the cost of torturing innocent animals? That’s what I say. How can they – and then expect any heaven awaits them?”
“I haven’t thought much about it,” said Irving.
“Well, think now, then!” returned Betsy. “I know I’d rather die any time than have a live dog cut up on the chance of helping to keep me here a little longer; and I shouldn’t dare show myself before the Maker of the dog if I wouldn’t! And everybody who doesn’t vote against it, and work against it, deserves to see their own pets on the rack. I guess that would bring it home to them!”
Betsy winked hard as she finished, and Irving patted her slight shoulder.
“I haven’t the slightest doubt that you’re right, Betsy, but for a few days we can’t do anything about it; and now let’s talk about something that makes you happy – heavers, for instance.”
Betsy’s usually inexpressive eyes had a wistfulness in them as she turned toward the strong face she loved. “I can’t bear to have her any place where she could be called a heaver!” she responded.
“That young woman must be a wonder,” said Irving. “She’s the first, I’ll wager, to make a conquest of Betsy Foster in one day!”
“Your mother’s about the only one that ever did that, Mr. Irving.”
Betsy’s eyes fell upon a chipmunk by the roadside, sitting up and clasping its hands under its chin in the customary admiration of the stage.
“See that little critter?” she continued. “This girl is just as innocent as that chipmunk, and knows just as much o’ the ways o’ the world. It goes by her; and though her heart sort o’ comes up in her throat, she cheers up under the least kindness and is willin’ to admire everything and everybody.”
“Well, well! What an impression in one day on my unimpressionable Betsy!” Irving smiled, genuinely surprised by this unprecedented interest.
“That girl was the child o’ luxury,” went on his companion, – “lost everything, parents included, and came to be practically a servant in the home of a poor relation. Got so persecuted by the attentions of a skinflint man who wanted her to be his drudge that she ran away, and somehow drifted into waitin’ on hungry folks in the Yellowstone!”
Irving smiled. “She told a story well, anyway. She has missed her vocation. Some one ought to tell her the pen is mightier than the knife and fork.”
“It’s easy to tell the truth,” returned Betsy, nettled by his tone.
Irving laughed. “For Clever Betsy, I do believe; but for most people always difficult, and usually unsafe.”
“H’m,” returned his companion, “this girl was tellin’ the truth and I know it.”
Here the stage stopped and the passengers dismounted to see a pool of great beauty which was out of sight from the road; and when they returned, Betsy’s abstraction had vanished; and although she evidently enjoyed Irving’s companionship on the long drive, not another word on the subject of her companion of yesterday could be elicited from her.
Once Mr. Derwent turned around and met her eyes.
“Where is your young friend?” he asked.
Betsy shook her head. “She didn’t come,” she answered.
They had reached a point where the road forked; and Betsy’s glance was arrested by a sign placed at the point of divergence. It read: —
“All loose and pack animals take this road.”
Her lips twitched as she turned toward Irving.
“Do you s’pose,” she asked, “that all the loose and pack animals can read that?”