elise dropped on her knees beside him, mumbling inaudible words with husky voice. The hands that loosened the reddening collar of his shirt were firm and decided. She did not hear the grate of Zephyr's shoes. She was only conscious of other hands putting hers aside. His knife cut the clothes that hid the wound. Zephyr took his hat from his head.

"Water," he said, holding out the hat.

elise returned from the brook with the br.i.m.m.i.n.g hat. The closed eyes opened at the cooling drops.

"It's not so bad." He tried to rise, but Zephyr restrained him.

"Not yet."

elise was looking anxiously above the trail. Zephyr noted the direction.

"No danger. 'Twas Morrison. He's done for."

Three or four miners were coming down the trail. They paused at the little group. Zephyr looked up.

"You're wanted. The old man's. .h.i.t."

A litter was improvised and slowly and carefully they bore the wounded man down the trail. Zephyr was far in advance. He returned.

"It's all right. The gang's on the run."

The little procession headed straight for the office, and laid their burden on the floor.

The company surgeon looked grave, as he carefully exposed the wound. To elise it seemed ages.

Finally he spoke.

"It's a nasty wound; but he'll pull through."

CHAPTER XXVII

_Pa.s.sing Clouds_

In spite of the surgeon's hopeful words, the path to recovery lay fearfully near the gate of death. Firmstone had been shot from above, and the bullet, entering at the base of the neck just in front of the throat, had torn its way beneath the collar-bone, pa.s.sing through the left arm below the shoulder.

During the period of trying suspense, when Firmstone's life wavered in the balance, through the longer period of convalescence, he lacked not devotion, love, nor skill to aid him. Zephyr was omnipresent, but never obtrusive. Bennie, with voiceless words and aggressive manner, plainly declared that a sizzling cookstove with a hot temper that never cooled was more efficacious than a magazine of bandages and a college of surgeons.

elise cared for Firmstone, Madame for elise. Zephyr's rod and rifle, with Bennie's stove, supplied that without which even the wisest counsel comes to an inglorious end. Over all elise reigned an uncrowned queen, with no const.i.tution, written or unwritten, to hamper her royal will.

Even the company surgeon had to give a strict accounting. The soft, red lips could not hide the hard, straight lines beneath rounded curves, nor the liquid black of velvet eyes break the insistent glint of an active, decisive mind.

Miss Hartwell was still pretty and willing, but yet helpless and oppressed. It was therefore with a regretted sense of relief that the arrival of Miss Firmstone removed the last appearance of duty that kept her in useless toleration. Hartwell's capacious sleeve held a ready card which awaited but an obvious opportunity for playing. No sooner was Firmstone p.r.o.nounced out of danger than the card, in the form of urgent business, was played, and Hartwell and his sister left for the East.

Like her brother, Miss Firmstone evidently had a will of her own, and, also like her brother, a well-balanced mind to control its manifestations. There was a short, sharp battle of eyes when first the self-throned queen was brought face to face with her possible rival. The conflict was without serious results, for Miss Firmstone, in addition to will and judgment, had also tact and years superior to elise. These were mere fortuitous adjuncts which had been denied elise. So it happened that, though a rebellious pupil, elise learned many valuable lessons.

She was ready and willing to defy the world individually and collectively; yet she stood in awe of herself.

One afternoon Firmstone was sitting in his room, looking out of his window, and in spite of the grandeur of the mountain there was little of glory but much of gloom in his thoughts. The mine was in ruins; so, as far as he could see, were his labours, his ambitions, and his prospects.

He tried to keep his thoughts on the gloom of the clouds and shut his eyes to their silver lining. The silver lining was in softly glowing evidence, but he could not persuade himself that it was for him. Step by step he was going over every incident of his intercourse with elise.

Their first meeting, her subsequent warning that his life was in serious danger, her calm, resolute putting aside of all thought of danger to herself, her daring ride up the tram to keep him from sure death when she knew that the tram-house was to be blown up, that the catastrophe might occur at any moment, her unremitting care of him, wounded near to death: all these came to him, filled him with a longing love that left no nerve nor fibre of heart or soul untouched with thrills that, for all their pain, were even yet not to be stilled by his own volition.

Firmstone grew more thoughtful. He realised that elise was only a girl in years, yet her natural life, untrammelled by conventional proprieties which distract and dissipate the limited energy in a thousand divergent channels, had forced her whole soul into the maturity of many waxing and waning seasons. Every manifestation of her restless, active mind had stood out clear and sharp in the purity of unconscious self. This was the disturbing element in Firmstone's anxious mind. Responsive to every mood, fiercely unsparing of herself, yet every attempted word of grateful appreciation from him had been antic.i.p.ated and all but fiercely repelled. With all his ac.u.men, Firmstone yet failed to comprehend two very salient features of a woman's heart, that, however free and spontaneous she may be, there is one emotion instinctively and jealously guarded, that she will reject, with indignation, grat.i.tude offered as a subst.i.tute for love.

Firmstone's meditations were interrupted by a knock on the door. Zephyr came in, holding out a bulky envelope. It was from the eastern office of the Rainbow Company. Firmstone's face stiffened as he broke the seals.

Zephyr noted the look and, after an introductory whistle, said:

"'Tisn't up to you to fret now, Goggles. Foolishness at two cents an ounce or fraction thereof is more expensive than pa.s.senger rates at four dollars a pound."

Firmstone looked up absently.

"What's that you're saying?"

Zephyr waved his hand languidly.

"I was right. Have been all along. I knew you had more sense than you could carry in your head. It's all over you, and you got some of it shot away. I'm trying to make it plain to you that foolishness on paper ain't near so fatal as inside a skull. Consequently, if them Easterners had had any serious designs on you, they'd sent the real stuff back in a Pullman instead of the smell of it by mail."

Firmstone made no reply, but went on with his letter. There was amus.e.m.e.nt and indignation on his face as, having finished the letter, he handed it to Zephyr.

The letter was from Hartwell and was official. Briefly, it expressed regret over Firmstone's serious accident, satisfaction at his recovery, and congratulations that a serious complication had been met and obviated with, all things considered, so slight a loss to the company.

The letter concluded as follows:

We have carefully considered the statement of the difficulties with which you have been confronted, as reported by our manager, and fully comprehend them. We have also given equal consideration to his plans for the rehabilitation of the mine and mill, and heartily a.s.sent to them as well as to his request that you be retained as our superintendent and that, in addition to your salary, you be granted a considerable share in the stock of our company. We feel that we are warranted in pursuing this course with you, recognising that it is a rare thing, in one having the ability which you have shown, to take counsel with and even frankly to adopt the suggestions of another.

By order of the President and Board of Directors of the Rainbow Milling Company, by

ARTHUR HARTWELL,

Gen. Man. and Acting Secretary.

Zephyr's face worked in undulations that in narrowing concentrics reached the puckered apex of his lips.

"Bees," he finally remarked, "are ding-twisted, ornery insects. They have, however, one redeeming quality not common to mosquitoes and black flies. If they sting with one end they make honey with the other. They ain't neither to be cussed nor commended. They're just built on them lines."

Firmstone looked thoughtful.

"I'm inclined to think you're right. If you're looking for honey you've got to take chances on being stung."

"Which I take to mean that you have decided to hive your bees in this particular locality."

Firmstone nodded.

Zephyr looked expectantly at Firmstone, and then continued:

"I also wish to remark that there are certain inconveniences connected with being an uncommonly level-headed man. There's no telling when you've got to whack up with your friends."

"All right." Firmstone half guessed at what was coming.

"Madame," Zephyr remarked, "having been deprived by the hand of death of her legal protectors, namely, Pierre and Morrison, wishes to take counsel with you."