Hidden Creek | Page 9

that he was possessed only by the most sociable and protective impulses.
He was, besides, possessed by a fateful feeling that it was intended that out here in the brilliant night he should meet her and talk to her. The adventurous heart of Dickie was aflame.
When the hurrying figure stopped and turned quickly, he did not pause, but rather hastened his steps. He saw her lift her muff up to her heart, saw her waver, then move resolutely toward him. She came thus two or three steps, when a treacherous pitfall in the snow opened under her frightened feet and she went down almost shoulder deep. Dickie ran forward.
Bending over her, he saw her white, heart-shaped face, and its red mouth as startling as a June rose out here in the snow. And he saw, too, the panic of her shining eyes.
"Miss Arundel"--his voice came thin and tender, feeling its way doubtfully as though it was too heavy a reality--"let me help you. You are Miss Arundel, aren't you? I'm Dickie--Dickie Hudson, Pap Hudson's son. You hadn't ought to be scared. I saw you coming out alone and took after you. I thought you might find it kind of lonesome up here on the flat at night in all the moonlight--hearing the coyotes and all. And, look-a-here, you might have had a time getting out of the snow. Oncet a fellow breaks through it sure means a floundering time before a fellow pulls himself out--"
She had given him a hand, and he had pulled her up beside him. Her smile of relief seemed very beautiful to Dickie.
"I came out," she said, "because it looked so wonderful--and I wanted to see--" She stopped, looking at him doubtfully, as though she expected him not to understand, to think her rather mad. But he finished her sentence.
"--To see the mountains, wasn't it?"
"Yes." She was again relieved, almost as much so, it seemed, as at the knowledge of his friendliness. "Especially that big one." She waved her muff toward the towering peak. "I never did see such a night! It's like--it's like--" She widened her eyes, as though, by taking into her brain an immense picture of the night, she might find out its likeness.
Dickie, moving uncertainly beside her, murmured, "Like the inside of a cold flame, a very white flame."
Sheila turned her chin, pointed above the fur collar of her coat, and included him in the searching and astonished wideness of her look.
"You work at The Aura, don't you?" she asked with childlike brusquerie.
Dickie's sensitive, undecided mouth settled into mournfulness. He looked away.
"Yes, ma'am," he said plaintively.
Sheila's widened eyes, still fixed upon him, began to embarrass him. A flush came up into his face.
She moved her look across him and away to the range.
"It is like that," she said--"like a cold flame, going up--how did you think of that?"
Dickie looked quickly, gratefully at her. "I kind of felt," he said lamely, "that I had got to find out what it was like. But"--he shook his head with his deprecatory smile--"but that don't tell it, Miss Arundel. It's more than that." He smiled again. "I bet you, you could think of somethin' better to say about it, couldn't you?"
Sheila laughed. "What a funny boy you are! Not like the others. You don't even look like them. How old are you? When I first saw you I thought you were quite grown up. But you can't be much more than nineteen."
"Just that," he said, "but I'll be twenty next month."
"You've always lived here in Millings?"
"Yes, ma'am. Do you like it? I mean, do you like Millings? I hope you do."
Sheila pressed her muff against her mouth and looked at him over it. Her eyes were shining as though the moonlight had got into their misty grayness. She shook her head; then, as his face fell, she began to apologize.
"Your father has been so awfully kind to me. I am so grateful. And the girls are awfully good to me. But, Millings, you know?--I wouldn't have told you," she said half-angrily, "if I hadn't been so sure you hated it."
They had come to the edge of the mesa, and there below shone the small, scattered lights of the town. The graphophone was playing in the saloon. Its music--some raucous, comic song--insulted the night.
"Why, no," said Dickie, "I don't hate Millings. I never thought about it that way. It's not such a bad place. Honest, it isn't. There's lots of fine folks in it. Have you met Jim Greely?"
"Why, no, but I've seen him. Isn't that Girlie's--'fellow'?"
Dickie made round, respectful eyes. He was evidently very much impressed.
"Say!" he ejaculated. "Is that the truth? Girlie's aiming kind of high."
It was not easy to walk side by side on the rutted snow of the road. Sheila here slipped ahead of