Hidden Creek | Page 9

dropped away from the reach of his senses. Here was
dazzling space, the amazing presence of the mountains, the pressure of
the starry sky. Far off already across the flat, that small, dark figure
moved. She had left the road, which ran parallel with the mountain
range, and was walking over the hard, sparkling crust. It supported her
weight, but Dickie was not sure that it would do the same for his. He
tried it carefully. It held, and he followed the faint track of small feet. It
did not occur to him, dazed as he was by the fumes of whiskey and the
heady air, that the sight of a man in swift pursuit of her loneliness
might frighten Sheila. For some reason he imagined that she would
know that he was Sylvester's son, and 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