Snow-Blind | Page 5

two were always telling him,
sometimes savagely, sometimes tenderly! "You're too young." What

did it mean to him, anyhow, that he was "too young"? A desolation
from which at times he suffered in secret overcame him.
He was twenty-one or -two--or his memory lied. They had never
celebrated his birthdays, but he was five or six years old when Hugh
had been so suddenly, so unexplainably taken from the house, back
there in the little Eastern college town where they had lived. It was a
few months later that Bella--Cousin Bella, who worked at "the
farm"--came for him, a furtive, desperate Bella with a bruised face--a
Bella tight-strung for flight, for a breaking of the galling accustomed
ties of her life, for a terrible plunge into unknown adventure. She had
muttered to him, as she dressed him and bundled together a few of his
belongings, that they "were going to Hugh"--only it was another name
she used, a name since blotted from their lives.
Hugh had sent for them. She was the only person in the world that
Hugh could trust. But no one must know where they were going. They
must be away by the time the man who took charge of the shop came
back in the morning.
Pete remembered the journey. He remembered the small frontier station
where they left the train at last. He remembered that strange, far-flung
horizon, streaked with dawn, and his first taste of the tangy, heady air.
There had been a long, long drive and a parting with the friendly driver
where Bella turned on to the trail through the woods. It had been dim
and dark and terrible among the endless regiments of trees--mazy and
green and altogether bewildering. And after vague hop-o'-my-thumb
wanderings, he had a disconnected memory of Hugh--a wild, rugged,
ragged, bearded Hugh who caught him up fiercely as though he had an
ogrish hunger for the feel of little boys. It was night when they came to
Hugh's hiding-place. For miles Pete had been carried in his brother's
arms. Bella had limped behind them. There had been a ford, he
remembered; the splashing water had roused Pete, and he stayed awake
afterward until he found himself before a dancing fire of logs in a queer,
dark, resinous-smelling house, very low, with unglazed windows. He
remembered, too, that Bella had burst out crying. That was the queerest
memory of them all--that crying of Bella's.--Even now he could not

understand exactly why she had cried so then.
The frightened, furtive life they had all led since--the life of scared wild
things--had left its mark on Pete. His fear for Hugh now threw him
back into the half-forgotten state of apprehension which had been the
atmosphere of all his little boyhood. He had not known then why
strange men were creatures to be feared and shunned. In fact, he had
never been told the reason for Hugh's flight. Only, bit by bit, he had
pieced together hints and vague allusions until he knew that this strange,
embittered, boasting poet of a brother had killed or had been accused of
killing. In his loyal boy mind Hugh Garth was promptly acquitted. It
was the world that was wrong--not Hugh. Yet to-day, after all the long
years of carefulness, he had gone back to the cruelty of the world.
Like a beast the boy's anxiety for his brother began to prowl about the
walls of his mind. He imagined Hugh appearing at the trading-station.
He pictured the curious glances of the Indians and the white natives.
This limping, extravagant, energetic Hugh with his whitening hair and
eyebrows and flaring hazel eyes--with his crooked nose and mouth, his
magnificently desperate manner and his magnificently desperate
voice--attention would inevitably fasten upon him anywhere; how
much more in an empty land such as this! Pete fancied the inquiring
looks turned from the man to the man's posted picture. It was no longer
a faithful likeness, of course; still, it was a likeness. There was no other
man in all the world like Hugh! He was made of odd, fantastic
fragments, of ill-fitting parts--physically, mentally, spiritually. It was as
if a soul had seen itself in a crooked mirror and had fashioned a form to
match the distorted image. Hugh wouldn't, couldn't force himself to be
inconspicuous. He would swagger; he would talk loud; his big,
beautiful voice would challenge attention, create an audience. He
would have some impossible, splendid tale to tell.
Pete sat up straighter in his chair, gingerly rearranging the ankle, and
lifted his blue and haunted eyes--the eyes of the North--to the window.
The dazzle of noon had faded to a glow. The short winter day was
nearly done. There would be a long violet twilight, and then, the blaze
of stars.

But for his