The Emigrant Trail | Page 4

peach's bloom, warming through
deepening shades of rose to lips that were so deeply colored no one

noticed how firmly they could come together, how their curving,
crimson edges could shut tight, straighten out, and become a line of
forceful suggestions, of doggedness, maybe--who knows?--perhaps of
obstinacy. It was her physical exuberance, her downy glow, that made
David think her good looking; her serene, brunette richness, with its
high lights of coral and scarlet, that made her radiate an aura of warmth,
startling in that woodland clearing, as the luster of a firefly in a garden's
glooming dusk.
She stopped speaking as he emerged from the trees, and Leff's
stammering answer held her in a riveted stare of attention. Then she
looked up and saw David.
"Oh," she said, and transferred the stare to him. "Is this he?"
Leff was obviously relieved:
"Oh, David, I ain't known what to say to this lady and her father. They
think some of joining us. They've been waiting for quite a spell to see
you. They're goin' to California, too."
The gentleman lifted his hat. Now that he smiled his face was even
kindlier, and he, too, had a pleasant, mellowed utterance that linked
him with the world of superior quality of which David had had those
two glimpses.
"I am Dr. Gillespie," he said, "and this is my daughter Susan."
David bowed awkwardly, a bow that was supposed to include father
and daughter. He did not know whether this was a regular introduction,
and even if it had been he would not have known what to do. The
young woman made no attempt to return the salutation, not that she
was rude, but she had the air of regarding it as a frivolous interruption
to weighty matters. She fixed David with eyes, small, black, and bright
as a squirrel's, so devoid of any recognition that he was a member of
the rival sex--or, in fact, of the human family--that his
self-consciousness sunk down abashed as if before reproof.

"My father and I are going to California and the train we were going
with has gone on. We've come from Rochester, New York, and
everywhere we've been delayed and kept back. Even that boat up from
St. Louis was five days behind time. It's been nothing but
disappointments and delays since we left home. And when we got here
the people we were going with--a big train from Northern New
York--had gone on and left us."
She said all this rapidly, poured it out as if she were so full of the injury
and annoyance of it, that she had to ease her indignation by letting it
run over into the first pair of sympathetic ears. David's were a very
good pair. Any woman with a tale of trouble would have found him a
champion. How much more a fresh-faced young creature with a
melodious voice and anxious eyes.
"A good many trains have gone on," he said. And then, by way of
consolation for her manner demanded, that, "But they'll be stalled at the
fords with this rain. They'll have to wait till the rivers fall. All the men
who know say that."
"So we've heard," said the father, "but we hoped that we'd catch them
up. Our outfit is very light, only one wagon, and our driver is a
thoroughly capable and experienced man. What we want are some
companions with whom we can travel till we overhaul the others. I'd
start alone, but with my daughter----"
She cut in at once, giving his arm a little, irritated shake:
"Of course you couldn't do that." Then to the young men: "My father's
been sick for quite a long time, all last winter. It's for his health we're
going to California, and, of course, he couldn't start without some other
men in the party. Indians might attack us, and at the hotel they said the
Mormons were scattered all along the road and thought nothing of
shooting a Gentile."
Her father gave the fingers crooked on his arm a little squeeze with his
elbow. It was evident the pair were very good friends.

"You'll make these young men think I'm a helpless invalid, who'll lie in
the wagon all day. They won't want us to go with them."
This made her again uneasy and let loose another flow of authoritative
words.
"No, my father isn't really an invalid. He doesn't have to lie in the
wagon. He's going to ride most of the time. He and I expect to ride all
the way, and the old man who goes with us will drive the mules. What's
been really bad for my father was living in that dreadful hotel at
Independence with everything damp and uncomfortable. We want to
get off just as soon as we