The Indian on the Trail

Indian On The Trail, by Mary
Hartwell Catherwood

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Title: The Indian On The Trail From "Mackinac And Lake Stories",
1899
Author: Mary Hartwell Catherwood
Release Date: October 30, 2007 [EBook #23252]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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INDIAN ON THE TRAIL ***

Produced by David Widger

THE INDIAN ON THE TRAIL
From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899

By Mary Hartwell Catherwood
Maurice Barrett sat waiting in the old lime-kiln built by the British in
the war of 1812--a white ruin like much-scattered marble, which stands
bowered in trees on a high part of the island. He had, to the amusement
of the commissioner, hired this place for a summer study, and paid a
carpenter to put a temporary roof over it, with skylight, and to make a
door which could be fastened. Here on the uneven floor of stone were
set his desk, his chair, and a bench on which he could stretch himself to
think when undertaking to make up arrears in literary work. But the
days were becoming nothing but trysts with her for whom he waited.
First came the heavenly morning walk and the opening of his study,
then the short half-hour of labor, which ravelled off to delicious
suspense. He caught through trees the hint of a shirt-waist which might
be any girl's, then the long exquisite outline which could be nobody's in
the world but hers, her face under its sailor hat, the blown blond hair,
the blue eyes. Then her little hands met his outstretched hands at the
door, and her whole violet-breathing self yielded to his arms.
They sat down on the bench, still in awe of each other and of the swift
miracle of their love and engagement. Maurice had passed his fiftieth
year, so clean from dissipation, so full of vitality and the beauty of a
long race of strong men, that he did not look forty, and in all out-door
activities rivalled the boys in their early twenties. He was an expert
mountain-climber and explorer of regions from which he brought his
own literary material; inured to fatigue, patient in hardship, and
resourceful in danger. Money and reputation and the power which
attends them he had wrung from fate as his right, and felt himself fit to
match with the best blood in the world--except hers.
Yet she was only his social equal, and had grown up next door, while
his unsatisfied nature searched the universe for its mate--a wild
sweetbrier-rose of a child, pink and golden, breathing a daring, fragrant
personality. He hearkened back to some recognition of her charm from
the day she ran out bareheaded and slim-legged on her father's lawn
and turned on the hose for her play. Yet he barely missed her when she
went to an Eastern school, and only thrilled vaguely when she came

back like one of Gibson's pictures, carrying herself with state-liness.
There was something in her blue eyes not to be found in any other blue
eyes. He was housed with her family in the same hotel at the island
before he completely understood the magnitude of what had befallen
him.
"I am awfully set up because you have chosen me," she admitted at first.
He liked to have her proud as of a conquest, and he was conscious of
that general favor which stamped him a good match, even for a girl half
his age.
"How much have you done this morning?" she inquired, looking at his
desk.
"Enough to tide over the time until you came. Determination and
execution are not one with me now." Her hands were cold, and he
warmed them against his face.
"It was during your married life that determination and execution were
one?"
"Decidedly. For that was my plodding age. Sometimes when I am
tingling with impatience here I look back in wonder on the dogged
drive of those days. Work is an unhappy man's best friend. I have no
concealments from you, Lily. You know I never loved my wife--not
this way--though I made her happy; I did my duty. She told me when
she died that I had made her happy. People cannot help their
limitations."
"Do you love me?" she asked, her lips close to his ear.
"I am you! Your blood flows through my veins. I feel you rush through
me. You don't know what it is to love like that, do you?"
She shook