3
The cloud-burst had flooded the swales, and across the hollows ran broad sheets of racing water. I had crossed two or three of these, wondering whether I should be able to ford the next real watercourse, when we came to a broad bottom down the middle of which ran a swift shallow stream which rose over the young grass. For a few rods the road ran directly down this casual river of flood water, and as I looked back it all at once came into my mind that I might follow this flood and leave no track; so instead of swinging back into the road I took instantly the important resolution to leave the Ridge Road. By voice and whip I turned my cattle down the stream to the south, and for a mile I drove in water half-hub deep.
Looking back I saw that I left no trace except where two lines of open water showed through the grass on the high spots where cattle and wheels had passed, and I knew that in an hour the flood would run itself off and wipe out even this trace. I felt a sense of triumph, and mingled with this was a queer thrill that set my hands trembling at the consciousness that the prairie had closed about me and this girl with the milk-white neck and the fire in her hair who had asked me if I would not even lie "for her."
We wound down the flooded swale, we left the Ridge Road quite out of sight, we finally drew up out of the hollow and took to the ridges and hog-backs making a new Ridge Road for ourselves. Nowhere in sight was there the slightest trace of humanity or human settlement. We were alone. Still bearing south I turned westwardly, after rolling up the covers to let in the drying wind. I kept looking back to see if we were followed; for now I was suddenly possessed of the impulse to hide, like a thief making for cover with stolen goods. Virginia, wearied out with the journey, the strain of her escape, and the nervous tension, was lying on the couch, often asking me if I saw any one coming up from behind.
The country was getting more rolling and broken as we made our way down toward the Cedar River, or some large creek making into it--but, of course, journeying without a map or chart I knew nothing about the lay of the land or the watercourses. I knew, though, that I was getting into the breaks of a stream. Finally, in the gathering dusk I saw ahead of me the rounded crowns of trees; and pretty soon we entered one of those beautiful groves of hardwood timber that were found at wide distances along the larger prairie streams--I remember many of them and their names, Buck Grove, Cole's Grove, Fifteen Mile Grove, Hickory Grove, Crabapple Grove, Marble's Grove, but I never knew the name of this, the shelter toward which we had been making. I drove in between scattered burr oaks like those of the Wisconsin oak openings, and stopped my cattle in an open space densely sheltered by thickets of crabapple, plum and black-haw, and canopied by two spreading elms. Virginia started up, ran to the front of the wagon and looked about.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"This is our hiding-place," I replied.
"But that man--won't he follow our tracks?"
"We didn't leave any tracks," I said.
"How could we come without leaving tracks?" she queried, standing close to me and looking up into my face.
"Did you notice," said I, "that for miles we drove in the water--back there on the prairie after the rain?"
"Yes."
"We drove in the water when we left the road, and we left no tracks. Not even an Indian could track us. We can't be tracked. We've lost Gowdy--forever."
I thought at first that she was going to throw her arms about my neck; but instead she took both my hands and pressed them in a long clasp. It was the first time she had touched me, or shown emotion toward me--emotion of the sort for which I was now eagerly longing. I did not return her pressure. I merely let her hold my hands until she dropped them. I wanted to do a dozen things, but there is nothing stronger than the unbroken barriers of a boy's modesty--barriers strong as steel, which once broken down become as though they never were; while a woman even in her virgin innocence, is always offering unconscious invitation, always revealing ways of seeming approach, always giving to the stalled boy, arguments against his bashfulness--arguments which may prove absurd or not when he acts upon them. It is the way of a maid with a man, Nature's way--but a perilous way for such a time and such a situation.
That night we sat about the tiny camp-fire and talked. She told me of her life in Kentucky, of her grief at the loss of her sister, of many simple things; and I told her of my farm--a mile square--of my plans, of my life on the canal--which seemed to impress her as it had Rowena Fewkes as a very adventurous career. I was sure she was beginning to like me; but of one thing I did not tell her. I did not mention my long unavailing search for my mother, nor the worn shoe and the sad farewell letter in the little iron-bound trunk in the wagon. I searched for tales which would make of me a man; but when it grew dark I put out the fire. I was not afraid of Buck Gowdy's finding us; but I did not want any one to discover us. And that night I drew out the loads of chicken shot from my gun and reloaded it with buckshot.
I could not sleep. After Virginia had lain down in the wagon, I walked about silently so as not to rouse her, prowling like a wolf. I crept to the side of the wagon and listened for her breathing; and when I heard it my hands trembled, and my heart pounded in my breast. All the things through which I had lived without partaking of them came back into my mind. I thought of what I heard every day on the canal--that all women were alike; that they existed only for that sort of companionship with men with which my eyes were so ignorantly familiar; that all their protestations and refusals were for effect only; that a man need only to be a man, to know what he wanted, and conquer it. And I felt rising in me like a tide the feeling that I was now a man. The reader who has believed of me that I passed through that canal life unspotted by its vileness has asked too much of me. The thing was not possible. I now thought of the irregular companionships of that old time as inexplicable no longer. They were the things for which men lived--the inevitable things for every real man. Only this which agitated me so terribly was different from them--no matter what happened, it would be pure and blameless--for it would be us!