The Rim of the Desert

by Ada Woodruff Anderson

He turned to her, smiling, and surprised a despair in her face that went to his heart.

"I thought, I hoped you meant to buy this land," she said.

"So I did, so I do, unless you decide to. And if you undertake this project, I pledge myself to see you through." His voice caught a pleading undernote. "It rests with you. Above every one it rests with you to even things for Weatherbee. Isn't that clear to you? Look ahead five years; see this vale green and shady with orchards; the trees laden with harvest; imagine his wife standing here on this bench, surveying it all. See her waking to the knowledge she has let a fortune slip through her hands; see her, the purchase price spent, facing the fact that another woman built her faith on David Weatherbee; had the courage to carry out his scheme and found it a bonanza. That is what is going to make her punishment strike home."

Miss Armitage rose. She stood a moment watching his face, then, "How you hate her!" she said.

"Hate?" Tisdale's laugh rang short and hard. "Well, I grant it; hate is the word. I hate her so much I've known better than go where she was; I've avoided her as an electrician avoids charged wire. Still, if I had found myself in Weatherbee's place; if I had made his mistake and married her, she should have felt my streak of iron. I might have stayed in Alaska as he did, but she would have stayed too and made a home for me, helped to fight things through." He paused and, meeting the appeal in her eyes, his face softened. "I've distressed you again," he added. "I'm sorry; but it isn't safe for me to speak of that woman; the thought of her starts my temperature rising in bounds. I want you to help me forget her. Yet, down in the depths of your heart you know you blame her."

"Yes, I blame her." Miss Armitage began to walk on towards the edge of the bench. "I blame her, but not as you do. I know she tried to do right; she would have gone to Alaska—if David had wished it—at the start. And she's been courageous, too. She's smiled—laughed in the face of defeat. Her closest friends never knew."

"You defend her. I wonder at that." Tisdale passed her and turned to offer his help down the first abrupt pitch. "How you, who are the one to censure her the most, can speak for her always, as you do. But there you are like Weatherbee. It was his way to take the losing side; champion the absent."

"And there is where your resemblance stops," she answered quickly. "He lacked your streak of iron. Of course you know about your strange likeness to him, Mr. Tisdale. It is so very marked; almost a dual personality. It isn't height and breadth of shoulder alone; it's in the carriage, the turn of the head; and it creeps into your eyes sometimes; it gets into your voice. The first time I saw you, it was startling."

Tisdale moved on, picking up the trail they had made in ascending; the humor began to play reminiscently at the corners of his mouth. "Yes, I know about that resemblance. When we were on the Tanana, it was 'Tisdale's Twin' and 'Dave's Double.' A man has to take a name that fits up there, and we seemed to grow more alike every day. But that often happens when two friends who are accustomed to think in the same channels are brought into continual touch, and the first year we spent in the north together we were alone for weeks at a stretch, with no other human intercourse, not a prospector's camp within a hundred miles. The most incompatible partners, under those circumstances, will pick up subconsciously tricks of speech and gesture. Still, looking back, I see it was I who changed. I had to live up to Weatherbee; justify his faith in me."

Miss Armitage shook her head slowly. "That is hard to believe. Whoever tried to mould you would feel through the surface that streak of iron." They had come to another precipitous place, and Tisdale turned again to give her the support of his hand. The position brought his face on a level with hers, and involuntarily she stopped. "But whatever you may say, Mr. Tisdale," she went on, and as her palm rested in his the words gathered the weight of a pact, "whatever may—happen—I shall never forget your greatness to-day." She sprang down beside him, and drew away her hand and looked back to the summit they had left. "Still, tell me this," she said with a swift breathlessness. "If it had been David Weatherbee's wife up there with you when the thunderbolt struck, would it have made a difference? I mean, would you have left her to escape—or not—as she could?"