There was not much choice. She had a little bacon, a little flour, a little coffee, a quantity of salt, and a can of baking powder. Her huckleberries were heaped upon the ground, and she looked at them askance. She had dined on huckleberries at noon—had forced herself to do so. She decided to fry some bacon for the resulting grease, to be used in making biscuits. The bacon she would not eat then, but would have it cold for supper to-morrow evening. One meal a day of staples was all that she could afford, she told herself, until Andy came with more supplies. If he came!
She strove to keep Andy from her thoughts. To think of him was to worry—and she must not worry. Time for that when he came to her—when they could worry together and he could comfort her. She was going to fight her way bravely through the ordeal until he came—and then she would relax and let him take the initiative and relieve her of the strain. But how long could he hold out? And what dread thing was threatening him? But there! She must not think of that. Dr. Shonto had consoled her with the repeated remark that perhaps nothing would happen at all, provided he—Shonto—was able to get back soon enough. Provided! But she shook her head resolutely and went to work at getting supper while the shadows of night enshrouded the valley and coyotes began their evening concert in the hills.
The days and nights that passed until the coming of the expected one were fraught with torture. Charmian was not afraid in the general meaning of the word, but the mysterious sink, so serene and quiet and remote, awed her and filled her with strange forebodings that she could not shuffle off. She spent the days at gathering acorns, scolded at frequently by Douglas squirrels who claimed the entire crop between the valley walls. The piñon nuts, too, they considered theirs, and told her so with angry chatterings, made more emphatic by the gestures of their jerking tails. A slight midnight rain brought to life near the river a bed of mushrooms of a variety which she had often gathered on the Marin hills across the bay from San Francisco. These she garnered eagerly, and they grew in quantities. She feasted on fresh ones for several meals, dipping them in thin batter and frying them in bacon grease, or stewing them. Many she dried. And then she bethought herself to dry wild grapes and huckleberries, whereupon a new and engrossing task took form. All day long she managed to keep busy. This helped to keep away the blues, and at night she found herself so weary that sleep came easily.
She had lighted her signal fire, heaping on green boughs to make dense smoke. There was little wind in the valley, and the smoke streamed aloft in a graceful spiral above the treetops. Every morning she rebuilt the fire and heaped on boughs when it was burning brightly. And now came a day when she stood often at the edge of the grove and scanned the zigzag trail into the sink with her binoculars. Or, gathering nuts and acorns and mushrooms in the open, stopped her work and trained her glasses about every fifteen minutes.
And at noon one day she was rewarded by the sight of a tiny speck descending along the trail. She shouted in her eagerness and loneliness, unmindful that her lover was miles away. She glanced once to make sure that the smoke was still streaming aloft from her signal fire, then began running toward the river. If she could bring herself to cross the log bridge she could run into the open on the other side and travel a long way in the direction of the northern cliffs before Andy had reached the bottom of the sink. She hesitated only a little when she reached the fallen tree, then climbed astride it and worked her way over the boiling water, gripping with hands and calves.
They sighted each other in one of the level meadows of the river bottom. Andy shouted to her; she shrilled a glad reply. Then both started running, came together panting for breath, and hung in each other’s arms.
Then once more Charmian Reemy sobbed, this time with her tousled head on the broad shoulder of the man who loved her. She had promised herself this weeping spell as a reward for holding back her tears throughout the days and nights just past; and now she rewarded herself abundantly and without reserve. But hers were tears of gladness and relief. Nothing was to happen to Andy! The doctor had needlessly distressed her. Here he was in her arms, big and strong and virile and handsome as a god—what ever could happen to such a man! There was food in the valley—nuts and game and fish. And if the huckleberries would only last she would be content to live on them alone, while Andy was with her in the valley. The doctor might never return if he chose to leave them there together. What mattered it, when she had Andy? The Valley of Arcana had lost its grimness. It was a valley of happy smiles, blessed by nature, sun kissed, gloriously resplendent from wall to wall. It was warm noontide and the sun was overhead—and she was crying happily on Andy’s shoulder.
“And had Mary Temple and the doctor started out when you left?” she asked finally, wiping her tears on a sleeve of her flannel shirt.
“Yes, dear—we all started at the same time. Doctor Shonto told me about Mary’s faking a sprained ankle. She’ll have a time of it with that broken rib, I’m thinking. But I guess there was no other way. What did the doctor tell you about me, Charmian?”
“He wouldn’t explain anything,” she answered. “Wouldn’t warn me at all beyond telling me that I couldn’t be of any help to you if—if anything happened.”