His face was white as white foam, the lines cut deep like brands, the heart of the man was like ice. Yet the eyes didn’t flinch. They burned steady and straight,—into the glowing twin circles of blue fire just above him.
There was a long, strange moment of silence in which it seemed that the river flowed like a soft wind. All the power and strength of his being was at test. And slowly—snarling at every step—the puma began to back away up the log into the thickets.
Still Hugh held firm. He waited until the great cougar was ten feet distant, then his arm shot out like a serpent’s head toward the lamb. He seized it in a strong grasp, released the log, and yielded himself to the full force of the current. As he swept down he saw the cougar—his courage come back to him now that the masterful eyes no longer glared into his—spring out with a savage snarl to the end of the log. But he was out of reach now, and safe, struggling once more against the might of the current.
He fought with all his strength and slowly worked his way into the shore. The guide came running toward him: the dog—fifty feet farther down—pulled himself up, dripping and exhausted, on the rocky margin. Hugh caught at the overhanging bushes and slowly he gained the bank. And with a queer, dim smile he set the lamb down beside the ewe.
It seemed endless moments before he felt able to speak. His breath seemed gone, he felt weak as a child, his muscles ached and his wet clothes chilled him, yet he felt strangely, deeply happy. He didn’t know why. He was too tired for introspection. He only knew a great, unfamiliar joy, an inner peace.
“Don’t wait any longer for me,” he said at last when he got his breath. Pete looked down at him in amazement. Hugh smiled into his dark eyes.
“What you mean?” Pete asked in bewilderment.
Hugh smiled again but felt too tired to explain. There was no use of explanations: he didn’t know that he could find words for them. For the moment he had lost faith in words: only deeds mattered now. He didn’t seem to be able to tell why Hugh Gaylord, the son of wealth and of cities, should yield himself to such folly. The body of the dead herder still lay across the horse’s back: the fact that another week might find himself in the same position could not matter either.
“You’re to go on alone,” he explained quite clearly. “I’m going to stay here—until some one comes up and takes my place—and watch the sheep.”
For Hugh knew the truth at last. A new power, a greater strength had risen within him. His eyes saw clear at last. In that wild moment in the heart of the stream he had given service, he had risked all for a cause. None of his old, soft delights had yielded one part of the pleasure that had been his as his strong strokes braved the current; no false flattery had ever been so satisfying as his victory over Broken Fang. It was service, it was conquest, it was manhood at last.