CHAPTER XI
Hildegarde’s sense of anxious responsibility had grown with every month that passed after her father sailed out of San Francisco harbor. Bound for—“the Klondike!” people exclaimed with envy, rather than asked in any doubt.
“No—no,” he had said, and then hastily—to keep outsiders off the track—“well, perhaps. Who knows?” Who didn’t know! And, after all, why should any man stay at home who wasn’t obliged?
It was natural that no one else should take Mr. Mar’s enterprise as seriously from the start as did his daughter. For she knew how large had been her share in it. She had been the first, the only one, to cheer him on. She it was who had got “the boys” to finance the undertaking. She who had broken the fact to her mother. But for his daughter, Nathaniel Mar would not now be—where was he? How faring? Many a time Hildegarde’s heart contracted sharply, as in silence she framed the question. Her own fault that she couldn’t answer—her fault that half Valdivia could no longer set their clocks by the big, lame man’s passing—her doing that he sat no more of a morning in the warm, sunny room of the San Joaquin, sending out smoke and absorbing news. Others sat there in peace and safety, discussing their absent townsman; and Hildegarde sat at home trying to keep at bay the thought: if anything dreadful should happen to him!
It had eased her a little to write to Cheviot, and beg him to look out for her father. She was tempted to say, “Bring him back safe and there’s nothing I won’t gladly do to prove—” But she had pulled herself up in time, and only promised an unending gratitude.
The steamer President, which had taken Mar north, brought on her return trip a brief letter from him, saying merely that the journey was safely accomplished as far as St. Michaels. His family knew they would probably not hear again till the following summer.
Life was easier when Bella was there. To her one might say, “Will he come back by the first boat in June, or shall we only have letters, do you think?” And say it in one form or another so often that, but for reasons unavowed, the speculation would have wearied friendship.
But Bella was full of sympathy and tonic suggestion, always prepared to pore over northern maps, always ready to discuss probable conditions “up there.”
What a friend was Bella! “I’ve talked of a standard,” Hildegarde thought humbly, “but she lives up to it—in these days.” It was a shame ever to remember the lapses long ago.