Told in the Hills: A Novel

by Marah Ellis Ryan

"And when am I to tell the folks you will come back?" asked Mrs. Houghton, with the purpose of settling on a fixed time and then holding her to it.

"Just tell them the truth, dear—say you don't know," answered the girl sweetly. "I may locate a claim out here yet and develop into a stock-grower. Do not look so sulky. I may be of use here; no one needs me in Kentucky."

"What of Nard Stevens?" was a final query; at which Rachel no longer smiled—she laughed.

"Oh, you silly Clara!" she burst out derisively. "You think yourself so wise, and you never see an inch beyond that little nose of yours. Nard needs me no more than I need him—bless the boy! He's a good fellow; but you can not use him as a trump card in this game, my dear. Yes, I know that speech is slangy. Give my love to Nard when you see him—well, then, my kind regards and best wishes if the other term conflicts with your proper spirit, and tell him I have located out here to grow up with the country."

And through the months that followed she assuredly grew to the country at all events; the comparative mildness of the winters proving a complete surprise to her, as, hearing of the severe weather of the North, she had not known that its greatest intensity extends only to the eastern wall of the great mountain range, and once crossing the divide, the Chinook winds or currents from the Pacific give the valleys much the temperature of our Middle States, or even more mild, since the snow-fall in the mountains is generally rain in the lowlands. Sometimes, of course, with the quick changes that only the wind knows, there would come a swoop downward of cold from the direct North, cutting through the basins, and driving the Pacific air back coastward in a fury, and those fitful gusts were to be guarded against by man and beast; and wise were growing those eastern prophets in their quickness to judge from the heavens whether storm or calm was to be with them.

But despite Clara's many predictions, the days did not grow dull to Rachel, and the ranch was not a prison in winter-time. She had too clearly developed the faculty of always making the best of her surroundings and generally drawing out the best points in the people about her.

It was that trait of hers that first awakened her interest in that splendid animal, their guide from the Maple range.

He had disappeared—gone from the Kootenai country, so they told her. But where? or for what? That none could answer.

Her memory sometimes brought her swift flushes of mortification when she thought of him—of their association so pregnant with some sympathy or subtle influence that had set the world so far beyond them at times. Now that he was gone, and their knowledge of each other perhaps all over, she tried to coolly reason it all out for herself, but found so much that contained no reason—that had existed only through impulses—impulses not easy to realize once outside the circle of their attending circumstances.

Those memories puzzled her—her own weakness when she lay in his arms, and her own gift of second-sight that gave her an understanding of him that morning when she turned champion for him against himself.