“Thanks, Ivor,” she said. “You never seem to forget us. I’ll sure be real glad to have you bring Claire down with you. She’s crazy glad, sure—we both are, but it don’t seem time to me to be dreaming around on any old hill-tops. I’ll set coffee an’ a bite to eat against you get back.”
She watched him hurry away, this great creature all height, and muscle, and plainness of feature. She realised his eagerness, and again there arose in her mother heart that hope which her better sense sought to deny her.
The girl was gazing out upon the distant sea. The iron-bound coast that lay immediately below her made no claim upon her, for all the wild beauty, the cruel austerity with which its ages-long battle with the merciless waters of a storm-swept ocean had endowed it. Neither had the panorama of tumultuous hills which rose about her, nor the distant snowy crests of the northern reaches of the Rocky Mountains any appeal. She only had eyes for the grey, far-off horizon where sky and sea met. She was searching for some sign of a sail, which, in fancy, she might translate into the wings of the vessel bringing home a beloved brother and—fortune.
She was beautifully tall and slim, for all her somewhat rough clothing which had little more than warmth and utility to recommend it. It was the best that the joint efforts of her mother and herself had been able to contrive out of their limited resources, and the girl was not given to grumbling. No, she was accustomed to hardships, and self-denial came easy to her. She was too strong and resolute, she was too frankly generous to harbour any petty resentment against her lot.
In twenty-one years she had grown to superb womanhood, healthy in mind, healthy in a wonderful degree in body. Her father had seen something of her splendid development before he died, but it was left to her mother to witness the final reality of it. To the latter her child was the most beautiful creature in all the world. Her wide blue eyes, and her wealth of flaming red hair, her shapely body, so tall, and vigorous, and straight; then her sun-tanned, rounded cheeks, and her well-chiselled nose, and broad, even brows; were they not all something of a reflection of the early youth of the man who had given her her own life’s happiness? Time and again her mother had rejoiced that she had had her christened with so choice a name as “St. Claire.” True, the “Saint” had been permitted to fall into disuse. But it still belonged to her, and nothing could rob her of it. And the mother only regretted that the girl herself refused to permit its revival.
Just now the girl had given herself up to idle moments of delicious dreaming. And why not? Difficulties and troubles had beset them for so long; oh, yes. She had no scruple in admitting the bald, hard truth. Not alone was her joy at the prospect of Jim’s return. He was returning with some sort of fortune, for them as well as himself.
It would mean so much to them. Her mother would know ease and peace of mind after all her heroic struggles with adversity. Jim would be freed from his great responsibility for their care. And she—she—well, there were so many great and wonderful things in the world she wanted to do and see.
And dreaming of all that this splendid return meant to them her mind went back to the interview she had had only that morning in Beacon Glory with the man everybody called “Bad” Booker, the chief real estate man in the city.
Her journey into town had been inspired by their necessity. Her mother still owned a small block of property in Beacon Glory, the last remaining asset left to her by her gambler husband. It was mortgaged to Booker, himself, but only lightly, and she had visited him to endeavour to sell it right out. Without Booker’s help they possessed less than twenty dollars with which to face the winter, and await Jim’s return. She took no account of the played-out gold claim on the creek below her. That had ceased to yield a pennyweight of gold more than two years back, a fact which had been the inspiration of her brother’s going.