CHAPTER XXII
ON THE TRAIL
It was a night to remember, if for nothing else for the exquisite atmospheric conditions prevailing. The moon was at its full, like some splendid jewel radiating a silvery peace upon a slumbering world. The jeweled sky suggested the untold wealth of an infinite universe. The perfumed air filled lungs and nostrils with a beatific joy in living, and the darkened splendor of the crowding hills inspired a reverence in the human heart so profound, that it left scarce a place for the smallness of mundane hopes and yearnings. The splendor, the breadth of beauty sank into the human soul and left the spirit straining at its earthly bonds, and gazing with longing towards the infinite power which ordered its existence.
For ten miles of the journey from the old ranch-house Hazel rode under the sublime influence of feelings so inspired. Nothing of the conditions were new to her. The mountain nights in summer were as much a part of her existence as was the ranching life of her home. She knew them as she knew the work that filled her daylight hours. But their effect upon her never varied—never weakened. No familiarity with them could change that feeling of the infinite sublimity somewhere beyond the narrow confines of human life. She drank in the deep draughts of perfect life, she gazed abroad with shining eyes of simple happiness on the splendid world, and a superlative thankfulness to the Creator of all things that life had been thus vouchsafed her uplifted her heart and all that was spiritual within her.
The journey to her home was twenty miles, but her favorite mare possessed wings so far as its mistress was concerned. The distance was all too short for the splendid young body, and that youthful mood of delight. Hazel reveled in the expenditure of the energy required, as the mare, beneath her, seemed to revel in the physical effort of the journey.
For the greater part of the road the cobwebs of affairs she was engaged upon left Hazel indifferent. The delight of life left no room for them. But after the half way had been passed there came to her flashes of thought which reduced her feelings to a more human mood.
Nor was that mood of the easiest. She experienced feelings of disquiet, even alarm. She felt vexed, and a great resentment, and even genuine anger, began to take possession of her. But these were interspersed with moments when a certain irresponsibility and humor would not be denied, and underlying all and every other emotion was a great passionate longing, which she scarcely admitted even to herself.
Her mind was fixed upon two men: father and son. For the time at least, they were the pivot of all things worldly for her. In her thoughts the son possessed attributes little short of a demi-god, while the father had become a being endowed with a deep, reflected regard. There was room in her woman's heart for both in their respective places. She knew she loved them, and her variations of mood were inspired by the cruelly farcical atmosphere of the position surrounding them both. She was angry with Gordon, bitterly angry at one moment, at the next she reveled in the exquisite impudence of his daring. At one moment her woman's tender pity went out to the big-hearted man who had been submitted to such indignities by his own son and herself, and all those concerned in the conspiracy, and, at the next, she found herself smiling at the humor of his attitude towards his persecutors. Then, too, over all these complications of feeling she was stirred with alarm at that painful memory of the unguarded moment, when, lulled by her interest in the millionaire's talk, she had admitted her name to him. Visions of hideous possibilities rose before her eyes. If he should chance to know her father's name. Why not? Surely he knew. But after that one sharp interrogation he had given no sign.
She sighed a sort of half-hearted relief, but remained unconvinced. It was this last contingency which had inspired her night journey home. She had ridden out the moment she had been certain that their captive had retired for the night.