“I told you so,” said Armstrong. “He understands this business jest as well as we do. He’ll go till he draps. Thar’s grit into him, ef I know grit.”
Yes; but when I saw him sit still with his back against the spruce-tree, and remembered his exuberant life of other days, I desponded. He soon took occasion to speak to me apart.
“Dick,” said he, “you see how it is. I am not good for much. If we were alone, you and I might settle here for a month or so, and write ‘Bubbles from the Brünnen.’ But there is a lady in the case. It is plain where she belongs. I know every inch of the way to Laramie. I can take you through in a week”—he paused and quavered a little, as he continued—“if I live. But don’t look so anxious. I shall.”
“It would be stupid for you to die now, John Brent the Lover, with the obstacles cut away and an heroic basis of operations.”
“A wounded man, perhaps a dying man, has no business with love. I will never present her my services and ask pay. But, Dick, if I should wear out, you will know what to say to her for me.”
At this she joined us, her face so illumined with resolution and hope that we both kindled. All doubt skulked away from her presence. Brent was nerved to rise and walk a few steps to the camp-fire, supported by her arm and mine.
Armstrong had breakfast ready, such as it was. And really, the brace of wood grouse he had shot that morning, not a hundred yards from camp, were not unworthy of a lady’s table, though they had never made journey in a crowded box, over a slow railroad, from Chicago to New York, in a January thaw, and then been bought at half price of a street pedler, a few hours before they dropped to pieces.
We grouped to depart.
“I shall remember all this for scores of sketches,” said Miss Clitheroe.
And indeed there was material. The rocks behind threading away and narrowing into the dim gorge of the Alley; the rushing fountains, one with its cloud of steam; the two great spruces; the greensward; the thickets; and above them a far-away glimpse of a world, all run to top and flinging itself up into heaven, a tumult of crag and pinnacle. So much for the scenery. And for personages, there was Armstrong, with his head turbaned, saddling the white machine; the two mules, packed and taking their last nibbles of verdure; Miss Clitheroe, in her round hat and with a green blanket rigged as riding-skirt, mounted upon the sturdy roan; Brent resting on my shoulder, and stepping on my knee, as he climbed painfully to his seat on the tall sorrel; Don Fulano waiting, proud and eager. And just as we were starting, a stone fell from overhead into the water; and looking up, we saw a bighorn studying us from the crags, wishing, no doubt, that his monster horns were ears to comprehend our dialect.