Clever Betsy

“You did, eh?” The young man’s face changed to alert attention.

“He feels just the way we do. It’s goin’ to be all right.”

“Jubilate!” ejaculated Irving. “How?”

“Oh, I can’t tell you now. You go right on trustin’ me – or rather you’d better begin!”

“You’re a good soul, Clever Betsy! When does she stop?”

“As soon as it’s right.”

Irving uttered an exclamation of impatience.

“Don’t show your ignorance o’ business methods,” said Betsy smiling. “You go on with your fishin’. Everything’s goin’ to be all right, and I’ll tell you about it later.”

Thus reassured, Irving obeyed. He went on fishing; he tramped to Artist’s Point with Miss Maynard, Nixie, and Mr. Derwent, and at night went to his rest without having cross-examined Betsy further.

He knew every shade of expression in her good, immobile face, and satisfaction was too clearly writ upon it for him to doubt that all was well. Let her have her little mystery, if she derived enjoyment from it. Of course all Irving cared for was to know that Rosalie was properly looked after, – the details were really immaterial.

Toward the following morning he found himself on the shore of the Firehole River, again waiting for the Riverside Geyser to play. As the water began to spout, he suddenly noticed that Rosalie Vincent was in a canoe in the middle of the river, just in the path of the irresistible liquid catapult. He flung off his coat preparatory to jumping into the water, and at the same time shouted her name repeatedly.

A mixture of sheepishness and relief greeted his sudden view of the ceiling of his bedroom. His own voice rang in his ears. He glanced at the window. Streaks of light were showing in the sky. An idea occurred to him.

“I shall never have such another chance,” he thought. In fifteen minutes more he was dressed and stealing like a burglar down the corridor and out the door of the hotel.

The sky was brightening fast, and he started on a jog-trot in the direction of the canyon.

The stillness, the loveliness of that morning, – the only sounds those of Nature undisturbed and uninterrupted! What fine exhilaration was in the air! Had no reward followed that run over the mountain road, Irving Bruce would have remembered it all his days as unique in rare enjoyment; but when at last he passed out from the shadows and stood upon a vantage-point commanding the superb gorge, what words can describe the grandeur of the pageant, as the rising sun brightened the flaming walls of the canyon, and whitened the tempestuous water which paused on an awful brink before thundering into the deeps below, – a compact mass of shimmering silver foam!

A strange ecstasy forced moisture into the watcher’s eyes; but suddenly as his glance swept down the cliff his heart seemed to stop beating. On a jutting rock below him a woman was standing. She wore a white gown and was bareheaded. While he looked she seemed to become terror-stricken, and retreating, her back to the falls, clung to the hoary rock like a frightened dove.

As in his dream Irving shouted, “Rosalie! Rosalie!” but the mad roar of water fortunately drowned his voice as he plunged down the path that led to the jutting rock.

If the girl should faint or fall, there was nothing to prevent her slipping over the edge and rolling into the awful chasm, and it seemed to the man an eternity before he scrambled to a foothold beside her and seized the white gown. She lifted dilated eyes to his face, then gave a smile of heavenly relief and sank into the arms that clasped her.

He scowled down while he held her close.

“Are you crazy?” he demanded.

“Oh!” was all she could breathe.

“Don’t you faint!” he exclaimed again, as ferociously as before.

“No – I won’t,” she murmured. She was very white as she pushed herself from him.

He clasped her hand tightly.

“Don’t look down. Put your foot there.” He indicated a spot with his own foot and stepped ahead of her.

Thus, little by little, he led her upon the steep trail, and they climbed to the upper ground.

“That was a crazy thing to do!” repeated the man when they stood in safety.

“The water – drew me,” she answered faintly.

She was more than ever like a nymph, her eyes appealing in her white face under the gold of her hair.

“Aren’t you cold? Where are your wraps?” viewing her white dress.

She looked about helplessly. “I had a sweater. I must have dropped it somewhere. No, oh no, Mr. Bruce;” for Irving was taking off his coat.

“Nonsense! Of course I shall. How many layers do you suppose I need? See my sweater-vest?” He put her arms in his coat-sleeves and buttoned it close to her throat. “I’m glowing. I ran all the way.”

“How wonderful that you came!” She said it very quietly, apparently still under the spell of her moment of panic.

He kept his eyes upon her. “I dreamed about you. I dreamed that you were in danger.”

She looked at him curiously. “Is that why you came?”

“Perhaps. Who can tell?” His face had cleared, and he looked into hers, so still and lovely above the rough coat. “I am very angry with you, Rosalie.”

“Oh no, you can’t be. It looked very easy. See.”

From where they stood, the jutting rock below did look ample and tempting.

“But I’m sorry I frightened you,” she added, and looked up at him with an enchanting smile.

The new day had begun. The solemn pines towered above them. On a crag below clung an eagle’s nest, and the parent birds circled and soared above the emerald-green river, returning to the young with food.

“It seems,” said the man slowly, “as if we were alone in this stupendously beautiful world.”

“My head went round and round,” she returned dreamily. “I wonder how long I could have held there.”

He shuddered. “Did life suddenly seem well worth living?” he asked.

“Yes indeed,” she returned. “It seemed that, yesterday. A wonderful thing has happened to me. I’m not a heaver any more.”

“Tell me all about it. When did you come? What does it mean to find you here at dawn as if you had rained from the skies?”

“Mr. Derwent doesn’t want me to stay in the Park. He thinks there is other work I can do. He cared a great deal for my father, and for his sake he will take care of me and guide me, he says, if I will be obedient.” The speaker lifted her eyes again to those which studied her. “It’s easy to be obedient to pleasant orders, isn’t it? He wants to send me right back to Boston.”

She paused, and Irving nodded with satisfaction.

“I quite understand,” she went on quietly, “why he wishes me to go a little ahead of your party.” Irving frowned.

“It’s all right. I have felt very much humiliated – ” she went on.

“Absurd, ridiculous,” interjected Irving hotly; but she finished her sentence as if he had not spoken.

“Betsy says I am a vine, and wish too much to cling, and haven’t backbone enough; but Mr. Derwent’s interest puts backbone into me. I feel that surely there is a place for me somewhere – ”

“Where,” interrupted her companion, “where in Boston are you going?”

“He will take care of it all, he says. Isn’t it wonderful? I don’t wonder that he loved my father.” The girl’s eyes shone. “He says that they were very close at one time, and that old friends can never be replaced. It makes me think of what Holmes said: —

“‘There is no friend like the old friend, who has shared our morning days,No greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise:Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold;But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold!’”

The girlish voice was like music above the smothered roar of many waters. As Irving listened and looked, he understood the warmth of Mrs. Bruce’s brief enthusiasm.

There was a pause, and the two feasted their eyes upon the glories before them.

“It is absurd that you shouldn’t go back to Boston with us,” said Irving at last.

“I’d much rather not, Mr. Bruce. I fear if Mr. Derwent had insisted on that, I should have rebelled. You are kind to take an interest – ”

“An interest!” burst forth Irving, and arrested himself. He smiled. “Didn’t I pick you off that cliff a few minutes ago?”

She looked at him with an expression which nearly banished his self-control.

“We don’t hear much about man-angels,” she said, “but you looked like one to me at that moment – one of Botticelli’s – you know how ready they always look to scowl?”

She laughed softly.

“I was furious with you,” said Irving. “So remember I have part interest in you after this. Mr. Derwent is all very well, but —

“‘There is no friend like the old friend, who has shared our morning days.’

These are our morning days, Rosalie.”

“Yes, and the morning hours of them,” she agreed. “Since I knew I was to leave to-day I felt I could not waste the time in sleeping. I wanted – oh! how I wanted – how I have dreamed of seeing the sun rise in this canyon! Perhaps,” she looked at him wistfully, “perhaps it would have been my last sunrise but for you.”

Irving’s heart beat faster, and his jaw set. He could feel again the yielding form that had clung to him.

“No one would have known,” she went on in a dreamy tone. “Even Mr. Derwent would have thought I had disappeared purposely and would have marveled at my ingratitude; but – ” her voice changed and she looked up into Irving’s eyes, smiling, – “they might all have talked about me and said critical things, yet Betsy would have believed in me, – believed and suffered. Dear Betsy!”

“How about me? How about the friend of your morning days?” asked Irving.

“Oh, you only began to be that this morning. You would never have given the matter a thought; and even Helen Maynard knows me too slightly to have defended me.”

“Miss Maynard has found a gold-mine in the Yellowstone. Did Mr. Derwent tell you?”

“No, indeed. What do you mean?”

“She turns out to be an heiress, and only discovered it here.”

“How beautiful!” Rosalie’s eyes looked away pensively. “Any fortunate discovery becomes glorified by being made here. How happy she must be! It is so fine to have time to work at what you love to do!”

“Yes,” answered Irving. “That is the Eldorado for each of us.

“‘And only the Master shall praise us,And only the Master shall blame;And no one shall work for money,And no one shall work for fame,But each for the joy of the working;And each in his separate starShall draw the Thing as he sees ItFor the God of Things as They Are!’”

Rosalie’s eyes were bright as she met his.

“And I think Mr. Derwent means to let me work in my star. It’s such a little star, but I feel it in me to succeed, and if the day should come when I vindicate myself to – to people that are disappointed in me now and don’t understand, I shall be happy, happy.”

“Happiness is largely a matter of – of friendship, as you said a few minutes ago,” said Irving. “I want you to remember that you may always call upon me; that I am at your service. I swear you shall never be disappointed.”

Rosalie returned his earnest regard with serious eyes.

“You saved my life,” she said.

“I don’t think so,” he returned. “You would have stooped in a minute and crept to a place of safety on the trail.”

“Then why were you so savage with me?” she asked. “It would have been necessary for me to stand up on that rock, and to take a short step across to terra firma. It seems as if I never could have done it.”

“Oh, yes. The giddiness would have passed in a minute, and you would have done it. Self-preservation is the first law of life.”

Rosalie shook her head slowly. “Then you have a bad temper. You were frightfully cross.”

“That was merely discipline. You should never go to a place like that unless I am with you.”

“You!”

The girl’s tone of extreme wonder brought the color to her companion’s face. He replied, however, with sang-froid. “Yes. I’ll take you down there now if you’d like to try it again.”

She shook her head slowly.

“No.”

He laughed. “Discreet second thought, eh?”

“No, I’m not afraid, with you,” she replied quietly. “But I don’t care to go again.” A pause, then she continued: “I must go back to the hotel. I leave to-day.”

“And we to-morrow. It is a shame. I wish you’d let me – ”

“No, Mr. Bruce, not for anything,” she returned earnestly. “Let Mr. Derwent take care of it, and – if we meet again here, will you kindly not talk to me?”

“Just as you say. I will go back to the hotel with you now; but this is our good-by. Give me both your hands, Rosalie.”

She obeyed. Their eyes met. She colored richly, looking like an embodiment of the morning as she stood against the sombre green of the stately pines. Freedom was before her: freedom to live, and to work, with the knowledge that she was no longer alone in the world. That was cause enough for the happiness that shone in her eyes; but that was not filling her thoughts to overflowing while Irving clasped her rough little hands close. It was the remembrance of the pounding terror of his heart in the moment when they had clung together on the dizzy rock.

“Don’t forget, Rosalie. I am your ally.”

She stood silent, her starry gaze not dropping before his.

“Friendship is going to mean a great deal to us,” he went on. “I feel it. Remember; for —

“‘Friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.’”

CHAPTER XVIII

HOMEWARD BOUND

When Betsy Foster awoke that morning she was full of excitement.

She assisted Mrs. Bruce as usual with her toilet, and at the first possible moment hastened to the apartment of her contraband protégée.

She found Rosalie in her cheap traveling dress of golden brown, and with her hat on.

She was sitting before a table on which was a breakfast-tray, and she was sipping coffee.

“That’s right, Betsy. Come and see the lay-over,” she said. “I feel still as if I needed identification.”

The night before, her supper had been served in the same way and place by Mr. Derwent’s order, and he and Betsy had, unsuspected, spent an hour here with the girl, planning her movements, and allowing her new benefactor to become somewhat acquainted with his old friend’s daughter.

Mr. Derwent had no desire to stir up questioning, and there was every chance now that Rosalie would get off by the morning stage without being observed.

“Is it really I, Betsy, sitting here and being waited on like this, and being cared for by such adorable people?”

The girl had risen on Betsy’s entrance, and embraced her, pressing her fresh cheek against the thin one where a bright spot burned.

“Now, now, you can hug me a fortnight hence,” said Betsy. “Sit down and finish your breakfast.”

She glanced at the bed. The coverings were neatly laid over the foot-board, and the pillows were plump and smooth.

“How did you sleep, child?” she continued as Rosalie returned to her coffee. “The pillows look as if you hadn’t touched ’em.”

“I don’t always use a pillow,” returned the girl evasively.

“You look kind o’ pale. I don’t believe you slept real good.”

“What does it matter?” Rosalie held her friend with wistful, glowing eyes. “Why should one lose the consciousness of happiness even for ten minutes?”

There was a little contraction of Betsy’s heart. So young a creature to be economical of happiness; but the intensity of the girl’s eyes disturbed her.

“Now you mustn’t get so wrought up over things, Rosalie. Make it a rule to be mejum in everything. I always have, and I find it the best way.”

A low laugh escaped the girl as she met the kind gaze. Had Betsy ever stood in the midst of roaring immensity, an atom in the whirl of colossal, dreadful beauty, and fallen from dire panic into the close embrace of safety, with the beat of a kingly heart upon hers? Poor Betsy! Poor everybody in the wide universe except Rosalie Vincent!

The good woman went on talking, and the girl heard not a word. She was back beneath the pines watching the eagles at their nest, in a rainbow chasm.

“Gracious, child!” said Betsy at last, laughing and pulling the suit-case out of Rosalie’s hands. “You look like a sleep-walker; let me put those things in there. And now you stay right here until I come back and tell you when to come downstairs. What have you got to keep you warm? It’ll be cold stagin’ to-day.”

“I had a sweater,” said Rosalie absently. “I lost it somewhere in the canyon.”

“In the canyon?” repeated Betsy mechanically. Then she repeated the words explosively. “What do you mean, Rosalie Vincent? Have you been out there this mornin’?”

Rosalie looked the picture of detected guilt.

“Well I guess you are a genius! You’re as crazy as the best of ’em.”

“You wouldn’t have had me leave this place without seeing it?” said the girl.

Betsy bit her lip. “Well, I guess that’s about so,” she said. “It would seem cruelty; but you see Mr. Derwent thought you’d better be ahead of us, and he and I both know, if anybody does, what it is to stir up a strife o’ tongues! And I s’pose in the hurried arrangement everything sort o’ slipped into insignificance compared to smugglin’ you out o’ the Park.”

Betsy’s tone had turned from accusation to apology. “So you really have seen the canyon,” she added, pausing, and regarding the pale face.

“I saw the sunrise there,” returned Rosalie.

“My stars!” ejaculated Betsy. “If I could see that, seems if I wouldn’t care if I never saw another sight in this world.”

“I don’t,” returned Rosalie quietly; and the blue gaze went far beyond Betsy’s sallow, wondering countenance. “I was born again in the canyon.”

Her look startled Betsy. “Be mejum, Rosalie,” she said. “You’ll wear yourself out if you feel too much. Be mejum. It’s a splendid rule.”

It came about that Mr. Derwent effected his protégée’s departure without disturbance.

Betsy complained to Mrs. Bruce of the cold of the morning and advised her not to stand on the veranda to view the loading of the stages. Mrs. Nixon would not do this in any case, and Robert had taken Helen out for a stroll.

Only Irving Bruce paced the piazza among the crowd, and when Mr. Derwent put Rosalie into the stage he met her eyes once.

Mr. Derwent saw him, and wondered if he had recognized the brown bird. He prepared himself for an explanation, and approached the young man.

“Pretty snappy drive they’re in for this morning,” he said.

“It is rather fresh,” replied the latter. “I was just wondering if Miss Vincent had wraps enough.”

Mr. Derwent regarded him curiously. “You recognized her then?”

“Yes.”

“I take great interest in that girl,” said Mr. Derwent.

“I am not surprised.”

“I am sending her out of the Park.”

“If you hadn’t, I should,” said Irving.

“It’s scarcely a case for your assistance,” returned Mr. Derwent dryly. “But I wish to say that I appreciate your refraining from approaching her just now.”

Irving thought of the white dove that had clung to his breast.

“You showed good taste,” went on Mr. Derwent, “and an appreciation of the fact that this is a case where ‘the least said, the soonest mended,’ applies.”

“Quite so,” answered Irving equably; and Mr. Derwent, once more nodding approval of him, went into the house.

What a drive it was that morning for Rosalie! Betsy had wrapped around her, beneath her coat, a woolly “fascinator” of her own, and even without it, it is doubtful if the girl would have recognized temperature. Every little creature of the woods, as it came fearlessly from its covert, seemed to congratulate her on being alive with them; like them safe from being hunted, free to love, to work.

Arrived at Norris for luncheon, who should come to wait on her at table but Miss Hickey.

The young woman stood above the blonde girl’s chair, and impersonally called the menu to whomever it might concern.

Rosalie looked slowly around at her, her golden-brown veil pushed up from her face.

“Miss Hickey,” she said softly.

“Goodness, Baby! You!”

The waitress’s eyes stared and snapped; but business pressed, and it was not until the end of the meal, when Rosalie lingered for the purpose, that Miss Hickey had opportunity to slake her burning thirst for information.

“Been fired?” she asked sympathetically.

“No, I left.”

“Struck a gold mine? How are you goin’ to pay your way back?”

“Some friends are sending me back.”

Miss Hickey eyed her scrutinizingly. “You look as happy as if you’d lost twenty-five cents, and found ten dollars.”

“I am happy. Oh, Miss Hickey, I’m so happy!”

“Who’s with you, Baby? I’ll skin ’em if they’re doin’ you mean.”

“No one’s with me. I’m all alone. I’m going to Boston alone.”

“Sent? Or sent for?” inquired the other, still unsatisfied.

“Sent,” returned Rosalie with a seraphic smile.

“By those folks you were scared of?” asked Miss Hickey, with sudden inspiration.

“No, the other people. Do you remember the deaf gentleman with gray hair?”

“No, I don’t, Blue-eyes.” Miss Hickey spoke sharply. “The grayer they are, the worse they are. That’s my experience.”

“Oh, he’s so good!” exclaimed Rosalie, “and he is a friend of my father’s, and he wants to help me.”

“Well, I hope he does. How’s that grand young feller, Mr. Bruce. Seen him lately?”

“Yes, I’ve seen them all. They’re enjoying the Park. How have you been, Miss Hickey? I can’t realize it’s only a few days since I saw you. It seems years.”

“Oh, I’ve been busier’n a nest o’ snakes, doin’ nothin’. Been laid up most ever since you were here.”

“I’m afraid the Swattie ball was too much,” returned Rosalie, smiling; “and I’m sorry, so sorry!”

She put out her hand.

“I didn’t want to go without seeing you again,” she went on, giving Miss Hickey’s a tight pressure. “I shall always remember you gratefully.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you too; and see you in so much luck. I hope it’s all right.” The black-eyed girl spoke doubtfully.

“The rightest thing in the world,” returned Rosalie; and black eyes, no matter how sophisticated, could not meet hers and doubt it.

“You’re goin’ right on to the Mammoth?” inquired Miss Hickey.

“Yes, and leave there to-night.”

“Ain’t you the grand lady! What’s your hurry?”

“Why,” Rosalie smiled mischievously, “those other people – the ones I was afraid of – will be here to-morrow.”

“Hot on your trail, eh?” said the other. “Well, you’re a galoot to go alone, when you might be in the stage with Mr. Bruce. If he’s comin’ here to-morrow I’ll be on the watch for him, believe me!”

There were showers of rain and hail all the afternoon while Rosalie coached to the Mammoth Hot Springs. When the girl saw again the veranda where she had trembled behind Miss Hickey’s shoulder, it seemed to her that a magic wand had transformed her life; and so it was. All the way she found her path smoothed by the forethought of her benefactor; and the long journey to Boston was made with no consciousness of care or tedium.

The newly-fledged, exultant heiress left behind at the Colonial Hotel little knew that the famous lawyer through whom her own fortune had found its rightful owner had bestowed still greater relief and courage upon her humble school friend.

Clever Betsy kept her poise admirably. She did not approach Mr. Derwent, nor ask him a question.

When the party returned to Norris they little suspected how a pair of black eyes in the dining-room were, in Miss Hickey’s vernacular, “sizing them up.”

Had burning glances visible effect, Mr. Derwent’s scrupulously brushed head would have shown several bald spots. The examination was on the whole satisfactory, and, joyous to relate, Miss Hickey succeeded in waiting upon Irving Bruce.

He came to luncheon a little late, and thus sat away from his party.

As he ate his dessert, to his surprise the waitress lingering beside his chair opened her lips and spoke.

“I remember you folks real well,” she said. “I was in your stage when you come on from Mammoth.”

Irving glanced up, and as her words reached his abstracted consciousness, he looked suddenly interested.

“You were with Miss Vincent, then,” he replied.

“M’hm,” admitted Miss Hickey with elegant ease. “I seen her yesterday,” she added, as the young man did not press the matter. “She’s quit.”

“You saw her yesterday?” he repeated eagerly. “How was she?”