He waited to see if there would be some explanation of her scream or her flight. Not for worlds would he have violated the code of the mountains by trying to pry into something that was none of his business. When he saw she had no intention of making any further explanation, he said casually, “Guess you must have come up the trail from Granite Flats about Sunday. Didn’t you, ma’am?”
She looked at him with sudden apprehension. “How did you know?”
“I had an idea you might have been in the mountains just about that long, and I knew you didn’t come up from this end because I didn’t see the tracks of a pack train in the trail.”
“Can you follow tracks?” she asked.
“Why, of course.” He paused and then added casually, “I’m headed down toward where your camp must be. Perhaps you’d let me walk along with you for a piece.”
“I’d love it!” she exclaimed, and then with quick suspicion, “How do you know where our camp is?”
His slight drawl was emphasized as he thought the thing into words. “If you’d been camped at Coyote Springs, you’d need to have walked three miles to get here. You don’t look as though you’d gone that far. Down at Deerlick Springs, there’s a meadow with good grass for the horses, a nice camping place and it’s only about three quarters of a mile from here, so I—”
She interrupted with a laugh which now carried much more assurance. “I see that there’s no chance for me to have any secrets. Do you live up here?”
Frank wanted to tell her of the two years in the Japanese prison camp, of the necessity of living close to Nature to get his health and strength back, of the trap line which he ran through the winter, of the new-found strength and vitality that were erasing the disabilities caused by months of malnutrition. But when it came to talking about himself, the words dried up. All he could say was, “Yes, I live up here.”
She fell into step at his side. “You must find it isolated.”
“I don’t see many people,” he admitted, “but there are other things to make up for it — no telephones, no standing in line, no exhaust fumes.”
“And you’re content to be here always?”
“Not always. I want a ranch down in the valley. I’m completing arrangements for one now. A friend of mine is giving me a lease with a contract to purchase. I think I can pay out on it with luck and hard work.”
Her eyes were thoughtful as she walked along the trail, stepping awkwardly in her high-heeled cowboy riding boots. “I suppose really you can’t ask for much more than that — luck and hard work.”
“It’s all I want,” Frank told her.
They walked for some minutes in the silence of mutual appraisal, then rounded a turn in the trail, and Deerlick Meadows stretched out in front of them. And as soon as Frank Ames saw the elaborate nature of the camp, he knew these people were wealthy sportsmen who were on a de luxe trip. Suddenly awkward, he said, “Well, I guess I’d better turn—” And then stopped abruptly as he realized that it would never do to let this young woman know he had been merely escorting her along the trail. He had told her he was going in her direction. He’d have to keep on walking past the camp.
“What’s your name?” she asked suddenly, and then added laughingly, “Mine’s Roberta Coe.”
“Frank Ames,” he said uncomfortably, knowing she had asked him his name so abruptly because she intended to introduce him to her companions.
“Well, you must come in and have a cup of coffee before you go on,” she said. “You’d like to meet my friends and they’d like to meet you.”
They had been seen now and Ames was aware of curious glances from people who were seated in folding canvas chairs, items of luxury which he knew could have been brought in only at much cost to the tourist and at much trouble to both packer and pack horse.
He tried to demur, but somehow the right words wouldn’t come, and he couldn’t let himself seem to run away. Even while he hesitated, they entered the camp, and he found himself meeting people with whom he felt awkwardly ill at ease.
Harvey W. Dowling was evidently the business executive who was footing the bills. He, it seemed, was in his tent, taking a siesta and the hushed voices of the others showed the fawning deference with which they regarded the man who was paying the bills. His tent, a pretentious affair with heating stove and shaded entrance, occupied a choice position, away from the rest of the camp, a small tributary stream winding in front, and the shady pine thicket immediately in the back.
The people to whom Ames was introduced were the type a rich man gathers around him, people who were careful to cultivate the manners of the rich, who clung tenaciously to their contacts with the wealthy.
Now these people, carefully subdued in voice and manner, so as not to disturb the man in the big tent, had that amused, patronizing tolerance of manner which showed they regarded Frank Ames merely as a novel interlude rather than as a human being.
Dick Nottingham had a well-nourished, athletic ease of manner, a smoothly muscled body and the calm assurance of one who is fully conscious of his eligibility. Two other men, Alexander Cameron and Sam Fremont, whose names Ames heard mentioned, were evidently downstream fishing.
The women were young, well-groomed and far more personal in their curiosity. Eleanor Dowling relied on her own beauty and her father’s wealth to display a certain arrogance. Sylvia Jessup had mocking eyes which displayed challenging invitation as she sized up Frank’s long, rangy build.
Conscious of his faded blue shirt and overalls with the patched knees, Frank felt distinctly ill at ease, and angry at himself because he did. He would have given much to have been articulate enough to express himself, to have joined in casual small talk; but the longer he stayed the more awkward and tongue-tied he felt, and that in turn made him feel more and more conspicuous.
There was good-natured banter. Sylvia Jessup announced that after this she was going to walk in the afternoons and see if she couldn’t bag a little game, veiled references to open season and bag limit; then light laughter. And there were casually personal questions that Ames answered as best he could.
Whenever they would cease their light banter, and in the brief period of silence wait for Frank Ames to make some comment, Frank angrily realized his tongue-tied impotence, realized from the sudden way in which they would all start talking at once that they were trying to cover his conversational inadequacy.
Sam Fremont, camera in hand, came into camp almost unnoticed. He had, he explained, been hunting wildlife with his camera, and he grinningly admitted approaching camp quietly so he could get a couple of “candid camera” shots of the “sudden animation.”
He was a quick-eyed opportunist with a quick wit and fast tongue, and some of his quips brought forth spontaneous laughter. After one particularly loud burst of merriment, the flap of the big tent parted and Harvey W. Dowling, scowling sleepily at the group, silenced them as effectively as would have been the case if some grim apparition had suddenly appeared.
But he came down to join them, a figure of heavy power, conscious of the deference due him, boomingly cordial to Frank, and with regal magnanimity saying nothing of the loud conversation which had wakened him.
A few moments later Alexander Cameron came stumbling up the trail, seeming to fall all over his heavy leather boots, boots that were stiff with newness. He seemed the most inexperienced of them all, and yet the most human, the one man who seemed to have no fear of Dowling.