Beneath them and away, far as they could see, lay range upon range
of haze-empurpled mountains. There was no end to these ranges. They
rose one behind another to the dim, distant skyline, where they faded
away with a vague promise of unending extension beyond. There were
no clearings in the forest; north, south, east, and west, untouched,
unbroken, it covered the land with its mighty growth.
They lay, feasting their eyes on the sight, her hand clasped in one
of his; for this was their honeymoon, and these were the redwoods
of Mendocino. Across from Shasta they had come, with horses and
saddle-bags, and down through the wilds of the coast counties, and they
had no plan except to continue until some other plan entered their
heads. They were roughly dressed, she in travel-stained khaki, he in
overalls and woolen shirt. The latter was open at the sunburned neck,
and in his hugeness he seemed a fit dweller among the forest giants,
while for her, as a dweller with him, there were no signs of aught
else but happiness.
"Well, Big Man," she said, propping herself up on an elbow to gaze
at him, "it is more wonderful than you promised. And we are going
through it together."
"And there's a lot of the rest of the world we'll go through together,"
he answered, shifting his position so as to get her hand in both
of his.
"But not till we've finished with this," she urged. "I seem never to
grow tired of the big woods ... and of you."
He slid effortlessly into a sitting posture and gathered her into
his arms.
"Oh, you lover," she whispered. "And I had given up hope of finding
such a one."
"And I never hoped at all. I must just have known all the time that
I was going to find you. Glad?"
Her answer was a soft pressure where her hand rested on his neck,
and for long minutes they looked out over the great woods and dreamed.
"You remember I told you how I ran away from the red-haired school
teacher? That was the first time I saw this country. I was on foot, but
forty or fifty miles a day was play for me. I was a regular Indian. I
wasn't thinking about you then. Game was pretty scarce in the redwoods,
but there was plenty of fine trout. That was when I camped on these
rocks. I didn't dream that some day I'd be back with you, YOU."
"And be a champion of the ring, too," she suggested.
"No; I didn't think about that at all. Dad had always told me I was
going to be, and I took it for granted. You see, he was very wise. He
was a great man."
"But he didn't see you leaving the ring."
"I don't know. He was so careful in hiding its crookedness from me,
that I think he feared it. I've told you about the contract with
Stubener. Dad put in that clause about crookedness. The first crooked
thing my manager did was to break the contract."
"And yet you are going to fight this Tom Cannam. Is it worth while?"
He looked at her quickly.
"Don't you want me to?"
"Dear lover, I want you to do whatever you want."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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