“I wonder why Eb looked so closely at me,” mused Betty, as she slipped on her little moccasins. “Usually he is not anxious to have me go so far from the fort; and now he seemed to think I would enjoy this dance tonight. I wonder what Bessie has been telling him.”
Betty threw some wood on the smouldering fire in the little stone grate and sat down to think. Like every one who has a humiliating secret, Betty was eternally suspicious and feared the very walls would guess it. Swift as light came the thought that her brother and his wife had suspected her secret and had been talking about her, perhaps pitying her. With this thought came the fear that if she had betrayed herself to the Colonel’s wife she might have done so to others. The consciousness that this might well be true and that even now the girls might be talking and laughing at her caused her exceeding shame and bitterness.
Many weeks had passed since that last night that Betty and Alfred Clarke had been together.
In due time Col. Zane’s men returned and Betty learned from Jonathan that Alfred had left them at Ft. Pitt, saying he was going south to his old home. At first she had expected some word from Alfred, a letter, or if not that, surely an apology for his conduct on that last evening they had been together. But Jonathan brought her no word, and after hoping against hope and wearing away the long days looking for a letter that never came, she ceased to hope and plunged into despair.
The last few months had changed her life; changed it as only constant thinking, and suffering that must be hidden from the world, can change the life of a young girl. She had been so intent on her own thoughts, so deep in her dreams that she had taken no heed of other people. She did not know that those who loved her were always thinking of her welfare and would naturally see even a slight change in her. With a sudden shock of surprise and pain she realized that today for the first time in a month she had played with the boys. Sammy had asked her why she did not laugh any more. Now she understood the mad antics of Tige that morning; Madcap’s whinney of delight; the chattering of the squirrels, and Caesar’s pranks in the snow. She had neglected her pets. She had neglected her work, her friends, the boys’ lessons; and her brother. For what? What would her girl friends say? That she was pining for a lover who had forgotten her. They would say that and it would be true. She did think of him constantly.
With bitter pain she recalled the first days of the acquaintance which now seemed so long past; how much she had disliked Alfred; how angry she had been with him and how contemptuously she had spurned his first proffer of friendship; how, little by little, her pride had been subdued; then the struggle with her heart. And, at last, after he had gone, came the realization that the moments spent with him had been the sweetest of her life. She thought of him as she used to see him stand before her; so good to look at; so strong and masterful, and yet so gentle.
“Oh, I cannot bear it,” whispered Betty with a half sob, giving up to a rush of tender feeling. “I love him. I love him, and I cannot forget him. Oh, I am so ashamed.”
Betty bowed her head on her knees. Her slight form quivered a while and then grew still. When a half hour later she raised her head her face was pale and cold. It bore the look of a girl who had suddenly become a woman; a woman who saw the battle of life before her and who was ready to fight. Stern resolve gleamed from her flashing eyes; there was no faltering in those set lips.
Betty was a Zane and the Zanes came of a fighting race. Their blood had ever been hot and passionate; the blood of men quick to love and quick to hate. It had flowed in the veins of daring, reckless men who had fought and died for their country; men who had won their sweethearts with the sword; men who had had unconquerable spirits. It was this fighting instinct that now rose in Betty; it gave her strength and pride to defend her secret; the resolve to fight against the longing in her heart.
“I will forget him! I will tear him out of my heart!” she exclaimed passionately. “He never deserved my love. He did not care. I was a little fool to let him amuse himself with me. He went away and forgot. I hate him.”
At length Betty subdued her excitement, and when she went down to supper a few minutes later she tried to maintain a cheerful composure of manner and to chat with her old-time vivacity.
“Bessie, I am sure you have exaggerated things,” remarked Col. Zane after Betty had gone upstairs to dress for the dance. “Perhaps it is only that Betty grows a little tired of this howling wilderness. Small wonder if she does. You know she has always been used to comfort and many young people, places to go and all that. This is her first winter on the frontier. She’ll come round all right.”
“Have it your way, Ebenezer,” answered his wife with a look of amused contempt on her face. “I am sure I hope you are right. By the way, what do you think of this Ralfe Miller? He has been much with Betty of late.”
“I do not know the fellow, Bessie. He seems agreeable. He is a good-looking young man. Why do you ask?”
“The Major told me that Miller had a bad name at Pitt, and that he had been a friend of Simon Girty before Girty became a renegade.”
“Humph! I’ll have to speak to Sam. As for knowing Girty, there is nothing terrible in that. All the women seem to think that Simon is the very prince of devils. I have known all the Girtys for years. Simon was not a bad fellow before he went over to the Indians. It is his brother James who has committed most of those deeds which have made the name of Girty so infamous.”
“I don’t like Miller,” continued Mrs. Zane in a hesitating way. “I must admit that I have no sensible reason for my dislike. He is pleasant and agreeable, yes, but behind it there is a certain intensity. That man has something on his mind.”
“If he is in love with Betty, as you seem to think, he has enough on his mind. I’ll vouch for that,” said Col. Zane. “Betty is inclined to be a coquette. If she liked Clarke pretty well, it may be a lesson to her.”
“I wish she were married and settled down. It may have been no great harm for Betty to have had many admirers while in Philadelphia, but out here on the border it will never do. These men will not have it. There will be trouble come of Betty’s coquettishness.”
“Why, Bessie, she is only a child. What would you have her do? Marry the first man who asked her?”
“The clod-hoppers are coming,” said Mrs. Zane as the jingling of sleigh bells broke the stillness.
Col. Zane sprang up and opened the door. A broad stream of light flashed from the room and lighted up the road. Three powerful teams stood before the door. They were hitched to sleds, or clod-hoppers, which were nothing more than wagon-beds fastened on wooden runners. A chorus of merry shouts greeted Col. Zane as he appeared in the doorway.
“All right! all right! Here she is,” he cried, as Betty ran down the steps.
The Colonel bundled her in a buffalo robe in a corner of the foremost sled. At her feet he placed a buckskin bag containing a hot stone Mrs. Zane thoughtfully had provided.
“All ready here. Let them go,” called the Colonel. “You will have clear weather. Coming back look well to the traces and keep a watch for the wolves.”
The long whips cracked, the bells jingled, the impatient horses plunged forward and away they went over the glistening snow. The night was clear and cold; countless stars blinked in the black vault overhead; the pale moon cast its wintry light down on a white and frozen world. As the runners glided swiftly and smoothly onward showers of dry snow like fine powder flew from under the horses’ hoofs and soon whitened the black-robed figures in the sleds. The way led down the hill past the Fort, over the creek bridge and along the road that skirted the Black Forest. The ride was long; it led up and down