IX

Where a jagged peak of rock thrust above the vast virgin forest, reclined a man and a woman. Beneath them, on the edge of the trees, were tethered two horses. Behind each saddle were a pair of small saddle-bags. The trees were monotonously huge. Towering hundreds of feet into the air, they ran from eight to ten and twelve feet in diameter. Many were much larger. All morning they had toiled up the divide through this unbroken forest, and this peak of rock had been the first spot where they could get out of the forest in order to see the forest.

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.”

So she said, and to herself, her words still ringing in her ears, she marveled that she, not least among the stubbornly independent of the breed of Sangster, should utter them. Yet she knew they were true, and she was glad.

“It will be fun,” he said.

“But I don’t understand all the gleeful details.”

“I haven’t worked them out yet. You might help me. In the first place I’m going to double-cross Stubener and the betting syndicate. It will be part of the joke. I am going to put Cannam out in the first round. For the first time I shall be really angry when I fight. Poor Tom Cannam, who’s as crooked as the rest, will be the chief sacrifice. You see, I intend to make a speech in the ring. It’s unusual, but it will be a success, for I am going to tell the audience all the inside workings of the game. It’s a good game, too, but they’re running it on business principles, and that’s what spoils it. But there, I’m giving the speech to you instead of at the ring.”

“I wish I could be there to hear,” she said.

He looked at her and debated.

“I’d like to have you. But it’s sure to be a rough time. There is no telling what may happen when I start my program. But I’ll come straight to you as soon as it’s over. And it will be the last appearance of Young Glendon in the ring, in any ring.”

“But, dear, you’ve never made a speech in your life,” she objected. “You might fail.”

He shook his head positively.

“I’m Irish,” he announced, “and what Irishman was there who couldn’t speak?” He paused to laugh merrily. “Stubener thinks I’m crazy. Says a man can’t train on matrimony. A lot he knows about matrimony, or me, or you, or anything except real estate and fixed fights. But I’ll show him that night, and poor Tom, too. I really feel sorry for Tom.”

“My dear abysmal brute is going to behave most abysmally and brutally, I fear,” she murmured.

He laughed.

“I’m going to make a noble attempt at it. Positively my last appearance, you know. And then it will be you, YOU. But if you don’t want that last appearance, say the word.”

“Of course I want it, Big Man. I want my Big Man for himself, and to be himself he must be himself. If you want this, I want it for you, and for myself, too. Suppose I said I wanted to go on the stage, or to the South Seas or the North Pole?”

He answered slowly, almost solemnly.

“Then I’d say go ahead. Because you are you and must be yourself and do whatever you want. I love you because you are you.”

“And we’re both a silly pair of lovers,” she said, when his embrace had relaxed.

“Isn’t it great!” he cried.

He stood up, measured the sun with his eye, and extended his hand out over the big woods that covered the serried, purple ranges.

“We’ve got to sleep out there somewhere. It’s thirty miles to the nearest camp.”