第54章

"To represent a name that most men of the world in New York and San Francisco know," went on Kitty, without a blush."It would make recognition and introduction easier.And take an extra fur with you, dear--not for HIM but for yourself.I suppose he's lived so much in the open air as to laugh at our coddling.""I don't know about that," said her father thoughtfully; "the last telegram I have from him, en route, says he's half frozen, and wants a close carriage sent to the station.""Of course," said Marie impatiently, "you forget the poor creature comes from burning canyons and hot golden sands and perpetual sunshine.""Very well; but come along, Marie, and see how I've prepared his room," and as her father left the drawing-room Kitty carried off her old schoolfellow upstairs.

The room selected for the coming Sylvester had been one of the elaborate guest-chambers, but was now stripped of its more luxurious furniture and arranged with picturesque yet rural extravagance.A few rare buffalo, bear, and panther skins were disposed over the bare floor, and even displayed gracefully over some elaborately rustic chairs.The handsome French bedstead had been displaced for a small wrought-iron ascetic-looking couch covered with a gorgeously striped Mexican blanket.The fireplace had been dismantled of its steel grate, and the hearth extended so as to allow a pile of symmetrically heaped moss-covered hickory logs to take its place.The walls were covered with trophies of the chase, buck-horns and deer-heads, and a number of Indian arrows stood in a sheaf in the corners beside a few modern guns and rifles.

"Perfectly lovely," said Marie, "but"--with a slight shiver of her expressive shoulders--"a little cold and outdoorish, eh?""Nonsense," returned Kitty dictatorially, "and if he IS cold, he can easily light those logs.They always build their open fires under a tree.Why, even Mr.Gunn used to do that when he was camping out in the Adirondacks last summer.I call it perfectly comfortable and SO natural." Nevertheless, they had both tucked their chilly hands under the fleecy shawls they had snatched from the hall for this hyperborean expedition.

"You have taken much pains for him, Kaitee," said Marie, with her faintest foreign intonation."You will like this strange uncle--you?"

"He is a wonderful man, Marie; he's been everywhere, seen everything, and done everything out there.He's fought duels, been captured by Indians and tied to a stake to be tortured.He's been leader of a Vigilance Committee, and they say that he has often shot and killed men himself.I'm afraid he's been rather wicked, you know.He's lived alone in the woods like a hermit without seeing a soul, and then, again, he's been a chief among the Indians, with Heaven knows how many Indian wives! They called him 'The Pale-faced Thunderbolt,'

my dear, and 'The Young Man who Swallows the Lightning,' or something like that.""And what can he want here?" asked Marie.

"To see us, my dear," said Kitty loftily; "and then, too, he has to settle something about HIS share of the property; for you know grandpa left a share of it to him.Not that he's ever bothered himself about it, for he's rich,--a kind of Monte Cristo, you know,--with a gold mine and an island off the coast, to say nothing of a whole county that he owns, that is called after him, and millions of wild cattle that he rides among and lassos! It's dreadfully hard to do.You know you take a long rope with a slipknot, and you throw it around your head so, and"--"Hark!" said Marie, with a dramatic start, and her finger on her small mouth, "he comes!"There was the clear roll of wheels along the smooth, frozen carriage sweep towards the house, the sharp crisp click of hoofs on stone, the opening of heavy doors, the sudden sparkling invasion of frigid air, the uplifting of voices in greeting,--but all familiar!

There were Gabriel Lane's cheery, hopeful tones, the soprano of Cousin Jane and Cousin Emma, the baritone of Mr.Gunn, and the grave measured oratorical utterance of Parson Dexter, who had joined the party at the station; but certainly the accents of no STRANGER.Had he come? Yes, for his name was just then called, and the quick ear of Marie had detected a light, lounging, alien footstep cross the cold strip of marble vestibule.The two girls exchanged a rapid glance; each looked into the mirror, and then interrogatively at the other, nodded their heads affirmatively, and descended to the drawing-room.A group had already drawn round the fire, and a small central figure, who, with its back turned towards them, was still enwrapped in an enormous overcoat of rich fur, was engaged in presenting an alternate small varnished leather boot to the warmth of the grate.As they entered the room the heavy fur was yielded up with apparent reluctance, and revealed to the astonished girls a man of ordinary stature with a slight and elegant figure set off by a traveling suit of irreproachable cut.

His light reddish-yellow hair, mustache, and sunburned cheek, which seemed all of one color and outline, made it impossible to detect the gray of the one or the hollowness of the other, and gave no indication of his age.Yet there was clearly no mistake.Here was Gabriel Lane seizing their nervously cold fingers and presenting them to their "Uncle Sylvester."Far from attempting to kiss Kitty, the stranger for an instant seemed oblivious of the little hand she offered him in the half-preoccupied bow he gave her.But Marie was not so easily passed over, and, with her audacious face challenging his, he abstractedly imparted to the shake of her hand something of the fervor that he should have shown his relative.And, then, still warming his feet on the fender, he seemed to have forgotten them both.