GWEN'S CHALLENGE
Gwen was undoubtedly wild and, as The Sky Pilot said, wilful and wicked.Even Bronco Bill and Hi Kendal would say so, without, of course, abating one jot of their admiration for her.For fourteen years she had lived chiefly with wild things.The cattle on the range, wild as deer, the coyotes, the jack-rabbits and the timber wolves were her mates and her instructors.From these she learned her wild ways.The rolling prairie of the Foothill country was her home.She loved it and all things that moved upon it with passionate love, the only kind she was capable of.And all summer long she spent her days riding up and down the range alone, or with her father, or with Joe, or, best of all, with The Duke, her hero and her friend.So she grew up strong, wholesome and self-reliant, fearing nothing alive and as untamed as a yearling range colt.
She was not beautiful.The winds and sun had left her no complexion to speak of, but the glory of her red hair, gold-red, with purple sheen, nothing could tarnish.Her eyes, too, deep blue with rims of gray, that flashed with the glint of steel or shone with melting light as of the stars, according to her mood--those Irish, warm, deep eyes of hers were worth a man's looking at.
Of course, all spoiled her.Ponka and her son Joe grovelled in abjectest adoration, while her father and all who came within touch of her simply did her will.Even The Duke, who loved her better than anything else, yielded lazy, admiring homage to his Little Princess, and certainly, when she stood straight up with her proud little gold-crowned head thrown back, flashing forth wrath or issuing imperious commands, she looked a princess, all of her.
It was a great day and a good day for her when she fished The Sky Pilot out of the Swan and brought him home, and the night of Gwen's first "prayers," when she heard for the first time the story of the Man of Nazareth, was the best of all her nights up to that time.
All through the winter, under The Pilot's guidance, she, with her father, the Old Timer, listening near, went over and over that story so old now to many, but ever becoming new, till a whole new world of mysterious Powers and Presences lay open to her imagination and became the home of great realities.She was rich in imagination and, when The Pilot read Bunyan's immortal poem, her mother's old "Pilgrim's Progress," she moved and lived beside the hero of that tale, backing him up in his fights and consumed with anxiety over his many impending perils, till she had him safely across the river and delivered into the charge of the shining ones.
The Pilot himself, too, was a new and wholesome experience.He was the first thing she had yet encountered that refused submission, and the first human being that had failed to fall down and worship.
There was something in him that would not ALWAYS yield, and, indeed, her pride and her imperious tempers he met with surprise and sometimes with a pity that verged toward contempt.With this she was not well pleased and not infrequently she broke forth upon him.One of these outbursts is stamped upon my mind, not only because of its unusual violence, but chiefly because of the events which followed.The original cause of her rage was some trifling misdeed of the unfortunate Joe; but when I came upon the scene it was The Pilot who was occupying her attention.The expression of surprise and pity on his face appeared to stir her up.
"How dare you look at me like that?" she cried.
"How very extraordinary that you can't keep hold of yourself better!" he answered.
"I can!" she stamped, "and I shall do as I like!""It is a great pity," he said, with provoking calm, "and besides, it is weak and silly." His words were unfortunate.
"Weak!" she gasped, when her breath came back to her."Weak!""Yes," he said, "very weak and childish."Then she could have cheerfully put him to a slow and cruel death.
When she had recovered a little she cried vehemently:
"I'm not weak! I'm strong! I'm stronger than you are! I'm strong as--as--a man!"I do not suppose she meant the insinuation; at any rate The Pilot ignored it and went on.
"You're not strong enough to keep your temper down." And then, as she had no reply ready, he went on, "And really, Gwen, it is not right.You must not go on in this way."Again his words were unfortunate.
"MUST NOT!" she cried, adding an inch to her height."Who says so?""God!" was the simple, short answer.
She was greatly taken back, and gave a quick glance over her shoulder as if to see Him, who would dare to say MUST NOT to her;but, recovering, she answered sullenly:
"I don't care!"
"Don't care for God?" The Pilot's voice was quiet and solemn, but something in his manner angered her, and she blazed forth again.
"I don't care for anyone, and I SHALL do as I like."The Pilot looked at her sadly for a moment, and then said slowly:
"Some day, Gwen, you will not be able to do as you like."I remember well the settled defiance in her tone and manner as she took a step nearer him and answered in a voice trembling with passion:
"Listen! I have always done as I like, and I shall do as I like till I die!" And she rushed forth from the house and down toward the canyon, her refuge from all disturbing things, and chiefly from herself.
I could not shake off the impression her words made upon me.
"Pretty direct, that," I said to The Pilot, as we rode away."The declaration may be philosophically correct, but it rings uncommonly like a challenge to the Almighty.Throws down the gauntlet, so to speak."But The Pilot only said, "Don't! How can you?"Within a week her challenge was accepted, and how fiercely and how gallantly did she struggle to make it good!
It was The Duke that brought me the news, and as he told me the story his gay, careless self-command for once was gone.For in the gloom of the canyon where he overtook me I could see his face gleaming out ghastly white, and even his iron nerve could not keep the tremor from his voice.
