The Heart of the Red Firs: A Story of the Pacific Northwest
by Ada Woodruff Anderson · English · Gutenberg #48644 · 538,244 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Heart of the Red Firs: A Story of the Pacific Northwest
Author: Ada Woodruff Anderson
Illustrator: Charles Grunwald
Release date: April 5, 2015 [eBook #48644]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48644
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEART OF THE RED FIRS: A STORY OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST ***
Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Illustration: "He looked down into her lifted face, believing yet not
believing." Frontispiece. _See page_ 312.]
*THE*
*HEART OF THE RED FIRS*
A STORY OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
BY
*ADA WOODRUFF ANDERSON*
ILLUSTRATED BY
CHARLES GRUNWALD
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1909
_Copyright, 1908,_
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
Published April, 1908
Printers
B. J. Parkhill & Co., Printers, Boston, U.S.A.
TO THOSE FEW REMAINING PIONEERS,
WHO KNEW THE NISQUALLY TRAIL INTO THE GREAT SOLITUDES,
IN TIMES BEFORE THE LOGGING RAILROAD DEVASTATED
THE PUGET SOUND HILLS, AND THE WILDER-
NESS BEGAN TO RECEDE AT THE
COMING OF THE BUILDER
OF TOWNSITES.
*CONTENTS*
CHAPTER
I. The Teacher and the Freak of the Strange Thoroughbred
II. The Leaning Tower
III. The Camp at the Headwaters
IV. "Ther Biggest Coward in ther Woods"
V. Stratton's Way
VI. Mose
VII. The Instrument of Tyee Sahgalee
VIII. "I'm Going to Make Him White"
IX. Uncle Silas
X. Lem and the *Phantom*
XI. The House-Raising
XII. A Face in the Night
XIII. The Pressure of the Thumb-Screw
XIV. The Salmon-trollers
XV. The Man in the Tide-rip
XVI. The Fiery Lane
XVII. The Man Who Bungled
XVIII. Water-logged
XIX. "Andromeda Has Found a Perseus"
XX. The Grand Coup
XXI. Hide and Seek
XXII. For Little Silas
XXIII. "As Long as We Two Live"
XXIV. "A Man Of Straw"
XXV. The Rockslide
XXVI. The Judge
XXVII. Lem Creates Fiction
XXVIII. The Pressure of the Wilderness
XXIX. The Crack of Doom
XXX. The Lost Prospect
*LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS*
"He looked down into her lifted face, believing yet not believing" . . .
Frontispiece
"She paused, swaying in the hot gale"
"'I like you as well as I could like any American with un-American
ways'"
"He turned and looked into the fire"
*THE HEART OF THE RED FIRS*
*CHAPTER I*
*THE TEACHER AND THE FREAK OF THE
STRANGE THOROUGHBRED*
The children were putting away their books. The afternoon sun,
streaming through the uncurtained windows, made patches of heat on the
hewn cedar flooring, and the new, unpainted desks sent forth pitch and
the fragrance of fir. Suddenly a shadow crossed one of these squares of
light, and Lem Myers, who was seated nearest the raised sash, whispered
an audible warning: "Mose, your dad's comin'."
The boy sprang to his feet and stood facing the open door. The intruder
entered without ceremony. He had the lank black hair and mustache, eyes
flashing under shaggy brows, of the Canadian-French, and the powerful
shoulders and sinewy frame of a voyageur of the Hudson Bay Company. Two
hounds which followed him, stopped with their forepaws on the threshold
and reconnoitered the room suspiciously.
He strode directly up the aisle to the waiting boy, and laying a hand
roughly on his neck, said, with growing heat, "Din' I tell you doan' tek
dat gun? Oui, two, t'ree tam I ees say let eet 'lone."
Mose rocked under the grasp but he bore it with the silent fortitude
inherited from an Indian mother; the white in him only found expression
in the dull glow of his cheek, the tense arms and the hands clenched at
his sides.
"Din' I say A'm goin' t'rash you? Nawitka, for sure. T'ief! Cultus
Siwash!" And with a climax of invective, hurled forth in a mixture of
French, English and Indian, the man raised his hand and struck a hard
blow.
Before he could repeat it the teacher stepped between them. She had a
bright, speaking face, eyes that laughed or stormed on occasion, a mouth
mobile, alluring, with charm of lurking merriment, and a chin delicately
square, that lifted when she spoke, with an indescribable air of
decision.
"How do you do, Mr. Laramie," she said, and offered her hand, while, at
the same time, with the other palm she impelled Mose back into his seat.
"You are just in time to hear us sing."
He had ignored the hand, but she quickly placed her chair for him,
smiling, and commenced in a clear, full mezzo:
"We now are youthful sailors, we are not far from shore,
But soon we mean to journey the ocean o'er and o'er."
She lifted her music book from her desk and found the place for him, but
he refused it with a shake of his head, and taking the seat with
manifest reluctance, pulled his old squirrel-skin cap over his brows,
scowling first at her, then more darkly at Mose, and finally in general
at the school.
The children swelled the chorus lustily. And the Canadian liked music.
It was his vulnerable point. He began to beat time to this brisk
measure with his clumsy boot; cautiously at first, then with great
vigor, while his voice broke into a hoarse hum.
The song was hardly finished when she tapped the bell for dismissal.
"It ees gre't museek," said Laramie, rising. "Oui, a gre't song." His
glance moved, challenging possible contradiction, and rested on Mose's
seat. It was vacant. "Dem it," he cried with returning wrath.
But the teacher went swiftly down the aisle before him. "Here is your
gun," she said, and dragged it from behind the door. Her voice trembled
a little; entreaty rose through the courage in her eyes.
He took the rifle, turning it in his brawny hands to give it a close
scrutiny. When, with a final click of the hammer, he raised his glance,
the entreaty was gone; she stood with her arms folded, chin high,
watching him. It was as though she measured him.
His mouth worked in an unaccustomed smile. "Say, Mees," he said, "what
ees dis you tole dose chillun 'bout de eart' ees roun? You mek fun for
dem, yaas?"
There was a silent moment while the amazement came and went in her face;
a touch of merriment dimpled her mouth. Then, "It is quite true," she
answered, gravely, "the earth is round."
"Roun'? Sacre, Mees, but we mus' fall off."
She shook her head. "Come, I will show you." And she led the way back
to her desk, and taking a small globe in her hands, went through the
usual explanation slowly, simply, with infinite patience, as she would
have told a little child. But Laramie had convictions of his own. He
had seen the great Pacific, oh, yes, often, when he had journeyed for
the fur company to Nootka; and he had watched ships approach from the
far horizon, but to see the masts first proved nothing; a vessel was
most all sail. And it was true that once he had met a sailor who said
he had taken a ship at Quebec and sailed straight on and on, and without
turning back had found himself again at home. But plainly the man had
lied, for how could one make la bon voyage up the Fraser, through the
big lakes and down the St. Lawrence in a great vessel? Bah, every one
knew it could only be done in a canoe. "De eart' roun'?" he concluded.
"No, no, Mees, you doan' mek me beli've dat. But it ees gre't joke;
oui, a gre't joke, ha, ha. Well, good-by, Mees. Tek care yourse'f."
He shouldered the gun and strode away through the door. At the same
time there was the snapping of a twig and a glimpse of retreating bare
heels at the corner of the house, and while the Canadian moved down the
river trail a pair of keen eyes, set in a ferret-shaped face, peered at
him from behind the angle. They were the eyes of Lem Myers. When he
had satisfied himself that Laramie was truly on his way he came
cautiously to the threshold. The teacher was seated at her desk using
her pencil with rapid, decisive strokes. He crossed the floor to the
platform before she was conscious of his presence.
"Well, Lem," and she smiled down at him, "are you waiting for me?"
"Wal, yes; thort I'd wait an' see it out." He slipped up behind her
chair to look over her shoulder, bending his head as she moved her hand,
the better to follow her work. "Oh, gee," he exclaimed suddenly,
slapping his knees, "gee. You're a-settin' here a-makin' er picture of
him, an' I 'lowed all ther time you was scared."
"Scared?" She suspended her pencil to look at him.
"Yes, Mose was gone an' ther wan't nobody else ter hit."
"Hit? Do you mean he might have struck me?" She rose to her feet,
facing the boy. "Do you-- Do men in this settlement ever strike the
women?"
He gave her a sidelong glance and thrust his hands deep into his
trousers pockets. "You bet," he answered.
There was a brief silence, then she said, and the vibration had not gone
from her voice, "No, Lem, I was not afraid, but I might have been if I
had known. Where I have lived men never strike women; they have other
ways. I was just thinking of Mose. I wanted to ask Mr. Laramie not to
be hard with him."
"Oh, don't you bother 'bout Mose. He kin take care hisself. He's got
more muscle now'n any other boy in ther hull deestrict, an' it won't be
long 'fore he kin turn in an' thrash ther ole man."
There was another silence; the merriment again dimpled her mouth and she
looked off through the open door. Lem stooped and picked up a loose
sheet that had fluttered from the sketchbook to the floor. "Gee," he
said, "gee, but you kin draw."
"Yes?" Her glance returned and rested on the sheet interestedly. "What
is it, Lem?"
"Why, it's er picture of ther timber-cruiser an' that ther black horse
o' his. Here's ther same nice little star atween ther eyes, an' I've
seen him fling up his head an' point one ear jes that erway."
"So you know Colonel," she said, flushing, yet pleased at the
recognition. "Mr. Forrest bought him when he was a colt. He broke him,
and I am the only woman who ever mounted him."
"I 'low then you kin ride some. Ther ain't never be'n no sech stepper
in this hull deestrict. Mill Thornton calc'lated he hed er prize when
he raised ther sorrel filly, but gee, I've seen ther black leave her
clear out o' sight in less'n er minute."
The teacher laughed softly. "I know, I know, the beauty. And his
master, Lem. Did you ever see such a man in the saddle? So straight,
so easy, so ready at just the right instant with a quiet word, or else
that soft whistle."
"He kin ride," admitted Lem. "I've never seen him fizzle, an' he's be'n
out here off an' on considerable; timber-cruisin' first an' then
prospectin'. He 'lowed last year he'd struck er gold mine or
somethin'."
"I know," she repeated, "I know. It was only a few miles from here he
found those splendid indications."
"Yes," said the boy with his impish smile, "an' lost 'em."
"The mineral is there," she said with an upward tilt of her chin. "The
ore he brought down assayed remarkably rich. But he had broken his
compass that day and a heavy mist settled over every peak and spur.
There was absolutely nothing to mark a course from. Still, it's there,
Lem, locked in the heart of the hills. He will find it again,
sometime."
She went over and took her hat from its peg on the wall, and Lem
followed, waiting on the steps while she locked the door.
"There will be no more timber-cruising when he takes his position at the
new mills," she said as they started up the trail; "no more chances to
prospect. But he is coming out to the settlement before he goes to
Seattle, for a last trip into the hills, and, if your mother can go with
us, he intends to take me, to see the Cascades at close range, and the
canyon and the leaning tower, and spend a night or two in his favorite
camp at the headwaters."
A few rods from the schoolhouse the trail to the Myers clearing, which
was her boarding-place, began an abrupt ascent across the face of a
burned over ridge. They made the first part in silence, then she paused
to look back on the desolate waste. "Oh," she said, "it's like the end
of the world. It's always so wretchedly hot on this dead side-hill; the
gravel shifts so underfoot. It's very different on the Tumwater road."
"Whar's that?" asked Lem.
"Why, it's the way from Olympia to the Tumwater mills where Mr. Forrest
has lived since he was a small boy. And it's through the woods and down
a great ridge, with glimpses of blue sea between the firs, and always,
even in warmest weather, a cool, salt breeze. The lower falls of the
Des Chutes plunge into the Sound there, at Tumwater, and their thunder
fills the gorge. We used to go down often, walking or riding, and
sometimes when the wind and tide were right, we sailed. I suppose, Lem,
you never have seen a yacht?"
"Wal, no, I dunno's I hev."
"Then you have missed a great deal. But the first time I go down to the
Sound I'll take you; and Mr. Kingsley, my brother-in-law, will have us
aboard the _Phantom_. Then, out past the old monastery on Priest Point,
we'll catch a swinging breeze, and all the running waves will toss their
whitecaps,--you'll like that, even if the scud whips your face,--and
someone, my sister perhaps, will start 'The White Squall.' It's the
best sea song, made for the accompaniment of water on a cleaving keel."
For a moment she forgot the boy. She stood looking off across the
charred stumps and skeletons of trees, as though she saw far away that
blue sea she loved, and expected to hear that rush and gurgle along a
moving keel. And he, this urchin who had lived his life among the
weasels and squirrels in the heart of the great forest, who knew nothing
of whitecaps, to whom scud was a new and vague torment, waited with his
ferret eyes upon her, sharp chin lifted, lips apart. Her glance fell.
Their eyes met and she laughed. "Would you like to make that trip down
to Puget Sound, Lem?"
He dropped his head, and slipping back to his place at her heels as she
resumed the climb, answered with brief emphasis, "You bet."
At the top of the ridge the trail entered the forest. The boughs of the
friendly firs clasped overhead; a carpet of needles was underfoot. Moss
rioted everywhere, on logs, rocks, the trunks of the living trees.
Still, it was less insistent than the salal, which pushed its stiff
glossy leaves through dense growths of alder and hazel, and the fern,
which sent up slender stems, forming a lattice for honeysuckle and pea,
and high above her head spread umbrella fronds. It was cooler and she
quickened her pace. Lem began to whistle, then to answer the birds, and
presently she, too, was calling, cautiously at first, taking lessons
from the boy, and all the wood was full of voices.
At length there was the noise of running water and they came down to a
brook. It was their half-way place. Mid-channel, Lem had built a water
wheel. He had set a squirrel trap on the bank, and a larger one for
mink, and had made a bench for the teacher, by rolling a short log
against a trunk, securing it with stakes. She seated herself and he
waded out into the stream. He plucked a leaf from an overhanging bough,
and shaping a drinking-cup, brought her a draught. She laid her hat in
her lap and resting her head on the trunk, idly watched him while he
examined the traps, and drew from a hollow cedar his alder pole,
equipped with primitive line, and baited the hook with a grasshopper.
But while he tried pool and shallow ineffectually, her glance moved
absently up-stream, and presently she sang in a soft undertone:
She shone in the light of de - clin -
ing day, And each sail was
set, And each heart .. was ... gay:
[Illustration: Music fragment]
The noise of running water became the music of the sea; the bole on
which she leaned was a heaving mast, and the stir of hemlock boughs
above changed to the bellying of voluminous canvas. Once more the moon
hung low over the Tumwater hills, silvering the cove, and on the port
bow the Des Chutes plunged out of blackness and swayed, sparkling, like
a curtain of roped pearls between beetling cliffs. Her sister's
contralto, swelled by Kingsley's tenor, took up the chorus, but clearer,
close beside her, subduing his fine baritone to her own voice, sang Paul
Forrest.
At last she drew a full breath and returned to the present. She brushed
her hand across her eyes and looked at Lem. The next instant she was on
her feet. She ran down the bank and out upon the stepping-stones,
watching the boy. "Play him, Lem," she cried softly, "play him, tire
him. Don't be in a hurry."
"Gee, gee!" Lem set his teeth between the exclamations, and gripped the
pole in both hands. "Oh, gee!"
He began to move down-stream, splashing ankle-deep, plunging over his
knees in hollows. His steps quickened. He tripped on a sunken snag,
recovered, fell sprawling across a dipping log, and was up instantly,
steadying, playing the jerking line.
"That's right, Lem, slowly, tire him. Now--" She clasped her hands
over an imaginary rod, lifted in unison, and as though she felt that
great weight on the boy's line--"Now. Oh, you haven't, you haven't lost
him?"
The chagrined sportsman stood regarding his remaining bit of string.
Then he threw the pole down disgustedly and returned to the crossing, He
gave the teacher one sidelong look and dropped his eyes.
"Never mind, Lem," she said. "It was fine. The gamiest I ever saw."
He lifted his head. "You kin bet on that," he answered. "Ther's jes one
of him in this here creek. He's ther great Tyee. But gee, gee, I don't
see how he hed water 'nough ter keep him erfloat."
The teacher laughed softly. She started on over the stream, but,
lifting her glance from the dripping boy, she met suddenly the amused
gaze of an auditor who had stopped on the bank. His mount, a dappled
chestnut with a silver mane, the alert head, depth of chest, long, sleek
body and nimble limbs of a thoroughbred, was, in that forest settlement,
remarkable, but the man himself possessed a striking personality. He
carried his large frame with almost military erectness and yet with the
freedom of young muscles bred to the saddle. He wore cavalry boots and
English-made riding-clothes, and his coat opened on an immaculate silk
shirt bosom. His face, stamped with inherited fineness of living, was
undeniably handsome, but his lip took a mocking curve when he smiled,
his chin had length rather than breadth, and in his eyes, which were
singularly light under black lashes and brows, smouldered a magnetic
heat; they drew or repelled.
The rise from the brook was abrupt, the path narrow, and the teacher
waited on a larger stone while the stranger rode down into the ford. He
removed his hat with the usual salutation of the trail, and crushing it
carelessly under his arm, would have passed directly on, but the horse,
suspicious of some movement of Lem's, made a sudden detour that brought
him almost upon her. She started to spring to another rock, her foot
slipped, and to steady herself she threw up her hand. It came in
contact with the chestnut's bridle below the bit. Instantly he reared,
wheeled, and coming down, gripped the bank with his forefeet, and was
off like a bird.
Lem crawled out of the pool into which he had plunged to avoid those
striking hoofs, and the teacher hurried on over the crossing. But,
unexpectedly, at the top of the bank she met the rider returning, and
she and the boy crowded quickly into the salal to give him room. He
still carried his hat under his bridle arm; a rifle in a leather case
swung, undamaged, from the saddle; a small canvas-covered pack rested,
unbroken, above the crupper, and the thoroughbred paced gently down into
the stream and moving on slowly, trotted up the opposite side and
disappeared among the firs.
"He kin ride," said Lem at last. "An' I 'low that ther chestnut kin
travel. But he'd be mighty oncertain in er race. Ef it kem to it,"--he
paused to follow the teacher back into the trail,--"ef it kem to it, I
dunno but what I'd resk my pile on ther timber-cruiser an' ther black."
*CHAPTER II*
*THE LEANING TOWER*
Suddenly Forrest, who had taken the lead, turned and laid his hand on
his horse's rein. "Back, Colonel," he said, "back. Steady, now,
steady."
The trail, which ran between the edge of a windfall and the brink of a
cliff, was cut off by a slide.
Presently, when there was room, the teacher slipped down from the
saddle, and Forrest turned the black and led him into a small open on
the level shoulder to which they had climbed. Below them they heard the
voices of the settlers urging Ginger, the other horse, up the sharp
incline; then, with a final clatter of tin and scraping of hoofs, he
appeared over the spur. He dropped his muzzle abjectly to the heather,
showing covertly the whites of his eyes; his legs seemed to shorten like
set posts, while Mrs. Myers, who followed closely, stopped to look at
the pack. She tucked in a loose end of canvas and made a new hitch in a
length of rope. She had a deft yet masculine touch, and it was her
husband's standing tribute that she knew more about packing than he did;
when Marthy fixed a load, it stayed.
There was nothing weak and little effeminate about Martha. Her scant
cotton gown, without decoration, was shortened above a streak of coarse
gray hose; her shoes were of calf, heavy, unshapely, and her hat, Eben's
winter one, had seen protracted service. It shaded a face darkened by
exposure to wind and sun, and seamed not by age but habitual anxiety.
The settler mounted a log and cast a slow glance along the windfall.
There were mighty firs, centuries old, with their trunks hurled in air;
boles of ancient cedars snapped mid-length; giant hemlocks held uptilted
and forming a breastwork for living trees; gnarled roots locking with
green branches; all dropped together like jackstraws, the playthings of
Titan winds. Presently Martha joined him and they began to work along
the labyrinth, picking a course for the horses.
Forrest had tied the black, and, taking advantage of the delay, led the
teacher to a better view-point of the canyon, which swept below them,
rounding the opposite ridge in the shape of a crescent. A granite
tower, crowning a higher cliff, held the curve. It was a curious pile,
of boulders fitted nicely, block on block, with loophole and parapet,
and the whole structure tilted slightly, leaning towards the precipice.
The girl seated herself on a stone in the shade of a stunted fir, and
Forrest, a little worn from the long tramp, threw himself on the ground,
putting aside his hat and resting his head on his hand, his elbow on the
earth, while he looked off down the gorge. "Somewhere in there," he
said, "beyond that curve, I ought to find my lost prospect. The mother
lode should crop out in one of those lower bluffs towards the Des
Chutes. The thunder of the river reached me not long before,--I
remember that clearly,--but I wish the place I staked that day had only
been in range of that fine old landmark, the tower."
She looked down thoughtfully into the wooded gorge. "In such a tangle
you might pass the place a dozen times. Your stakes must have been
overgrown in a few weeks with fern and salal, or shoots of alder. It's
really beginning again."
"Almost." He set his square jaw and a vertical line deepened between
his eyes. "Still, it's there and sooner or later I'll find it. But I
must make the most of this trip; I can't hope for many days off at the
Freeport mills. That's the worst of it,"--he smiled, shaking his
head,--"no more timber-cruising; nothing to take me out-of-doors."
"Do you know, I can't think of Tumwater, the mills, the falls, the ridge
road, without remembering you? You've been a part of it, Paul; the
spirit of it all."
"That's nice of you." He gave her a swift look of appreciation. His
eyes, a deep, clear hazel, were his most expressive feature; they put
weight and character into his slightest remark. "But a man must step
out of his cradle, sometime, and Judge Kingsley has made me a fine
offer. He is sure to gain the election,--no man is better known, or as
popular in the whole territory; no one has the interests of the country
more at heart. And when he goes to Congress he means to leave the
Freeport mills under my management altogether; that is with the
co-operation of Philip."
"The co-operation of Philip? Do you think because Phil Kingsley has put
his money into that property it will make any difference?"
"The Judge thinks it will be the making of him."
"Phil Kingsley's gain," she said slowly, "is always someone else's loss.
You ought to know it."
Forrest laughed, his short, pleasant laugh. "I think," he said, "you
can trust me to take care of myself. Of course you know," he went on
presently, "Phil means to live at the mills. His uncle opposes it. If
he goes to Washington the house at Olympia will have to be leased to
strangers or closed, and it will be a miserable place, at the mills, for
your sister and little Si. She had better take a house over the harbor
at Seattle. But she is going to live at Freeport. Like you she is
determined."
"Freeport is different. It's just a bleak, wind-swept beach, shut off
from the green earth by a towering bluff. Indeed, I wouldn't live there.
Here, I have the woods and mountains all around. And I love the
Nisqually. It's freedom."
"Your sister will be disappointed. She still hopes that when the
novelty of all this has worn off, you will be ready to come back and
make your home with her."
She shook her head. "I never can do that again. I can't help
disapproving of Philip. The habit grows. I object to him more and
more. We often quarrel--now."
Forrest laughed softly. "Of course you do; of course. But the Judge,"
he went on gravely, "is miserable. He says if you won't let him help
you it isn't necessary to bury yourself out here in the wilderness, in a
nest of outlaws. If you are determined to be independent, you could
teach or paint, or put your music to advantage in town."
"Oh," she answered, "he doesn't see. I was meant for a pioneer, Paul;
it's in the blood. You ought to understand. I love the great spaces,
just as you do, and your life in the big out-of-doors."
A soft enthusiasm shone in her face; she looked off absently at the
tower. Her hands were clasped loosely on her knee, and the sunlight,
sifting between the boughs of the fir, brought out the gold in her hair;
the wind roughened it under her close velvet cap, and twisted it into
minute spirals about her neck and ears. The young man watching her set
his lips over a quick breath and turned his eyes away. She loved these
things, yes, but as a bird loves light and air; not as he loved them, to
work for them, to build, reclaim, spend himself for them, fight if the
time came. No, not for one foolish moment could he expect it of her.
"Was ever anything as nicely balanced as that tower?" he said. "To look
like a touch would send it toppling and yet to withstand the gales that
sweep these hills. But the eternal forces are busy around it; some day
it will go."
"It's wonderful," she answered. "It looks like it had been built there
to protect the gorge. What a stronghold it would make."
"Stronghold? For whom?"
"Why, for Pete Smith, Dick Slocum, any of them."
"Who is Slocum?"
She shook her head slowly. "I don't really know. But he came in while
we were at dinner the night before last. His clothes were torn and his
hat gone, and there were twigs and needles clinging to his hair. He was
very hungry. The sheriff and a posse were hunting him. They had passed
up the trail half an hour before, and he hurried, scowling at every one,
and before any one spoke was gone, taking part of the meal in his
hands."
"Freeport couldn't be as bad as this. Own you were afraid."
"Afraid? No, why should I have been? It was Dick Slocum who was
frightened. He was running away. Mr. Myers said he had shot a man.
But," she admitted grudgingly, "I was afraid of Pete Smith, and of the
bear."
"Smith?" He changed his position a little, dropping his arm and resting
his shoulder against a rock. "What of Smith? I thought he was safe in
the penitentiary."
"He escaped. It was very stormy the night he came back. Trees were
falling on the ridge, and after school Lem and I went home with Mose.
Mr. Laramie was away with his traps, and his wife, you know, is a
Yakima, the daughter of Yelm Jim. It would have been all right if the
boys hadn't entertained me with stories of the rising, but they were
dreadful to hear with the wind whistling, boughs soughing, rain driving
on the shingles, and just the light of the backlog in the fireplace.
When Lem followed Mose off to bed in the barn loft I was a little
unnerved.
"There were two beds in the room; mine was curtained. But I couldn't
sleep. I kept listening and waiting for something to happen. There was
a rifle on the wall near the door; I began to wish I had it. Mose's
mother was surely asleep, I heard her regular breathing from the other
bed, and finally I crept over softly and took the gun down. It was
heavy and I let the stock strike the floor. Still she didn't move, and
I hurried back and stood it inside the curtains where I could reach it
instantly, felt safer then and at last went to sleep."
She paused, looking off again absently to the tower. It was as though
she saw that room, the sleeping squaw, she herself in the curtained bed
with the rifle at hand. "It must have been nearly morning when I
wakened. There was still light from the smouldering backlog, and between
the curtains I saw Mose's mother standing near the door and talking to a
man. His clothes were wet and torn as if he had pushed through
underbrush; an old, soft hat shaded his face, and perhaps it was the
shadows or the flicker of the firelight, but it seemed the most hideous
face in the world. She pointed to my corner and he started towards me.
My heart leaped, But she stopped him. He spoke to her in Yakima,
throwing off her hand and stamping his foot. Then she came over
cautiously and looked in at me. I pretended I was asleep, but the
perspiration started; I could have screamed. I quite forgot the gun
until I felt she had taken it and was going quickly back to the man."
She paused again to give her listener a swift look with the mounting fun
in her eyes. "He took the rifle," she added, "and went out."
Her laugh was irresistible.
"And it was Smith?" he asked directly,
"Yes, it was all explained the next morning when Lem noticed the vacant
place on the wall and said, 'I see Pete's out again; he's be'n fur his
gun.'"
Forrest laughed again at her perfect mimicry of the boy, then he turned
his face again to the gorge. He thought of a good many things, but he
felt the futility of saying any of them. He only asked finally, "And
what of the bear?"
"Oh, he was berrying, I suppose, and I happened to overtake him on the
trail, I had been down the river making a sketch of Yelm Jim, fishing,
and Lem had gone home without me. I noticed the bear moving ahead of me
towards the creek, but I thought he was just a great pig until he
lumbered around to look at me. And the moment I caught his profile, you
may be sure I turned and went flying back to the river, on over the log
where I had left the old chief--he gave me right of way--and into the
midst of the Laramie barn-raising. 'Come, quick,' I said, 'I have seen
a bear.' And they all came; two had guns. But he was gone; he hadn't
left a track, and I found myself, suddenly, standing there under the
scrutiny of the whole settlement. It was only my second week, then, and
teachers, up the Nisqually, are more unusual than bears."
But the amusement went out of Forrest's face. "You should have at least
the security of a good horse. You must take Colonel. I can't use him
at the new mills," he explained quickly, "and I don't want to sell him.
He never knew another master. Will you keep him while I stay at
Freeport?"
"I keep Colonel? Oh, there's nothing I should like better; nothing.
You are the best, the most generous man I ever knew." She leaned a
little towards him, all delight, eagerness, charm. "I can't ever hope
to repay you, Paul, but I'd be glad of the opportunity to do
anything--anything in the world--for you."
"I wish I could be sure of that. See here,"--his voice deepened and
shook,--"I don't ask you to come to Freeport, or anywhere, until I can
offer you something worth while, only--if you care enough for me to wait
for me, Alice--tell me so."
She drew back; the delight went out of her face; she rose in
consternation to her feet. "You," she faltered. "You-- Oh, what made
you, Paul? What made you?"
"How could I help it?" He, too, rose and stood looking down into her
flushed face. "I always have loved you, Alice,--don't you know
it?--even when you were a small girl and I carried your books to school.
Once I was late and you came up the road to meet me.--Don't you
remember?--It was my last year at the Academy, when you were twelve.
You were reading your first Waverley novel, and you told me that
morning, some day your knight would come riding down the ridge. I never
forgot. I was the better horseman for it. Long afterwards, when I
bought Colonel, I thought of it. I always meant to be that knight."
He smiled, half ashamed of that boyish dream, but she drew herself
straight and turned her eyes again to the tower. "You," she said, "whom
I have known my whole life through."
"Yes, does that count so much against me?"
"I'm so sorry. You've been the best friend I ever had; the one I could
always depend on. Oh, I wish--I wish it hadn't happened."
He laid his hand, bracing himself a little, on the bole of the fir, and
turned his own face away, looking off once more down the canyon. Myers,
coming back to the edge of the windfall, called, but neither of them
answered. Presently she reached and broke a sprig from a lower bough and
began slowly to strip it of its needles. "But I see--I see--how much
I've been to blame," she said. "I can't forgive myself, ever. I never
thought of you--in--that way, Paul. You never seemed--like other men.
And I see--I see--I shouldn't have spoken, as I did just now, about
Colonel."
"Why, it's all right." He swung around and looked at her. "It's all
right. Don't let it trouble you; don't give it another thought. And,
of course, you will keep Colonel."
She shook her head. "How can I?"
"Don't make me feel you hold him in the light of a bribe. Understand,
it's just a favor to me. I think a good deal of my horse; it means a
lot to me to be able to leave him with some one I can trust."
Her lip trembled; she brushed her hand across her eyes. "You are the
best--the noblest man in the world," she said.
Eben called again and Forrest answered with a clear "Hello." He began
to walk back towards the windfall. Presently he stopped to pick up a
small, morocco-bound book which she had lost from her pocket in crossing
a boulder on the way out to the cliff. He slipped the volume into his
own pocket and turned to help her over the rock. "See here," he said, "I
want you to know that I'm glad to be that best friend, the one you
depend on. You needn't be afraid of me; you've given me a character
that I've got to live up to."
"You mean--" the light came back to her face--"you do mean you are not
going to let it make any difference between us."
"Of course. Why should it? Only--tell me this--" the rock was smooth
and difficult; he watched her footing--"is there some one else?"
"No, there is no one else--yet."
She paused on the word, for suddenly, lifting her glance beyond
Forrest's shoulder, she saw the stranger she had met at the creek on the
school trail. He stopped a few yards from the boulder, and,
dismounting, took the chestnut's halter, and, making it fast to a
sapling, stood waiting.
Forrest gave him a straight look and slight nod, and would have passed
directly on, but the man smiled and held out his hand. "I hope you have
not forgotten me," he said. "I am Stratton, lately of Victoria. I met
you with the Kingsleys, when you came over to see the new mills at
Seattle."
Forrest gave him another look from under slightly knotted brows. "I
remember. You were going on a cruise with the Captain in the _Phantom_.
I've heard, too, of you through my friend Bates, of the Customs
Service."
Stratton dropped his disregarded hand. A wave of color swept his face,
and the latent heat flared and died in his eyes. Then he said, evenly,
"I am out here on a little hunting trip, and, incidentally, to see what
can be picked up in the way of furs. I am interested in the trade, as
you probably know, and I find Laramie has been taking some prime
beaver." His glance had moved to Alice; apparently the explanation was
meant for her, and she looked at Forrest, waiting for the obvious
introduction.
It was withheld.
"But," Stratton went on after a moment, and he moved a few steps in the
direction of the gorge, "I was stopped just now at this windfall. Myers
told me the trail was impassable, and he spoke of a curious old tower
worth turning aside here to see."
"Yes," answered Forrest, "it's the most prominent landmark in these
hills." And he walked on towards his horse.
Alice went with him, and directly Stratton halted to send a look after
them. "So," he said softly, "so it is what you have heard, through
Bates, against the friend of a Kingsley. But you were rash to show your
hand, young fellow, you were rash." Then his glance rested on the girl
and he smiled. "I never yet wanted to know a pretty woman," he added,
"that I could not find a way."
He turned and walked out to the cliff. He stood for an interval under
the stunted fir, and scanned the gorge, bluff after bluff, down to the
tower; afterwards he went along the precipice a short distance and
climbed a bald knob of rock. He waited again, posed, with his head and
shoulders etched on the sky, while he searched the opposite heights, the
walls of the canyon; then, with a sweeping glance behind him, he looked
once more in the direction of the leaning bastion. Presently he drew a
handkerchief from his pocket and held it by one corner at arm's length
to the breeze. In a little while a thread of smoke rose from the rear
of the tower. He took out another handkerchief, a black one, and
repeated the signal, twice. Almost directly the smoke ceased. He left
the place then, and went back to his horse. Picking up the trail, he
rode along the front of the windfall, on over the shoulder of the hill
which he had lately climbed, and returned towards the settlement.
*CHAPTER III*
*THE CAMP AT THE HEADWATERS*
At last Forrest and Alice stopped before a huge fallen cedar; its
boughs, still green and fragrant, were under their feet. Some distance
beyond the settlers had paused to choose a way, and the horses, heated
and thirsty, stood in a small open between.
"I knew the trip would be rough," he said, "but I didn't expect this; we
should have turned back at the slide."
"Back? No, no." Her face was pink and moist and she spoke between
short, quick breaths. "You should know, Paul, when once I undertake a
thing, it's in me to carry it through."
"Come, then." He found footing on a higher bough, and leaping on the
log, turned to reach his hands down to her. "Come." And when she had
gained the place he was on the ground again, calling her attention to
the surest step. But she took it incautiously, missed, and fell.
He could only throw out his arms to break the fall, and for that instant
her head was on his breast. Their young eyes met; a mist was in hers
and the pink deepened in her face. "You do love me," he said. "Some
day you are going to tell me so."
Then he put her on the boughs at his feet, and turned and looked off
over the windfall. His lips were set and his brows contracted in a
deep, vertical line. But when Martha moved on with Ginger he went to
his horse and brought him back to the cedar. "I think we are through
the worst," he said quietly, "and if you are rested, you can ride now."
He stooped, offering his hand for her foot, and when she was up, he led
the horse, stopping to hold aside a trailing bough, breaking another
short off, making Colonel step the logs, or if that were impossible,
skirting and doubling to avoid the leap. But he had nothing more to
say, and he kept his eyes turned resolutely from her, with still
frowning brows.
The ascent became steeper. They emerged from the windfall and took
breath on a rocky shoulder. Over them rose the round crown of the great
hilltop, bald or tufted with heather. The settlers, picking up the
trail, pushed on. From time to time a stone gave under the reluctant
Ginger's hoofs and rattled down the incline. In places he stopped
morosely, setting his legs like posts. Then Martha tugged vehemently at
the halter, as though she hoped to uproot him bodily, while Eben, with
the judicious use of a hazel, admonished and urged from behind. When
these resources failed, Colonel charged the little cayuse, nipping him
smartly in the flank, and started him in a panic. But at last the final
stretch was finished and they were on the summit.
Alice dismounted and they walked a few yards to the eastern side, which
broke away in great, treeless steps. Far below, the forest stretched
like a smooth plain, through which the Nisqually trailed and doubled
like a changeable ribbon in the sun. But the girl's eager eyes turned
first northwestward, where, sixty miles distant, the Olympic Mountains
shone dimly through summer haze, a pastel of blue and white, and
enclosed in their hollow a turquoise sea. Was that bright moving speck
a bit of cloud or was it the _Phantom_ with the light on her sails? Her
glance came back and before her clear-cut, near, rose the bastioned
heights of the Cascade Range, and, over-topping icy minarets and domes,
vast, mighty, in Alpine splendor, loomed the triple crest of Mt.
Rainier.
"Well," said Forrest finally, "is it worth the effort?"
"Effort?" she repeated. "I could fight a hundred windfalls for this."
She paused, swaying in the hot gale that swept the hilltop. "But this
isn't enough, Paul; I must go there."
[Illustration: "She paused, swaying in the hot gale."]
"To Rainier?"
"Yes, if I were only a man I shouldn't wait a day; I'd push right on
to-morrow."
Forrest smiled, shaking his head. "The only two men who ever made that
summit," and he looked off again to the brilliant slopes, "nearly
perished. But Philip is talking of a trip to the mountain. He has
promised your sister that he will bring her out to the Nisqually to see
you before they go to Freeport, and he thinks he can go on, then, to
Rainier."
"Then he must take me." She lost her hold against the wind, and for a
moment it beat her back, struggling, laughing, from the bluff. "There
are Indian trails," she went on. "Though they are afraid of the
mountain, they go as far as the warm springs and hunt on the lower
slopes." She battled another interval and ended by staying herself with
her hand on Forrest's arm. The touch, her nearness, shook him more than
the gale. "But," she finished, "Phil Kingsley will find a way. He loves
an adventure; it's the one point where we ever agree; and if he goes to
Rainier, I know he will take me."
Forrest laughed, again shaking his head. He turned and looked back
along the face of the ridge. There was that landmark, the leaning
tower, holding the curve in the sister height, but the canyon had lost
those familiar lines he expected to see. From this view-point the
second sweep of the gorge, doubling the hill, seemed to terminate
abruptly. It was baffling, mysterious, altogether strange; yet,
somewhere, in that rough corner of the landscape, unrolled like a map at
his feet, he should be able to locate his lost prospect.
But it was impossible to linger on the hilltop. The heat was growing
intolerable, and not a fissure or depression in the rocky surface held
water; the flask, filled at the last stream, had long been empty. They
returned to the horses, and trailed down the southern slope, into a cool
glade which was carpeted with short, thick grass. It became a natural
park; trees of mighty girth, almost free of undergrowth, rose in
straight columns, one hundred and fifty feet to the lowest limbs. They
were ringed by centuries, yet were sound to the core.
Finally a moist breeze drew between the boles and brought the noise of
running water. Colonel pricked his ears sensitively. He swung, looking
towards a line of thicket that marked the watercourse, then he broke
into a trot. The sound became the thunder of a cataract. Alice leaned
low in her saddle; her wide eyes tried to penetrate the jungle ahead.
The black pushed on between boughs, snorting gently, tossing his mane.
There was a flash of foam through the foliage, then, clear, cold, fresh
from near snowfields, plunged the upper falls of the Des Chutes. Her
foot was out of the stirrup; she slipped to the ground, and reaching the
brink, threw herself full length, and stretching her palms down to the
torrent, and bringing them up, cuplike, drank. She laved her face, and
putting her hands together, dipped and drank from their hollow, again
and again.
There were two falls, and the ledge upon which she had thrown herself
projected over the second plunge. It was narrow and thin, and trembled
with the shock of the torrent and with her weight. When she lifted her
eyes the spray of the upper cataract was in her face; looking down, she
saw a great square room cut from solid basalt, which received the second
fall and poured it, seething, through a fissure, set doorlike in the
lower wall.
She shrank back to her knees, overcome with sudden dizziness. The next
instant she was drawn to her feet, then lifted off of them by a pair of
unsteady arms, and put down on firm earth. She looked up and laughed.
But Forrest's face was white and stern. "Why will you risk yourself
like this?" he said. "Why will you?"
Camp was made in a small open on the base of the slope. Dry branches
were gathered for the fire, a tent pitched for the women, and bedded
with boughs made springy by sharpening and planting the butts in the
earth. Then Martha set out her fine butter and light loaf, and lifted
the coffee-pot from the improvised tripod, and brought venison steaks,
broiled to perfection over the red coals.
"I dunno," said Eben, putting down his cup and smoothing his long black
whiskers, "I dunno's I ever hed your 'pinion 'bout that ther leanin'
tower. How do you 'count fur it?"
"Why," answered Forrest, "the blocks are of granite. There was probably
a formation of granite and limestone, and the softer rock crumbled
away."
There was a brief silence, during which the settler meditated
profoundly, then Martha spoke. "I 'low he's 'bout right, Eben. Ther
ain't never be'n no man 'round here could a hefted them stones, let
erlone piled 'em that erway, cantin' right over ther gorge. An' ef ther
was, an' he'd hed ther help an' tackle, what in all creation 'd he do it
fur?"
Another profound silence, then Myers said, "I 'lowed it might a be'n
done by my petrified man."
"Your petrified man?" repeated Forrest.
"Yes." The settler cast a sweeping glance behind him, as though he
feared the young man's incautious tone might have reached some
eavesdropper lurking in the thicket, and screening his mouth with his
hand, echoed softly, "My petrified man."
"It's true," said the teacher gravely; "he is excavating a petrified
man. I've seen it, or rather parts of it. He keeps it in a blue chest
with a padlock under my bed."
Martha rose with suppressed energy, and lifting a bough, laid it on the
fire. "He's be'n nigh onter all winter an' spring gettin' out ther legs
an' arms," she said, resuming her place, "but he calc'lates ef he kin
only find ther hull thing ther's folks 'ud pay consider'ble fur it."
"I 'lowed mebbe, fur instance," explained Myers, "that ther museum ter
Washington, what that Gov'ment man was talkin' 'bout last year when he
was stoppin' here, would give me er pretty good price. He says they buy
up old bones o' anything curious or over-sized."
"No doubt," said Forrest slowly, "no doubt. But I believe, Eben, the
time spent on your ranch would count for more. That's a fine meadow you
have, and a few additional acres cleared and seeded with alfalfa would
mean almost riches to you."
Myers struck a match and, screening it with his hand, lighted his pipe.
Martha watched him. Her lips twitched a little and an unspoken appeal
rose in her anxious eyes. She only said, presently, "Mebbe he's right,
Eben. That ther meadow's be'n a mighty good pasture. Before we hed it
you used to spend er sight o' time drivin' ther cattle over here to ther
south slope in ther cold spells. Onct," she paused, looking off through
the great natural park, "when Lem was a baby I kem over ther hills an'
toted him in my lap. It commenced ter snow an' I lost ther trail."
"An' it was yonder," said Eben, pointing riverward, "close onter that
ther black snag, I found her. She'd hitched ther cayuse an' took off
his pack, an' Lem, ther little bugger, was did up in er extry blanket,
peart as er chipmunk in er hole. She was settin' down by er good fire a
eatin' her supper."
Martha smiled, her shadowy, brief smile. "I counted on his lookin' fur
me," she said, "an' 'lowed he'd scent the bacon. His rations was erbout
give out."
The long Northern twilight deepened; the nearer trees stood out tall and
spectral against vague shadow; a bat with low swoops approached and was
lost in the gloom; a white owl settled, dazed, on a fir bough, and from
time to time mingled his hoot with the note of the cataract. Once the
sound of sliding rock came from some high shoulder and was followed by a
rush of earth lower on the slope.
Alice leaned back comfortably on an old cedar trunk with chairlike arms,
and lifted her face, listening. "How the hills answer each other," she
said; "every sound multiplies."
Forrest settled himself in one of his easy attitudes in front of the
fire. "It reminds me of a trip I made last year over the new railroad
in Oregon." He paused and his listeners waited, expectantly. He had a
deep, pleasing voice and the gift of the story teller. "They had taken
me aboard a construction train. There are points on the Columbia where
the slopes rise abruptly eight hundred feet, and the soil is loose with
a perilous mixture of boulders. They had scores of Chinamen at work to
bulkhead these places, and the big timbers up there looked like
scaffoldings of toothpicks. But a whole crew of track-walkers couldn't
keep the danger off, and we were speeding along when suddenly there was
a terrific sound. It was like musketry multiplied by echoes on echoes.
Then looking up we saw ahead an immense rock moving down the mountain.
The engineer reversed his lever and jumped. The next instant the
boulder struck the engine and hurled it into the river."
She caught her breath. "And you, Paul?"
"I?" He turned to her with his smile of the eyes. "Why, I was in the
caboose. The coupling broke and separated the rest of the train from
the engine. It was the closest shave I ever had."
"And you never told me."
"The greatest devastator is the frost," he said after a moment. "It
drives the wedge ready for the heavy rains. But I remember a place on
the Snoqualmie that has been crossed by an avalanche of snow. It has
left a clean-swept track through the timber, and the trees, hurled with
incredible force, block the river from bank to bank. It's the most
terrible jam ever heard of. You know the place, Eben?"
But the settler answered only with a gentle nod. He sat with his chin
on his breast, holding his empty pipe on his knee. Martha nudged him,
but he slept placidly on.
Alice lifted her glance once more to the shadowy slope. Presently she
began to sing in a sweet undertone, "The Day Is Done." And after the
first measure Forrest took up the song, and the two voices, rising,
swelling, started a refrain from cliff and spur. The last echo drifted
and died in a far canyon. A great hush rested on the wilderness. There
was a soft illumination on a high peak, then every crest and shoulder
was silvered by the rising moon.
The song was followed by many; the parts of old operas which they had
been accustomed to sing with her sister and Philip, on winter evenings
in Judge Kingsley's parlor, or in summer time becalmed aboard the
_Phantom_. And at last it was Schubert's "Serenade."
Forrest rose to his feet and stood with his arms resting on the top of
the trunk behind her. This song had always been a favorite; they sang
it well together. But a new personality crept into the familiar tones;
an awakened sadness. And the romance of the place, the mystery of night
and the near heavens, gave setting to his part and spoke for him.
She took up the song, but it became suddenly, for the first time, too
difficult to sing. Her notes faltered and broke. He finished the part
alone.
*CHAPTER IV*
*"THER BIGGEST COWARD IN THER WOODS"*
Forrest was lying on his blanket, his feet to the camp-fire, hands
clasped under his head, his wakeful face raised to the near stars. An
arm's-length from him Myers slumbered, audibly. Stillness rested on the
small white tent. But presently his horse tramped uneasily, pulling on
his picket rope, and the young man rose and went over to him. "So,
Colonel," he said softly, "restless, too, are you? Steady, now, steady,
we'll work it off, old fellow, so."
He found the bridle and, mounting without a saddle turned up the lofty
slope. The horse flung his head, and with some airy stepping by the
white tent, set himself willingly to the ascent. The firelight, as he
passed, brought out the silver star between his intelligent eyes, the
one marking, from the tips of his sensitive ears to his nimble hind
feet, in a handsome, jet-black coat.
The settler stirred and rose on his elbow with an inquiring "Hello!"
And Forrest called back, "I'm just going up to the summit for another
look around, and to try to shape a course for the day's tramp."
Myers laughed and settled back comfortably to his blanket. "I 'low," he
told himself, yawning, "he ain't likely ter see much more'n fog."
Half way up the hill Forrest halted, breathing his horse on a level
spur, and looked down over the tops of the firs. "It's a natural town
site," he said aloud; "and when the country opens it's bound to be a
mining center. There's a fortune in that water power, but I should set
up my own stamp mills there at the falls, and build cottages for the men
to the right on that knoll. And meantime--meantime--what an Eden it
would make." He turned with a quick upward lift of his head. "Come,
Colonel, come," he said, "we must keep a tighter rein. It's summer now,
and she isn't over the novelty; but it won't last through the first
September rains. Even if she loved me--I could never ask her to bury
herself up here in the wilderness; her--with her ideals and dreams, and
all those nice, luxurious ways."
He rode on in silence. The moon paled; there were no longer stars, and,
as he reached the summit and looked eastward, he saw the first streak of
light broadening and toning to green on the horizon. The peaks and
shoulders of the Cascades loomed against it purplish black, but all
their base, the valleys, foothills, sank in a white fog that lifted
slowly to meet the dawn. The sky warmed to yellow; a far spur flushed.
He felt the rising moisture in the air, drew a damp breath. A belt of
high cloud crimsoned, and he saw nothing more.
The fog closed in, billow on billow, flooding the canyon, lapping the
ledge where he stopped. Then for a moment the white sea parted, and the
granite tower hung tilting over the abyss. It stood solitary, like a
lighthouse on a stormy coast, and in another instant was blotted out.
He dismounted, and with his hand on his horse's neck, his hat pushed
back, stood watching these waves, flowing, separating, rolling together,
rushing out. "And it's something you can't grapple with, or put down,"
he said at last. "You've got to push into it, blind, or wait for it to
break. It's like the future. That's it; I could give a year or two to
the grind at Freeport, easily enough, if I was only reasonably sure.
But it's all a chance. A chance that no other man will stumble on my
find, or want this section, or the water power, a chance,--" he began to
smooth the black's mane gently,--"a chance, old boy, that she will care
enough for me, some day, to wait for me."
The defiance faded from his face. He took his lariat coil, and seating
himself on a rock, allowed the horse to go the length of the rope,
seeking a scant forage. Presently he breathed a whistle; it settled
into a definite tune:
[Illustration: Music fragment]
He went over it again and again, with variations that were not the notes
of a flute, nor yet of a thrush but something of each and more; an
expression so sweet, so tender, so full of subtlety, that you must have
guessed the meaning even though you had never heard the words of the
song.
He broke off finally and sat for a long interval looking absently into
the fog. When he started to his feet a brisk wind was blowing and
overhead the mist was like pulverized gold. "Come, Colonel," he said,
"we must get out of this; I can't afford to wait any longer and you must
put me back in camp inside an hour."
But suddenly, as he turned his horse, picking up the thread of trail
which on rock and heather was repeatedly lost, a broad shaft of sunshine
struck the hilltop, and directly the crest of Mt. Rainier rose like a
phantom from the rushing sea. Then everywhere, through the fog that
parted and closed, and parted again like a rent curtain in the wind,
dome and pinnacle gleamed opal or rose in the full glory of the morning.
And the sun went with him down the slope, touching the higher spurs, the
tops of the firs, and finally the small white tent in the open, and the
edge of the dense undergrowth that followed the watercourse.
Myers welcomed him with a long "Hello," and the teacher waved her hand
and stood for a moment watching him as he wound down between the great
boles, then she turned her attention to the broiling trout which she
herself had caught below the falls. The soft flush of the early morning
was on her cheek; its sparkle was in her eyes.
But during breakfast he had little to say to her; he seemed more
interested in the settler and his views of homestead and pre-emption
rights, timber laws and government surveys.
"I 'low," said Eben, "you ain't countin' on takin' up ord'nary land,
yourself? You're jest huntin' fur a gold mine."
"There's nothing I would like better than to find and open up my lost
prospect," answered Forrest, "but, if I could spare the time now,
to-day, I should file on this section, right here in the heart of the
red firs. It's the best vacant piece I know of."
"Do you mean," asked Alice, with awakened interest, "that you would
homestead it, like any settler?"
"Yes; and put a timber filing on the quarter adjoining to take in those
fine old trees up the slope. It's one of the best stretches of red fir
in the whole Washington forest."
"But," she said thoughtfully, "there is plenty of fine standing timber
close to the Sound, where transportation to the lumber mills is easy;
here it would be a tremendous problem."
"True, and I shouldn't think of spoiling this park for years. It's just
a good section to hold for the future. And, well, I'm fond of the place;
I shall be sorry to know any other man has taken possession."
"I see," she said after a moment, "I see. And of course you would
secure the water power at the same time. And while you lived here you
would be close at hand to carry on your prospecting, perhaps
development."
"Yes, that's what I've wanted to do, but"--he shook his head and looked
at her with his smile of the eyes,--"that position at the Freeport mills
was too good to refuse; and if I do find my mine, it's going to call for
capital at the start. I can't expect to interest other money until I am
able to make some sort of a showing."
He rose to his feet and stood looking off to a high shoulder of the
hills. Then, presently, he and Eben were starting on their tramp, the
day of search for the lost prospect. The sun fell in long shafts
between the boughs and her glance followed him from light to shade.
Martha also, standing a few steps away, looked in the same direction,
her head bent a little forward, her knotted fingers shading her anxious
eyes.
"Ther ain't many like him," she said at length, dropping her hand.
"No," answered the teacher, absently, "no; walking or riding, it's a
pleasure to watch him. He is so strong, so self-reliant and yet
so--kind; in every way he is the finest man I know. He stands alone."
"I meant Eben," said Martha with her shadowy smile. She paused, watching
the teacher's face, for she flushed hotly to the ears. "He's
good-looking, an' he's got consider'ble grit when he gets started. He's
always a plannin' an' a studyin', but he ain't ever hed er show. Ef he
hed, I don't s'pose I'd ever a got him."
"I'm sure," said Alice warmly, "Mr. Myers himself won a great prize.
Why, you plow, sow, reap; you milk and drive the herds. You carry on
the whole farm. He never could do without you."
"He always 'lowed I was a good worker," and Martha turned to gather up
the breakfast things.
Presently the teacher asked, "With a clear trail, about how long would
it take to ride from here to the schoolhouse?"
"Why, I jedge you could do it in erbout five hours. It's roundabout,
you see, an' you'd hev ter go clear to our place an' ercross."
"But with a new branch cut directly through?"
"Land, you could do it in half ther time, an' take er stepper like
Colonel, he could make it in two hours, or likely one an' er half."
The teacher began to walk back and forth through the open. Her hands
were clasped loosely behind her, she looked off absently through the
trees, and her swift thoughts alternately clouded and brightened her
speaking face. After a while she approached Forrest's picketed horse.
He lifted his head from the luscious grass and she stood for a moment
smoothing his ruffled mane. "If we only could do it," she said softly,
"if we only could, Colonel; it would pay your hire."
Later, while they were walking to the river, she, herself, displayed a
sudden interest in homestead laws, gathering from Mrs. Myers both small
and valuable detail as to the methods of clearing land and building a
cabin.
Martha found a seat below the falls and took out her knitting, a sock
for Eben, while the teacher chose a place a little down-stream and
opened her sketchbook. She began to outline the cataract, but she
studied the perspective less and less and finally not at all. Then for
an idle interval she leaned on the boulder at her elbow and looked
dreamily up through the great park. When she bent again to her work,
behold, the torrent was but a background for a figure, young, well-knit,
in short sack coat and trousers bound in leggins. And so engrossed was
she in producing those strong lines of brow and chin, the quiet,
searching, humor-haunting eyes, the mouth severe yet tender, that she
did not know that Martha had risen quickly, and stood listening with her
alert gaze searching the jungle directly behind her. She was only
roused by the close snapping of a branch and a sudden sense of peril.
She started to her feet, dropping the book, and faced the thicket. The
color went from her lips. There, in a tangle of hazel, tawny, handsome,
with swaying tail and brilliant eyes fixed on her, stood a well grown
cougar.
The next instant Martha reached her side. She had caught up from the
ground a stout bough, and she swung it, thrust it at the brute,
shouting. Alice, quick to grasp the expedient, armed herself with
another fallen branch. The beast gave back a step, another, and the two
women pressed him slowly, cautiously. At length he turned and slunk
reluctantly away into the timber.
"Ef Eben hed left ther gun," said Martha, wiping the perspiration from
her face, "it 'ud saved us consider'ble bother. But I jedge we best get
back ter the open an' hev er look at ther horses."
Alice stood with her eyes fixed on the point where the cougar had
disappeared. Her breast heaved with deep, quick breaths and she still
grasped her heavy hemlock bough with both hands. At last she dragged
her gaze away and met Martha's serious glance. She could not speak but
her spirit rose and recognized in silent tribute, the great soul of the
pioneer.
Martha put her shoulder to an encroaching bough and led the way back to
the stream. Presently she stooped and picked up the sketchbook, and,
having smoothed the leaves, gave it to the artist. Then Alice said
slowly, "I shall always remember--as long as I live--what you did."
"Oh, land," and Martha smiled, "it wa'n't much ter do. An' a cougar's
ther biggest coward in ther woods. He wouldn't dast ter tech er man,
lest he was cornered or hungry; but I 'low he hed er pretty good chanct
when he kem ercross you."
A little farther on she possessed herself of her dropped knitting, and,
having gained the path, she moved towards camp, setting her needles and
picking up lost stitches. But her knotty fingers worked mechanically;
they trembled slightly, and her anxious eyes repeatedly swept the
jungle. She knew that a cougar, hunting, does not so easily abandon his
quarry. Though cautious, hesitating, he trails his game for hours,
constantly preparing for, while he is diverted from an attack. She also
knew that, like the human coward, once assailed and cornered, he becomes
a fury.
In the open they found Ginger standing with hoofs planted like a figure
in stone; but the black, in his terror, had circled and recircled the
alder to which he was tied, winding his lariat, and, reduced to an
arm's-length of rope, he made short and frenzied plunges to break free.
Suddenly he stopped, dragged back the limit of the line, and stood
trembling.
Instantly Martha understood. She ran forward, dropping her knitting,
and picked up another bough. The cougar had reached a vine maple a few
rods from the black. She saw his tawny body outstretched on the great
curving branch of the parted bole. "Pile them pieces o' spruce on ther
fire," she said coolly. "Make er smoke. Then slack up Colonel's rope
an' get him back behind it."
She stepped between the horse and the cougar, again lifting the heavy
limb, swinging it, thrusting it, but avoiding direct contact with the
beast, and renewing her shouts. Before she had finished her directions
Alice had caught up a resinous branch and thrown it on the embers. It
crackled noisily and sent out a great cloud of smoke, which the wind,
setting from the river, carried directly into the eyes and nostrils of
the panther. He began to retreat, snarling, along the maple. Presently
he dropped to the ground, and while Martha pressed him, step by step,
the girl, who had succeeded in loosening the lariat, urged the horse
around the fire.
Again the cougar turned and disappeared. Colonel was finally picketed
near the old cedar trunk, and they piled fresh boughs on the fire, still
pursuing the panther with thick, pungent smoke. Then they rested,
gathering themselves, in the brief reprieve, for his certain return.
The black, less panic-ridden, continued to listen or tug at his rope.
The other horse began to browse. The suspense pressed. Then, suddenly,
a rifle shot startled the solitudes. And while the two women stood
marking the puff of smoke, which rose a few yards off, there came a
clamor of snarls. Two hounds slunk through the underbrush into the open
and waited, shaking. A second report rang through the hills, then, the
cries having ceased, one of the dogs plucked up courage and sounded a
clarion. After a moment his mate returned into the thicket, alert,
cautious, feeling ground. The first hound crept in his wake, and
directly their baying, multiplied as by a score of throats, filled the
wood.
The dogs were Laramie's, and the women followed them, seeking their
master, but the hunter was Mose. The cougar was stretched in his death
throes before him, on a bed of trampled fern and broken boughs.
"Saprie," he exclaimed as the teacher approached, "if I ees have dat gun
of Laramie's I doan' have some trouble to keel heem de firs' shot. But
dis gun dat Yelm Jim ees lend to me, he ees buy long tam 'go to de
Hudson Bay Companee; an' for sure dey ees sell heem one no 'count Injun
gun."
"Oh," said Alice, her voice shaking, "it was a grand shot--Mose. And
you--you came--just--in time."
"Monjee, Mees, ees it dis cougar ees give you some trouble, a'ready?"
She could not speak again directly; she could only nod her head,
affirmatively. But Martha smiled grimly. "Wal, yes," she said; "he's
be'n er trailin' us, off 'n on, fur a good spell; an' Eben, he's
prospectin' down ther canyon with ther rifle."
"So," said Mose, "so, but it ees good t'ing I come 'long den. You see
dose dogs ees track me las' night to Yelm Jim's cabane, an' I ees keep
dem to hunt some mowitch to-day. Dey ees fine dogs for trail de deer,
ya-as, but A'm mooch shame how dey ees scare' of dis cougar. Cultus
Pichou." He paused to cuff aside one of the snuffing hounds. "So you
ees come back now, hey? You ees have de brave heart now dat you ees see
dis cougar ees be keel. Nawitka, Mees, you doan' have to be some more
'fraid. Dis sacre cougar," and he thrust his foot against the lax body,
"he ees sure 'nough dead."
They went back to the open, but in a little while, when Mose had been
shown the maple where the cougar had crept in ambush, and the clump of
hazels where he had first appeared, the boy returned to secure the pelt.
Martha joined him, but Alice stopped at the old cedar trunk and sank
down into its chairlike arms. On a log near her Mrs. Myers had left the
provision bag, and not far from it, against a fir, Mose had stood the
musket. She felt a security in the gun and in having him within call,
and she closed her eyes, relaxing her strained muscles and nerves.
She was roused by some moving body in the underbrush, and she started up
instantly, at tight tension once more. A man was retreating from the
open into the jungle, riverward. He looked back, scowling over his
shoulder at her, and she recognized the shaggy, unkempt head and gaunt
face of Slocum. The next moment he was gone, and with him had
disappeared the food supply and Yelm Jim's musket.
She ran, calling Mose, and met him returning with the pelt. But there
was nothing he could do. It was useless, unarmed, to trail the
trespasser. He stood staring in the direction the man had taken; the
color glowed in his cheeks. He dropped the skin in a heap on the ground
and clenched his hands, slowly, twice, as he had the day at school when
Laramie struck him. But his volubility died. The Indian in him wakened
and effaced the White. His lips set in a thin line; his face became a
mask through which his eyes only flamed heat. Presently he turned and
stalked swiftly away, towards the settlement. He stopped once to
whistle the dogs, but when Alice followed him, calling him back, it was
as though he had not heard.
"Oh," she said, returning to Martha, "Yelm Jim will blame him. He may
punish him, cruelly."
"Land, no," answered Martha. "Ef it hed be'n Laramie's gun, I 'low Mose
'ud get licked in an inch o' his life, but Yelm Jim ain't goin' ter
blame him. He's more likely ter watch fur a good chanct to take it
out'n some white man. Don't matter who, long's he's white."
She went over and picked up the cougar skin and spread it on the earth,
showing it from tip to tip. "Mose took him here in the shoulder," she
said, "an' his second shot fixed him right atween ther eyes. Measures
'bout nine feet."
But the teacher had turned away. She went back to the cedar stump and
stood leaning weakly on it, looking off in the direction of the canyon.
It seemed very far off.
Presently Martha joined her. She had prepared a pointed stick by
holding it in the fire, and the end of it still smouldered. "I'm goin'
down-stream ter dig wapato," she said. "Them two prospectors is goin'
ter be terrible hungry when they get back, an' it'll taste pretty good."
Alice had seen this edible root, which is a favorite food among the
Indians; it grew in profusion along the watercourse. "I will go with
you and help," she said, "unless I had better stay to watch the horses."
Martha stood a thoughtful moment looking at the black. "I dunno," she
said, "how Dick Slocum kem to leave Colonel. He hed er mighty good
chanct to take er horse that 'ud carry him out er ther country, easy.
But he was mighty scared o' makin' er noise, an' got erway in er
terrible hurry. I jedge he didn't 'low ther was only one gun in ther
crowd; he hedn't located Eben an' ther rifle."
But evidently the outlaw had located the rifle, for, lifting her keen
eyes Martha discovered Forrest, the gun in the curve of his arm, coming
swiftly down the glade. His glance swept the open anxiously, as he
approached, but at sight of the girl, unharmed, the tense lines softened
in his face. "I thought I heard a shot," he said, and his look again
searched the place for the hunter; "I fixed it at about here. But I see
I was mistaken. The truth is," he shook his head, smiling at his folly,
"I got it into my head that you needed me. I couldn't think of anything
else. You see you were so incautious yesterday, at the river; then,
too, I blamed myself for leaving you without the protection of Eben's
rifle. And I had forgotten to give you your book. You dropped it
yesterday at the canyon, and I was afraid the time would drag without
anything to read."
He drew the little volume from his pocket, and flushing, conscious of
the shallowness of his excuse, looked off, riverward.
"I jedge," said Martha briefly, "ef you head right off fur ther river,
up-stream, you kin hit Dick Slocum's trail. He's jest gone off 'ith ther
rations, bag an' all. Keep ther rifle handy; he's took Mose Laramie's
gun."
Then for the first time Forrest looked straight at the girl. The line
drew black between his brows. He saw that her face was grimy with smoke
and moisture; that the hand which had taken the book was scratched,
bruised, stained. "Slocum? Then I did hear a shot." His voice was
quiet, but it took a new quality, the streak of iron outcropping in the
man. "He did not offer to touch you?"
"No, oh, no." She swayed a little on her feet; it was difficult to find
words. "The shot you heard was Mose's. He--"
But that was enough. Forrest was off, pushing swiftly towards the
river, picking up the fugitive's trail. Martha followed him a short
distance, then turned down-stream. It was not her way to wait in
idleness for the chance rescue of the provision bag, and she began
industriously to dig the wapato. Presently she selected a more stubborn
plant and dropped to her knees. "He kem back jest ter bring that ther
book," she said slowly, thrusting the sharpened stick deep into the
earth, "an' mebbe ther rifle. Lost 'bout half er day's prospectin'.
An' he 'lowed he only hed one ter spare. Ef it don't beat all."
But the complete day was lost. The rich ledge, of which he had once
found strong indications, remained locked in that secret passage of the
hills for any chance comer to stumble upon. The search for Slocum also
proved fruitless. Even Myers, who sauntered into camp an hour after
Forrest, to learn what kept the young prospector, failed to trail the
outlaw beyond a rocky point half a mile up-stream, where he presumably
had taken advantage of low water to push up the gravelly bars of the
river bed.
The two searchers returning met near camp. "I jedge," said Eben dryly,
"ther next time we count on doin' any prospectin', we'll leave ther
women folks ter home."
Forrest made no answer and the settler put his shoulder to a clump of
alders and pushed through. The late sun, slanting between the branches,
was in his eyes, but across the open he saw his wife at the camp-fire,
preparing her dish of wapato. "I dunno," he added, "but what Marthy's
er pretty good hand ter have erlong sometimes. An' I 'low ef she hed hed
ther rifle she'd er fetched that ther cougar. Marthy's er mighty fine
shot."
"Cougar?" repeated Forrest, "what cougar?"
Eben stopped and looked back. "Didn't they tell you 'bout that cougar?
Mose kem erlong an' killed him; they was keepin' him off with bresh.
An' Mose was takin' ther pelt when Slocum sneaked in an' lit out with
his gun."
Forrest asked no more. He pushed by Myers into the open, and stumbled
over something damp and soft that clung to his shoes. It was the skin;
the hairy side, turned back at the end where he had tripped, was of the
tawny, unmistakable color familiar in those days to every woodsman on
Puget Sound.
Alice was coming across the grass to meet him. He moved back a step,
steadying himself with one hand on an alder. His whole young, well-knit
body shook. "Alice," he said, and his voice rang, deepened, and broke.
"Alice--what happened?"
"Nothing--" she looked at the skin,--"Mose killed him. Nothing
happened. But Paul,--it was the closest--" she laughed a little,
bravely--"'_the closest--shave--I ever had._'"
*CHAPTER V*
*STRATTON'S WAY*
"Yes, sir, he's ther great tyee, an' I've hed him spotted sence spring."
Lem waded a few steps to a flat rock under the bank and seated himself
disgustedly. "An' I hed him hooked, an' er clawin' fur all he was worth
in er riffle, 'ithout 'nough water ter carry him over, when you kem
poundin' up ther trail an' scared him clear outn his skin. Picked
hisself up like er reg'lar grasshopper an' got erway 'ith er bran' new
line."
"Too bad." Stratton checked his restless horse and sat looking down at
the boy with his mocking smile. "But here is the price of the best
tackle to be had at Yelm Station. Better luck next time."
Lem caught the piece of silver and studied it closely.
"Oh, gee!" he began but clapped his hand over his mouth, and put the
coin swiftly away into his pocket. He sprawled out on the rock and
trailed the toes of one bare foot sensuously in the stream, regarding
the rider with a sidelong look that said plainly, "I bet you want
somethin' o' me."
"I suppose," said Stratton, "that Miss Hunter, the teacher, has gone
home?"
"Naw." Lem cast up his eyes with a grim smile. "She stopped ter write
er letter to her sister after school; takes her a good spell, an' I kem
on erhead to wait round here at ther creek. She ain't needin' me so
much on ther trail sence ther timber-cruiser left his horse fur her."
"The timber-cruiser?" repeated Stratton. "I see, you mean Forrest. And
he left the black for her use?"
"You bet; ther ain't nothin' half-way 'bout him; an' I 'low he thinks
when it kems to ther schoolmarm ther ain't nothin' too good fur her."
"Yes?" Stratton checked his horse again, watching the boy quizzically.
"What grounds have you for believing that, Jonathan?"
"My name's Lemuel; you kin call me Lem fur short." He paused long
enough to give the correction weight, then said, "I dunno. He ain't
ther kind ter make much show, but I bet ther roots strikes deep. An'
ma, she calc'lates he thinks ther sun 'bout rises an' sets in ther
school-marm."
"Yes?" repeated Stratton dryly. "Well, I should not wonder. Your
mother is a shrewd and practical judge."
"Dad," the boy continued, warming to his subject, "he 'lowed ther
schoolmarm must have give him ther cold shoulder that time up in ther
hills. He didn't seem to care er durn 'bout losin' his hull day o'
prospectin'; never said er word, an' he'd be'n countin' on findin' that
ther lost mine o' his fur more'n er year. But ma, she jedged he was
jest all broke up on 'count o' that cougar."
Stratton had heard the story. It was one to carry far, to gather weight
with repetition, and Eben, as the settlement historian, had been
particularly glad to add it to his repertoire. There was a brief
silence, during which the rider waited, smiling a little, and Lem
thoughtfully trailed his other foot in the current, then, "Mebbe she has
took the bit in her teeth fur er spell," he went on, "but ef he jest
keeps er stiff upper lip she'll kem 'round. Er girl's bound ter show
some spirit ef she's any 'count. Er man's got ter handle her 'bout like
that ther sorrel filly of Mill Thornton's. He kin chase her all over
ther pasture fur half er day, an' she'll keep gettin' more skittish an'
shy, but ther minute he lets on he don't give er durn, an' goes an' sets
down by ther bars fur er rest, she'll kem nosin' over his shoulder,
huntin' his pockets fur sugar. Mill hisself 'lows girls is 'bout that
erway, an' he'd orter know."
"Yes? And why should he, particularly, know?"
"On 'count o' Cousin Samanthy. Ther hull settlement's be'n calc'lating
what she'll do 'bout Mill, fur ther last year."
"And who is Cousin Samantha?"
"Land, don't you know? Her dad owns that ther ranch down ter the
prairie, close ter Yelm Station. Likely she was tendin' Post Office, ef
it was train time, when you kem past."
"Yes, yes, she was." Stratton laughed softly, and allowed his horse to
pace down into the stream. "So that pretty coquette I saw at the
Station is your cousin. Well, well."
"You bet. I 'low she's pretty 'nough, an' sassy, too, as ther Lord
makes 'em. An' she always lets on she thinks er sight more o' that
there sorrel filly than she does o' Mill."
Stratton laughed again, and the chestnut splashed on through the ford
and trotted up the opposite bank. A little later he stopped at the
schoolhouse, and the young man dismounted and went up to the open door.
The teacher was there, writing at her desk. She looked up, and, seeing
him on the steps, continued her paragraph. She had thought over that
chance meeting at the canyon a good many times, wondering at Forrest's
behavior, yet assuring herself that his reason was just; it gathered
weight since he had not been able to give her an explanation. Paul was
not a man of moods; it was his way to see any man's best until he had
strong proof of his other side. Still, this stranger was so
interesting, so polished, so well accoutered, so altogether different
from any she had met on the Nisqually trail, or for that matter,
anywhere, it was a pity there should be something objectionable in the
way of knowing him. She told herself this while she wrote her signature,
and folding the sheet, fitted it in an envelope, which she sealed and
addressed before she again raised her eyes.
He waited, watching her, smiling a little, interested, but embarrassed
not at all. "Now may I come in?" he asked.
She did not answer, but she rose from her chair, and surprised, holding
her head high, stood with the lovely color coming and going in her face,
while he walked up the aisle.
"I am sure, Miss Hunter," he said, "that you must have heard all about
me by now. I know your sister so well; but I have somewhere,"--he felt
in one pocket, then another,--"the necessary introduction from the
Captain, your brother-in-law. Ah, here it is."
So he had a letter from Philip. Of course that changed the situation.
She could not be rude to him, but--she _would be careful_. And his
manner in presenting the note was after all irreproachable. He had at
once the grace of a Southerner, and the unhurried pose of an English
gentleman; there was, too, the touch of an accent in his deliberate
speech, at times almost a drawl, that made her wonder if it had been
inherited, with his long black lashes, from a French or perhaps Spanish
mother.
"Of course," she said, "I am always glad to meet my sister's or the
Captain's friends. You must have come directly from him; perhaps you
have seen her lately."
"Yes, I saw them both in Olympia the day before yesterday. In fact your
sister made me the bearer of a good many messages to you. I wish I
could remember them all. But, most important, she is coming out,
herself, to see you within a week. The Captain is getting an outfit
together for a trip to Mt. Rainier, and he hopes, if you can arrange for
a short vacation, to take you and Mrs. Kingsley as far, at least, as the
warm springs."
"Oh," she said, and the coolness dropped from her face like a broken
mask, "it will be lovely. Lovely. I knew he would let me go. And I
can arrange a week of vacation; the directors have been considering it,
for the older boys are needed through harvest."
"Then," he said, and his own face seemed to catch and reflect the light
in hers, "I am doubly glad that the Captain has asked me to complete the
party."
Her position on the edge of the platform brought her eyes almost on a
level with his, and she met his look for a steady, searching,
questioning instant. "Lem is waiting for me at the creek," she said,
and went down and took her hat from its peg on the wall.
*CHAPTER VI*
*MOSE*
Yelm Jim sat brooding in his lodge. He was wrapped in his blanket and
an old campaign hat shaded his eyes from the fire, which was kindled on
the packed earth floor, and found partial vent through an opening in the
roof, around which hung haunches of drying venison and bear. The squaw
Clak-la-sum-kah was cooking bread, an unleavened mixture of flour and
water, in a frying-pan over the coals. At the same time she watched
some fine trout, which were suspended from a rod set in forked stakes
above the embers. Mose, who had caught these fish, lounged on a couch
that, built of shakes, extended along three sides of the room, and was
furnished with woven mats of ribbon grass or the bast of cedar. The wall
behind him also was covered with this fabric, which was of the color of
ripened maize.
It was one of those intervals when the boy, having incensed his father,
sought refuge with his mother's people while Laramie's wrath cooled. At
such times the Indian in Mose effaced the white. He bound his head in a
crimson handkerchief, and wrapped himself in a blanket, which
Clak-la-sum-kah had adorned with many buttons for her grandson's use.
He looked a true Klickitat, straight as a young hemlock, lithe as a
nearly grown cougar in the woods. His face was a bronze oval, sharply
chiseled, and he had the eyes of a hawk. He recalled to the old chief
his own youth, when, having a different and much hyphened name, he had
been a leader among the young braves of the powerful Yakima nation
beyond the Cascades; when, hunting the buffalo, he had crossed the
Rockies and skirmished with the Blackfeet, or, exacting tribute from
weaker neighbors, had driven home numberless horses to pasture on the
vast Palouse plains. He found in the boy an appreciative and tireless
listener when he recounted these past glories, and he painted them
brilliantly, in sharp contrast to the colorless present. Mose had no
brave companions, no followers in the hunt, no tribe.
And the whites were responsible for this; they only were to blame. Not
the Hudson Bay men, who, trading for furs, brought guns and many useful
things to the Indians, but the "Bostons," who came at the first to rob
them of their country. From the beginning the Yakimas had understood
and opposed them, and, when at last a thousand warriors had crossed the
Cascades to fall on the white settlements of the salt water, Yelm Jim
had been among them. They had met defeat, and he, himself, had spent
breaking years in the strong house of the "Bostons," and at the end of
his captivity he had found himself poor and forgotten and another tyee
raised in his place. For this reason the old chief had not returned to
his people, but had buried himself in the forest.
But already the white settlers pressed hard on his retreat; axes, the
rasp of saws, their shrill voices scattered the deer. He must go
farther and farther in search of grouse that once had nested almost at
his door; and now, since Slocum had robbed Mose of the musket, the old
chief must set laboriously to work and shape the miserable arrow points
of agate.
When Yelm Jim thought of this final outrage he drew yet more fiercely at
his pipe, and in the shadow of his ragged hatbrim his brows beetled and
gloomed. It was not the right moment for young Kingsley to darken the
doorway.
One of Laramie's hounds, which had again tracked Mose, sprang up
growling, but at a word from the boy settled back whimpering, with his
nose between his paws. His mate, snuffing suspiciously, moved to the
intruder's feet.
His familiar "Clahowya," said in a big, frank voice, startled the lodge
and the first dog belled a note.
"Clahowya," he repeated. "Hello."
Still no answer except a longer note from the hound.
The young man stopped in the entrance and took off his hat, using it
slowly as a fan. His close-cropped hair clung in damp, blond waves to
his shapely head. The tan of a brief outing had not spoiled his unusual
fairness; his face in the shadows was white, but his black eyes gathered
depth and brilliancy.
"I think you are the young fellow I'm looking for," he said, addressing
the indifferent boy on the couch. "It's dark to one coming in from the
sunlight, and that blanket and handkerchief hardly tally with the
description I had of you, but you must be Mose."
The boy regarded the trout which the squaw was turning. "Nawitka," he
said.
"You are? Well then, Mose, I want you to guide us to Mt. Rainier." He
paused, but the boy was silent and the old chief continued to draw
deeply at his pipe. "You understand," he went on, "we are going to the
mountain and want you to show us the way. If the weather stays fine I
mean to try for the summit. Nika cumtux?" And he repeated in Chinook
with an elaborate gesture, "Copa si-yah top."
Mose expressed his appreciation of the man's attempt at the language in
a fleeting smile, but he made no reply. Yelm Jim also was silent, but he
drew yet more furiously at his pipe.
"Let him go with us," continued Kingsley, addressing the chief, "and you
shall have that pair of brown blankets you were so interested in
yesterday, at the camp."
Still another pause. "If he goes with me up the mountain you can have
all my blankets, the tents, the whole outfit, when we come back," added
Kingsley.
Then Clak-la-sum-kah rose from her squatting posture by the fire and
said in her vehement guttural, "Wake, wake. Mose wake clatawa. Wake
clatawa copa si-yah illahee. Tyee Sahgalee hyas solleks. Hy-as
solleks. Mose wake clatawa."
Kingsley looked from her to the boy, puzzled. "What is it she says?"
Mose rose from his lounging position and drew his blanket close.
"Clak-la-sum-kah ees say 'no.' You mus' un'stan' Tyee Sahgalee ees same
you all tam call God. Dat top of Rainier ees His plas. He doan' lak it
for sure, we go dare. Sacre, dat mountain ees goin' shake an' smoke an'
mek mooch fire we go dare, you can beli've it. But ya-as, Yelm Jim ees
see it do dat long tam 'go. He ees say Tyee Sahgalee, ees be mad,
because de firs' white man ees come."
Kingsley threw back his head and laughed. "I see," he said, "I see.
And your Indian God wanted to reserve this country for his favorite
people. But it's all foolishness, Mose; you ought to know it. That
priest of your father's, who has been coming out here every month from
Olympia, must have taught you different. You don't believe any such
heathen nonsense. And you will show us over the trail. You aren't
afraid to try the summit with me, though I doubt there's another boy in
the settlement would dare."
"I ees hunt on dat mountain, si-yah, to de red snow," answered the boy
slowly; "no Indian ees go pas' de red snow."
There was another silence. Kingsley ran his hand lightly down a tawny
pelt that hung in the doorway. "Miss Hunter showed me that other cougar
skin," he said. "She thinks you saved her life." He paused a grave
moment, still stroking the fur. "And I know the story of this one.
It's the pelt of the one you faced on that log crossing over the Des
Chutes. You stopped to take careful aim, with the brute snarling, and
the log dipping and heaving to the freshet underneath. And when he
dropped no one else would have plunged into the flood as you did; not
even to save this skin."
Mose's lips parted in his fleeting smile. "Dat ees not good plas to
swim by Laramie's claim; monjee, no."
Yelm Jim shook his head slowly, and for the first time broke his silence
with a profound, "Ugh."
"It was all the woods afloat that day," said Kingsley, "Myers told
me,--and the drift tearing down a current gone mad." He paused again
and his glance moved to a great shaggy trophy against the matting on the
farther wall. "And that," he added, "must be the pelt of the cinnamon
bear you met up in the hills, single-handed, with just your knife."
"Nawitka." A sudden fire leaped in the old chief's eyes. "Hy-as close
peltry. Mose hy-as shookum tumtum. Hy-as skookum."
"Mose has the strong heart," interpreted Kingsley. "Strong heart, yes.
I tell you I'd have paid a stiff price to see that encounter."
"It ees good skin," said Mose, simply. "Oh, ya-as, for sure."
"See here, Mose,--" the young man drew nearer,--"in the face of all this
you can't make me believe you're afraid of Rainier."
"A'm not 'fraid anyt'ing dese woods; bear, cougar, hi-yu water, snow,
doan' mek me 'fraid. But Tyee Sahgalee, ugh." Mose drew his shoulders
high in eloquent conclusion, and resuming his place on the couch, turned
his face.
Kingsley laughed once more. "Oh, well, think it over. We shall start
for the mountain anyway, whether we have a guide or not. We shall break
camp the day after to-morrow. Let me know if you make up your mind to
go, Mose; and you had better look at those blankets. They are pretty
fine."
He turned away then, taking the river trail, and, as he went, his lips
shaped a gay whistle. Once, as he approached his camp, he turned from
the path and stepped out on a fallen fir that served as a footbridge to
a green island, and looking up-stream saw the splendor of a northern
sunset on the mighty dome. "I don't wonder they believe it," he said.
"I don't wonder."
Almost an hour later Mose also stopped at this crossing and lifted his
eyes to the mountain. It loomed, vast, white, symmetrical against the
darkening east, its consecrated summit touched with a holy fire. He
waited while the glory paled to opal and to a cold silver. When he
turned from the log his lips set in a thin line; his eyes narrowed; his
face hinted of cruelty.
Laramie's hounds had followed him; they crept through the underbrush at
heel. But suddenly, on the edge of the mam trail, he stopped and laid
his hand on one of them. "Back, Pichou," he said. "Monjee, down, down,
so."
He remained almost hidden by a tangle of alder, while two riders passed.
Neither noticed him; the teacher was talking, and Stratton, though he
might have lifted his arm and touched the boy, turned his head to watch
her face. They moved slowly, at a walk, until the thoroughbred,
sighting the waiting figure, started, and, dancing, crowding the black,
circled suspiciously by. Then, directly, both horses broke into a light
canter, taking advantage of the bit of wider track.
Mose stepped out into the trail and stood looking after them, but his
gaze rested on Stratton's mount. He loved the thoroughbred, coveted
him, every inch of the long sleek body, the slender limbs, the swelling
chest, the dappled shading, that, like a reflection of leaves on a
forest pool, ran through the shining, chestnut coat. Surely there was
never another like him. Even among those fine herds of which Yelm Jim
boasted this horse must stand the chief, the glory of the whole Palouse
plains, the envy of the proudest Yakima.
He walked on towards the bend around which the horses had disappeared.
The noise of the river was in his ears. After a while the air grew
resinous with burning firboughs, and finally, through the trees, he
caught the glow of Kingsley's camp-fire. He and his wife had chosen to
pitch their tents here on the bank of the Nisqually, rather than to
share the cramped quarters of the settler.
She was seated with the teacher on a log in the full light of the
blazing boughs, when Mose stopped on the edge of the open to
reconnoiter, and he saw instantly their resemblance to each other. The
two men, resting a little apart, listened amusedly to their eager
conversation, while nearer, but to the right, Mill Thornton stood with
his hand at the bit of the young sorrel, waiting for a last word with
Samantha Myers.
She had joined the camp to "help an' hev er little fun." And she was a
slim, graceful girl,--"all tech an' go," Eben would have told you,--with
the beautiful color that is as delicate as the tints of a seashell, and
yet impervious to life out-of-doors. Her hair, as fine as corn silk,
was pale red, and when she bent over the tin reflector, in which she was
cooking some very light rolls, her head seemed to catch the vital charm
of the flames.
"But," Thornton was saying, "kem to think of it, I never see er Myers
yet that wasn't er good cook. Ther's your Uncle Eben, when he's driv to
it, he kin stir up a flapjack, an' turn her at eggsactly ther minute.
Beats all. Yes," he resumed in afterthought, "take 'em as er fambly,
ther Myerses is er pretty smart crowd; but you, well, I don't keer how
many's on ther tree, Samanthy, you're ther peach."
She stood erect and flashed him a look that startled the boldness from
his young eyes. "Mebbe I am, Mill," she said, gently, "but I bet, even
ef you do think so, you wouldn't spare the sorrel long 'nough fur me to
ride ter Rainier."
"No," he answered, flushing, "no, I wouldn't. She ain't well 'nough
broke. You oughter not ask me."
"I'd resk her," she urged still, sweetly, and smiled into his troubled
face; "I'd love ter ride her, Mill. But," she went on after a pause,
and shrugging her shoulders, drew herself aloof, "you're jest like Jake.
He's turrible 'fraid I'd get Ketchem killed."
"And yourself, too," he said warmly.
"But Uncle Eben," she added, "he 'lows I kin ride. He ain't so powerful
scared 'bout--_Ginger_."
With this she laughed, her hands on her hips, her elbows shaking, and
Thornton, himself laughing deeply, in keen appreciation, turned to set
his foot in the stirrup. "You're all right, Samanthy," he said. "You're
all right, but I 'low it wa'n't a peach I meant; it was jest er sassy
sweetbrier rose. It's so blame' innercent lookin' an' soft, but er
feller can't tech it 'ithout feelin' ther thorns."
The horse started, but she tripped after him a step to say softly, "Say,
Mill, why don't you call it eglantine?"
He wheeled. "Who calls it eglantine?"
She laid a warning finger on her lip. "Mr. Stratton. But I never sensed
what he was talkin' 'bout tell he showed me that ther sweetbrier growin'
ther by the table."
"Was he meanin' you?"
She started back to the reflector, but paused to nod her head over her
shoulder; a hundred imps danced in her eyes. "I'd love ter hear you
call me that, Mill. My stars--eglantine!"
Her lips bubbled laughter; it followed him, teasing, taunting, as he
rode on through the wood.
Mose, passing him, stalked into the open and towards the farther group.
Kingsley waved his hand in careless recognition, and rising, threw back
his tent-fly and drew out the blankets. "Well, Mose," he said, "what do
you think of these?"
The boy bent to feel their texture gravely. "Dey ess plent' good 'nough
blankets, monjee, ya-as, an Yelm Jim ees tell me--_go_. But Tyee
Sahgalee ees goin' be hy-as mad. Sacre, it ees pos'ble he ees keel you.
Den, merci, some more white man doan' lak go Rainier."
He turned with this and stalked swiftly back into the gloom. Alice rose
in astonishment. Kingsley laughed. "If I should lose myself over a
precipice," he said, "or drop into a crevasse, I suppose he would
believe it was all the vengeance of his Indian God."
"But," she answered, "his father is a devout Catholic. The priest is
making an acolyte of Mose." She sank back, helplessly, into her place.
"I--I suppose it's impossible for him to grasp everything"--she was
thinking of Laramie and the globe--"at once."
Her sister leaned towards Kingsley. A sudden apprehension rose in her
great, dark eyes, and her voice, in emotion, dropped to contralto notes.
"I wish you would give up that idea of trying for the summit," she said.
He laughed again, tossing his fine head. "Oh, don't bother, Louise; I
shall be safe enough with Stratton along. He never takes a risk."
Stratton smiled and adjusted the rolled blankets to his back, leaning on
them comfortably. "The Captain's right," he said. "He knows me. I
always ask myself first, 'Is it safe?' And then, 'Is it worth while?'"
The teacher looked at him a searching moment and arched her brows. Then
she reached and lifted her sister's guitar from the end of the log. Her
fingers trailed briefly over the strings and settled in a thread of
tune. She repeated the accompaniment, singing softly, inviting
Kingsley's tenor.
"She shone in the light of declining day,
Each sail was set, and each heart was gay."
And presently the other man hummed an undernote, but Louise was silent.
She had changed her position a little, clasping her hands loosely around
her knee, with her face slightly lifted and turned to the darkening
wood. It was the face of a dreamer, rapt, sensitive, who peopled the
shadows, and to whom the many voices of the night tuned in unbroken
symphony.
In the interlude Kingsley turned to her. "Where is your voice, Louise?
We need the contralto."
She started and looked at him, smiling. It was then she resembled
Alice. The expression was there and the charm; but softened, finer, as
the painting of a master may be reproduced in pastel.
Her voice was beautiful. She took up the song, subduing her notes to
her sister's lighter compass, but the music, that had been simply
pleasing, assumed, suddenly, the touch and finish of grand opera.
For the white squall rides on the surg-ing wave, And the
bark is gulph'd in an o-cean's grave, For the
white squall rides on the surg-ing wave, And the
bark is gulph'd in an o-cean's grave, in an
o-cean's grave, in an o - - ocan's grave.
[Illustration: Music fragment]
*CHAPTER VII*
*THE INSTRUMENT OF TYEE SAHGALEE*
The summer day breaks early in the Puget Sound country. It was not yet
four by Stratton's watch when he stepped from his tent and stood
analyzing the weather, but all the sky overhead was changing to yellow,
and directly, while he looked, to streaks of flame. The heights,
towering a thousand feet on the opposite side of the gorge, were
burnished copper, and Rainier, walling the top of the canyon, warmed to
amethyst and rose. Its crest, at an altitude of nearly fifteen thousand
feet, was hardly seven miles distant.
But the great forest that hemmed in the small open where the camp was
pitched, still gloomed in shadow, and the air was sharp with the breath
of near glacier and snowfield. Stratton saw that Mose had left his
blanket, gone already to bring up the horses, and the close report of a
gun told that Kingsley was off in search of the early bird. Then
Samantha came from the other tent and stirred the smouldering fire. She
added a dry hemlock bough, watching the roused flames fasten on the
resinous wood.
"Good morning, Psyche," he said.
She lifted her glance, nodding. She had a mouth like a Cupid's bow and
the short upper lip twitched with enforced gravity before the shaft
sped. "Ef you hed er wife, I 'low she'd get er new name 'bout every
day, an' mebbe twicet. Land, it 'ud keep her busy rememberin' who she
was."
She tucked her sleeves up from her tapering arms, and kneeling, dipped
them deep in a bubbling pool. Stratton laughed softly, enjoying her,
and lifting his bag, crossed the open seeking a warm spring, which,
screened in a network of young cedars, afforded a morning plunge. All
along the valley iron and soda deposits discolored the earth, and
mineral water, hot or sharply cold, sparkled in crystal basins.
An hour later the little cavalcade formed in line, with Kingsley leading
on his big white horse, followed by Samantha, whose clear piping voice
rose in alternate upbraiding or admonition, for she rode the indifferent
Ginger. Mose, mounting Yelm Jim's piebald pony, crowded the cayuse with
the two pack animals; then came Louise and the teacher, while Stratton
closed the rear.
The trail became more and more precipitous, switch-backing across the
face of a spur, taking the edge of a cliff, breaking into sharp pitches
to a rushing ford. Trunks, logs, netlike boughs, shelving rock crowded
close. The head of the Nisqually and its glacier were not far off.
Then finally they turned up its beautiful tributary, the Paradise. Over
the stream Eagle Peak, the first of the Tatoosh Mountains, lifted a
tremendous front, and boulders, hurled from it, blocked the limpid
current, creating innumerable cascades. The air was flooded with
drifting spray, and the wet, luxuriant earth, reflecting the sun, filled
the gorge with playing color.
At last Alice drew rein near the brink fronting a great cataract.
Stratton dismounted and went to tighten her horse's girth. "Are you a
little afraid?" he asked.
"Afraid? Of the trail? Oh, no. I love it; it's my element. And
Colonel can go anywhere. He picks his way through bogs, pits, better
than I could, and he runs straight up these rocky stairs. I have only
to cling on," and she laughed.
"Well, you can trust him." Stratton's glance moved from her horse to
his own mount and back to the black. "Sir Donald has found his match.
But, how was it that Forrest gave up his horse?"
"He hasn't. I am only keeping Colonel for him, while he is at
Freeport."
"I see," said Stratton slowly, "I see. I hope if the time comes when I
must part with Sir Donald, I can leave him in the same hands."
At this she swept him with a swift, critical look, ruffling her brows.
"I have known Paul Forrest all my life," she said, and turned her eyes
again to the cataract.
"I understand." He smiled a little, both nettled and amused. "Before I
can venture to ask a favor of you, you must know and like me better than
you do now."
She flashed him another look, tilting her chin. "I like you as well as
I could like any American with _un_-American ways."
[Illustration: "'I like you as well as I could like any American with
_un_-American ways.'"]
For an instant he betrayed his surprise, then, "Well, thank you," he
said; "I appreciate your frankness; and perhaps you are right. My
mother was more a French woman than an American; she was a Creole of the
Mississippi. And my grandfather, on the other side, was a factor of the
Hudson Bay Company. My father, I suppose, passed over with New Georgia
into the hands of the United States. After all, it is hard for most any
American to tell in just what generation he began. But I admit I have
lived close to the border, Miss Hunter, often on the other side. In
fact I haven't always been able to determine the line."
"And I," she answered, with a gathering storm in her eyes, "I have lived
all of my life close to the boundary, but in a different way. The best
patriot is he who fights for his home while he defends his country, and
the sun for my family rose and set in 'Fifty-four, forty or fight.' We
know the line; we never crossed to the other side. My grandfather died
with Marcus Whitman."
She spoke then to her horse, starting him briskly. Stratton vaulted into
his saddle. "You touch-me-not!" he said under his breath. "You
touch-me-not!"
Far ahead Samantha approached a second cataract. It was a perilous
place, for the trail, skirting a precipice, rose from a bog in rocky and
winding stairs worn smooth and slippery by continuous spray.
Kingsley's horse cleared the morass; his iron shoes struck fire from the
shelving granite and he set himself to the steps. His master looked
back. "Make him leap," he shouted to Samantha, and while he spoke was
carried beyond a turn.
But Ginger delayed. He snuffed the ooze with disfavor. The girl jerked
his muzzle high. "Heft yourself, Ginger," she shrilled, and cut him
sharply on the flank. "Now, now, Ginger, get up."
And against belief, Ginger gathered himself, but the effort fell short.
His forefeet grappled the rock and he sank back floundering in the ooze.
The trained pack horses halted, and Mose threw himself from his pony and
pushed swiftly around the bog, through underbrush, to Ginger's head.
But Samantha had already slipped from her saddle, and worked herself
free of the struggling horse. She moved back coolly from the abyss and
emerged from the mudhole, dripping, but unhurt.
She drew a full breath and looked about her. Stratton, who had arrival,
grasped the situation and drew in his horse, humorously regarding her.
"Ain't I a sight?" she asked.
"Yes, Aphrodite, you are. You are a vision to haunt a man's dreams."
"I jedge you're 'bout right." She paused and the imps danced in her
eyes. "But I 'low it 'ud be er turrible nightmare."
She reached and broke a low branch of hemlock, with which she began
hastily to brush the mud from her skirt. Beyond the bog, Mose, who had
extricated the unfortunate pony, urged him up the granite stair. His
flanks were slippery with ooze. "My stars," she said, "I'm glad Mill
didn't kem this trip. I'd never hear ther last of it. He'd run er joke
ter death."
The ax was brought, and the bog was hurriedly bridged with corduroy for
the remaining horses. Then finally they trailed out of the heavy timber
into the parks of Paradise. A succession of emerald slopes opened
before them, broken by clumps of amabilis fir and mountain hemlock;
where a higher top rose out of a shapely mass it became a cathedral
spire. Sometimes the way wound through an area of blooming heliotrope
or asters; banks of gorgeous snapdragon or flaming Indian paintbrush
gave color, like landscape gardening, to whole hillsides. Then behind
them, pinnacle on pinnacle, closed the Tatoosh Range; a last sharp
ascent and they were on that small and lofty Plateau, at an altitude of
five thousand feet, since called The Camp of Clouds, with the splendor
of the great summit almost overhead.
The tents were pitched; horses picketed. It was hardly mid-afternoon.
"By this time tomorrow," said Kingsley, "if this weather stays with us,
we shall have made and I hope passed Gibraltar."
Stratton, lounging on a blanket, looked up to the black cliff, which,
rising sheer fifteen hundred feet, stood like a mighty fortress against
the whiteness of the dome. "I hope so," he answered, "but, Captain, I
never saw anything look so tremendously like work."
Louise rested on a grassy knob, her hands clasped loosely on her knee,
inspiration in her lifted face. She hardly heard her husband's remark,
or the other man's reply, but Alice started from her place beside her.
"Phil," she said, "take me with you. You can't understand what it means
to me, to be so near, to see the summit shining there, and go no
farther. I'm very strong, Phil, and clear-headed. I'm not afraid of
things. I--oh, you don't understand, but the mountain seems to beckon."
Kingsley walked a restless turn. "I do understand," he said. "I feel
it myself. But we don't know what we are going through, and we can't be
sure of the weather an hour ahead; clouds are manufactured right here at
a moment's notice. But wait, don't tease, and we'll compromise. I'm
going off now to reconnoiter. I believe the most feasible start is from
that ridge across this valley of the Paradise, but I want to be sure.
There'll be no time to waste in doubling back for fresh starts
to-morrow. And Mose has been up that way; he says, with care, we can use
the horses as far as the old snow. A glacier cuts in there, probably
the source of the Cowlitz, and he thinks we should be able to reach it
in a couple of hours. I'll take you that far--to the glacier."
At this Mose started from his recumbent position on the earth. He threw
out his arms in protest. "No, no, Mees," he said. "It ees bes' you
doan' go dare. Sacre, no."
"I'm not afraid," she answered smiling, "and if I'm a trouble I'll turn
back. I promise."
"You doan' be some tro'ble, Mees," he said quickly. "No, no, it ees dat
Tyee Sahgalee ees goin' be mad. Mebbe he ees mek dis mountain burn an'
break an' fall down. Monjee, monjee, Mees, you can' ride quick 'nough
away."
She laughed, shaking her head. "I don't believe that, Mose," she said,
"and you won't, after we have been there. Tyee Sahgalee don't care how
many of us go creeping up there, any more than we care about the ants
and spiders that crawl to the cabin door."
"You mean it is you who don't care," said Stratton. "You are ready to
take the risks, whatever they are. And if you are determined to go on
braving Providence, or Tyee Sahgalee, or whoever it is, the rest of the
day, I'm going to join the expedition; that is, unless Mrs. Kingsley is
afraid to stay here alone with Samantha."
"Oh," answered Louise, at last awake to the situation, "I want you to
go."
"I thought so," and he smiled. "I've proved something of a mascot on
occasion, and I'll look after the Captain."
The horses were brought and presently they were trailing away up the
pathless slopes in the wake of the piebald pony; fording countless
streams, leaping them, sinking in pitfalls through treacherous banks of
bloom. When, switchbacking up a lofty rise, Alice ventured to look
down, all the colored breadth of Paradise park unfolded like a map, and
the dome gathered majesty at every turn. They gained a shoulder, rounded
a curve, and before them stretched the levels of a plateau carpeted with
snow. Then, as they moved across this field, mountain on mountain
opened, shading to blue distance. Through a gap, out of a woolly cloud,
shone the opal crown of Adams, and presently, far off St. Helens rose
like a floating berg on an uptossed sea.
They dismounted at the foot of a knob flanked by loose rock. The red
stain of old snow was under their feet and beyond the spur shone the
clean, blue-green edge of the glacier. "We are higher than the
treeline, now," said Philip, "and above the clouds."
She drew a breath of delight, lifting her glance to the near dome. "And
it looks as though we could reach the summit in fifteen or twenty
minutes. Oh, Phil, come, let's go."
Kingsley laughed. "We haven't climbed nine thousand feet; the hardest
third of the ascent is above us. Don't you remember, the only two men
who ever made that summit were half a day in just passing Gibraltar. We
may find it no longer passable."
While his look rested on the grim fortress a thin cloud rose like smoke
from its base. It covered the cliff swiftly and trailed across the
dome. "Out of nothing, without notice," and he shook his head; "that's
what I've heard."
He turned. Stratton was busy searching for a safe hitching-place for
his horse; he never stood well. But Mose had stepped nearer Kingsley.
The boy's shoulders were inclined forward, and his eyes, in that
instant, were those of a crouching animal about to spring.
"Well, Mose," he said carelessly, "your Tyee Sahgalee is hiding his
face. I suppose you think we've come far enough. But we'll show him."
He moved on with Alice up the knob, and Stratton joined them. But
presently Mose stalked by leading the way to the glacier. His face had
the gray look of fear, but his lips were set in the thin line that gave
him an older, sinister touch, the shadow of cruelty.
He moved swiftly and surely. He did not once look back. He gave no
direction or warning. They followed, slipping and stumbling through the
moraine, and gaining the ragged brow of the knob, found themselves
suddenly on the brink of a mighty precipice. Far, far down, the infant
Cowlitz sprang into life and struggled out between stupendous columns
and needles. Locked in the opposite pinnacled cliffs shone the sheer,
blue-seamed front of the glacier, and the throes that gave the river
birth resounded through the gorge.
Stratton uncoiled the spare lariat he carried, and taking an end, with
Philip closing, and the girl between, drew slowly along the rim. Mose,
curving far ahead, came out on the slippery incline of the glacier.
Finally he stopped under a great upheaval of ice, and resting against a
block, waited, with his back turned to them and his face lifted to the
clouding dome.
Behind them another cloud formed over the Tatoosh Mountains, driving
fast to meet the advancing column from Gibraltar; and, in a little
while, when they had come out on the ice, and made slow headway up the
tilting surface from the abyss, mist lifted swiftly, flooding, giving
immensity to the darkening gorge. Kingsley walked a trifle in advance
of Alice, with Stratton abreast of him. Suddenly Mose's tracks, on a
recent light snowfall which had offered foothold, swerved, and both men
stopped. They were on the brink of a narrow, deep, incredibly deep,
crevasse.
Alice moved back, shivering. She looked, a mute question trembling on
her lips, at Mose. But he continued to stand, oblivious, with his eyes
fixed, expectantly, on the clouding dome.
"See here," called Philip, "see here; next time you let us know." Then
his glance returned to the crevasse. "Reminds me of a tremendous white
watermelon," he said, "with just one thin, clean slice gone."
"Yes?" questioned Stratton, smiling, "it strikes me differently. I
thought right away of some curious metal, with just enough taken, by
some nice process, to shape a gigantic blade."
"A blade, yes," said Alice, "for the hand of Tyee Sahgalee."
Stratton's eyes met hers amusedly. He wondered if she was capable of
superstition. "Even then," he said, "it is only a surface impression,
lost the moment you look down. It's an ice-crevasse; nothing else." He
turned to Kingsley, who was already studying the glacier ahead. "Of
course this will not delay us to-morrow, Captain, but it is time, now,
to turn back."
"In a moment. There's a streak on there that bothers me. Looks like a
more serious break. I want to see it at closer range. Wait here; I
won't be fifteen minutes."
He moved back impetuously, and, giving himself short headway, took the
crevasse in a leap. Showers of loosened ice clinked down from the rim.
Most of the particles struck the sides that closed in twenty feet below,
and rebounding, dropped again and sent back faint echoes from the last
level of the abyss.
Stratton stood watching Philip up the glacier, but presently, Alice drew
away from the crevasse and turned to look back down the gorge. The sun
no longer shone. All that brilliant vista of opal peak and amethyst
spur, shading to blue distance, was curtained in closing sheets of mist.
There a great crag loomed an instant and was gone. Here an uptossed
pile of ice-blocks flashed a sudden prismatic light and grew dim. Then
they themselves were wrapped in a noiseless, drenching cloud.
At the same moment she was startled by Stratton's brief note of surprise
and felt behind her a sudden jar. She turned. Mose was hurled sprawling
at her feet, and, clutching her skirt, was up instantly, panting, with
quivering nostril, eyes ablaze. Then, in the recoil, Stratton reeled on
the brink of the crevasse, recovered, stumbled on breaking crust, and
went down.
She stood for an interminable moment, waiting, listening, numbed, body
and mind. Then she was conscious that Mose was going, and she went
after him a few steps, calling his name. But his receding shape drifted
faster and faster, a fading shadow in the mist. She turned back,
lifting her voice in a great cry to Philip. And she was answered from
the abyss.
She dropped to her knees and crept close to look down. Stratton was
there, where the pale, green walls narrowed. He rested wedgelike, caught
at the armpits. He looked up and saw her. "Be careful," he said, "I am
all right."
Instantly the executive in her rose. "I have the lariat," she said.
"Fasten it to the ice where Mose stood," he called. "I can work along
that far."
He remembered that the rope was new and strong, one he himself had
selected as a reserve in picketing his own spirited horse. The question
was whether the ice would take his weight. He worked carefully,
laboriously along by shoulder and elbow, his body swinging from the
waist, starting a rain of ice at every move. At last, where the wall
crumbled, leaving a ledge, he was able to draw himself to his knees. He
cut foothold with his knife, and other niches higher up for his hands,
and pulled himself erect on the slippery shelf.
Beyond him the chasm widened between sheer walls, and it was in this
shaft that the lowered rope hung. It swung for a moment, like a failing
pendulum, and each oscillation, though he stood alert, missed his reach
a little more. The girl, peering into the abyss, understood, and again
disappeared. The line was drawn up, and presently it dropped almost at
his shoulder. He caught the end and, looking up, met her eyes over the
rim. "That's better," he said.
"Wait--one moment," she called and was gone once more. She did not
return this time, but her voice came to him, "Now, now, all ready."
The lariat tightened. It creaked, ground on the edge of the chasm; ice
chips fell ceaselessly. He swung out. He was a big fellow, heavy.
Would the support hold? Would Mose, his fury cooled, be neutral? Why,
yes, surely the boy was even setting himself to ease the strain. He
could feel an unmistakable give and pull above on the rope, as he
climbed, hand over hand.
He gained the top. He reached a palm around a slight pinnacle, for a
final grasp on the line, and pulled himself slowly out on the surface of
the glacier. He was a strong man, physically, a man of steady nerve,
one accustomed to take risks with Nature, as in those times a man of the
Northwest must, but what he saw, in that brief pause, sent a shiver
through him. He closed his eyes like one brought suddenly into intense
light.
The rope was fastened, as he had directed, to a thick column in the
upheaval, but it stretched diagonally to the projection on the brink of
the crevasse. And it was Alice, not Mose, who steadied it, throwing her
weight on it, twisting it on her hands, digging her heels in a shallow
cleft, straining back to ease the pressure on the knob. Suppose the
support had given way; suppose he had dragged her--this brave girl, all
life, charm, loveliness--down to destruction. It was horrible to think
of. Horrible.
Seeing him safe, she relaxed her hold and drew back, making way for him.
She breathed deeply, her chest heaving, and a moisture not of the cloud
clung to her lip, her brow in drops.
He pulled himself together and got to his feet. He did not speak to
her, then; he could not. But he put his hand to his mouth and lifted
his voice in a great hail. Kingsley responded, but his "Hello," came
faintly, through billows of mist. The calls were repeated. "We cannot
wait," Stratton said. "We must follow that rascal's tracks down, while
they last, to the horses."
"What made Mose do it?" she asked. "Oh, what made him?"
"Why, just Indian, I suppose; or say he was an instrument,
self-appointed, of his Tyee Sahgalee. But he shall be punished." He
closed his lips over the word, and a heat, like the flash of a blade,
leaped in his eyes. But when he took her hands to help her to her feet
the look changed. The light returned, yet softened, steady, and
currents of tenderness, long pent in the man, surged to his face. Her
palms were bruised, cut, cruelly. He lifted them, one, and then the
other, swiftly, very gently, to his lips. "You did this--for me," he
said. "You could do it--for me."
"Of course," she answered quickly, and drew the hands away, "I must have
done my best for anyone--for Mose, if things had been reversed. But, if
I hadn't been able, Phil would have come back in time; no doubt he could
have seen a better way."
She met his look briefly, but long enough for him to fathom the clear
depths of her eyes; and suddenly, before her dauntless white spirit, his
own soul, for the first time, shrank. It was as though another
unsounded abyss yawned between them, that the exigency of this hour
could not bridge.
They hurried on then, groping and slipping down the glacier, taking
Mose's trail. Sometimes they stopped while Stratton renewed his shout,
waiting always for Kingsley's answer, and they knew when he had crossed
the crevasse in safety, and that he followed on to the gorge.
They made the rocky knob and finally, out of obscurity, she caught
Colonel's familiar neigh. The call shrilled again, inquiring,
peremptory. But when they came to the end of the moraine where they had
left the horses, they found them gone.
The neigh was repeated once more, coming back faintly, from far across
the snowfield. "Mr. Stratton," she cried, "what has happened? Where is
Mose going?"
"Over the mountains to the Palouse plains, I haven't a doubt," and the
blade flashed again in his eyes. "It's the first thing a halfbreed
does, and they always drive stolen horses over there; it is impossible
to find them among those big, feeding bands of the Yakimas. He will
stampede the rest in the valley, and Yelm Jim will probably meet him
somewhere below the springs and help him take them through the Pass."
She stood for a moment with her head high, lips set, looking with
storming eyes into the mist. Then, "There isn't any time to waste," she
said. "We must take him this side of the springs." And she began to
trail the horses on across the snow.
"I wish there was a chance of it," said Stratton, "but you will only
spend yourself uselessly. You are miserably tired now. The horses will
make the down grade to the springs very fast, and you must see that the
trail through the timber, afoot, is simply impossible at night. We
should bury ourselves in one of those mudholes or plunge over some
cliff. We could never make the fords."
But she hurried on. There fell a long silence. It grew rapidly colder;
the winds freshened, tearing the cloud-wrack, driving it this way and
that, bringing the ragged ends together in bursts of hail or flurries of
snow. The girl's drenched skirts hampered her, still she pressed
resolutely on. Once she said, "An accident somewhere might delay the
band." And Stratton caught at the hope. He told her Mose would probably
try to mount Sir Donald, the fleetest horse, and that he had some
unexpected tricks. He was as full of coquetry as--well--a pretty woman,
though as easily managed, if a man knew him.
It was twilight and they were descending the final pitch into the park
when Kingsley at last overtook them. The camp-fire, which Samantha had
kindled with infinite difficulty on the plateau, burned like a beacon in
the gloom. "You should have seen that second crevasse," he said. "It
was tremendous. No way over, no way around; I tramped both directions
to see. We've simply got to choose another route, to-morrow. But what
became of the horses?"
"Mose took them." It was Alice who answered. "He took Colonel. But I
shall find him. I've got to find him if I have to walk every step of
the way over the mountains and through the Palouse. You know how much
Paul thinks of his horse, Philip. Oh, I can never face him; I can never
tell him--the truth."
She started on uncertainly, stumbled, and fell. Stratton lifted her,
and carried her a few steps over a rough place. "You mustn't trouble so
much," he said gently, "We are going to find that black if it takes a
year. Yes, we are and punish that Klickitat."
*CHAPTER VIII*
*"I'M GOING TO MAKE HIM WHITE"*
The night was terrible. The wind became a gale. It assailed the tents;
in the near hemlock grove it wrenched off great boughs; it lifted
lighter brands from the fire and scattered them broadcast. There was a
constant watch, which Samantha shared, to drag aside and beat out
dangerous embers. The fire was enclosed in a circular windbreak of
rocks, and other stones were brought to pin down the bellying canvas and
ballast the working stakes. Up the mountain clouds clashed in thunder;
the plateau was pelted by swift and furious storms of hail.
The final watch fell to Stratton. The wind was piercing and for warmth
he tramped the earth. Once he stopped to lift a fresh log on the fire,
and, drawing himself erect, his eyes rested on the women's tent. "She
must be sleeping," he told himself. "I hope so; she was so unhappy
about that black. That is her way--to take things hard--pleasure or
sorrow. Jove, how she could love a man. But--she would hold him to his
best, always, in every common move of every day." He shrugged his
shoulders and swung on his heel to look out into the darkness of the
valley. It was so dense that the flame-illumined plateau seemed to rim
an abyss. "That was it--the reason I went so nearly to pieces for that
minute, there on the glacier. I felt the Puritan in her all at once
demanding the best in me. And there was no best; there never can be."
He tramped another interval. "But," he said at last, and the steel
flashed again in his eyes, "there is not a man living I am afraid to
face; and if I ever loved a woman--or thought I did--sooner or later she
was glad to have me tell her so. I never have failed to get what I
wanted, all my life, and I am going to want--_her_."
At daybreak it was snowing on the plateau. He roused Kingsley.
"Captain," he cried, shaking the sleeper, "Captain, wake up; we must
hurry."
Philip rose, stretching himself, stiffly, and drew aside the tent-fly.
"It doesn't look much like the summit to-day," he said.
"Summit?" repeated Stratton with disgust, "summit? What we have to think
of, is the quickest way to get these women out of this."
A gust of wind rushed through the aperture, past Kingsley, and filled
the tent. It lifted the canvas, balloon-wise, scattering the ballast,
up-pulling the stakes, and carried it far afield. It led the men a
chase, but they secured it and struggled with it back to the plateau.
Truly it was not a day for mountain-tops.
Camp was broken hurriedly, each of the men taking the necessary shoulder
pack, and leaving the bulk of the outfit to be sent for when they should
find horses. They pushed quickly down from the snow, which became rain
in the woods. And Alice led the way. She studied the trail
continually, separating the tracks of the ponies, where they struck the
path down the valley, from the deeper, water-filled impressions of the
American horses. She set Stratton a pace, and kept it almost to the ford
of the Paradise. Then suddenly she stopped an instant, listening, and
ran on along the bank to an old log foot-crossing. There on the end of
the bridge, sheltered by a trailing cedar, were her bridle and saddle;
and picketed on a grassy knoll under some alders she saw the black.
"Oh," she said, and took his head in her arms, "you beauty! You heart's
desire! But I knew--I knew Mose couldn't take you; I knew it."
Stratton stood for a moment watching her. "So," he said, "so the rascal
was white enough to leave your horse. He brought him this far with the
others to avoid pursuit last night."
Alice looked off a thoughtful moment, through the dripping trees. "I
knew his white conscience would get to upbraiding him," she said. "But
I can't help feeling glad he chose Colonel for the compromise."
Stratton laughed. "I hope it will upbraid him some more," he said, "and
induce him to leave my horse."
She would not mount, but waited for Louise to take the black. She
herself was not tired, and she moved lightly up the log, pausing
fearlessly, mid-channel, to watch Colonel feel his steps through the
ford and leading him up the bank and on some distance, until she was
assured he would carry her sister quietly. The rain fell with renewed
downpour, but she walked unmindful of boughs that drenched her
shoulders, and dripping skirts that weighted her limbs. Delight shone
in her eyes; whole face seemed to reflect some far illumination. She
had recovered Forrest's horse; the day was faultless.
But at last she was in the saddle and descending to the ford of the
Nisqually. The cloud-wrack was breaking then, and shafts of sunlight
struck the wet, green earth. Stratton walked a trifle in advance,
looking for a safe crossing over the rising channels. Suddenly he
stopped, and the black also halted, tossing his mane and shrilling his
ready, challenging neigh. There, moving out of the stream, up the
opposite bank, was a riderless horse. It was Sir Donald.
Stratton whistled, a soft, imperative note. The chestnut wheeled. The
man repeated the call, and the horse trotted gently back into the
channel. He halted once more on a gravel bar, his head high, ears
alert, then came on across to his master.
"So," said Stratton, slowly, "So, Donald, you showed the rascal your
little trick. You see, Miss Hunter, it was as I thought. Mose chose
the best horse. But he never mounted him. In his hurry he laid his
hand on the bit, and Sir Donald never allows that; he was trained that
way."
With this he vaulted into the saddle and led the way over from bar to
bar. He returned bringing the black, and while the others made the
crossing Alice waited, seating herself on a rock in the sun, and lifting
her face to the upper canyon. Presently the clouds parted like a rent
veil on the mountain. Once more Gibraltar menaced and the summit shone
in splendor.
"After all," she said, when Stratton rejoined her, "I can't blame Mose
for that belief. I felt it myself, for a moment, there on the glacier.
It was the steps of the Great White Throne. You can't understand."
"No," he replied, "No, you are right, I cannot. I am outside the
circle."
He bent and offered his hand to mount her on his horse, her sister
having kept the black, and she sprang lightly up. "Then," she said,
while he adjusted a stirrup, "you see no excuse for Mose?"
"No," and his face hardened, "No, I only see the half-breed threw me
into that crevasse. He took me off guard. And he left us miles from
anywhere, on that unknown mountain, in a storm, without horses. His
motives do not count."
Sir Donald started, trailing after the black. The little company filed
slowly down to the mineral springs. And there, in the open, unpicketed,
ready for the long trail, they found the other horses quietly feeding in
company with Ginger and the pack animals.
While Samantha made a fire and prepared the coffee the two men caught
and picketed the herd, reserving the few horses necessary for a hurried
trip back to the plateau for the outfit. And it was Alice, who, going
for a drink from her favorite well, discovered Mose. He was lying
semi-conscious on the wet earth, and over his black brows, branded with
the tip of an iron shoe, Sir Donald had set his mark.
The teacher dipped her handkerchief in the basin and bathed the hurt.
She went to ask Stratton's flask of him, and mixed the boy a draught,
and, a little later, when the young man followed her to the spring, he
found Mose able to recognize him. He stood a silent moment watching him
with hard eyes, and the boy met the look steadily; his muscles stiffened
as they had that day at school, when he braced himself to Laramie's
blow. Stratton's lip curled in disgust. After all, he could not punish
the fellow, down, helpless like that. He swung on his heel.
"Wait," said Alice, "it was just as you thought. The scheme to steal the
horses was Yelm Jim's; he was to meet him at the branch to the Pass and
help drive them over the mountains to the Palouse plains. But he meant
to leave Colonel; he only brought him as far as the Paradise to avoid
being overtaken. And that trouble at the crevasse was unpremeditated.
He was terribly frightened by the gathering storm. He believed it was a
judgment coming on us all, and he took the opportunity to--use you--for
a propitiation. Afterwards, in the night, he crept back up the valley
far enough to see the camp-fire, and you, safe--and keeping watch on the
plateau."
There was another brief silence. Stratton stood, still hard,
uncompromising, frowning down at the boy. "Be merciful," she said.
"Think; you were not hurt; you have Sir Donald, unharmed. Be generous.
Sometime,--who knows?--you yourself may ask it."
"No," he flashed, "No. I live my life; I do as I please. I ask nothing
of anyone. And in the end--I take what I deserve. That is my creed.
The boy must be punished."
He turned away, but she followed. In her earnestness she laid her hand
on his sleeve. "He has been punished," she said. "Look. He will carry
Sir Donald's brand all his life. He's just a boy, Mr. Stratton. He
left home angry, outraged, and Yelm Jim took the opportunity to make him
his tool. But he has good in him, I know. Remember, too, he saved my
life. And I need him; I'll be responsible for him."
Her eyes were raised to Stratton eloquent with appeal; the hand on his
arm trembled. "You need him; he saved your life." He paused and the
hardness went out of his face. "And you saved mine--you saved mine; I
do not forget that. And perhaps you were right just now; sometime I may
ask that mercy. I may ask it of--you."
Her hand fell from his sleeve; she drew back a step. "I will be ready,"
she said slowly, "if you are good to Mose." She looked back at the boy.
He was watching her. His lip quivered and his eyes filled with
unaccustomed tears. "I'll be responsible for him," she repeated, "I'm
going to make him white."
*CHAPTER IX*
*UNCLE SILAS*
It was the morning following his election and Judge Kingsley was taking
a late breakfast in his dining room. He had laid aside the
newspaper,--an interesting number, devoted chiefly to his final speech,
a personal and flattering editorial, and the returns,--to conclude some
business details with Forrest, who, seated near the open French window,
overlooking the terraced orchard, made brief memoranda in his note-book.
The Judge, then, was a man in his first prime, with that commanding
presence that does not challenge attention or respect, because he has
long been sure of both. He carried with ease a suggestion of coming
weight, and his voice, deliberate, sonorous, was that of a born orator.
"There, Forrest, I believe that is all." He pushed back his chair and
crossed his hands on his ample front. "Your father knew how to manage
men, and, there at Tumwater, he gave you a thorough apprenticeship. He
left you his executive ability and his knowledge of timber. But, if the
Freeport mills pay expenses these first two years, and Philip learns
something of business and the value of money, I shall have accomplished
my purpose."
Forrest smiled, his smile of the eyes, shaking his head. "I'm not much
of a diplomat; what I say is always just what I think. But I'll do my
best." He put the notebook into his pocket, and looking at his watch,
rose and took his hat. "I shall be able to catch the down steamer," he
said.
"Better wait over a day or two; the young people would miss you tonight
at the ball. And I want to speak to you about another matter." The
Judge paused, stroking his blond beard. "I want to speak to you
about--Alice."
Forrest returned to his chair. His eyes sought the window, avoiding the
Judge's scrutiny. Louise was there, swinging her child in a hammock
under the cherry trees. Her supple body swayed to the effort in
unconscious grace; the loose sleeves of her house gown fell away from
her uplifted, lovely arms, and the pose of her head brought out the
beautiful lines of throat and oval chin, but he saw her absently.
After a moment the Judge added, "You never knew her mother."
"No." The young man turned in quick relief. "No, I never knew her. I
was still a small boy when my father came to take charge of the Tumwater
mills, and that tragedy of the Cowlitz had happened several months
before. It has always seemed unaccountable to me; those old voyageurs
understood a canoe; they must have made that trip down to the Columbia a
good many times."
"True," answered the Judge, "but there was a strong spring chinook
blowing, and the sudden melting of snows at the headwaters. The river
was flooding; the current changed and the accident occurred at a
shifting log jam."
There was a brief silence, then he went on, "She was on her way with
Philip's mother to visit their early home in Oregon. There was
something fine in that friendship of those two young women. Their lives
had begun together in that small frontier settlement; they married at
the same time men who were, themselves, warm friends, comrades in
adventure and endurance; and they came that double wedding journey by
canoe and trail, to start a social foundation here at the new capital of
the young territory. And later, they faced their tragedy of the Indian
war, when both husbands fell, fighting in the same skirmish. It softens
the terror of that last journey to know they met the end together.
"But I shall always blame myself for letting them go down the Cowlitz
without me;" and his voice vibrated a soft undernote. "I loved Alice
Hunter. We were to have been married when she returned."
Forrest met the Judge's look; a sudden intelligence, sympathy, shone in
his young eyes. "I understand," he said slowly, "I understand."
"I loved her always, from the first time I saw her, riding her little
pony along the bluffs of the upper Columbia. It was the day I reached
the river after my long journey overland, from New York. She was the
first--the one woman. And--she had promised to be my wife--before John
Hunter came."
"I understand," repeated Forrest, and his glance moved in delicacy to
the window. "I understand."
He saw clearly, in that moment, this great man's devotion, through
years, to that memory; the fineness of his solicitude for her children.
They had shared the home he had established for his brother's boy. He
had lavished benefits upon them; borne the expenses of their liberal
education; made himself their natural protector, guardian, friend.
"And the new Alice is her reincarnation."
The Judge paused and Forrest gave him another look, swift, searching,
and rose from his chair. He stood like a soldier at attention; or, like
a man who sees certain danger, yet prepares himself for that inevitable
of which he is afraid.
"She has the same bright face, the same quick intelligence, the
dauntless spirit speaking in her eyes; the same decided uptilt of the
chin; the same ruddy, shining hair." The Judge rose and moved a step
towards him. "I was still a young man when I brought her home, Paul,
and I have watched her grow. You cannot understand that. What it meant
to see the child unfold; what it cost me later, to be her every-day
companion, friend, to shape her pliant mind, and yet to--make no sign."
Forrest moved to the window, squaring his back to the room. He stood
looking down across the orchard and the maple-lined streets of the town,
to the shining sea; but his hand groped for the casing and held it with
a steadying grip. The Judge drew nearer. He dropped his hand on the
young man's shoulder, and the tender, insistent pleading that was the
chief charm of the orator dominated his voice. "I know I am facing very
possible defeat. It is natural that you two should think a good deal of
each other, Paul, and there isn't another man on earth to whom I could
better trust her. I am fond of you; I believe in you; I have called you
the man of the future Northwest. Still she has chosen that hard life up
in the wilderness, and you are leaving her there. If there is nothing
between you, if you do not love her, I shall ask her to go to Washington
with me--to be my wife."
Forrest turned. His face was gray; suddenly older. "I don't stand in
your way," he said. "I am just her friend, the one she depends on.
That's all. She refused me."
"She refused you?" The Judge laid both hands on the young man's
shoulders, compelling his look. "She refused you? And you love
her--_like this_."
Forrest drew away from his detaining grasp. "I must catch that
steamer," he said. He went back to his chair and picked up his hat.
"Good-by." He lifted his head, smiling a little, and offered his hand;
but his glance moved beyond the Judge to the window once more, and he
started. "She is here," he added unsteadily. "She is there with her
sister on the terrace. Good-by and _good luck_."
He was gone and the Judge stood regarding the closed door. Then a light
step on the threshold of the open window roused him and he turned.
"Good morning, Uncle Silas," she said, "I had to come right in and
congratulate you on the election, though Louise told me you were talking
business with Paul."
Her glance searched the room. Disappointment clouded her face.
"He was here," answered the Judge. "He hurried away to catch the
steamer back to Freeport."
"Why," she said in surprise, "Louise told me he came over with them in
the _Phantom_ to hear the returns, and I thought--of course it was
expected he would wait to go back with them after the ball. But," and
she turned with recovered brightness to the small boy who stood waiting
on the threshold, "this is Lem Myers, Uncle Silas. He came to see town
and the salt water."
"Good morning," said the Judge, weighing this future voter with
speculative eyes. "Good morning. You are just in time for a cruise.
To-morrow my nephew will show you what the _Phantom_ can do. I suppose
you never have boarded a yacht?"
"Wal, no," Lem moved towards the chair the politician offered, stepping
high in new and unaccustomed shoes. "No, I dunno's I hev."
"But of course the first thing, you want to try Olympia oysters. Hop
Sing manages a good pan roast." He rang and gave the order to the
Chinese cook, and Lem proceeded to adapt himself to the elegant
appointments of the table.
The teacher had taken the opposite chair. "Oh," she said presently, "I
know I have missed things; torchlight processions and rallies, and
orations,--I shall read that last speech directly,--and I'm sure you
have been serenaded by all the bands. I do love a band, Uncle Silas."
"They will play again," said the Judge, laughing, "and I hope one at a
time, and tonight you can enjoy the ball. But no doubt that is what
brought you all the way from Nisqually. You expect to lead that ball."
She shook her head. "Your first dance belongs to Mrs. Governor, Uncle
Si; we can't choose. That's the penalty of greatness."
The Judge laughed again, a soft rumble. "My dear," he said, after a
moment, "isn't it about time you left off calling me Uncle?"
She looked at him, flushing, with quick surprise. "I understand," she
said softly, "I understand. I should have thought of it long ago. Of
course I always speak of you differently to strangers, but among
ourselves--why-- It was you who taught me, at the first, when I was a
little girl."
"Oh, but you don't understand," he replied hurriedly. "I mean--you see,
my dear, when you were a child a young man seemed so much your senior;
the years between us do not count so much since you are a woman. In
short, it should be more natural to call me just Silas--or even Si."
"Call you--Si? Oh, how could I?" and she threw her head back and
laughed and laughed. "Good morning--Si. I congratulate you on the
election--Si--" the words came with difficulty, between trills of
merriment. "I am very proud of you--Si. But it was what we expected;
you are the one man big enough for the place--Si--and all the territory
knew it. Oh, indeed, indeed, I cannot. It's so ridiculously familiar.
But, yes, I will do it, I'll try if you--" she paused and looked away
through the open window. "The truth is--of course I want to go to the
ball, immensely, but I came from Nisqually really--because--to ask--"
The Judge laughed, his pleasant undernote. "I see," he said, "I see,
you are ready to come home. I've expected it; I've waited for it, and
I've missed you more than you can ever know. But things are changed. I
am going East in a few months and the house here will be closed. You do
not want to make your home with Louise at Freeport." He broke off and
walked over to the window. Directly he turned, and, with his back to
the light, his hands clasped loosely behind him, stood regarding her.
"The home here was broken up when you went away," he added, "and I shall
find it lonelier still at Washington--unless--"
"Oh," she interrupted brightly, "I'm sure you will be very gay there.
Think what it means; to be the representative from the big new
Northwest. A man distinguished, almost rich, and a bachelor. Why, you
will never have a dull moment--Si."
He caught the swift look from under her lashes and smiled. "You are
still laughing at me, yet that life at the capital would suit you well.
You were meant for pleasant places, to hold your own among bright women
and distinguished men. And I am eager to show what manner of woman the
crude West can produce. My dear, you would outshine them all."
"Oh," she said, and clapped her hands an instant to her ears, "you need
not practise those fine speeches on me, your success is assured; you
will live in a whirl. And don't trouble about me, Uncle Silas; I'm not
asking to come home. I--I only want you to go to the Land Office with
me. I--I am going to--file a claim."
"You are what?"
"I am going to locate a homestead." And her voice tripped on the word.
"You are going to locate a homestead? You?"
"Oh, Uncle Silas,"--she rose and walked a few steps, then turned facing
him with tilting chin and ruffled brows. "Why do you stand and frown
like that at me? I'm not the first woman to take up Government land.
Do you know of any reason why I shouldn't? I'm native born, and I'm
twenty-one."
Lem cast an appreciative wink at the Judge, and, having reached familiar
terms with the dish which Hop Sing had placed before him, he devoted
himself to a second generous installment of Olympia oysters.
"But," said the Judge, "you are not going to improve that homestead like
any settler? You do not intend to live there?"
"Yes," she answered, her voice again wavering, "I do. I am having the
trail cut through to the schoolhouse now; Mose Laramie is doing it, and
I have made a contract with him to cut the logs for my cabin. In
payment he is to have the best gun I can find in Olympia. I want you to
help me select it. But this is the piece,"--she paused to draw a
township plat from her pocket. "It is all that's required; the soil is
a good loam; a fairly level bottom-land at the foot of a great
side-hill. And at the same time, I want to make a timber filing on the
adjoining quarter up the slope. It is almost free of undergrowth except
along the stream. There are some fine old trees. You see, too, the
section is at the headwaters of the Des Chutes and I want to secure the
water rights to these falls."
She was unmistakably in earnest and the incredulity in the Judge's face
changed to dismay. He took the map and studied it. "I see," he said
slowly, "I see." There was a brief silence, then his voice, that voice
of the orator, took its pleading undernote. "Why will you do this
thing? If you must create your own opportunities, there are other ways.
Why, it is unbelievable. If ever there was a woman made for
civilization, you are that one, yet you choose to bury yourself in the
wilderness; to take up a claim in the heart of a jungle; to share the
hardships of rough and ignorant pioneers."
"But I am a pioneer," and he saw the rising storm in her eyes, "the
daughter of pioneers. You taught me to be proud of it, Uncle Silas; you
loved to remind me my mother was born on the Columbia, and that her
father, a New England missionary, followed Marcus Whitman to Oregon.
You never let me forget that my other grandfather was among the first to
enter the Straits of Fuca, and sailed his own ship a hundred miles,
straight up Puget Sound, without chart or pilot. You called it a great
record. And my father was the pioneer surveyor. You talked about those
seasons you spent in camp with him, while he blazed the great military
road through the forest, running his section lines over rocky spurs and
through cedar swamps, until I should count it a triumph to have carried
chain for him. You see it was born in me, Uncle Silas. I can't help
it--and I've got to turn it to the best account. It was my only
inheritance."
Her voice broke at the last, and the assurance dropped from her like a
shell. She stood before him, lovely, irresistible, extenuating a
weakness.
"Oh," he said in evident distress, "you have misunderstood me. I
wouldn't have you any different. Surely you know it? To me you are the
embodiment of all that is fine and sweet and best in this great
Northwest that I love. You are the spirit of it all. And your people
were above criticism, Alice. Only, the memory of their fortitude makes
me tremble for you. Your father, that splendid young fellow with almost
a lifetime before him, was cut off in ambush; and your mother--was
drowned in the Cowlitz. I want to have you--safe."
He began to walk the floor, slowly, with his hands still clasped behind
him, his head bent, a cloud on his face. And she waited in respectful
silence, watching him with a sweet and regretful tenderness in her eyes.
She believed she understood those memories from which had sprung all his
great kindness to her. Finally he stopped at the table and again spread
out the plat. "This must be near the section Forrest told me about," he
said. "Why, it looks like the very one. He was debating on taking it
up, himself, at the time I offered him the management at Freeport."
Her glance fell before his inquiring look, and the ready color flamed.
"Paul doesn't know," she said. "Please say nothing about it to any one.
You see, Uncle Silas,--you see--the country is being settled very fast,
and if I don't make this entry, some one else will."
There was another brief silence, then the Judge said, "Poor Forrest! you
are even bent on taking his chosen section of land."
The color leaped again in her face. She moved a few steps to the window
and stood with her back to him, looking down through the orchard to the
shimmering Sound. "He told you?" she said.
"Yes, he told me. I asked him. It had always seemed so natural you
should care something for him; he is well worth caring for. It seems
incredible that you should refuse a fine, interesting young fellow like
him." He paused, and his voice took its soft undernote. "I asked him,
Alice, because I want to take you to Washington. There is only one way I
can ask you to go. My dear, you understand--I love you."
She moved, startled, and laid her hand on the casing, where Forrest's
had been, waiting. It was the gesture of a woman who feels suddenly,
without premonition, the foundations of her world shake. He saw her
shoulders lift; her whole body trembled. His glance passed from her,
through the window, and on down the slope to the shining sea, and slowly
returned. "It is, then, impossible," he said. "I am impossible. Well,
forget all about it, little girl; it's all right. It's all right. Your
happiness first; nothing else counts."
"Dear Uncle Silas." She turned, smiling, though her lip quivered and
she brushed her hand across her eyes. "_You_ count. I owe all I am to
you. And you--are not impossible. I--I'm very fond of you. Its
true--Silas." She nodded her head brightly, and dashed her hand again
across her eyes. "And I will go to Washington--I'll be--glad--proud--to
be--your wife--as soon as the homestead is safe."
*CHAPTER X*
*LEM AND THE PHANTOM*
Lem never forgot that ball. The teacher found him a nook from which he
overlooked the entire floor; and he never tired of recounting to the
always newly impressed settlement, the glories of the pageant. How
"ther Jedge led ther parade an' was ther biggest toad in ther hull
puddle." How "two fiddles an' er pianer an' er horn kep er goin' all
ter oncet. An' clothes--ther Nisqually hedn't never seed sech clothes.
Why, ther schoolmarm herself was fixed ter beat ther band, in er dress
as soft an' thin as tons o' tissue paper, an' er gold chain, fine as er
thread, clamped 'ith shiny little stones; an' she hed er mighty fine an'
sassy feather--he couldn't fur ther life of him tell off'n what
bird--stuck in her hair. An' pretty, land, ther wa'n't a girl there
could hold er candle to her. An' ther boys all knew it; some of 'em,
Mr. Stratton fur one, 'lowed they wouldn't dance 'ith nobody ef it
couldn't be her; an' ther minute ther fiddles struck up somebody was on
hand ter streak her off. Gee, they'd orter seen her. She jest picked
up er handful o' white goods, an' her little feet went chasin' in an'
out like er couple o' chipmunks foolin' in er holler cedar stump."
But if the ball was unforgettable, the cruise on the _Phantom_, the
following day, marked an epoch in Lem's life.
"I think," said the teacher, as they approached the water front, "we
shall come back at flood-tide with a fine, choppy sea." Her eyes caught
the sparkle of the waves, and she inhaled the salt air in deep, full
breaths. There was the noise of running water about the piers, and the
flat kerthug of the _Phantom_ as she rose and dipped uneasily; but no
whitecaps as yet, though the Sound, whipped by passing gusts, darkened
and ruffled fitfully.
"Oh," said Stratton, who had joined the little party, "you will come
back in the teeth of a gale, I promise you."
Philip stood regarding Lem with quizzical gravity. "I never knew it to
fail with a new hand aboard, and this time I believe we're shipping a
Jonah."
Stratton laughed softly, and handed the ladies aboard. Lem watched the
feat with growing concern.
"There was once a man from Missouri," said Kingsley seriously, "who had
to be lassoed the first time, and brought aboard."
"I'll resk it," and Lem pushed hastily forward, setting his feet on the
gangplank and reaching for the Captain's hand.
"That's right, my boy; and it may encourage you to know that Missourian
lived to be our mayor in time."
The _Phantom_ swung out with a lurch, and, slipping into the seat next
the teacher, Lem grasped firm hold. Stratton took the helm and Philip
went to the shrouds. The sails swelled to a scurrying gust, then flapped
loosely. They filled again from another quarter and the yacht careened
to the swinging boom. Lem's clutch tightened. Alice covered his hand
with her palm. "Isn't it fine?" she asked.
"I'd ruther be erstride o' Ginger." He met her smile with a sidelong
glance and looked again with apprehension at the flapping canvas. "But
Jake 'lowed I'd git used to it."
"Who is Jake?" inquired Stratton.
"Jake?" Lem relaxed his grip on the rail, for the _Phantom_ settled
steadily. "Jake? He's my cousin; Samanthy's brother. An' he's be'n
clear ter British Columby. He went over oncet fur ther Queen o'
Victory's birthday."
"And he had a great time, I'll wager," said Kingsley, coming back to the
helm.
"Yes, but he counted on seeing ther Queen. He 'lowed she'd be to ther
head o' ther parade, 'ith her gold crown on, an' ther rest o' her fine
truck."
"And wasn't she?"
"Naw, she wa'n't ther. Aunt Lucindy 'lowed ther hull thing was er
fizzle; but then she counted on bringin' back er lot o' goods; cloth an'
hats an' shoes; I dunnot what all. You kin get 'em twice as cheap over
to Victory ef you don't hev ter pay no duty. An' she made errangements
'ith ther neighbors ter do buyin' fur em."
"And," said Kingsley, "I suppose she made other arrangements to elude
the Customs officers?"
"Ef you mean she laid out ter fool ther Gov'ment men, you're right. She
made er mattress ter fit over ther one on the steamboat, an' she filled
it 'ith ther goods. But they was too sharp fur her. Fust thing she
knew ther boss was haulin' off ther covers, an' er rippin' open that
ther tick. An' he poured ther stuff all out onter ther cabin floor, 'ith
ther hull crowd lookin' on; an' Jake says they laughed like all purzest.
An' he took the goods,--Jake 'lowed he kept ther pile,--'ith Aunt
Lucindy er cryin' an' er takin' on."
"But it was smuggling, Lem," said the teacher in dismay. "I hadn't
believed a Myers could do a dishonorable thing."
Lem threw back his head and narrowed his ferret eyes. "You kin jes' bet
er Myers ain't er goin' ter let er good chancet slip; not ef he knows
it; no, ma'am."
He thrust his hands into his pockets and leaned back comfortably in his
seat. But if the temporary ease of the yacht had lulled his
apprehensions they were speedily revived by a lurch that carried away
his hat and enveloped his head in spume. He sprang to his feet,
spluttering, clutching at the helm, losing his foothold on the slanting
deck, while the _Phantom_ raced down before the sudden flaw.
"Why, Lem, it's all right, there isn't a bit of danger. And you shall
have a new hat." The teacher placed a dry cushion and drew him down
into his seat. She wrapped him in a shawl, pulling it snugly over his
head, and he cuddled in it like a frightened squirrel, making a peephole
for his small, bright eyes.
Her own hat was gone and she bent to search a locker trying at the same
time with one hand to secure a loosened mass of wet, curling,
wind-roughened hair. Presently she brought to light an oilskin hat,
which she drew over her head, tilting the brim so that the rollicking
wind had still a chance at the shorter hair, tumbling it, twisting it
into burnished spirals about her ears. She stood for a moment, catching
easily the swing of the yacht, and looked far out across the stirring
reach of blue. And surely the spirit of that dauntless explorer, her
grandfather, dominated her; there was an exaltation in her face; delight
in every breath she drew.
Stratton watched her in undisguised pleasure. "There is no other
country as favorable to the traffic," he was saying. "It is utterly
impossible to guard the whole border. A regiment of soldiers might be
able to patrol the woods on the mainland, but it is easier to trail an
Indian than to follow a fleet craft through the Archipelago de Haro."
"No doubt that's the way most smuggling is carried on," replied
Kingsley. "And it's an open secret that there are men on Puget Sound,
living right in Seattle, fine, well-established men, who wouldn't
defraud each other or any business man out of a dollar, yet conduct a
systematic and successful opium ring."
Louise turned to him in protest. "Oh, Philip, you don't know such men,
personally. You ought not to repeat such an idle rumor. Of course, if
you had grounds for the suspicion, knew certain circumstances, you would
do all in your power to aid the Government to apprehend these men. To
stand neutral is to connive in--_crime_."
"Oh, Mrs. Kingsley, that is a harsh word." The quick flush that leaped
in Stratton's face as quickly died, leaving it pale. His glance moved
seaward. "There are enormous duties on some things, for
instance--opium." He paused and his look returned; he smiled. "You
forget you, yourself, are descended from people who objected,
strenuously, to the payment of exorbitant duty. But we should hardly
say that those exemplary Bostonians, who appropriated a whole cargo of
tea, committed a crime."
"Oh," she said, with growing indignation, "how can you draw such a
comparison? How can you? We are a young territory, Mr. Stratton, with
a wide, unsettled border. What will become of us if the few educated
and able men among us fail? If they wilfully break established laws;
sink to the level of common smugglers, thieves?"
She rose in fine scorn from the place beside him and took a distant
seat. Stratton's look followed her and the flush again left his face
pale. "But I forgive her," he said at last, softly, "I forgive her, she
is so charming when she is angry. Where most any other woman's voice
would shrill, hers always drops to that nice contralto note."
"And you know she is right," said Alice, taking the vacant place. "It's
just what I should have said, if she hadn't."
"Yes?" And he smiled again. "That surprises me--after that experience
on the mountain."
"That was different. Mose believed he was justified. He was true to his
traditions. That summit was his holy of holies and we were vandals come
to desecrate." Her eyes turned to the great crest of Mt. Rainier,
looming out of the southeast, its crater hollowed gently, like a throne
between its triple alabaster domes. "Whenever I try to shake that
belief I feel guilty, Mr. Stratton. It's so much more beautiful than any
I can offer in exchange. After all, the most I can do is to educate
Mose in other ways, and give him an occupation. The rest may come."
"I am hopelessly dense," said Stratton. "I fail to see why you draw the
line so sharply. You forgive that young rascal of a horse thief and
help him. But you are uncompromising, exacting, if a man has the
misfortune to be--well--a gentleman."
She gave him a level look. "I consider the motive; whether he knows
better."
"Oh," said Philip, laughing, "you don't know her, Stratton. In her
secret heart she'd love to be a smuggler and a pirate, and defying the
Government, go sailing down among those purple islands of De Haro. And
principle or no principle, it would be great fun, I confess, to match my
little boat against a revenue cutter. Only give me the wind and a fair
start, and I could set a pace for the best of them. There isn't a
channel I haven't taken her through; and I'll wager I know every
tide-rip and shoal the Sound over."
Kingsley said what he pleased; his life was an open sea. If sometimes
he ran too close into the wind, he knew, or he thought that he knew, how
to recover, but his glance moved to his wife and rested a moment.
But clearly Louise no longer listened. Her face, the face of a dreamer,
rapt, sensitive, was turned to the Olympic Mountains, shining across the
ruffled sea. It was as though she saw farther than other women, and
beyond those amethyst peaks and shoulders, breaking through cloud, up at
the source of those shafts of mellow light, that struck the gorges
between the blue foothills, she found a higher country all her own.
He drew his frame erect and began to whistle, lifting his eyes to the
swelling sails. Then Alice took the guitar from a sheltered place and
caught the accompaniment. And presently they began to sing.
"'Twas a gallant bark, with a crew as brave
As ever launched on the seething wave."
The _Phantom_ swung out from the old monastery on Priest Point, and
coming around, raced back before the still freshening wind. They
skirted the Olympia peninsula, and moved on up the narrowing arm. Here
were the white walls of the capitol, rising from a grove of young firs,
and across the channel opened the wooded capes off Cleale Place. Then
came the promontory, breaking from Tumwater ridge; the Indian burial
ground, where the blankets, which screened the canoes of the dead in the
treetops, hung against the dark face of the bluff like gaily painted
squares. And at last the yacht began to feel a back current and stalked
gently up towards the white mills.
This was that "cradle" out of which Forrest had stepped, and there off
the bow rose the glooming cliffs, where the lower Des Chutes hung a
curtain of roped pearls, and the long pale lips of the rapids curled and
menaced below.
Stratton took the guitar and repeated the tune, droning a pleasing
undernote. And presently Louise awakened, and the receding promontory,
catching the contralto, held the song a tragic moment and returned it
transformed to a requiem.
"For the white squall rides on the surging wave,
And the bark is gulfed in an ocean's grave,
In an ocean's grave; in an ocean's grave."
But the soprano was silent.
*CHAPTER XI*
*THE HOUSE-RAISING*
"I've travelled all over ther country, prospectin'
an' diggin' fur gold;
I've tunnelled, hydraulicked an' cradled, an' I hev
be'n frequently sold.
An' I hev be'n frequently s-o-old, an' I hev be'n
frequently sold,
I've tunnelled, hydraulicked an' cradled, an' I hev
be'n frequently sold."
Mose rested on his ax and listened. It was a boy's voice, loud and
clear, though it slurred over difficult notes, and filled in uncertain
words with a whistle. And it startled the woods, rising above the
thunder of the cataract, and rang a hundred echoes from cliff and spur.
"So rollin' my grub in my blanket, an' leavin' my
tools on ther ground,
I started one mornin' to shank it, fur a country
they call Puget Sound.
Fur a country they call Puget So-ou-ound--"
"Saprie, dat ees Lem Myers." Mose lifted his ax and lopped off a branch
which trailed over the rustic table he had completed. All the space
around him was filled with building material; straight logs cut into
even lengths, rows of cedar shakes, piles of hewn flooring, posts and
rafters, newly made by hand from the felled timber of the small
clearing, and surrounded by a resinous litter of boughs and chips.
"'Arrivin' dead broke in mid-winter, I found it
enveloped in fog,
An' covered all over 'ith timber, thick as hair on
ther back of er dog.
Thick as hair on ther back of er do-o-g, thick as hair
on ther back of er dog,--'
Aw, git up ther, Ginger, git up, I tell you."
Lem rounded a fallen hemlock, tugging at the halter of the reluctant
pony, who, heavily laden with hampers, tinware and sundries, sidled this
way and that at the obstructions which culminated at the end of the new
trail. He lunged back from the long table, and rolling his eyes, came to
an immovable standstill.
Mose laid down his ax and walked over to the pony, "Saprie, it ees
not'ing to tek dese t'ings 'cross." And he waved his hand with
pardonable pride towards a small pavilion roofed in fir boughs.
"Guess we'll hev ter," answered Lem, surveying the scene with evident
satisfaction. "This here no 'count cayuse knows he ain't erlowed in
nobody's front room. No, sir, ther ain't no use tryin' ter make him
budge." And he lifted his bare foot and gave the horse a resentful
thrust, which was received with a slight flinching of the flanks, and
increased exhibition of the whites of his eyes.
"Hams?" enquired Mose, inhaling a deep breath while he unbuckled the
straps of a hamper.
"You bet," answered Lem. "Hams and chickuns. Ole Mother Girard cooked
'em."
"De ole madame ees be one good cook, for sure. It ees fine t'ing her
Baptiste ees die, an' dat she ees able sell de ranch, for it ees pos'ble
she can stay all tam to de cabane to work for de te'cher."
"This here," said Lem, lowering a second hamper to the ground, "is
prince-pally cake. An' you kin jes' bet ther ain't never be'n no sech
cake in ther hull deestrict. Ther schoolmarm made it herself, an' it's
full o' ceetron, an' raisins; I dunno what all. She gimme this here
knife fur takin' ther seeds out. I'd er done it fur nothin' but I
wa'n't goin' ter refuse no sech whittler's that." He took the knife
from his pocket and exhibited the blades. "I 'low it's ther same one I
hed my eye on down ter Yelm Station."
"Nawitka," answered Mose, returning the knife after deliberate
inspection, "it ees bran' new. But to me she ees give a'ready one piece
gold monies, for dat I ees work on de trail. For dese logs an' shakes,
an' dese posts dat I ees help Mill T'ornton mek, she ees lak give me one
gran' new gun."
"Les see ther gold piece," said Lem.
"But no, it ees not here. It ees bury in ver' good plas to my fader's
gardeen."
"I'll bet you was erfraid Mill er John Phiander'd git it erway from
you."
Mose flushed under the taunt and began to turn up his denim sleeve. "It
ees bes' you doan' say dat to me," he said slowly. "I am but 'fraid I
lose dat gold monies for it ees be so small. Sacre, I t'ink I doan'
have some trouble to trash dose boys." He doubled his arm, clinching
his hand. "Feel dare, Lem Myers, and dare. Since I ees work to dose
logs, Laramie, heemself doan' have so beeg muscle."
Lem laid his fingers on the tense cords with a gradually increasing
pressure, while his glance moved from the splendid forearm to the boy's
frowning face. "Oh, gee," he said reverently, "gee, but you've growed
some, Mose. I'd like ter see you tackle 'em both. I 'low you could lick
either one of 'em 'lone, 'ith jes' one hand, or mebbe 'ith your little
finger."
Mose smiled his fleeting smile and relaxed his arm. "Saprie," he said,
and turned again to the hamper, "I beli've A'm able, ya-as."
"She baked this here cake in ther cookstove down ter Yelm Station," said
Lem, "an' it filled ther hull oven." He unfastened the lid of the
basket and Mose came around and looked over his shoulder. The cake was
wrapped in a piece of muslin. Lem brushed his hand across the seat of
his jeans and lifted the end of the cloth with the tips of his thumb and
finger. "It ain't white clear through," he added softly; "she made er
kind o' whitewash out'n eggs an' reg'lar first class sugar."
"It ees ver' gre't, for sure," said Mose, and he raised a side of the
hamper as though it was something holy, and helped Lem carry it across
to the pavilion.
When the remainder of Ginger's pack had been stored they lingered in the
arbor, making conjectures, and certifying them, as to the contents of
various bags and bundles, until further investigation was stopped by the
voice of the teacher in the clearing.
It was a bright day at the end of February, the Puget Sound spring, and
she had found and fastened on her breast a first cluster of Oregon
currant. The heart of the blossoms was reflected on her cheeks; the
light of the early morning was in her eyes. "Oh," she said, "what a
splendid table, Mose." And turning to the town carpenter, who
accompanied her, "Isn't it fine? And this is the boy of whom I told
you. He has split all of the shakes, hewn flooring, cut logs. He has
done everything except what the young ranchers could do for me in a few
odd days."
The carpenter admitted that Mose had done "uncommon well." Then while
the boy, pleased and embarrassed, led away and picketed the horses, she
showed the man the building site and talked over the material and plans.
But, presently, there were voices on the trail, and here were the
Laramies, the Phianders, with Eben Myers and Martha and Mother Girard,
followed by the people from the prairie and many more. The men walking,
bearing axes, saws, sometimes a rifle; the young folk afoot also, while
the older women and children rode double and by threes on mules, draught
horses, steers and Indian ponies. Then, were not those the hoof-beats
of John Phiander's Baldy, timed by the rapid pace of Mill Thornton's
sorrel? And the plodders in the trail must press quickly forward or
crowd into the thicket, to give the young blood room.
But these gay fellows were capable of sobering down. They were ready to
"match muscle," urging each other with dares and taunts to set their
swelling chests and heaving shoulders to the heavy timbers. And surely
the Nisqually had never seen another such raising; never so great a
company. People from Yelm and Tenalquet were there, and from Tacoma, in
Pierce County beyond the Puyallup. The walls went up apace; the huge
fir rafters were swung into position, and then appeared a wondrous
gable, its sloping eaves arching a roomy balcony. Surely the settlement
had yet to see as fine a cabin. Wild things crept to cover. And the
soughing of the chinook in the branches, the distant thunder of the
falls, the falling of rock up the mountain, were not to be heard in this
tumult of construction, the babel of voices, multiplied by the answering
clamor of the speaking hills.
But while these experienced settlers, men who had themselves conducted
raisings and superintended the building of a score of cabins, moved
about, taking meekly the orders of the town carpenter, their wives
followed the novel directions of the young teacher. Never before had
the Nisqually looked on such a table. All the long board was fringed
with cedar and twigs of flowering dogwood; turkeys and chickens placed
on huge wooden platters were garnished with the glossy leaves of the
Washington holly; hams in big trenchers, bearing yet the fragrance of
pine, were decorated with crisp sprigs of salal; and there were haunches
of venison and rounds of bear meat, or at intervals a wild goose, a
brace of ducks, all decked with bright shoots of spruce or fir. But the
center of the board was given to the great white cake, throned on a bank
of moss and embellished, to Lem's delight, with small flags. Others, of
a larger size, intermingled with Japanese lanterns, were fastened in
groups and singly among the trees which bordered the clearing. The
boughs over the table flamed with them.
"I give it up, but I 'low ther's 'bout five hundred." Lem cast a final
calculating glance over the table and the surrounding decorations. He
was seated on a lofty stump, his arms folded, his bare heels beating a
slow tattoo on the bark. "Ther small ones down to Yelm sells fur ten
cents er half dozen." He paused, then added speculatively, "I wonder
what she's goin' ter do with 'em when she gits through?"
His reverie was broken by a summons to table, and in the general rush,
he slipped from his perch and ferreted into a place at the foot of the
board. Only the men were seated, while the women served; the children
played or loitered about, watchful of the chance attention that
sometimes fell to them. At last in her rounds the boy's mother detected
him. "Wal, ef you don't beat all," she said, stopping short with a huge
tray of carved venison in her hands. "You git right up an' make
yourself scarce tell ther men's through."
Lem sat with his head bent, hands folded meekly; Ginger himself had
never shown greater dejection, and, like Ginger, he did not move.
"Oh, let him erlone," said Mill Thornton, lifting his tankard and
including the company with a bland smile. "He's goin' ter sing ther Ole
Settler fur us."
"I ain't nuther; I dunno it. Ask Cousin Samanthy." Lem cast a sidelong
glance at the young man, who blushed hotly and put down his
embarrassment with a draught from the tankard. "She'd be mighty
diserpointed ef you didn't ask her; she's be'n gittin' ready fur a
week."
With this Lem helped himself liberally from the platter in his mother's
hands, and cast another look at Samantha, who, also flushing pinkly,
stood in amazement, while the coffee-pot which she carried poured a
brown stream on the earth.
"Pshaw, 'tain't so," she said, drawing her breath quickly. "Lem 'lowed
all along he'd sing it ef I'd learn him ther words. Fur ther land
sakes," she added, addressing the coffee-pot, which she speedily
righted; and at the same time she caught the skirt of her pink cotton
frock out of range.
"I dunno 'em all," said Lem, and boldly held out his empty cup.
"Guess you'll hev ter, Samanthy," said Eben, laughing. "Come, now, tune
up."
At this, a cry repeated warmly by a score of throats, the girl put down
the coffee-pot and darted away. It then became Mill Thornton's office
to pursue and bring her back. He was encouraged by shouts and laughter
as the pink dress appeared and disappeared among the trees.
She stopped at length all flushed and panting, and turned her face shyly
to her pursuer. "I guess I'll hev ter, Mill. I'm ready ter drop."
"You're mighty pretty that erway," he said softly, putting his hand on
her arm,--he felt its plump roundness through the thin sleeve,--"I'd
like ter kiss you, ef I 'lowed you could stand it to hev that ther
tiresome crowd laffin'."
"My stars, Mill," she said and all the imps in her eyes mocked him,
"ain't you good? You're most er an-gel. I'll bet under your shirt you
kin jest feel ther wings er sproutin'."
But even then his courage failed him. "Oh, kem on," he said, "ther
ain't er girl in this hull deestrict kin beat you singin'. I'm ready
ter lick ther fellow says so."
He led her back towards the waiting company, his grasp tightening on her
arm. She hung her head and came reluctantly, catching at a branch,
dragging her feet.
"Well," said Eben, putting down his mug and drawing his hand across his
whiskers, "ef you're done er bein' bashful, now, Samanthy, we're ready
ter listen."
She straightened herself with a little cough and looked at her audience.
Then her glance fell and she shrank behind her captor with a faint, "I
don't like ter."
But the young man did not relax his hold, and though his face crimsoned,
he impelled her forward, closing his lips firmly over locked teeth, and
watching her warily, as an athlete measures an uncertain antagonist.
And he confessed to her privately, afterwards, that it "took more nerve"
to make her sing than was required later "to put a head on Pete Smith."
She met his look helplessly, but straightened herself once more, with
that little cough, and commenced in a clear quavering soprano.
"I've travelled all over ther country, prospectin'
an' diggin' fur gold,
I've tunnelled, hydraulicked an' cradled, an' I
hev be'n frequently sold."
The men grew silent, those to whom the song was new giving attention
only to the singer, the others dividing interest between her and the
table. But the words appealed to most, and convinced that, well
started, she would brave out the ordeal, Thornton resumed his place. He
masked his face in a set expression of indifference, but when his glance
moved to Samantha, his bold young heart leaped and proclaimed itself
through the batteries of his eyes.
She finished the song and took up her interrupted work of pouring
coffee. Eben cleared his throat, and parted his beard, stroking it
gently. "That ther chase you jest hed, Mill, 'minds me of er time I hed
over to Montaner. I dunno's I ever let on 'bout that ther hunt o' mine."
He paused, still stroking his whiskers, while the audience grew
attentive. "It was er full grown grizzly," he went on, "an' I'd give
her a mighty mean shot, so't she was fightin' ugly. I hedn't another
catridge an' I dunno's I'd hed time ter load up ef I hed. I natu'ally
hed ter light out, an' ther wa'n't er tree in sight; nothin' but er few
scrub hazels. But I got ter circlin' round them, ther bear after me,
tell ther first thing I see we was wearin' er reg'lar ditch in ther
ground. When it got 'bout's high's my head he let up er minute ter get
his wind, an' I see my chanct ter climb out. I was jest dead beat an'
all I could do was ter lay down close ter that bank an' watch that ther
grizzly chase hisself--didn't seem ter miss me--tell he dropped."
There was a pregnant silence, then young Thornton said gravely, "It was
er mighty close call, Eben, sure; 'bout ther closest you ever hed. But
I 'low you never showed us that ther grizzly's skin."
There was another brief silence, during which Eben thoughtfully regarded
his empty plate. "You're right," he said at last, "you're right, Mill,
but that ther pelt wa'n't worth keepin'. You see when I clumb down
after it I see it was spoiled. That ther ditch was mighty narrer, an'
scrapin' round so long he jest natu'ally rubbed ther hair clean offn
both sides."
The men, laughing, rose by twos and threes to return to their work. It
was then, while the women and children closed in around the table, that
Stratton rode into the clearing. Though he had travelled far that day
his person was not the worse for it; and Sir Donald's shining coat, his
long, lithe body, slender limbs and swelling chest, must have delighted
more critical eye than Alice Hunter's.
"This is very nice of you," she said, going to meet him. "I was just
feeling a little homesick for a face from the Sound. But Judge Kingsley
is in Washington, and no one else knew of the house-raising. What
happened to bring you?"
"Why, this quarter section caught my fancy the first time I saw it, last
summer, and I made up my mind to take it. But I heard, yesterday, an
entry had already been made, by a woman; probably one of these Canadian
daughters of the settlement, and the easiest course was to hurry
straight on to the headwaters, and ward off her improvements, and buy
her off."
"She is not to be bought."
"You think not? Then,"--he gave her a side glance and finished tying
the knot in Sir Donald's halter,--"I may decide to contest."
"Contest--this claim? you wouldn't do that?"
"Oh, yes I would." He paused to break a sword fern, with which he
flecked off nicely a remaining bit of dust from his riding-boot. "I
think I could make out a very good case. I should cover it with a
timber filing."
"A timber filing," she replied quietly, "doesn't hold over a homestead
right. At least, the exception is rare."
"But I should prove the exception. I should prove that the land is
worthless for agriculture, and the timber entry of the adjoining quarter
would strengthen the point. I might, however, find it advisable to make
the location under mineral rights."
"But there is no mineral, to my knowledge, on this tract; though beyond,
somewhere, in these hills, I have heard--there are indications."
"Then," and he waived that possibility, "it is enough that it is one of
the best timbered sections in the Puget Sound Basin. These are fine old
trees. And"-- He paused to fleck an ant from his sleeve--"I have
friends at court."
"Doubtless." Her patience was exhausted. "Such as those irreproachable
men of whom Phil Kingsley once told us." She flashed him a look with
that swift uplifting of her chin, and turned her face to the high
shoulder of the hill. Her lips closed firmly; her breath came a little
hard and quick; the ready color burned in her cheek.
Her retort brought the steel to his own eyes, but he had no answer. Her
glance returned. "How could you find a timber claim desirable in this
mountainous place? Twenty miles from a railroad, and on the Des Chutes,
where to raft logs, or even dream of it, is sheer madness?"
"But suppose I should wish to put up a sawmill, and cut the timber right
here on the ground? It would be a great thing for the settlement." His
smile, which always hinted of mockery, lingered, and he watched her with
the quiet enjoyment of the true angler, who is sure, but plays
cautiously, to lose nothing of the sport.
"It might benefit the settlement," she said, and flashed him another
look of fine scorn, though he saw her lip tremble, "but it would be
years before you could hope for returns on the investment."
At this he laughed outright. "I withdraw," he said, "I withdraw. You
are in fighting trim to your fingertips. You know too much about land
law, Miss Hunter; the Judge has been a thorough instructor, and what you
do not know about logging and milling, I am inclined to think is not
worth knowing. But the homestead is yours. Now please establish a
record for hospitality. I've had a long ride since breakfast."
"Do you mean--" She paused, flushing, then lifted her face to him all
sudden brightness and charm. "Oh, you do mean it; I see--I see. You
were only teasing me. It's hard, sometimes, to tell just where your jest
breaks off--or begins. But did you really want this section?
"Yes, I looked it up at the Land Office, as I came through Olympia,
intending to make a timber entry, and found the homestead filing under
your name." He had followed her to the table, taking the seat beside
her. And he stopped a moment, while he divided a roasted pheasant which
he shared with her, then he said, "I do not pretend to fathom your
reasons for burying yourself here in the wilderness; it is enough for me
to know that you want this land. And the next quarter, on the other
side of the cataract, is vacant. It is unsurveyed, but the squatter's
right will serve me as well. I only want the place now for a sort of
shooting-box; somewhere to stay in the hunting and fishing seasons, and,
incidentally, to carry on a little traffic with Laramie and one or two
other trappers, who have shown me already some very good furs."
She looked him over interestedly from this new point of view. "So," she
said, "So, you are to be my nearest neighbor, with just the river
between. Last autumn I thought I should have all the big heart of the
hills to myself, but since Christmas Mill Thornton has taken up the next
section but one on the school trail, and now you follow. The country is
being settled very fast." She turned her eyes again to that high spur.
After a moment she asked, "Have you been in Seattle lately, or at the
mills?"
"Yes, I was there two days ago and saw your sister. She was well, but I
think that the isolation wears on her, though she will not say so. She
admits, however, that she misses you, and she and the Captain are
planning a cruise among the islands. They are timing it for your spring
vacation, confident you will join them."
"Oh," she said, and delight shone in her eyes, "you don't know how that
tempts me; it's my favorite cruise."
"And you will arrange to go?"
She shook her head. "How can I? That short vacation means so much to
me; I've planned it all away. Mose is going to clear a strip towards the
river, for Colonel's pasture, and it must be big enough for the two
Jerseys which Judge Kingsley is sending me. And I must furnish the
cabin and take actual possession. But I don't know what to say to
Louise. She doesn't know about this homestead, Mr. Stratton; I don't
want her to know. You see it's all a venture; I might have to
relinquish; I might--fail."
"I understand," he answered, again laughing, "and I promise to keep the
secret from the Captain,--he can ridicule,--I promise, provided you go
that cruise."
"I'm afraid I must." She shook her head again, ruffling her brows.
"After all I ought to be able to spare this one week to my sister; she's
going to think I'm forgetting her, often enough, before I'm through."
While they were talking a man had entered the clearing from the river
side. He moved with a noiseless, sliding motion, and, seating himself
at the lower end of the table, aloof from the children, who still
loitered there, began unceremoniously to appease a prodigious appetite.
Alice watched him in half recognition. His face in the strong light of
midday was more than forbidding; it repelled while it also possessed the
fascination of extreme ugliness. His old ragged hatbrim, turned back
from a slanting forehead, left unshaded a pair of small, beadlike,
shifting eyes. Suddenly she remembered where she had seen him before.
It was at Laramie's cabin the time she had taken refuge from the storm.
He was that midnight visitor, Smith.
None of the settlers gave him special attention, though Samantha filled
his cup and Martha supplied him with an abundance of meat and bread.
That was the unwritten code of the wilderness; no man was ever turned
away hungry. And this man, though an escaped criminal, convicted of
some crime against a remote Government, belonged to the community; as
long as he respected its primitive laws he might come and go unmolested.
But to pillage his neighbor--that was the unpardonable sin. And
presently, at the moment of his departure, Smith crossed this line.
A short cruiser's ax, which young Thornton always carried in his belt
over a new trail, was lying on a fallen tree directly in the outlaw's
way. He was hampered by his gun, as he vaulted the log, but, by some
sleight of hand, he slipped the ax under his blouse. Instantly there
was a loud outcry, and before he could reach the cover of the jungle a
cordon of settlers cut him off.
He swung about to break for the thicket at another point, but there the
crowd closed. He stood motionless, weighing the odds, then he put his
gun aside, setting the stock against a stump, and the ax reappeared,
resting in the hollow of his arm. He caressed the edge of the blade
lightly, with his long nervous fingers, and at the same time raised his
shifting eyes to the owner, who confronted him. "A'm have some look at
your ax, Mill," he said at last in a thick, choppy voice; "mebbe I lak
to buy heem, ya-as, you want to sell heem, hey?"
Thornton drew a step nearer. "I 'low," he answered with slow emphasis,
"you've examined that ther little ax of mine mighty close, Pete."
Smith understood. There was little use of subterfuge or denial. This
cordon of men had become a tribunal, that, having already condemned,
awaited the transgressor's punishment. His only escape hung on action,
swift, sure. He swung the ax lightly, in a flash, but the instant it
left his hand, the young rancher dipped his great shoulder, and rushing
under the hurled blade, grappled with him. The confusion he had
expected to create failed; his chances of reaching the friendly jungle
shrank again. He writhed, twisted out of Thornton's grasp, and,
snakelike, struck. Harder pressed, he fought, without system,
ferociously, like a cornered rat, squeaking horribly and using his
teeth.
There could be no doubt of the outcome. Nature, in creating Thornton,
had made an athlete, and the great primal passions, latent in every man,
sprang unleashed to meet the beast with whom he had to deal. His quick
blows gathered impetus. His victim gave back slowly, snapping,
snarling, steps he made no effort to regain. And the human ring moved
with them, riverwards. It was miserable, but very swift, and the finish
came when the retreating man tripped backward over a root and went down.
Laramie sprang to raise him, but at the same instant the teacher,
throwing off Stratton's detaining arm, pushed into the circle and stood
before the fallen man. She did not speak at once; the words, struggling
in her throat, choked. But Thornton's great doubled forearm relaxed and
dropped at his side. He met the command, the reproach in her brave eyes
and the fury in his own died.
"I will not have it," she said at last, and her voice rang.
"Remember,"--her look swept the cordon,--"from this day I will not have
fighting on _my land_."
There was a brief silence. Laramie moved back to his place. Behind her
the outlaw rolled on his side, then to his stomach, and began to worm
himself towards a cedar that had broken the ring. No one stopped him.
He covered the ground with incredible swiftness, with a writhing motion,
learned of necessity and long contact with the jungle, and like some
hideous goblin crawled under the dragging boughs of the tree.
Myers cleared his throat. "Pete orter kep' erway," he said mildly. "I
'low he didn't get mor'n was due him. Tell you, I've seen er man over in
Montaner catch it er sight worse fur doin' less. That ther's a mighty
good little ax o' Mill's."
Stratton, who had followed Alice closely, lifted Smith's rifle and
walked coolly over to the cedar and passed it between the boughs. The
outlaw was on his feet, and he clutched the gun and ran across the
remaining bit of open, and dropped out of sight in the dense
undergrowth.
"Of course," she said, replying to Eben, "I understand that. The man
must be punished; but there are better ways."
"Ther nighest sheriff," said Eben, still mildly, "lives to Olympia,
sixty miles straight. That's ther closest jedge, too, an' court."
"Still, here are men enough to hold him," and her voice deepened to a
dominant note; "lock him in his cabin, guard him until the right
officers can arrive. He should have been turned over to the Government
long ago, you all know it, for greater crimes. It must be done now."
She set her lips and turned, and for the first time realized Smith was
gone. Stratton stood waiting near the cedar. He saw the sudden relief
flash through the consternation in her face. "You let him go," she said
slowly. "You could have stopped him. It was your duty."
"Yes," he came towards her, "I let him go. I even helped him off.
Pardon me or--punish me."
She stood for a moment looking up into his face, but he bore the
scrutiny easily enough, smiling, with a tinge of mockery. "Oh," she
said, "how could you? How could you? But I know the reason; it was an
impulse--of the heart--to take the losing side. It was wrong--but
I--like you for it."
"You like me?" he laughed softly, "You like me?" He paused, enjoying
the confusion in her face. She turned it away. "So," he went on, "So
you think I sided with the under dog? No, no, Miss Hunter, I am not
that kind of a man. It just seemed the quickest way to terminate that
miserable row. You should never have witnessed it; you should not have
been here. This wilderness is no place for you."
Instantly her confusion was gone. "Oh," she said, "surely this has been
proof enough. It is the one place, the right place; the settlement
needs me. But--it's going to be the hardest work," she shook her head
gravely, "and I want you to help me." She stood another moment
searching his face, then, "You are a strange man," she added. "Why is
it you cover your best and delight in showing your worst side?"
"There is no best," he answered quickly. "I am past appeal." And he
turned and walked swiftly away towards the river and that section of
land he had come to see.
Smith was gone; the episode was closed, and the men had resumed their
interrupted work. Then, presently, the teacher called Mose and the
older children to her assistance, and an arch was formed of stout
saplings twined with hemlock and cedar. And when Stratton had returned
and it had been set up on the finished floor, he helped to decorate it
with flags and yards on yards of gay ribbon, in loops and bows and
streamers. There were also, nodding under the smartest twigs,
mysterious little packages wrapped in bright papers with fringed ends,
so that Lem with inc
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