CHAPTER IX

_Narratives of Adventure_

Of all forms of narrative the account of adventure is, it is safe

to say, the very oldest. It dates back, indeed, to the childhood of

all races. Not only was it written on Egyptian papyrus four thousand

years before Christ, but it was told and sung around camp and council

fires long before written history begins.

Nor has its popularity decreased with age and with the advance of

civilization. Young and old alike still delight in accounts of

physical prowess, in stories of danger and disaster, in tales of

experiences in far-away places and among unfamiliar peoples. Boy

scouts reluctantly leave their camp-fires to dream of hunting and

trapping in the far north or in the African jungle; college students

swap adventures upon their return in the fall; and the Arctic

explorer speaks to houses crowded with all sorts and conditions of

men.

It is only natural, therefore, that the writing of accounts of

adventure should appeal to a student perhaps more than the writing

of any other form of narrative. Material lies close at hand, culled

either from his own experience or from that of those whom he knows;

and he is eager to present that material so that his readers or

hearers may feel that same thrill of excitement which he has felt so

often.

And yet in order that that thrill of excitement may be experienced

to the full, it is necessary that he understand how to tell his

story in the best way, how to begin at once with no unnecessary

preliminaries which will retard the action, how to keep and to

increase suspense in his readers, how to make the most of his

culminating and climactic incident, how to conclude his story

impressively so that his readers may not lose their eager interest

before the last word.

The selections that follow illustrate some of the best methods of

handling adventure material. In _Wild Justice_ Mr. Townshend is

recounting an incident so dramatic and stupendous in itself that he

uses the simplest style possible in its portrayal. His sentences,

for the most part, are short and direct; his words are simple and

concrete. He realizes fully that description of scenery which is

not absolutely necessary, or characterization of persons, except

that given by their own behavior, are out of place in a narrative as

absorbing as this one.

The student must not think, however, that description is always out

of place in an account of adventures. Sometimes, on the contrary,

it immeasurably adds to the effectiveness of the narrative. In _The

Attack of the Tiger_, for example, which depicts an incident of

the jungle, a place in itself strange and exotic to us, Mr. Rosny

increases the atmosphere which he would create of this “world of

trees” by his beautiful use of description. Again, in the selection

from Pierre Loti’s _The Iceland Fisherman_, the exquisite portrayal

of the storm is used as the background against which, or perhaps

better, as the setting _in_ which, Yann and Sylvestre move. The

elements of the storm, the clouds, the wind, the waves, became,

in fact, the adventurers, as well as the men who contend against

them. And what a charming effect is given by the refrain which

Yann and Sylvestre sing through their white lips! Indeed, both of

these selections show what artistic heights the writer of adventure

narratives may reach, what purely æsthetic effects are possible in

his work.

The following suggestions may be of assistance to the student:

1. Study the incident (or incidents) which you are to relate. If it

seems to you to be so dramatic in itself that it needs little help

from the style or diction, then choose the simplest and most direct

manner of relating it. If, on the other hand, the environment

in which the action takes place seems to you all-important, do

not hesitate to employ means which will add atmosphere to your

narrative.

2. Do not waste time in getting started. Remember that

preliminaries are dangerous in the writing of an account of

adventure. Be as economical with them as possible.

3. Be sure that your story _mounts_ continually, that the suspense

increases. Do not allow any digressions.

4. Do not, however, be in too great a hurry to relate your

climactic incident. You will increase the suspense by slowing down

before you reach it, by giving _all_ the details. Note how fully

and clearly Mr. Townshend depicts every step of the proceeding

between the verdict of guilty and the actual hanging. A less

careful writer would have spoiled his narrative by being in too

much of a hurry.

5. Make your close as effective as possible, and _know when you

have finished_. Note that _Wild Justice_ really ends with the

words, “The work was done.”

M. E. C.

WILD JUSTICE

R. B. TOWNSHEND

Returning to Denver, I parted company with Matthews; to tell the

truth, I was a bit tired of his everlasting sneers, so often (as I

thought) directed against better men than himself. Besides, I thought

I was competent now to stand on my own feet instead of going around

on a personally conducted tour. Naturally my first step was to buy

a horse. For this I went to Billy and Hi Ford, who had brought some

1500 head of wild bronco stock--bronco is Spanish for unbroken--from

California to Denver where they were selling them as rapidly as they

could get them broken in. Ford Brothers soon took my measure and for

I think $60 fitted me out with a little brown mare, who had been

ridden several times. They put me very carefully on her, and I went

down the Platte a few miles and put up at a ranch. Along the main

freighting roads most ranches would take you in overnight and give

you supper, bed and breakfast for $1.50, or if your horse had to be

fed also, for $2.25. A snowstorm came on that night and I lay there

two days till the weather improved. The little brown mare had done

herself uncommonly well in the barn, and when I tried to climb on to

her back on the third morning she began to play up. The friendly and

much amused ranchman lent me a helping hand, however, and at last I

got myself fixed in the saddle with my blanket roll padding me in

well there and the ranchman hanging tight on to her head.

“Do you think she’ll buck?” I asked nervously as he let her go.

“Guess so,” said he.

And buck she certainly did. But I was so well wedged in with my

pack that I did manage to remain, though I can’t say I liked it, and

the upshot of it was I rode back to Denver and traded her (plus $20

more) to Billy Ford for an ancient chestnut “bronc” who had got over

all his youthful frivolities. I called him Methusalem, and he turned

out an excellent travelling animal for a tenderfoot. On him I rode

out to Kiowa Creek to visit an English ranchman I had met in Denver,

and I stayed there a few days riding around the prairie and seeing

what cattle was like. My friend had a nice American wife and a nice

bunch of American cattle, which he milked, while she, like a good

ranchwoman, made butter from the milk. Butter was worth, I think,

75 cents a pound. Of course these American dairy cattle, which were

just like our ordinary English farm stock, were quite unlike the

long-horned, long-legged animals of Spanish breed, of which drovers

had just begun to bring up large herds from Texas. The older Colorado

stock-men, owners of American stock, rather resented this intrusion,

as the wild Texas brutes could be sold for less than half the prices

they had been used to getting, and consequently their profits went

down; but they had to put up with it. All the disgruntled owner of

American stock could do was to chase the others off his range when

they invaded it, but this he had no legal right to do, as the range

was Government land, and he only did it at the risk of rough handling

from the Texan cow-punchers, and I much enjoyed the good gallops on

the prairie even though Methusalem was hardly fast enough to head a

wild steer. But I did get my first taste of cow-punching and liked it

well.

Next I decided to wander down the Platte and see what that section

was like. Ranches extended some fifty odd miles below Denver,

about to the point where the South Platte River makes its big bend

eastwards, and at this point a new town was just being started.

It was named Evans in honour of the man who had been Governor of

Colorado before McCook, and its _raison d’être_ was that the first

railroad into Colorado was now being opened so far for traffic.

This railroad was the Denver Pacific R. R. running from Cheyenne to

Denver, and Evans was the half-way house. The city was just three

weeks old when I got there, and the site of it was on the north

bank of the Platte, across which a bridge was going to be built. I

put up at the ranch of a very friendly old ranchman, Godfrey, no

relation to the other Godfrey down at Saguache; he had a bunch of

American cattle, and a wife and son, the latter a very fine young

fellow. Godfrey let me use his rifle, an old-fashioned small-bored

muzzle-loader with a heavy octagon barrel nearly four feet long,

I should say. Armed with this wondrous weapon I sallied out after

antelopes, of which there were any number around there, and I got my

first lessons in stalking. Stalking antelope, like everything else,

was quite new to me, and I was as keen as possible to take lessons in

whatever thing there was to be learnt. There was something, though,

to be learnt in that little mushroom city of Evans which I most

certainly did not anticipate. When I rode over there I found that

it consisted of some forty or fifty houses of raw boards, mostly

half-finished or with their roofs in process of being “shingled,”

stuck down here and there on the bare prairie. The parched yellow

bunch-grass, over which wild Texas cattle had grazed a month before,

grew up to, and under, the little frame buildings which were raised

for the most part six inches or a foot off the ground on stone or

brick props; the earth was cut up in every direction by the ruts

of waggon-wheels, and piles of newly sawn lumber lay about. In the

middle of all snorted the locomotive, the earliest that ever ran on

the plains of Colorado--for the railroad had come at last, and this

was the end of the track, the first completed section of the iron

road, in Colorado Territory.

I was riding past a bar-room where there were some men with whisky

bottles and glasses set out before them, when one of them sung out to

me:

“Come ’n hev’ a drink.”

“No, thank you,” I replied without pulling up.

In a moment out flashed a revolver pointed straight at my head.

“Yes, you will,” said the same voice with emphasis, “or else----”

What “else” meant was left to the imagination, but I didn’t find it

hard to guess. My reply was:

“Oh, certainly,” and I sprang from my saddle saying, “I’d rather

drink than be shot any day.” And without more ado I took my dose. But

I can’t say I liked my society.

“I’ve looked to see ’em have a man for breakfast any morning,”

said old Godfrey when I got back to the ranch and told him of it.

“According to what I hear they’ve bin shooting at the lamps in the

saloons and dancing on the bars, slinging their six-shooters round

their heads, and raising Cain generally, every night. I’ve wondered

there hasn’t been nobody shot yet, but I reckon they were each one

of ’em kind of shy of being the first to begin. But now, if they’ve

started in, likely they’ll have another Julesburg here if they ain’t

interfered with.”

Julesburg, as I have already said, was a spot that had been the end

of the track on the Union Pacific Railroad for some months during

its construction, and it had been, perhaps, the most debauched and

the most blood-stained little moral pesthouse the Far West ever saw.

A young man presently arrived at Godfrey’s where he also found

quarters under that hospitable roof; he called himself a schoolmaster

by trade, and his object was to see if by chance such a thing was

wanted in this three-weeks’-old town. A town, even the newest, almost

always had some families, and that generally meant some boys of

school age, with, as the obvious and natural consequence, an opening

for a schoolmaster. I can’t say that I was much impressed with my

new friend’s scholastic qualifications, but I was out to learn all I

could of this strange country, and at his invitation I rode with him

down to the ford across the South Platte with a view to seeing what

opening there might be in Evans. “Crack” came the sharp sound of a

pistol shot as we rode through the icy ford, and we saw men running

among the houses, and a couple of horsemen with rifles in their hands

galloping after a man who was flying at top speed towards the brush

in the Platte bottom.

“The toughs from Cheyenne have been trying to run this town ever

since it was started,” said my companion, “but they haven’t killed

anyone so far. I wonder if that shot means the first man killed.”

We rode through the fringe of willow brush and cottonwood trees

that skirted the river, and up the bluff. We now got fairly into

the town and saw all the population--all the male population, that

is--swarming like bees in the middle of the main street. Horses and

ox-teams stood here and there untended; the shingling hatchets and

carpenter’s tools lay around the half-finished houses, just where

they had been thrown down. The stores were open, but they were empty,

for buyers and sellers had crowded, like all the rest, to the scene

of action. There in the centre of the crowd was a sight to remember.

Ten men shoulder to shoulder formed a ring, each man facing outwards,

each man holding his cocked revolver, muzzle up, the hand that

held it being on a level with his chest; the men’s set mouths and

searching eyes, turning restlessly on the crowd around, showed them

to be sharply on the watch for signs of an attempted rescue.

A rescue, but of whom? It did not take long to recognize who was the

object of their care. In the middle of the ring, bareheaded, with his

arms bound, stood a prisoner, a sickly smile on his loose lips, and

the colour coming and going in patches on his bloated face. By him

was a guard, also pistol in hand like those who formed the ring, but

his eyes were bent not on the crowd, but on the prisoner; and the

pistol he held was pointed not toward the sky, but straight at the

prisoner’s heart. Were a rescue attempted, it was clear the rescuers

would recover only a corpse. That the toughs would try to set their

friend free if they dared was certain; it was useless to try to

secure him by locking him up in an extempore gaol, for there was no

building in the town that could resist a determined assault for five

minutes; but a bodyguard such as now held him could not be maintained

for long. These men had their own business to attend to; and standing

guard, pistol in hand, expecting to kill or be killed, is a dead loss

of time and wages. However, it was not intended by those who were

putting their energies, heart and soul, into the building of a new

town to waste very much time over guarding a murderer. For it was

murder that this wretched captive was held for, and stiff and stark,

in a house hard by, with a bullet through his brain, lay the body of

his victim. The sound of the loud weeping of the widowed wife and

orphan daughters was heard at intervals across the vacant lots, and

that agonized crying served to inflame the passions of the crowd.

From the bystanders I gathered that old man Steel, a most respectable

man who kept a boarding-house, had just been shot by a tough, and

that it was more than probable that Judge Lynch would take cognizance

of the case. The crying of the wretched widow and orphaned children

sounded in the ears of the people, and called for vengeance. The one

anxiety was, would the other railroad toughs try to rescue their hero?

Presently an empty lumber waggon was run out a little way from the

town on the bare prairie; from the box end of this a few nail kegs

were arranged in a double row, perhaps eight feet apart, and boards

were laid on them for seats. A man sprang up on the waggon, and said:

“A crime has been committed here, and I move that a People’s Court be

constituted to try the case. Those in favour will say ‘Aye.’”

“Aye, aye,” came from all quarters, like a dropping fire.

“Contrary, ‘No,’” the temporary chairman added, as if by an

afterthought.

I fancied I heard a few muttered remarks, but no man said “No”

openly. Perhaps the railroad toughs were lying low for the present.

Up jumped another man, so quick and pat that it dawned upon me that

there was a prepared scheme being put in operation.

“I move that Captain Sopris be elected judge of this court,” he said.

As before, the “Ayes” had it.

“Captain Sopris was a People’s Judge in Denver, and he hanged a heap

of men there, too, time of the Pike’s Peak boom,” said an old-timer

near me. “The captain knows the ropes.” There was a grim double

meaning in the way he said “ropes.”

Captain Sopris mounted the waggon box in his turn and took his seat,

throwing a keen eye over the crowd.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I have been elected to try this case by you,

the people. Is it your will that I should select a jury? Those who

are in favour say ‘Aye!’”

Once more the full-throated chorus of “Ayes!” arose from the crowd.

“Contrary, ‘No,’” said the Judge to the crowd in matter-of-fact

tones, turning at the same time to speak to a man beside him. It was

his art, I think, to appear to take it all as mere matter of course,

yet I am certain he and his supporters were sharply on the watch for

any sign of opposition from the prisoner’s friends. But the “people”

had got a leader now, and any who would have liked to interfere were

cowed by the almost unanimous ‘Aye!’ of the majority. When the judge

said “Contrary, ‘No!’” there may have been a murmur here and there,

but no man durst answer “No,” square and bold.

The people were rousing to their work. We were all packed tight round

the court, for that farm waggon and the nail keg seats had become the

Court of the People out there on the prairie under the open sky. I

had dismounted and wedged myself in next the seats where my neighbour

said the jury would be. Quickly a dozen jurors were chosen and took

their places. A Bible was produced, and every juror was sworn to give

an honest verdict. Each man as soon as he was sworn took his seat,

on one or other of the impromptu benches, till there were six on one

side and six on the other.

“And now,” said the judge, “bring in the prisoner.”

Accordingly the guards, with the prisoner in their midst, moved up

to the open side of the court; but as they did so it was seen that

something had occurred, for beside the prisoner stood little Pat

Egan, who was believed to represent the majesty of the law in some

sort of capacity or other.

“Captain Sopris,” he began in somewhat plaintive accents, “this hyar

thing ain’ regular at all. By rights this hyar man’s my prisoner, and

I can’t consent to no proceedings of this sort.”

The judge took no more notice of him than if he had been a piece of

wood; less, indeed, for he did not appear to see him.

“But,” continued the little Irishman, “I’m a county officer, I am,

and I’m liable to be called in question for this business. And I

can’t give up this man,” he went on piteously, “without some excuse,

ye know I can’t.”

The audience smiled audibly, but the judge, the jury and guards never

looked at him, never heard him, never knew he was there, so to speak,

but went on with their own business, arranging the order in which the

witnesses should be called.

Pat Egan continued his pitiful demands for an excuse. The crowd was

jammed thick round the court, the foremost men leaning over the

backs of the jury on both sides. Eager to catch every word, I had

tied my horse to a post in the street and had squeezed myself in up

to the very seat where the jury sat, so that I was within a couple

of yards of Mr. Egan and the prisoner. Leaning on me was a great

yellow-bearded giant in a slouch hat. He reached down to his hip and

produced an enormous revolver, one of the old dragoon Colt’s, with a

barrel about a foot long. Bearing on my shoulder with his left hand,

he extended his long right arm over the heads of the jury till the

pistol-muzzle was within a few inches of Pat’s head. Pat, with his

face to the judge’s bench, was still volubly explaining that he was a

county officer and couldn’t consent.

“Mr. Egan,” breathed the giant with the big pistol, in the softest

tones.

Mr. Egan was absorbed in his own ardent utterances, and didn’t hear.

“Mr. Egan,” a little louder.

Pat turned round sharp and looked into the muzzle of the formidable

weapon.

“Mr. Egan, will that do ye for an excuse?” said the giant with an air

of gentle sarcasm.

Mr. Egan recoiled several feet with an air of comic alarm.

“Oh, certainly, sir,” he responded with alacrity. “Certainly,

certainly, quite sufficient; that will do.” And he, the sole

representative of the lawful Government of Colorado, disappeared

promptly and finally from the scene.

And now the serious business of the court began.

“Is there a lawyer in town?” asked the judge. “If so, fetch him. The

prisoner can have a counsel.”

There was a Mr. Tallboys, a lawyer, a very young one, who came. The

people of this mushroom town had arrived with a rush from everywhere,

and every profession was represented.

“Understand,” said Sopris, leaning over from the waggon to the

counsel for the accused, “this is a People’s Court. Any arguments

you can use for your client will get a fair hearing. But you are not

to object to the competence of the court. If you try to do so, I am

deaf.”

The lawyer, looking very uncomfortable, murmured some indistinct

answer. He was in an extremely irregular and unpleasant position. But

he saw that he must either accept it or go. He elected to stay. As

counsel for the prisoner, he stood beside him in the centre of the

court.

“I shall now call on the prosecution to bring forward their

witnesses,” said Captain Sopris. “We will hear their story first, and

you, prisoner, can cross-examine them either by yourself or by your

lawyer.”

The first witness came forward and, after having been sworn on the

Book to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,

began:

“I was at dinner at old man Steel’s boarding-house. It was the first

table and it was chock-full. This man come in--he was a boarder there

too--and wanted to find a place, and growled because he couldn’t get

none. Then one of Mr. Steel’s gals who was waiting at table told

him he must wait till his turn, till there was room. Wal’, he says

something sassy to her, and she up and slaps a cup of coffee she had

in her hand right in his face. Then he begun to get up on his ear

about it, and so two or three of the young fellows at table jest

fired him out.”

The judge, who was sitting reflectively on the waggon-box, with his

head on his hand, here interposed.

“Did they hit him or pound him at all?”

“No,” answered the witness, “not nohow. They jest took him by the

shoulders and jest naturally fired him out’n the door. He’d had a

drink or two in him, you know, though he warn’t drunk.”

“What did he do then?” asked one of the jury.

“Went off, I reckon,” said the witness. “I didn’t see no more of him.”

“Did Mr. Steel have anything to do with turning him out?” asked the

judge.

“No, sir. He warn’t thar’; he was in the inner room, I reckon.”

“Did you see the shooting?” asked the judge.

“No, sir, I went off to my work as soon as dinner was over,” was the

reply.

“Mr. Tallboys, do you wish to ask this witness any questions?” said

the judge to the prisoner’s lawyer.

The lawyer conferred a minute with his client, and then said to the

court that he didn’t wish to cross-examine this man. The witness, a

young carpenter, was accordingly told he could go, which he did with

an air of very considerable relief, mingling at once with the crowd.

Another man was now brought forward and sworn like the first.

“Were you with Mr. Steel after dinner?” asked the judge.

“Yes,” said the witness, “I was.”

“Tell the jury what happened.”

“Mr. Steel and I were unloading a load of lumber I’d brought for

him. He was at one end of the pile, I was at the other, and we were

lifting the boards off the waggon. Suddenly I saw the prisoner come

up behind Mr. Steel, and I heard him say, ‘I want to talk to you.’”

“Was the prisoner alone?” asked a juryman.

“I didn’t see anyone, not to say actually with him. There were two or

three men standing together across the street, but I don’t know for

certain as they had anything to do with him.”

“What did Mr. Steel say?” asked the judge.

“He looks at him, and says he, ‘I can’t talk to you now: I’m busy.

You must come around after working hours.’ Then the prisoner says,

‘You’ve got to talk to me, and you’ve got to talk to me now.’ And

Mr. Steel he says, ‘Wal’, I ain’t agoin’ to,’ and turned round to

take hold of the lumber again; and the prisoner, he reaches down

and pulls out his pistol, and, before I could holler to him or do

anything, he just put it close behind Mr. Steel’s head and fired. Mr.

Steel dropped, and the prisoner he ran. I started round the waggon to

grab him, but he ran t’other way. Then I picked up Mr. Steel; he was

breathing, but he never spoke. The bullet went in at the back of his

head, and come out over his right eye. Me and some more took him into

the house.”

“Mr. Tallboys, have you any question to ask this witness?” said

Captain Sopris.

Mr. Tallboys consulted with the prisoner awhile, and announced that

he had not. The witness, a teamster, was accordingly dismissed, like

the former one. Three or four more were called, and repeated the

story told by these two in much the same words. It was elicited that

the prisoner had had no pistol on when he came to dinner and was put

out-of-doors, so that he must have procured it in the interval before

he came back. The case was so clear that there was no necessity to

distress those poor, unhappy women by calling them.

One of the men who captured the prisoner testified that he was

at work near, and “happened to have a saddled horse near, and a

Winchester handy.” Also that he had a friend similarly provided.

Tenderfoot though I was, it dawned on me that these men must belong

to an organized body who had made themselves ready beforehand. Evans

had its Vigilantes. The two friends heard a shot, saw a man with a

pistol running for the brush, heard the people crying murder, and at

once set after him. He just got to cover as they caught him up, but

he showed no fight; as soon as they covered him with the Winchesters,

he threw up his hands and surrendered, and here he was.

Here the lawyer saw his chance to put a few questions in

cross-examination, asking whether they promised the prisoner his life

when he surrendered, and so forth; but nothing came out that could

help him. Things looked terribly black for the wretched man, and he

began to cry.

Nothing could have been more orderly than the behaviour of the court.

While the witnesses were being examined, you might have heard a

pin drop. Between whiles the crowd conversed among themselves, but

in sober and hushed tones. There was no yelling of a mob for the

blood of a victim, but a most evident deadly resolution to exact

the uttermost penalty. I remember thinking to myself, “How I wish

Carlyle were here” (he was still alive in those days), “to feel for

himself the contrast between this and the revolutionary tribunals of

Paris! This would seem to him more like some old Teuton gathering of

freemen in the Northern forests.”

And now the witnesses were all disposed of, and the trial drew to its

close. The young lawyer was asked if he had any witnesses to call for

the defence, but he intimated that there were none. I felt for the

young man in his first case, with such a hopeless task before him

as the defence of this red-handed criminal taken in the very act. I

racked my brain to think of what I should say were I in his position.

I thought of the words of Magna Charta (remember I had only just left

Cambridge): “Against no man will we go, neither will we send, save by

lawful judgment of his peers, and by the law of the land.”

“The common law holds good in America,” I thought, “and surely they

will have heard of Magna Charta.” Then I heard the judge’s grave

tones addressing the lawyer.

“Mr. Tallboys,” he said, “the evidence in this case is now before the

court; but before the jury retire to consider their verdict you are

at liberty to offer any remarks you have to make on it that you may

think advisable. Understand, you are not to question in any way the

competency of the court. This is a people’s court, sprung from and

organized by the people themselves, and if you question its right,

you put yourself out of court at once, and it will be my duty not to

hear you. On the question of the prisoner’s guilt you are at full

liberty to speak.”

These words scattered to the winds my imaginary reference to

Magna Charta and the field of Runnimede and the long tradition of

Anglo-Norman law. They were all ruled out of court. The issue was

narrowed down to the simple question, “Did the prisoner kill old man

Steel or no?” and to that, after the testimony of several witnesses

to a thing that had happened two hours before in broad daylight under

the open sky, but one answer was possible.

The lawyer got up and spoke a few words, but there really was nothing

for him to say.

“Gentlemen of the jury,” said Captain Sopris, “I think the case is

complete, but before you retire to consider your verdict I will ask

the prisoner personally to make any statement he thinks fit that

might weigh with you. Prisoner, have you anything to say?”

There was a great silence of the whole crowd for some minutes; all

eyes were bent on the man addressed. He swallowed hard a few times,

and choked back his tears, and at last whined out:

“I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

Didn’t mean to hurt him--when he had shot him through the head at

two yards off! If it had not been a tragedy, there would have been

a shout of laughter. But, instead, there was a grimmer silence than

before. The prisoner had said all he had to say.

The pause was broken by Captain Sopris.

“Gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the evidence, and also what

the prisoner has to say for himself. You will now retire to consider

your verdict.”

The jury rose and filed out, and standing off a little distance on

the prairie talked together. The tension in the court was relaxed,

and there was a hum of conversation. The prisoner whispered to his

lawyer inaudibly.

Presently the jury filed back into court and sat down.

“Gentlemen,” said Captain Sopris, “have you decided on your verdict?”

“We have,” answered one who acted as foreman.

“Are you unanimous?” again asked the judge.

“We are,” was again the answer.

“What is your verdict?”

There was a breathless hush in the court as the foreman said in clear

steady tones:

“Guilty of murder in the first degree.”

Again you might have heard a pin drop on the prairie grass.

I saw the two men with the Winchesters slip on to their saddle-horses

and take up their position on the side between the crowd on the

prairie and the town.

Sopris raised his eyes from the jury to the crowd.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “the jury have found the prisoner guilty of

murder in the first degree. It is for you, the people, to say what

his punishment shall be. Those who are in favour of hanging will say

‘Aye.’”

An answering roar of “Aye” went up to the sky above us.

“Contrary, ‘No,’” said Sopris.

There was a dead silence.

Sopris waited to give any friend of the prisoner time to harden his

heart and say “No.” None did.

“Prisoner,” said the judge, turning to the wretched creature, who was

now sobbing and unnerved, “the jury have found you guilty and the

people have sentenced you to be hung. You will be hung in fifteen

minutes to the nearest tree. If you have anything to say before then,

you had better say it.”

Then was heard a loud voice from the outskirts of the crowd. It came

from a big man, sitting on a horse, with a sixteen-shot Winchester in

his hand; two more horsemen, similarly armed, were by him.

“Every man come down to the tree,” he said. “Let no man stay back.

It’s one and all.”

“One and all.” It was the motto, if I remember right, of the New

Model Army in its struggle with the Rump, that terrible Cromwellian

army that did not shrink from cutting off the head of a king. And

indeed I asked myself how far was the court, presided over by Mr.

President Bradshaw, which sentenced Charles I, more legal than

this people’s court, with Captain Sopris as elected judge? “These

Americans,” thought I, “are the real true-bred sons of those old

Commonwealth men.”

Slowly across the trampled grass the procession moved towards the

fatal tree. The sun was sinking fast towards the west, where the

great jagged wall of the Rocky Mountains stood dark against the clear

sky. Just outside the town, on the edge of the bottom lands of the

Platte, grew a big cottonwood tree, its leafless branches spreading

wide. Here we halted. I had remounted my pony and, anxious to see the

whole thing through, had wedged myself into the middle of the throng.

One of the guards stepped up to me, and, holding up his pistol as he

laid his hand on my bridle, said:

“Get off that horse.”

“What for?” I asked. “Why do you want him?”

“Never mind,” was his answer, “you shall have him back again; but

he’s wanted. You’ve got to get off.”

His manner was peremptory. I dismounted. They took my picket rope, a

nearly new one, three-quarters of an inch in diameter and forty feet

long, and, making a noose in one end, tossed it over a limb twelve or

fifteen feet up from the ground.

“Will you tell us,” said the leader of the Vigilantes, addressing the

condemned man, “who gave you the pistol?”

I gathered from his manner that he had been trying to induce him to

reveal his accomplices on the way to the tree. The wretch looked up

at the rope swinging above him, and said:

“Will you give me my life if I tell?”

“We promise nothing,” said his questioner, a short, bullet-headed man

with a singularly resolute face, “but,” he added, “it won’t be worse

for you if you do.”

“Then I won’t say,” answered the prisoner.

“Have you any friends that you want to say good-bye to?” he asked

again; and, the prisoner nodding assent, he called out to the crowd,

“If there are any friends of this man here who wish to speak to him,

they can do so, one at a time.”

A dissolute-looking gambler in a very seedy frock-coat, with his

hands in his pockets, slouched forward with uneasy swagger. The

guards examined him to see that he had no concealed weapons, and

then admitted him to the prisoner. He sauntered up to him with

an ill-concealed nervousness which he tried to carry off as easy

nonchalance.

“Wal, Joe, old man,” he observed to his friend, “you’ve got to the

jumping-off place this time, I guess.”

The prisoner gave a ghastly grin.

“Say, old man,” he continued, drawing one hand from his trousers’

pocket, and rubbing it on the unshaven cheek of the condemned man,

where three or four days’ stubbly growth of hair bristled, “You’d

better ax ’em to let you shave this off. It might be in the way of

the rope.”

The prisoner only groaned at the disgusting pleasantry.

“Take him away,” said the leader to the guards. “No more of this.

Now,” he said to the doomed man, “do you want to pray? Will you have

a minister?”

No answer was returned; but there was a slight movement among the

crowd--men looking to right and left as if searching for the sight of

a black coat; but it was in vain--no one like a minister was to be

found.

“Do you wish to send a message to anybody?” asked the leader.

“I’ve a wife in Philadelphia,” said the murderer through his sobs.

A notebook was instantly produced.

“Your name, your real name?” said the Vigilante.

“Joe Carr.”

“Her address?”

The prisoner mumbled something I couldn’t hear. It was a hangman’s

knot that had been tied in my rope, and now the noose was put over

his head, and settled round his neck; the other end of the rope

tossed over the bough was made fast with a turn round the trunk of

the tree; the horse was brought alongside him.

“Now say a prayer if you want to,” said the Vigilante.

“I’ll be good God damned if I think a prayer of mine ’ud go more’n

seven feet high,” said the reprobate.

In a moment he was hoisted on to the horse, the rope drawn taut, and

a resounding smack given to the horse’s quarters. The animal bounded

forward, and the murderer was left swinging.

“Run him up! run him up!” was the cry, and twenty willing hands

hauled on the rope till the body was swung aloft to within two feet

of the bough, and the rope was again made fast.

There was silence for a little space; then the leader of the

Vigilantes took his stand beneath the fatal branch, and spoke short

and plain.

“There’s men here,” said he, “as guilty in intention as that man,”

pointing to the body, “was in act. Let this be a warning to them. Let

this be a sign that in this town the people don’t mean to tolerate

any such goings on. We know there were men who encouraged this

miserable wretch to do this thing that brought him to this--yes, and

lent him the pistol to do it with. They may thank their stars they

are not hanging beside him now. They are just as guilty as he was,

and if they know what’s healthy for them, they’ll get out of this

before daylight to-morrow. And I say the same to any more there are

of the same kidney here, and who thought they were going to run this

town. They’d better drop it. They’d better get. The people of this

town are going to run this town themselves, and this here is the

proof of it. Enough said.” And, turning away, he stepped back into

the crowd and joined his friends.

“It’s all over, boys,” said the big man on the horse, with the

Winchester in his hand. “We can go back to our business now. Let no

man interfere with that body,” he added. “It’ll be seen to to-night.

No one’s to touch it without orders.”

And the crowd broke up into knots and slowly dispersed.

“Young man,” said one of the guards to me, leading up my pony,

“here’s your bronco. You shall have your rope back in the morning;

it’s occupied at present. No one will trouble you over this matter;

it was taken from you by force, you understand.”

And then I understood that the demonstration of holding up a pistol

when I was told to dismount had been really for my benefit, to

relieve me of responsibility, if by any chance the proper officers

of the ordinary law of the territory should take any notice of this

day’s work.

I took my horse, mounted him, and later on, when the crowd had

dispersed, rode down to the ford. The pony stopped in mid-channel

to drink, and I shall not forget the scene. The sun was just setting

behind the range of the Rocky Mountains, and in the foreground stood

the withered cottonwood with its ghastly fruit. The work was done.

* * * * *

So far as I know, the regular law took no notice. The effects of the

action of the Vigilantes were, however, marked and immediate. That

night many of the worst characters in town left it, some in their

haste walking all the way to Denver to get clear of a spot so ominous

to them. The rowdyism, the displaying of revolvers and shooting at

lamps out of bravado, stopped instanter. There never was another man

shot in the town of Evans for two years, and then the shooting was

accidental, though, as the man who fired the rifle on that occasion

happened to have had words with the man who was wounded--it was not

a fatal shot--he was most terribly frightened, fully expecting the

Vigilantes to get after him.

This rapid and most surprising purification of the moral atmosphere

of Evans City did, I admit, dispose me at the time to think

favourably of the action of lynch law. But five years’ residence in

the territory was enough to alter my opinion. During that time only

one man was legally executed there, and he was a foreigner and a

poor man; and, moreover, there is reason to believe that his crime

only amounted to manslaughter. Yet during those years many crimes of

violence were committed, and many lynchings occurred. Some of these

were, I make no doubt, as well deserved as the one of which I was a

witness; others very probably were not--for instance, two men, if not

three, were lynched, on one of the creeks that run from the Divide,

for killing a calf. But the general effect of the system upon the

administration of the ordinary law was simply disastrous. Whenever

atrocious murderers are hanged as soon as caught, there arises at

once a strong presumption that a man-slayer, who is left to be dealt

with by an ordinary jury, has probably much to excuse him. This

feeling vastly increased the difficulty of getting juries to convict.

Popular criminals are quite sure to get off, and the ordinary law

became glaringly ineffective and sinks into something very like

contempt, while the lynchers alone are really dreaded. And this very

dread increases crime, because horse-thieves and cattle-thieves, when

pursued, know they will probably be lynched, and never hesitate to

shoot, thinking they may as well be hanged for killing a man as for

killing a calf. Every thief becomes a potential murderer, and goes

armed. Peaceful citizens arm themselves in defence of their lives and

property, and, as collisions will occur, crimes of violence naturally

abound. The remedy is worse than the disease.

R. B. Townshend. _A Tenderfoot in Colorado._

Copyright by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc. By

permission of the publishers.

THE BLIZZARD

HERBERT QUICK

Through these wrappings, a strange sound came to my ears--the sound

of sleigh-bells; and in a moment, so close were they, there emerged

from the whirl of snow, a team of horses drawing a swell-body cutter,

in which sat a man driving, wrapped up in buffalo robes and blankets

until the box of the sleigh was filled. The horses came to a stop in

the lee of my house. There had been no such rig in the county before

I had gone to the war.

“Is this the Vandemark schoolhouse?” came from the man in the cutter.

“No, Captain,” said I, for discipline is strong, “this is my farm.”

“Ah, it’s you, Mr. Vandemark, is it?” said he. “Can you tell me the

way to the schoolhouse?”

Discipline flew off into the storm. I never for a moment harbored

the idea that I was to allow Buck Gowdy to rescue Virginia from the

blizzard, and carry her off into either danger or safety. There was

none of my Dutch hesitation here. This was battle; and I behaved with

as much prompt decision as I did on the field of Shiloh, where, I

have the captain’s word for it in writing, I behaved with a good deal

of it.

“Never mind about the schoolhouse,” I said. “I’ll attend to that!”

“The hell you will!” said he, in that calm way of his. “Let me see.

Your house faces the north. These trees are on the section line....

The schoolhouse is.... I have it, now. Sorry to cut in ahead of you;

but--get up, Susie--Winnie, go on!”

But I had Susie and Winnie by the bits.

“Vandemark,” he said, and as he shouted this to make me hear I could

feel the authority I had grown to recognize in drill, “you forget

yourself! Let go those horses!”

“Not by a damned sight!”

I found myself swearing as if I were in the habit of it. Now the man

in any kind of rig with another holding his horses’ bits is in an

embarrassing fix. He can’t do anything so long as he remains in the

vehicle; and neither can his horses. He must carry the fight to the

other man, or be made a fool of.

Buck Gowdy was not a man to hesitate in such a case. He carried the

fight to me--and I was glad to see him coming. I had waited for this

a long time. I have no skill in describing fights, and I was too

much engaged in this to remember the details. How many blows were

exchanged; what sort of blows they were; how much damage they did

until the last, more than a cut lip on my part, I can not tell. Why

no more damage was done is clearer--we were both so wrapped up as to

be unable to do much. I only know that at the last, I had Gowdy down

in the snow right by my well-curb; and that without taking time to

make any plan, I wrapped the well-rope around him so as to make it

necessary for him to take a little time in getting loose; I wrote him

a receipt for the team and rig, which N. V. Creede tells me would

not have done me any good; and I went out, very much winded, shut

the door behind me, and getting into the cutter, drove off into the

blizzard with Gowdy’s team and sleigh, leaving him rolling around on

the floor unwinding the well-rope, swearing like a trooper, and in a

warm room where there was plenty to eat.

“And in my opinion,” said N. V., “no matter how much girl there was

at stake, the man that chose to go out into that storm when he could

have let the job out was the fool in the case.”

It was less than a mile to the schoolhouse, which I was lucky to

find at all. I could not see it twenty feet away; but I was almost

upset by a snow fort which the children had built, and taking this

as the sure sign of a playground, I guessed my way the fifty or

sixty feet that more by luck than judgment brought me to the back

end of the house, instead of the front. I made my way around on the

windward side of the building, hoping that the jingle of the bells

might be heard as I passed the windows--for I dared not leave the

horses again, as I had done during my contest with Gowdy. Nothing but

the shelter in which they then found themselves had kept them from

bolting--that and their bewilderment.

I pulled up before the door and shouted Virginia’s name with all my

might, over and over again. But I suppose I sat there ten or fifteen

minutes before Virginia came to the door; and then, while she had

all her wraps on, she was in her anxiety just taking a look at the

weather, debating in her mind whether to try for the safety of the

fireside, or risk the stay in the schoolhouse with no fuel. She had

not heard the bells, or the trampling, or my holloing. More by my

motions than anything else, she saw that I was inviting her to get

in; but she knew no more than her heels who I was. She went back into

the schoolhouse and got her dinner-basket--lucky or providential

act!--and in she climbed. If I had been Buck Gowdy or Asher Bushyager

or the Devil himself, she would have done the same. She would have

thought, of course, that it was one of the neighbors come for her;

and, anyhow, there was nothing else to do.

As I turned back the rich robes and the jingle of the bells came to

her ears, she started; but I drew her down into the seat, and pulled

the flannel-lined coonskin robe which was under us, up over our laps;

I wrapped the army blanket and the thick buffalo-robe over and under

us; and as I did so, a little black-and-tan terrier came shivering

out from under the coonskin robe and jumped into her lap. I started

to put it down again, but she held it--and as she did she looked at

my blue sleeve, and then up at the mass of wrappings I had over my

face. I thought she snuggled up against me a little closer, then.

IV

I turned the horses toward her boarding-place, which was with a new

family who had moved in at the head of the slew, near the pond for

which poor Rowena was making the day of the prairie fire; and in

doing so, set their faces right into the teeth of the gale. It seemed

as if it would strip the scalps from our heads, in spite of all our

capes and comforters and veils. Virginia pulled the robe up over her

head. I had to face the storm and manage my team; but before I had

gone forty rods, I saw that I was asking too much of them; and I let

them turn to beat off with it. At that moment I really abandoned

control, and gave it over to the wind and snow. But I thought myself

steering for my own house. I was not much worried, having the

confidence of youth and strength. The cutter was low and would not

tip over easily. The horses were active and powerful and resolute. We

were nested down in the deep box, wrapped in the warmest of robes;

and it was not yet so very cold--not that cold which draws down into

the lungs; seals the nostrils and mouth; and paralyzes the strength.

That cold was coming--coming like an army with banners; but it was

not yet here. I was not much worried until I had driven before the

wind, beating up as much as I could to the east, without finding my

house, or anything in the way of grove or fence to tell me where it

was. I now remembered that I had not mounted the hill on which my

house stood. In fact, I had missed my farm, and was lost, so far as

knowing my locality was concerned: and the wind was growing fiercer

and the cold more bitter.

For a moment I quailed inwardly; but I felt Virginia snuggled down by

me in what seemed to be perfect trust; and I brushed the snow from

my eye-opening and pushed on--hoping that I might by pure accident

strike shelter in that wild waste of prairie, and determined to make

the fight of my life for it if I failed.

It was getting dusk. The horses were tiring. We plunged through a

deep drift under the lee of a knoll; and I stopped a few moments to

let them breathe. I knew that stopping was a bad symptom, unless one

had a good reason for it--but I gave myself a good reason. I felt

Virginia pulling at my sleeve; and I turned back the robes and looked

at her. She pulled my ear down to her lips.

“I know you now,” she shouted. “It’s Teunis!”

I nodded; and she squeezed my arm with her two hands. Give up! Not

for all the winds and snows of the whole of the Iowa prairie! I

disarranged the robes while I put my arm around her for a moment;

while she patted my shoulder. Then, putting tendernesses aside, when

they must be indulged in at the expense of snow in the sleigh, I put

my horses into it again. A few minutes ago, I gave you the thoughts

that ran through my mind as I conjured up the image of one lost in

such a storm; but now I thought of nothing--only for a few minutes

after that pressure on my arm--but getting on from moment to moment,

keeping my sleigh from upsetting, encouraging those brave mares, and

peering around for anything that might promise shelter. Virginia has

always told of this to the children, when I was not present, to prove

that I am brave, even if I am mortal slow; and if just facing danger

from minute to minute without looking further, is bravery, I suppose

I am--and there is plenty of good courage in the world which is

nothing more, look at it how you will.

So far, the cutter and team of which I had robbed Buck Gowdy, had

been a benefit to us. They gave us transportation, and the warm

sleigh in which to nest down. I began to wonder, now, as it began to

grow dark, as the tempest greatened, as my horses disappeared in the

smother, and as the frost began to penetrate to our bodies, whether

I should not have done better to have stayed in the schoolhouse, and

burned up the partitions for fuel; but the thought came too late;

though it troubled me much. Two or three times, one of the mares

fell in the drifts, and nothing but the courage bred into them in

the blue-grass fields of Kentucky saved us from stalling out in that

fearful moving flood of wind and frost and snow. Two or three times

we narrowly escaped being thrown out into it by the overturn of the

sleigh; and then I foresaw a struggle, in which there would be no

hope; for in a storm in which a strong man is helpless, how could he

expect to come out safe with a weak girl on his hands?

At last, the inevitable happened: the off mare dove into a great

drift; the nigh one pulled on: and they came to a staggering halt,

one of them was kept from falling partly by her own efforts, and

partly by the snow about her legs against which she braced herself.

As they stood there, they turned their heads and looked back as if to

say that so far as they were concerned, the fight was over. They had

done all they could.

I sat a moment thinking. I looked about, and saw, between gusts,

that we were almost against a huge straw-pile, where some neighbor

had threshed a setting of wheat. This might mean that we were close

to a house, or it might not. I handed the lines to Virginia under

the robes, got out, and struggled forward to look at my team. Their

blood-shot eyes and quivering flanks told me that they could help

us no longer; so I unhitched them, so as to keep the cutter as a

possible shelter, and turned them loose. They floundered off into the

drifts, and left us alone. Cuffed and mauled by the storm, I made

a circuit of the stack, and stumbled over the tumbling-rod of the

threshing-machine, which was still standing where it had been used.

Leaning against the wheel was a shovel, carried for use in setting

the separator. This I took with me, with some notion of building a

snow-house for us; for I somehow felt that if there was any hope for

us, it lay in the shelter of that straw. As I passed the side of the

stack, just where the ground was scraped bare by the wind, I saw what

seemed to be a hole under and into the great loose pile of dry straw.

It looked exactly like one of those burrows which the children used

to make in play in such places.

Virginia was safe for the moment, sitting covered up snugly with

her hands warmed by the little dog; but the cold was beginning

to penetrate the robes. I could leave her for the moment while

I investigated the burrow with the shovel. As I gained a little

advantage over the snow which was drifted in almost as fast as I

could shovel it out, my heart leaped as I found the hole opening out

into the middle of the stack; and I plunged in on my hands and knees,

found it dry and free from snow within ten feet of the mouth, and

after enlarging it by humping up my back under it where the settling

had made it too small, I emerged and went to Virginia; whom I took

out with her dog, wrapped her in the robes so as to keep them from

getting snowy inside, and backing into the burrow, hauled the pile

of robes, girl and dog in after me, like a gigantic mouse engaged in

saving her young. I think no mouse ever yearned over her treasures

in such case more than I did.

And then I went back to get the dinner-basket, which was already

buried under the snow which had filled the cutter; for I knew that

there was likely to be something left over of one of the bountiful

dinners which a farmer’s wife puts up for the teacher. Then I went

back into the little chamber of straw in which we had found shelter,

stopping up the mouth with snow and straw as I went in. I drew a

long breath. This was far better than I had dared hope for. There

is a warmth generated in such a pile, from the slow fermentation of

the straw juices, even when seemingly dry as this was; and far in

the middle of the stack, vegetables might have been stored without

freezing. The sound of the tempest did not reach us here; it was

still as death, and dark as tar. I wondered that Virginia did not say

anything; but she kept still because she did not understand where she

was, or what I had done with her.

Finally, when she spoke it was to say, “Unwrap me, Teunis! I am

smothering with the heat!”

I laughed a long loud laugh. I guess I was almost hysterical. The

change was so sudden, so complete. Virginia was actually complaining

of the heat!

I unwrapped her carefully, and kissed her. Did ever any peril turn to

any one a face so full of clemency and tenderness as this blizzard to

me?

“It takes,” says she, “a storm to move you to any speed faster than a

walk.”

The darkness in the burrow was now full of light for me. I made it

soft as a mouse-nest, by pulling down the clean straw, and spreading

it in the bottom, with the coonskin under her, and the buffalo-robe

for a coverlid. There was scarcely room for two there, but we

made it do, and found room for the little dog also. There was an

inexpressible happiness in our safety from the awful storm, which

we knew raged all about our nest; but to be together, and to feel

that the things that stood between us had all been swept away at

once--even the chaff that fell down our necks only gave us cause for

laughter.

“Your coat is all wet!” she exclaimed.

“It was the snow, shoveling the way in,” I said. “It’s nothing.”

But she began right there to take care of me. She made me take off

the overcoat, and wrap myself in the blanket. The dampness went out

into the dry straw; but when drowsiness came upon us, she would not

let me take the chance of getting chilled, but made me wrap myself in

the robes with her; and we lay there talking until finally, tired by

my labors, I went to sleep with her arms about me, and her lips close

to mine; and when I awoke, she was asleep, and I lay there listening

to her soft breathing for hours.

We were both hungry when she awoke, and in the total darkness we

felt about for the dinner-basket, in which were the dinners of the

children of the McConkey family with whom she had boarded, and who

had gone home at noon, because the fuel was gone. We ate frozen pie,

and frozen boiled eggs, and frozen bread and butter; and then lay

talking and caressing each other for hours. We talked about the poor

horses, for which Virginia felt a deep pity, out there in the fierce

storm and the awful cold. We talked of the beautiful cutter; and

finally, I explained the way in which I had robbed Gowdy of horses

and robes and sleigh, and dog.

“He can never have the dog back,” said she. “And to think that I am

hiding out in a strawstack with a robber and a horse-thief!”

Then she said she reckoned we’d have to join the Bunker gang, if we

could find any of it to join. Certainly we should be fugitives from

justice when the storm was over; but she for herself would rather be

a fugitive always with me than to be rescued by “that man”--and it

was lucky for him, too, she said, that I had licked him and shut him

up in a house where he would be warm and fed; because he never would

have been able to save himself in this awful storm as I had done.

Nobody could have done so well as I had done. I had snatched her from

the very jaws of death.

“Then,” said I, “you’re mine.”

“Of course I am,” she said. “I’ve been yours ever since we lived

together so beautifully on the road, and in our Grove of Destiny. Of

course I’m yours--and you are mine, Teunis--ain’t you?”

“Then,” said I, “just as soon as we get out of here, we’ll be

married.”

It took argument to establish this point, but the jury was with me

from the start; and finally nothing stood between me and a verdict

but the fact that she must finish her term of school. I urged upon

her that my house was nearer the school than was McConkey’s, and she

could finish it if she chose. Then she said she didn’t believe it

would be legal for Virginia Vandemark to finish a contract signed by

Virginia Royall--and pretty soon I realized that she was making fun

of me, and I her and kissed her until she begged my pardon.

And all the time the storm raged. We finished the food in the dinner

pail, and began wondering how long we had been imprisoned, and how

hungry we ought to be by this time. I was not in the least hungry

myself; but I began to feel panicky for fear Virginia might be

starving to death. She had a watch, of course, as a teacher; but it

had run down long ago, and even if it had not, we could not have

lit a match in that place by which to look at it. Becoming really

frightened as the thought of starvation and death from thirst came

oftener and oftener into my mind, I dug my way to the opening of the

burrow, and found it black night, and the snow still sweeping over

the land; but there was hope in the fact that I could see one or two

bright stars overhead. The gale was abating; and I went back with

this word, and a basket of snow in lieu of water.

Whether it was the first night out or the second, I did not know,

and this offered ground for argument. Virginia said that we had

lived through so much that it had probably made the time seem longer

than it was; but I argued that the time of holding her in my arms,

kissing her, telling her how much I loved her, and persuading her to

marry me as soon as we could get to Elder Thorndyke’s, made it seem

shorter--and this led to more efforts to make the time pass away.

Finally, I dug out again, just as we both were really and truly

hungry, and went back after Virginia. I made her wrap up warmly, and

we crawled out, covered with chaff, rumpled, mussed up, but safe and

happy; and found the sun shining over a landscape of sparkling frost,

with sundogs in the sky and millions of bright needles of frost in

the air, and a light breeze still blowing from the northwest, so

bitingly cold that a finger or cheek was nipped by it in a moment’s

exposure. And within forty rods of us was the farmstead of Amos

Bemisdarfer; who stood looking at us in amazement as we came across

the rippled surface of the snow to his back door.

“I kess,” said Amos, “it mus’ have peen your team I put in de parn

lass night. Come in. Preckfuss is retty.”

From _Vandemark’s Folly_, by Herbert Quick.

Copyright 1922. Used by special permission of the

publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.

THE ATTACK OF THE TIGER

J. H. ROSNY

Aoun woke when a third of the night had passed. The moon had gone

down behind the western jungle, and its light reddened the vapours

which were condensing on the branches. The moor was covered with pale

grey shadows; the fire shed only a faint light near the seven bamboos.

At first the warrior only saw the motionless vegetation, but his

sense of smell warned him of a living presence. Then a shadow

emerged, became detached from a clump of palm trees and approached

cautiously towards him. Aoun knew it was the tiger from the moment he

opened his eyes, and he watched it come with anxiety and anger. The

daring spirit which worked in him like a storm on the waters dilated

his chest. Although he knew the tiger’s superiority over man, and

despite the secret horror which possessed him, he desired to fight.

Had not Noah conquered the grey wolf and the tigress, had he not

himself overcome the sabre-tooth, the victor of the rhinoceros? For

a moment he felt giddy, but this soon passed, the prudence of his

ancestors calmed his blood; he knew that neither Noah nor Faouhm nor

the Hairy Men would have attacked the tiger unless their own lives

had been in danger....

Besides, one had awoken who would restrain him. The son of Earth

became aware in his turn of the terrible presence. He looked at his

companion, who had raised his club, and said, “The tiger has not

found any prey.”

“If he comes near us,” said the other in a quivering voice, “Aoun

will fling his spear and harpoon.”

“It is dangerous to wound the tiger. Its fury is greater than that of

the lion,” was the reply.

“And if it will not go away from our refuge?”

“Aoun and Zouhr have provisions for two days.”

“We have no water and the tigress may join him.”

Zouhr did not reply. He had already thought of that. He knew that the

wild beasts would sometimes take turns in watching a difficult prey.

After hesitating a moment he replied, “The tiger has been alone since

last night. Perhaps the tigress is far from here.”

Aoun could not see sufficiently clearly into the future to insist;

his attention was concentrated on the tiger, which had come within

five ells of the bamboos.

They could distinctly see the thick-set muzzle, fringed at the back

with stiff hairs, the eyes shining more brightly than before. Aoun

had a strange horror of their green light, and they made Zouhr

tremble. At intervals growls could be heard on the moor. The tiger

came closer; then it began to prowl up and down and round the

shelter, with an awful and exasperating patience. It seemed as if it

expected that the interstices would grow bigger or the interlaced

creepers and bamboos become relaxed. Each time it came closer to them

the two men trembled as if the wild beast’s hope was about to be

realised.

Finally it couched in the dry grass. From there it observed them

patiently, and from time to time opened its great jaws, so that the

dying light of the fire shone upon its fangs.

“It will still be there in the morning,” said Aoun.

Zouhr did not reply. He was looking at two little branches of the

turpentine tree which he had exposed to the fire, for he always liked

to have some dry wood ready. He split the thinnest one down its whole

length and gathered some twigs.

“Zouhr is not going to make a fire!” exclaimed the son of Urus

reprovingly.

“There is no wind; the ground of our refuge is bare; the bamboos are

young,” said Zouhr striking the stone flint against the marcasite ...

“Zouhr has only need of a little fire!”

Aoun did not insist. He watched the sparks rise from the twigs, while

his companion lighted the end of a turpentine stick. It soon threw

out a bright light. Then, leaning towards one of the openings, the

son of Earth flung the burning brand towards the tiger....

The flame described a parabola and fell among the dry grass. It was

the most arid part of the moor, where the nocturnal vapours had not

yet formed....

The tiger started up at sight of the glittering projectile, which

disappeared among the tall grass stalks. Aoun laughed silently. Zouhr

was carefully considering whether he should light another torch.

Only a twinkling red glow remained among the vegetation. The tiger

lay down again.

After a moment’s hesitation Zouhr lit the second turpentine stick.

The fire had just caught the point of it, when a livid jet appeared

where the first had fallen, ran up the grass stalks, and made a line

of light. The wild beast rose up with a roar, and was about to spring

when Zouhr flung the second burning brand.

It struck the brute on the chest. Maddened, it turned round and

round and bounded from side to side in zigzags. The fire, with a

dry crackling sound, seemed to gallop its way through the tall

grass; then it disseminated itself in sheafs and enveloped the wild

beast.... The carnivore gave a cry of fury, plunged through the

flames and fled.

“It will not come back,” Zouhr asserted. “No beast returns to the

place where it has been burnt.”

His companion’s cunning delighted Aoun. His laugh was no longer

silent but rang out over the moor, like a joyous war-cry.

“Zouhr is more cunning than Goun of the Dry Bones,” he said

enthusiastically.

He laid his muscular hand on the shoulder of the son of Earth.

The tiger did not return. Aoun and Zouhr slept till day-break. A mist

covered the moor and the jungle; silence and stillness lasted till

the full dawn. Then the day animals began to stir. A loud clamour

rose from the river and the trees of the forest. The son of Urus came

out of the refuge and studied the landscape. No suspicious odour

alarmed his nostrils and some axis passed by, which reassured him

still more.

He went back to Zouhr and said, “We will continue our journey; but we

will first go in a westerly direction so as not to meet the tiger.”

They started before day had fully dawned. The mist slowly rolled away

and was lost in the pale sky, which rapidly turned blue. At first

there were few animals to be seen; then their numbers increased and

the warriors conjectured that they had left the domain of the tiger

behind them. Aoun however sniffed the air anxiously. Feverish heat

hung over the foliage; red-headed flies tormented the two men; the

sun’s rays shot through the branches and seemed to bite into their

flesh like white ants; monkeys made faces at them, and parrots

shrieked in strident and furious tones.

“There will be thunder in the forest!” said the son of Earth.

Aoun stopped to consider the western sky. They were at the entrance

of a clearing and could see a long stretch of firmament, of the

colour of lapis lazuli, without a single cloud. Notwithstanding this

the two men felt a vague uneasiness, which seemed to pervade the air

like an unseen terror.

It lasted for a long time. Aoun and Zouhr turned aside towards

the river, following the lines indicated by the various kinds of

undergrowth. At mid-day the storm was still far off. They made no

fire, but ate, without enjoyment, a slice of meat they had cooked on

the previous day. Their rest was disturbed by the attacks of insects.

When they resumed their journey, the first mists were appearing in

the west. A milky colour spread itself among the blue; the uneasy

belling of the swamp deer was heard, and the lowing of buffaloes;

cobras slipped by among the grasses. For a moment the warriors

hesitated to start, but their halting-place was not a favourable

one; immense old trees lifted crests that were dangerously high; the

ground was spongy at their feet; they could see no shelter against

the thunder-bolts that would ravage the forest. At intervals gusts

of air passed over the crests of the trees with a sound like that of

a river, or rose up in spirals, brushing aside the foliage. This was

followed by deep, heavy silence. A wall of vapour rose towards the

zenith, black smoke that became phosphorescent towards the edge.

Then furious livid gleams of light shot through the world of trees.

They had their origin very far from where Zouhr and Aoun stood, so

they did not add their clamour to the tumult of the storm. When

the wall shrouded the middle of the firmament and began to descend

towards the east, a growing terror took possession of all living

things; here and there only a fugitive animal could be seen seeking

its lair, or a frightened insect trying to reach some crack in the

bark of a tree. The life of the creatures was enveloped by another

life, that life which, subtly diffused, creates and nourishes the

forest life, but which if it is unchained destroys alike trees, grass

and animals.

The wanderers had experienced these convulsions of nature. Aoun

only thought of a refuge; Zouhr lifted his head from time to time

possessed by the idea that monstrous wild beasts were raging in

the clouds. Already their roars could be heard. Distance made them

solemn, like the sound of lions’ voices lost among the hills. Then

the thunder broke and the glare of the lightning became intolerable.

A sound of running water was heard, which soon grew to the roar of

rapids and of torrents. The jungle opened upon a lake which was

preceded by marshes; no shelter was visible in the reeking ground;

and the thunder rolled on at intervals. Under the arcades of a banyan

tree where the two men stopped, a leopard crouched; sharp cries were

heard from the monkeys in the branches above. Water flowed as if

an ocean had broken through dykes in the sky; the smell of thunder

and the scent of plants was borne on the squalls of wind.... In an

hour the lake had risen; the marshy pools were full; one of them

overflowed and began to invade the forest.

The wanderers were forced to retreat; but other waters came on with

a roar which added to the noise of the storm. They were forced to

flee as best they could towards the east. The raging waters harassed

them. They had barely escaped from the flood on one side when it

appeared unexpectedly on the other. Aoun galloped like a stallion,

and Zouhr followed him, bent down and hardly lifting his feet, as

was the custom of the Men-without-Shoulders. When they had put a

space between themselves and the inundation, they continued their way

towards the east, in the hope of reaching the river.

They traversed moors, and threaded their way through bamboos, palms

and creepers. A marsh which had overflowed obliged them to turn

towards the North. The storm was abating, the gusts of wind howled

less loudly, and they finally reached a clearing where a torrent

formed by the rain was racing along....

There they stopped, trying to estimate the depth of the water.

The lightning struck a group of ebony trees; on the other bank the

long body of a terrified animal rose in great bounds; Aoun and Zouhr

recognised the tiger. It turned round and round for a time in terror,

then it stopped and perceived the human beings....

Aoun’s instinct told him that it was the one which had prowled round

the refuge. Zouhr was certain of it when he saw that its chest was

singed, and knew it must have been done by the burning grass.... More

vaguely the tiger recognised the prey that had escaped him, made

memorable by the fire, the barricade of creepers and the burning

grass. He found them again at the moment when another fire struck the

ebony tree. Their forms, thus associated in its mind with terrible

things, made the wild beast hesitate.

All three remained immovable for a time. There was too small a space

between the men and the beast to make flight possible.

Aoun had already got ready his spear, and Zouhr, fearing that flight

might be followed by pursuit, also prepared himself to fight.

It was he who first hurled his weapon. It whistled above the waters

and hit the brute close to its right eye. With a terrible roar it

made its spring, but blood impeded its sight; its bound had not that

awful precision which condemned to death all within its reach. The

long body fell into the torrent, turned round and round, and clung

to the bank by its front paws. Aoun threw himself upon it, his spear

struck its breast, missing the shoulder.... Maddened with rage the

brute hoisted himself on to the bank and charged the men. It was

lame, and it moved slowly; Zouhr pierced its side with a second

spear, while the son of Urus wounded it on the neck....

Then, holding their clubs in readiness, they waited. Aoun faced the

attack and brought down his weapon on the tiger’s head, while the

Wah attacked it from behind and aimed at the vertebrae.... One of

its claws tore the Oulhamr’s body, but by stepping aside he made it

slip, and the club, crashed down on the tiger’s nostrils, momentarily

arrested its course.... Before it could spring again, Aoun’s club

came down for the third time with such force that the tiger remained

motionless, as if it slept. Then, without pausing for a moment, the

two companions belaboured its vertebrae and legs with blows. The

enormous body sank down, with terrible convulsions, and the son of

Urus having put out its left eye, the wild beast was at the men’s

mercy.

A spear thrust let out its heart’s blood.

From _The Giant Cat_ by J. H. Rosny. By

permission of the publishers, Robert M. McBride

and Company.

THE STORM

PIERRE LOTI

... It had changed its aspect, also, and its colour, the sun of

Iceland, and it opened this new day by a sinister morning. Completely

rid of its veil, it gave out great rays which traversed the sky in

jets, announcing impending storms.

It had been too fine in the last few days and a change was due.

The wind blew on this assembly of boats, as if it felt the need

of scattering them, of ridding the sea of them; and they began to

disperse, to flee like a routed army--simply before this menace

written in the air, about which there could be no mistake.

And it steadily increased in strength, until men and ships alike

shivered at it.

The waves, still small, began to chase one another, to group

themselves. They had been marbled at first with a white foam which

spread over them in slaver; but presently, with a sound of crackling,

they gave out a smoke of spray; one would have said that the sea

was boiling, that it was burning--and the shrill noise of it all

augmented from minute to minute.

There was no thought now for the fishing, but only for the management

of the boats. The lines had been hauled in long before. All were

hurrying to get away, some to seek a shelter in the fiords, striving

to arrive in time; others, preparing to pass the southern point

of Iceland, deeming it the safer course to take to the open sea

and have free space in which to sail before the wind. They still

saw one another a little; here and there, in the hollows of the

waves, sails rose up, poor little things, wet, weary, fugitive--but

keeping upright nevertheless, like those children’s toys of pith

of elder-wood which one may lay flat by blowing on them, but which

always raise themselves again.

The great shag of clouds which had condensed on the western horizon

with the aspect of an island began to break up at the top and the

tatters coursed across the sky. It seemed inexhaustible, this shag:

the wind stretched it, extended it, unravelled it, making issue from

it an indefinite succession of dark curtains, which it outspread over

the clear yellow sky, become now livid in its cold depths.

And still the wind increased, agitating everything.

The cruiser had made off towards the shelters of Iceland, the

fishermen remained alone on this agitated sea, which now had an angry

air and a dreadful colour. They made haste in their preparation for

foul weather. The distance between them increased. Soon they were

lost from sight of one another.

The waves, curling in volutes, continued to chase one another, to

unite, to join forces in order to become still higher, and, between

them, the hollows deepened.

In a few hours all was ploughed up, convulsed in this region which on

the preceding evening had been so calm, and, in place of the silence

of before, one was deafened with noise. Very quickly the scene had

changed and all now was agitation, unconscious, useless. What was

the object of it all?... What a mystery of blind destruction!...

The clouds were completing their unfolding, coming always from the

west, overlaying one another, hurrying, swift, obscuring everything.

There remained now only a few yellow openings, by which the sun sent

down its last rays in sheaves. And the water, greenish now, was

veined more and more with white slaver.

By midday, the _Marie_ had assumed completely her foul-weather trim;

with closed hatches and reefed sails, she bounded supple and light;

amid the disorder that was commencing she had the air of playing as

play the porpoises whom storms amuse. With only her foresail spread,

she ran before the wind, according to the nautical expression which

describes this particular trim.

Above, the heavens had become completely overcast, a closed,

oppressive vault--with darker shadings spread over it in shapeless

smudges; the impression was almost of an immobile dome, and it was

necessary to look close to realise that on the contrary it was in a

very whirl of movement: great grey sheets, hastening to pass, and

replaced without ceasing by others which came from below the horizon;

funereal tapestries unwinding as if from an inexhaustible roll....

She ran before the wind the _Marie_, ever more quickly--and the wind

ran, too--before I know not what mysterious and terrible power. The

wind, the sea, the _Marie_, the clouds, all were seized with the

same madness of flight and speed in the same direction. That which

ran ahead the fastest was the wind; then the great heavings of the

water, more lumbering, slower, followed after it; then the _Marie_,

dragged in the universal movement. The waves pursued her, with

their pale crests, which rolled on in a perpetual crashing, and

she--continually overtaken, continually outstripped--escaped them,

none the less, thanks to a wake she skilfully left behind her, an

eddy on which their fury broke.

And in this movement of flight, the chief sensation was an illusion

of lightness; without any difficulty, without an effort, one felt

oneself leap. When the _Marie_ rose on the waves she rose without

shock as if the wind had lifted her, and her descent afterwards

was like a sliding, causing those internal qualms one has in the

simulated fallings of the switchback or in the imaginary descents of

dreams. She slid backwards, as it were, the racing mountains slipping

away from under her to continue their course, and then she plunged

again in one of those deep troughs which raced in their turn; without

taking hurt she touched the dreadful bottom of them, in a shower of

spray which did not even wet her, but which sped on like everything

else; which sped on and vanished ahead of her like smoke, like an

intangible nothing....

At the bottom of these troughs there was a deeper gloom, and as each

wave passed, one saw behind another coming on; another larger still

which rose up quite green by transparency, with furious writhings,

with volutes that threatened to close, with an air of saying: “Now I

have got you, now I will engulf you.”

But, no; it raised you merely, as with a lifting of a shoulder one

might raise a feather: and, almost gently, you felt it passing under

you, with its rustling foam, its roar as of a cascade.

And so it went on, continuously. But getting worse all the time. The

waves followed one another, becoming ever more enormous, in long

chains of mountains the valleys of which began to cause fear. And all

this madness of movement became faster, under a sky that grew darker

and darker, amid a noise that swelled until it became a roar.

It was very heavy weather, indeed, and it was necessary to keep

watch. But, then, there was so much free space before them, space in

which to run! And it happened also, that this year the _Marie_ had

spent the season in the most western part of the Iceland fisheries;

so that this headlong flight towards the coast was so much way made

in their voyage home.

Yann and Sylvestre were at the helm lashed by the waist. They were

singing again the song of “Jean-François de Nantes”; drunk with

movement and speed, they sang at the top of their voices, laughing to

find they could not hear each other amid all this unloosing of noise,

turning round in their high spirits, to sing against the wind and

losing breath for their pains.

“Hello, there! you youngsters, do you find it stuffy up there?”

Guermeur asked them, putting his bearded face through the half-opened

hatchway, like a devil ready to leap out of his box.

No, there was no lack of air on deck, that was certain!

They were not afraid, having a very exact notion of what was

manageable, having confidence in the solidity of their boat, in the

strength of their arms. And also in the protection of the faience

Virgin who, during forty years of voyages to Iceland, had so often

danced this same disagreeable dance, forever smiling between her

bouquets of artificial flowers....

Jean-François de Nantes,

Jean-François.

Jean-François!

In general, they could see but a short distance around them: some

hundreds of yards away everything seemed to end in monstrous

waves whose pale crests stood erect, shutting out the view. One

seemed always to be, in the middle of a restricted scene, which,

nevertheless, was perpetually changing; and, in addition, things were

drowned in this kind of watery smoke, which scudded like a cloud,

with an extreme swiftness, over all the surface of the sea.

But, from time to time, a rift appeared in the northwest from which

a sudden shift of wind would come; then, a glancing light arrived

from the horizon; a trailing reflection, making the dome of the sky

seem darker, shed itself on the white agitated crests. And this rift

was sad to see; these glimpsed distances, these vistas oppressed the

heart the more in that they made you realise only too well that there

was the same chaos everywhere, the same fury--even beyond the great

empty horizon, and infinitely beyond that again: the terror had no

limits, and one was alone in the midst of it.

A gigantic clamour issued from things like an apocalyptic prelude

sounding the alarm of the end of the world. And thousands of voices

could be distinguished in it; from above came whistling voices and

deep voices, which seemed almost distant because they were immense:

that was the wind, the mighty soul of this disorder, the invisible

power directing the whole commotion. It was terrifying enough; but

there were other noises, closer, more material, carrying a more

imminent menace of destruction, which the tormented water gave out,

spluttering as if on burning coals.

And still the storm waxed fiercer.

And, in spite of their close trim, the sea began to cover them, to

“eat” them as they said: first, the spray lashing from behind, then

water in masses, hurled with smashing force. The waves rose higher

still, more madly high, and the higher they rose the more jagged

they became; one saw large greenish tatters of them, rags of falling

water which the wind scattered everywhere. Some of them fell in heavy

masses on the deck, with a smacking sound, and then the _Marie_ shook

in her whole being as if in pain. Now one could distinguish nothing,

on account of all this white scattering foam; when the blasts roared

more fiercely one saw it rushing in thicker clouds--like the dust of

the roads in summer. A heavy rain, which had begun, fell slant-wise

also, almost horizontally, and these things together whistled,

whipped, hurt like blows of a lash.

They remained both at the helm, bound and holding firm, clothed in

their oilskins, which were tough and glistening as the skins of

sharks; they had tied them tight at the neck, by tarred laces, and

tight at the wrists and ankles, so as to keep the water out; and

everything streamed over them, who bowed their backs when it fell too

thick, buttressing themselves well so as not to be borne completely

over. The skin of their cheeks burnt, and at every minute they caught

their breath. After each great mass of water had fallen, they looked

at each other--and smiled to see the salt amassed in their beards.

In time, nevertheless, it became an extreme weariness, this fury

which did not abate, which remained always at its same exasperated

paroxysms. The rage of men, the rage of beasts, exhausts itself

and quickly subsides; one has perforce to suffer long the rage of

inanimate things which is without cause and without aim, mysterious

as life and as death.

Jean-François de Nantes,

Jean-François.

Jean-François!

Through their lips, which had become white, the refrain of the old

song passed still, but like an aphonous thing, continued from time

to time unconsciously. The excess of movement and noise had made them

drunk; it was in vain that they were young, their smiles grimaced on

their teeth which chattered in their trembling from the cold; their

eyes, half-closed under burning, flickering eyelids, remained fixed

in a grim atony. Lashed to the helm like two marble buttresses,

they made, with their cramped, blue fingers, the efforts that were

necessary, almost without thinking, by simple habit of the muscles.

With streaming hair, and contracted mouths, they had become strange,

and in them reappeared a whole background of primitive savagery.

They could see no longer! They knew only that they were still

there, side by side. At the moments of greatest danger, every time

that behind them the new mountain of water rose up, overhanging,

clamorous, horrible, dashing against their boat with a mighty thud,

one of their hands moved involuntarily in the sign of the cross.

They no longer thought of anything, not of Gaud, not of any women,

nor of any marriage. It was lasting too long and they were past

all thinking; their intoxication of noise, of weariness, of cold,

obscured everything in their heads. They were now only two pillars

of stiff flesh who kept the helm; only two vigorous beasts clinging

there by instinct so that they should not die.

From _The Iceland Fisherman_ by Pierre Loti.

Published by Frederick A. Stokes Company.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF NARRATIVES OF ADVENTURE

The editors have found these additional selections very useful in

teaching the writing of narratives of adventure.

Grenfell, Wilfred. _Adrift on an Ice Pan._ Houghton Mifflin

Company.

London, Jack. _To Build a Fire_, from _Lost Face_. The Macmillan

Company.

Paine, Ralph D. _The Story of The Derelict Polly_, from _Lost Ships

and Lonely Seas_. The Century Company.

Roosevelt, Theodore. _A Book Lover’s Holidays in the Open_, pages

347-353. Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Sharp, Dallas Lore. _The Spirit of the Herd_, from _Where Rolls the

Oregon_. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Stewart, Eleanor Rupert. _Letters on an Elk Hunt_, from _The

Letters of a Woman Homesteader_. Houghton Mifflin Company.