It was in camp at Sulphur Mountain that the Artist's fate overtook him.
The gods pulled his name from the hat by the hard hand of the Hired Man.
This mystic event overshadowed the visit to Sulphur Spring--though that
was in every respect a success. It was timed so as to give them the last
of the dawn--the splendid flood of rare light which precedes the first
cast of his noose by the Hunter of the East--and both eye and camera
caught beautifully the myriads of steam spirals ascending from the hill,
each from its own vent. The spring itself, the Poet compared to the
daily press, in that it made a mighty and unceasing pother and dribbled
out a mighty small amount of run-off--and that the output stained
everything with which it came in contact a bright yellow.
"No matter what it splashes," said he, "stick or stone, church, family
or court, it yellows it."
"Speaking of courts," said the Artist, "and the law--I think our
friends the Colonel and Bill have dealt altogether too flippantly with
them. I shall give you another view to-night."
* * * * *
"Do you notice," said the Bride, "how peaceful and sort of comforting
the river is? It is as placid as a lake--or some deep river--like the
Thames--made for pleasure boats and freighters."
"See the trout leap!" shouted the Colonel.
"Well," said Aconite, "you jest watch that river, an' it'll surprise
yeh. It ain't reformed yit, if it hez sobered up. An' right here--Whoa!"
They were at the crossing of Alum Creek, and Aconite halted to point out
matters of interest.
"Right hyar," said he, "or in this vicinity, took place one of the most
curious things that ever happened to Old Jim Bridger. This crick is all
alum, 'specially up at the head. Over yon"--pointing to the eastern bank
of the Yellowstone with his whip--"is a stream named Sour Crick comin'
in from the east. It's one or the other of these cricks, 'r one of the
same kind, that Old Jim Bridger was obliged to go up f'r three days on
his bronk, one time. It was a long trip. But on the way back he noticed
that the crick had flooded the country, an' gone down ag'in, an' it
seemed to him that he was makin' better time than goin' up. The hills
that was low an' rounded when he went up, looked to him steeper, and
higher, an' more clustered than they was. He didn't believe this could
be, an' wondered how folks' minds acted when they was goin' crazy.
Finely, he found his first camp, after he had been on the back track
only half a day. He couldn't understand how he could've made the
distance in four hours that it took two days to cover comin' up, and
begun to get the Willies. He come to a bottom that had scattered trees
on comin' up, and it was timbered so thick now that he couldn't go
through it--but it wa'n't furder through than a hedge fence. Then he
noticed that his bronk was hobblin', and observed that his hooves was
drawed down to mere points, but good-shaped hoss's hooves all the
same--they was just little, like the hooves of a toy hoss. At last he
come to a place whar there had been two great boulders that had been
forty rods apart when he went up--he knowed 'em by marks he had made on
'em in his explorin' around--an' danged if they wasn't jammed up agin'
each other so's they touched both stirrups when he rode through between
'em. An' there he was back whar he started from in a little more'n half
a day. He got to studyin' it over, an' found that this crick of alum
water had over-flowed and jest puckered the scenery up, so that the
distances to anywhere along its valley was shrunk up to most nothin'!"
The Hired Man looked away off to the east, and mentioned that the
fish-hawks were thick this morning. The Bride giggled a very slight
giggle--but the others were impassive. They seemed to be absorbing some
of the taciturnity of the Indian. In the meantime the river did begin to
surprise them. After miles of deep quiet, its valley walls began to
crowd together.
"Somebody has been sprinkling alum on this scenery," suggested the
Colonel--"eh, Aconite?"
Aconite clucked solemnly to the team.
The road was forced to the very edge of the bank. The river became
mildly excited, as if in protest at the constriction. The road grew
wilder and the landscape more rugged; and suddenly, the river, tortured
by the pressure of the narrow trench provided for it, began raging and
foaming, and sending up a hoarse roar, which grew upon them like an
approaching tempest. The road trod first a narrow shelf above the
terrific rapids, and then a bridge hung like a stretched rope over an
awesome abyss. For half a mile the tumult below grew, until it seemed as
if water could bear no more--when suddenly the river, just now ravening
through a mere fifty-foot crack in the rocks, was gone. It turned
abruptly away from the road, and fell away into space. They had passed
the Upper Falls, where the Yellowstone, in a great spouting curve drops
a sheer hundred and twelve feet in a curtain of white water, and sends
up from the bottom of the cañon its hymn to liberty, in a cloud of mist.
They were no longer the tired sight-seers, with jaded senses; for this
was new. They felt the thrill of power. And as they passed on, promising
themselves a return when camp should be made, they cried out in delight
as the Grand Cañon of the Yellowstone displayed the stupendous sluiceway
into which the river had fallen. At their feet the lovely Crystal Falls
of Cascade Creek played exquisitely, almost unnoted. The roar of the
falls followed them to the Cañon Hotel near which they camped, and
leaving the pitching of the tents to the men, they walked to the brink
of the cañon, and gazed upon the most perfect scene, perhaps, that
water, in its flow to the sea, has anywhere sculptured and painted to
delight the eye of man. The Yosemite has greater heights; the Colorado
offers huger dimensions, the Niagara or the Victoria possess mightier
cataracts; but nowhere else is there such a riot of color, such dizzy
heights, such glooming verdure, and such mad waters, united in one
surpassingly splendid scenic whole.
They saw it all--that day, and subsequent days. They lingered as though
unable to leave at all. They revisited the Upper Falls before seeing the
lower, so as to view them in fairness and with no injustice to what
seemed unsurpassable beauty.
"And now," said the Bride, "take me to the greater falls."
It was as if she had seen all but the Holy of Holies, and felt the
exaltation suitable for higher things.
They were amazed at the tremendous plunge of more than three hundred
feet which their river (as they now called it) made at the Lower
Falls--even to the foot of which they descended. They looked from
Inspiration Point, from Artist's Point, from Lookout Point. They watched
the stream dwarfed by distance to a trickle, and strangely silent, as it
wandered at the bottom of the gorge.
And at last the time came to leave. Early in the morning they were to
start; and the last camp-fire was smoldering to ashes on that last night
when the Artist found his audience collected, the demand for payment of
his obligation presented; and without preface, save the statement that
his was the story of a young fool, told his tale.
THE RETURN OF JOHN SMITH
THE STORY NARRATED BY THE ARTIST
His name was John Smith, but he was not otherwise unworthy of notice.
Out of her vast, tempestuous experience Blanche Slattery admitted this
as she swept into the offices and looked down at the boy, noting the
curl in his hair which speaks of the hidden vein of vanity, the wide
blue eyes which told of a stratum of mysticism, the unsubdued brawn of
hand and wrist which reminded her more of harvests than of field-meets,
the mouth closely shut in purposeful attention to one Mr. Thompson's
_Commentaries on the Law of Corporations_.
He thought her the stenographer and kept his eyes on the page. She laid
a card on his desk--a card at which he looked with some attention
before rising to meet her eyes with his own, which dilated in a sort of
horror, as she thought. Her cheek actually burned, though it grew no
redder, as she turned aside with the crisp statement of her business.
"I want to see Judge Thornton," she said.
Without a word John Smith pushed a button and listened at a telephone.
The judge took his time as usual, and John gazed at the Slattery person
with the receiver pressed against his ear. She was powdered and painted;
the full corsage of her dress glittered with passementerie; in her form
the latest fad was exaggerated into a reminiscence of medieval
torturing-devices. Through the enamel of her skin dark crescents showed
under her great black eyes, the whites of which were mottled here and
there with specks of red. The once sweet lips had lost their softness of
curve with their vermeil tincture and had fallen into hard repose.
John knew her profession and how she dominated her world of saddest
hilarity--a world which through all mutations of time and institutions
persists as on that day when Samson went to Gaza. He felt that there
emanated from her a sort of authority, like a sinister manifestation of
the atmosphere surrounding men of power and sway--as though by dark and
devious ways this soul, too, had carved out a realm in which it darkly
reigned. She wondered, when he spoke, whether the softness in his voice
were for her or whether it were merely a thing of habit.
"Judge Thornton is sorry that he can not see you this morning," he said.
"Between ten and eleven to-morrow if it is convenient for you--"
"All right," she said. "I'll be here at half-past ten. Good morning!"
The perfume of her presence, the rustling of her departure, the husky
depth of her voice haunting his memory, the vast vistas through which
the mind of the country boy fared forth venturesomely, impelled by the
new contacts of this town in which he had undertaken to scale the
citadel of professional success--all these militated against the sober
enticements of the law of corporations; and when Judge Thornton entered
unheard, John Smith started as though detected in some offense.
"The law," said the judge, launching the hoary quotation, "is a jealous
mistress."
John Smith blushed, but saw no lodgment for a denial where there was no
accusation. He had been allowing his thoughts to go wool-gathering; but
now he began questioning the judge on the doctrine of the rights of
minority stock-holders. The judge condescended to a five-minute lecture
which would have been costly had it been given for a client before the
court. In the midst of the talk there bustled in a young man--a boy, in
fact, who accosted the lawyer familiarly.
"Just a minute, Judge. About that mass-meeting Tuesday--I'm Johnson of
the _News_, you know. Will you speak?"
"I don't think the readers of the _News_ are lying awake about it,"
answered the judge, looking at the boy amusedly. "But my present
intentions go no further than to attend the meeting."
"What about the movement for cheaper gas?" asked the reporter. "Will the
meeting start anything?"
"The meeting," said the judge, "will be a law unto itself."
"Sure," replied Johnson of the _News_. "But a word from you as to the
extortions of the gas company--"
"Will be addressed to the meeting--if I have any," said the judge.
"I--"
"Oh, all right!" interrupted the boy. "That's what I wanted! Good-by!"
John Smith's amazement at the boy's self-possession and ready, impudent
effrontery, passed away in a visualization of Judge Thornton's big,
strong figure at the meeting, fulminating against oppression--the
oppression of to-day--as did Patrick Henry and James Otis against the
wrongs of their times. Now, as of old, thought John Smith, the lawyer is
a public officer, charged with public duties, alert to do battle with
any tyrant or robber. He flushed with pleasure at this conception of the
greatness of the profession.
"As a science," said the judge, as though in answer to John's thought,
"it's the greatest field of the intellect. It's the practice that's
laborious and full of compromises."
"Yes," said John Smith, lamenting the interrupted lecture on the rights
of minority stock-holders. Judge Thornton had donned his coat and his
hat.
"I'm off for the day. Good day to you--oh, I almost forgot. Do you want
to hear a paper on _King Lear_ to-night? Nellie thought you might. Poor
paper--but you'll meet people, and that's a part of the game."
"Oh, yes!" cried John. "I'd be glad to!"
"Come to the house about eight," said the judge, "and go with Nellie and
me."
Ah, this was living! Why, at home he knew scarcely a person who had read
more of Shakespeare than the quarrel scene in the Fifth Reader. Surely
it was good fortune that had made his father and Judge Thornton
playmates in boyhood. And to go with Nellie Thornton, too!
"Paint out that sign!" he heard some one say. "And what goes in the
place of it, sir?" asked the painter. "'Thornton & Smith,'" replied the
judge's voice. "My son-in-law, Mr. Smith, has been taken into the firm."
The stenographer saw exaltation in his face as he closed the safe, bade
her good night and went home.
As he sat beside Nellie that evening, he remembered the fancied colloquy
between her father and the imaginary painter, and shuddered as he
contemplated the possibility of thought-transference and of its ruinous
potentialities. As a protection against telepathy he gave his whole
attention to Judge Thornton's paper on _Lear_. The indescribable agony
of the old king's frenzy, the whirling tempest of the tragedy in which
he wandered to his doom clutched at the boy's heart. The wolfish
Goneril and Regan, the sweet Cordelia, the bared gray head, the storm,
the night--By some occult warning John Smith knew that Nellie was not
pleased with his absorption, and that the discussion had begun.
"This treatment is _so_ original," said the lady president. "Everybody
must be full of questions. Now let us have a perfectly free
discussion--don't wait to be called upon, please!"
To John Smith the lady president seemed enthusiasm personified; yet only
a few people rose, and these merely said how much they had enjoyed the
paper. John Smith could see himself on his feet pouring forth comment
and exposition, but he sat close, hoping that no adverse fate might
direct the lady president's attention to him. The discussion was
dragging; one could tell that from the increasing bubbliness of the lady
president's enthusiasm as she strove conscientiously to fulfil her task
of imposing culture upon society.
"I'm sure there must be something more," she said. "Perhaps the most
precious pearl of thought of the evening awaits just one more dive. Mrs.
Brunson, can you not--"
"I always feel presumptuous," said Mrs. Brunson, hoarsening her voice
to the pitch she always adopted in public speaking, "when I differ from
other commentators. But I also feel that the true critic must put
himself in the place of the character under examination. Isn't there a
good deal of justification for Goneril and Regan? I do not see,
personally, how Lear could be supposed to need all those hundred
knights, with their drinking and roistering and dogs and--and all that.
I believe Lear's fate was of his own making, and--"
John Smith, the unsophisticated, was startled. The unutterable fate of
"the old, kind king"--could this Olympian circle hold such treason?
"No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both,
That all the world shall--I will do such things--
What they are, yet I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep;
No, I'll not weep:
I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I'll weep. O, fool, I shall go mad!"
The fiery denunciation rang in the boy's ears in answer to the words of
this modern woman with her silks and plumes, standing here in a church
and, in spite of the softening things of her heritage, sympathizing with
these fierce sisters! Others rose and agreed with her. One read the
words of Regan:
"O, sir, you are old;
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine: you should be ruled and led
By some discretion that discerns your state
Better than you yourself."
These, was the comment, were the really sane words regarding Lear.
"Oh, well!" said Judge Thornton as John broke his fast and the
abstinence of a lifetime in the parlor, upon the cakes and wine served
by Nellie. "It didn't surprise me a bit. Mrs. Brunson thinks she'd do as
Goneril and Regan did with their father--and she would. She'd avoid the
little peccadilloes with Edmund and so remain technically virtuous--the
best people are the worst, in some things, John, never forget that. It
will be useful to remember it. And the worst are nearly as good as the
best--come into the office when that Slattery person comes in the
morning, and you'll see what I mean. I'll give you some papers to draw
for her."
* * * * *
The Slattery person swept into the private office with a rustle of
stiffest silks, reminding the youth of the corn-husks at home in
shucking-time, leaving behind her a whiff of all the Orient. John Smith
walked into her presence, palpitating as at the approach to something
terrible and daunting and mystically fateful to such as himself--as a
sailor might draw warily near the black magnetic rocks, which,
approached too closely, would draw the very nails from his ship and
dissolve his craft in the billows. When Judge Thornton remarked by way
of left-handed introduction that Mr. Smith would draw the papers, the
woman paid John no attention other than to bow and look straight before
her. The youth felt conscious of the same shuddering admiration for her
that he might have felt for some gaudy, bright-eyed serpent.
"It's a simple matter, I guess," she said. "I want to make over some
property so Abner Gibbs of Bloomington will get fifty dollars sure every
month as long as he lives."
"Not so very simple," said the judge, "but quite possible. But why don't
you remit it to him yourself?"
"I want to cinch it while I've the money. You see, it's this way. In--in
my--business"--she looked into John Smith's girlish eyes and
hesitated--"everything is uncertain. It's a feast or a famine. A wave of
reform may strike the town to-morrow, and the lid goes on. The
protection you pay for may be taken from you next week. You've no
rights. You ain't human. So I fix the fifty a month for the old man
while I can, see?"
"Gibbs--Gibbs!" said the judge. "Relation of yours?"
"In a way. Does it make any difference?"
"It goes to the consideration," said the lawyer. "Love and affection,
you know."
"Well," said the Slattery person, "his son was my solid man--my
side-partner--my husband. The last thing he said when he got his was,
'Blanche, old girl, take care of dad. You know his weakness. Don't let
him starve!' And I ain't going to!"
"His weakness?" queried the judge. "What did he mean?"
"Drink," said the Slattery person. "It's in the blood. But he can't last
long--and he's Jim's father!"
She looked out of the window and dabbed with a lace handkerchief at her
bright eyes, which she dared not wipe for fear of ruin to the appliqué
complexion. Suddenly she had, to the mind of the susceptible John Smith,
become a woman, with a woman's weakness and yearning over the departed
Jim--of the blackness of whose life John had no means of taking the
measure. He felt all at once that this person had shown feelings so like
those he would have expected from his mother that it startled him.
"Oh, we're all alike!" said the judge when she had gone. "These things
are worth the lawyer's study. Human nature--human nature! We must get
above it and study it! Just ponder on the contradictions in the bases of
life involved in this Slattery person and Mrs. Brunson's feeling toward
Lear. Here's a woman, that no one at the circle last night would touch
with anything shorter than a ten-foot pole or lighter than a club, who
is actually carrying out toward a drunkard in Bloomington a policy of
love and humanity that would be beyond Mrs. Brunson. She'd say: 'Let him
behave the way I say, and I'll take him in!' Any of us moral folks would
do the same, too. No knights and roistering for us! Quite a study--eh,
John?"
John sat silent, far afloat from his moorings. The judge was too deep,
too ethically acute for him. Perhaps by long association he, John Smith,
might grow in moral height and mental grasp, so as to--
"I don't know," said Judge Thornton, "which is the worse--sale of the
body, or barter of the soul. I don't mean that the body can be sold
without the soul going with it, though Epictetus seems a case in point
in favor of the separable-transaction theory; but if it can, sale of the
soul would seem the more ruinous. I--"
Judge Thornton was interrupted by the opening of the office door and the
entrance of a brisk, capable-looking, Vandyke-bearded man who carried a
cane and bore himself with an ease that seemed somehow at war with
something of restraint--the ease on the surface, the embarrassment
underneath, like a dead swell coming in against the breeze. There was a
triumphant gleam in Judge Thornton's eyes, filmed at once with
self-possession and inscrutable calm. "Come in, Mr. Avery," he said.
"Just a word with you," said Mr. Avery, "in--"
"Certainly!" said the judge. "Right in here, Mr. Avery."
Mr. Avery passed into the private office. Judge Thornton remained for a
word with John Smith.
"This is the vice-president of the gas company," he said. "Don't mention
his call and don't allow me to be disturbed."
John Smith was triumphant. The very might of Thornton's ability and
power had brought the gas company to its knees! This crucial stage of
the gas fight thrust entirely out of his mind the deep moral and
ethical consideration of the relations of the Slattery person to the
discussion of Lear. The law, as of old, was a great profession. Would
any of the Boone County folk be able to believe that he, John Smith, was
so near the heart of big things as to sit here while Judge Thornton won
this great bloodless victory for the people?
Mr. Avery came out, cordially smiling upon Judge Thornton, who looked
triumphant, pleased, uplifted. For a man who had just been throttled,
Mr. Avery looked in rather good form.
"I'll send all the papers over to you, Judge," he said. "And I'm mighty
glad we've got together. It ought to have been done before; but you know
how it is when you leave things to subordinates."
"Oh, well," said the judge. "Of course I'm very glad; but the
subordinates may have done the right thing. Maxwell and Wilson are good
men, but local conditions may--"
They went out into the anteroom, and John Smith heard them go away
together. He felt disquieted. The appearances were so different from
what he had expected. Not that it was in the least degree his affair,
but--
The newsboy threw in the evening paper. John Smith looked at once for
the account of the gas fight.
"The anti-ordinance forces make no secret of their regret that
Judge Thornton has seen fit to withdraw his promise to address the
mass-meeting on Tuesday. Late this afternoon he told a _News_
representative that he would not attend, and that in his opinion a
study of the gas question will convince any business man that the
illuminant can not be delivered at the meter at anything short of
the rate now paid here. This is regarded by some as a reversal of
Judge Thornton's position; but, as a matter of fact, in all his
public utterances the judge has suspended judgment on the merits of
the question. The outlook for a successful movement can not be
regarded as bright to-day."
John Smith was looking at the paper as though it were some published
blasphemy, some unspeakable profanation of all things good and holy,
when Judge Thornton returned, whistling like a man at peace with the
world and himself. The judge went into his private office and came out
with a thin slip of paper folded in the palm of one smooth, strong hand.
"Too bad you're not a full-fledged lawyer, John, instead of a beginner.
I could use you a good deal. My practice is getting more extensive. I've
just been retained as the general counsel of the gas company. Oh, all
you have to do is to wait and make yourself indispensable! _You'll_ be
getting plums like that one of these days. It's a great game! Good
night."
Good night, indeed! There was no thunder and lightning like that on the
heath when Lear went mad; but, to a boy whose world had suddenly tumbled
into pieces, the snow which drove softly against his cheek and slithered
hissingly along the asphalt was a natural feature to dwell in his memory
for ever. He wandered out through the area of high buildings, past the
residences, to where the snow rattled on the corn-husks that reminded
him of the Slattery person's silks. He had confused visions of Mrs.
Brunson, dressed in Judge Thornton's decent high hat, flaunting gaudy
garments and painting her face for indescribable drinking-bouts. He came
back past the Thornton home, where he paused in the gray dawn and looked
at one lace-curtained window to murmur "Good-by." At the door of the
office-building where his days had been spent since his coming to town,
he went in from force of habit and pushed the button for the elevator.
No sound rewarded the effort, and he pushed again impatiently. Then he
laughed as he noted the elevator-cages about him, all shut down, all
empty, like cells from which the lunatic occupants had escaped. A woman
who had begun scrubbing the marble steps looked at him curiously as his
mirthless laugh sounded through the empty building.
John Smith climbed flight after flight, opened the door which would
never have "Thornton & Smith" on it, sat down at his desk and wrote:
"DEAR FATHER: I am quite well. Everything looks favorable for my
studies. Judge Thornton says he wants to do all he can for me, and
I think he does; but I guess I am not cut out for a lawyer. It
isn't quite what I thought it was. If you are still willing to send
me to the state college and give me that agricultural course, I
believe I'll go. There's something about the farm that's always
there; and you know it's there. I'll be home as soon as I can pack
up.
"Your loving son,
"JOHN SMITH."
The party sat for a few moments motionless, as the Artist's voice became
silent. Then the Colonel arose, bade them good night, and took the
Artist's hand.
"As a legal Slattery person," said he, "I thank you for the tale of the
young fool. Good night!"