the things we did. We were old men, and we did not understand. Even I,
Imber, do not now understand. Secretly we slew, and continued to slay,
for with our years we were crafty and we had learned the swiftness of
going without haste. When white men came among us with black looks and
rough words, and took away six of the young men with irons binding them
helpless, we knew we must slay wider and farther. And one by one we old
men departed up river and down to the unknown lands. It was a brave
thing. Old we were, and unafraid, but the fear of far places is a
terrible fear to men who are old.
"So we slew, without haste, and craftily. On the Chilkoot and in the
Delta we slew, from the passes to the sea, wherever the white men camped
or broke their trails. It be true, they died, but it was without worth.
Ever did they come over the mountains, ever did they grow and grow,
while we, being old, became less and less. I remember, by the Caribou
Crossing, the camp of a white man. He was a very little white man, and
three of the old men came upon him in his sleep. And the next day I came
upon the four of them. The white man alone still breathed, and there was
breath in him to curse me once and well before he died.
"And so it went, now one old man, and now another. Sometimes the word
reached us long after of how they died, and sometimes it did not reach
us. And the old men of the other tribes were weak and afraid, and would
not join with us. As I say, one by one, till I alone was left. I am
Imber, of the Whitefish people. My father was Otsbaok, a strong man.
There are no Whitefish now. Of the old men I am the last. The young men
and young women are gone away, some to live with the Pellys, some with
the Salmons, and more with the white men. I am very old, and very tired,
and it being vain fighting the Law, as thou sayest, Howkan, I am come
seeking the Law."
"O Imber, thou art indeed a fool," said Howkan.
But Imber was dreaming. The square-browed judge likewise dreamed, and
all his race rose up before him in a mighty phantasmagoria--his
steel-shod, mail-clad race, the law-giver and world-maker among the
families of men. He saw it dawn red-flickering across the dark forests
and sullen seas; he saw it blaze, bloody and red, to full and triumphant
noon; and down the shaded slope he saw the blood-red sands dropping into
night. And through it all he observed the Law, pitiless and potent, ever
unswerving and ever ordaining, greater than the motes of men who
fulfilled it or were crushed by it, even as it was greater than he, his
heart speaking for softness.
DOWN THE FLUME WITH THE SNEATH PIANO
BY
BAILEY MILLARD
Reprinted from _The Century Magazine_ by permission
I HAD halted at Camp Five to catch my breath. This flying down a Sierran
lumber-flume, scurrying through the heady air like another Phaeton, was
too full of thrills to be taken all in one gasp. I dropped limply into
the rawhide-bottomed chair under the awning in front of the big board
shanty which was on stilts beside the airy flume, and gazed on down the
long, gleaming, tragic, watery way to the next steep slide. Then I
looked at the frail little flume-boat which had borne Oram Sheets and me
thus far on our hazardous journey to the valley. Perhaps I shivered a
bit at the prospect of more of this hair-raising adventure. At any rate,
Oram, the intrepid flume-herder, laughed, dug his picaroon into a log,
and asked:
"Sorry yeh come? Wal, it does git onto a man's nerve the first trip.
Strange so many brash ones like you wanter try, but few on 'em ever dast
git in ag'in. But I've be'n down so often." Then he peered about the
cabin. "Looks like none o' the boys was to home. Wish they was; they
might git us up a little dinner. It's jest twelve."
He went inside the open door, and I heard him foraging about, the
shanty echoing hollowly to the clumping of his big boots. By and by his
nasal note was resumed:
"Come in, pardner! Here's a great find: a big can o' green gages an' a
hunk o' jerk an' a lot o' cold biscuits."
Inside, with my legs under the greasy, coverless table, I chewed the
jerk like one who was determined to give his jaws the benefit of
strenuous physical culture, and listened while Oram rattled on, with his
mouth full of the sodden, half-baked biscuits.
"You mightn't think it," said he, "but three years ago this here was the
most scrumptious camp on the hull flume. Ol' man Hemenway lived here
then with his daughter Jess. She kep' house fer him. Jess was a great
gal. Every man along the flume, from Skyland to Mill Flat, was in love
with her. Shape? You couldn't beat that there gal for figger if yeh was
to round up every actress in the country. She had a pair o' big round
baby-blue eyes, an' was as pretty as any o' them there cigarette
picters. A little on the strawbary-blonde, but not too much red in her
hair, an' yet spunky as a badger when yeh teased her.
"The boys down this way didn't have much show. It looked like Jess had
hit it off with Jud Brusie, a big, husky, clean-lookin' chap up to the
h'ist. Jud used ter send her down notes stuck in sticks wedged inter the
clamps, an' he used ter sneak down this way on Sundays when he'd git a
chanst. She'd meet him up to the Riffles there by that big bunch o'
yaller pines we passed. He didn't dast come down here nary time till ol'
man Hemenway he got laid up with a busted laig from slippin' off the
trestle in the snow. That there was Jud's show ter git in his fine work.
Used ter bring down deer-meat for the ol' man, an' sody-water from that
there spoutin' spring up ter Crazy Cañon; an' it begun to look like
Hemenway'd give in an' let him have her. But he seemed to hold off.
"The boys used ter nearly josh the life out o' Jud. One fellow--his name
was Phil Pettis--was skunkin' mean enough to read a note Jud sent down
oncet an' tell about it roun' Skyland; but that was the only time any of
'em ever done anything like that, fer Jud jest laid fer Phil an' went
through him like a buzz-saw an' chucked him inter the flume.
"No, it didn't kill Phil, but he got tol'able well used up. His clothes
was nearly all tore off, an' his hands got some bruised where he caught
on to the aidges before he got a holt an' lifted himself out in a still
place. He'd be'n all right only he got mixed up with a string o' lumber
that was a-comin' down, an' so he had to go to the hospital.
"One thing about Jess--she was a singer all right. I ain't never heer'd
ary one o' them there the-_ay_-ter gals that could beat her singin'. She
warbled like a lark with his belly full o' grubworms. It was wuth ridin'
a clamp from here to Mill Flat to hear her sing. She had a couple o'
hymn-books an' a stack o' them coon songs the newspapers gives away, an'
I tell yeh, she'd sing them there songs like she'd knowed 'em all her
life. Picked out the tunes some ways on a little string-thing like a
sawed-off guitar. Sounds like muskeeters hummin' aroun'. Yes, a
mandy-linn--that's it. But that there mandy-linn didn't soot her a
little bit. She was crazy ter have a pianner. I heer'd her tell her paw,
who was aroun' ag'in workin' after his busted laig got well, she'd give
ten years o' her life for any ol' cheap pianner he could skeer up fer
her.
"'Wal,' says he, 'how in tunket am I a-goin' ter git anything like
that--thirty miles off'n the road, an' nary way o' freightin' it up or
down the cañon to this camp?'
"'Couldn't yeh have it brung up to Skyland by the stage road,' asts she,
'an' then have it rafted down the flume? Jest a little one?' she asts
very earnest-like.
"'Gee whittaker!' says he, laughin' all over. 'You'll be a-wantin' 'em
to send yeh down a parlor-keer nex'.'
"Then she gits hot in the collar an' cries an' takes on, an' Jud, who
was a-hangin' aroun', has to walk her up to the Riffles; an' he must 'a'
comforted her a heap, fer she comes back alone, singin,' 'Nearer, my
God, to Thee,' like a angel.
"The' was a big spill up to the Devil's Gate,--one o' them places back
there where the flume hangs onto the side o' the cliff, about half a
mile above the bottom o' the gulch,--an' Jud Brusie an' all hands has to
work there three days an' nights ter git things straightened out. Jud
worked so derned hard, up all night an' hangin' on ter the ropes he was
let up an' down by till yeh'd think he was ready to drop, that the
soop'rintendent said he'd make Jud flume boss when he got back from Noo
York, where he was a-goin' fer a few months. The soop'rintendent--that's
Mr. Sneath--went over the hull flume with Jud a little while before he
lit out for the East, p'intin' things out ter him that he wanted did
when he got back. I was down here flume-herdin' at Five when him an' Jud
come along in a dude-lookin' flume-boat, rigged out in great style. I
stopped 'em back there a ways with my picaroon, when they sung out, an'
they walked down here on the side planks. Jest as they got near the camp
the soop'rintendent he stopped like he'd struck a rotten plank an'
stared at the house.
"'Who's that singin'?' says he.
"'Miss. Hemenway,' says Jud, proud-like.
"'She's got an awful sweet voice,' says the ol' man. 'It oughter be
trained. She ought to go to a hot-house'--or something like that.
'Conservatory?' Yes, that's it.
"'She's mighty anxious to l'arn,' says Jud. 'She wants a pianner awful
bad.'
"'Does she?' says the soop'rintendent. 'She oughter have one.'
"When he come along to the house he says to Jess, who stuck her head
outer the door an' looked kinder skeer'd-like, says he, 'I wish yeh'd
sing a few songs fer me.'
"Wal, yeh could see wal enough that Jess's knees was a-knockin'
together, but she tunes up her mandy-linn, scratches at the strings with
a little chip, an' gits started all right on 'Rock o' Ages,' an' gits to
goin' along kinder quavery-like fer a while, an' then she busts right
inter, 'He'r dem Bells,' so strong an' high an' wild that it takes the
ol' man right out o' his boots.
"He claps his hands an' yells, 'Hooray! Give us another!'
"Then she saws along on, 'Gather at the River,' an' chops inter, 'All
Coons Looks Alike ter Me,' in a way to stop the mill.
"Her paw stan's aroun' all the while, tickled t' death an' smilin' all
over.
"'Wal,' says the soop'rintendent, when Jess she stops ter git her wind,
'yer all right, Miss. Hemenway. Yer as full o' music as a wind-harp in a
tornado.' Then he says to her paw on the Q. T., 'If yeh was ter let that
gal go ter the city an' l'arn some o' them high-toned op'ry songs, yeh
wouldn't have to be picaroonin' lumber strings much longer.'
"'Yes,' says Hemenway, bloated up like a gobbler an' lookin' at Jess
where she stan's with her face red an' still a-puffin' for breath; 'an'
she thinks she could l'arn right here if she only had a pianner.'
"'She'd oughter have one,' says Mr. Sneath. 'I wish----' he says, an'
then he breaks off like a busted log-chain. 'But we couldn't git it down
here.'
'"What's that?' asts Hemenway.
"'We got a pianner up to our place, an' Mrs. Sneath won't be a-fingerin'
on it fer five months. She's a-goin' East with me. If we could only git
it down here an' back all right. If the' 's only a road from Skyland
down here or from Mill Flat up, but the' ain't, so the' 's no use
talkin'. Couldn't ship it down to the Flat an' up on mule-back, or
nothin', either; so I guess it can't be did.'
"'Why not send it down the flume?' asts Jess, timid-like. I could see
she was jest crazy about gittin' it.
"'Oh, the flume is old, an' it's rotten in places, an' such a heavy load
might go through.'
"'Why, it holds up the grub-boat all right,' says Jess 'Oh, if I could
only have that pianner down here! I can play a little already, an' I'd
l'arn a lot. I'd practise eight hours a day.'
"'How about gittin' the meals?' asts Hemenway.
"'Wal, I'd set up, then, an' practise all night,' says she.
"'I'm afeard that 'u'd be pretty hard on yer paw,' says Mr. Sneath,
smilin'. 'Wal, Jud, we got ter be goin'.'
"So they gits inter their dude boat, an' Jess she skips along after 'em,
an' jest as they's about to ontie she yells out to the soop'rintendent:
"'Cain't I have it? Cain't I have it? Cain't yeh send it down the flume?
Please say yeh will. I'll take the best kind o' keer of it. It sha'n't
git a single scratch.'
"Mr. Sneath he looks at her a minute kinder tender-like, an' I knowed
them big eyes o' hern was a-doin' their work. Them big soft baby eyes
would 'a' drawed sap outer a dead log.
"'Wal,' says he, 'we'll see. If Mrs. Sneath's willin' I guess it'll be
all right.'
"'Thank you, thank you, thank you!' she yells as the boat flies down the
flume.
"I seed Jud blow a kiss to her, an' I knowed she was happy as a bird.
She was a-singin' aroun' the shanty all day, an' at supper she done
nothin' but talk, talk, talk about that there pianner.
"'Don't be so awful gay, Miss. Hemenway,' says I, for I was afeard she
might be disapp'inted. 'Yeh ain't got it yet. Yeh know, Mr. Sneath's a'
awful busy man, an' he may fergit it.'
"'Oh, he won't fergit! Jud'll poke him up on it,' says she. 'An' I think
I'll have it put right over there in that corner. No, that's on the
flume side, an' it might draw dampness there. Over there by the winder's
the place, an' plenty o' light, too. Wonder if they'll think to send
down a stool.'
"I had to skin up to Skyland nex' day. Jud says the soop'rintendent has
to light out quicker'n he'd thought, but he didn't fergit about the
pianner. Mis' Sneath was as easy as greased skids, but Mr. Sneath he
didn't know exactly. He sends the pianner over to the warehouse there
'longside the flume an' has the men slap together a stout boat to run
her down in; but at the las' minute he backs out. He was a-lookin' at
the pianner standin' there in the warehouse, an' he says to Jud, says
he:
"'That there pianner has be'n in our family ever sence we was married.
Marthy allus sot a heap o' store by that pianner. It was my first
present to her, an' I know she thinks a hull lot of it, even if she
don't seem ter keer. Trouble is, she don't know what sendin' it down the
flume means. Yeh see, it ain't like a long string o' lumber--weight's
all in one place, an' she might break through. This flume ain't what it
was thirteen years ago, yeh know.'
"Jud he argies with him, 'cos he knows Jess's heart'll be broke if she
don't git the pianner; an' after a while he thinks he's got it all
fixed; but jest afore Sneath an' his wife takes the stage he telaphones
down to the warehouse to let the pianner stay there till he comes back.
Then he goes away, an' Jud is as down in the mouth as if he'd run his
fist ag'in' a band-saw. He mopes aroun' all day, an' he's afeard to
tell Jess; but as I was a-goin' back to Five that night, he tells me to
break it to her gentle-like an' say he'd done his best. Which I did.
Wal, that gal jest howls when I tells her, an' sobs an' sobs an' takes
on like a baby coyote with the croup. But her dad he quiets her at last.
"Jud he hardly dasts to show up on Sunday, but when he does, she won't
look at him fer quite a while. Then some o' that strawbary-blonde in her
comes out in some o' the dernedest scoldin' yeh ever heer'd.
"'It's too bad, Jessie,' says he, 'but it ain't my fault. I done my
best. He backed out at the las' minute; he backed out, an' I couldn't do
no more than if a tree dropped on me. He backed out.'
"After a while he takes her off up the flume a piece, an' they stays
there a long time, but she don't seem satisfied much when she comes
back. There is hell a-poppin' there for about three days over that there
pianner, an' the ol' man he gits so sick of it he gives her warnin'
he'll light out if she don't quit. Wal, she quiets down some after that,
but she makes Jud as mis'able as a treed coon fer over a week. She keeps
a-tryin' an' a-tryin' to git him to send the pianner down anyway. She
tells him she'll send it back afore the Sneaths gits home.
"'He told me I could have it; he promised me,' says she, 'he promised
me, an' I'll never marry you unless you send it down. You can do it;
you're goin' to be boss, an' you know it will be all right. I'll see
that they ain't a scratch on it; an' you can put it in the warehouse,
an' they'll never know it's be'n away.'
"An' so she keeps a-teasin' an' a-teasin', till finally Jud he gits
desperate.
"'Oram,' says he to me one day, 'Oram, you're an ol' flume man. What do
you think o' runnin' that pianner down to Five?'
"I shakes my head. I likes the boy, an' I don't want ter see him take
sech big chances o' gittin' inter trouble. Somebody might tell Sneath,
an' then it might be all off about his bein' flume boss. Besides, nobody
had never run no pianner down no flume before, an' yeh couldn't tell
what might happen.
"'D' yeh think, honest, Oram,' says he, 'the ol' flume's likely ter give
way anywheres?'
"'No,' says I; 'she's strong as a railroad-track.'
"'Wal, then,' says he, 'I'm a-goin' to do it. You come down Sunday an'
we'll take her out afore anybody's out o' the bunk-house.'
"I tries to argy him out of it, but he won't listen. So Sunday, about
five in the mornin', I goes up to Skyland, an' we slides the big boat
inter the flume an' gits the pianner onto the rollers, an' 't ain't much
trouble to load her all right; fer, yer know, them big boats has flat
tops like decks, an' things sets up on top of 'em. But while we was
a-doin' that an' the boat is hitched tight to a stanchion 'longside o'
the flume, the water backs up behind so high that it looks as though the
pianner is a-goin' ter git wet. This skeers Jud, an' he seems to lose
his head someways.
"'Hustle up, Oram!' says he, very nervous-like. 'The boat's crowdin'
down so it won't let any water past. Ontie that rope.'
"I takes a good notice o' the pianner, an' I don't like her looks,
sittin' up there so high on that little deck.
"'We oughter tie her on good an' tight,' says I.
"She's a upright, yeh see, an' she's as top-heavy as a pile-driver. I
was afeard she'd strike a low limb or somethin' an' git smashed. So I
goes to settle her a bit an' lay her down on her back an' tie her on;
but he says he don't know about that layin'-down business, an' declares
she'll ride all right. He speaks pretty sharp, too. So I gits a little
huffy an' onties the rope, an' we starts.
"Wal, she don't go very fast at first, 'cos she's heavy an' they ain't
none too much water in front; but after a while we comes to the Devil's
Slide,--you remember the place,--an' we scoots down there like the
mill-tails o' hell.
"'Gee-whiz!' says Jud. 'She's a-rockin' like a teeter. I hope she'll
stay on all right.' He was settin' back with me, behind the pianner, an'
we both tries to holt on to her an' keep her stiddy, but we cain't do
much more'n set down an' cuss haff the time, we're so afeard we'll git
throwed out. Wal, after we come to the foot of the slide, we breathes
easy-like, an' Jud he says it's all right, for that there was the wust
place. For about three miles the pianner set on that boat as stiddy as a
church, an' from there on down to Four it was pretty good sailin'. Of
course we went a good deal faster in the steep places than any other
boat ever sent down the flume, because the heft o' the thing, when she
got started, was bound to make her fly, water or no water. In a good
many places we run ahead o' the stream, an' then in the quiet spots the
water would catch up to us an' back up behind us an' shove us along.
"Between Four an' Five there's a place we used ter call Cape Horn. The
flume is bracketed onto a cliff, yeh know, fer about a mile, an' it's a
skeery place any way yeh shoot it; yeh scoot aroun' them there sharp
curves so lively, an' yeh look down there four or five hundred feet
inter the bottom o' the cañon. That's where yeh shut yer eyes. Yeh
remember? Wal, when I sees Cape Horn ahead I gits a little skeer'd when
I thinks how she might rock. We run onto a place where I could look away
ahead, an' there, wavin' her apron or somethin', is a gal, an' I knows
it's Jess, out from Five to see the pianner come down. Jud he knows,
too, an' waves back.
"We runs out onto the brackets, turns a sharp curve, an' she begins to
wabble an' stagger like a drunken man, floppin' back an' forth, an' the
strings an' things inside is a-hummin' an' a-drummin'.
"'Slow her down!' yells Jud. 'Slow her down, or we'll never git past the
Horn!'
"I claps on the brake, but she's so heavy she don't pay no 'tention to
it, though I makes smoke 'long them planks, I tell yer. She scoots ahead
faster'n ever, an' bows to the scenery, this way an' that, like she was
crazy, an' a-hummin' harder than ever.
"'Slow her down! Ease her down!' hollers Jud, grittin' his teeth an'
holdin' onto her with all his hundred an' eighty pounds weight. But 't
ain't no good. I gits a holt oncet, but the water backs up behind us an'
we goes a-scootin' down on a big wave that sloshes out o' the flume on
both sides an' sends us flyin' toward that Horn fer further orders.
"When we gits to the sharpest curve we knows we're there all right. She
wabbles on one side an' then on the other, so I can see chunks o' sky
ahead right under her. An' then, all of a sudden, she gives a whoopin'
big jump right off the top o' the boat, an' over the side o' the flume
she goes, her strings all a-singin' like mad, an' sailin' down four
hundred feet. Jud had a holt of her before she dropped, an' if I hadn't
'a' grabbed him he'd 'a' gone over, too.
"You might not believe it, pardner, but we run a quarter of a mile down
that there flume before we hears her strike. Jeroosalem! What a crash! I
ever heer'd one o' them big redwoods that made half so much noise when
she dropped. How she did roar! An' I tell yeh what was strange about
that there noise: it seemed like all the music that everybody had ever
expected to play on that pianner for the nex' hundred years come
a-boomin' out all to oncet in one great big whoop-hurray that echered up
an' down that cañon fer half an hour.
"'We've lost somethin',' says I, cheerful-like, fer I thinks the' 's no
use cryin' over spilt pianners.
"But Jud he never says nothin',--jest sets there like he was froze plumb
stiff an' couldn't stir a eyelid--sets there, starin' straight ahead
down the flume. Looks like his face is caught in the air and held that
way.
"Of course, now our load's gone, the brake works all right, an' I hooks
a-holt onto the side about a hundred feet from where Jess stands like a
marble statute, lookin' down inter the gulch.
"'Come on, Jud,' says I, layin' my hand onto his arm soft-like; 'we gits
out here.'
"He don't say nothin', but tries to shake me off. I gits him out at
last, an' we goes over to where poor Jess stands, stiff an' starin' down
inter the gulch. When she hears our feet on the side planks, she starts
up an' begins to beller like a week-old calf; an' that fetches Jud outer
his trance for a while, an' he puts his arm aroun' her an' he helps her
back along the walk till we comes to a place where we gits down an' goes
over to view the wreck.
"Great snakes, pardner, but it was a sight! The pianner had flew down
an' lit onto a big, flat rock, an' the' wasn't a piece of her left as
big as that there plate. There was all kinds o' wires a-wrigglin' aroun'
on the ground an' a-shinin' in the sun, an' the' was white keys an'
black keys an' the greatest lot o' them little woolly things that
strikes the strings all mixed up with little bits o' mahogany an' nuts
an' bolts an' little scraps o' red flannel an' leather, an' pegs an'
bits o' iron that didn't look as if it had ever been any part o' the
machine. It was the dernedest mess! I picked up somethin' Jess said was
a pedal,--a little piece o' shiny iron about as long as that,--'n' that
was the only thing that seemed to have any shape left to it. The litter
didn't make any pile at all--jest a lot o' siftin' sawdust-stuff
scattered aroun' on the rocks.
"'She struck tol'able hard,' says I, lookin' at Jud. But he don't say
nothin'; jest stan's over there on the side o' the rock an' looks as if
he'd like to jump off another fifty feet the' was there.
"'Don't take it like that, Jud,' says Jess, grabbin' holt o' him an' not
payin' any 'tention to my bein' there. 'Cry, cuss, swear--anything, but
don't be so solemn-like. It's my fault, Juddie dear--all my fault. Can
yeh ever, ever fergive me? Yeh said yeh didn't think it was safe, an' I
kep' a-goadin' yeh to it; an' now----' She broke out a-blubberin' an'
a-bellerin' again, an' he puts his arm aroun' her an' smiles, an' says
soft-like:
"'It don't matter much. I can raise the money an' buy a new one fer Mis'
Sneath. How much do they cost?' says he.
"'Oh, I dunno! Five hundred dollars, I think. It's an awful lot o'
money!'
"'Wal, I got three-fifty saved up,--you know what fer,--an' I can raise
the rest an' put a new pianner in the place o' that one,' says he.
"He looks at the wreck, an' fer the first time I sees his eyes is jest a
little damp.
"They didn't either of 'em seem to take any notice o' me, an' I didn't
feel that I counted, nohow.