There had not been time to make inquiry as to the land Bruce was going
to. He only knew one thing,--that it was the wilderness. Whether it was
a wilderness of desert or of great forest, he did not know. Nor had he
the least idea what manner of adventure would be his after he reached
the old woman's cabin; and he didn't care. The fact that he had no
business plans for the future and no financial resources except a few
hundred dollars that he carried in his pocket did not matter one way or
another. He was willing to spend all the money he had; after it was
gone, he would take up some work in life anew.
He had a moment's wonder at the effect his departure would have upon the
financial problem that had been his father's sole legacy to him. He
laughed a little as he thought of it. Perhaps a stronger man could have
taken hold, could have erected some sort of a structure upon the ruins,
and remained to conquer after all. But Bruce had never been particularly
adept at business. His temperament did not seem suited to it. But the
idea that others also--having no business relations with his
father--might be interested in this western journey of his did not even
occur to him. He would not be missed at his athletic club. He had
scarcely any real friends, and none of his acquaintances kept
particularly close track of him.
But the paths men take, seemingly with wholly different aims, crisscross
and become intertwined much more than Bruce knew. Even as he lay in his
berth, the first sweet drifting of sleep upon him, he was the subject of
a discussion in a far-distant mountain home; and sleep would not have
fallen so easily and sweetly if he had heard it.
* * * * *
It might have been a different world. Only a glimpse of it, illumined by
the moon, could be seen through the soiled and besmirched window pane;
but that was enough to tell the story. There were no tall buildings,
lighted by a thousand electric lights, such as Bruce could see through
the windows of his bedroom at night. The lights that could be discerned
in this strange, dark sky were largely unfamiliar to Bruce, because of
the smoke-clouds that had always hung above the city where he lived.
There were just stars, but there were so many of them that the mind was
unable to comprehend their number.
There is a perplexing variation in the appearance of these twinkling
spheres. No man who has traveled widely can escape this fact. Likely
enough they are the same stars, but they put on different faces. They
seem almost insignificant at times,--dull and dim and unreal. It is not
this way with the stars that peer down through these high forests. Men
cannot walk beneath them and be unaware of them. They are incredibly
large and bright and near, and the eyes naturally lift to them. There
are nights in plenty, in the wild places, where they seem much more real
than the dim, moonlit ridge or even the spark of a trapper's campfire,
far away. They grow to be companions, too, in time. Perhaps after many,
many years in the wild a man even attains some understanding of them,
learning their infinite beneficence, and finding in them rare comrades
in loneliness, and beacons on the dim and intertwining trails.
There was also a moon that cast a little square of light, like a fairy
tapestry, on the floor. It was not such a moon as leers down red and
strange through the smoke of cities. It was vivid and quite white,--the
wilderness moon that times the hunting hours of the forest creatures.
But the patch that it cast on the floor was obscured in a moment because
the man who had been musing in the big chair beside the empty fireplace
had risen and lighted a kerosene lamp.
The light prevented any further scrutiny of the moon and stars. And what
remained to look at was not nearly so pleasing to the spirit. It was a
great, white-walled room that would have been beautiful had it not been
for certain unfortunate attempts to beautify it. The walls, that should
have been sweeping and clean, were adorned with gaudily framed pictures
which in themselves were dim and drab from many summers' accumulation of
dust. There was a stone fireplace, and certain massive, dust-covered
chairs grouped about it. But the eyes never would have got to these.
They would have been held and fascinated by the face and the form of
the man who had just lighted the lamp.
No one could look twice at that massive physique and question its might.
He seemed almost gigantic in the yellow lamplight. In reality he stood
six feet and almost three inches, and his frame was perfectly in
proportion. He moved slowly, lazily, and the thought flashed to some
great monster of the forest that could uproot a tree with a blow. The
huge muscles rippled and moved under the flannel shirt. The vast hand
looked as if it could seize the glass bowl of the lamp and crush it like
an eggshell.
The face was huge, big and gaunt of bone; and particularly one would
notice the mouth. It would be noticed even before the dark, deep-sunken
eyes. It was a bloodhound mouth, the mouth of a man of great and
terrible passions, and there was an unmistakable measure of cruelty and
savagely about it. But there was strength, too. No eye could doubt that.
The jaw muscles looked as powerful as those of a beast of prey. But it
was not an ugly face, for all the brutality of the features. It was even
handsome in the hard, mountain way. One would notice straight, black
hair--the man's age was about thirty-nine--long over rather dark ears,
and a great, gnarled throat. The words when he spoke seemed to come from
deep within it.
"Come in, Dave," he said.
In this little remark lay something of the man's power. The visitor had
come unannounced. His visit had been unexpected. His host had not yet
seen his face. Yet the man knew, before the door was opened, who it was
that had come.
The reason went back to a certain quickening of the senses that is the
peculiar right and property of most men who are really residents of the
wilderness. And resident, in this case, does not mean merely one who
builds his cabin on the slopes and lives there until he dies. It means a
true relationship with the wild, an actual understanding. This man was
the son of the wild as much as the wolves that ran in the packs. The
wilderness is a fecund parent, producing an astounding variety of types.
Some are beautiful, many stronger than iron, but her parentage was never
more evident than in the case of this bronze-skinned giant that called
out through the open doorway. Among certain other things he had acquired
an ability to name and interpret quickly the little sounds of the
wilderness night. Soft though it was, he had heard the sound of
approaching feet in the pine needles. As surely as he would have
recognized the dark face of the man in the doorway, he recognized the
sound as Dave's step.
The man came in, and at once an observer would have detected an air of
deference in his attitude. Very plainly he had come to see his chief. He
was a year or two older than his host, less powerful of physique, and
his eyes did not hold quite so straight. There was less savagery but
more cunning in his sharp features.
He blurted out his news at once. "Old Elmira has got word down to the
settlements at last," he said.
There was no muscular response in the larger man. Dave was plainly
disappointed. He wanted his news to cause a stir. It was true, however,
that his host slowly raised his eyes. Dave glanced away.
"What do you mean?" the man demanded.
"Mean--I mean just what I said. We should have watched closer.
Bill--Young Bill, I mean--saw a city chap just in the act of going in to
see her. He had come on to the plateaus with his guide--Wegan was the
man's name--and Bill said he stayed a lot longer than he would have if
he hadn't taken a message from her. Then Young Bill made some
inquiries--innocent as you please--and he found out for sure that this
Wegan was from--just the place we don't want him to be from. And he'll
carry word sure."
"How long ago was this?"
"Week ago Tuesday."
"And why have you been so long in telling me?"
When Dave's chief asked questions in this tone, answers always came
quickly. They rolled so fast from the mouth that they blurred and ran
together. "Why, Simon--you ain't been where I could see you. Anyway,
there was nothin' we could have done."
"There wasn't, eh? I don't suppose you ever thought that there's yet two
months before we can clinch this thing for good, and young Folger
might--I say might--have kicking about somewhere in his belongings the
very document we've all of us been worrying about for twenty years."
Simon cursed--a single, fiery oath. "I don't suppose you could have
arranged for this Wegan to have had a hunting accident, could you? Who
in the devil would have thought that yelping old hen could have ever
done it--would have ever kept at it long enough to reach anybody to
carry her message! But as usual, we are yelling before we're hurt. It
isn't worth a cussword. Like as not, this Wegan will never take the
trouble to hunt him up. And if he does--well, it's nothing to worry
about, either. There is one back door that has been opened many times to
let his people go through, and it may easily be opened again."
Dave's eyes filled with admiration. Then he turned and gazed out through
the window. Against the eastern sky, already wan and pale from the
encroaching dawn, the long ridge of a mountain stood in vivid and
startling silhouette. The edge of it was curiously jagged with many
little upright points.
There was only one person who would have been greatly amazed by that
outline of the ridge; and the years and distance had obscured her long
ago. This was a teacher at an orphanage in a distant city, who once had
taken a crude drawing from the hands of a child. Here was the original
at last. It was the same ridge, covered with pines, that little Bruce
had drawn.