Martin's was a typical little mountain store, containing a small sample
of almost everything under the sun and built at the forks in the road.
The ranchman let Bruce off at the store; then turned up the right-hand
road that led to certain bunch-grass lands to the east. Bruce entered
slowly, and the little group of loungers gazed at him with frank
curiosity.
Only one of them was of a type sufficiently distinguished so that
Bruce's own curiosity was aroused. This was a huge, dark man who stood
alone almost at the rear of the building,--a veritable giant with
savage, bloodhound lips and deep-sunken eyes. There was a quality in his
posture that attracted Bruce's attention at once. No one could look at
him and doubt that he was a power in these mountain realms. He seemed
perfectly secure in his great strength and wholly cognizant of the hate
and fear, and at the same time, the strange sort of admiration with
which the others regarded him.
He was dressed much as the other mountain men who had assembled in the
store. He wore a flannel shirt over his gorilla chest, and corduroy
trousers stuffed into high, many-seamed riding boots. A dark felt hat
was crushed on to his huge head. But there was an aloofness about the
man; and Bruce realized at once he had taken no part in the friendly
gossip that had been interrupted by his entrance.
The dark eyes were full upon Bruce's face. He felt them--just as if they
had the power of actual physical impact--the instant that he was inside
the door. Nor was it the ordinary look of careless speculation or
friendly interest. Mountain men have not been taught it is not good
manners to stare, but no traveler who falls swiftly into the spirit of
the forest ordinarily resents their open inspection. But this look was
different. It was such that no man, to whom self-respect is dear, could
possibly disregard. It spoke clearly as words.
Bruce flushed, and his blood made a curious little leap. He slowly
turned. His gaze moved until it rested full upon the man's eyes. It
seemed to Bruce that the room grew instantly quiet. The merchant no
longer tied up his bundles at the counter. The watching mountain men
that he beheld out of the corners of his eyes all seemed to be standing
in peculiar fixed attitudes, waiting for some sort of explosion. It took
all of Bruce's strength to hold that gaze. The moment was charged with a
mysterious suspense.
The stranger's face changed too. He did not flush, however. His lips
curled ever so slightly, revealing an instant's glimpse of strong,
rather well-kept teeth. His eyes were narrowing too; and they seemed to
come to life with singular sparkles and glowings between the lids.
"Well?" he suddenly demanded. Every man in the room--except
one--started. The one exception was Bruce himself. He was holding hard
on his nerve control, and he only continued to stare coldly.
"Are you the merchant?" Bruce asked.
"No, I ain't," the other replied. "You usually look for the merchant
behind the counter."
There was no smile on the faces of the waiting mountain men, usually to
be expected when one of their number achieves repartee on a tenderfoot.
Nevertheless, the tension was broken. Bruce turned to the merchant.
"I would like to have you tell me," he said quite clearly, "the way to
Mrs. Ross's cabin."
The merchant seemed to wait a long time before replying. His eye stole
to the giant's face, found the lips curled in a smile; then he flushed.
"Take the left-hand road," he said with a trace of defiance in his tone.
"It soon becomes a trail, but keep right on going up it. At the fork in
the trail you'll find her cabin."
"How far is it, please?"
"Two hours' walk; you can make it easy by four o'clock."
"Thank you." His eyes glanced over the stock of goods and he selected a
few edibles to give him strength for the walk. "I'll leave my suitcase
here if I may," he said, "and will call for it later." He turned to go.
"Wait just a minute," a voice spoke behind him. It was a commanding
tone--implying the expectation of obedience. Bruce half turned. "Simon
wants to talk to you," the merchant explained.
"I'll walk with you a way and show you the road," Simon continued. The
room seemed deathly quiet as the two men went out together.
They walked side by side until a turn of the road took them out of
eye-range of the store. "This is the road," Simon said. "All you have to
do is follow it. Cabins are not so many that you could mistake it. But
the main thing is--whether or not you want to go."
Bruce had no misunderstanding about the man's meaning. It was simply a
threat, nothing more nor less.
"I've come a long way to go to that cabin," he replied. "I'm not likely
to turn off now."
"There's nothing worth seeing when you get there. Just an old hag--a
wrinkled old dame that looks like a witch."
Bruce felt a deep and little understood resentment at the words. Yet
since he had as yet established no relations with the woman, he had no
grounds for silencing the man. "I'll have to decide that," he replied.
"I'm going to see some one else, too."
"Some one named--Linda?"
"Yes. You seem quite interested."
They were standing face to face in the trail. For once Bruce was glad of
his unusual height. He did not have to raise his eyes greatly to look
squarely into Simon's. Both faces were flushed, both set; and the eyes
of the older man brightened slowly.
"I am interested," Simon replied. "You're a tenderfoot. You're fresh
from cities. You're going up there to learn things that won't be any
pleasure to you. You're going into the real mountains--a man's land such
as never was a place for tenderfeet. A good many things can happen up
there. A good many things have happened up there. I warn you--go back!"
Bruce smiled, just the faint flicker of a smile, but Simon's eyes
narrowed when he saw it. The dark face lost a little of its insolence.
He knew men, this huge son of the wilderness, and he knew that no coward
could smile in such a moment as this. He was accustomed to implicit
obedience and was not used to seeing men smile when he uttered a threat.
"I've come too far to go back," Bruce told him. "Nothing can turn me."
"Men have been turned before, on trails like this," Simon told him.
"Don't misunderstand me. I advised you to go back before, and I usually
don't take time or trouble to advise any one. Now I _tell_ you to go
back. This is a man's land, and we don't want any tenderfeet here."
"The trail is open," Bruce returned. It was not his usual manner to
speak in quite this way. He seemed at once to have fallen into the
vernacular of the wilderness of which symbolic reference has such a
part. Strange as the scene was to him, it was in some way familiar too.
It was as if this meeting had been ordained long ago; that it was part
of an inexorable destiny that the two should be talking together, face
to face, on this winding mountain road. Memories--all vague, all
unrecognized--thronged through him.
Many times, during the past years, he had wakened from curious dreams
that in the light of day he had tried in vain to interpret. He was never
able to connect them with any remembered experience. Now it was as if
one of these dreams were coming true. There was the same silence about
him, the dark forests beyond, the ridges stretching ever. There was some
great foe that might any instant overwhelm him.
"I guess you heard me," Simon said; "I told you to go back."
"And I hope you heard me too. I'm going on. I haven't any more time to
give you."
"And I'm not going to take any more, either. But let me make one thing
plain. No man, told to go back by me, ever has a chance to be told
again. This ain't your cities--up here. There ain't any policeman on
every corner. The woods are big, and all kinds of things can happen in
them--and be swallowed up--as I swallow these leaves in my hand."
His great arm reached out with incredible power and seized a handful of
leaves off a near-by shrub. It seemed to Bruce that they crushed like
fruit and stained the dark skin.
"What is done up here isn't put in the newspapers down below. We're
mountain men; we've lived up here as long as men have lived in the West.
We have our own way of doing things, and our own law. Think once more
about going back."
"I've already decided. I'm going on."
Once more they stood, eyes meeting eyes on the trail, and Simon's face
was darkening with passion. Bruce knew that his hands were clenching,
and his own muscles bunched and made ready to resist any kind of attack.
But Simon didn't strike. He laughed instead,--a single deep note of
utter and depthless scorn. Then he drew back and let Bruce pass on up
the road.