THE MESSAGE
CHARMIAN was more dead than alive, as the saying goes, when she
reached the Cave of Hypocritical Frogs. Here, with shaking hands, she
stripped to the skin and rubbed her limbs and body as vigorously as
her benumbed condition would permit, her teeth chattering like a tiny
riveting machine. The signal fire was smouldering. She raked away the
green conifer branches which kept the smoke stream rising and heaped on
dry wood. It blazed up soon, and when she dared she stood close to it
invoking its warmth.
An hour had passed before she felt able to examine the brass cylinder
that had come floating so mysteriously down the ice-fringed river.
As has been stated, it was about a foot in length by three inches in
diameter. One end was solid brass. The other end had been sealed with
brown wax.
Huddled close to the fire, nude but for the blanket that was wrapped
about her, she hacked tremblingly at the wax, first with a hunter’s axe
and then a jackknife.
The wax surrendered to her prying, and she hacked out perhaps two
inches of it. It had been poured in to this depth, she reasoned, to
guard against its being loosened by stones and sticks against which it
might have bumped in its underground passage from the mountains above
the valley.
At last it was all loose. She dumped the last of it on the cave floor.
Looking in the cylinder, she saw a pasteboard disc the exact size of
the container, which had been pressed down against the cargo of this
mysterious carrier to stand as a partition against the contents and the
melted wax.
She pried it out with the point of her knife as one fishes for an
obstinate cork. Then, holding her breath, she poured the contents of
the cylinder on the floor.
Small paper bundles fell out, and among them was a folded piece of
paper. This she grasped up first, unfolded, and found to be a note
signed Inman Shonto. She read, while the tears brimmed in her eyes:
“MY DEAR CHARMIAN:
“This is the fourth brass cylinder that I have thrown in Lost River
in the hope that it will float through the underground passages to
the Valley of Arcana, where you may find it. A note accompanied its
three predecessors, and each one instructed you to build two signal
fires if you found the cylinder so that I would know it had reached
you. For several days I have watched the stream of smoke from your
fire, longing always to see the second stream ascend. And I have
suffered because no second stream came.
“I have about decided, therefore, that Lost River does not run
through the valley, or that my cylinders have caught on something and
failed to reach you. For in some strange way it seems to me that,
if they did float into the Valley of Arcana, you would find them.
Which is childish of me, I suppose. But it bolsters up my courage
nevertheless. I have only three more cylinders to send, and will send
them two days apart unless I see the second stream of smoke.
“Now follows a repetition of what the other messages contained:
“Build another signal fire as soon as you have read this, so that I
will know you have received my message and are again in command of
the situation. By this time, I think, Andy Jerome will have lapsed
into a terrible state, and you will be almost insane. But in the
cylinder you will find more tablets. Give him one a day regularly--no
more--and if he is not too far gone he will come back to normalcy
with surprising swiftness. It may seem incredible to you, but it is
the truth.
“Andy Jerome, Charmian, is a cretin. A cretin, you perhaps must be
told, is an hereditary idiot. Cretinism is most prevalent in the
Swiss Alps, where Andy’s ancestors lived--on his mother’s side, I
mean. Up until recently cretinism has been considered incurable by
the medical profession; but the discovery that man is regulated by
his gland secretions had done away with that theory. Cretins are only
human beings suffering from a lack of thyroid in their systems. Their
other glands may be functioning properly, but when the secretions of
the thyroid are deficient they are hopeless idiots. However, science
has discovered that if they are fed daily a tablet composed of the
extract of the thyroid glands of sheep they will, to all intents and
purposes, become normal. But in a few days after the treatment is
stopped they will quickly slip back into cretinism again, with all
its degradation. Then let the treatment be renewed, and in a short
while the patient will have lost all of the symptoms of cretinism and
gradually will come back. It seems incomprehensible, I realize, but
it is nevertheless a thoroughly demonstrated scientific fact.
“Cretinism runs in Andy’s family. Certain children of a generation
ago in his mother’s family were born cretins. Others escaped to a
certain extent. Andy’s mother, for instance, is perfectly normal in
every way. But the taint cropped up in her child when he was about
eight years of age, at which time I was working hardest on my theory
regarding the significance of the gland secretions as determinants of
human personality. I myself brought Andy out of cretinism and made
him appear like other men.
“We have been careful with him and have encouraged an outdoor life.
While he seems to learn readily, he takes no particular interest
in his studies, is irresponsible, and unsettled in his habits. He
has never missed a day in taking his medicine, for I refused to
experiment with him. I am not sure now that he has lapsed back into
cretinism; but, considering the time that I have been away, it seems
almost certain that he should be pretty far gone.
“My delay in returning to you was unavoidable. I think that I could
have made it back ahead of the snows if I had not encountered our old
friends Leach and Morley, who kidnapped me, blindfolded me, and led
me into a series of strange adventures.”
Here followed a brief account of the doctor’s imprisonment in the adobe
hut at Tanburt Ranch and of his subsequent release by Shirttail Henry
and Mary Temple.
“Marvellous Mary Temple!” continued the letter. “Suffering agonies
because of her broken rib, she nevertheless refused to give in until
she and Henry had ridden to the ranch, after her spectacular hold-up
of the prospectors, and set me free. Old Gus Tanburt was mooning
about the house, I guess, and we got away from the ranch after dark
with little difficulty. Then I relieved Shirttail Henry of his
horse--or, rather, Tanburt’s horse--and Mary and I rode all night to
Diamond H Ranch. Henry, I suppose, walked back to his camp in the
buttes, with fifty dollars that I gave him for another drunk. He said
he had spent all of the two hundred and fifty that you gave him for
his services as guide. Poor old Henry! Mary says one more hot day
will finish him!
“At Diamond H we got my car and I drove Mary to the city, where I
rushed her to a hospital and commanded her to stay there. Then I got
what I needed from my laboratory, having in the meantime thought of
trying to float medicine and other things to you down Lost River in
brass cylinders, provided I should fail to reach you by airplane. It
all depended on whether Lost River actually ran underground to the
Valley of Arcana. I knew that it was snowing hard in the mountains,
but that it was too late for me to get in afoot.
“I was fortunate in being able to hire a government monoplane, but
the pilot was doubtful about the mountain blizzards from the outset.
However, he was game and willing to do his best, and we set out
hopefully.
“In a surprisingly short time the mountains were below us, and I
thought of all the hardships you and I had gone through in covering
the same distance. But the storms were raging; we could see almost
nothing of the land beneath us. It was impossible to make a landing
anywhere, but when a blizzard caught us we made one nevertheless.
“I thought my last day had come when we swooped down at terrific
speed. But the pilot regained control of the thing, and, though
we could not rise again, we came down much more slowly. We landed
in a snowdrift high up in the mountains, and my pilot was knocked
senseless, having struck his head on something in the fall. I was
completely unhurt.
“I was a long time locating ourselves. I had to work alone, because
Lieutenant Cantenwine, the pilot, was helpless. But finally,
wandering about, I came upon a streak through the forest where trees
had been felled and brush cut, indicating a trail under the snow. I
followed it, and it led me to an Indian village.
“I had stumbled upon the reservation that Henry told us about at
Shirttail Bend. The Indians were kind and readily offered to help me.
The entire tribe, I believe, accompanied me back to Cantenwine and
the airplane. It was the biggest day in their lives.
“They carried the lieutenant to the reservation on a stretcher,
where I put him to bed. His skull is not fractured, but he has had a
terrible shaking-up and was out of business. I had no way of knowing
whether the plane was damaged or not, for I know nothing about
airplanes. So I paid no attention to that, but next day questioned
the Indians about Lost River, and was told that the source of it was
not many miles away. They offered to take me to it on snowshoes, and
we set out early through a driving storm.
“We reached it, and, with the awed natives standing about, I launched
two of the cylinders. Two days later I went again with a guide and
launched the third. Since then I have spent the greater part of
my time doctoring Cantenwine and, since the weather has cleared,
watching for the second stream of smoke, which never rose.
“The lieutenant is about now and has examined the airplane. It is not
damaged beyond repair, and he is at work on it. He hopes to be able
to make another attempt to reach the Valley of Arcana in a few days,
if the weather continues to clear. We will circle over the valley,
when we locate it, and try to make a landing on the lake. It must be
frozen over, and we think that the high winds that have been blowing
ought to clear the ice of snow. If not, landing will be a serious
matter; but we hope for the best.
“This is all, Charmian, and I hope fervently that God will direct
this message into your hands. Your single stream of smoke tells
me that you are alive, and I thank Him for that. If Andy is in the
condition that I think he is, you will realize now that you can
never marry him. Even though we are able to bring him back to his
old buoyant self, marriage is out of the question for him. He has
no right to bring children into the world, which may be cretins, as
he is. Knowing him as I do, I feel sure that, when he realizes his
condition, he will give you up to me if it kills him. Poor Andy! I
know that this must be a bitter blow to you, and I am sorry. But you
must be told the truth now, and Andy must know too. If he comes back
before we reach you, tell him everything.
“God bless you and help you.
“Devotedly,
“INMAN SHONTO.”
For a long time after reading the message Charmian sat staring at the
fire. Absent-mindedly she opened the packages--found tablets, coffee,
sugar--all dry. Then she suddenly realized that she was growing cold
again, and rose to put on such dry clothes as she could find. With
these on, and the blanket again wrapped about her, she went out in a
sort of stupor and built a second signal fire about a hundred feet from
the first. She returned to the cave and seated herself again, drying
her clothes before the blaze. She was stunned, stupid. She could not
think. It was the cold, she told herself. Everything was all right
now. Inman Shonto would come to her soon. She would hear a human voice
again--his voice!
Her chin sank to her breast and she fell sound asleep sitting upright
before the fire.
* * * * *
Days had passed--how many Charmian Reemy did not know--before she heard
the hum of the airplane in the sky above the Valley of Arcana. Another
storm had raged since she had received the doctor’s message, and the
mystic snow banners had streamed above the sink from the surrounding
peaks. She had realized that it was impossible for him to reach her
under these conditions, and had bravely submitted to the inevitable.
Daily she cooked and ate her simple food. How delightful was the
coffee! Daily she gave the cretin his tablet--forced it between his
swollen lips and washed it down his throat with water, often nearly
choking him.
Gradually the miracle took place. Slowly but surely the film left the
eyes of the sufferer, and day by day they brightened. The swelling
left the protruding tongue. The sallowness departed from the skin. The
flabbiness departed. The lips became dry and firm. The asthmatic wheeze
was gone from his breathing. The bloated, baglike abdomen receded. The
light of reason came back in his eyes, and he drew in his protruding
tongue repeatedly, glancing shame-facedly at Charmian to see if she had
observed.
He smiled at her. He began to mumble. Then words came, and finally
simple, broken sentences expressing the sufferer’s wants.
He was at this stage when the snow ceased falling. Two days of calm
were followed by a bitter wind, which cut the snow from the hillsides
and sent Charmian struggling to a lofty eminence from where she had a
view of the distant ice-locked lake.
She could see the snow clouds blowing over there, and her heart leaped
with hope. Then the airplane came roaring over the valley, circled
down into it, glided to one end of the lake, turned, and came on in a
downward swoop with the stretch of ice before it. She saw it strike
the ice and held her breath. Great clouds of snow-dust arose and hit
it, and she screamed with dread. But next instant she saw it skimming
over the ice at terrific speed, the snow clouds trailing behind it.
Slower and slower became its rate of progress; and when it was still
Charmian sank down in the snow, and for the first time since reading
the doctor’s message she found relief in tears.
She stood up after the storm of tears had passed and saw two tiny
figures coming toward her over the snow. She watched them, fascinated,
for over half an hour, insensible to the biting wind. Then when they
drew nearer she noted that they were headed toward her smoke streams,
and she jumped about and waved her arms to attract attention to herself.
Presently she knew that they had seen her, for the foremost waved his
hat and the two changed direction. The speed at which they travelled
showed that they were on snowshoes. They come on rapidly straight
toward her. Then when they were very near and she heard a faint shout
and recognized the doctor’s voice, a sudden wild panic seized her. She
had been alone so long in that wild, desolate snow land, with only a
helpless, drivelling idiot for company, that a strange dread of meeting
these men took hold on her. Again the doctor shouted to her. Hysteria
overcame her. With a little moan she turned and started running like a
wild thing toward her cave.
Three times she stumbled over rocks hidden in the snow and pitched
forward on her face. She had left the knoll and was on the level land.
She glanced back over her shoulder as she ran. It seemed that no one
was pursuing her. She slackened her pace, stopped, trembling and
sobbing, and tried to fight off her terror.
And then it was that a figure suddenly stood before her with two arms
outstretched. She had not realized that they would not follow her over
the knoll, but would keep to the level land and travel much faster than
she had. They even had passed her, and had cut in ahead of her.
She shrank back, biting her white lips.
“There--there--there!” came in soothing tones. “It’s all right now--all
right now, Charmian.”
Next instant the long arms closed about her. Her tears burst forth
again, but she lowered her head to Inman Shonto’s shoulder, and the
panic passed.
“There--there--there!”--as soft as the voice of a mother bending over
the cradle of her child.
She looked up, dark eyes swimming. There came a smile--a little
up-flirt at one corner of her mouth.
Without reserve he lowered his lips to hers and kissed her tenderly, as
if all along he had known that this precious moment would one day come
to him.
“It’s all right now--all right now, Charmian.”
And Charmian knew that it was all right now.
Two hours later the great man-made bird rose from the ice-sheet on the
lake and roared away over the Valley of Arcana--away from the ice and
snow and the horrors of the rocky cave--away to the sunny green lands
that border the blue Pacific.
And the little ouzel, lifting his fluty notes amidst the icy spray of
his beloved waterfall, bobbed and bowed and dived happily, and knew not
of its going.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.