The line between the desert and the blossoming hills was as distinctly
drawn as that between a lake and its shore. The sage-brush, closer
massed than any through which we had yet passed, seemed to have gathered
itself for a serried assault upon the lovely verdure beyond. Outposts of
the sage-brush, its unsung heroes, perhaps, showed here and there among
ferns and wild roses--leafless, gaunt, and dead; one knotted specimen
even had planted its banner of desolation in the shade of a wild lilac
and there died. A twittering of birds gladdened our dusty ears, and from
afar there came a splashing of water. Our feet, burned by the desert
sands, torn by yucca and cactus, trod now upon a cool and delicious
moss, above which nodded the delicate blossoms of the shooting-star,
swung at the ends of strong and delicate stems. In the shadows the
chocolate lilies and trilliums dully glinted, and flag flowers trooped
in the sunlight. The resinous paradisiacal smell of tarweed and
bay-tree refreshed us, and the wonder of life was a something strong
and tangible like bread and wine.
The wine of it rushed in particular to Farallone's head; his brain
became flooded with it; his feet cavorted upon the moss; his bellowed
singing awoke the echoes, and the whole heavenly choir of the birds
answered him.
"You, Nicodemus," he cried gayly, "thought that man was given a nose to
be a tripod for his eye-glasses--but now--oh, smell--smell!"
His great bulk under its mighty pack tripped lightly, dancingly at the
bride's elbow. Now his agile fingers nipped some tiny, scarce
perceivable flower to delight her eye, and now his great hand scooped up
whole sheaves of strong-growing columbine, and flung them where her feet
must tread. He made her see great beauties and minute, and whatever had
a look of smelling sweet he crushed in his hands for her to smell.
He was no longer that limb of Satan, that sardonic bully of the desert
days, but a gay wood-god intent upon the gentle ways of wooing. At first
the bride turned away her senses from his offerings to eye and nostril;
for a time she made shift to turn aside from the flowers that he cast
for her feet to tread. But after a time, like one in a trance, she began
to yield up her indifference and aloofness. The magic of the riotous
spring began to intoxicate her. I saw her turn to the sailor and smile
a gracious smile. And after awhile she began to talk with him.
We came at length to a bright stream, from whose guileless
superabundance Farallone, with a bent pin and a speck of red cloth,
jerked a string of gaudy rainbow-trout. He made a fire and began to
broil them; the bride searched the vicinal woods for dried branches to
feed the fire. The groom knelt by the brook and washed the dust from his
face and ears, snuffing the cool water into his dusty nose and blowing
it out.
And I lay in the shade and wondered by what courses the brook found its
way to what sea or lake; whether it touched in its wanderings only the
virginal wilderness, or flowed at length among the habitations of men.
Farallone, of a sudden, jerked up his head from the broiling and
answered my unspoken questions.
"A man," he said, "who followed this brook could come in a few days to
the river Maria Cleofas, and following that, to the town of that name,
in a matter of ten days more. I tell you," he went on, "because some day
some of you may be going that voyage; no ill-found voyage
either--spring-water and trout all the way to the river; and all the
rest of the way river-water and trout; and at this season birds' eggs in
the reeds and a turtlelike terrapin, and Brodeia roots and wild onion,
and young sassafras--a child could do it. Eat that...." he tossed me
with his fingers a split, sputtering, piping hot trout....
We spent the rest of that day and the night following by the stream.
Farallone was in a riotous good-humor, and the fear of him grew less in
us until we felt at ease and could take an unmixed pleasure in the
loafing.
Early the next morning he was astir, and began to prepare himself for
further marching, but for the rest of us he said there would be one day
more of rest.
"Who knows," he said, "but this is Sunday?"
"Where are you going?" asked the bride politely.
"Me?" said Farallone, and he laughed. "I'm going house-hunting--not for
a house, of course, but for a site. It's not so easy to pick out just
the place where you want to spend the balance of your days. The
neighborhood's easy, but the exact spot's hard." He spoke now directly
to the bride, and as if her opinion was law to him. "There must be sun
and shade, mustn't there? Spring-water?--running water? A hill handy to
take the view from? An easterly slope to be out of the trades? A big
tree or two.... I'll find 'em all before dark. I'll be back by dark or
at late moonrise, and you rest yourselves, because to-morrow or the next
day we go at house-raising."
Had he left us then and there, I think that we would have waited for
him. He had us, so to speak, abjectly under his thumbs. His word had
come to be our law, since it was but child's play for him to enforce it.
But it so happened that he now took a step which was to call into life
and action that last vestige of manhood and independence that flickered
in the groom and me. For suddenly, and not till after a moment of
consideration, he took a step toward the bride, caught her around the
waist, crushed her to his breast, and kissed her on the mouth.
But she must have bitten him, for the tender passion changed in him to
an unmanly fury.
"You damned cat!" he cried; and he struck her heavily upon the face with
his open palm. Not once only, but twice, three, four times, till she
fell at his feet.
By that the groom and I, poor, helpless atoms, had made shift to grapple
with him. I heard his giant laugh. I had one glimpse of the groom's face
rushing at mine--and then it was as if showers of stars fell about me.
What little strength I had was loosened from my joints, and more than
half-senseless I fell full length upon my back. Farallone had foiled our
attack by the simple method of catching us by the hair and knocking our
heads together.