They traveled a due west course, crossing the two ranges, wending
their way through dim defiles and along precipitous cañons, until they
saw the sea. Here its mood was summer-like. Even in the short time
that had elapsed it had worn itself a broad, smooth beach, and wide
tracts of land between the sand and the base of the mountains proved
that the earth had been thrown up, or that the water had receded. They
had not looked upon the ocean before for many months.
They picketed the burros on the rank, salt grass, and built their
camp-fire early, and while Robin set the potatoes baking, and began
her supper preparations, Adam went scouting along the coast. In less
than half an hour he came back with a quantity of clams which he threw
down before her as proudly as if they had been foreign battle-flags.
She gave a little feminine shriek of delight.
"Now I know why we brought that inconvenient iron pot," she said;
"bring it here, please."
Adam brought it, and watched her slice up onions and potatoes and stir
in the various ingredients.
"It is going to be the best chowder you ever tasted," she said, "even
if we haven't any bacon. When you write the veracious tale of our
adventures, Adam, don't put in how many things we ate."
"They might think it a voracious tale if I did," he answered, dropping
some more butter into his mealy potato. "Do you remember how the Swiss
Family were always worrying for fear they wouldn't have enough to
eat?"
"Yes, and how they went out and killed an elephant for breakfast, and
a herd of wild pigs for dinner, and had a buffalo apiece for supper.
And don't you remember how, when the boa constrictor killed one of
their zebras, little Fritz asked pathetically if boas were good to
eat?"
They laughed over their supper, and then having made sure that they
were out of reach of the tide, and the fire would keep, and the rifle
was close at Adam's elbow, they spread their blankets and said "good
night." It had been an exciting day.
It was past midnight, and the moon was waning when Adam was wakened by
Lassie's cold muzzle against his face. He sat up and called to Robin.
There was no answer, and her blankets lay tossed on the other side of
the fire. He started up and listened. At first he heard only the sound
of the sea; then there came mingled with it the clear notes of her
glorious voice. Holding Lassie in check he went down to the beach.
Robin stood well out on the shimmering sand, the waves lapping softly
almost at her feet, and he heard the plaintive music, and caught the
words,--
"Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove, Far away,
far away, would I fly, and be, and be at rest."
Her voice quivered when she came to the words, "In the wilderness
build me a nest," but she sang on, and Adam recalled the words of hymn
after hymn, anthem after anthem, for she sang nothing else. He heard
the bitter cry of the De Profundis, Handel's triumphant "I know that
my Redeemer liveth," and then she began, "He watching over Israel
slumbers not nor sleeps."
His eyes filled, and he saw the tents of his regiment. She had written
by every mail, and across her letters, at the top or bottom, she had
put those five bars from "Elijah." Though he did not believe it, for
he had not the early Hebrew ability to see Israel in his own race, and
the to be spoiled Philistine in every Filipino, it had comforted him
in that sickening campaign. Surely, surely if he, an American
"non-com," had spared a Filipino now and then, He watching over Israel
had not been less merciful.
Her voice died away; it was the first time she had sung that year,
though she was a very perfectly trained musician. Indeed in the old
days, Adam had first sought her acquaintance because of her music.
Adam returned to the camp; he knew instinctively that she preferred to
keep this to herself. He was lying quite still when she came back, and
controlled every muscle when she bent over him. She regarded him
intently for a moment, then went to her blankets with a heavy sigh
that Adam knew was for him. She had sung out her own sorrows.
Their vigils seemed to do them both good, for they shook off their
melancholy tendencies, and before the end of the first week their tour
was beginning to be thoroughly enjoyable. They did not find cocoanuts
and bananas, but they did find plenty of strawberries, and long,
prickly vines that would be covered with raspberries, and wild grapes
and choke-cherries and currants, which they planned to transplant, for
though the Western coast was more beautiful, and in some respects more
convenient than their hedged in valley, they preferred the valley.
Already it had come to mean home.
They traveled about fifty miles southward, to the end of the island,
making desultory trips up into the mountains to see if anywhere, on
land or sea, there was a friendly wreath of smoke, and every night
their watch-fire glowed from the highest peak in their vicinity. The
island narrowed to a single range, detached peaks rising here and
there from the sea. As they rounded the southernmost point, Adam said,
"We ought to name it; that remarkable Swiss family always named
places."
Robin looked at the bare, stone walls rising sheer above the waves
three hundred feet, and her lip curled.
"Let us call it the Cape of Good Hope," she said.
"In the name of wonder, why?" asked Adam, and she answered, "Because
we are past it," and then would have given anything to have recalled
the bitter words.
The Eastern coast was wilder and more picturesque, but the traveling
was correspondingly slower. Something in the formation of the coast
caused a terrific surf, and at many places there was scarcely any
beach, and they found themselves compelled to climb along trails that
made even the burros dizzy.
When they had been absent ten days, Robin said, "I begin to feel like
a grandmother; no, I don't mean that I feel so old, but that I begin
to long to see the chicken and cat-children, and the new calf,
and--everything."
Adam laughed, "I have been thinking we ought to hurry; that place of
ours is growing so entrancingly lovely in memory that last night I
dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls!"
They were not to reach home without at least one adventure, however. A
day or so later, as they toiled up a painfully steep ascent, Lassie
sounded the note of alarm, and catching up the rifle, Adam ran ahead.
As he rounded a point in the rocks, he came upon a Rocky Mountain goat
engaged in combat with a cinnamon bear. The bear was hardly more than
a cub, and was carrying off one of the kids. The goat, horns down, was
fighting viciously, though weak from loss of blood.
It would be interesting to know what one wild animal thinks when
another wild animal, from its point of view, comes to the rescue. Adam
carried a lariat over one arm. In an instant it flew through the air,
dropping over Bruin's shoulders. He released the kid, and tumbled
backward over the cliff, as much with surprise as by the force of the
jerk on the rope, taking that treasured article with him.
It took some time to capture the wounded animals, bind up their hurts,
and get them down the pathway leading to the beach. For there was a
beach, the best one they had found on the Eastern coast, and as they
put the goat and her kids down in the grass, Adam said tentatively,
"If you are not afraid, I can go home and get the horses and the
sleds. It isn't a great way, and I believe I can be back in three
hours,--I'm sure I can if the beach goes as close to our park as I
think."
Robin acquiesced, and as soon as he was gone began gathering
driftwood. When she had quite a little heap she made a fire with the
coals they carried in the pot. It is doubtless more romantic to build
a fire by striking flint rocks together, but a pot of coals has its
uses in a matchless universe. Then she found a long, stout club, and
put one end in the fire, where it smouldered sullenly.
"There now," she said conclusively, "if my bear acquaintance calls, I
will present him with 'the red flower.' I didn't learn the 'Jungle
Books' by heart for nothing."
Meanwhile Adam was striding over the beach at a rate that brought him
to the little cove and the high wall of rocks that shut them in on the
south in a little over an hour. Two of the pups had gone with him, and
they raced on ahead, as he came in sight of the house. Everything
seemed to have an air of welcome, and the horses whinnied joyfully
when he called them from the gateway.
The pathetic placard was still there, and he crumpled it in his hand,
and went in and opened the windows. He milked one of the cows, and
gathering some green stuff in the garden started back with the team
and the sleds. Once down the steep decline, and over the rocks at the
south, they went on rapidly.
Although he had wasted no time, it was past one o'clock when he saw
her familiar figure afar off. She hurried to meet him. They had not
been separated so long before that year, and realized the unconscious
strain in the sudden revulsion. They said nothing of this, however,
though they clasped hands for a moment. Then Robin spoke to the
horses, and stroked their necks, as they bent their heads and rubbed
against her affectionately.
She had spread their table on a broad, flat rock, but before they had
their own meal, she warmed some of the milk, and they gave the kids
their first lesson in drinking out of a bucket. Afterward it took but
a few moments to strike camp. The burros were already packed, and the
goat with her kids, all hobbled, were placed in the sled, and the
cavalcade started on its way.
X
Cling to thy home! If there the meanest shed
Yield thee a hearth and a shelter for thy head,
And some poor plot, with vegetables stored,
Be all that Heaven allots thee for thy board,
Unsavory bread, and herbs that scatter'd grow
Wild on the river-brink, or mountain-brow;
Yet e'en this cheerless mansion shall provide
More heart's repose than all the world beside.