THE “KING OF THE MOUNTAINS.”
If I think, and try to write forever with the strongest words, I can not
express to any other mind a thousandth part of the gratitude which was
and is, and ought to be forever, in my own poor mind toward those who
were so good to me. From time to time it is said (whenever any man with
power of speech or fancy gets some little grievances) that all mankind
are simply selfish, miserly, and miserable. To contradict that saying
needs experience even larger, perhaps, than that which has suggested it;
and this I can not have, and therefore only know that I have not found
men or women behave at all according to that view of them.
Whether Sampson Gundry owed any debt, either of gratitude or of loyalty,
to my father, I did not ask; and he seemed to be (like every one else)
reserved and silent as to my father's history. But he always treated me
as if I belonged to a rank of life quite different from and much above
his own. For instance, it was long before he would allow me to have my
meals at the table of the household.
But as soon as I began in earnest to recover from starvation, loss, and
loneliness, my heart was drawn to this grand old man, who had seen so
many troubles. He had been here and there in the world so much, and
dealt with so many people, that the natural frankness of his mind was
sharpened into caution. But any weak and helpless person still could get
the best of him; and his shrewdness certainly did not spring from any
form of bitterness. He was rough in his ways sometimes, and could
not bear to be contradicted when he was sure that he was right, which
generally happened to him. But above all things he had one very
great peculiarity, to my mind highly vexatious, because it seemed
so unaccountable. Sampson Gundry had a very low opinion of feminine
intellect. He never showed this contempt in any unpleasant way, and
indeed he never, perhaps, displayed it in any positive sayings. But as
I grew older and began to argue, sure I was that it was there; and it
always provoked me tenfold as much by seeming to need no assertion, but
to stand as some great axiom.
The other members of the household were his grandson Ephraim (or “Firm”
Gundry), the Indian woman Suan Isco, and a couple of helps, of race or
nation almost unknown to themselves. Suan Isco belonged to a tribe of
respectable Black Rock Indians, and had been the wife of a chief among
them, and the mother of several children. But Klamath Indians, enemies
of theirs (who carried off the lady of the cattle ranch, and afterward
shot Elijah), had Suan Isco in their possession, having murdered her
husband and children, and were using her as a mere beast of burden, when
Sampson Gundry fell on them. He, with his followers, being enraged
at the cold-blooded death of Elijah, fell on those miscreants to such
purpose that women and children alone were left to hand down their bad
propensities.
But the white men rescued and brought away the stolen wife of the
stockman, and also the widow of the Black Rock chief. She was in such
poor condition and so broken-hearted that none but the finest humanity
would have considered her worth a quarter of the trouble of her
carriage. But she proved to be worth it a thousandfold; and Sawyer
Gundry (as now he was called) knew by this time all the value of
uncultivated gratitude. And her virtues were so many that it took a
long time to find them out, for she never put them forward, not knowing
whether they were good or bad.
Until I knew these people, and the pure depth of their kindness, it was
a continual grief to me to be a burden upon them. But when I came to
understand them and their simple greatness, the only thing I was ashamed
of was my own mistrust of them. Not that I expected ever that any harm
would be done to me, only that I knew myself to have no claim on any
one.
One day, when I was fit for nothing but to dwell on trouble, Sampson
Gundry's grandson “Firm”--as he was called for Ephraim--ran up the
stairs to the little room where I was sitting by myself.
“Miss Rema, will you come with us?” he said, in his deep, slow style of
speech. “We are going up the mountain, to haul down the great tree to
the mill.”
“To be sure I will come,” I answered, gladly. “What great tree is it,
Mr. Ephraim?”
“The largest tree any where near here--the one we cut down last winter.
Ten days it took to cut it down. If I could have saved it, it should
have stood. But grandfather did it to prove his rights. We shall have a
rare job to lead it home, and I doubt if we can tackle it. I thought you
might like to see us try.”
In less than a minute I was ready, for the warmth and softness of the
air made cloak or shawl unbearable. But when I ran down to the yard
of the mill, Mr. Gundry, who was giving orders, came up and gave me an
order too.
“You must not go like this, my dear. We have three thousand feet to go
upward. The air will be sharp up there, and I doubt if we shall be home
by night-fall. Run, Suan, and fetch the young lady's cloak, and a pair
of thicker boots for change.”
Suan Isco never ran. That manner of motion was foreign to her, at
least as we accomplish it. When speed was required, she attained it
by increased length of stride and great vigor of heel. In this way she
conquered distance steadily, and with very little noise.
The air, and the light, and the beauty of the mountains were a sudden
joy to me. In front of us all strode Sampson Gundry, clearing all
tangles with a short, sharp axe, and mounting steep places as if
twoscore were struck off his threescore years and five. From time to
time he turned round to laugh, or see that his men and trained bullocks
were right; and then, as his bright eyes met my dark ones, he seemed
to be sorry for the noise he made. On the other hand, I was ashamed of
damping any one's pleasure by being there.
But I need not have felt any fear about this. Like all other children,
I wrapped myself up too much in my own importance, and behaved as if
my state of mind was a thing to be considered. But the longer we rose
through the freedom and the height, the lighter grew the heart of every
one, until the thick forest of pines closed round us, and we walked in a
silence that might be felt.
Hence we issued forth upon the rough bare rock, and after much trouble
with the cattle, and some bruises, stood panting on a rugged cone, or
crest, which had once been crowned with a Titan of a tree. The tree
was still there, but not its glory; for, alas! the mighty trunk lay
prostrate--a grander column than ever was or will be built by human
hands. The tapering shaft stretched out of sight for something like a
furlong, and the bulk of the butt rose over us so that we could not see
the mountains. Having never seen any such tree before, I must have been
amazed if I had been old enough to comprehend it.
Sampson Gundry, large as he was, and accustomed to almost every thing,
collected his men and the whole of his team on the ground-floor or area
of the stump before he would say any thing. Here we all looked so
sadly small that several of the men began to laugh; the bullocks seemed
nothing but raccoons or beavers to run on the branches or the fibres of
the tree; and the chains and the shackles, and the blocks and cranes,
and all the rest of the things they meant to use, seemed nothing
whatever, or at all to be considered, except as a spider's web upon this
tree.
The sagacious bullocks, who knew quite well what they were expected to
do, looked blank. Some rubbed their horns into one another's sadly, and
some cocked their tails because they felt that they could not be called
upon to work. The light of the afternoon sun came glancing along the
vast pillar, and lit its dying hues--cinnamon, purple, and glabrous red,
and soft gray where the lichens grew.
Every body looked at Mr. Gundry, and he began to cough a little, having
had lately some trouble with his throat. Then in his sturdy manner
he spoke the truth, according to his nature. He set his great square
shoulders against the butt of the tree, and delivered himself:
“Friends and neighbors, and hands of my own, I am taken in here, and I
own to it. It serves me right for disbelieving what my grandson, Firm
Gundry, said. I knew that the tree was a big one, of course, as every
body else does; but till you see a tree laid upon earth you get no grip
of his girth, no more than you do of a man till he lieth a corpse.
At the time of felling I could not come anigh him, by reason of an
accident; and I had some words with this boy about it, which kept me
away ever since that time. Firm, you were right, and I was wrong. It was
a real shame, now I see it, to throw down the 'King of the Mountains.'
But, for all that, being down, we must use him. He shall be sawn into
fifty-foot lengths. And I invite you all to come again, for six or seven
good turns at him.”
At the hearing of this, a cheer arose, not only for the Sawyer's manly
truth, but also for his hospitality; because on each of these visits to
the mountain he was the host, and his supplies were good. But before the
descent with the empty teams began, young Ephraim did what appeared to
me to be a gallant and straightforward thing. He stood on the chine
of the fallen monster, forty feet above us, having gained the post of
vantage by activity and strength, and he asked if he might say a word or
two.
“Say away, lad,” cried his grandfather, supposing, perhaps, in his
obstinate way (for truly he was very obstinate), that his grandson
was going now to clear himself from art or part in the murder of that
tree--an act which had roused indignation over a hundred leagues of
lowland.
“Neighbors,” said Firm, in a clear young voice, which shook at first
with diffidence, “we all have to thank you, more than I can tell, for
coming to help us with this job. It was a job which required to be done
for legal reasons which I do not understand, but no doubt they were good
ones. For that we have my grandfather's word; and no one, I think, will
gainsay it. Now, having gone so far, we will not be beaten by it, or
else we shall not be Americans.”
These simple words were received with great applause; and an orator,
standing on the largest stump to be found even in America, delivered a
speech which was very good to hear, but need not now be repeated. And
Mr. Gundry's eyes were moist with pleasure at his grandson's conduct.
“Firm knoweth the right thing to do,” he said; “and like a man he doeth
it. But whatever aileth you, Miss Rema, and what can 'e see in the
distance yonner? Never mind, my dear, then. Tell me by-and-by, when none
of these folk is 'longside of us.”
But I could not bear to tell him, till he forced it from me under pain
of his displeasure. I had spied on the sky-line far above us, in the
desert track of mountain, the very gap in which my father stood and bade
me seek this landmark. His memory was true, and his eyesight also; but
the great tree had been felled. The death of the “King of the Mountains”
had led to the death of the king of mankind, so far as my little world
contained one.