MONEY IN THE BANK
Damon had never mentioned to Dawn the incident of the poisoned bait. He
understood his daughter too well. It would have been punishment to her.
It had wounded him deeply that she should have been reprimanded. He was
only human, and after the matter had passed, his feeling of their being
in the wrong was tinged with resentment.
In his world there were the mountain and the Service. In Dawn’s world
there was only the mountain. The Service was a servant and she a
hand-maiden to the mountain. If the servant was in the wrong she would
disregard him.
“But they’re not entirely in the wrong, darlin’,” Damon protested. “We
have to effect a balance for the unnatural conditions man makes. Keeping
down the beasts is cruelty that’s for the good of the whole, and _that_
patterns after the grand scheme of Nature too.”
Dawn flung out her arms impetuously. “All right, all right. We won’t
argue about it, Damon, we won’t argue,” she cried irritably. “But
they’re wiping out the creatures, and that’s just the beginning. When
the creatures go, it’ll all be desert.”
“Well, now,” Damon soothed as he puffed at his pipe, “think of what the
bird refuges have done this year. Think of the antelope and deer, and
cheer up. That’s some help, isn’t it?”
Apparently it was. “Damon—!” Dawn’s eyes flashed with her usual
spirit—“do you know I saw the grosbeak and the chestnut-backed bluebird
in the willows about the dam, and yesterday there were mocking-birds
down in San Mateo. The mountain bluebirds that had almost gone last year
were thick, and the blue piñon jays calling ‘peenyoney, peenyoney’ as
they picked off all the nuts. Poor things. They had flown before the
fire. And do you know, Dad, I saw the biggest eagle I ever saw the day
after we came back from down below.” Dawn was sewing up her stockings.
Damon’s she darned with a beautiful weaving of wools taught her by
Hinray. “This bird was a golden eagle, I’m sure, from his shining golden
brown color as he soared in the sun. He must have been nine feet from
tip to tip.”
Damon whistled. “And I brought her up to be truthful! Go on, go on, my
gal. You’ll be a writer yet.”
“Well,” Dawn went on, undeterred, “he soared round and round over one
spot. I was above McGuire’s and I looked across the valley to where you
can catch a glint of the waterfalls if you stand in just the right
place—that’s where I took Garen—and I saw the eagle.
“Once before I saw that eagle, when I was just a kid. I remember it
swooping down over me as I was picking flowers in the meadow while you
surveyed below. Suddenly I thought the sun went under a cloud, but
something made me look up, and here was the cloud between me and the
sun, dropping down to earth. I was frozen still. It swept so close I
could see its beak and eyes. Then with a great whirring of wings it
stopped and shot straight back up into the air again.”
“He might have taken you away,” Damon observed thoughtfully. “I’d never
thought of that danger, thank goodness. I know that bird too,” he
nodded, pulling at his pipe. “He’s the oldest on the mountains, I
imagine. He is a huge creature.”
“Well, what I had meant to tell about was this,” Dawn went on. “After
circling, the eagle dropped like a stone and disappeared just about
where the falls were. I wanted to see where he had landed, because maybe
there’s an eyrie there, and with all my hunting I’ve never found an
eagle’s eyrie this far up, though I know there are some. But it was too
late when I got over to the other side; he was perched above me on an
old tree, a dead tree.”
“That’s the fellow,” Damon replied. “He likes the old dead tree. They
often do. He’s too old for mating, but he’s feathered many a nest of
eaglets in the past, that old bird, and I’ll wager could tell tales if
he could talk—of the trappers in these woods and the old scouts and
Indian fighters.—What about some grub?”
As they ate, Hal Benty rode up with mail and papers. He sat on his horse
by the stoop awhile, chatting.
“Perrys’re comin’ back,” he said just as he was leaving. “They’re
bringin’ a bunch with ’em for some fall hunting. Pa says it seems as if
those fellows was never too busy nor too much taken up to hunt. They’ll
be here tomorrow, if they ain’t already in this afternoon.”
“I’m going to ask Mr. Perry about the rumors in the paper of the banks
in the city,” said Damon. “I’m mighty glad we’ve got our money in a
state bank. Things don’t seem to be getting any better. That reminds me,
honey. What school is it to be for the second year? You know we want to
get the application in this fall.”
“I know, I know, Damon. Let’s decide it this evening or tomorrow.” She
began to laugh, to tease Shep, and putting a record on her phonograph,
essayed a one-step, very stiffly.
“Them dances is turrible!” There was Hinray looking in the door. He was
always appearing unexpectedly. “Why’n’t you do the Hota or the
Tekalotita that you learned down to the Pecos dances? They’re somp’n to
look at. But you got to have a flower in yore teeth. Wait!” He
disappeared, returning a moment later from the river with a sprig of
wild roses.
Dawn was in a gale of merriment. The idea of holding the flowers in her
teeth was convulsing, but when Hinray put on a Spanish record she seized
them and flung into the stamping abandon of the old folk dance preserved
by the descendants of the conquistadores who dwelt in the little town at
the foot of the mountain.
She was stamping the dust out of the floor when the music stopped amid
more handclapping and _otra vezes_ than an audience of only three could
achieve. The door was filled with people—Jack, a young woman, an older
man.
Jack was smiling in his disarming and confident way as he jumped in and
seized Dawn’s hand. She yielded with nothing of resentment. She’d been
afraid that Jack would never come back to the mountain. He’d been almost
her first playmate. For you couldn’t think of Hal that way; _he_ wasn’t
understanding enough. Sometimes she had regretted that she had run away
that day in the city. Perhaps if she’d stayed she’d have had a nice
time. But she couldn’t face all those others.
At times she’d felt that Jack meant to ignore her; that it couldn’t be
accidental, and that if he returned _he_ should be ignored. But what
reason _could_ he have for not being nice! Of course, she was just
acting like a baby. Now here he was and they’d have a grand ride. Dawn
was radiant with the surprise. The party were out to take a ride and
wanted her to guide them.
Jack felt very much at home at the O’Neill cabin. He was troubled with
no misgivings. He was glad to be back, and when he was in the mountains
he wanted to see Dawn, and that was all there was to it. Norine Masters
had gone back home now, but in town—well, maybe it was just as well that
Dawn had got away that day, after all.
“Sorry we missed you when you were in town,” he offered casually. “Dad
is so busy he hardly knows what he’s doing, and Mother was down with the
heat. I wasn’t sure it was you. You should have waited.”
The Kansas City guests were charmed with the aspen-log cabin, with the
view, with the trout in the Cascada, with everything. They wanted to
ride through the dark forest, up the tanbark trail to Lake Peak, to look
down on Lost Lake and up to the snow-capped Coronados. Tomorrow they
were to go on the hunt. Turkey. Oh, too early for turkey? What a pity!
Dawn glanced at Damon. Should she go? He nodded; he had desk work at
home. Jack was beside her on the ride, which would bring them home after
sundown. It was when they had started down the trail that Mr. Harmon,
gazing on the little lake that lay like a vanity mirror in an emerald
case below them, said, shivering, “That must have been some plunge you
had the night of the fire, Jack, in ice water. Who was it they said rode
in with a horse after you?”
“It was this girl here,” Jack replied in embarrassment. The mountaineers
had told the tale to the Harmons. “Oh, I thought I had explained when
you were introduced. It was Dawn. I don’t know what I would have done
without her. I never did have a chance to see you afterward and thank
you, Dawn. I came up—I surely did appreciate—”
“Don’t mention it,” Dawn interrupted coolly. “A little thing like that!”
There was a twinkle in her eye. Mrs. Harmon burst out laughing and
exchanged significant glances with her husband. Jack joined rather
ruefully in the merriment at his expense, tried to say something, but
couldn’t.
Mrs. Harmon was an excellent horsewoman, Dawn discovered, warming to
her. “I’m coming out here again,” Mrs. Harmon told her, “and if you ever
come through Kansas City please let me know and come and stay at my
house. I’ll give you the best horse I can find to ride. It won’t be like
your Piñon here, though.”
How moist it was up under the trees! Yet they’d had no rain for weeks.
“There’ll be a terrific rain before the week is out,” Dawn prophesied.
“It is due the mountain, and when it comes, look out. Seems as if the
whole state is just waiting for a deluge, for something to burst.”
Mr. Harmon looked at her curiously. “I love thunder and lightning,” Mrs.
Harmon said quickly, shaking her head at her husband.
“You’ve never heard it before,” Dawn assured her, “until you’ve heard it
in the mountains.”
Jack rode as near Dawn as the trail would allow. He felt a change in her
manner toward him, and as though he knew he was losing something, tried
to regain the old footing, the something that he’d rather drop than have
taken away from him. But he could not regain it, try as he would. Nor
could Dawn.
Her pleasure in having him back faded, and with it faded also the hurt
attached to the thought of his home. Yet in the going a loss was left, a
vacancy that even the glory of her mountain did not quite satisfy or
fill, a loss of faith in humankind. It was one of the first encounters
that Damon had feared for her; he knew too well the hurts that
friendship can experience.
When Dawn parted from the crowd at the ford near her cabin Jack rode
close to Piñon and said cheerfully, “I’ll be up first thing in the
morning, Dawn. The bunch are hunting, but I’m not going. I’ll break
loose and be over. So long.”
Damon had put the potatoes on and was reading his mail. He looked
worried and hot. “Here’s a note from Shepherd. He’ll be up the end of
the week.” He tossed it to Dawn. “The state is in a bad way.” He was
reading a two-day-old paper with detached interest. “Goodness, the bank
at Tucumcari has gone, and three in other sections of the state. That is
the tenth in the last ten days. Yet here are statements from Perry,
among others, saying that though the situation is hard for the smaller
cities, there is no danger for the state banks.
“I guess things must be all right,” Damon tossed the paper down, “or
Perry wouldn’t be up here at this time. That’s a big banker from
Chicago, or Kansas City, that he’s got at his place now. I’m glad we’ve
got money in the bank, my sweet.”
Damon left the next morning for a survey of the burned-over area on the
northeast slope. One gain only had been accomplished; the dead wood and
rubbish, the worst sort of fire trap, had been completely burned off,
leaving the upper slope free for a fresh start. The lower slope was
denuded. Centuries later it might again accumulate enough soil to
sustain a forest growth. Now, however, there was not a sprig left to
keep the soil from washing down into the desert.
James’s canyon would be dry except for flood waters. The ranchman had
written Damon for information on how to make application for a farming
homestead under the new dam project. It was a distressing trip over the
mountains. The fire, Damon discovered, had smoldered its way, worm-like,
through the humus for days. It was not surprising that the boys had not
seen it. It had taken two days to travel a half mile, and in one hour
after the wind rose it had swept through eight miles. So swiftly had one
part burned, leaping from the crown of one tree to another at forty to
fifty feet from the ground, that the growth beneath had merely
shriveled, and with rain would spring up again from the roots.
Still, it was a depressing sight, and Damon was glad to get back to the
upper Amarillo and the untouched woods again. It was nine o’clock when
he lifted a weary leg from the saddle and stepped off on to the cabin
porch. Dawn met him, took Little Sorrel’s bridle, unsaddled and turned
her loose, then hurried to place Damon’s dinner before him. Cup after
cup of steaming coffee he drank in contented silence, then pushed back
his chair and held out his arms.
Dawn settled down, disposing her long legs over the arm of the chair.
She had stayed at the cabin all day, working about the place. Jack had
come over, but hadn’t been there more than an hour when his folks had
sent for him. He said he would phone her back, but she hadn’t heard from
him, and just about an hour ago one of the Bentys had come by and said
that the whole crowd had left. Gone back to town on the evening train.
Mr. Perry had been called on business. Dawn handed Damon the morning
paper. Jim Benty had brought it up to them.
The banks had _crashed_! The whole state had been stricken by a sweeping
financial disaster. The loans extended to the stockmen and renewed
through the past four years had been called in at last, the resources of
the state were exhausted, and this morning the First State Bank and the
Federal Cattlemen’s Loan had had to close their doors. Yesterday there
had been a run on one of the savings banks, which had paid out to the
last penny, and the president had given his guarantee to his depositors
that he would in time make good to them every cent, and that he would in
some way safeguard all his investors.
But the Cattlemen’s Loan! Perry up here hunting with this damnable thing
imminent! Had he wanted to be out of the way when it happened? Or was he
trying to get help from the Kansas banker? The paper said that although
the Cattlemen’s Loan had been the last to go under, its resources had
already been exhausted.
Damon read and reread the front page. Then he threw it down, smiling
bitterly.
“Money in the bank,” he said. “Money in the bank, oh, yes! Your money,
Dawn. Yours! My God, that young—”
“Don’t say it, Daddy; don’t say it!” Her firm fingers were on his lips.
“Perhaps it isn’t gone. Wait till tomorrow, darling. And—I don’t care,
Damon. Honest, I don’t. We’ve got our home, we’ve got Piñon and Little
Sorrel, our jobs. And, Dad, look! We’ve still got a chance at the
Silverstake Mine. See.” She thrust the paper before him again, pointing
to a small boxed item.
Congress had refused the bill to open up the Indian Reservation for
public grazing or any public uses whatsoever. But a statement made by
the Indian Office said that the survey made by the Land Office would
have to be the accepted boundary. That would mean that the Indians would
be cut off from the Sacred Source which they loved so much, and it would
also impair their title to the use below of their own water. It left
Damon’s claim on the public domain.
“Daddy, tomorrow I’ll ride over there.” Damon nodded. Nothing made much
difference anyhow. She might as well look for the old pine tree again,
if she wanted to.