THE SILVERSTAKE PINE
The double-headed engine came snorting and puffing up the grade, pulling
behind it the early express. Through the red canyons it wound and slowed
to a stop for thirty seconds at the highest station on the Santa Fe
system. In those thirty seconds Garen Shepherd swung down, suitcase in
hand, waved ahead to the engineer, and turned to Hal Benty, whom he had
wired to meet him on the five-thirty and who was waiting with his Ford
on the other side of the tracks.
Hal had had to leave home at three-thirty but was just as glad, for it
was a hot day and they might as well make the trip early. They would be
up on the Amarillo by nine. Already the temperature in the railroad cut
was insufferable, and the place looked like an inferno of red earth,
studded with stunted, twisted little trees, writhing in the heat.
Garen might have stopped for breakfast at one of the dude ranches in the
lower valley, but he pushed on eagerly. He had left the city at four,
forcing his way on to the through express. The city was prostrate with
bad news and heat. The afternoon before there had been queues of
creditors before every bank till long after closing time.
The stockmen were all ruined and had pulled down with them tradesmen,
citizens, shopkeepers, and professional men. There wasn’t any ready
money to be had, Garen told Hal; just the cash people had on ’em. They
would have to get along till more actual cash was brought into the state
from outside. He had fifty dollars himself till next Government payday.
The president of the People’s Bank had nearly lost his mind. He had been
fighting this thing for weeks. He’d make good every cent with his
personal funds before he finished. But it would clean him out, leave him
penniless. The Perry bank? Perry had paid out that afternoon and had
left on the midnight train for the East with his family.
“I don’t think he has the faintest notion of coming back,” said Garen,
“though I may be doing him an injustice. He said he was going East for
loans. His personal fortune is untouchable. He’s a blowhard.
Development? Hell!”
Garen spent little time over the breakfast that good, fat Mrs. Benty set
before him. He was eager to be on his way up to the aspen-log cabin on
the Cascada. The sun was already high and incredibly hot for the
mountains when he parted the trees on the trail and splashed across the
ford below the ranger’s home.
“Halloo, there!” They would be surprised to see him, two days earlier
than he had said he would come. Damon appeared in the door, shouting a
hearty greeting. Dawn had ridden over to McGuire’s valley. He’d told her
not to go. They sat down and Damon heard the news. As Garen’s story of
the bank crash corroborated his worst fears Damon’s teeth closed tighter
about the old briar pipe.
“Cleared out, eh? Wish I’d taken a minute with him yesterday! It can’t
be possible that they won’t pay up in full! Until the day before
yesterday I had never even been afraid of that bank. Man, do you know
that all my savings of years, everything that was for Dawn, is in that
bank—was in it, I should say?”
Garen nodded silently. A terrible thing. People down below had lost the
savings of years. And how were the people in the cities to tide over
without cash, actual cash in hand, for the next few months? It was
harder on the bank people than any one else. _They_ had lost everything.
“And it is in the next few years that my girl needs her schooling,”
Damon exclaimed bitterly.
As they talked the air outside had grown strangely lurid, and the white
heat of the sun became suddenly obscured by a greenish light. Damon
jumped up and went to the door. “Rain! By the powers of the mountain, at
last!” he ejaculated. “And a heavy one. And Dawn’s over on the other
side. I hope she started for home as soon as it began to cloud over. I
told her she’d better stay home.”
“I’ll ride over and meet her,” said Garen. “She’ll likely come back by
the upper trail, won’t she?”
“Yes, that’s the shortest way,” Damon nodded. “And she usually rides
back that way when she’s been to the falls. She likes to go there when
she’s the least out of sorts.”
“I know.” Garen jumped eagerly on the horse which he’d rented from Mr.
Benty. “I’ll look after her, Mr. O’Neill, or she’ll look after me! So
long.”
When Garen emerged from the aspen glade at the top of the trail it was
like another world. The clear green light that looked as though one were
living at the bottom of the sea had turned to a dark angry blue. About
the head of the Coronado Peaks thunder rumbled mutteringly. Heat
lightning flashed on distant summits. The air was disturbed, electric,
menacing.
Where would Dawn be? He started down the trail into the valley. Above
him and about, the clouds were massing rapidly. The mutter and rumble
increased, echoing from one peak to another with solemn majesty. Garen
felt a nervous response to the tension of the elements. Beyond lay Snow
Lake and the gateway out of the valley where the fire had been stopped
so short a time ago. He had been the first to reach Dawn and to pull her
from the water the night of the fire, while others dragged young Perry
from the horse. So many heroic deeds had been accomplished that night
that the girl’s act had passed among the others, so unconscious had she
herself been of any heroism.
She had been quite unaware of his own torturing anxiety for her that
night. And now he felt most uneasy. This was going to be a tremendous
electrical storm. Lightning took its toll in the mountains every year.
That splendid natural quality that made Dawn so fine in his eyes made
her take a joy in the elements beyond the power of mere thinking to
understand or explain. While animals took shelter from the storm, she
braved it. Garen was worried. What had begun with admiration for and
delight in Dawn, had become a strong, deep love.
Where was she? The waterfall lay straight across the valley from him.
Lightning struck the rocky summits as he looked. He could see faintly
along the ridge, and as he peered intently, searching for the great tree
which Dawn had showed him on that first day of theirs together, he saw a
great bird wing laboriously up from a summit directly over where the
falls must be and with a few powerful wingbeats reach a dead tree, a
gaunt giant standing beyond the falls.
What a monarch among birds! Huge, primeval, as the forest itself, Garen
thought. But already large raindrops were falling. He pushed his horse
down into the valley. He must find a shorter trail up to the falls. The
storm, he felt, was gathering its powers for some fearful demonstration,
and he prayed it would hold off until he could find Dawn. Surely she
must already be headed toward home.
He reached the bottom of the valley. McGuire’s son was hurrying through
the pasture. Garen shouted to him, asking whether he’d seen Dawn. The
boy pointed up to the ridge and the falls, shouting, but Garen could not
hear him between the peals of thunder. Now the sky was leaden, the air
green, the heavens filled with rending flashes of lightning, succeeded
by claps of thunder. The noise was deafening. Then came a roar like
stampeding cattle, a patter of rain on the leaves; the heavy clouds were
rent by louder and more appalling successions of thunder and lightning;
and a sheet of water stood between heaven and mountains. “My God, what a
cloudburst!” Garen shouted futilely.
Dawn had seen the storm mounting and had lingered to watch its grandeur.
From where she sat well above the waterfall she could see the peaks and
the valley magnificently. Now too she could see the great pine which her
father had made use of as the base for his last survey which had
resulted in such hopeless variance with that of the ancient grant.
“I was wrong,” she thought; “it was not the Silverstake after all.” She
had been so sure; she felt defeated, but not discouraged. Perhaps the
silver-bearing ledge itself could be found. She was thrilled,
exhilarated with the coming storm, tingling in an atmosphere vibrant
with electric forces. She knew that she should be returning to the
Cascada if she were to get back before the storm broke; yet she
lingered, climbing a bit in this direction and then in that.
Piñon was down at the foot of the cliff, tied under a projecting shelf
below the waterfall, where the foliage was dense. Clap after clap of
thunder broke overhead, and the terrific echoes had not died before
another followed. Now rain began to fall, and without delay Dawn
commenced to scramble down to the foot of the cliff. A jagged bolt of
lightning struck somewhere on the peaks above her, and she winced in
anticipation of thunder that did not come.
She’d barely make it to McGuire’s cabin. Dad would know that she’d gone
there. It never occurred to her that Damon would doubt her ability to
take care of herself on the mountain. Suddenly she saw the golden eagle,
no longer shining, but dark and majestic, his powerful wings cupped to
hold the air as he sailed straight over her head.
She watched him, forgetting her own situation, as he made straight for a
dead tree not far away, the same in which she had seen him before, and
lit among the nest of branches at the top. There the great bird folded
his wings and bent his head to the storm. The rain was now coming fast.
Dawn clambered down the trail, her own head bent. She would reach Piñon
and they would make what speed they could down into the valley. But
before she could reach the chestnut pony she was drenched. Then one
terrific flash of light smote the mountainside and threw her on her
face. The skies became like an ocean turned upside down.
Cloudburst! A cloudburst never to be forgotten. If it had come the night
of the fire it could have extinguished twenty such fires. Only the
shelter of the cliff saved Dawn. She was flattened against it, subdued,
acquiescent, as she had never been. Stones came rolling down the slopes,
gathering speed as they came, and suddenly, with a grinding roar, a
great boulder shot over the ledge almost over her head, bounding
downward with frightful speed. Loosed from its place by the torrents
above, or perhaps by the shafts of lightning that smote the hillsides
repeatedly, it tore its way down the mountain.
Dawn gasped for breath as the rain beat in on her. She pursed her lips
vainly to whistle for Piñon. If he would only come to her. She shouted
his name over and over, and strangely enough, through the storm her
cries carried to Garen. He was fighting his way up the trail which was
clearly enough marked now by the water which had followed it downward,
cutting it into a rapidly deepening trench. Garen had found it almost
impossible to climb, but the certainty that Dawn was above him on the
mountain gave him new strength.
He pulled himself up by bushes and trees; he must make it, must cover
the distance quickly before the greater deluge that follows such a
downpour should wash them away as it tore down the slopes. Piñon must be
near. Dawn was calling the chestnut pony. She was calling _him_. “Garen,
Garen! Piñon!” Garen Shepherd thought he heard the pony’s nicker. He was
blinded by the rain, but with an effort he pulled himself toward the
sound. At that moment the great boulder tore its way through the trees
and passed him like a landslide, following the path of the eroded trail.
His heart almost stopped with the shock of it; then he saw Piñon ahead
of him. A moment’s respite gave him strength to overtake the horse and
he caught him by the bridle and urged him on. The chestnut pony
responded gallantly. He quivered with response, his flanks shook, his
nicker sounded above the storm. Garen seized him by the tail and Piñon
pulled him up the slopes and under the cliff. Dawn was almost ready to
let herself be washed down the mountain. She would find Piñon below and
reach the valley before the water that was coming down from the peaks
should wash her away anyway, crush her with its freight of stones. And
then Garen was beside her. He put his arms about her and forced her back
under the ledge. She saw that Piñon was there, and subsided. Presently
she was clinging to Garen for support.
Piñon drooped over them, the water running down his tail. Together they
weathered it through, and the chestnut pony kept them from being swept
down the mountainside. They waited till the torrent should have rushed
by them.
At the same moment that Dawn was thrown to the ground the golden eagle
had fallen too, plunging from his lofty perch. He had been struck by the
same electric bolt, had gone out in glory at the last moment of his
days, spared the ignominy of falling to lesser birds or to the jackals
of the wild. The ancient tree on which he had perched had also received
its last blow, the _tiro de gracia_, the mercy-stroke, of the elements.
Short and terrific was the storm. Dawn unclasped her arms from Garen’s
neck, sighed, trembling. She had clung to him like a child. The bolt
that had taken the veterans of the forest had spared them. But it had
struck something in Dawn. One does not go through such an experience
without coming closer to the being with whom it is shared.
“Thank goodness I found you.” Garen tried to dry her off with a kerchief
pulled from the saddle bag. “I was afraid when the storm broke, Dawn.
Why do you take such risks?”
“I love it,” she answered, “but this time I was frightened. I called
Piñon, but he didn’t hear me.”
“I did,” Garen replied. “You called me too.”
She had not known it and looked at him in surprise. Garen was drenched,
muddy, his clothes half torn off. His face was smudged and scratched,
his fingers bleeding. Affection and gratitude shone from her wide eyes.
“Dawn, Dawn,” Garen stammered, “I’m not much, but—but—”
Impulsively she leaned toward him and kissed his cheek.
“You’re all a man should be.”
He wanted to shout and yell. He shook her rapturously. “Including a bath
and a close shave, eh?” he shouted in her ear.
The rain had stopped, but the deluge was still rushing down the mountain
side with fearful velocity. Already they could hear the roar of the
falls above, and of the stream below in the canyon opening into
McGuire’s pasture.
What had become of the eagle? Dawn looked up; he was gone. The tree
itself was gone!
“Let us start down now, Dawn,” Garen was saying. “I think we can make
it.”
“Oh, Garen, I must see where the lightning struck over there. It’s just
a little way. We couldn’t be any wetter.” She was already leading Piñon
through the drenched shrubbery, and Garen had to follow. The blasted
pine loomed before them; the trunk still stood, but it was split down
into the earth. At its foot lay the golden eagle, conquered only by
death at the hands of the mountain. Tenderly Dawn stooped to look at the
great creature. “See, Garen.”
Then the riven tree gaped before her. It confronted her with something.
She peered closer, saw and gasped. There on the heart-wood, exposed by
the lightning shaft which had split it neatly, laying it bare for the
first time since the healing bark had closed over it so many years ago,
_there_ was the “witness blaze” of the old Pueblo grant! “Garen, look!”
They came closer. Together they stooped above it.
It was unmistakable. On a smooth surface of the pine it was still
clearly written for all the world to read:
Northeast corner of the grant made to the Pueblos of Picuris; Anno
domini 1870.
And beneath the legend:
70 feet east and south this point by 30 paces the vein of the
Silverstake mine lies, following the mother vein to the fault.
“This is an act of God,” Dawn said. She passed her hand over the writing
traced there so long ago by the early surveyors. Why had they not
returned to work the mine themselves? That the surveyors had never again
penetrated this wilderness to claim the discovery was clear. But the
story had survived; had even been entered in the public records. No
wonder that no one had ever been able to find the witness tree.
Garen was profoundly impressed. What instinct had led her here? “No one
but you, Dawn,” he said, “would have been drawn to this spot at such a
time.” Some subtle connection between her and the wild, he felt, surely
existed.
But if it had not been for the golden eagle she would never have found
the tree. Before any one came that way again the surface of the exposed
wood might become so weathered that the inscription would have looked
like the meanderings of a worm through the dead tree. The trunk of the
old pine was still sound wood, and the heart-wood was still firm and
colored darkly, the wood about it still light and resinous. Great
growth-rings encircled the core. The tree had stood alone in its youth,
receiving plenty of light, growing to great size. That was undoubtedly
why it had been chosen as the witness tree.
“To think,” murmured Dawn, almost forgetting Garen, “that you have stood
all these years, until this moment, growing by day, sleeping at night,
covering your secret, month by month, year by year, hiding it until this
moment. Oh, witness tree, wait till I fetch Damon!”
She could not take the golden eagle with her; yet she could not bear to
leave him to be rent by the creatures of the forest. So Garen lifted him
and laid him on a ledge of rock where he might lie covered by stones
till some one could return to get the splendid wings for Dawn. Then she
mounted Piñon and turned his head down the mountain. Garen found his own
horse just over the top of the ridge.
It had begun to rain again, and although the fury of the storm had been
spent, still the rain fell in sheets. Sometimes they had to take shelter
under the pines to keep from being washed down the mountain side.
Eventually they reached McGuire’s cabin just as a fresh outburst shut
off all view of the hills about them. None but the anchored trees could
have held a place on the slopes. Rocks were loosened and rolled down as
though by the ocean’s waves.
In McGuire’s cabin Dawn and Garen sat before the fire, wrapped in
blankets and old clothes while their own things dried, and were plied
with hot coffee by Mrs. McGuire. All telephone wires were down, so that
Dawn could not call her father. The cabin was crowded with children,
dogs, a young deer, and a little striped coon.
“Come, Dawn,” Mrs. McGuire was bustling about with motherly solicitude;
“lay right down on the seat and go to sleep, girlie. You must be clean
tuckered out. I’d put ye in a bedroom, but the baby’s in one with the
old man, and grandma’s in the other. She didn’t sleep all night with the
toothache, and she sleeps awful light.”
Dawn nodded and smiled. She was warm and safe and relaxed. The seat was
too short for her feet, but Garen took her head on his shoulder, and
while the children played about them she slept the deep sleep of
exhaustion. Mrs. McGuire nodded meaningly to her husband, and they
turned their backs and went into the kitchen.