THE LOOPHOLE
The afternoon sun shone hot in that pocket; the arid slopes reflected the
glare; heat waves lifted; the snow-peak was shut out, and when a puff of
wind found the gap it was a breath from the desert. Miss Armitage, who had
trailed pluckily after Tisdale through the sage-brush and up the steep
face of the bench, rested on the level, while he hurried on to find the
easiest route to the high plateau and the spring. He had left her seated
on a flat rock in the shade of a sentinel pine tree, looking over the vale
to Cerberus and the distant bit of the Wenatchee showing beyond the mouth,
but as he came back along the ridge, he saw she had turned her shoulder on
the crouching mountain. At his far "Hello!" she waved her hand to him and
rose to start across the bench to meet him. He was descending a broken
stairway below two granite pillars that topped a semi-circular bluff and,
springing from a knob to avoid a dry runnel, he shaped his way diagonally
to abridge the distance. He moved with incredible swiftness, swinging by
his hands to drop from a ledge, sliding where he must, and the ease and
expediency with which he accomplished it all brought the admiration
sparkling to her eyes.
"I am sorry," he said, as he drew near, "but there isn't any easy way.
It's too bad to have traveled so far and miss the spring, for the whole
project hinges on it; but the climb is impossible for you in this heat."
"Then you found the spring?" she asked quickly. "It was all the plans
promised?"
"Yes." He began to walk on across the bench, suiting his steps to hers.
"And Weatherbee had put in a small dam there to create his first
reservoir. I found his old camp, too; a foundation of logs, open now to
the sky, with a few tatters left of the canvas that had roofed it over."
There was a silent moment, then he added, with the emotion still playing
gently in his voice: "I wish I could show you that place; the pool is
crystal clear and cool, rimmed in pines, like a basin of opals."
When they reached the flat rock in the shade of the pine tree, he took the
reclamation plan from his inner pocket and seated himself beside her.
"This is Weatherbee's drawing," he said. "See how carefully he worked in
the detail. This is the spring and that upper reservoir, and this lower
one is a natural dry basin up there under that bluff, a little to the left
of those granite chimneys; you can see its rocky rim. All it needs is this
short flume sketched in here to bring the water down, and a sluice-gate to
feed the main canal that follows this bench we are on. Spillways would
irrigate a peach orchard along this slope below us and seep out through
this level around us to supply home gardens and lawn. Just imagine it!" He
paused, while her glance followed his brief comparisons, moving from the
plan to the surface of the bench and down over the slope to the vale.
"Imagine this tract at the end of four years; a billowing sea of green;
with peach trees in bearing on this mountainside; apples, the finest
Jonathans, Rome Beauties if you will, beginning to make a showing down
there. Water running, seeping everywhere; strawberries carpeting the
ground between the boles; alfalfa, cool and moist, filling in; and even
Cerberus off there losing his sinister shape in vineyards."
"Then it is feasible," she exclaimed softly, and the sparkles broke
subdued in her eyes. "And the price, Mr. Tisdale; what would you consider
a fair price for the property as it stands now, unimproved?" Tisdale rose.
He paused to fold the drawing and put it away, while his glance moved
slowly down over the vale to the goat-keeper's cabin and her browsing
flock. "You must see, Miss Armitage," he said then, "that idea of Mr.
Morganstein's to plat this land into five-acre tracts for the market
couldn't materialize. It is out of range of the Wenatchee valley projects;
it is inaccessible to the railroad for the small farmer. Only the man with
capital to work it on a large scale could make it pay. And the property is
Mrs. Weatherbee's last asset; she is in urgent need of ready money. You
should be able to make easy terms with her, but I warn you, if it comes to
bidding, I am prepared to offer seven thousand dollars."
He turned, frowning a little, to look down at her and, catching those
covert sparkles of her side-glance, smiled.
"You may have it," she said.
"Wait. Think it over," he answered. "I am going down to the gap now to
find the surveyor's monument and trace the section line back to the top of
the plateau. Rest here, where it's cooler, and I will come down this way
for you when I am through. Think the project over and take my word for the
spring; it's well worth the investment."
Doubtless Miss Armitage followed his suggestion, for she sat thoughtfully,
almost absently, watching him down the slope. At the foot of the vale, the
goat-woman joined him, and it was clear he again used his magic art, for
presently he had her chaining for him and holding an improvised flag,
while he estimated the section line. But finally, when they left the bed
of the pocket and began to cross-cut up the opposite mountainside, the
girl rose and looked in the direction of the spring. It was cooler; a
breeze was drawing down from the upper ridge; a few thin clouds like torn
gauze veiled the sky overhead; the blue lost intensity. She began to walk
across the bench towards the granite chimneys. In a little while she found
the dry reservoir, walled, where the plateau lifted, in the semi-circular
bluff; then she stopped at the foot of an arid gully that rose between
this basin and a small shoulder which supported the first needle. This was
the stairway she had seen Tisdale descend, and presently she commenced to
climb it slowly, grasping bunches of the tenacious sage or jutting points
of rock to ease her weight.
The stairs ended in a sharp incline covered with debris from the
decomposing pillars; splinters of granite shifted under her tread; she
felt the edges cutting through her shoes. Fragments began to rattle down;
one larger rock crashed over the bluff into the dry basin. Then, at last,
she was on the level, fighting for breath. She turned, trembling, and
braced herself against the broken chimney to look back. She shrank closer
to the needle and shook her head. It was as though she said: "I never
could go back alone."
But when her glance moved to the opposite mountainside, Tisdale was no
longer in sight. And that shoulder was very narrow; it presented a sheer
front to the vale, like the base of a monument, so that between the
chimney and the drop to the gully there was little room in which to stand.
She began to choose a course, picking her foothold cautiously, zigzagging
as she had seen Hollis do on the slope above. Midway another knob jutted,
supporting a second pillar and a single pine tree, but as she came under
the chimney she was forced to hurry. Loose chippings of granite started at
every step. They formed little torrents, undermining, rushing, threatening
to sweep her down; and she reached the ledge in a panic. Then she felt the
stable security of the pine against her body and for a moment let herself
go, sinking to the foot of the tree and covering her eyes with her hands.
Up there a stiff wind was blowing, and presently she saw the snow-peak she
had missed in the vale. The ridge lifted less abruptly from this second
spur, and in a little while she rose and pushed on, lagging sometimes,
stumbling, to the level of the plateau. The Wenatchee range, of which it
was a part, stretched bleak and forbidding, enclosing all those minor arid
gulfs down to the final, long, scarred headland set against the Columbia
desert. She was like a woman stranded, the last survivor, on an
inhospitable coast. Turning to look across the valley of the Wenatchee,
she saw the blue and glaciered crests of the Chelan mountains, and behind
her, over the neck of a loftier height, loomed other white domes. And
there yesterday's thunder-caps, bigger and blacker, with fringed edges,
drove along the sky line. One purplish mass was streaming like a sieve.
For an interval the sun was obscured, and her glance came back to the vale
below where Cerberus reclined, watchful, his tawny head lifted slightly
between two advanced paws. Suddenly the lower clouds grew brilliant, and
shafts of light breaking through changed the mountain before her to a
beast of brass.
She turned and began to pick her way through grease brush and insistent
sage towards a grove of pines. In a little while she saw water shining
through the trees. She hesitated--it was as though she had come to the
threshold of a sanctuary--then went on under the boughs to the opal pool.
She remained in the grove a long time. When she reappeared, the desert
eastward was curtained in a gray film. Torn breadths of it, driven by some
local current of air, formed tented clouds along the promontory. It was as
though yesterday's army was marshalled against other hosts that held the
Chelan heights. A twilight indistinctness settled over the valley between.
Rain, a downpour, was near. She hurried on to the brow of the plateau, but
she dared not attempt to go down around those crumbling chimneys alone.
And Tisdale had said he would come back this side of the vale. Any moment
he might appear. She turned to go back to the shelter of the pines. It was
then a first electrical flash, like a drawn sword, challenged the opposite
ridge. Instantly a searchlight from the encamped legions played over the
lower plain. She turned again, wavering, and began to run on over the
first dip of the slope and along to the first pillar. There she stopped,
leaning on the rock, trembling, yet trying to force down her fear. It was
useless; she could not venture over that stream of shifting granite. She
started back, then stopped, wavering again. After a moment she lifted her
voice in a clear, long call: "Mr. Tis--da--le!"
"I'm coming!" The answer rang surprisingly close, from the gully above the
basin. Soon she discovered him and, looking up, he saw her standing
clear-cut against a cavernous, dun-colored cloud, which, gathering all
lesser drift into its gulf, drove low towards the plateau. She turned her
face, watching it, and it seemed to belch wind like a bellows, for her
skirt stiffened, and the loosened chiffon veil, lifting from her shoulders,
streamed like the drapery of some aërial figure, poised there briefly on
its flight through space. Then began cannonading. Army replied to army.
The advancing film from the desert, grown black, became an illuminated
scroll; thin ribbons of gold were traced on it, bowknots of tinsel. The
pattern changed continually. The legions repeated their fire; javelins,
shafts, flew. Lightning passed in vertical bolts, in sheets from ridge to
ridge. Then the cloud approaching the plateau spoke, and the curtain
moving from the Columbia became a wall of doom, in which great cracks
yawned, letting the light of eternity through.
The girl was flying down the slope to meet Tisdale. She came with bent
head, hands to her ears, skimming the pitfalls. Under her light tread the
loose debris hardly stirred. Then, as he rounded the pillar, her pace
slackened. "I am afraid," she said and stumbled. "I am afraid." And her
trembling body sank against his arm; she buried her face in his coat.
"Take me away from this terrible place."
Her impact had started the splintered granite moving, but Hollis swung
instantly and set his back to the crumbling chimney, clinging there,
staying her with his arm, until the slide stopped.
"See here," he said, and his voice vibrated its soft undernote, "you
mustn't lose your grip. It's all right. Old Mother Nature is just having
one of her scolding fits. She has to show the woman in her once in a
while. But it's going to end, any minute, in tears."
She lifted her face, and he paused, knitting his brows, yet smiling a
little, mastering the terror in her eyes with his quiet, compelling gaze.
"Come, Miss Armitage," he said, "we must hurry. You will be wet through."
He took her hand and began to lead her quickly down the rugged staircase.
"Be careful," he admonished, "this granite is treacherous." But she gave
little heed to her steps; she looked back continually over her shoulder,
watching the dun cloud. Presently she tripped. Hollis turned to steady
her, and, himself looking up beyond her, caught her in his arms and ran,
springing, out of the gully.
The ledge he reached formed the rim of the natural reservoir and,
measuring the distance with a swift glance, he let himself over, easing
the drop with one hand on the rocky brink, while the other arm supported
her. Midway, on a jutting knob, he gathered momentary foothold, then swung
to the bottom of the basin.
It was all done surely but with incredible haste, while the cavernous
cloud drew directly overhead. The next instant, from its brazen depths, it
spoke again. The whole mountain seemed to heave. Then something mighty
crashed down. The basin suddenly darkened as though a trap door had
closed, and Tisdale, still shielding his companion, stood looking up,
listening, while the reverberations rang from slope to slope and filled
the vale. Then silence came.
Miss Armitage drew erect, though her hand rested unconsciously on
Tisdale's sleeve. The thing that roofed the basin was black, impenetrably
thick; in it she saw no possible loophole of escape. "This time," she
faltered, "Fate is against you."
Her breast rose and fell in deep, hurried breaths; in the twilight of the
basin her eyes, meeting his, shone like twin stars. Tisdale's blood began
to race; it rose full tide in his veins, "Fate is with me," he answered,
and bent and kissed her mouth.
She shrank back, trembling, against the rocky wall; she glanced about her
with the swift, futile manner of a creature helplessly trapped, then she
pressed her fingers an instant to her eyes and straightened. "You never
will forgive yourself," she said; not in anger, not in judgment, but in a
tone so low, so sad, it seemed to express not only regret but finality.
Tisdale was silent. After a moment he turned to the lower side of the
basin, which afforded better foothold than the wall he had descended, and
began to work up from niche to ledge, grasping a chance bunch of sage, a
stunted bush of chaparral that grew in a cranny, to steady himself. And
the girl stood aloof, watching him. Finally he reached a shelf that
brought him, in touch with the obstruction overhead and stopped to take
out his pocketknife, with which he commenced to create a loophole. Little
twigs rained down; a larger branch fell, letting the daylight through. The
roof was a mesh of pine boughs.
At last he closed his knife and, taking firm hold on a fixed limb, leaned
to reach his other palm down to her. "Come," he said, "set your foot in
that first niche--no, the left one. Now, give me your hand."
She obeyed as she must, and Hollis pushed backward through the aperture he
had made, getting the bough under one armpit. "Now, step to that jagged
little spur; it's solid. The right one, too; there's room." She gained the
upper ledge and waited, hugging the wall pluckily while he worked out on
the rim of the basin and, stretching full length, with the stem of the
tree under his waist, reached his arms down to her. "You will have to
spring a little," he directed, "and grip my shoulders hard. Now, come!"
At last she was safe beside him. In another moment he was up and helped
her to her feet. They stood looking towards the mountain top. The dun
cloud stalking now with trailing skirts in the direction of the
snow-peaks, hurled back a parting threat. "It was the pine tree," she
exclaimed. "It was struck. And, see! It has carried down most of that
chimney. Our staircase is completely wrecked."
Tisdale was silent. Her glance came back to him. A sudden emotion stirred
her face. Then all the conservatism dropped from her like a discarded
cloak, and he felt her intrepid spirit respond to his own. Now she
understood that moment in the basin; she knew it had been supreme; she was
great enough to see there was nothing to forgive. "You were right," she
said, and her voice broke in those steadying pauses that carried more
expression than any words. "Fate was with us again. But I owe--my life--to
you."
"Sometime," he answered slowly, smiling a little, "not now, not here, I am
going to hold you to the debt. And when I do, you are going to pay me--in
full."
The beautiful color, that was like the pink of coral, flamed and went in
her face. "We must hurry back to the team," she said and turned to finish
the descent to the bench. "Horses are always so nervous in an electrical
storm." Then suddenly, as Tisdale pushed by to help her in a difficult
place, she stopped. "How strange!" she exclaimed. "That terrible curtain
has lifted from the desert. It threatened a deluge any minute, and now it
is moving off without a drop of rain."
"That's so," he replied. "A cross current of wind has turned it up the
Columbia. But the rain is there; it is streaming along those Chelan
summits in a downpour."
"And look!" she cried, after a moment. "A double rainbow! See how it spans
the Wenatchee! It's a promise." And the turquoise lights shone once more
in her eyes. "Here in this desert, at last, I may come to my 'pot of
gold.'"
"You mean," responded Tisdale, "now you have seen the spring, Weatherbee's
project seems possible to you. Well, I have reconsidered, too. I shall not
outbid you. That would favor Mrs. Weatherbee too much. And my interests
are going to keep me in Alaska indefinitely. I should be obliged to leave
the plans in the hands of a manager, and I had rather trust them to you."
Miss Armitage did not answer directly. She was watching the arch, painted
higher now, less brilliantly, on the lifting film. The light had gone out
of her face. All the bench was in shadow; in the valley below a twilight
indistinctness had fallen. Then suddenly once more Cerberus stood forth
like a beast of brass. She shivered.
"It isn't possible," she said. "It isn't possible. Even if I dared--for
David's sake--to assume the responsibility, I haven't the money to carry
the project through."
Tisdale stopped and swung around. They had reached the flat rock under the
sentinel pine tree. "Did you know David Weatherbee?" he asked.
She was silent. He put his hands in his pockets and stood regarding her
with his upward look from under slightly frowning brows. "So you knew
David," he went on. "In California, I presume, before he went to Alaska.
But why didn't you tell me so?"
She waited another moment. In the great stillness Hollis heard her labored
breathing. She put out her hand, steadying herself on the bole of the
pine, then: "I've wanted to tell you," she began. "I've tried to--but--it
was impossible to make you understand. I--I hadn't the courage."
Her voice fluted and broke. The last word was almost a whisper. She stood
before Tisdale with veiled eyes, breath still coming hard and quick, the
lovely color deepening and paling in her face, like a woman awaiting
judgment. And it came over him in a flash, with the strength of
conviction, that this beautiful, inscrutable girl wished him to know she
had loved Weatherbee. Incredible as it seemed, she had been set aside for
the Spanish woman. And she had learned about David's project; he himself
perhaps had told her years ago in California. And though his wife had
talked with Morganstein about platting the land into five-acre tracts to
dispose of quickly, this woman had desired to see the property with a view
to carrying out his plans. That was why she had continued the journey from
Snoqualmie Pass alone. That was why she had braved the mountain drive with
him. She had loved Weatherbee. This truth, sinking slowly, stirred his
inner consciousness and, wrenched in a rising commotion, something far
down in the depths of him lost hold. He had presumed to think, in the
infinite scheme of things, this one woman had been reserved for him. He
had dared to let her know he believed so; he had taken advantage of her
helpless situation, on an acquaintance of two days. His own color began to
burn through the tan. "You were right," he said at last, very gently, "I
never can forgive myself. I can't understand it!" he broke out then, "if
you had been his wife, David Weatherbee would have been safe with us here,
to-day."
Miss Armitage started. She gave him a quick, searching glance, then sank
down upon the rock. She seemed suddenly exhausted, like a woman who,
hard-pressed in the midst of peril, finds unexpectedly a friendly
threshold.
Tisdale looked off to the brazen slopes of Cerberus. It was the first time
he had censured Weatherbee for anything, and suddenly, while he brooded,
protesting over that one paramount mistake, he felt himself unaccountably
responsible. He was seized with a compelling desire to, in some way, make
it up to her. "Come," he said, "you mustn't lose heart; to-morrow, when
you are rested, it will look easier. And the question of ready money need
not trouble you. Mrs. Weatherbee has reached the point where she has got
to hedge on the future. Make her an offer of five thousand dollars in
yearly payments, say, of fifteen hundred. She'll take it. Then, if you
agree, I will arrange a loan with a Seattle bank. I should allow enough
margin to cover the first reclamation expenses. Your fillers of alfalfa
and strawberries would bring swift returns, and before your orchards came
into bearing, your vineyards would pay the purchase price on the whole
tract."
He turned to her, smiling, and surprised a despair in her face that went
to his heart.
"I thought, I hoped you meant to buy this land," she said.
"So I did, so I do, unless you decide to. And if you undertake this
project, I pledge myself to see you through." His voice caught a pleading
undernote. "It rests with you. Above every one it rests with you to even
things for Weatherbee. Isn't that clear to you? Look ahead five years; see
this vale green and shady with orchards; the trees laden with harvest;
imagine his wife standing here on this bench, surveying it all. See her
waking to the knowledge she has let a fortune slip through her hands; see
her, the purchase price spent, facing the fact that another woman built
her faith on David Weatherbee; had the courage to carry out his scheme and
found it a bonanza. That is what is going to make her punishment strike
home."
Miss Armitage rose. She stood a moment watching his face, then, "How you
hate her!" she said.
"Hate?" Tisdale's laugh rang short and hard. "Well, I grant it; hate is
the word. I hate her so much I've known better than go where she was; I've
avoided her as an electrician avoids charged wire. Still, if I had found
myself in Weatherbee's place; if I had made his mistake and married her,
she should have felt my streak of iron. I might have stayed in Alaska as
he did, but she would have stayed too and made a home for me, helped to
fight things through." He paused and, meeting the appeal in her eyes, his
face softened. "I've distressed you again," he added. "I'm sorry; but it
isn't safe for me to speak of that woman; the thought of her starts my
temperature rising in bounds. I want you to help me forget her. Yet, down
in the depths of your heart you know you blame her."
"Yes, I blame her." Miss Armitage began to walk on towards the edge of the
bench. "I blame her, but not as you do. I know she tried to do right; she
would have gone to Alaska--if David had wished it--at the start. And she's
been courageous, too. She's smiled--laughed in the face of defeat. Her
closest friends never knew."
"You defend her. I wonder at that." Tisdale passed her and turned to offer
his help down the first abrupt pitch. "How you, who are the one to censure
her the most, can speak for her always, as you do. But there you are like
Weatherbee. It was his way to take the losing side; champion the absent."
"And there is where your resemblance stops," she answered quickly. "He
lacked your streak of iron. Of course you know about your strange likeness
to him, Mr. Tisdale. It is so very marked; almost a dual personality. It
isn't height and breadth of shoulder alone; it's in the carriage, the turn
of the head; and it creeps into your eyes sometimes; it gets into your
voice. The first time I saw you, it was startling."
Tisdale moved on, picking up the trail they had made in ascending; the
humor began to play reminiscently at the corners of his mouth. "Yes, I
know about that resemblance. When we were on the Tanana, it was 'Tisdale's
Twin' and 'Dave's Double.' A man has to take a name that fits up there,
and we seemed to grow more alike every day. But that often happens when
two friends who are accustomed to think in the same channels are brought
into continual touch, and the first year we spent in the north together we
were alone for weeks at a stretch, with no other human intercourse, not a
prospector's camp within a hundred miles. The most incompatible partners,
under those circumstances, will pick up subconsciously tricks of speech
and gesture. Still, looking back, I see it was I who changed. I had to
live up to Weatherbee; justify his faith in me."
Miss Armitage shook her head slowly. "That is hard to believe. Whoever
tried to mould you would feel through the surface that streak of iron."
They had come to another precipitous place, and Tisdale turned again to
give her the support of his hand. The position brought his face on a level
with hers, and involuntarily she stopped. "But whatever you may say, Mr.
Tisdale," she went on, and as her palm rested in his the words gathered
the weight of a pact, "whatever may--happen--I shall never forget your
greatness to-day." She sprang down beside him, and drew away her hand and
looked back to the summit they had left. "Still, tell me this," she said
with a swift breathlessness. "If it had been David Weatherbee's wife up
there with you when the thunderbolt struck, would it have made a
difference? I mean, would you have left her to escape--or not--as she
could?"
Tisdale waited a thoughtful moment. The ripple of amusement was gone; the
iron, so near the surface, cropped through. "I can't answer that," he
said. "I do not know. A man is not always able to control a first impulse,
and before that pine tree fell there wasn't time to hesitate."
At this she was silent. All her buoyancy, the charming camaraderie that
stopped just short of intimacy, had dropped from her. It was as though the
atmosphere of that pocket rose and clung to her, enveloped her like a
nimbus, as she went down. In the pent heat her face seemed cold. She had
the appearance of being older. The fine vertical line at the corner of her
mouth, which Tisdale had not noticed before, brought a tightness to his
throat when he ventured to look at her. How could Weatherbee have been so
blind? How could he have missed the finer, spiritual loveliness of this
woman? Weatherbee, who himself had been so sensitive; whose intuition was
almost feminine.
They had reached the final step from the bench to the floor of the vale
when Hollis spoke again. "If you do decide to buy this land and open the
project, I could recommend a man who would make a trusty manager."
"Oh, you don't understand," she replied in desperation "You don't
understand. I should have to stay, to live in this terrible place for
weeks, months at a time. I couldn't endure it. That dreadful mountain
there at the gap would forever be watching me, holding me in."
Tisdale looked at her, knitting his brows, "I told you it was dangerous to
allow yourself to feel the personality of inanimate things too much."
"I know. I know. And this terrible beast"--she paused, trying to steady
her voice; her whole body trembled--"would remind me constantly of those
awful Alaska peaks--the ones that crowded--threatened him."
Tisdale's face cleared. So that was the trouble. Now he understood. "Then
it's all right"--the minor notes in his voice, vibrating softly, had the
quality of a caress--"don't worry any more. I am going to buy this land of
David's. Trust me to see the project through."