CHAPTER XIV

THE LOCKED HOUSE

_Jesse's Memoir_

The book of our adventures which we began together, was to go on through

all our years. We were too young to think how it must some time finish

at our parting, that one of us two was to be left, with only the broken

end, the pity of Christ, and every word a stabbing memory.

Since I lost Kate is four years to-night, and in all that time till now,

I never dared to enter the house where once she lived with me, her poor

fool Jesse. To-day, I unlocked the door. The sunlight, glinting through

chinks in the boarded windows, fell in long dust-streaks on rat-eaten

furniture, gray cobweb, scattered ashes. There was the puppy piano,

green with mold, her work-basket, half eaten, her writing-table littered

with rat-gnawed paper. The pages are yellow, the ink is rusty brown, but

the past is alive in every line, the living past, the sunny

warm-scented land of memory, all full of love and glory and delight, and

agony which can not be taken from me.

If she were here with me in the old log cabin, she should not see me

mourning, or afraid to face the past, or dreading to set an end to our

book. She expected courage, and I will face it out, write the last

chapter in our Book of Life, then bury it all, lest any one should see.

I warm and burn my hands at the fires of memory, and if the fine sweet

pain were taken from me, what should I have left but cobweb, and ashes,

dust, and the smell of rats.

How wonderful it is to think that a great lady, and this ignorant

callous brute shown up in the rotted manuscript, should ever have been

man and wife together! When I think of what I was--illiterate, slovenly,

lazy, selfish, brutal, meanly jealous, ignorantly cruel, I see how it

was right that she should leave me. It has taken me bitter lonely years

to realize that I was unworthy to be her servant while she tamed me. So

much the greater mystery is the love which made amends for my

shortcomings, made her think me better than I was, a something for which

she sacrificed herself, and in self-sacrifice became like the great

angels which she saw in dreams.

Then came the letter from Polly herself, which sent me crazy, so that my

lady read every word of it, without being warned.

"Opium, Jesse, an overdose of opium did the trick, and paint to

make me look like a corpse, and blood from the butcher's shop

poured over my face as I laid there. You was no husband for such as

me with Brooke around, the man I'd kept. Shucks, did ye think I'd

be such a puke as to set, with yer dead-line round me, screaming if

men came near, with all Abilene grinning, and you drunk as Noah?

That was no way to treat a lady. That was no cinch for me as could

buy cow-boys, all I'd a mind to. Pshaw, it makes me sick at the

stummick to think I married you. I only done it for a joke.

"But you jest mark my words on the dead thieving, no foreign woman

from London, England, shall have you while you're mine. I heerd of

this Mrs. Trevor daring to call you her husband. She's not your

wife, she's not Mrs. Jesse Smith, she's not a married woman, but a

poor _thing_, and her child, _what's he_? I've had my revenge on

her, and you, and I'm coming to rub it in. I'm at Ashcroft, I am,

coming on the same coach as this letter, coming to live in your

home. If I don't love you, no other woman shall. It's Fancy Brooke,

the man you calls Bull Durham, what give you dead away, he, and the

news he got by mail, since you let him get off alive, you _fool_.

That ought to splash yer.

"And if I didn't love, d'ye reckon that I'd care?

"Your deserted true wife,

"POLLY SMITH.

"P. S.--I'll be to your ranch Monday."

_Kate's Narrative_

My husband was still at dinner when we heard a horseman come thundering

in, the old cargador, Pete Mathson, spurring a weary horse across the

yard. Jesse took the letter, and while he read, I had a strange awful

impression of days, months, years passing, a whirlwind of time. My man

was growing old before my eyes, and it is true that within a few hours

his hair was flecked with silver. When the letter fell from his hands he

walked away, making no sound at all.

I sat on my little stool and took the letter. The paper felt like

something very offensive, so that I had to force myself to read, and

even then without understanding one word, I went and washed my hands

and face, why I don't know, except that it was better not to make a

scene. I came back to my stool.

Pete stood in the doorway very nervous about his hat, as though he tried

to hide it away. I remember telling him quite gravely that I like to see

a hat.

"Cap Taylor, ma'am," he was saying, "told me to get here first by the

horse trail, so I rode hell-for-leather. They'll be another hour comin'

by road."

"Another hour?"

"A stranger's driving. Mebbe more'n an hour."

Then Jesse came back.

* * * * *

_Jesse's Narrative_

I found my lady seated on her stool, that letter in her hands, while

Pete, uneasy, clicked his spurs in the doorway. I asked if he'd take a

message.

"Burning the trail," he said.

"Say, if she comes, I'll kill her."

"Not that," my lady whispered, so I knelt down by her, and she stroked

my forehead.

"I didn't catch your words," said Pete.

"Promise," my lady whispered, "there must be no murder."

"Tell her, Pete," said I, "there'll be no murder. I can't let her off

with that--give her fair warning."

Pete rode away slow.

"Wife," I whispered--we spoke in whispers, because it was the end of the

world to us two--"you trust me?"

She kissed my forehead.

"Tell me," she said, "one thing. Polly was not dead?"

"She shammed dead. She's alive, Kate. She's coming here. Take David

away. Take him to South Cave, to Father Jared's camp."

"What will you do?"

"Lock the house before it's defiled."

"And then, dear?"

"When she's gone, I'll come to the cave, too."

Kate took David, letting me kiss him, letting me kiss her, even knowing

everything, let me take her into my arms. She was very white, very

quiet. She even remembered to take her servant, and the two Chinamen,

making some excuse to get them away. I locked the house and the old

cabin. Then I made the long call to Ephrata, and went to the Apex Rock,

calling until he answered from among the dog-tooth violets. He climbed

straight up the steep rocks, whimpering, because I'd scarcely called him

once in fourteen months. He rubbed against me, forgetting he hefted

eleven hundred pounds, and I had to scratch his neck before we started

up to the house, then to the left along the wagon track just past

Cathedral Grove.

The wagon was swinging round the end of the grove at a canter, and when

I let out a yell for the last warning, the woman only snatched at the

driver's whip to flog the team faster. Then I turned loose my bear, he

rearing up nine feet or so to inspect that outfit.

The horses shied into the air, then off at a gallop straight for the

edge of the cliffs. The woman was shot out as the wagon overturned, the

driver caught for a moment while his wagon went to match-wood. He lay in

the wreckage stunned, but the horses went blind crazy, taking that

twelve hundred feet leap into the Fraser Rapids. So I had aimed, and as

I'd promised my lady to do no murder, I kept my bear beside me.

The driver was awake and staggering to his feet. He would have talked,

only my bear was with me, hard to hold by the roach hair. The man

needed no telling, and after he escaped from my ranch, I did not see him

there in the years which followed.

The woman, standing in the wreckage of her trunks, wanted to talk. We

herded her, Eph and I, to the foot of the pack-trail, which leads up by

steep jags to the rim-rock of the upper cliffs, then on through the

black pines to Hundred Mile. We herded her up the pack-trail, my bear

and I, and pointed her on her way, alone, afoot. If she lived through

that eighty miles, she would remember the way, the way which is barred.

* * * * *

_Kate's Narrative_

I was waiting for Jesse until the low sun shone into the cave. All that

letter, which had been a blur of horror, cleared now before my mind, but

Father Jared held me by the hands, drawing the pain away. He had given

me tea, he had made me a very throne of comfort in front of his

camp-fire. David slept in my lap, and now while the dear saint held my

hands, and I looked through the smoke out toward the setting sun, he

spoke of quaint sweet doings in his hermitage. He spoke as a worldly

anchorite with a portable bath, of his clumsy attempts to patch a

worn-out cassock, and how the squirrels tried to superintend his prayers

at even-song. Then the sun caught the walls of the cave and the roof to

glowing beryl and ethereal ruby, the smoke was a rose-hued thread of

light, and the deep canyon at our feet filled with a shadowy sea of

flooding amethyst.

"Kate, it is even-song. We see the steep way of to-morrow's journey, the

pain and sorrow from here to the next hill. But presently our way shall

be revealed from star to star. We pass from earthly sunshine and fretted

time, into the timeless ageless glory of the heavens. We sleep in

Heaven, and when we wake again we rise filled with the presence of the

Eternal to put immortal power into our daily service."

The sun had set, and the first star just shone out, as Jesse came,

standing at the mouth of the cave, dark against the glory. I could not

see his face.

The father released me, turning to my dear man. "Jesse," he said, "won't

you shake hands with me?

"You see," he said, "I made a mistake myself, thinking a priest should

be celibate to win love from on high. But in its fullest strength God's

love comes through a woman to shine upon our life--and so I've missed

the greatest of His gifts. Your wife has told me everything, and I'm so

envious. Won't you shake hands? I've been so lonely. Won't you?"

But my man stood in the mouth of the cave, as though he were being

judged.

"This filth," he said, "out of the past. Filth!"

His voice sounded as though he were dead.

"The law," he said. "I've come to find out what's the law?"

"Man's law?"

"I suppose so."

"But I don't know. I'm only a very ignorant old man; your friend, if

you'll have me."

"What do you think?"

"So far as I see, Jesse, the woman can arraign you on a charge of

bigamy. Moreover, if you seek divorce she can plead that there's equal

guilt, from which there's no release."

"And that's the law?"

"Man's law. But, Jesse, when you and Kate were joined in holy matrimony,

was it man's law which said, 'Whom God hath joined, let no man put

asunder.' What has man's law to do with the awful justice of Almighty

God?

"And here, my son, I am something more than a foolish old man." He rose

to his feet, making the sign of the cross. "I am ordained," he said, "a

barrister to plead at the bar of Heaven. Will you not have me as your

adviser, Jesse?"

"Whom God hath joined," Jesse laughed horribly, "that harlot and I."

"She swore to love, honor and obey?"

"Till death us part!"

"And that was perjury?"

"A joke! A joke!"

"That was not marriage, my son, but blasphemy, the sin beyond

forgiveness. The piteous lost creature has never been your wife. She

tried to break her way into our poor world of life and love. It is

forbidden and she was fearfully wounded. To-day she tried again, and is

there, in that forest, with the falling night."

"I told her what she is, straight from the shoulder."

"Who made her so?"

Jesse lowered his head.

"Who made her the living accusation of men's sins? She is the terrible

state's evidence, God's evidence, which waits to be released in the Day

of Judgment. You told her straight from the shoulder. Judge not that ye

be not judged. Remember that of all the men she knew on earth, you only

can plead not guilty."

"Because I married her?" asked Jesse humbly.

"Because you tried. You gave her your clean name, your pure life, your

manhood, an act of knightly chivalry. Arthur, Galahad, Perceval,

Launcelot, and many other gentlemen who are now at rest, will seek your

friendship in the after life. You are being tried as they were tried in

that fierce flame of temptation which tests the finest manhood.

"Only a cur would blame the weak. Only a coward would accuse the lost.

But in your manhood remember her courage, Jesse. Forgive as you hope for

pardon. Keep your life clean, from every touch of evil, but to the world

stand up for the honor of the name you gave her."

"I will."

"You forgive?"

"Yes."

"You will pray for her?"

"I will pray."

"And now the hardest test has still to come. For your wife's honor and

for the child, you must keep their names stainless, clear of all

reproach while you await God's judgment. They must leave you, Jesse."

"Oh, not that, sir!"

"Can they stay here in honor?"

"No."

"Can you run away?"

"Never!"

"Then you must part."

Jesse covered his face with his hands, and there against the deepening

twilight I saw shadows reaching out from him, as though--slowly the

shadows took form of high-shouldered wings and mighty pinions sweeping

to the ground.

He looked up, and behold he was changed.

"Pray for me, sir!" he whispered.

Then the priest raised his hand, and gave him the benediction.

* * * * *

_Jesse Closes the Book_

It is years now since my lady left me. Never has an ax touched her

trees, or any human creature entered her locked house. The rustle of her

dress is in the leaves each fall, the pines still echo to her voice. I

hear her footsteps over the new snow, I feel her presence when I read

her books. I know her thoughts are spirits haunting me, and all things

wait until she comes back. Not until I lost my lady did I ever hear that

faint, thin, swaying echo when her grove seemed to be humming tunes. At

times when dew was falling, I have heard the pattering of millions and

millions of little feet, just as she said, making the grass bend.

The papers often have pictures of my lady, the last as the Electra of

Euripides. I love her most of all in the Grecian robes, for once she

dreamed that she and I had been Greeks in some lost forgotten life.

Perhaps this is not our only life, or our last life, and we may be mated

in some place yet to come, where we shall not part.

Tears drop on the paper, and shame poor fool Jesse. The Book says that

He shall wipe away all tears. If my bear had only lived, I should not

have been so lonely. I wonder if--God help me, I can't write more. The

book is finished.

PART III

CHAPTER I

SPITE HOUSE

_Kate Reviews the Book_

The book is not finished. This book of Jesse's life and mine is not

finished while she who set us asunder is allowed to live. "Vengeance is

mine," saith the Lord, "I will repay." We wait.

What impulse moved my man after four years to enter that tragic house?

He read our book, so piteously stained, this heap of paper scrawled with

rusty ink. He added parts of a chapter, which I have finished. It is all

blotted with tears, this record of his life--childhood, boyhood, youth,

manhood, humor, passion--veritable growth of an immortal spirit--annals

of that love which lifteth us above the earth--and then!

What did the woman gain who stole our happiness? A fairy gold, changing

to ashes at the glint of day, for which she lost her soul.

Caught in the leaves there is a long pine needle. So it was among the

bull pines of Cathedral Grove that Jesse sought to bury this record.

Then knowing that his life was not all his to bury, he sent me this dear

treasure, so breaking the long, long silence.

How precious are even the littlest memories of love! Here is the muddy

footprint of our kitten, and Jesse's "witness my hand." Here is a scrap

of paper, inked and rinsed to reveal some secret writing of those poor

outlaws. Pages of wrath from our visitors' book--and the long pine

needle.

"Belay thar!" as Jesse said. "We're hunting happiness while sorrow's

chasing us. Takes a keen muzzle and runaway legs to catch up happiness,

while sorrow's teeth is reachin' for yo' tail."

So I must try to catch up happiness. I have notes here of dear Father

Jared, made at the time when he was bringing me with Baby David home. I

remember we sat in our deck chairs on the sunny side of the ship,

watching a cloud race out in mid-Atlantic. We talked of home.

"You see, my dear"--I copy from my notes--"we have in our blessed isles

an atmosphere lending glamour to all things, whether a woman's skin or a

slum town. Why, British portraiture and landscape are respected, even by

our own art critics, and they are far from lenient." I replied that I

wanted air, air for King David.

"Now when we come to air, that's very serious. North of the Tweed the

air produces Scotchness, across St. George's Channel it makes Irishness.

Then in the principality of Wales it makes most people Welsh, to say

nothing of the Yarkshire vintage, or Zummerzet, or the 'umble 'omes of

the East Anglians."

"But that's not what I mean. Some places are so relaxing."

"Or bracing, or just damp, eh? Do you know, my dear, that at Frognall

End mushrooms are fourpence a pound."

"That has nothing to do with it."

"Are you sure?" The delicious fairy-look came to his eyes. "Of course

they prefer the Russian kind of mushrooms with red tops--warmer to sit

on. That's why they love Russia, and Russian hearts stay young. And

besides, they like to live where people are really and truly

superstitious.

"That's what's so wrong with England. Ah, these board schools! I want to

dig up all the board schools and plant red mushrooms. Then, of course,

the fairies will each have an endowed mushroom, the children will be

properly taught how to stay young, and we shall live happily ever

afterward.

"Do you know I called on the prime minister, and, politics apart, he's

not at all a bad fellow. We quite agreed, especially about drowning the

Board of Education, but then the nonconformist conscience would get

shocked, while as to the treasury--bigots, my dear, are getting more

bigotty every day."

I was getting mixed.

"So you see, Kate, with mushrooms at fourpence a pound, it stands to

reason that they're very plentiful at Frognall End, with fairies in

strict proportion: one mushroom--one fairy, that is in English weather.

In a dry season, of course, they _can_ sit on the ground, although it

wouldn't be quite the thing; whereas in wet weather they really require

their mushrooms--and you know they're much too careless to clear up

afterward. Yes, at Frognall End young David would get what modern

children need so very badly--some wholesome uneducation."

This the father explained in all its branches.

1. Consider the lilies.

2. Take no thought for the morrow.

3. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the pure, the merciful, the

peacemakers.

4. Suffer the little children to come unto me.

"You see," he added wistfully, "the churches have to preach a heap of

doctrines piled twenty centuries high--with truth squashed flat beneath.

The poor are very worrisome, too, and there's such a lot of heathen to

convert. Why, all of our educated people belong to societies for

reforming their neighbors, and yet--and yet--well, fairies have a nicer

time than curates."

Frognall End, where my saint is curate-in-charge, is on the river near

Windsor, and there I went to live with Baby David. It was there I

learned that heartache is a cultivated plant not known along the

hedge-rows, that peace may be found as long as the gorse blooms, that

love grows lustiest where it has least soil. For the rest, please see

the Reverend Jared Nisted's _Fairyland_ which is full of most important

information for all who are weary and heavy-laden. Its text is from the

Logia of Christ: "Raise the stone, and thou shalt find Me; cleave the

wood and I am there."

From the first my Heaven-born was interested in milk, later in a growing

number of worldly things, but it was not until last winter by the

fireside that we really had serious tales all about Wonderland. It's a

difficult place to reach, but when you get down the cliff, and feel your

neck to make quite sure it's not broken, you come to the witch who has a

wooden leg. She lives in the Dust House, where the Dust Fairies want to

sleep, only she will worry them with her broom. When they are worried,

they dance with the Sunbeam Fairy who comes in through the window, and

never breaks the glass.

There's a fairy mare called Jones, who lost her Christian name in a fit

of temper, and always searches for it with her hind legs. There's a

fairy bear who is not a truly grizzly, though he does live in a grizzly

bear skin even when it's ever-so-hot weather. He's a great hunter, too,

and likes sportsmen so much that they keep getting fewer, and _fewer_,

and FEWER. The last sportsman was a fairy Doctor called McGee, who

perched all day long in a tree, like the fowls-of-the-air, practising

bird-calls, while the fairy bear sat underneath taking care of his

rifle.

Wonderland is full of stories, especially about Mr. Man. When Mr. Man

was stolen away by robbers, and tied up with fiddle-strings in a

ferry-house, well--David flatly refused to go to bed until we'd come to

the ferry across Dream River.

David's dog came of an alliance between two noble families, so his name

is Whiskers Retriever-Dachshund, Esq., P.T.O. David's cat, who died

expensively in a pail of cream, was Mrs. Bull Durham. Ginger was a

squirrel in the garden, and the dago was a badger who lived a long way

off beyond the grumpy cow. Dog, cat, squirrel and badger were all of

them robbers, but David would have been quite wretched if he had caught

them doing anything dishonest.

Did I mention Mr. Man? He was a hero who lived in fairyland, and didn't

believe in fairies, who spoke with a slow, sweet, Texan drawl, who loved

and protected all living creatures except politicians, who believed in

God, in Mother England, and in Uncle Sam, and who always wrote long

letters to his mother. David said his funny prayers for mother, and

Whiskers, and all kind friends "and make me good like Mr. Man in

Wonderland. Amen. Now, tell me some wobbers, mummie."

Although David has decided to be a tram conductor, he still takes some

little interest in other walks of life. Once on the tow-path he asked

an old gentleman who was fishing, what he was fishing for, and got the

nice reply: "I often wonder." And it was on this path beside the Thames,

that one day last November he made a big friendship. His nurse was

passing a few remarks with a young man who asked the way to my house,

and baby went ahead pursuing his lawful occasions. Curious to know what

it felt like to be a real fish, he was stepping into the river to see

about it, when the young man interfered.

"Leggo my tail," said David wrathfully, then with sudden defiance, "I

got my feet wet anyway, so there!"

"That's so," the young man agreed.

"I say," David grew confident. "Mummie says it's in the paper, so it's

all right."

"What's that, sonny?"

"A little boy what went in to see about some fishes, and that man what

swum and swum, and I saw'd his picture in the paper. So now 'tend you

look de udder way."

"Why, I can't see nothen."

"You _can_ see. The game is for me to jump in, and you swim."

"But I can't swim. I'm a sailor."

"Oh, weally? Then what's your name?"

"It's Billy O'Flynn."

"No, but that's weally my guinea-pig, the pink one--Billy O'Flynn.

You're not a fairy, Billy?"

"Why, what does you know about fairies?"

"Most truthfully, you know? I don't believe in fairies, but then it

pleases mummie."

So Billy sat on his heel making friends with the heaven-born, and Patsy,

the nurse, came behind him, craving with cotton-gloved hands to touch

the sailor's crisp, short, golden hair, and David gravely tried on the

man's peaked cap.

"Yes," Billy agreed, "fairies is rot when there's real gals about, with

rosy cheeks a-blushin' an' cotton gloves."

"Lawks! 'Ow you sailors does fancy yourselves," said Patsy, her shy

fingers drawn by that magnetic gold of the man's hair.

"Climb on my back and ride," said young O'Flynn to David, "I'll be a

fairy horse."

"The cheek of 'im!" jeered Patsy, "fairy 'orse indeed!"

Oh, surely the fairies were very busy about them, tugging at

heartstrings, while Billy and Patsy fell head over ears in love, and my

pet cupid had them both for slaves. David rode Billy home, by his

august command straight into my brown study, where I sat in my lazy

chair.

Was it my voice telling baby to go and get dry feet? Was it my hand

grasping Billy's horny paw? For I heard my roaring canyon, saw my cliffs,

my embattled sculptured cliffs, and once more seemed to walk with Jesse

in Cathedral Grove. I could hear my dear man, speaking across the years,

"Say, youngster, when you sawed off that table leg to make your mother's

limb, what did you do with the caster?"

I laughed, I cried. Oh, yes, of course I made a fool of myself. For this

dear lad came out of Wonderland, this heedless ruffian who knew of my

second marriage, who had such a tale to tell of "Madame Scotson." Oh,

haven't you heard? Her precious Baby David is illegitimate! Couldn't I

hear my neighbor, Mrs. Pollock, telling that story at the Scandal Club?

Then a discreet paragraph from Magpie in _Home Truths_ would be libel

enough to brand a public singer. My mother would suggest ever so gently

that in the interests of the family, my retirement to a warmer

climate--say Italy, would be so _suitable_. And madame's illegitimate

son would be barred from decent schools. Oh, I could see it all!

With his pea-jacket thrown open, wiping his flushed face with a red

handkerchief, shifting from one foot to the other in torment of

uneasiness, blowing like some sea beast come up from the deeps to

breathe, Billy consented not to run away from my hysterics.

Feeling ill-bred and common, I begged Billy's pardon, made him sit down,

tried ever so hard to put him at his ease. Poor lad! His father

condemned as a felon, his mother such a wicked old harridan, his life,

to say the very least, uncouth. Yet somehow out of that rough savage

face shone the eyes of a gentleman, and there was manliness in all he

said, in everything he did. After that great journey for my sake, how

could I let him doubt that he was welcome?

"I know I'm rough," he said humbly, "but you seem to understand. You

know I'm straight. You won't mind straight talk unless you're changed,

and you're not changed--at least not that way, mum."

Changed! Ah, how changed! The looking-glass had bitter things to tell

me, and crying makes me such a frump. I never felt so plain. And the

eyes of a young man are often brutally frank to women.

"Don't mind about me, Billy. Say what you've come to tell me."

"Been gettin' it ready to say ever since I started for England. Look

here, mum, _I_ want to go back to the beginning, to when I was a kid,

an' mother kep' that hash house in Abilene. D'ye mind if I speak--I mean

about this here Polly?"

I set my teeth, and hoped he would be quick.

"Well, ye see, mum, she only done it for a joke, and the way Jesse

treated her--"

"I can't hear this."

"You don't mind if I say that mother and me haven't no use for Jesse?"

"I know that."

"Well, mother put her up to the idea. To get shut of him, she shammed

dead. I helped. I say she done right, mum. If she'd let it go at that,

I'd take her side right now."

"Billy, was that a real marriage?"

"It was that. She's Jesse's wife all right."

There was something which braced me in his callous frankness. "I hoped,"

I said. "Go on."

"Well, mother hated Jesse somethin' chronic. Afterward when--well, she

had to run for the British possessions, and we met up with Jesse again

by accident. He give us a shack and some land, but mother an' me had our

pride. How would _you_ like to take charity? Mother hated him still

worse, and don't you imagine I'd go back on her. She's my mother.

"Then you married Jesse. Of course, mother and me both knew that Polly

was alive. Father knew too--and father was around when no one but us

ever seen him. We knew that Polly was alive, and mother would have given

Jesse dead away, only we stopped her. Father said it was none of our

business. Father liked Jesse, I thought the world of you, so when mother

wrote to Polly, we'd burn her letters."

What an escape for us!

"Then you saved mother from burning in that shack, and afterward she

hated Jesse worse, because she couldn't hit him for fear of hurting you.

Oh, she was mad because she'd got fond of you.

"And you took us into your ranch. Charity again, and you sailin' under

Protestant colors, both of yez. The way mother prayed for Jesse was

enough to scorch his bones." Billy chuckled. "I ain't religious--I

drink, and mother's professin' Catholic cuts no figure with me.

"Then there's the fightin' between father's gang and Jesse's. Dad got

hung, Jesse got the dollars. Rough, common, no-account, white trash,

like mother an' me, hears Jesse expounding the Scriptures. We ain't got

no feelings same as you."

Poor lad! Poor savage gentleman!

"You saved me from murdering Jesse, and got me away from that ranch.

Since then I've followed the sea. There's worse men there than Jesse. I

seen worse grub, worse treatment, worse times in general since I quit

that ranch. Five years at sea--"

There was the glamour, the greatness of the sea in this lad's eyes, just

as in Jesse's eyes. Sailors may be rugged, brutal, fierce--not vulgar.

Men reach out into spaces where we sheltered women can not follow.

"Suppose I've grown," said Billy. "Well, mum, I got a notion to go home.

Signed as A. B. in a four-masted bark _Clan Innes_ out o' Glasgow, for

Vancouver with general cargo. I quit her at Vancouver, made Ashcroft by

C. P. R., blind baggage mostly, then hit the road afoot. I thought I'd

take my departure from the Fifty-Nine."

"The old bush trail?"

"Hard goin', but then I expected, of course, mother'd be there at the

ranch, and you, mum, an' Jesse, of course, and--"

"Jones?"

Dreading his news, I fought for this one little respite before he came

to all I feared. If Jesse lived, if he only lived! But at thought of the

old ranch life, Billy lapsed to a sheepish grin with one quaint glint of

mischief. Then with the utmost gravity he asked me if Patsy, my

nursemaid, "was claimed".

"There's many a little craft dips her colors for one who wants me to

stand by, but still--"

"Patsy is free."

"Faix! Can't help it, I backed my tawps'l."

"Proposed?"

"Save us! It's time to offer a tow when they're union down, and a danger

to navigation. Um. I'm off my course."

"You must have found things changed when you got to the ranch."

"Didn't get there. I'd news at Hat Creek, and kep' the road main north.

Mother wasn't at the ranch any more. She'd poisoned Jesse's bear. Oh,

mum, I don't want to hurt."

"Go on, dear lad."

"Mother'd took up with Polly at Spite House."

"Spite House?"

"It's the Ninety-Nine Mile House. There's a sign-board right across the

road:--

THE NINETY-NINE

MRS. JESSE SMITH

HOTEL, STORE, LIVERY.

"She did that to spite Jesse, and they call the place Spite House."

Just then the maid brought in the tea things, so, cowardly as usual, I

played hostess, delaying all the news I dared not face. We gossiped of

Captain Taylor's half-bred child, Wee James at school down East, of

Tearful George married to that dreadful young person at Eighty Mile

House who scratched herself at meals, so Jesse said. At the

Hundred-and-Four, where Hundred Mile Hill casts its tremendous shadow on

the lowlands northward, Pete Mathson and his wife were making new

harness for the Star Pack-train. There a shadow fell on our attempt at

gossip--why does the conversation always stop at twenty minutes past?

Billy began to tell me about Spite House.

Spite House! How right Father Jared was. "Sword versus dragon," he told

us, "is heroic: sword versus cockroach is heroics. Don't draw your sword

on a cockroach."

This much I tried to explain to young O'Flynn, whose Irish blood has a

fine sense of humor. But the smile he gave me was one of pity, turning

my heart to ice. "Jesse," he said, "made that mistake. That's why I've

come six thousand miles to warn you. Howly Mother, if I'd only the

eddication to talk so I'd be understood!

"I'm going to try another course. See here, mum. You've heered tell of

Cachalot whales. They runs say eighty tons for full whales--one hundred

fifty horse-power, dunno how many knots, full of fight to the last drop

of blood. That stands for Jesse.

"And them sperm whales is so contemptuous of the giant squid they uses

her for food. She's small along of a sperm whale, but she's mean as

eight python snakes with a devil in the middle. That'll do for Polly.

"Well, last voyage I seen one of them she-nightmares strangle a bull

Cachalot, and the sight turned me sick as a dog. Now, d'ye understand

what Polly's doing? I told you I hated Jesse. I told you straight to

your face why I hated him. And now, mum, I'm only sorry for poor Jesse."

It was then, I think, that I began really to be terrified. Never in the

old days at the ranch had Billy been off his guard even with me. Now he

let me know his very heart. I could not help but trust him, and it was

no small uneasiness which had brought the lad to England.

I had fought so hard, schooling myself to think of Jesse as of the dead,

with reverent tenderness. Little by little I had filled a bleak and

empty widowhood with mother duties, womanly service, my holy art of

song, and harmless fairies, making the best of it while age and

plainness were my destiny. But now of a sudden my poor peace was

shattered, and that gift of imagination which had imagined even

contentment, played traitor and made havoc. Laws, conventions, mean

respectabilities, seemed only cobwebs now. Love swept them all away, and

nothing mattered. Jesse! Jesse!

"Them devil-squids," he was saying, "has a habit of throwing out ink to

fog the water, so you won't see what they're up to until they lash out

to grapple. That's where they're so like this Polly. She's a fat,

hearty, good-natured body, and it's the surest fact she's kind to men

in trouble. Anybody can have a drink, a meal and a bed, no matter how

broke he is; and Spite House is free hospital for the district. She'll

sit up nights nursing a sick man, and, till I went an' lived there, I'd

have sworn she was good as they make 'em. That's the ink.

"Then you begins to find out, and what I didn't see, mother would tell

me. She'd been three years there. Besides, I seen most of what we calls

sailor towns, and I'd thought I'd known the toughest there was in the

way of boardin'-houses; but rough house in 'Frisco itself is holiness

compared with what goes on there under the sign of Mrs. Jesse Smith.

That name ain't exactly clean."

"That's enough, I think, if you don't mind. I'd rather have news about

our old friends--Captain Taylor, for instance, and Iron Dale, and how is

dear Doctor McGee?"

"Dear Doctor McGee, is it? Well, you see he lived within a mile of

Polly. She got him drinkin', skinned him at cards, then told him he'd

best shoot himself. The snow drifts through his house.

"And Iron Dale? Oh, of course, he was Jesse's friend, too. I'd forgot.

She got him drunk and went through him. That money was for paying his

hands at the Sky-line--wasn't his to lose, so he skipped the country.

The mines closed down and there wasn't no more packing contracts for

Jesse."

I began to understand what Billy meant, and it was with sick fear I

asked concerning my dear man's stanchest friend, his banker, Captain

Boulton Taylor.

"You'd better know, mum." There was pain in the lad's face, reluctance

in his voice. "Being the nearest magistrate, he tried to down Polly for

keeping a disorderly house. But then, as old man Taylor owned, he didn't

know enough law to plug a rat hole. There ain't no municipality, so

Spite House is outside the law. But Polly's friends proved all the good

she done to men who was hurt, or sick, or broke. Then she showed up how

her store and hotel was cutting into the trade of Hundred Mile House.

She brung complaints before the government, so Taylor ain't magistrate

now. The stage stables got moved from Hundred Mile to Spite House. The

post-office had to follow. Now he's alone with only a Chinaman. He's

blind as a bat, too, and there's no two ways about it--Bolt Taylor's

dying."

"Is there no justice left?"

"Dunno about that. She _uses_ a lot of law."

I dared not ask about Jesse. To sit still was impossible, to play caged

tiger up and down the room would only be ridiculous. Still, Billy's

poisonous tobacco excused the opening of a window, so I stood with my

back turned, while a November night closed on the river and the misty

fields.

How could I leave my baby? How could I possibly break with Covent

Garden--where my understudy, a fearsome female, ravened for the part?

The cottage would never let before our river season. "Madame Scotson has

been called abroad on urgent private business."

"Of course," the lad was saying, "when Polly got to be postmistress, she

handled Jesse's letters, held the envelopes in the steam of a kettle

until they'd open, and gummed them when she was through--if she sent

them on. She found out who he dealt with and got them warned not to

trust him. There's no letters now."

"She wouldn't dare!"

"No? You remember he sent you that book you wrote together at the

ranch?"

"You know that!"

"I read it at Spite House. She had a heap of fun in the barroom with

Jesse's letter. Her cat eyes flamed like mad."

"There was no letter."

"She made a paper house of it, and set it alight to show how Jesse

burned her home in Abilene. She was drunk, too, that night. But that's

nothin'. Glad you didn't hear them yarns she put about the country.

Jesse wasn't never what I'd call popular, but he ain't even spoken to

now by any white man. His riders quit, his Chinamen cleared out. Then

she bought Brown's ferry, had the cable took away, the scow sent adrift,

and Surly Brown packed off. She'd heard that Jesse lived by his rifle,

so she's cut him off from his hunting grounds. There's nothing left to

hunt east of the Fraser."

"He's starving?"

"Shouldn't wonder."

"Billy!"

"Yes'm."

"How soon can I get a ship?"

"None before Saturday."

"Go on. Tell me the worst."

"The signs may read coarse weather or typhoon. I dunno which yet. She's

been locatin' settlers along them old clearings in the black pine and,

judging by samples I'd seen, she swept the jails."

"Why more than one?" I asked, "why all that expense when one would do?"

"Who'd blackmail Polly afterward? She's no fool. She says straight out

in public she'd shoot the man who killed him. But them thugs is planted

in hungry land, they see his pastures the best in the district, and you

know as well as I do he's a danger to all robbers. Why, even when

sportsmen and tourists comes along his old gun gets excited. He hates

the sight of strangers, anyway.

"Now, all these years she's goading him to loose out and break the law.

That's why she's got the constable protecting her at Spite House. Once

she can get him breaking the law she has all them thugs--so many dollars

a head--as witnesses. It ain't murder she wants. She says that when she

went to his ranch that time Jesse sent her a message by old Mathson, 'I

won't let her off with death.'

"She won't let him off with death. Twice she has put him to shame in

public. She'll never rest until she gets him hanged. There's only one

thing puzzles me. I see it's his silence, the waiting, which makes Polly

wake up and screech at night. But I dunno myself--has Jesse lost his

nerve?"

"How do you know all this?"

"She told mother everything."

"And your mother told you. Why?"

"Because--say, mum, you remember the thing your husband called Bull

Durham?"

"Brooke."

"Fancy Brooke, the thing which Polly kept like a pet lap-dog. The thing

which turned state's evidence to hang my poor old dad. Brooke's come to

Spite House as Polly's manager. Yes, now you know why mother's got no

more use for Polly--told me I'd best come to you and give you warning.

That thing is at Spite House, and mother's gone."

"I see it all now. But one last question. How did you get to England?"

"Do you remember, mum, that my poor dad just thought the world of

Jesse?"

"I remember, a legacy for you,--some ponies."

"Well, Jesse found out somehow that I was at Spite House. He sent me the

value of them ponies, with only a receipt for me to sign. I reckon, mum,

that ruined and well-nigh starving, he rode a hundred and sixty miles

through the black pines, because he's honest. That's why I spent the

money comin' to you. I wants to help."

CHAPTER II

THE IMPATIENT CHAPTER

_Kate's Narrative_

This chapter is so difficult to start. It deals with a time when life

had become impossible unless one could jump from here to Wednesday next,

and thence to Monday fortnight. Of course the book is only meant for

Jesse, for David, for me, and for those to come who may revere us as

their ancestors. Thank goodness, I am not a novelist! Think of the fate

of the professional writer whose hosts of "characters," the bodiless

papery creatures of his brain, will rise up in judgment to accuse their

petty creator, to gibber at him, to make his dreams a nightmare. What

novelist would escape that condemnation? Dickens might be saved, perhaps

Balzac. Tourguenieff maybe, even Kipling, but in Heaven the writers will

not be overcrowded.

My characters are ready to hand, and my events are real, but how can I

possibly weld the notes in waiting, to make an harmonious, sane,

restful chapter, whose very motif is worry? I give it up, for what am I

that I should do this thing?

To three-fourths' pound of artistic temperament, add one cup Celtic

blood; stir in a tablespoon of best Italian melody, add humor and

laziness to taste; then fry in moonlight over a slow anthem, and there

you are. That's me!

As a little girl I would prefer a hobgoblin I couldn't see, to a real

doll stuffed with the best sawdust. If there happened to be any

day-dreams about, visions or reveries, I would play hostess and be well

amused; but fend me from accounts, from business men, and from all the

things you catch, such as trains and influenza. Hateful practical

affairs have to be faced, but I rush them to get through quick.

Have you noticed that artists who vend feelings as a grocer sells sugar,

are always accused of being callous? I sent David with his nurse to stay

with Father Jared, so mother called me a cold-blooded wretch. I

abandoned my part at the opera to a weird ravening female who can't

sing, so my manager called me an atheist. My maids had to pack and run

to escape storage with the furniture at the "Pecking and Tootham

Emporiums"; my little home passed to a gentleman with mourning nails,

diamonds, and a lisp; my bits and scraps of stock were sold and the

proceeds banked with the Hudson's Bay Company. Then came casual

farewells to baby and Father Jared, and, just as the train pulled out,

the district nurse threw a bunch of violets. So I broke down and howled,

wondering damply why. Even then I longed for my dear wilderness where

every wind blows clean, for the glamour of an austere land braving the

naked eternities, the heart of a lonely man who dared to do his duty,

all, all that was real and great in life, calling me, calling me home.

The keenest pleasure which ever money gave me came when Billy and I

helped in the drafting of a cable order from the Hudson's Bay Company in

London to that bland magnifico who manages their branch palace at

Vancouver. One always feels that if one happened to want a Paris hat, a

bag of nuts, and a monkey, this Vancouver potentate would make a parcel

of them without the slightest fear of their getting mixed. As to

surprising the company, one might as well tickle the Alps. So here is

the telegram:--

"Provide three sleighs, each with two horses; engage two reliable

bush teamsters; six months' guaranteed bonus for secrecy and

fidelity.

"Referring to previous requirements of Jesse Smith, load No. 1

sleigh to capacity with provisions, luxuries, ammunition, books,

consigned to him via bush trail from 59 Mile House, Cariboo Road.

Referring to Captain Taylor's past requirements and present

sickness, load No. 2 sleigh with stores invalid comforts, consigned

100 Mile House. Each driver to present load, rig and team, with

personal services, and to forward consignee's receipt.

"Hire third sleigh with team one month, furnish furs on approval,

equipment, comforts suitable to bush travel and residence of a

lady. Place in charge of young competent civil engineer, bringing

instruments and assistant to report to Madame Scotson, arriving

Ashcroft Pacific Limited 20 inst.

"Absolute secrecy required. Charge Scotson."

So far the impulse had moved me to be quick before I repented, and the

journey gave time for that. Leaving the sweet majesty and serene order

of the English landscape, I made the usual passage by _S.S. Charon_

across the Styx to New York, where I caught a stuffy train for the

transit of an untidy continent. And so, in the starry middle of a night,

I was met at Ashcroft.

The civil engineer sent by the Hudson's Bay Company was Mr. Sacrifice T.

Eure. He stood uncovered, and while his ears froze, spelled his name to

me, explaining that there were two syllables in "Eure" with accent on

the first. He seemed to convey an offer of protection, to claim my

friendship, to take charge of my affairs, and with perfect modesty to

let me know that he was competent. Mud-colored hair hung dank over a

fine bloodless face with eyes like steel, jaws like iron, accounting,

perhaps, for the magnetic charm of his smile. His English was that

spoken by gentlefolk, which has the clearness of water, the sparkle of

champagne. His accent? How puzzling that is in a stranger's voice!

Except when we play Shakespearean drama, we all speak with an accent,

American say, or British. This gentleman lacked the primitive manliness

which stamps the men of the Dominions. Afterward Mr. Eure confessed

himself a native of New England.

He presented his assistant, led me to the sleigh, showed Billy where to

stow the luggage, tucked me into some warm furs, congratulated me on

escaping the local hotels, then bidding my man and his own to jump in,

took the reins and asked which way we were going. I served as pilot

along a trail of poignant memories. Once as we climbed the great steeps

northward, I caught the scent of the bull pines, and would have cried

but for the cold, which made it much wiser to sniff. Tears freeze.

We slept that night at Hat Creek station, where Tearful George proved a

most kindly host. He told me of a loaded sleigh which had passed last

week on the way to Jesse's ranch. The teamster was Iron Dale. So far I

had wondered whether my name was changing letter by letter from Madame

Scotson into Mrs. Grumble, but now the scent of the pines brought ease

of mind, and in the great calm of the wilderness one is ashamed to fret.

Our next march brought us rather late for the midday dinner to

Fifty-Nine Mile House, which marks the summit of the long climb from

Ashcroft to the edge of the black pines. The light was beginning to wane

when we set out into that land of silent menace, where black forests

cast blue shadows over deathly snow, and the cold was that of the space

between the stars. Once we had to pull up to adjust a trace, and in that

instant the trees seemed suddenly to have paused from dreadful motion. A

snow-covered boulder faced us as though in challenge: "You think I

moved?" A deadfall log seemed to ask us: "Did I moan?" A hollow tree

became rigid as though it had been swaying, a gaunt pine leaned as

though stopped in the act of falling upon our sleigh. All of them, alert

and full of menace, watched us. The trees were dead, the water was all

frozen, the snow was but a shroud which seemed to lift and creep. What

were we doing here in the land of the dead? The shadows closed upon us,

a mist rose, flooding over us, and far off the cold split a tree asunder

with loud report as of some minute gun.

We drove on, freezing, and right glad I was to be welcomed with all the

ruddy warmth and kindly cheer of Eighty Mile House. There we had tea,

and secured fresh horses for the last stage of our journey. I learned

also that the driver intrusted by the Hudson's Bay Company with

provisions for Hundred Mile House had gone off with the team, leaving

his sleigh still loaded in Captain Taylor's yard.

The malign bush seemed cowed by sheer immensity of glittering starlight

as we drove on. Only once I ventured to speak, asking Mr. Eure to look

out for Ninety-Nine Mile House. Horses accustomed to bait there would

try to stop. I did not want to stop.

He nodded assent, and, crouched down beside him, I waited until a brave

red warmth shone out across the snow from all the lighted windows of

Spite House. Mr. Eure lashed his horses, and in a moment more we had

passed into the night again. Presently we crossed the little shaky

bridge over Hundred Mile Creek, then swung to the left into Captain

Taylor's yard. I could see on the right the loom of the old barns, on

the left the low house, and at the end one window dimly lighted, which

told me my friend still lived. While Tom, the assistant, stabled the

team, Mr. Eure and Billy got snow shovels from the barn, and hewed out a

way to the deep drifted door at the near end of the building. Presently

the Chinese servant let us in, and I made my way through the barroom and

dining-hall to that far door on the right. How changed was the grand old

Hundred since the days, only five years ago, of pompous assizes,

banquets, dances, when these rooms overflowed with light, warmth, and

comfort, now dark, in Arctic cold, in haunted silence! I crept into the

captain's room, where, in an arm-chair beside the stove, the old man

lay. I knelt beside him, taking his dreadfully swollen hand.

"Dear wife," he muttered, whose wife must have been dead full forty

years, "this hulk is going to be laid up soon, in Rotten Row. Can't all

of us founder in action."

I ran away. But then there was much to be done, fires, lights, supper,

beds, and the unloading of the sleigh full of hospital comforts, which

would set my patient a great deal more at ease.

When I left my patient, very late that night, supposing all lucky people

to be in bed, I found Mr. Eure making himself some tea. Gladly I joined

him beside the kitchen stove, ever so pleased with its warmth and the

tea, for I was weary, past all hope of any sleep. Besides, the poor man

was just dying with curiosity as to our journey and his engagement as my

engineer. So, for that one and only time I told the story of Jesse's

fate, and mine. The creature would stop me at times to check the

pronunciation of words, or note the English manner of placing accents,

his own odd way of showing sympathy.

And then I tried to explain the scheme which needed his services as an

engineer.

"Let's see," he checked my rambling statement. "Try if I've got all that

correct. This Cariboo wagon road runs from Ashcroft to Quesnelle, due

north, except at one point where the government wouldn't pay for a

bridge across the Hundred Mile gorge.

"So at the ninety-five-mile post the road swings eastward five miles,

passing Spite House to the head of the gorge, where it crosses Hundred

Mile Creek, right here.

"From here the road turns west again on the north side of the gorge, and

after one mile on the level, drops down the Hundred Mile Hill, which is

three miles high, and a terror to navigation.

"At the bottom the road turns north again for Quesnelle, at a cabin

called the One Hundred and Four where old Pete Mathson lives, a hairy

little person, like a Skye terrier with a faithful heart.

"And said Mathson has blazed a cut-off, crossing the foot of the gorge,

then climbing by an easy grade to the ninety-five-mile post. The said

cut-off is five miles long. Made into a wagon road, it would give a

better gradient for traffic, save four miles, employ local labor at a

season when money is scant, and be an all-round blessing to mankind. At

the foot of the gorge we'd locate the new Hundred Mile House.

"Incidentally, Spite House would be side-tracked, left in the hungry

woods four miles from nowhere."

"Tell me," I urged, "what you think."

"My dear madam, when I've made a survey you shall have dates and figures

for a temporary snow road, a permanent way, and a house."

"It can be done?"

"Why, certainly."

"You approve?"

"Yes. I see dollars in this, for me."

"You think I'm foolish!"

"It will be an excellent road."

"But the result?"

"Please don't blame the engineer."

"Oh, tell me what you think, as a man."

"Well, let's pretend I'm Polly."

I laughed.

"Being Polly, and from my Polly point of view, frankly, I'm pleased.

Here are hundreds of new customers, with Madame Scotson's money to spend

at Spite House."

"My men will sign an agreement. The man who visits Spite House forfeits

a bonus for good service, loses all outstanding pay, and leaves my camp

that day."

"Is that so? Of course the coaches change horses at Spite House."

"When I've bought out the stage company, they'll change horses at the

New Hundred."

"And only stop at Spite House for the mails?"

"I shall appeal to the postmaster-general."

"On the ground that you're running a rival house? Captain Taylor, you

say, did that."

"My house shall charge nothing. It shall be free, and the visitors my

guests."

"Then, in my little Polly way, I'm afraid I'll have to move Spite House

down to the new road."

"On to my land?"

"Your cruelty reduces me to tears. I am a martyr. I appeal to the

chivalrous public to boycott that new road."

"When I've brought money into the country? Oh, you don't know this

hungry neighborhood!"

"Mercy! My client's done for. I'm Madame Scotson's managing engineer.

May I ask a plain question?"

"Certainly."

"Is there water-power in this gulch?"

"There's a lovely waterfall."

"I'll look around to-morrow."

And then came Mr. Eure's confession. The assistant, not himself, was a

surveyor. "I'm only a paper-maker. I'm looking for cheap timber, good

snow for haulage, water-power to mill the lumber into paper-pulp, and a

road to market. I've been traveling some months now in search of that

combination, and if your lovely waterfall will give me five thousand

horse-power, I shall have to build your cut-off road for myself, also

the house. Then there'll be war against these black pines, your enemies.

As to Spite House, it seems hardly the kind of thing for you to deal

with. Perhaps you'll leave that to me."

CHAPTER III

RESCUE

_Jesse's Letter_

Mother in Heaven:

Please thank God for me and say I'm grateful. Tell the neighbor angels

how little mothers having sons on earth are badly missed and grudged by

hungering mortals. Prayers sent to Heaven are answered, but not letters.

I reckon no one here could ever write a letter happy enough, so light

with joy that it could fly up there. And when I'd a notion to write, in

these last years, I knew a heavy letter might reach the wrong address,

to make more sorrow in the other place. I've passed the hours writing,

times when I had paper, but the stuff I wrote would make no creature

happy, except, perhaps, critics, who enjoy to scoff. What can't make

happiness is worse than dirt.

In the days when I thought this Jesse person was important, I used to

read the Old Testament, which is full human with pride and arrogance of

man. But since I learned that this whole world is only a dream from

which we shall awake, the New Testament has been my pasturage. Maybe

three moons ago, when my ammunition had run out, and my neighbor animals

had learned all the little secrets of my traps and snares, there was no

food for the earthly part of me, and I wondered what God was going to do

about it. Of course I couldn't question about His business, but seeing

that likely He intended me to leave my little worries behind, I made a

good fire in the cabin, lay down in the bunk, arranged my body to be in

decent order in case I left it, and took my Bible to pass away the time.

I suppose I'd dropped off to sleep, when something rough began to

happen, jolting me back into the world of fuss. A man in a buckskin

shirt and a bad temper, stamping the snow off his moccasins, shaking me

by the arm. He was my old friend Iron Dale, a man of the world--which

smashed him.

He seemed to be worried, and that, of course, was natural to a man like

Iron, lusty and eager, with an appetite for money--whereas poor Polly

had done her best to cure him of his dollars. She is like a dutiful

scapegoat eager to carry the burdens of all the people, but Iron

doesn't understand and would carry rocks to the cliffs rather than have

no load in a world of workers. Don't you remember, mother, the lesson of

the Labrador, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be

the name of the Lord." He takes away the things which keep us from Him.

But here was Iron jumping about the cabin, busy as a chipmunk, with just

the same hurried, funny way of blaspheming. He had to make fire, cook

soup, and haul things in from outdoors, while he told me news about a

team, a sleigh, a load of stores for me, and his own services paid up

six months ahead if I'd let him work on the ranch. He was like a little

boy which plays at keeping store, where you've got to pretend to trade,

with nary a smile, lest he should see and the whole game turn unreal. So

I sat up for soup, which made my loose skin fit me again as I filled.

I'd answer to all he did, grave as a constable, playing the game of life

just as I used to.

All of us have to play, at trade, at war, at love, at kingdoms and

republics. We play at empire without a grin, we play with serious faces

at learning and the arts. Yet all the business of men is like a game of

children playing on the sands, as though there were no tide to sweep

away our footprints.

I played with Iron at being alive, and he got so damned indulgent I

could have smacked his face.

When he'd tended the horses, Iron set up a clock upon the shelf, so I

might hear the ticking as time passed. He carried in armloads from the

sleigh, he opened cases, he spilled out sacks. He showed me maple syrup,

try-your-strength cigars, a dandy rifle with plenty ammunition, books,

clothes, candy, a piano which plays itself, then garden seeds, and all

sorts of things which you'd have honed for in the long ago. The place

was like a barter store, piled to the beams with riches wasted on me,

who hadn't a neighbor left. Why, even Iron, who used to think for no one

but himself, had a kitten for me, warm in his pocket, and forgotten

until a case of hardware squashed out its best Sunday scream. Who'd ever

think, too, that so small a bundle of fur and claws should have a purr

to fill my whole bed with joy. Surely, I loved this world I'd so nearly

quit, when after supper Iron loosed a gramophone. The Hudson's Bay man

had shown him a special "record" from England, the angel song in

Chopin's _Marche Funebre_. We had that first, the very song she used to

sing in this cabin, times when I reckoned it a shameful thing for any

man to cry.

It was Kate's voice.

Oh, tell God, mother, that I'm very grateful. I heard her voice filling

this place which used to be her home. Though my wife and I are parted

for all our years--love finds a way.

A week or more had passed, and I'd my strength again. The river had

frozen so that we could cross to the hunting grounds beyond, and when we

came back our camp was full of meat.

I was once rich, before my wealth of memories went bad and turned to

pain. I once had peace or thought so, till I found that there is none

for men who keep on growing. But wealth of memories, and peace of mind,

and humbleness of spirit are but emptiness, and life is a waste until it

is filled with love. Iron's kindness to me, the charity which sent me

Kate's voice, the love behind the gift which found me dying--these are

the things which saved my soul alive. My life must be filled with love,

my hours must be deeds of help for others, there must be no more self in

me at all. It would be better to be damned and doing good in hell, than

to squander love where it runs waste in Heaven.

The truth is scarce, being winnowed by many preachers, and my grains

when I try to eat them, are mostly husks. Iron calls me a coward. But

Polly only weighs ninety-eight pounds, and I two hundred, so that I

couldn't have managed to feel brave fighting her. Then Iron claims it's

not the little woman I ought to fight, but the big evil she did in

bringing all our settlers to death or ruin. A woman's whim is light as

thistle-down, but thistles choke the pasture unless you fight them, and

Christ himself fought to the death against the evils which grew rank

around him. I doubt I've been a cowardly sort of Christian.

Was I right to live alone? For if this world's a school, I've been a

truant. Can I live for self, while all things done for self are only

wasted? My place was in the world working for others.

I'd got so far in thinking my morals needed repairs, when a new thing

happened, pointing out the way. O'Flynn rode over burning the trail from

the Hundred. My wife is there! Although we may not meet, her love has

brought her from England to be near me.

O'Flynn has seen my son, he has spoken with Father Jared, he has come

with Kate from England, and he left her nursing at Bolt Taylor's

bedside. She is sending Surly Brown from Soda Creek with a cable, to

build a new scow, and start the ferry again. Ransome Pollock's to manage

the Trevor ranch. Iron's to reopen the Sky-line while she makes his

peace with the owners--O'Flynn wants to run the packing. She is finding

a doctor to take McGee's practise. Tearful George is to buy an imported

stallion, and drift him with a bunch of East Oregon mares to stock my

empty pastures. The dead settlement is to live again as though there had

been no Polly to rob, ruin, and murder among our pioneers. And then my

wife will send young Englishmen to school with me for training.

Stroke by stroke this Mr. O'Flynn comes lashing home the news into my

hide, as though I were being flogged. He says he hated me always, but

never despised me before as he does now. My wife and I should change

clothes, only I'd be too useless for a woman. Iron says the same, and in

a most unchristian way I thrashed the pair, knocking their heads

together, for putting me too much in the wrong while I wanted my

breakfast. They think there's something in my argument.

The news is better for being discussed, and best of all I reckon this

man Eure who is to side-track Polly, building a town at the foot of the

Hundred Mile Falls. The pines on the high land, too small a trash for

lumber, are good enough for pulp to feed a mill, while paper is the

plate from which we eat our knowledge. I see the black bush turning into

books, the lands in oats or pasture till they're warmed for wheat, and

when we come to the rocks there's marble to build colleges for our sons,

gold to endow them. The land too poor for any other crop, is best for

raising men.

It's only because I'm happy I write nonsense, feeling this night as

though I were being cured of all my blindness. I have a sense that

though I sit in darkness, my wife is with me, and if my eyes were

opened, I should see her. Is it our weakness which gives such strength

to love?

CHAPTER IV

AT HUNDRED MILE HOUSE

_Kate's Narrative_

Mr. Eure inspected the woods and water-power, then departed for the

coast, secretly to buy timber limits, avowedly to find a nurse and a

doctor.

Mr. Tom Faulkner, his engineer, surveyed, then let contracts for

temporary snow road, log buildings at the falls, and a telegraph line

which would secure our business from being known at Polly's post-office.

Mr. Dale reopened the Sky-line mines, pending my arrangement with the

owners.

Mr. Surly Brown placed a cable and built a scow in readiness to renew

his ferry business.

Mr. Tearful George placed loads of forage a day's march apart across the

forest, then drifted live stock into Jesse's ranch.

Father Jared sought out young gentlemen to be trained at Jesse's "School

of Colonial Instruction."

Mr. William O'Flynn became bartender, despatch rider, stable man,

general adviser, and commander-in-chief at the Hundred.

A bewildered Chinaman, with a yellow smile, cooked, scrubbed, chattered

pidgin-English, and burned incense to Joss in the kitchen.

And I, Kate, was busy nursing and keeping house, with never a moment to

spare for the specters which thronged our forest. After the snow road

diverted traffic, my one visitor was Pete Mathson, who on Saturdays

climbed the long hill for his rations. When my patient was well enough,

he would talk with "Bolt" Taylor about old times in the gold mines, or

on the high technic of pack-train harness, above the comprehension of a

woman.

Until the nurse came I was with my patient always, and slept in the same

close room. On her arrival--how I envied that pretty uniform--Nurse

Panton proceeded to set us all to rights. She was a colorless creature,

supported by routine as by a corset, and Billy informed me that she

needed to be shocked thoroughly. He told her that the patient, being a

sailor, wanted the nursing done shipshape and Bristol fashion. Nurse and

I were to have each four hours on and four off, with two dog or half

watches, which would daily reverse the order, so giving us the middle

watch by turns. Nurse was indignant at the very idea, and finding me on

Billy's side, protested to the captain. "Capital!" said he, delighted at

any chance of shaking up the long monotony of illness. "You'll strike

the bells as we do at sea," he said, "two for each hour."

Of course the first of the nursing ten commandments is, "Pretend to

agree with the patient;" but then the naval officer, if he missed his

bells, would awake with horrible deep-sea oaths, and "Stop her grog," so

that she got no tea except by obedience.

Whether relieved at midnight or at four A. M. I would put on my furs for

a little prowl outdoors. To leave the house when it was forty degrees

below zero, felt like the plunge into an icy bath, but gave the same

refreshment afterward. And it was good to watch the ghostly dances of

the northern lights fill the whole sky with music visible.

Once setting out on such an excursion I traversed the dining-hall,

entered the dark barroom, and opened the inner door which gave upon the

porch. But this time I could not push the storm door open. Something

resisted, something outside thrusting at the panels, something alive. I

fell back against the bar, imagining bears, burglars, bogies, anything,

while I listened, afraid to breathe.

It was then I heard a voice, a girlish voice outside in the Arctic cold,

chanting in singsong recitation as though at school:

"Bruce, Bruce; Huron, Desoronto; Chatham Cayuga; Guelph--not Guelph--oh,

what comes after Cayuga?" Then feeble hands battered against the door,

"Teacher! Teacher!"

But when I opened the door, the girl stepped back afraid.

"You're not the teacher," she said; "oh, tell me before she comes.

Sixty-six counties and the towns have all got mixed."

"Come in and let me tell you."

"I daren't! I daren't! You're not the teacher. This is not the school.

You'll take me back!"

She turned, trying to run away, but her legs seemed wooden, and she slid

about as though she were wearing clogs.

"I won't," she screamed, "I won't go back!" Then she fell.

"Dear child, you shan't go back."

But still she shrank from me. "Oh, leave me alone!" she pleaded.

"Mayn't I give you some tea?"

"You won't take me back to Spite House?"

"Not to that dreadful place."

"Do you keep girls, too?"

"There's only a nurse, and a poor dying man."

"And you'll hear me the counties of Ontario?"

"Why, yes, dear."

"I'll come then," but as she tried to get up, "it's cramp," she moaned.

"Dear child, you're freezing."

"I'm not cold, it's cramp."

She must have fallen through the snow which covered our water-hole, for

she was literally incased in ice up to the breasts.

Finding I had not strength to carry her, I shouted for the nurse, who

roused Billy, and then the Chinaman. Together we carried her indoors,

gave her brandy, and laid her, dressed as she was, in Captain Taylor's

bath. Then while Billy rode hard for a doctor, nurse and I filled the

bath with freezing water, which for eight hours we kept renewed with

ice. Drawn gently from her body, the frost formed a film of ice upon the

surface, but she assured me that she felt quite warm, without the

slightest pain. To sustain her I gave liquid food at intervals, and

quite clear now in her mind, even cheerfully she trusted me with her

story.

She told me of a village among vineyards, overlooking Lake Ontario,

just where a creek comes tumbling down from the Niagara heights. Her

father, a retired minister, wasted his narrow means in trying to raise

the proper grapes for sacramental wine. Mother was dead, and nine small

children had to be fed and clothed, to appear with decency at church and

school, so that they would not be ashamed among the neighbors. "You

see," she added primly, "I'm the eldest, the only one grown up, so, of

course, I couldn't be spared to stay at college." And there was little

to earn in the village, much to do taking a mother's place.

Then Uncle John found an advertisement in the paper. A governess was

wanted for four children somewhere in British Columbia. The wages were

so generous that there would be enough to spare for helping father. It

meant so much of proper food, and good warm clothing for the younger

children. So references were exchanged with Mr. Brooke, who wrote most

charming letters, and Uncle John lent money for the journey. My little

schoolma'am pursed her lips severely over that loan, which must be

repaid by instalments. Then her eyes shone with tears, and her face

quivered, all the scholastic manner quite gone, for she spoke of the sad

parting with everybody she loved, then of the long nights, the lonely

days of that endless journey across the continent.

Mr. Brooke met Jenny at Ashcroft, and took her by sleigh nearly a

hundred miles, getting more and more familiar and horrid until, in a

state of wild fear of him, she ran for safety into a drunken riot at

Spite House. The waitresses were rude and cruel, Polly lay drunk on the

floor. There were no children.

Afterward I learned from Mr. Eure that I was a prejudiced witness,

without a shred of evidence, that no court would listen to hearsay, and

that the dying girl's confession would not be allowed in court except it

were made under oath before a magistrate. Poor Jenny would never have

told any man what happened at Spite House; she would not have given the

last sane moments of her life to vengeance; and so there was no case

against either Brooke or Polly in a crime which had earned them penal

servitude.

Vengeance? I think our prayers together did more good, and when the time

came for Jenny's removal to a bed of lint soaked in carbolic oil, she

was prepared to face the coming pain.

"Shall I die?" she asked. I could only kiss her.

"Then," she said, "even if it isn't true, tell papa I died game."

She was Canadian, and there is valor in that blood.

Before she was moved, Doctor Saunderson, of Clinton, had taken charge,

and since we lacked petroleum enough for a bath, approved what we had

done. He used opiates, but the pain, after a frostbite is thawed, is

that which follows burning. On the third day came exhaustion--and

release.

I was obliged to give evidence at the inquest, and my profession has

taught me quietness, restraint, simplicity. The coroner might talk law,

but I was dealing with men, it was my business to make them cry. There

was no case against Brooke, but from that time onward visitors to Spite

House were treated as lepers until they left the country.

For the rest, I would not be present either at the funeral or at the

public meeting, or see the press man who came up from Ashcroft, or

discuss the matter with any of my neighbors.

The theme was one distasteful to any woman with claims to decency. These

things are not discussed. And even if through misfortune my relationship

with Jesse became a common scandal, at least I need not share the

conversation. To make a scene, to discuss my affairs with strangers, to

seek public sympathy, were things impossible. Yet I heard enough. The

waitresses were gone from Spite House, the constable was dismissed from

his position; the business of the post-office and stage-line were

transferred to Mr. Eure's stopping-place at the falls. Brooke and Polly

were left alone, with no power, it seemed then, for any further

mischief.

Until it actually happened, I never expected that Brooke would visit me,

but perhaps from his point of view the event was piquant. His betrayal

of Billy's father to the gallows, of Jesse and myself to Polly's

vengeance, and of an innocent lady to ruin, and death by cold, might

have made even Brooke suspect he would not be welcomed. But then Billy

was away, the gentleman had a revolver, and neither the nurse, the

Chinaman, nor myself were dangerous. Hearing a horse at the door, I went

to the barroom, and dodged behind the bar or he would have shaken hands.

While he was actually present it did not occur to me that there might be

danger. I was conscious of aromas from stale clothes and cigars, liquor,

perfumes, and hair-oil; I noted the greasy pallor which comes of a life

by lamplight; and while Brooke was Brooke, he had to dress his part. As

a professional gambler, he wore long hair, mustache and imperial,

broadcloth and black slouch hat, celluloid "linen" and sham diamonds. To

these the climate added bright yellow moccasins, and a fur coat of the

hairiest, the whole costume keyed up to Sunday best. Dirty and common,

of course, yet let me in justice own that Brooke was handsome, frank,

and magnetic as of old. Even the ravages of every vice had left him

something of charm, his only asset in the place of manhood.

No, I was not frightened, but as a daughter of Eve a little curious to

know what brought him, and not quite fool enough to run the risk of

showing any temper.

When I asked him to state his business, with a large gesture he claimed

the visitor's drink. It is an old custom, which I broke.

"You think I'm a villain?"

I made no comment.

"I've come to thank you, ma'am. If you'd pressed that girl's case it

might have been well--awkward."

I told him that had I known the law, I should have done my best to get

him penal servitude for life.

"That's straight," he answered indulgently, "you always were clear grit,

and that's why I want--well, ma'am," he lowered his eyes, "I'm going to

confess. You don't mind?" he added.

My eyes betrayed my one desire, escape, but he stood in the doorway

leading to the house.

"Your presence," I said, "is distasteful. Please, will you let me pass?"

"Not till I've set things straight."

There was no bell with which to summon help, and I should have been

ashamed to make a scene.

"Go on," I said.

"I dunno how you feel, mum, about life. I've been disappointed, starting

in with ideals, and they're gone. I'm as straight as the world will let

me, without my going hungry."

Let me here quote one of Jesse's letters to his mother. "This Brooke and

I grew our beef and matured our horns on the same strong pasture, but

where a homely face kept me out of temptation, he had what you call

beauty, and I'd call vanity. Instead of trying to _be_, he aimed to act.

He'd play cow-boy, or robber, or gambler, things he could never _be_,

because he's not a man. He could wear the clothes, the manners, the

talk, and pass himself off for real. The women who petted him sank and

were left in the lurch. The men who trusted him were shot and hanged.

That made him lonesome, gave him the melancholy past, the romantic air,

the charm--all stock in trade. Long hair costs nothing, he pays no dog

tax, but life is too rich for his blood, and in the end he'll die of it

like Judas. Say, mother, wasn't there a Mrs. Judas Iscariot? She must

have been a busy woman to judge by the size of the Iscariot family."

"Yes," Brooke sighed, "I'm a disillusioned, disappointed man."

I had a curious sense that this actor of life was trying to be real, and

in the attempt he posed.

"Not that I claim," he went on, "that Spite House is anyways holy. It's

not. Of course, a sporting and gambling joint meets a demand, a

regrettable demand, a thing we both abhor and would like to be shut of.

But since demand creates the supply, let's have it in high-toned style,

not run by thugs. That's what I say."

His spacious benevolence seemed to confer partnership, yet to be shocked

at my immoral tendencies.

"However," he sighed, "it's over. It's done with, shoved aside. There

was money in it, but small money, and we pass on. Old Taylor may have

told you that as far back as November we decided, Mrs. Smith and me, to

run the house as a first-class resort for tourists. We bought the Star

Pack-train from Taylor, and the old cargador is making our new

riggings."

This was news indeed!

"Of course pack-trains as such are out of date as Noah's ark, and we've

got to march with the procession. You'll see in this prospectus," he

held out a paper, "well, I'll read it. Let's see--yes--'Forest Lodge,

long under the able management of Mrs. Jesse Smith, with great

experience in' * * * no, it's further on--'Forest Lodge is the natural

center for parties viewing the wondrous wilds.' That should grip them,

eh? 'Experienced guides with pack and saddle animals from the famous

Star _atajo_,' we can't call them mules, of course, 'will escort parties

visiting the sceneries and hunting grounds of the Coast Range, the

Cariboo, the Omenica, the Babine, and the Cassiar.' That ought to

splash!"

Billy had warned me of bad characters settled on the lands toward

Jesse's ranch. Were these Brooke's "experienced guides"?

"Naturally," Brooke folded his prospectus, "the sporting trade had to be

closed right down before the tourist connection took a hold. Millionaire

sportsmen out to spend their dollars, expect to find things just so.

They want recherche meals, and unique decorations, real champagne wine,

and everything 'imported' even when it's made on the spot. They don't

make no hurroar over losing a few thousands at cards, but they just

ain't going to stand seeing Polly laying around drunk on the barroom

floor. I tell you when they comes I ain't going to have Polly around my

place. That's straight. She'll get her marching orders P. D. Q."

So Polly was next for betrayal.

"Yes." Brooke became very confidential. "What I require at Forest Lodge

is a real society hostess, a lady. Yes, that's what's the matter--a

lady. Now that's what I come about. Ever since I seen you Mrs., I mean

madam, I mean--"

He became quite diffident, leaving the doorway, leaning over the

counter.

"Would you--" he began, "would you be prepared, ma'am, to--"

My way was clear, and I ran.

It often seemed to me that Jesse's life and mine were veiled in some

strange glamour of a directed fate. Little by little, in ever so slow

degrees this mist was lifting, and I began to feel that soon the air

would clear, giving us back to blessed commonplace. Through no act of

mine, but by Brooke's incompetence, the prosperous business of Spite

House had been brought to ruin.[A] Polly was drinking herself to death,

and presently would find herself betrayed by that same callous treachery

which had wrought such havoc in my dear man's life and mine.

[Footnote A: Note: Jesse says I ruined Polly, which just shows how

_prejudiced_ men are, even at the best.]

Billy had held these last few weeks that Polly's funds were gone, that

she was penniless. He begged me to let him destroy the great sign-board

across the road to Spite House. Failure to renew that would indeed be

conclusive proof of the woman's penury, but the meanness of such a test

revolted me, for one does not strike a fallen adversary.

Were there any funds to promote black pines and mosquitoes as an

attraction to millionaires? Brooke in his folly had divulged that

foolish scheme, sufficient to complete the ruin of a poor wretched

woman, before he abandoned her interests to seek his own. Was it true? I

went straight to Captain Taylor.

For a week past my refractory patient had insisted upon living entirely

upon cheese, a seemingly fatal diet, which to confess the truth had done

him a world of good. Save for the loss of his sight he was quite his

dear old self and glad of a gossip.

"Yes, Kate," he chuckled, "the murder's out at last. You see I'm not

exactly prosperous, and my retired pay is a drop in my bucket of debts.

And then our good friend Polly invested all her wealth in buying up the

mortgage on this ranch."

"But why?"

"For fun. For the pleasure of turning me out. She kindly granted me

permission to sleep in that old barrel which used to belong to my fox,

but then you see I really couldn't be under any obligations to the

lady."

"Did you pay off the mortgage?"

"I did. So Polly strums rag-time tunes on my piano, Brooke wears my

early Victorian frock coat, they serve their beans and bacon with my

family plate, the gentleman sports my crest, the lady has my dear

mother's diamonds which are really paste. My dear, they're county

society--you really must call and leave cards."

"But the portraits!"

"They stared at me so rudely that I burnt them. Ancestors ought to

remember they're dead, and they'd rather be burned, too, than be claimed

as Polly's aunts."

"And the Star Pack-train?"

"A half-interest, my dear, a half-interest, that's all."

"So you're in partnership?"

"Why, no. Fact is, old Pete has been working thirty-five years, with his

faithful eyes shining behind that hair--it's silver now, eh? Well, I

couldn't leave him in the lurch. And there's the Hudson's Bay to

consider, with forts up north depending on us for supplies. And I

suppose, when I come to think of it, I'm rather proud of the outfit.

So, in my sentimental way, I made a deed by which Pete is managing

owner, with a half-interest, while Polly is sleeping partner with no

right to interfere."

"You've told Pete?"

"No. I suppose I've got to own up?"

"You don't want Pete to be cheated by his partners."

"You're right. Just open my desk and look inside. It's the paper on

top."

I found and read the deed.

"You've read it, of course," I said.

"It was read to me by the lawyer chap. Isn't it all right?"

"Oh, yes," I managed to say, "it's all right--such funny legal jargon."

I looked at the names of the witnesses, Cultus McTavish and Low-lived

Joe, the worst characters in our district. The document read to the old

blind man had been no doubt destroyed. The deed actually signed made

Polly sole owner of the famous pack-train. My friend had been cheated.

CHAPTER V

THE CARGADOR

_Kate's Narrative_

It was sixty degrees below zero. The moonlight lay in silver on the

pines, the hundred-and-four-mile cabin, deep buried among the drifts,

glittered along the eaves with icicles, the smoke went up into the hush

of death, and the light in the frosted window would glow till nearly

dawn.

Within, Pete sat upon his shiny bench, rolling waxed end upon his shiny

knee, and tautened his double stitches through the night, scarcely

feeling the need of sleep. His new _aparejos_, stacked as they were

finished, had gradually crowded poor Mrs. Pete into her last stronghold,

the corner between the wood-box and the bunk. Fiercely she resented the

filling of her only room with harness, of her bunk with scrap leather,

which scratched her, she said. Wedged into her last corner, she would

patch disgraceful old socks, while Pete at his sewing crooned _One More

River_, or some indecent ballad of the gold mines.

"Mother," Pete would look up from his bench. "You mind when I brung her

here right to this very cabin, with Father Jared, and the Baby, David?"

"What makes you hover, Pete?"

"D'ye mind Baby David?"

"Didn't I nurse him?" said the old woman softly. "He'd red hair like his

stuck-up mother, blue eyes same as Jesse, and a birthmark on his off

kidney. Now, did you ask her about that birthmark?"

"I told her," said Pete, "that a suspicious female, with a face like a

grebe and an inquirin' mind is wishful to inspeck Dave's kidneys."

Mother wagged her head. "I own I'd like to believe Kate Smith is back in

this country, but you're such a continuous and enduring liar."

"That's so," said Pete.

One day when the sun shone brightly into the cabin, Billy arrived with a

letter from Captain Taylor. Pete would not give it to mother, or read it

aloud, or even tell the news. He danced an ungainly hornpipe, and mother

had to shake him.

"Can a woman's tender care

Cease toward the child She--Bear?

In the Old town

To-night my ba-Bee!"

"Now what on airth's the matter with yew?" mother boiled over.

"Yes, she may forgetful Bee,

Yet will I--remember Me.

"Finish them riggings by first May, says he.

"Says the old Obadiah

To the young Obadiah,

Obadiah, Obadiah!

Oh, be damned!

"Says I'm partner and boss of the outfit, and running the whole shootin'

match, and I'll get more wealth than'll patch hell a mile, and

"Thar's none like Nancy Lee, I trow,

Ow! Ow!

"Oh, mother, Bolt's give me a half-interest, and ain't this a happy

little home, my darlin'!"

At that Mrs. Pete flung her skinny arms around his neck, and the two

silly old things sobbed together.

A week later, when, to save Pete a long tramp, Billy rode down with the

rations, he found the old people concerned "about this yere

partnership."

"Mother allows this Brooke is trash," said Pete, wagging his snowy head,

"and for all the interest he takes he's mostly corpse. Thar's shorely

holes in my 'skito bar."

Billy read the letter thoughtfully.

"Brooke been to see the riggings?" he asked.

"Once in December. He don't know nothin', either."

"Wonder what he wants?"

"Smells mean, eh?"

"A mean smell, Pete."

Billy had spent the week tracking down the two bad characters who had

served as witnesses to a false agreement. Their confession was now in

evidence against Brooke, in case he dared repudiate Mathson's rights as

partner, but there was no need to alarm the cargador. So Billy changed

the subject, demanding tea, and there was a fine gossip.

"Mr. O'Flynn," asked mother, "hev yew bin in love?"

"Engaged," said Billy in triumph.

"Dew tell!"

"Yes, to Madame Scotson's nurse over in England."

"Does she patch your socks?"

"Now, mother," Pete interrupted, "when you was courting me did you patch

my socks?"

"Wall, I--"

"Come to think," said the cargador, "I didn't have them, being then in

the Confederate army. But, mother, you did sure scratch my face!"

"Wall, that's no dream," said mother, bridling.

Once after his Saturday's tramp up the great hill, Pete returned looking

very old. "I axed Bolt," he explained, "about this yere partnership."

"Well?" asked mother sharply. "Well?"

"Bolt says thar's pigs with pink bows to their tails, just stretchin'

and stretchin' around his sty."

The old woman turned her back, for Pete was crying.

In April there came a rush of warmth out of the west, licking up all the

snow, save only on that high plateau where the Hundred and Spite House

seemed to wait and wait in the white silence.

The spring storms came, the rains changed to snow, the snow changed to

rain, with hail-storms, and thunder rolling over snow. The cheeky

little buttercups peeped up through the tails of the snowdrift, and

far away, below Jesse's ranch in the Fraser canyon, the Star brand mules

worshiped their old bell mare among the marigolds. The ground was bare

now about Pete's cabin, all sodden pine chips to the edge of the

rain-drenched bush, and the willow buds were bursting.

Pete sat under a roof of cedar shakes which he had built to shelter the

new "riggings." Around him in a horseshoe stood fifty complete

_aparejos_, each with coiled lash and sling rope underneath, breeching

and crupper, _sovran helmo_ and _cinchas_, sweat pad, blanket, and

_corona_, while the head-ropes strapped the _mantas_ over all. He was

riveting the last of sixty hackamores, as he dreamed of the great north

trail, of open meadows by the Hagwilgaet, of the heaven-piercing spire

of Tsegeordinlth at the Forks of Skeena.

"Mother," he said, "I'm no slouch of a cargador. Them red gin cases is

still to rig for kitchen boxes, and it's all complete. The mules is

fattening good, I hear, and the men's the same as last summer, all worth

their feed, too."

But mother, grim and fierce in the throes of her spring cleaning, had

not come to admire. "Pete," she shrilled, "two more buckets of water,

and yew jest git a move on. And how long hev yew bin promisin' to

whittle me them clothes-pins? Now jest yew hustle, Pete, or I'll get

right ugly."

Pete only cut from the plug into his palm, and rolled the tobacco small

for his corn-cob pipe. His winter servitude was ended, and he was

master, the cargador before whom all men bow in the dread northlands.

Mother went off content to carry her own water, and Pete, with something

of a flourish, lighted his pipe.

"Mother!" Pete let out a sharp call, and forgetting her business, mother

came quite humbly, as though to heel. "Yes, Pete?"

He pointed with his pipe at a distant horseman rounding the flank of the

hill.

"Brooke?" she whispered, both gnarled rheumatic hands clutched at her

heart.

"I reckon," said Pete cheerfully. "Thinks he's a circus procession. That

sorrel's clattering a loose near-hind shoe, and her mouth just bleeding

as he saws with that spade bit. He's a sure polecat. Trots down-hill,

too, and suffers in his tail. Incompetent, mother. Look at his feet!

He's bad as a stale salmon, rotten to the bones. Been drinking, too."

Brooke drew up and dismounted, leaving his rein on the horse's neck,

instead of dropping it to the ground. When Brooke moved to sit on an

_aparejo_, Pete ordered him to one of the kitchen boxes. "Not Bolt

hisself may sit on _my_ riggings," said the old gray cargador.

"I thought," said Brooke quite kindly, "that this harness was mine."

"A half-interest," said mother, "sure-ly."

"I fear," said Brooke, "you sort of misunderstood. Old Taylor did say

something about your usefulness as a working partner, and, of course, if

we hadn't canceled that preposterous contract with the Hudson's Bay

Company, there's no doubt your knowledge of the country up north would

have been worth paying for. It was, as you say, damned awkward about his

being blind as a bat; in fact, I was put to quite a lot of trouble

getting the agreement witnessed. However," he produced a document which

mother snatched, "it's all there in black and white, and there's the old

fool's signature--holds good in any court of law--proves that I've

bought and paid for the whole _atajo_. You needn't claim I haven't a

clear title--so you needn't stare at me as if I'd forged the signature.

It's straight goods, I tell you."

Mother reeled backward, while she grabbed Pete's shoulders so that the

agreement fluttered to Brooke's feet. She steadied herself, then with a

husky croak, "You made Bolt sign _that_--blind, dying, so he dunno

what's on the paper."

"Can you prove that?" asked Brooke indulgently, as though he spoke to

children. "If you say things like that, it's criminal libel, and you're

both liable to the Skookum House. However," he shrugged his shoulders,

and put the agreement away, "I don't want to be hard on you, Pete."

"Mister Mathson," mother hissed at him.

Pete, with a whispered word to mother, rose from his bench, and without

appearing to see Mr. Brooke, walked past him across the sunlit yard, and

on slowly up the great lifting curve of the road to Hundred Mile House.

The sun was setting behind him when Pete rested at last upon the

snowclad summit, and dusk lay in lakes of shadow far below him. At the

Hundred he found the lamps alight, and, as usual, Billy offered him a

drink. "I ain't drinking," said Pete huskily, as he lurched past the bar

into the dining-hall, and on to the little room on the right where

Captain Taylor lay.

"Bolt!" he whispered.

"That you, Pete? Sit down," said the boss cheerily. "How's the claim,

Pete? Getting coarse gold, eh?"

"Gold? Say, Bolt, what's the matter, old fellow?"

"Matter? Why, nothing, Pete," the blind eyes shone keenly; "of course

I'm not nearly to bedrock yet, and as to what I owe you've jolly well

got to wait. How's old Calamity? I got Lost Creek Jim to work at last."

Was the boss dreaming of old times on Lightning Creek?

"Watty's in with the mail," said Bolt.

Watty had been dead these thirty years.

Then Pete sat down on the bedside, and the two miners prattled about the

new flume, and the price of flour in a camp now overgrown with jungle.

A word to Billy would have been enough to get the _aparejos_ to a place

of safety, pending the settlement of Pete's just claim as partner. But

the cargador knew well that death had come to take the one man he loved.

This was no time for sordid business, disturbing Bolt Taylor's peace.

It was better to go quietly.

* * * * *

The sky was full of stars as Pete went homeward. The stars were big and

round; the forest in an ecstasy kept vigil all alert, all silent, and

the little streams of the thaw were saying their prayers before the

frost sleep of the later hours. The man was at peace. It is not so very

much to be cargador; but it is a very big thing indeed to be unselfish.

The trees kept vigil, the little streams crooned sleepy prayers, the

stars in glory humbly served as lamps, and the man made no cry in his

pain. Far down in the valley he saw a red flame rise.

* * * * *

Mother saw Brooke ride off to inspect his Star mules in their pasture

far away down the Fraser Canyon. She blacked the stove with malice, she

shook the bedding in enmity, set the furniture to rights as though it

were being punished, then sat on the damp floor brooding, while twilight

deepened over a world of treachery. Brooke was a thief, the lying boss

had used Pete and thrown him away wrung dry. And Pete was an old fool

who would forgive.

She had dreaded the lonely summer when she was left with only squirrels

for company. Now Pete would be "settin'" around, ruined, and out of

work, the man who had been used and thrown aside, the laughing-stock of

the teamsters who saw his pride brought low.

Cold and hot by turns, mother made herself tidy against Pete's return,

got the supper ready, and sat watching the door-step. She smoked his

spare corn-cob pipe devising vengeance, while the night closed over her

head.

The frontier breeds fierce women, with narrow venomous enmities toward

the foes of the house. Even if Pete suffered, Brooke should not prosper,

or the boss who had failed her man. Mother dragged two five-gallon cans

of petroleum from the lean-to, and staggering under their weight, poured

the oil over all Brooke's harness. Breathing heavily with her labor, she

carried loads of swampy hay, and cord-wood, until the _aparejos_ were

but part of a bonfire. Then with a brand from the stove she set the hay

alight. There should be no public shame to break Pete's heart, there

should be no pack-train unless he were cargador.

Pete stood beside the ashes, searching mother's face with his slow

brooding eyes. Her burning rage was gone, and she was afraid, for now

she thought too late of all his loving pride in the work, the greatness

of the thing which his knowledge and skill had made. _That_ she had

burned. Understanding how love had made this blunder, Pete said no word.

He only knew that Bolt had paid him seven hundred dollars in cash and

kind, which must be returned. In silence he turned away, and once more

faced the terrible hill which led to the Hundred Mile House.

* * * * *

The spring was in my blood, and I could not sleep. Can any creature

sleep when the spring's sweet restless air calls to all nature? The

bears were about again after their winter sleep, busy with last year's

berries. The deer were feasting on new grass down in the lowlands, the

wolverines and cougar were sneaking homeward after the night's hunting.

Even the little birds were coming back to the north, for now and again

as I strolled along the road I would hear a sleepy twitter. "Isn't it

dawn yet?" "Not yet, have another nap." So I came to the brow of the

great hill whence I should see the dawn.

Down in the lower country, on every pool the water-fowl lay abed, each,

from the biggest goose to the littlest teal, with its head tucked under

cover of a wing, and one quaint eye cocked up to catch the glint of

dawn. A wan light was spreading in the northeastern sky, and presently

the snowy brow of the hill revealed its wrinkled front, its frozen

runnels. The sentinels of the wild fowl saw that first gleam of coming

day, called the reveille along from pool to pool, roused thunder of

innumerable wings, marshaled their echelons in soaring hosts, and broke

away in the northward flight of spring. Far in the east a lone moose

trumpeted.

I was turning back refreshed toward my duty, when I heard something

moan. The sound came from underneath a pine tree, the one at the very

top of the long climb which Pete had blazed with his inscription, "Got

thar." With my heart in my mouth I went to find out what was the matter,

and so discovered the old cargador crouched down against the trunk.

"Pete," I asked in a very shaky voice, "what on earth's the matter?"

"Dying, mum."

"But it's too damp here. Why, you'll catch your death of cold."

"That would never do. Say, mum, how's Bolt?"

"Oh, ever so much better."

"Can't do it," said Pete, "if I died first he'd have the joke on me."

"Wouldn't you like a hot rum?"

Pete staggered to his feet. "I'd go for that," he sighed, "just like one

man."

So he took my arm, and I helped him along the road.

"She burned them riggings," he said.

"Mother?"

"Yes. Brooke came inspecting them riggings, so mother burned 'em."

"Won't that be rather awkward?"

"Some. You see, mum, Bolt paid me four hundred and five dollars cash, so

I come to return him the money."

I didn't quite understand. "You see, Pete," I suggested, "you and Brooke

are the owners. Don't you owe half to yourself and half to Brooke?"

"Well, if that's so, I'll pay myself and owe the rest to Brooke. But

then he claims the whole Star _atajo_."

"In that case you owe the whole of the money to Brooke."

"I don't mind owing Brooke." Pete felt so much better that he was able

to walk without help. "Brooke's gone on to inspect mules. I wonder how

he'll get on with them mules?"

As it happened, Jesse was an actual witness to Mr. Brooke's inspection

of the Star mules at their pasture below his ranch. Here is his

narrative:

"Mules are the most religious of all animals. They believe in the bell

mare, who creates grass, water, mud holes, and mosquitoes, and leads

them in the paths of virtue where they don't get any fun. And when they

worship her too much she kicks them in the stomach.

"The trouble for these poor mules was that they followed a false

goddess. Their bell mare Prue ought to have been old enough to know

better, but at the age of twenty-three, with gray hair and bald withers,

she was still female.

"She and her mules had been grazing maybe half a mile when my new

stallion, young Jehoshaphat, happened along with his harem of

twenty-five mares, smelling down wind for a drink. The mares looked so

snug and grass-fat they could scarcely waddle, but Jehoshaphat was full

of sinful pride, waltzing high steps at the sight of Prue.

"You should have seen Prue playing up innocent modesty in front of

Jehoshaphat, pretending she wasn't there, making believe he was too

sudden, didn't approve of the gentleman, flattering his vanity with all

sorts of airs and graces. He up with his tail and showed off, prancing

around pleased as Punch. Prue paraded herself along in front of the

harem to spite the married mares, and all her mules came worshiping

along in pursuit. Those mares gave the mules the biggest kicking you

ever saw in your life.

"There was me lying on Face Rock like a little boy at a circus, and

there was the performance proceeding so joyful that I never saw Brooke

until he rode down right into the middle of the fun. Jehoshaphat got mad

and went for Brooke, chasing him around the pasture. Prue chased

Jehoshaphat, the mules chased Prue, the harem mares bit and kicked at

everybody, Brooke galloped delirious in all directions, and I laughed

until I could hardly hold down the rocks.

"Of course, if Brooke hadn't been a mere mistake on earth, he would have

herded gently to the nearest corral, and cut the two outfits apart. But

Brooke proceeded to lose his temper, pulled his gun, jumped his wretched

sorrel behind a tree, and let drive. He missed the stallion. He shot

Prue through the heart.

"There was nothing after that to keep the sixty Star mules together.

Some went up the canyon, some down, a few even swam the Fraser, but the

heft of them climbed the big cliffs and vanished into the forest.

"I reckon Pete and his _arrieros_ could collect those mules and break

them to loving a new _madrina_. But with Brooke as cargador, the great

Star Pack-train's numbered with the past, and Mathson's partnership is

scarce worth arguing.

"I was sorry to see the fine mules lost, and in my grief I kicked Brooke

about one-third of a mile on his way home afoot."

CHAPTER VI

THE BLACK NIGHT

_Kate's Narrative_

"I, Boulton Wemyss Taylor, Commander R. N., retired, being of sound mind

in a dying body, do hereby make my last will and testament:

"And do appoint the lady known as Madame Scotson my sole executress and

trustee of all property which I may die possessed of;

"To pay my just debts, and to administer the remainder on behalf of my

grandson, James Taylor,

"Until at his coming of age he shall receive the whole estate, if there

is any;

"Save only that I bequeath to Madame Scotson my sword and the Victoria

Cross;

"And with regard to burial, it is my will that no money whatever shall

be spent, but that my body, wrapped in the flag by right of her

majesty's commission, shall be consigned to the earth by my neighbors;

that no friend of mine shall be allowed to stand uncovered catching

cold, or to wear unseemly black clothing at the service of the

resurrection, or to toll bells which should be pealed when the soul

passes to God, or to make pretense or parade of grief for one who is

glad to go."

The months of nursing were ended. No longer should Nurse Panton and I be

afraid when our patient was good, or rejoice when fractious whims and

difficult absurdities marked those rallies in which he fought off death.

At the last, after many hours of silence, he asked me in a boyish voice

if he might go up-stairs to see his uniform. In his dreams he was

leaving school to enter the royal navy.

Billy was away on an errand to the Falls, and it was Nurse Panton's

watch below, when at ten in the evening I saw the change come very

suddenly. The face of my dear friend, no longer old, but timeless,

reflected an unearthly majesty.

For the next hour I was busy rendering the last services, in haste, for

the lamp had a most peculiar smell. I took it away and lighted candles,

but it was not the lamp. Spreading the Union Jack upon the bed, I bolted

from that room. For a time I sat in the dining-hall but could not stay

there. Even in the barroom I still had to fight off something

intangible, a sense of being watched, a presentiment of evil coming

swiftly nearer.

Closing the door which led into the house, I opened that which gave upon

the yard, then placed a flickering candle on the counter, and my chair

in front of it facing the darkness. All through the evening the

drenching rain had fallen, with sob of dripping eaves. Now at the open

doorway, loud, insistent, the great diapason of the rain was choral to

those little sad voices which fluted, throbbed, and muttered near at

hand, the lament of the water drops, the liquid note from every pool,

the plaint of trickling streamlets.

It is the presence of the dead which makes their resting-places serene

with quiet beauty, instinct with tenderness toward all living hearts.

That presence had entered the good log house, a home of human warmth, of

kindly comfort, made holy, consecrate, where people would hush their

voices, constrained to reverence.

And in the gracious monotone of the rain, compound of voices joined in

requiem, I felt a soothing melancholy beauty, knowing well how peace not

of this world had come into the homestead.

But outside that, beyond, in the dread forest, a threat, a menace

filled the outer darkness. Fear clutched at my heart, a presentiment

told me of evil, of instant danger. Then, as though the horror in the

night moved other hearts as well as mine, the Chinese cook came groping

his way through the dining-hall and humbly scratched at the door. I let

him in and he crept to a stool in the near corner. I whispered to him:

"Are you frightened, Sam?"

"Too plenty much," he quavered, "me flitened bad."

He lighted his pipe and seemed, like me, to be eased by human company.

Once only he moved, and in the queerest way came with his long yellow

fingers to touch me, then timid, but reassured, crept back to his stool

in the corner.

Soon Nurse Panton joined us, her hair in corkscrews, looking very plain,

peevish because she had not been called at midnight. "What's the

matter?" she asked crossly, and for answer I pulled down the blinds. She

shivered as she passed the open door to take a chair behind it. She

begged me to close the door, but the night was warm, and besides I dared

not. Nurse and Chinaman each had a glass of port, and so did I, feeling

much better afterward.

An hour passed, the Chinaman nodding like those ridiculous mandarin

figures with loose heads, the nurse pallid against the gloom, staring

until she got on my nerves. I always disliked that woman with her

precise routine and large flat feet.

Far off I heard the thud of a gunshot, then three shots all together,

and afterward a fifth. The evil in the night was coming nearer, and I

said to myself, "If I were really frightened I should close that door.

I'm half a coward."

The hero himself had strung his Victoria Cross upon a riband which I

wore about my neck. Could I wear the cross and set an example of

cowardice to these poor creatures who crouched in the corners of the

room? To show fear is a privilege of the underbred. But I did long for

Jesse.

Through the murmurs of the nearer rain, I felt a throb in the ground,

then heard a sound grow, of a horse galloping. The swift soft rhythm,

now loud, now very faint again, then very near, echoed against the

barns, thundered across the bridge, splashed through the flooded yard,

and ceased abruptly.

Billy had come home from the Falls, he was stabling his roan, he was

crossing the yard in haste, his spurs clanked at the door-step and,

dreading his news, a sudden panic seized me. I fled behind the bar.

He entered, astream with rain, shading his eyes against the

candle-light; then as I moved he called out, as though I were at a

distance, begging me for brandy. His face was haggard, his hand as he

drank was covered with dried blood, he slammed the glass on the counter

so that it broke.

"You heard the shots?" he said.

"At Spite House?" I whispered.

He nodded.

"You were there?" I asked.

"Half a mile beyond. When I got there it was all dark. Looked in through

the end window, but the rain got down my neck, so I went round. The

front door was standing open. I listened a while. No need to get shot

myself. Thought the place was derelict. Then I heard groans.

"Struck a bunch of matches then, found the hall lamp, and got it alight.

Wished I'd got a gun, but there wasn't nothing handy except the poker,

so I took that and the light--just followed the groans. He was lying on

the barroom floor."

"Brooke?"

"Yes. Shot through the throat, blood spurting down the side of his neck,

making a big pool on the oil-cloth. You know the thing you make with a

stick and a scarf to twist up? A tourniquet, yes. Well, it choked the

swine, so I quit. He whispered something about my thumb hurting the

wound, so I told him my father's neck hurt worse.

"Up to that I thought he was just acting, playing pathetic to touch my

feelings. Once he muttered your name, and then he was dead."

"Brooke dead!"

"Yes, he'd been shooting Polly, too. I traced her blood tracks all the

way to the front door. Hello, what's that? I thought I heard--"

I listened and there was only the sound of the rain.

"I suppose it's all right," said Billy, "we'd better close that door,

though."

But before he could reach the door, Nurse Panton called him away to her

corner, where she spoke in a whisper so that I should not hear, sending

him, perhaps, for her cloak. Meanwhile I came from behind the counter to

my former seat before the open doorway, where I sat staring into the

darkness, unable to feel any more, but just benumbed. Across my

weariness flickered the mournful soliloquy of a poor barn-door

fowl--"Yesterday an egg, to-morrow a feather duster! What's the good of

anythin', why, nothin'."

Then I, too, heard a sound in the night, and because Billy and the nurse

were muttering, I stood up with the candle-light behind me, trying to

see into the darkness. Billy said afterward he had moved quickly, to

shut the door, but I waved him back just as the shot rang out.

The explosion blinded, deafened, seemed even to scorch me, while the

mirror on the wall came crashing down. Stunned, dazzled, horrified, I

felt a dull rage at this attempted murder.

A second revolver-shot stirred my hair, and I'm afraid then that I lost

my temper. I am not a fish-fag that I should stoop to fighting a

creature such as Polly, but I would have died rather than let her see

one trace of fear.

Billy rushed past the firing to reach the door and close it, but I

ordered him to desist, then grasped the candle and held it out to show a

better light.

"Lower your lights!" I shouted into the dark, "you fired too high!"

A revolver crashed on the door-step, and low down within three feet of

the ground, I saw a dreadful face convulsed with rage, changing to fear.

The woman was sinking to her knees, she buried her face in grimy,

blood-smeared hands, and rocked to and fro in awful abandonment of

grief.

The danger was over now, the menace of evil in the night had vanished. I

felt an immense relief, with hands wet, mouth parched, knees shaking,

and great need of tears. I knew the strain had been beyond endurance,

but now it was gone, although a velvet darkness closing round me, black

night swinging round me, sickness--I must not faint, when I had to

fight, to keep command, to set an example worthy of Jesse's wife. And

there I was sitting in my chair, with drops of sweat forming and pouring

on my forehead. Billy, groping on the floor at my feet, had found and

lighted the candle, and was holding the flame in the palms of his hands

till it steadied and blazed up clear. "Buck up, missus," he was saying.

"Cheer-oh. Don't let 'em know you swooned, mum. Grab on to that cross,

and make it proud of you. That's right. Laugh, mum! Laugh! Wish'd I'd

half yer grit."

I had come to myself and only Billy knew, who was loyal. As the candle

blazed up I saw the Chinaman gibbering like some toothless mask of

yellow india-rubber, but that nurse still kept up her silly screaming,

until I ordered her to shut her mouth, which she did in sheer surprise.

There lay Polly prone across the doorway on her face, racked with

convulsive sobs, until feeling, I suppose, the lashing rain on her back,

she rose on hands and knees like some forlorn wild animal crawling to

shelter, while behind her stretched a trail of wet and blood. I stared

until in shame she sat up, still for all the world like an animal lost

to human feeling, and to a woman's dignity, until as she looked at me a

wan shamed smile seemed to apologize. She sat back then against the log

wall, limp, relaxed with weakness.

"Nurse," I called, still with my gaze on Polly, "this woman is wounded.

You are a nurse. You claimed to be a nurse."

But Miss Panton indulged in hysterics, so I turned to Billy. "Run into

the house, get the hip bath, warm water, blankets, bandages."

"Aye, aye, mum," he touched his forelock, and swinging the Chinaman to

his feet: "Come along, Sam," he grunted, and bustled him off on duty.

Polly looked up, trusting me with her tawny bloodshot eyes. Her voice

was a dreary hoarseness, demanding liquor. But with an open wound, to

quicken the heart's action might be fatal, and Polly knew well it was no

use pleading. Instead of that she pointed at the nurse, and said, "Send

_that_ away."

I turned upon Nurse Panton who sat forsaken and ostentatious in her

corner. "Go," I said, "and make beef tea."

Sniff.

I took her by the shoulders, and marched her out of the room, while

Polly grinned approval. I came back and asked where she was wounded. She

pointed to the left hip, but I dared not remove any clothing which might

have caught and sealed the flow of blood. A sole diet of alcohol and

months of neglect had made her condition such that I shrank from

touching her.

"So you're Kate," she lay against the bottom log of the wall, head back,

eyes nearly shut, looking along her nose at me, "Carroty Kate."

Her own tawny hair, draggled, and hung in snakes, was streaked with

dirty gray.

"Ye took Jesse," she said in weary scorn, "so I ruined him. Then this

Brooke, he fell in love with yer, so I murdered him. Take everything,

give nothin'; that's you, Carrots, give nothin'. That's you, Carrots,

give nothin' away, not even a drink. And I gave everything.

"So you're good, and I'm bad; you're high-toned society, and I'm a poor

sporting lady. Oh, I saw ye lift yer skirt away when yer passed

me--calling yerself a Christian, when just one word of Christian

kindness would have saved the likes of me.

"Ye needn't look over my head as if I wasn't there. I'm no fairy, I

ain't--no dream. I'm facts, and ye'd better face 'em. 'Sisters of

Sorrow' they calls us, who gave everything, who gave ourselves.

"And you _good_ women pride yerselves in virtue, which ain't been

tempted. Your virtue never been outdoors in the rain, gettin' wet. Your

virtue never been starved and froze, or fooled and betrayed. Your colors

ain't run, 'cause they've never been to the wash. You don't know good

from evil, and you set thar judgin' me.

"Tears running down yer face, eh? You think you struck it rough when

you came up agin me. Poor Carrots playin' Christian martyr. I done you

good if you know'd it. I'm all the schoolin' you got in real life. I

waked ye from dreams to livin'. And you an' me is women, sisters in

pain. I wish'd I'd auburn hair like your'n, Kate, and a baby David to

favor me with hair an' eyes. And if I'd had a home! But I didn't get a

fair show ever, and every time I done good, I got it in the neck. Well,

what's the odds?

"It wasn't you brung me down, Kate. Don't cry like that, dear. It don't

matter. Nothing matters. It was this Brooke which done for me, not you

or Jesse. Brooke's only a thing I took in like a lost dog 'cause he was

hungry. He said he'd manage my business, and he shorely did--invested

all I'd got in a governess, and a bonfire at Mathson's, and a stampede

of mules. Then he fooled a widow down to Ashcroft to start him running a

tourist joint, and I was to be turned out. And he fell in love with you.

"I guess that's all, excep' I got to tell you one thing. It was nursing

the sick men kep' me straight all them years, kep' me from drink. You

see I was meant for a nurse, trained for a nurse until--until--well,

never you mind. Brooke stopped the nursing, and I drank. I'm only a

nurse gone wrong.

"Yes, your eyes is wonderin' why they don't come back with them

bandages, and the bath. Don't worry about that, 'cause I'll be dead by

daybreak. Jesse loved yer. Brooke loved yer, and somehow, well, I'm

kinder ranging that way myself. And if I go, you'll get back Jess, eh?"

Rallying what courage I had left, I knelt down and kissed my sister, my

poor sister. For a moment I let her stroke my carroty hair, which she

liked. Then I ran to hurry my people to bring the beef tea, the hot

water, the bandages. I found that wretched nurse detaining Billy and the

Chinaman, with some pretense that I must not be disturbed. I was telling

her to get out of my sight, to go to her bed, when a revolver-shot rang

through the echoing house.

Polly had crawled to the door-step, found her revolver. She who gave

everything in life, had given me back to Jesse, and lay dead, her

forehead shattered in with the revolver-shot. For some seconds Billy and

I hung back, watching from the doorway while a slow coil of smoke

unfolded in the wan light of the dawn. The rain had ceased, and the

east was all aglow with golden radiance.

Billy knelt and touched the poor broken forehead, then looking up at

me, "This time," he said, "it's real."

EPILOGUE

Once more with Jesse in Cathedral Grove! The breath of evening stirred

its tangled coral, the long needles clustered in globes were swaying as

censors sway, with heavy incense. Beyond the purple night swept up over

glowing cliffs to where the upper forest like an edge of flame burned

against deeps of sky.

"Come to the hilltop: blackbird choristers

Peal their clear anthem to the kneeling gorse."

Jesse lay dreaming while I sang to him. Crisp silvered hair, and the

deeply graven lines of his dear face, gave him at rest a sweet sad

dignity; but presently he would look up, his big mouth humorous, his

eyes alight with fun, a man of commanding power matured in wisdom, in

sympathy, and valor to lead his fellows.

Through the east window of the grove, I could see a little procession of

my closest friends pass on their Sunday stroll. First came Pete, ill at

ease in his Sabbath suit of blacks, and with him, arm in arm, was Mrs.

Pete in silk, full-skirted, prickly, and so very grim. Then Billy passed

slowly by, his mother stumping beside him, bound to keep the pace. They

had the new rabbit with them, collared and chained like a bulldog, and

were followed by David's nurse, dear Patsy, Billy's wife--plucking my

young anemones--the wretch!

Out on the perilous edge of Apex Rock I could see young Mr. Nisted,

Father Jared's nephew, a pupil in Jesse's school of colonial training.

With rod and line he was seriously fishing--for birds!

"Don't you reckon," said Jesse, relighting a stale cigar, "that it's

time we stopped our book?"

"Oh, but--"

"It's tempting Providence, young woman; it's encouraging the police.

From the moment you started the thing, we've had more'n our share of

adventures. Put up a notice, 'Book Closed. No more adventurers need

apply. Try Surly Brown for a change.'"

"But what shall we do?"

"Publish the blamed thing, and serves it right. Throw it to the

critics."

"But it's all secrets!"

"Change the names and places. We'll be 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith,'

well-meaning private persons located somewhere west. I'm going to have

blue eyes."

"But mine _are_ blue."

"I made first grab. You can have green, and a large mouth, and your

Christian name is Carrots. Hello, here's Baby David."

My son was coming through the scented dusk, and in his arms he carried a

large dog, a china dog with gilt muzzle, split from nose to tail, but

carefully mended.

"Sonny," said Jesse, "don't you drop Maria, or she'll have puppies."

"I did, and she didn't; so there! Something dropped out, though. See,

mummie."

David had thrown Maria into my lap, and danced about in the gloaming

with some strange trophy, the tail of a large animal.

"Sort of reminds me," said Jesse, "of being a little boy. That's the

Inspector's tale. This is a long way, too, from the Labrador."

The wind made quite a disturbance, telling the pines to hush, while both

my son and Jesse wanted to play with the wolf tail, and would not be

quiet, though already the stars and the fireflies had lighted Cathedral

Grove, and the great river like an organ crooned the first deep notes of

nature's even-song. An awed expectant silence came to us.

"Lighten our darkness," said the grave old trees, "we beseech Thee."

"By Thy great mercy," pleaded the little flowers.

"Defend us from all perils," the small birds twittered.

"And dangers of the night," the aspens quavered.

"For the love of Thy only Son," cried the South Wind.

"Our Saviour Jesus Christ," a woman's voice responded.

"Amen," the cliffs were breathing.

"Amen," the high clouds echoed.

"Amen," said the organ river.

And from the reverent woodlands came:

"Amen. Amen."

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Many words are unusual compared to modern-day, but are as in the original. Changes

have only been made where a printers typo was reasonably certain.