The road that leads to the historic north shoulder of Solidor is lonely
now. The stages that once crawled painfully upward through its flowery
meadows are playhouses for the children of Silver Plume, and the brakes
that once howled so resoundingly on the downward way are rusting to
ashes in the weeds that spring from the soil of the Silverado Queen's
unused corral. The railway, half a hundred miles to the north, has left
the famous pass to solitude and to grass.
Once a week, or possibly oftener, a cattleman or prospector rides
across, or a little band of tourists plod up or down,--thinking they are
penetrating to the heart of the Rockies,--but for the most part the
trail is passing swiftly to the unremembered twilight of the tragic
past. There are, it is true, one or two stamp-mills above Pemberton, but
they draw their supplies from the valley to the west and not from the
plain's cities, and the upper camps have long since been deserted by the
restless seeker of sudden gold.
It is a desolate, unshaded country, made so by the reckless hand of the
tenderfoot prospector, who, in the days of the silver rush, cut and
burned the timber sinfully, and the great peaks are meticulated with the
rotting boles of noble pines and spotted with the decaying stumps of
the firs which once made the whole land as beautiful as a park. Here and
there, however, a segment of this splendid ancient forest remains to
give some hint of what the ranges were before the destroying horde of
silver-seekers struck and scarred it.
Along this trail and above the last vestige of its standing trees a man
could be seen, walking eastward and upward, one bright afternoon in
August, a couple of years ago. He moved slowly, for he was heavily built
and obviously not much used to climbing, for he paused often to breathe.
The air at that altitude is thin and, to the one not accustomed to it,
most unsatisfying. In the intervals of his pauses the traveler's eyes
swept the heights and explored each canyon wall as if in search of a
resting-place. Around him the conies cried and small birds skimmed from
ledge to ledge, but his dark face did not lighten with joy of the beauty
which shone over his head nor to that which flamed under his feet. It
was plain that he was too preoccupied with some inner problem, too
intent on his quest, to give eye or ear to the significance of bird or
flower.
Huge Solidor, bare and bleak, rose grandly to the north, propping the
high-piled shining clouds, and the somber, dust-covered fields of snow
showed to what far height his proud summit soared above his fellows.
Little streams of icy water trickled through close-knit, velvety sward
whereon small flowers, white and gold and lilac, showed like fairy
footprints. Down from the pass a chill wind, delicious and invigorating,
rushed as palpably as if it were a liquid wave. In all this upper region
no shelter offered to the tired man.
A few minutes later, as he rounded the sloping green bastion which
flanks the peak to the south, the man's keen eyes lighted upon a small
cabin which squatted almost unnoticeably against a gray ledge some five
hundred feet higher than the rock whereon he stood. The door of this hut
was open and the figure of a man, dwarfed by distance, could be detected
intently watching the pedestrian on the trail. Unlike most
cabin-dwellers, he made no sign of greeting, uttered no shout of cheer;
on the contrary, as the stranger approached he disappeared within his
den like a marmot.
There was something appealing in the slow mounting of the man on foot.
He was both tired and breathless, and as he neared the cabin (which was
built on ground quite twelve thousand feet above sea-level) his limbs
dragged, and every step he made required his utmost will. Twice he
stopped to recover his strength and to ease the beating of his heart,
and as he waited thus the last time the lone cabin-dweller appeared in
his door and silently gazed, confronting his visitor with a strangely
inhospitable and prolonged scrutiny. It was as if he were a lonely
animal, jealous of his ground and resentful even of the most casual
human inspection.
The stranger, advancing near, spoke. "Is this the trail to Silver
Plume?" he asked, his heaving breast making his speech broken.
"It is," replied the miner, whose thin face and hawk-like eyes betrayed
the hermit and the man on guard.
"How far is it across the pass?"
"About thirty miles."
"A good night's walk. Are there any camps above here?"
"None."
"How far is it to the next cabin?"
"Some twelve miles."
The miner, still studying the stranger with piercing intensity,
expressed a desire to be reassured. "What are you doing up here on this
trail? Are you a mining expert? A spy?" he seemed to ask.
The traveler, divining his curiosity, explained. "I stayed last night at
the mill below. I'm a millwright. I have some property to inspect in
Silver Plume, hence I'm walking across. I didn't know it was so far; I
was misinformed. I'm not accustomed to this high air and I'm used up.
Can you take care of me?"
The miner glanced round at the heap of ore which betrayed his craft, and
then back at the dark, bearded, impassive face.
"Come in," he said at last, "I'll feed you." But his manner was at once
surly and suspicious.
The walls of the hovel were built partly of logs and partly of boulders,
and its roof was compacted of dirt and gravel; but it was decently
habitable. The furniture (hand-rived out of slabs) was scanty, and the
floor was laid with planks, yet everything indicated many days of wear.
"You've been here some time," the stranger remarked rather than asked.
"Ten years."
Thereafter the two men engaged in a silent duel. The millwright, leaning
back in his rude chair, stretched his tired limbs and gazed down the
valley with no further word of inquiry, while his grudging host prepared
a primitive meal and set it upon a box which served as a table.
"You may eat," he curtly said.
In complete silence and with calm abstraction the stranger turned to the
food and ate and drank, accepting it all as if this were a roadhouse and
he a paying guest. The sullen watchfulness of his host seemed not to
disturb him, not even to interest him.
At length the miner spoke as if in answer to a question--the question he
feared.
"No, my mine has not panned out well--not yet. The ore is low-grade and
the mill is too far away."
To this informing statement the other man did not so much as lift an
eyebrow. His face was like a closed door, his eyes were curtained
windows. He mused darkly as one who broods on some bitter defeat.
Nevertheless, he was a human presence and the lonely dweller on the
heights could not resist the charm of his guest's personality, remote as
he seemed.
"Where do you live?" he asked.
There was a moment's hesitation.
"In St. Paul."
"Ever been here before?"
The dark man shook his shaggy head slowly, and dropped his eyes as if
this were the end of the communication. "No, and I never expect to come
again."
The miner perceived power in his guest's resolute taciturnity, and the
very weight of the silence eventually opened his own lips. From moment
to moment the impulse to talk grew stronger within him. There was
something as compelling as heat in this reticent visitor whose soul was
so intent on inward problems that it perceived nothing of interest in an
epaulet of gold on the shoulder of Mount Solidor.
"Few come this trail now," the miner volunteered, as he cleared the
table. "I am alone and seldom see a human being drifting my way. I do
not invite them."
The stranger refilled his pipe and again leaned back against the wall in
ponderous repose. If he heard his host's remark he gave no sign of it,
and yet, despite the persistence of his guest's silence--perhaps because
of it--the lonely gold-seeker babbled on with increasing candor,
contradicting himself, revealing, hiding, edging round his story,
confessing to his hopes of riches, betraying in the end the secrets of
his lonely life. It was as if the gates of his unnatural reserve had
broken down and the desire to be heard, to be companioned, had
over-borne all his early caution.
"It's horribly lonesome up here," he confessed. "Sometimes I think I'll
give it all up and go back to civilization. When I came here the pass
had its traffic; now no one rides it, which is lucky for me," he added.
"I have no prying visitors--I mean no one to contest my claim--and yet a
man can't do much alone. Even if my ore richens I must transport it or
build a mill. Sometimes I wonder what I'm living for, stuck away in this
hole in the hills. I was born to better things--"
He checked himself at this moment, as if he were on the edge of
self-betrayal, but his listener seemed not vitally interested in these
personal details. However, he made some low-voiced remark, and, as if
hypnotized, the miner resumed his monologue.
"The nights are the worst. They are endless--and sometimes when I cannot
sleep I feel like surrendering to my fate--" Here again he broke off
sharply. "That's nonsense, of course. I mean, it seems as if a life were
too much to pay for a crazy act--I mean a mine. You'll ask why I don't
sell it, but it's all I have and, besides, no one has any faith in it
but myself. I cannot sell, and I can't live down there among men."
Gabbling, keeping time to his nervous feet and hands, endlessly
repeating himself, denying, confessing, the miner raged on, and through
it all the dark-browed guest smoked tranquilly, too indifferent to ask a
question or make comment; but when, once or twice, he lifted his eyes,
the garrulous one shuddered and turned away, a scared look on his
haggard face. He seemed unable to endure that steady glance.
At last, for a little space, he remained silent; then, as if compelled
by some increasing magic in his hearer, he burst forth:
"I'm not here entirely by my own fault--I mean my own choice. A man is a
product of his environment, you know that, and mine made me idle,
wasteful. Drink got me--drink made me mad--and so--and so--here I am
struggling to win back a fortune. Once I gambled--on the wheel; now I am
gambling with nature on the green of these mountain slopes; but I'll
win--I have already won--and soon I shall sell and go back to the great
cities."
Again his will curbed his treacherous tongue, and, walking to the
doorway, he stood for a moment, looking out; then he fiercely snarled:
"Oh, God, how I hate it all--how I hate myself! I am going mad with this
life! The squeak of these shadowy conies, the twitter of these unseen
little birds, go on day by day. They'll drive me mad! If you had not
come to-night I could not have slept--I would have gone to the mill, and
that means drink to me--drink and oblivion. You came and saved me. I
feared you--hated you then; now I bless you."
Once more he seemed to answer an unspoken query:
"I have no people. My mother is dead, my father has disowned me--he does
not even know I am alive. I'm the black devil of the family--but I shall
go back--"
His face was working with passion, and though he took a seat opposite
his guest, his hands continued to flutter aimlessly and his head moved
restlessly from side to side.
"I don't know why I am telling all this to you," he went on after a
pause. "I reckon it's because of the weakness of the thirst that is
coming over me. Some time I'll go down to those hell-holes at the mills
and never come back--the stuff they sell to me is destructive as
fire--it is poison! You're a man of substance, I can see that--you're no
hobo like most of the fellows out here--that's why I'm talking to you.
You remind me of some one I know. There's something familiar in your
eyes."
The man with the beard struck the ashes from his pipe and began scraping
it. "There is always a woman in these cases," he critically remarked.
The miner took this simple statement as a challenging question. His
excitement visibly increased, but he did not at once reply. He talked on
aimlessly, incoherently, struggling like a small animal in a torrent. He
rose at last, and as he stood in the doorway, breathing deeply, his face
livid in the sunset light, the muscles of his jaw trembled.
The stranger observed his host's agitation, but put away his pipe with
slow and steady hand. He said nothing, and yet an observer would have
declared he held the other and weaker man in the grasp of an inexorable
hypnotic silence. Finally he fixed a calm, cold glance upon his host, as
if summoning him to answer.
"Yes," the miner confessed, "there is always a woman in the
case--another and more fortunate man. The woman is false, the man is
treacherous. You trust and they betray. Such beings ruin and
madden--they make outlaws such as I am--"
"Love is above will," asserted the millwright, with decision.
The other man fiercely turned. "I know what you mean--you mean the woman
is not to be condemned--that love goes where it is drawn. That is true,
but deceit is not involuntary--it is deliberate--"
"Sometimes we deceive ourselves."
"In her case it was deceit," retorted the miner, who was now so deeply
engaged with his own story that each general observation on the part of
his guest was taken to be specific and personal.
The room was growing dusky, and the stranger's glance appeared keener,
more insistent, as his body melted into the shadow. His shaggy head and
black beard all but disappeared; only the faint outlines of his forehead
remained, and yet, as his physical self faded into the gloom, his
personality, his psychic self, loomed larger. His will enveloped the
hermit, drawing upon him with irresistible power. It was as if he were
wringing him dry of a confession as the priest closes in upon the
culprit.
"I had my happy days--my days of care-free youth," the unquiet man was
saying. "But my time of innocence was short. Evil companions came early
and reckless deeds followed.... I knew I was losing something, I knew I
was being drawn downward, but I could not escape. Day and night I called
for help, and then--_she_ came--"
"Who came?"
"The one who made me forget all the others, the one who made me
ashamed."
"And then?"
"And then for a time I was happy in the hope that I might win her and so
redeem my life."
"And she?"
"She pitied me--at first--and loved me--at least I thought so."
As his excitement increased his words came slower, burdened with
passion. He spoke like a prisoner addressing a judge, his voice but a
husky whisper.
"I told her I was unworthy of her--that was when I believed her to be an
angel. I promised to begin a new life for her sake. Then she promised
me--helped me--and all the while she was false to me--false as a
hell-cat!"
"How?" queried the almost invisible man, and his voice was charged with
stern demand.
"All the time she was promised to another man--and that man my enemy."
Here his frenzy flared forth in a torrent of words.
"Then--then I went mad. My brain was scarred and numb. I lost all sense
of pity--all fear of law--all respect for woman. I only knew my
wrongs--my despair--my hate. I watched, I waited, I found them
together--"
"And then? What did you do then?" demanded the stranger, rising from his
seat with sudden energy, his voice deep, insistent, masterful. "Tell me
what you did?"