He had seen the big pine when he first came to those hills--one morning,
at daybreak, when the valley was a sea of mist that threw soft clinging
spray to the very mountain tops: for even above the mists, that morning,
its mighty head arose--sole visible proof that the earth still slept
beneath. Straightway, he wondered how it had ever got there, so far
above the few of its kind that haunted the green dark ravines far below.
Some whirlwind, doubtless, had sent a tiny cone circling heavenward and
dropped it there. It had sent others, too, no doubt, but how had this
tree faced wind and storm alone and alone lived to defy both so proudly?
Some day he would learn. Thereafter, he had seen it, at noon--but little
less majestic among the oaks that stood about it; had seen it catching
the last light at sunset, clean-cut against the after-glow, and like a
dark, silent, mysterious sentinel guarding the mountain pass under the
moon. He had seen it giving place with sombre dignity to the passing
burst of spring--had seen it green among dying autumn leaves, green
in the gray of winter trees and still green in a shroud of snow--a
changeless promise that the earth must wake to life again. The Lonesome
Pine, the mountaineers called it, and the Lonesome Pine it always looked
to be. From the beginning it had a curious fascination for him, and
straightway within him--half exile that he was--there sprang up a
sympathy for it as for something that was human and a brother. And now
he was on the trail of it at last. From every point that morning it had
seemed almost to nod down to him as he climbed and, when he reached the
ledge that gave him sight of it from base to crown, the winds murmured
among its needles like a welcoming voice. At once, he saw the secret of
its life. On each side rose a cliff that had sheltered it from storms
until its trunk had shot upwards so far and so straight and so strong
that its green crown could lift itself on and on and bend--blow what
might--as proudly and securely as a lily on its stalk in a morning
breeze. Dropping his bridle rein he put one hand against it as though on
the shoulder of a friend.
“Old Man,” he said, “You must be pretty lonesome up here, and I'm glad
to meet you.”
For a while he sat against it--resting. He had no particular purpose
that day--no particular destination. His saddle-bags were across the
cantle of his cow-boy saddle. His fishing rod was tied under one flap.
He was young and his own master. Time was hanging heavy on his hands
that day and he loved the woods and the nooks and crannies of them
where his own kind rarely made its way. Beyond, the cove looked dark,
forbidding, mysterious, and what was beyond he did not know. So down
there he would go. As he bent his head forward to rise, his eye caught
the spot of sunlight, and he leaned over it with a smile. In the black
earth was a human foot-print--too small and slender for the foot of
a man, a boy or a woman. Beyond, the same prints were visible--wider
apart--and he smiled again. A girl had been there. She was the crimson
flash that he saw as he started up the steep and mistook for a flaming
bush of sumach. She had seen him coming and she had fled. Still smiling,
he rose to his feet.