He closed his knife with a snap and, slipping down from his perch,
opened the wicket and let the white-faced calf through. Martha poured
the foaming milk from her measure into a pail and changed her seat. At
the same time she lifted her glance to the county road, winding up
northward from the meadow. "I should jedge," she said, shading her
eyes, "I should jedge that ther's Jake's horse, but it don't look
nothin' like Jake."
"Naw, it ain't," answered Lem, raising his ferret eyes to the horseman.
"I'll jes' bet it's Mr. Forrest; yes, sir, it's him. He's borryed
Ketchem down by ther station, seein's he couldn't git word out fur his
own horse." And he put the flute to his lips.
"I've travelled all over ther country, prospectin'
an' diggin' fur gold."
It was a discordant peal and the lad knew it. He also felt that this
rider, descending now into the lane, regarded him with laughing eyes.
Forrest drew his rein outside the bars and Martha came over to the
fence. "How do you do?" he said. "You're looking well."
"Wal, yes," she answered with her serious smile, and wiping her hand on
her apron, she grasped the palm he offered across the rail, "I'm fair
ter middlin'. I calc'late you've kem prospectin', but Eben's off in
ther hills; he 'lowed he was gittin' powerful clost ter ther head o'
that ther petrified man, an' you're likelier ter find er needle in er
haystack 'n him. But ef you'll stop over night 'ith us, mebbe he'll kem
in."
"Thank you," said Forrest, "but I'm going right on to the headwaters.
It's a long time since I had a night under the stars. I promised to
leave Jake's horse with Thornton. I suppose Colonel is here; I'd like
to see him, and Miss Hunter too, for a few minutes, before I ride on."
She shook her head. "You'll find her an' ther horse out to ther new
ranch."
"Then," said Forrest, "I'll water Ketchem and go on; but I would like a
drink of that milk, first, if you have it to spare."
"Land, yes." She dipped the great tin measure into the pail, and having
wiped it also on her apron, handed it to him over the rails.
"It always seems to me," he said, pausing between draughts, "that this
milk is a little better than any other."
"That's what ther schoolmarm always 'lowed. She said she tasted ther
buttercups in it. But that was before ther Jedge sent her them
Jerseys."
"So," said Forrest, amused and puzzled at the strangeness of the gift,
"So Judge Kingsley sent her some cattle?"
"You bet," Lem answered for his mother; "an' ther ain't never be'n
nothin' ter kem up ter them two cows in ther hull deestrict. 'Bout ther
color o' young squirrel, an' slick's er peeled fir. Ther Jedge he kem
out here las' week in his dogcart. He'd heard 'bout ther new trail an'
'lowed he'd drive straight through." The boy paused to swing himself
over the fence and down into the lane. "But Mose, he didn't count on no
dogcarts when he done ther slashin'. I went er piece ter show him ther
branch. You'd orter o' seen him;--thort I'd bu'st;--a-holdin' onter ther
reins 'ith one hand an' ther seat 'ith the other; a bumpin' over logs
an' snags; a gittin' ther wheels all tied up; a grabbin' fur his hat an'
yellin', 'Whoa, whoa, Carlyle.' Oh, Lord, I thort I'd die."
He seemed in imminent peril now; writhing, twisting, bending his small
shape convulsively, and finding vent at last in explosive shrieks of
laughter. Forrest laughed, too, from sheer sympathy, and turning his
horse, rode over to the trough. So the Judge had presented Alice with
some cattle,--he smiled again at the quaintness of the gift,--and she
was boarding out at Thornton's new ranch. Strange she had not mentioned
that, in some of those letters her sister had given him to read; but she
had had a great deal to say about the clearing and Samantha.
Martha fixed her stool and resumed her milking, while Lem, having
recovered poise, followed the young man slowly. He raised the flute to
his lips and piped softly, then held the instrument off and eyed it with
growing dissatisfaction. Forrest watched the eager horse plunge his
muzzle in the cool basin, and after preliminary splashing and stamping,
settle to a still, long draught. Then his glance moved to the boy.
"What's that you have, Lem? A whistle?"
"Yes, but I can't make her work."
"Let me try it." Forrest took the flute and the knife and made several
careful cuts in the green wood. "This is a fine knife," he said.
"You kin jes' bet your life on that; ther schoolmarm give it to me."
"Yes?" said Forrest. "How is she, Lem? She must feel the long trail
sometimes; in hot weather or when it rains."
"Oh, I dunno. She 'lows it don't 'mount ter much, long as she has
Colonel, an' all summer, off an' on, she's be'n havin' pleasant comp'ny.
I mean Mr. Stratton. He wa'n't huntin' any ter speak of."
A quick flush flamed in Forrest's face. He gathered the bridle and
raised the flute to his lips. The strain was soft, no longer
discordant, and Ketchem stood moving a sensitive ear. "So, Stratton
rode with her. He has a fine horse."
Lem took the instrument and examined the improvements. "You kin jes' bet
on that. Ther ain't never be'n no sech stepper in this here deestrict,
leavin' out Colonel. But ther ches'nut's mighty oncertain. I'd hate ter
resk my money on him; ef it kem to it, I'd hate ter resk myself." He
paused to try a measure. "She blows pretty good," he said, wiping his
mouth on his sleeve. "Yes, we 'lowed Mill Thornton was powerful sweet
on Cousin Samanthy, but land, he couldn't hold er candle ter Mr.
Stratton. He was over to school 'bout every day, when he was here. Ef
it rained he kem in, but mos' gen'ly he waited outside, er walkin' his
horse up an' down tell school let out. You'd orter o' seen him." And
with a sidelong glance at Forrest, he raised the flute again and piped a
surer strain.
Forrest was silent. Lem repeated the blast with his eyes on the
startled young horse. He moved forward, suddenly, with a last shrill
note, bringing the whistle close to Ketchem's ear. And he stood
grinning his satisfaction, while the animal lunged, reared, and was
brought down, trembling, by his rider's firm hand.
"You kin ride. You kin keep your seat 'bout as good as Mr. Stratton.
Dunno but what I'd resk you on that ther spirit horse o' his. I 'low
you heard 'bout ther way he give them Gov'ment men ther slip?"
"Yes," answered Forrest, "yes. I learned through Mr. Bates. I happened
to meet him the day I left Seattle. It seems Stratton used this
shooting box out here to cache his dope in. He was bringing it through,
with Smith's help, in small lots from Victoria. And the officers cut
him off going east towards the Pass. They took his pack-horse, and he,
himself, barely escaped on that chestnut."
Lem laughed, a noiseless contortion. "Them dep'ties was mighty puzzled
'bout jes' ther way he give 'em ther slip. Not one in ther hull bunch
ever s'picioned that ther chestnut jes' natu'lly lifted his four feet
off n ther face of ther earth; yes, sir, and flew clean over ther heads
'mongst ther trees, an' struck back to ther Nisqually, while they was a
chasin' on after ther rest o' ther outfit." Lem caught a quick breath;
his ferret eyes fell before his listener's level look, and he hastened
to add, "But that ther pack-horse was John Phiander's Baldy,--he got er
good price for him,--an' when the Gov'ment men found him he was up to
his old tricks, a rollin' in er wide piece o' ther trail, tryin' ter get
rid o' his load. Oh, gee, I thort I'd bust; you'd orter o' seen him.
Them little cans, what you call dope, worked loose an' scattered all
over creation. But Baldy'd never o' hed that chanct, an' they'd never
o' sighted their man, ef he hedn't stopped ter kidnap ther schoolmarm."
"What?"
Lem started and his sidelong glance moved from the young man's
challenging eyes to his strong whip hand. "You ain't heard 'bout that,
hev you? I was chasin' round after Shorts an' that ther red heifer, an'
I kem ercross 'em up ther branch. Baldy was standin' quiet, an' ther
chestnut was stampin' an' rubbin' hisself like all pursest on er alder.
Colonel he was snatchin' er mouthful o' grass, an' ther schoolmarm was
sittin' in ther saddle 'ith her back to me. I thort she was jes'
listenin', an' never sensed things tell I sneaked up close behind an ole
cedar snag an' see her hands was tied 'ith er big silk hankerchief, what
he wears roun' his neck. He was passin' er hitchin' strap 'cross her lap
an' makin' it fast to ther cinch, an' he says mighty softlike, 'You will
hate me at first fur this--mebbe a good spell--but in the end you air
goin' ter love me, an' marry me.'"
Forrest frowned darkly at the water trough. He reached and swept the
brimming surface with a sharp cut of his whip. Lem's lips twitched with
keen appreciation. "But," he went on slowly, "she jes' looked at him
'ith her chin up in ther air, an' says, 'You ruffi'n--you outlaw. I kin
die jes' once an' it's goin' ter kem ter that before I ever marry you.'"
Forrest struck the flooding trough again, still more sharply, so that
the fretting young horse lunged and wheeled, and Lem sidled out of
possible range. He saw Ketchem brought firmly back, then went on
cautiously, "He stood watchin' her a minute an' I see his face was
whiter'n ashes, an' er kind o' white fire was blazin' out'n his eyes.
Then he says powerful slow, 'Is it ther black's master?'
"An' she looks off down ther trail 'ith her cheeks gittin' pink as
rhododendron flowers in ther springtime, an' says, 'As long as I live I
shall never love any man but--'" Lem paused, smiling his impish
smile,--"'Jedge Kingsley,'" he added.
Forrest's whip hand fell limp at his side. He drew a sharp breath and
looked at the boy. The sternness went out of his face; there came over
it a great weariness; his eyes brimmed misery.
"Gee, gee," said Lem, "I wisht you'd a be'n there. 'You are goin' ter
marry me,' says he. An' he unslung Colonel's lariat an' jumps on ther
chestnut. But he wa'n't countin' ernough on that ther pack-horse. I
shied er stone at him an' it took him smart on ther flank an he broke
away like mad fur Salal prairie. Colonel he flung up his head, an'
'fore he could make up his mind bout Baldy, he heard them ther Gov'ment
men poundin' up ther trail. The same minute he felt his rope, an he
jes' give ernother fling an' jerked clear, an' swung 'round an' fit out
fur ther schoolhouse. A bird couldn't o' ketched him. An' when he got
ther he gentled down, nice as er kitten, an' waited fur Mose,--I 'low it
must o' be'n Mose,--ter kem an' untie ther schoolmarm."
There was a brief silence, during which the young man again regarded the
brimming trough and Lem watched him. Then the boy said, arbitrating
with some remaining atom of conscience, "I 'low I hedn't no call ter say
what I did 'bout ther Jedge."
"No," answered Forrest quickly, "No, Lem, you're right. But I'm hardly
the man to repeat it, and I happened to know it already. I've known it
for a long time." A pull at the bridle; a word to the horse. "Good-by,
Lem," he said. Then, as Ketchem broke into a canter, he turned in his
saddle to throw a piece of silver to the rogue.
The lane was muddy, after a heavy rain, and the coin dropped into a
little pool. But Lem secured it, and having wiped it on the seat of his
trousers, examined it narrowly. "It's a dollar," he exclaimed. "A hull
dollar. Beats me what it's fur. Mus' be fur talkin'. I wisht,--"
slowly, as one who sees lost possibilities,--"gee, gee, I wisht I'd a
said more." He slipped the money into his pocket with a swift look at
his mother, milking still in the corral, "Ef dad knew he'd 'low it's
bout time fur me ter be payin' board."
Forrest found himself not in the old rough track of the herds, but
following a well beaten though narrow trail, from which branched many
paths. Then at length he rode along the frowning front of a great hill,
and looking up his eyes traced sections of an abandoned switchback which
he and Alice had pushed up that day, to find it lost in the slide on the
edge of the windfall. And here, on the bank of the creek that skirted
the hill, was a deserted shepherd's hut, where Eben had cached a deer,
that he had shot on the trail that morning. But the roof had fallen in,
and between the fragments fern and salal crowded, waist-high from the
earth floor.
Forrest had believed that all he needed was to be out-of-doors; to get
in touch with the growing timber again; to ride or tramp all day through
the great stillness; to have the opportunity to think over and outline,
undisturbed, his contemplated work, and he would be himself once more.
But now, a bit of ruined cabin, the sound of running water, the pungent
wind idling through a glade, a hundred small associations, brought the
old futile desire sweeping back with the force of a sudden mountain
flood. It was as though he saw her up there, easing her weight as
Colonel set himself to the pitch; how graceful she was, dipping this way
and that to his steps; avoiding encroaching boughs; sending him a swift
glance across her shoulder, with the delight shining in her eyes. And
how fond she was of a horse, of the forest, of all out-of-doors. She was
so bright, so warm, so full of life, sparkle, charm. How could he ever
forget her? How could he ever ride or tramp the woods without
remembering her?
But he must forget. He couldn't go on feeling like this about another
man's wife. And he was glad she loved the Judge. Yes, since she was
going to marry, he was glad she loved the Judge. Sometimes--he had been
a little in doubt. Still--what did all this Lem had told him really
amount to? Of course the young imp had exaggerated, for instance there
was that yarn about Stratton's horse, still--just what shreds of truth
had he possessed, out of which to fabricate the story? Another time he
could have laughed at the boy's rendition of Stratton's careful
language, but had this man approached her, disgraced, outlawed as he
was, in that way? Yes, he was bold enough; he had stopped her, spoken
to her, pressed his case; that much was true. The thought of this
quickened Forrest's blood; it ran hot in his veins. Once more his hands
tingled, burned, for close physical contact with this man.
When he was again conscious of his surroundings it was twilight in the
forest. The trees no longer stood out singly but in confused masses.
Light fog began to lift from the hollows, wet still from the recent
rains; the air grew chilly. Then presently, through an opening ahead,
appeared the knob-like crest of the south hill, girdled with a ribbon of
mist; and as he rode towards the clearing, there unfolded a company of
peaks, shading from copper and amethyst to a purplish black. He passed
a branch trail, rising and winding up in the direction of the canyon,
and making a final curve, came upon Thornton's cabin, and Samantha
churning and singing in the little porch.
"How do you do?" he said, swinging down from the saddle and taking her
offered hand; "I sent my congratulations to Mill, through Miss Hunter,
some time ago, but I must congratulate you both on this homestead. It
makes a great showing. I'm coming back in a day or two to look over the
section, but tonight I'm going right on to the falls."
"You'll kem ercross Mill down ther," she answered, smiling. "He 'lowed
he'd hev er look at ther river. It's out on a reg'lar tear. You kin
hear it, can't you? It's ripped out ther teacher's sluice-gate, an'
carried away a mighty nice little bridge Mr. Stratton put in below ther
falls."
So Alice had built a sluice-gate. He smiled, puzzled, and then with a
flash of understanding. Of course it was she who had taught Thornton
the problem of bringing the stream to his land. It was she who had
suggested the line of sluice-box he had noticed ahead, along the trail.
Well, he could spare the water. He was glad to.
"I promised to leave Ketchem with Mill," he said, and loosened his snug
blanket roll from behind the saddle. "Jake expects him down at the
Station tomorrow. I would like to have a look at my own horse, and see
Miss Hunter for a moment before I go on."
"Why," said Samantha in surprise, "she ain't here. I 'low she's too
powerful busy tendin' to her own ranch."
"Her own ranch?" he repeated.
"Yes. Fur ther land sakes, don't you know she homesteaded that ther
piece to ther falls?"
Forrest stood a silent moment. His look moved from Samantha's face to a
high spur of the hill. His breath came a little heavily, with a slight
uplift of the shoulders, and he raised his hand to the handkerchief,
knotted loosely at his throat, and eased it, as though it choked. Then
he took up the strapped blanket from the step and swung it to his back
and started on down the trail. He had forgotten to say good-night, and
Samantha waited, watching him curiously, and holding in the fretting
horse. Presently he stopped in uncertainty, like a man lost, and turned
and came back.
"I didn't expect to find a house at the falls," he said and forced a
smile; "and, you see it seems pretty good to me to get out-of-doors
again. I've been looking forward to spending tonight in the open air.
I think, if that branch I passed back there around the curve, goes to
the canyon, I'll try it."
"Yes, it does," answered Samantha. "It goes up past ther granite tower
an' down to ther ford above Mr. Stratton's place. I 'low Pete Smith
blazed that ther branch ter skip our ranch. He wa'n't goin' ter resk no
chances o' kemin' ercross Mill."
"Then," said Forrest, "that's the trail I want. I intend to prospect
south from the canyon. And I ought to find it dry up there for a camp
tonight; it's pretty wet in the timber, and the tower should make a good
windbreak from this Chinook. But I must hurry to make it before dark."
"You better stop 'ith us," said Samantha, her warm heart creeping into
her tone. "It's lonesome up ther, an' I could cook you some mighty nice
trout."
But he would not, and Samantha tied Ketchem and walked with the young
man as far as the curve. "Say," she said impulsively, breaking the
silence, "don't you feel so cut up 'bout that ther homestead. Uncle
Eben always 'lowed you wanted that piece, an' 'at she knew it; an' I
dunno what she done it fur, but you jes' wait tell you find out ther
reason. She ain't ther kind ter do a mean thing."
"Oh, I know that; I know that," he answered quickly. "Don't think I
blame her. It was her right, if she wanted the land. I don't need
another reason. Good-night."
But Samantha followed a step further. "Say," she called, "ef she hedn't
filed on that piece Mill would. He counted on homesteadin' that one,
'stead o' this. She got in ahead o' him, but he jes' hates to own he
got cut out by er girl."
Her little, uncertain laugh, meant to cheer him, followed him up the
trail. Then presently he reached the branch and pushed up swiftly
towards the tower. "If I had stopped at Olympia to make the entry at
the Land Office, I should have discovered the truth," he thought. "And
of course--of course Mill, or some other man, must have taken it long
ago, if she had let the opportunity go. Tomorrow, tomorrow--I'll go down
and see what she has made of it. I couldn't now. Not tonight."
He stumbled through a darker tangle of undergrowth and came out in the
open at the tower. But the forces at work earlier in the Pass had
lately been busy here. Suddenly a great crack yawned at his feet. It
seemed to mark off, accurately, as though a master hand had drawn the
line, the whole jutting front of the cliff, and like the beginnings of a
moat enclosed the leaning column. He moved back a few yards to the
trees, and found a dry place for his blanket, under the spreading boughs
of a fir. Presently the light of his camp-fire cut the gloom, and the
air was redolent with the savor of toasting bacon.
Twilight deepened. The voice of the cataract came up the wind.
Somewhere a dead bough creaked. He lounged, his elbow on the blanket,
his head propped on his hand, and looked off absently across the
darkening gorge. Did he not see once more, at the foot of a near and
familiar slope, a small tent white and silent under the dew and
starshine?
His lips began to breathe a whistle. Presently it rose, still soft,
sweet, tender, in Schubert's Serenade.
[Illustration: Music fragment]
*CHAPTER XXVIII*
*THE PRESSURE OF THE WILDERNESS*
The wilderness has great adaptability. She fits herself to the man; she
plays on his moods. To Stratton she became an inquisitor, tireless,
implacable. She wracked him with his defeat; she taunted him with
memories. At last the hour came, when, far on his retreat to the
border, his worst perils past, he turned his horse and started back.
There were nearer approaches to the Sound through the mountains; a day's
ride southeastward would have taken him to the railroad on the Columbia,
but he chose to recross those miles of hostile country, where, to the
horsemen of the plains, Sir Donald had long been a coveted and marked
prize. He had not known the full value of Smith's service on those
previous trips; his Indian blood had been a passport where a solitary
white man could not go; and, while he had something to gain, the outlaw
on the night watch had been vigilant, safe. During this last journey it
was only through strategy and an incessant fighting off of sleep, that
Stratton had been able to save the chestnut, probably his life. And
now, returning, he was forced to make wide detours, avoiding his former
course. He spent whole days, watchful, under cover of shallow coulees,
and pushed on warily at night, riding knee-deep through arid tracts of
sage brush, hiding his trail when he could, in the meager channel of a
stream, or the rocks of a wash, keeping away, always, from beaten
tracks.
In that great silence, where the report of a gun carried like a
thunder-clap, he could not risk a shot at passing game. Once he snared
a bird; again a squirrel; and several times he caught fish, which he
ventured a small fire to prepare. But his food supply, divided into
rations, and after a few days reparcelled, fell to almost nothing.
Finally the chestnut's hoofs struck the familiar upward trail to the
Pass. His alertness quickened but his master's dropped away. He rode
indifferently, mechanically; his eyes gloomed retrospective under his
black contracted brows. His face had lost its faultless contour; lines
seamed it. He was like a man who had lived hard and fast, tragic epochs
in brief days.
It was midday when he lifted his head and looked about him. The horse
had stopped on a grassy bench. A slender rill cascading from a lofty
spur formed a limpid pool, and overflowing, rippled between sunny banks
and was lost in a clump of pines. Sir Donald had dropped his eager
muzzle to the basin.
Backward the autumn wind drew sharp across the great plains, and upward,
far up, a first snowfall held the Pass. Stratton swung himself out of
the saddle and loosened the thoroughbred's girth. He picketed him near
the trees, and with the limp saddle-bags flung over his arm, stood for a
moment watching the horse. His handsome coat, ungroomed for weeks, was
dappled with foam; dry froth discolored his heaving rib-defined sides;
burs tangled his silver mane; and the wet square where his blanket had
been was divided by a lurid galled spot. Yet he stood all spirit, head
high, looking at his master with steady expectant, almost human eyes,
turning a sensitive ear for the anticipated word. "Now make the most of
your hour, Donald, old fellow," Stratton said. "It's a long pull still
to Nisqually ford."
The chestnut, satisfied, fell to cropping the long grass by the stream.
Stratton felt in his saddle-bag and drew out a biscuit tin and another
of sardines. The first had been previously opened, but he stood turning
the second in uncertainty, in his hands; then, looking up to that cloud
over the Pass, he put the can back. He took three biscuit from the
remaining box, recovered it and dropped it into the bag.
While he ate the biscuit a flock of geese passed, honking, far below him
over the sun-baked plain. He stood watching the wavering line until it
disappeared, then he unstrapped his blanket and spread it on the bank
and threw himself down. He closed his eyes, but he did not sleep. His
features worked, and from time to time he moved his head uneasily.
"Yes," he said aloud, at last, "that was the weak link in the chain; I
failed to ingratiate myself with Forrest. I could have done it--I
could--if I had foreseen the end. It all hinged on him. Granted
Kingsley's wife saw us that night; granted she moved the stuff,
concealed it, as Smith said, under that rotten floor; she went to
Forrest right off, I swear, and eased her conscience. And he put two
and two together, in his calculating way; he guessed at the clue and
sent Bates to look for it--at the top of the bluff. Always, everywhere
it has been Paul Forrest. He built on a first word or two of suspicion
from Bates, and tried to set the Captain against me; he spied on me,
thwarted me--made himself my foil. I could have won out; I could have
covered the disgrace; made a fresh start; lived it down; proved myself
her kind of man--if he had not stood in the way. And I would like just
once--before the finish--to meet him, hand to hand--and have it out.
Damn him!--" he stretched his arms; the cords knotted; his fingers
seemed to grasp something tangible; they clenched, relaxed, clenched
again,--"Damn his righteous, irreproachable soul."
After an interval he spoke again. "But it is too bad about the Captain.
I will do my best for him; I will shoulder it all; and with the Judge's
influence he should pull clear. Why,--" he started to his elbow with
the shadow of his old, mocking smile,--"his wife can't witness against
him, even if she wants to. A wife's testimony isn't allowable in a
Washington court." He passed his hand across his eyes and sank back on
his blanket. "I am sorry for that little woman though. She is so
proud--so fine; it's going to cut--deep. She never liked me. Once,
that last time I met her there at the ruin, she lifted her skirt and
walked around the place where I had stood. How she must hate me now.
But sometime, since it has made a reason for her to break with Kingsley,
she ought to thank me."
Then finally, after another interval, he struck the keynote of his
return. "My God, I had to come back. It was impossible, unbearable to
ride on; day after day, alone--through the awful silence. To see her
face--that last look she gave me, the contempt, the aversion of
it--following me, crowding me, haunting every sage bush. I have got to
change it. She used to like me--she would have loved me--and she will
forgive me. She promised me, that time up at the Paradise, she promised
me her mercy. She will forgive me--she must. I have got to see
her--speak to her once more. And I am ready to--pay the price."
He rose to his feet and looked about him. He started, shivered a
little, and drawing his hand across his eyes, fixed them on the feeding
horse. But it was the narrowed, strained effort of a dulled vision.
Sir Donald seemed a long distance off; or was it later than he thought?
He looked at his watch, and finding a match, held the flame close to the
face.
"It is nothing," he muttered, and dropping the match, put the watch back
into his pocket. "It is nothing--it has happened before. I have been
staring too long at the glare of the sun on those yellow plains. It
will pass. In a moment or two--it will pass."
He began to walk slowly, unsteadily towards the horse. He put out his
hand like one who feels his way in the night. "Donald, old fellow," he
said. "Donald, we are getting to the end of the--rope."
Then he touched the chestnut's mane, and, at the contact, his iron nerve
gave completely away. His whole frame trembled. His arm sank over the
arching neck. He dropped his face on it, sobbing, not as he had when he
was a child, but as such a man, not all men, can sob--just once in a
lifetime.
*CHAPTER XXIX*
*THE CRACK OF DOOM*
Once more, up in the Pass, the glare of the sun on the fresh snow
brought on that dullness of vision, and Stratton was forced to halt,
creeping, groping out of the bitter wind to the shelter of a crag, where
he spent the night, miserably. It was after that, though his sight
returned, he discovered it had lost accuracy. Twice, when the prize
seemed sure, he missed his aim. The first time it was a young elk,
lagging behind the herd in a green pocket of a gorge; and again it was a
stag that crossed the trail in front of him. Later, in making the
dangerously high water at Nisqually ford, his ammunition became wet and
useless. But on the final morning, at his old way camp hidden among
some alders near the river, he succeeded in snaring a squirrel. This,
with some late blueberries, which he had gathered on a higher slope the
previous day, served to temper the keen edge of his hunger.
The snowfall in the Pass at a lower altitude had been a heavy rain, and
when he mounted and turned into the trail, taking up the last stage of
his journey, clouds still brooded over the hills; the gorges steamed fog
that lifted and fell, directly, in sheets of mist, through which again
filtered the mellow autumn sun. Water dripped from boughs, formed in
every depression, and behind him the flooding Nisqually thundered a
deepening chord. He avoided the main trail past Thornton's homestead
and the teacher's claim to the bridge, taking instead the canyon branch
to his lodge, where he expected to find a change of clothing. The suit
he wore was frayed at knees and elbows, and, still damp from yesterday's
ford, it absorbed moisture speedily. He must shave too, at the lodge,
and breakfast,--there was coffee there and an excellent ham,--and put
himself in condition for the interview with Alice. Afterwards he would
ride on and give himself up to Thornton. The reward, if there was one,
might compensate the young rancher for the loss of his sorrel.
Everywhere the changing dogwood and maple flamed through the October
woods, and the brilliant leaves fell in showers, through which Sir
Donald paced lightly, with suspicion. The wind, which drew with him up
the ascent, billowed the tops of the firs below; the sound of them was
like the rush and wash of a great sea, but the drifting mist closed in,
obscuring the sun and the farther bluffs of the gorge. Then presently,
looking up through the trees, he saw the tower, pushing out of denser
cloud like a lighthouse on a gray and unfamiliar coast. A moment later
he was conscious of a foreign and pleasing aroma in the air. It was
coffee, the kind he had anticipated,--he had always been particular
about the brand he used and how it was prepared,--and it flashed over
him, with disproportionate heat, that some passing woodsman had filched
it from the lodge. The next instant, riding up to the open, he came
upon Forrest.
He was seated on a rock, with a plump and primely broiled pheasant on
the boulder before him, while he filled his tin cup from a small
coffee-pot which he had lifted from the coals. And Stratton's alertness
failed him. He forgot the peril of capture, now, before he was ready;
the significance of surrender to this man. He thought of nothing but
the fragrant cup and that savory bird.
Paul looked up. He put down the coffee-pot and sprang to his feet. But
his hand had hardly touched Sir Donald's bridle--close under the
bit,--when he dipped as quickly back to escape the striking hoofs of the
rearing animal.
Another moment, and, wheeling lightly on his hind feet, the chestnut
brought his master's shoulders in contact with a stout bough, and he was
unhorsed. Then, as he had been taught, the thoroughbred was off;
skimming the trail like a bird back to the main track and on to the
lodge.
His backward movement to avoid the horse took Forrest, stumbling, across
the crack in the cliff which moatwise shut off the tower. The seam had
widened during the night, and was full of water, which, where the rock
formation failed, was undermining the soil, carrying the wash down
through a small subcut into the trail towards the ford.
Stratton threw out his hand, grasping the fir to break his fall, and
staggered erect. Blood streamed from his lips, which had struck the
rough bole; but he set his teeth under them, hard. The steel flashed in
his eyes. He turned on Forrest and all the latent passion in him broke
into flame. The fineness in him, the high resolve shrank small. He
confronted suddenly, in this man, the instrument of his disgrace and
many-sided defeat. The three words he spoke were repeated slowly, in a
low tone, and yet they seemed hurled by some force from the depths of
his chest.
Forrest did not answer. He glanced behind him measuring the ground,
which lifted a little to the left of the tower and dropped again
abruptly to the precipice. It was this sink at the foundation which
lowered the outer column, tilting the whole structure. He threw off his
coat and moved back a pace, taking advantage of the rise, which brought
him nearer Stratton's height, and waited, watchful, eyes steady, head
up, feet firm, hands loose at his sides. His whole altitude said
plainly, "I'm ready; come."
It all happened swiftly. In the moment Stratton crossed the break there
came a tremendous jar. Instantly he recoiled. Behind Forrest the whole
tower toppled, block on block, over the abyss. The cliff under him
heaved; its face split, detaching at the seam. He ran, clearing it in a
leap, and, like the crack of doom, the sounds of that downfall filled
the gorge. He felt the next layer, a strata of soft earth, give beneath
his feet. He struggled for firm ground; he would have gained it, but
Stratton blocked the way. He thrust a hand against the shoulder of the
reeling man, gave him backward impetus, and sprang away. Another
instant, and with the last onrush Forrest went down.
Stratton retreated a little further. He turned, feeling his steps, with
one hand outstretched, the other pressed to his eyes. Then he stopped,
listening, fixing his fogged gaze on that awful brink, while the
grinding, the striking of rock on rock, the crash of falling trees,
started anew by that slide of soft earth, reverberated, multiplied echo
on echo, from bluff and spur. He called once, but there was no human
response. Then came--_Silence_.
He made his way to the rock which had been Forrest's seat, and sinking
down, set his elbows on the larger boulder and dropped his face in his
palms. It rained for a time heavily, but he paid little attention to
the pelting drops which the wind brought slanting upon his head. After
awhile the aroma of the cup which the lost man had filled, seeped over
his senses. He drank it off at a draught, and groping for the
coffee-pot, carefully, with difficulty, his hands shaking, poured a
second cup; another. But the savor of the pheasant no longer attracted
him.
"Oh, my God," he said at last, "what brought him to this place? What
insane weakness brought me back? But I must see her. My God,"--his
voice rose half in threat, half prayer--"I must see her, before--he--is
found."
He got to his feet and commenced to grope his way down to the main
trail. He was able to see the path, but a yard ahead it ended in a
blur. It occurred to him that, at the time of the slide, the teacher
must have started to school, and when he reached the better track he
turned back towards the Nisqually as far as the cut. He made frequent
stops, resting on logs or stones and closing his eyes to husband that
glimmer of sight. Sometimes he stretched his spent body in complete
relaxation on the wet leaves. The drip, drip of the foliage was
continuous around him, but he knew when the rain ceased, for, though it
was not possible to distinguish objects more clearly, he saw the
filtered brightness of the sun among the trees. Then again the mist
closed in, cloaking the timber. His wet clothes gathered weight; they
chilled, numbed him. He quickened his steps and other footfalls seemed
to follow. It was the tread of that unseen presence, which he had felt
and defied, the day Smith was overtaken, and he stood on the buttress
above the rockslide in the Pass. Always it stalked with him, behind
him, beside him; when he halted it crowded him close.
He had hoped to meet Alice returning through the cut, but he reached the
schoolhouse finally, only to find the door locked; the children and
their teacher gone. He turned on the steps and looked up that steep
trail through the burn. "She must have taken that way, around by the
Myers claim, on some errand," he told himself. Then it flashed over him
that somewhere, during those wretched halts in the wilderness, he had
lost a day; this was not Friday, as he had conjectured, but Saturday,
the week-end holiday.
He sank down on the steps and looked back over the level stretch of
track he had just travelled. It was impossible to take up the return
tramp to the headwaters so soon, but Laramie would give him some sort of
bed and supper, and in the morning it might not be too late. He pulled
himself together and rose. Then he stopped, listening. He had caught
the sound of galloping hoofs. In a moment he whistled, his old,
imperative note, that Sir Donald so well understood. The hoof-beats
fell to a trot and the chestnut appeared. Stratton repeated the
summons, but with a new, uncertain key, for his lip, stiff and swollen
from the accident at the tower, had lost flexibility. The horse halted,
head up, ears erect, sensitive, eyes dilating. But when his master
started towards him he wheeled a little, and the stirrup, swinging high
from the shifted saddle, struck him smartly. He crashed off through the
jungle. His dragging bridle looped a snag, but he jerked free, and,
making a detour around the clearing, struck the trail, breaking again
into a mad gallop, back in the direction of the Nisqually.
"So, Donald, so--you too. Well, I don't blame you, old fellow; I don't
blame you." But this disappointment, following so closely on the other,
told on Stratton. He sank down again on the steps.
After awhile he took out his pocketbook, and, finding a piece of paper
and a pencil, wrote without superscription or signature,
"I came back to see you--I had to. Not to excuse myself, but to ask of
you that mercy you once promised me--there below the Paradise--and then
to take--what I deserve. I have fallen pretty far since that day on Mt.
Rainier, and you are going to wish, all your life, you had left me in
that crevasse. Great God, you don't know how I have wished it, too, out
there in the terrible stillness of the Palouse; how miserably I wish it
now. I would pay any price to see the old friendliness in your face
again. But, this morning, up at the tower, I lost the chance. That is
all. It cannot help you now, to know I would give anything to have
Forrest safe--and be in his place--buried deep in that slide."
All the sheet was a wavering scrawl, but the last lines ran together
word over word. He folded the paper, but after a thoughtful moment
opened it and added at the bottom of the page, "I want Thornton to have
my horse." Then he refolded it and slipped it under the door.
He stood for an interval looking towards the Des Chutes. "She will not
find it until Monday," he said, "and by that time if I have not seen
her, it will be too late." And he went down the steps and took the
trail to Laramie's.
He heard the increasing roar of the freshet as he walked, and presently,
when he reached the curve where the trail turned down-stream, he found
the flood over banks; currents eddied through the underbrush,
undermining the trunks of hemlocks and firs; carrying out detached
boughs and logs. At the crossing to the Phiander claim the rustic
footbridge was gone.
But Stratton remembered the banks were higher at Laramie's homestead;
the old fallen fir, which bridged the channel there, had withstood the
shock of many floods. He moved on, quickening his steps where he could,
but, now that he had left the gravelly soil of the ridges for the loam
of the bottom-land, walking became more difficult. The mud clung to his
boots; in places footing oozed under him, and repeatedly, in lower
levels, he was forced to make wide detours, leaving the path to push
through tangles of alder and hazel or cottonwood. Often water washed
above his ankles; at intervals it splashed to his knees.
At last he struggled up a little rise and came out on a low bluff. The
great uprooted trunk of the fir footbridge was at his elbow, and he
stopped, taking breath, and sank into a half sitting position on the
knuckle of one gnarled root. His rain-soaked clothes shaded into the
color of the dead, earth-stained tree, so that he might have been a part
of it.
The fir had fallen with a downward slant to the farther bank, its top
driving wedgelike between two cedars. These trees were standing with
their trunks submerged, and, mid-channel, the log swung to the current
and formed a dam, holding back an increasing collection of drift,
through which the water rushed with the roar of rapids. The whole jam
rose and fell with a concerted upheaval.
The roots of the fir, ballasted by forest litter, formed a short
stairway up to the crossing, and presently Stratton mounted, slowly,
with difficulty and began to feel his steps over the bridge. At the
same time a great fallen hemlock swung down-stream, its upreared trunk
coming foremost, a tremendous battering ram.
It was over in a moment. He stopped, mid-channel, listening, and turned
his clouding eyes up-stream. The hemlock drove through the crunching
drift and ploughed on through the bridge. He plunged forward, face
down, with a sharp cry, and, impaled by a broken, submerged root, was
swept out with the wreckage.
Mose, coming from his father's cabin, heard that cry, and quickened his
pace to a run. He reached the place where the footbridge had been, and
stood crossing himself as he had been taught by the priest.
"Jesus--Mary," he whispered, and then, "Oh, Sahgalee, Tyee Sahgalee."
But the hemlock had grounded at a bend below. Its palisade of green
boughs fringed the rampart of a fixed jam. He turned and ran, wading,
down between the alders and cottonwoods, and Laramie's dogs came
splashing after him, taking advantage of logs or any slight rise, but
swimming where they must. He came out on a low bluff above the drift,
and when he saw what silent shape it carried, he crossed himself once
more. Then he grasped two stout trailing boughs and swung himself down
on the jam.
Two sections of the footbridge held the body wedgelike, but the face and
breast were awash. Mose fell to his knees and tried to turn and lift
the face from the water. "Mo'sieur," he said, in an agony of entreaty
and fear, "Mo'sieur, you can' be hurt mooch."
But there was no answer.
"Mo'sieur," he repeated, and shifted his arm lower to raise the
submerged breast; "Monjee, mo'sieur, you mus' help yourself, some."
Still no response; and the boy made no further attempt to rouse him, for
he had felt, suddenly, the grip of the hemlock. He withdrew his arm,
and, cuffing aside one of the snuffing hounds, laid his hand on the neck
of the other and rose. Then he took breath and lifted his voice in a
great shout. The dogs swelled it, belling a prolonged note. He
listened and repeated the call with his palm to his mouth. This time it
brought a faint reply from Laramie, and the hounds sounded a louder
clarion.
And the storming Des Chutes swept away the deep, full-throated cry, and
the speaking hills caught it and sent it back like a lament from far
promontories.
*CHAPTER XXX*
*THE LOST PROSPECT*
Below the falls the overflow had formed a backwater through the meadow,
and that Saturday morning Alice took the Jerseys from the higher ground
of the home enclosure, and put them to graze on the slope. She intended
to ride directly on to the Station for the mail, and made a short cut
through the park to strike the trail beyond the first knoll. It was
then, while the black paced slowly among the wet trees, that the sound
of the landslide clashed through the hills. Colonel stopped, trembling;
hoofs planted, head up, nostrils wide and quivering, then, panic driven,
broke. A little later, when she had drawn him down, and still quieting
him, turned again towards the trail, Stratton's horse, arrested by the
washed out bridge on his way to the lodge, thundered back in the
direction of the Nisqually.
There was a flash of the chestnut coat between the branches; a glimpse
of the empty saddle and he was gone. But instantly Alice saw that
Stratton had returned. He had, of course, taken the branch through the
canyon and the thoroughbred had refused the swollen ford; he had bolted,
skirting the submerged jungle to the main trail, and left his master
unhorsed, perhaps hurt, at the crossing.
She turned and rode back towards the gorge, expecting to pick up the
trail at the foot of the bluff, where it wound down from the tower.
"It's all right, Colonel," she said, "it's all right. You ought to know
a slide by this time. But I don't blame you; it was a monster; it
sounded like the whole canyon wall coming down."
Dropping from the open park to the underbrush of the gorge, she turned
the horse into a thinned way, evidently once blazed by some passing
woodsman. Then, presently, looking up between boughs, she saw a low
cloud, trailing over and blotting out the summit where the tower had
stood, and below it the demolished front of the cliff. At the same
moment, Colonel, pushing through a tangle of salal, stumbled to his
knees. She glanced back to see what had caused the fall and her eyes
rested on a weather-beaten stake, such as a surveyor or prospector uses
in marking off land, driven close to alow, outcropping ledge. A few
steps farther on she noticed a blaze in the bark of a hemlock, in which
had been cut a small arrow, pointing downward at this rock.
The horse moved on and she lifted her eyes again to the cliff. Midway
the slide had shaved off a jutting spur, and, suddenly, a shaft of
sunlight filtering through the clouds, struck from this new surface a
blaze of colors. Instantly she thought of the samples of ore Paul
Forrest had once shown her. Here were the same blues and purples, the
shine of silver, the glint of dull yellow. It was, she knew it was, the
lost prospect. It was Paul who had driven that stake. It was here in
this canyon, while he groped a way out of the hills, he had stumbled on
his find. The mist, hanging over as it did today, had obscured the
tower and given the gorge a different aspect than later, in clear
weather, it had shown. But this was the place and the slide had
uncovered the mother lode.
She sat for a moment, holding in her horse and looking up at that
dazzling ledge. She drew full breaths with parted lips; the bloom of a
wild rose was in her cheeks; a soft brightness shone in her eyes. Then
she was reminded of her present duty by a voice; a man's voice calling
faintly, "Help, oh--help."
A little below the broken spur the cliff began to dip outward, forming
an incline to the bottom of the gorge. Trees had found hold on this
pitch, and where the top created a narrow bench, the uprooted trunk of a
giant fir, flanked by the stub of an old cedar, timbered a barricade of
splintered rock and earth. The last soft downrush had nearly filled
this rampart, and streamed out through the dip between the felled boles,
covering slabs and boulders, evening the slide to the appearance of a
newly graded roadway. It was there, directly under the mineral ledge,
that Alice located the voice. She concluded it was Stratton's; that he
had not been thrown at the ford, but on the cliff; and he had been
caught in the avalanche.
She answered the call, but it was not repeated, and she quickly chose a
way to reach the shelf. She saw that the trail from the ford up the
bluff was lost in shifting granite; and, for a long distance, passage up
the fir was obstructed by a network of boughs; but the fallen cedar,
slowly dying, had lost many of its branches; those remaining were still
pliable. She left her horse, and, pushing through a litter of snapped
saplings and broken limbs, reached this tree.
Its top was splintered and set like a brace against the trunk of a
standing hemlock. Ragged boughs at first retarded her; she was forced
to work on her knees, through their meshes. Sometimes she swung herself
down to trudge ankle-deep, knee-deep through the soft fill around a
barrier. She crawled over suspended boulders, under tilting slabs that
had found lodgment on the great bole. In one of these places, where a
mighty fragment of rock had struck, the bark was stripped loose in
lengths. Later she remembered this.
At last she gained the end of the tree, and sinking in an accumulation
of earth, found the support of a root and drew herself up, slowly,
bringing her eyes to the top of the barricade. The color went from her
face; her shoulders shook; her limbs; but she pulled herself higher and
leaned on the rim. This man was not Stratton. His body was buried; only
his head and one shoulder were uncovered; the face was turned from her.
But this man was not Stratton.
She drew herself over the rampart and ran, stumbling in loose mold, to
reach him. But when she saw his face a hand of iron seemed to tighten
on her throat; her limbs gave under her. "Paul," she said. "Oh, Paul,
Paul!"
The next moment she started up, her weakness gone. Her cheek had touched
his; it was warm. A light breath had come from his lips. And he had
called, he had been able to call, not long ago. She began to throw the
loose earth from his chest, his breast; digging, working like a beaver
with her two hands. Presently she laid her palm on his heart and caught
a faint action. She felt in the pocket of his shirt for the emergency
flask a timber-cruiser keeps about him in the wilderness, but it was not
there. Still, the pocket was shallow, it might have dropped near, and
she resumed her task, prodding at intervals for the flask. She freed
his arm; his side. She had found no rocks around the upper part of his
body; nothing but soft soil. To be quite sure she reached, feeling,
under his back. And this brought from him a groan. A quiver swept his
face, but when she had withdrawn her arm, he rested white and still as
before.
The dirt had filled deeper over his abdomen, but she hurried to the rim
of the rampart and selected a splinter of rock which she used as a
scoop. At last his whole trunk was released, but his limbs were planted
deeper yet. He seemed to have fallen feet first, and settled,
afterwards, a little to one side. If only those feet had not struck
rock. She was afraid--afraid--of--what she might unearth. Still she
worked. And the faith of her missionary grandfather rose strong in her,
and battled with her fear. "Dear God," her heart cried, "do not let him
have touched rock. Show me--show me the best thing to do."
It commenced to rain heavily, and she stopped to turn his face directly
to the shower, throwing off her jacket and using it to prop his head.
She spread her handkerchief on a clean slab to catch the moisture, and,
when it was wet, pressed the drops from it, between his lips. But they
were so few. If only the slide had opened a spring in the cliff; if
only she could find the flask.
She went back, fighting down her despair, to her work. A moment later
she heard him sigh. Relieved of the pressure of earth, his empty lungs
had slowly filled and at last expelled their first good breath. She
looked at him over her shoulder, holding her own breath, kneeling still
with her hands in the mold. He opened his eyes--she dared not move--and
saw her, blankly at first, and then with swift intelligence. "Alice,"
he said, "why--Alice. See here--I'm all right. I can wait. Please
don't. That's work for a--man."
Instantly she was up and at his shoulder. "Don't try to talk," she
said. "Don't move; but can you remember if you had your flask?"
He knit his brows. "It was in my pocket--the coat. But," he added with
second recollection, "the slide must have brought it down with me."
"All right, I'll find it. Don't say any more; don't try to think, or
move, or do anything. Rest."
He smiled a little and closed his eyes, and she hurried back with fresh
effort to her task. Presently she was able to run her hand down,
through the loose soil, to the end of the right limb. It was straight,
and not the crumpled mass she had feared. But, working her arm through
a wider range, she felt, a few inches from the leg, the edge of a slab.
Then, directly, while she followed its contour to satisfy herself it did
not touch him anywhere, her fingers came in contact with woolen cloth.
She dug faster and faster, and finally unearthed the end of a sleeve;
his coat sleeve which trailed from beneath the rock. She pulled at it,
tried to shift the stone, alternately strained and dragged at the
garment. But it was of no use. Her glance wavered despairingly to that
second, still buried, limb, then she began to uncover the slab. And
while she labored tirelessly, her heart cried, "Dear God, let me be able
to lift it; do not let it be very--big."
At last she uncovered the outer edge. A little more digging along the
thin side and again under the sleeve, then she set her hands, the
strength of her young arms to the rock. It eased up slightly. She put
her knee to it, bracing it while she tugged at the coat. It slipped a
trifle. Again a lift, a wrench, a slip, and here was a pocket exposed,
and in it she found the small metal flask; jammed, flattened, leaking a
little, but holding, still, brandy.
She poured it hot between his lips, and presently he again opened his
eyes. "I'm all right," he repeated, "yes--I am. Don't trouble; don't
stay here--in the rain. I can wait for Thornton or--Myers. I'm
all--right."
To prove the point he tried to get to his elbow, but settled back, going
white again to the lips.
She turned her face away. Her eyes were dry, but the dread in them was
beyond tears. After a moment she compelled her glance to meet his. Her
lips moved, but the iron hand again seemed to strangle the words in her
throat. "Is it"--they were out at last--"is it--your--back?"
"No, oh, no." He smiled his old smile of the eyes. "It's only a
dislocated shoulder. With Thornton to help me it won't take long to
straighten it out."
She returned to that second limb. "Dear God," she still prayed, "I am
so afraid. But--if it is hurt--don't let it be past help." Aloud she
said, and steadied her voice, "Mill was to have gone to the Station this
morning."
"Of course--of course--I had forgotten. I left Ketchem for him last
night. But Myers is somewhere here in the hills."
"Then the noise of the slide should bring him this way." She thrust the
scoop carefully along the side of the uncovered knee. "Mose," she
added, "went home with his father, yesterday, to help drive the sheep to
high ground. Sheep"--her voice broke--"sheep--are so foolish--in a
flood."
She laid the scoop down. There was no further need of digging; the leg
was doubled back from the knee, in a heap. She got to her feet and
turned, meeting his look again bravely. "You see," she said and smiled,
"there isn't a man; you'll have to use me. What would you have asked
Mill to do?"
"Why, set this arm. You could do it--it's simple--but I don't like to
ask it of you. You take it--like this"--he reached and she knelt beside
him to allow him to demonstrate with hers,--"and pull it out as far as
you can--so--only harder--much harder. It's going to hurt some, I'll
probably make a fuss, but never mind--pull. Then let it settle back into
the shoulder socket--so. You've seen the round bone that fits in a
shoulder of veal. Well, just think of that."
"I understand the--movement," she said, and steadied her voice again,
"and I'm--str-o-ong. I'll do my best."
It was quickly and successfully done, and he did not make a fuss. He
only closed his eyes at the last and set his teeth on that pale under
lip until it bled. And afterwards he rested so motionless that she gave
him another draught from the flask. Then finally he was able to sit up
and examine that injured leg. It was broken in two places, he said; at
the ankle and midway to the knee. There was too, he noticed now,
something wrong with that left side; probably a fractured rib. It was
work for a good surgeon, yes, but nothing to worry over. And he would
have a look at that slide, right away, and see what the possibilities
were of getting down.
He worked his way to the rim of the ledge and she moved with him,
watching his face; every shadow of pain that crossed it brought the
anguish springing to her eyes. He raised his head, propping it on his
hand, his elbow on the rocks, and his clear glance swept the fallen
trees, and then more slowly the pitch stretching like smooth roadway
between.
Her eyes moved from him to the incline and back to his face. "Colonel
is down there in those standing alders," she said. "Could we risk him
anywhere on the slide?"
"No." He shook his head. "No, my only chance is to coast."
"To coast? You mean"--and quick understanding leaped in her face--"you
want a sled. There's a strip of bark down there, you can see it, where
that piece of granite struck the cedar; it ought to make a good
toboggan."
"The best kind," he answered, "if you can find some one to bring it up."
His glance came back from the slide while he spoke, but it moved no
higher than the rim of the barricade. It had stopped raining and a shaft
of sunlight, piercing the mist, flashed on a fragment of rock. He
reached and took it, turning it in his hands slowly, to catch the play
of colors. Then his eyes swept the splintered ore that spilled over the
rampart, and he swung himself a little, starting up, though he was
forced to sink back directly, in an endeavor to see the ledge overhead.
Finally his gaze met hers.
"It looks like my lost prospect." His voice vibrated a little; his face
had grown suddenly young, boyish, and the hope in it brought an
answering light to her own. "Here are the same traces of free gold, the
rarest find in the world, with this deposit of copper; and just a nice
showing of silver. But I could have sworn that outcropping was at least
a mile from here."
"Your stake is just down there, on a line with those alders. Colonel
stumbled on it when we came through a little while ago. And, you can't
see it from here, but the slide "--she paused, her lips trembling yet
dimpling--"the slide has opened a great mineral vein, right above us."
He started up again, forgetting his injuries, and again sank back.
"What luck," he said softly, "what luck. Strange," he added after a
moment, "how I made that miscalculation."
"I think it was easy. You had broken your compass that day; you hadn't
a glimpse of the sun; the whole top of this cliff must have been in
cloud as it is today; the tower shut off completely. But, I'm going
now." She bent to leave the flask beside him, propping it carefully to
avoid loss of that remaining potion of liquor through the leak. "I may
be gone a long time, but I'll hurry. I'm glad you have the prospect--to
think of."
She stepped up on the edge of the rampart. "Promise you won't try to do
anything," she said.
He shook his head, watching her with his smile of the eyes. "It's a
safe promise. I wish it was harder to make."
She paused another moment, sitting on the edge and feeling for foothold
on the root she had used in coming up; then she swung lightly off. Her
eyes met his an instant across the rim. "Good-by," she said, and dipped
from sight.
He raised himself a little higher, bracing his shoulder on a tilted
slab, and waited for her to reappear on the bole below. She made her
way quickly and surely down.
He believed she had gone for help, how uncertain and remote she had let
him know, but, while he still watched that clump of alders, in which she
had disappeared, she came back; and she carried a rope, presumably
Colonel's lariat, coiled on her arm. Presently she put it down and
began to cull out dangerous, snagged boughs from the debris at the
bottom of the pitch. Where immovable rocks and stumps menaced, she
heaped springy branches. And Forrest understood. She was guarding
against his possible impact with the wreckage.
But at last she picked up the lariat and started back up the cedar. He
saw her purpose and, also, the futility of any effort of his to stop
her. "I might have guessed it," he said, and set his lips; "it was like
her."
She reached the place where the slab of granite had stripped the bark,
and selecting a piece, made the lariat fast, and began slowly,
laboriously, to drag it up. Sometimes the soft soil banked in front of
the tow, so deep she was forced to tie it to the log, while she slipped
down to clear the track; and in one of these places she looked up and
saw Forrest's face, showing white above the ledge, and she called an
encouraging "Hello."
He answered in a soft whistle, and because she seemed to work less
desperately, he repeated the note at intervals. It settled into snatches
of a tune; a tune so sweet, so tender, sometimes, she could hardly
endure it, and yet again so full of appeal it drew her on; the loveliest
parts of Schubert's Serenade, over and over, with the variations of a
flute, and the soft, full-throated cadence of a bird.
At last it came no more. She had reached the barricade. She paid out
the tow-line, and with its noosed end over her arm, mounted the trunk.
She halted on the root, her breath coming hard and quick, and met his
look again across the rim. "What made you?" he asked, his voice
shaking. "What made you? You might have slipped. You might have
started the whole slide."
She did not answer; she could not; she was tired beyond speech. She
climbed slowly, with great difficulty, up over the edge, struggled to
her feet, stumbled, and sank down.
He could not break her fall, as he had once, long ago, in the windfall,
but he moved enough to draw her head to his shoulder. "What made you?"
he repeated. "I'm not worth it. What made you?" And he kissed her
lips.
He relieved her arm of the dragging rope, and tried to draw the tow up
between the two trunks; but she stopped him. "You mustn't," she said.
"You need all your strength. You must save yourself for that ride.
I--I'm very str-o-ng, Paul. Only wait--just a moment."
"Of course we'll wait." He anchored the tow by slipping the lariat
noose over the jagged top of the slab on which he leaned. "It's all
right. There's no hurry."
The chinook caught her loosened hair and it fell like a shaken web, over
her drenched shoulders, her waist. The sunlight struck from it the best
colors of his prospect; glints of copper shading through the gold. He
never had seen anything as beautiful except her face.
She gathered the shining mass in her hands and tried hurriedly to divide
it in a braid, but he put his arm around her again and drew her head
against his breast ihe contact of her hair thrilled him; spirals of it
caught and clung to his hand. His immeshed fingers lost their power.
Then he felt her whole warm body tremble. "It was too hard for you," he
said. "You shouldn't have tried it. But I love you for it; I love you."
"I don't know how I ever could have doubted it." She lifted her head
and looked at him. A flush rose in her face; she saw him through sudden
mist. "I did doubt; I heard a monstrous story and I--believed it.
"Was it about Louise?"
"Yes," her voice was almost a whisper,--"Louise and--you."
His arm fell from her shoulder. He turned his face to the gorge,
knitting his brows. "I want to explain that story," he said. "I want
to explain it now before we start down. I was to blame, I should have
looked ahead, and yet I don't see how it could have been avoided; not
while she stayed alone there, and I kept my position at the mills.
But--I never saw her in the same light as other women; she was so far
above reproach, so spotless, so nearly--well--a saint. And it was so
evident, always, she couldn't give a thought to any man but Philip.
Then, too, I had known her all my life, and she was your sister; like
you in so many ways. And she was so solitary, so unhappy, troubled. I
was so sorry for her, and that life there under the Head was so
miserably dull for us both. We came to depend on each other to tide
over those slow evenings." He paused, resting a moment, then went on.
"You must see what it meant to me, a homeless fellow who is pretty fond
of a home. I liked those hundred comfortable little turns she gave to a
room. And I thought a lot of young Silas; he had a way of claiming me.
Then, there was the music; it was her inspiration and mine. After all I
can't hope to make it clear to you. I don't excuse myself, I don't want
to, but--well--I had just given up you. She was a kind, sweet friend,
in trouble, and sometimes, at the most, a very nice reproduction, call
it a picture, of you. If I stumbled, anywhere, it was the weakness of a
man who has been desperately hurt, crippled, and is trying his best to
get on his feet again."
"I understand," she said, "oh, I understand; but tell me this, in the
end, if there had been no Philip, would it have made a difference?"
"No." His look returned to her face; his voice deepened and shook.
"You ought to know that. You ought to know there never can be a living
woman so dear to me as just the memory of you. It came to that, a
memory, the day Judge Kingsley told me--how much he thought of you. I
saw you were meant for that future he had to offer; and I promised--I
promised not to stand in his way."
The furrow deepened between his brows, and he moved a little and laid
his hand on the rope. She rose, gathering her hair swiftly into that
braid, and hurried to relieve him of the strain. And, presently, when
the improvised sled was drawn close up between the trees, and he had
dragged himself aboard, and stored the useless leg, he gave the word and
she cast off the line.
She propelled him with a careful shove out between the trunks, and
gathering momentum, he moved more and more swiftly, ploughing a trail
through the soft mold, drawing small avalanches behind him that might at
any instant result in the fresh start of the whole slide. She followed
down the cedar. It was impossible to overtake him on the higher and
sharper portion of the pitch, but midway the sled entered a deeper fill.
The incline lessened there, and the bark clogged with accumulations,
which taxed Forrest's strength to clear. At last he could do no more.
The toboggan stopped, crept on, and stopped again, fixed.
Instantly she was down from the log and making her way out to him. She
gave him the remaining draught from the flask, and, clearing the track,
started the sled with a long push, that carried it into the sharper
pitch below. The next moment, while she turned to regain the cedar, she
knew that the danger, which had been so imminent above, had overtaken
them. The slide was in motion.
She ran with it, yet contrived to shift her course diagonally, back to
the log. Crowding rock underneath began to lift points and edges
through the soft fill. They tripped her, cut through her shoes. Still
she kept her footing. A bough heaved up and, for a moment, its meshes
entrapped her; but she held herself erect, and, like a river man, going
with a swift and riffled current, swung alertly on. Presently she
noticed that the avalanche did not gain impetus; then that it lost a
little, and finally, almost as suddenly as it had started, it came to a
halt. Looking down, while she finished the remaining steps to the
cedar, she saw that Forrest had been carried before this upheaval. The
sled was slowing at the end of the slope. A good yard short of the
wreckage it came to a stop.
At the same time Eben Myers, coming up the canyon, skirted the standing
alders, and stopped to look at the demolished cliff. The cloud was
lifting from the summit; it parted in trailing ends, showing where the
granite bastion had stood. "Kingdom Come!" he said slowly; "it was ther
tower. Thundered like--"
He paused in astonishment, for, his glance moving down the pitch, rested
on the teacher, making her way through the boughs of the fallen cedar.
"Well, I be durned," he added, and, seeing the figure stretched on the
improvised toboggan, he repeated profoundly, "I be durned."
He was the first to reach the sled. Forrest stirred and looked up at
him with a faint smile. "Hello Eben," he said weakly. "How's the
petrified man?"
Myers laughed, half in relief, half in embarrassment, and lifted his
hand to part his black whiskers. "I dunno," he said. "I'd orter o' got
ter his dum head by now, but I ain't lit on it this trip, an' my rations
is plumb give out. I dug, you kin bet on that, I dug ter satisfy that
ther blame Gov'ment dep'ty, Bates. You see he's b'en ter Washington,
an' let on he knew er sight 'bout museums, an' mummies, an' stuffed
animals, an' bones, so's I showed him them ther legs an' arms. An' he
'lowed they wa'n't nothin' but petrified trees."
"No? Well, that's too bad, Eben. I always wanted to have a look at
your find; I know a little about the subject, and I might have saved you
trouble and time. I don't like to believe you've thrown away these two
years."
Eben lifted his eyes again to the cliff. "Kingdom Come!" he said once
more. "But where was you?"
"Up there, at the top. You see, Eben,--don't you?--what that landslide
did for me. That's it; that streak of mineral, shining up there, is my
lost prospect. A dynamite blast couldn't have been surer. It opened my
mine."
"'Pears that erway," Eben answered slowly, "an' I 'low that ther vein
shows up all o' twelve feet. But," and his look returned to Forrest,
"'pears, too, like ther Almighty teched off that ther blast er little
too quick."
"Oh, I'm all right. It's only a broken bone or two; nothing a surgeon
can't fix. I came down in that last layer of soft earth, and Miss
Hunter," he steadied his voice, "found me and helped me out."
But if Forrest's light mention of his injuries had deceived Eben, the
teacher's manner quickly convinced him there was little time to waste.
She brought the horse from the alders, and despatched the settler with
her saddle cup to fill at the stream which flowed through the gorge. And
when Paul had taken a long draught, and she had covered his chilled
shoulders with her raincoat, which she had carried strapped behind the
saddle, she found in one of the pockets a pencil, with which, on the
blank page of a letter, she wrote a telegram to the Judge.
Eben, who was converting his blanket into a sling for Forrest's injured
limb, promised to take the message straight to Yelm Station, and she
could trust Judge Kingsley to send a surgeon, the best in Olympia,
without delay. But her heart sank at the long and unavoidable interval
he must spend on the road. "Dear God," she cried, under her breath,
"hurry them; hurry them; let him come in time."
At last the saddle sling was ready, and Myers tucked the folded paper
carefully into his pocket, weighing it down with his small prospector's
mallet and a ragged plug of tobacco. Forrest's eyes moved from the
mineral ledge and rested an instant on the place where the tower had
stood. "You may meet a runaway horse somewhere on the trail, Eben," he
said. "If you do, don't try to take the bridle close under the bit. He
has been taught a mean trick."
"Oh," said Alice, "you mean Sir Donald. I had forgotten. Mr. Myers,
you came down-stream. Did you see Mr. Stratton near the ford?"
"Did I see him?" Eben smiled his wide smile. "Well, no. Ef I had, I
jedge I'd er took him."
"I saw him." Forrest's brows contracted; the line between them grew
black. "He was up there at the tower, but the slide left him safe."
"And you," she exclaimed, "you tried to stop Sir Donald."
"Yes. Stratton was unhorsed; that's all. Now, Eben," he added, turning
a little and reaching for the settler's hand, "now, your shoulder,
please; here, at the armpit. So."
Alice ran to the black's head. It was miserable. Miserable. He closed
his teeth hard over that white nether lip, but the groan would out.
And, up in the saddle, his shoulders sagged forward. He could have
buried his face on those old familiar withers, and cried. But he pulled
himself together; for the sake of this brave girl, who had worked so
tirelessly for him, who moved, now, ahead of him, pushing down the
encroaching salal, smoothing the way through tangles of hazel and fern,
he must hold himself in check. And presently the agony eased a little.
He could look about him; he was able to identify that stake, to which
Alice called his attention, while she led the horse carefully by. Then,
after another moment, he assured Eben that he could ride well enough,
and urged him to go on to the Station and hurry that telegram through.
Afterwards he could come back with Thornton and beat the timber for
Stratton. Mill would be the one to take that chestnut; he was a good
man with a horse.
But all this did not deceive Alice. Her eyes were too accustomed to
every light and shade of Forrest's face; she knew each fluctuation of
his voice. Still, though she understood, she made no sign. She talked
sometimes, to carry her part, but oftener she moved in silence her hand
on Colonel's bridle, watching his steps. And so they passed out of the
park and into the trail above the knoll.
Then, suddenly, his strength reached low ebb. He dipped forward to the
black's neck. She sprang to support him. "Paul, Paul," she encouraged,
and raised herself a-tiptoe on a bit of higher ground, to bring her
shoulder against him in a bracing lift; "you mustn't let yourself go!
It's only a little farther; don't you hear the falls? Paul, Paul, we're
almost--home."
He roused himself a little, and looked at her. "Paul Forrest," she said
sharply, "_be a--man_."
He flushed, catching the taunt, and with a mighty effort, both hands on
the saddle horn, forced himself erect. Her eyes, dark with entreaty,
across her shoulder met his. "You see, Paul--dear," her lip trembled,
"if you should fall--I--could never put you up--alone."
"I won't fall." He gripped the bridle. "Don't be afraid--I won't. But
I hear a stream somewhere--close--and I'm--thirsty."
"It's here, the tiniest rill, at the bend. Hold Colonel, if you can,
just a moment."
She caught the water in the flask, rinsing it quickly to get the last of
the brandy, and poured it into the cup. The slight stimulant and the
brief halt helped him to gather himself once more. They moved on around
the bend.
Somewhere, down the wet, sunlit trail, a meadow lark started a soft,
deep-throated prelude; and was it not
"All things--all things--come round to him--to him--who
will but wait."
Alice laid her hand on the rein; the horse stopped. And there below
them, at the foot of the knoll, its shadowy eaves and roomy balcony
clear against that background of old trees, rose the cabin of his
dreams.
The trail narrowed and dipped from the curve, skirting a spur of rock,
and she stepped on this ledge to give the horse room. It brought her
nearer Forrest's level, and she waited, her hand still on the bridle,
watching his face. She saw his surprised glance linger on the cottage,
and move slowly to the clump of cedars she had saved from the slashing
to shade the western wall, and on towards the meadow, seeking between
the group of alders and the other of maples, now turned scarlet, the old
gnarled trunk with chairlike arms.
That was her crowning hour, the thought of which had buoyed her through
days of weariness and made toil possible. "Paul," she said at last, and
her voice vibrated its contralto note, "you understand. I did it--I
filed on the homestead--to hold it--_for you_."
He looked down into her lifted face, believing yet not believing.
"You--did it, to hold it--for me?"
"At first," she went on hurriedly, "I planned it in payment for the use
of Colonel. I meant to commute it, when you were ready to take it, or
else relinquish my right. But I knew you would oppose me, Paul; I dared
not tell you. And, afterwards, I learned to love it. You don't know
how I love it. It would be hard to give it up."
"I understand," he answered slowly. "But don't let it trouble you. I
have the mining claim; that's enough. Hold your homestead, Alice. It's
yours; you worked--how you must have worked--for it. The Judge--will
find it a great country place."
"Dear Uncle Silas. It shall always be his resting place. You have seen
him, haven't you, Paul? He has told you that--he knows?"
Forrest did not answer. His face was very white. She believed his
strength, once more, was going, and she moved closer, raising herself
a-tiptoe on the rock, to brace her shoulder again to his weight. "Oh,"
she said, "we shouldn't have stopped here; we should have hurried
straight down."
"Why, I'm all right." He leaned a little in spite of himself, and the
arm on her shoulder shook. "Yes, I'm all right. But see here--see
here--what does the Judge--know?"
She waited a moment, and the lark, nearer now, repeated his prelude,
"All things--all things---come round to him--to him--who
will but wait."
Then she answered, almost in a whisper, with her lashes fallen and a
soft brightness in her face, "That I--love you--Paul."
Colonel started, for the old madame, seeing them on the knoll, had
crossed the yard to open the gate. Then, suddenly, as they went down,
breaking the cello interlude of the falls, the voice of the lark, full,
tender, impassioned, rose in full song.