AT SNAKE RIVER LANDING
Jessie Mowbray left the Mission House as the last of the small crowd of
copper-hued pappooses bundled pell-mell in the direction of the teepees
and cabins of their dusky parents.
For a few moments she stood there in the open with pensive eyes
following the movements of scurrying, toddling legs, many of them
encased in the minutest of buckskin, chap-like pantaloons and the
tiniest of beaded moccasins. It was a sight that yielded her a
tenderness of emotion that struggled hard to dispel the cloud which her
father's death had caused to settle over the joyous spirit of her young
life.
In a measure it was not without success. The smallness of these Indian
children, their helplessness, appealed to her woman's heart as possibly
nothing else could have done. It mattered nothing to her that the
fathers and mothers of these tots belonged to a low type of race
without scruple, or honesty, or decency, or any one of the better
features of the aboriginal. They were as low, perhaps lower than many
of the beasts of the field. But these "pappooses," so quaint and
small, so very helpless, were entirely dependent upon the succor of
Father José's Mission for the hope of their future. The sight of them
warmed her spirit out of the cold depths of her own personal grief, and
left her yearning.
The last of the children vanished within the shelter of the surrounding
woods, where the homes of their parents had been set up. Then movement
in the clearing ceased. All was still in the early evening light. The
soft charm, the peace of the Mission, which had been the outward and
visible sign of her understanding of home all her years, settled once
more, and with it fell the bitter, haunting memory of the tragedy of
seven months ago.
To Jessie Mowbray the tragedy of the life about her had suddenly become
the seriousness of it. In one night she had been robbed of all the
buoyant optimism of youth. As yet she had failed to achieve the smile
of courage under the buffet, just as she had never yet discovered that
the real spirit of life is to achieve hard knocks with the same ready
smile which should accompany acts of kindliness.
Her father had been her hero. And she had been robbed of her hero by
the ruthless hands of the very savages whom it was her daily mission to
help towards enlightenment. The bitterness of it had sunk deeply into
a sensitive heart. She lacked the experiences of life of her mother.
She lacked the Christian fortitude of Father José. She knew nothing of
the iron nerve of Murray, or the youthful selfishness of her brother
Alec. So she shrank under the burden of bereavement, and fostered a
loyal resentment against her father's slayers.
The chill of the northern evening was already in the air. The sunlight
fell athwart the great fringe of foliage which crowned the lank trunks
of primordial pine woods. It lit the clearing with a mellow radiance,
and left the scene tempered with a shadowed beauty, which in all
Jessie's girlhood had never failed to appeal to her. Now it passed her
by. She saw only the crude outline of the great log home, which, for
her, had been desolated. About her were the equally crude Mission
buildings, with Father José's hut a few yards away. Then there was the
light smoke haze from the Indian camp-fires, rising heavily on the
still air, and a smell of cooking was painfully evident. Here and
there a camp dog prowled, great powerful brutes reared to the burden of
the trail. The sound of human voice, too, came from the woodlands,
chanting the droning song of labor which the squaws love to voice
without tune or meaning.
Jessie moved slowly off in the direction of her home. Half-way across
the clearing she paused. Then, in a moment of inspiration, she turned
away and passed down the narrow avenue which led to the landing on the
river. There was an hour to supper. The twilight of her home was less
attractive now than the music of the river, which had so often borne
the burden of Allan Mowbray's laden canoes.
Jessie had lost none of her youthful grace of movement. Her tall
figure, so round with the charms of womanhood, yet so supple, so full
of natural, unfettered grace, made her a delight to the eye. Her
beauty was unquestioned. But the change in her expression was marked.
Her ripe young lips were firmer, harder even. There was, too, a slight
down drooping at the corners of her mouth. Then her eyes had lost
something of their inclination to smile. They were the grave eyes of
one who has passed through an age of suffering.
She moved swiftly to the landing and took up a position on one of the
timber balks set for mooring. She drew her coat about her. The dying
sun lit her ruddy brown hair with its wintry smile, and the song of the
flowing waters caught and lulled her spirit.
Murray McTavish approached her. He came with bristling step and an air
of virile energy. He dragged forward an empty crate, and, setting it
near her, used it for a seat.
She withdrew her gaze from the glacial field beyond the river, and
looked into the man's smiling eyes, as he greeted her.
"There's just about two things liable to hold a young girl sitting
around on the bank of the Snake River, with a spring breeze coming down
off the glacier. One of them's dreams, the sort of romance that don't
belong to these latitudes."
"And the other?"
"Mostly foolishness."
There was no offence in the man's manner. Jessie was forced to smile.
His words were so characteristic.
"Then I guess it's foolishness with me," she said.
"That's how I figgered when I saw you making this way, just as I was
leaving the store. Say, that coat's mighty thin. Where's your fur--if
you have to sit around here?"
Murray's eyes surveyed the long cloth coat doubtfully.
The girl shook her head.
"I'm not cold."
A sharp, splitting crack, followed by a dull, echoing boom drew the
eyes of both towards the precipitous bank across the river. The great
glacial field had already awakened from its long winter sleep. Once
more it was the living giant of countless ages stirring and heaving
imperceptibly but irresistibly.
The sound died out and the evening peace settled once more upon the
world. In the years of their life upon this river these people had
witnessed thousands, ay, perhaps millions of tons of the discolored ice
of the glacier hurled into the summer melting pot. The tremendous
voice of the glacial world was powerless to disturb them.
Murray gave a short laugh.
"Guess romance has no sort of place in these regions," he said, his
thoughts evidently claimed by the voice they had both just listened to.
Jessie looked round.
"Romance doesn't belong to regions," she said. "Only to the human
heart."
Murray nodded.
"That's so--too." His amiable smile beamed into the girl's serious
eyes. "Those pore darn fools that don't know better than to hunt fish
through holes in the polar ice are just as chock full of romance as any
school miss. Sure. If it depended on conditions I guess we'd need to
go hungry for it. Facts, and desperate hard facts at that, go to make
up life north of 'sixty,' and any one guessing different is li'ble to
find all the trouble Providence is so generous handing out hereabouts."
"I think that way, too--now. I didn't always."
The girl sighed.
"No."
The man seemed to have nothing further to add, and his smile died out.
Jessie was once more reflectively contemplating the masses of
overhanging ice on the opposite bank. The thoughts of both had drifted
back over a space of seven months.
It was the man who finally broke the spell which seemed to have fallen.
He broke it with a movement of impatience.
"What's the use?" he said at last.
"No--there's no use. Nothing can ever bring him back to us." The girl
suddenly flung out her hands in a gesture of helpless earnestness and
longing. "Oh, if he might have been spared to me. My daddy, my brave,
brave daddy."
Again a silence fell between them, and again it was the man who finally
broke it. This time there was no impatience. His strange eyes were
serious; they were as deeply earnest as the girl's. But the light in
them suggested a stirring of deep emotion which had nothing of regret
in it.
"His day had to come," he said reflectively. "A man can live and
prosper on the northern trail, I guess, if he's built right. He can
beat it right out, maybe for years. But it's there all the time
waiting--waiting. And it's going to get us all--in the end. That is
if we don't quit before its jaws close on our heels. He was a big man.
He was a strong man. I mean big and strong in spirit. You've lost a
great father, and I a--partner. It's seven months and more
since--since that time." His voice had dropped to a gentle, persuasive
note, his dark eyes gazing urgently at the girl's averted face. "Is it
good to sit around here in the chill evening dreaming, and thinking,
and tearing open afresh a wound time and youths ready to heal up good?
Say, I don't just know how to hand these things right. I don't even
know if they are right. But it kind of seems to me we folk have all
got our work to do in a country that don't stand for even natural
regrets. It seems to me we all got to shut our teeth and get right on,
or we'll pay the penalty this country is only too ready to claim.
Guess we need all the force in us to make good the life north of
'sixty.' Sitting around thinking back's just going to weaken us so
we'll need to hand over the first time our bluff is called."
Jessie's sad eyes came back to his as he finished speaking. She nodded.
"Yes. You're surely right. It's no use. It's worse. It's playing
the enemy's game. Mother needs my help. Alec. The little kiddies at
the Mission. You're right, Murray." Then, in a moment of passion her
eyes lit and all that was primitive in her flamed up. "Oh, I could
curse them, I could crush them in these two hands," she cried, suddenly
thrusting out two clenched small fists in impotent threat,
"these--these devils who have killed my daddy!"
The man's regard never wavered. The girl's beauty in the passion of
the moment held him. Never had her desirability appeared greater to
him. It was on the tip of his tongue to pour out hot words of love.
To force her, by the very strength of his passionate determination, to
yield him the place in her heart he most desired. But he refrained.
He remembered in time that such a course must be backed by a physical
attraction which he knew he entirely lacked. That lack must be
compensated for by an added caution.
He shook his head.
"Don't talk that way," he said gently. "It's all been awful. But it
can't be undone now, and---- Say, Jessie, you got your mother, and a
brother who needs you. Guess you're more blessed than I am. I haven't
a soul in the world. I'm just a bit of flotsam drifting through life,
looking for an anchorage, and never finding one. That's how it is I'm
right here now. If I'd had folks I don't guess I'd be north of 'sixty'
now. This place is just the nearest thing to an anchorage I've lit on
yet, but even so I haven't found a right mooring."
"You've no folks--none at all?"
Jessie's moment of passion had passed. All her sympathy had been
suddenly aroused by the man's effort to help her, and his unusual
admission of his own loneliness.
A shadow of the man's usual smile flickered across his features.
"Not a soul," he said. "Not a father, mother, relative or--or wife.
Sounds mean, don't it?" Quite abruptly he laughed outright.
"Oh, I could tell you a dandy story of days and nights of lonesomeness.
I could tell you of a boyhood spent chasing the streets o' nights
looking for a sidewalk to crawl under, or a sheltered corner folks
wouldn't drive me out of. I could tell you of hungry days without a
prospect of better to come, of moments when I guessed the cold waters
of Puget Sound looked warmer than the night ahead of me. I could tell
you of a mighty battle fought out in silence and despair. Of a resolve
to make good by any means open to man. I could tell you of strivings
and failures that 'ud come nigh breaking your heart, and a resolve
unbreakable not to yield. Gee, I've known it all, all the kicks life
can hand a derelict born under an evil influence. Say, I don't even
know who my parents were."
"I never thought--I never knew----"
The girl's words were wrung from her by her feelings. In a moment this
man had appeared to her in a new light. There was no sign of weakness
or self-pity in Murray as he went on. He was smiling as usual, that
smile that always contained something of a mocking irony.
"Pshaw! It don't figger anyway--now. Nothing figgers now but the
determination never to find such days--and nights again. I said I need
to find a real mooring. A mooring such as Allan found when he found
your mother. Well, maybe I shall. I'm hoping that way. But even
there Nature's done all she knows to hand me a blank. I'd like to say
look at me, and see the scurvy trick Nature's handed out my way. But I
won't. Gee, no. Still I'll find that mooring if I have to buy it with
the dollars I mean to wring out of this devil's own country."
Jessie's feelings had been caught and held through sympathy. Sympathy
further urged her. This man had failed to appeal before. A feeling of
gentle pity stirred her.
"Don't say that," she cried, all her ideals outraged by the suggestion
of purchasing the natural right of every man. "There's a woman's love
for every man in the world. That surely is so. Guess it's the good
God's scheme of things. Saint or sinner it doesn't matter a thing.
We're as God made us. And He's provided for all our needs. Some day
you'll wonder what it was ever made you feel this way. Some day," she
went on, smiling gently into the round face and the glowing eyes
regarding her, "when you're old, and rich, and happy in the bosom of
your family, in a swell house, maybe in New York City, you'll likely
get wondering how it came you sat right here making fool talk to a girl
denying the things Providence had set out for you." Her pretty eyes
became grave as she leaned forward earnestly. "Say, I can see it all
for you now. The picture's standing right out clear. I can see your
wife now----"
The man smiled at her earnestness as she paused.
"Can you?"
Jessie nodded. Her gaze was turned upon the far reach of the river.
"Yes. She's medium height--like you. She's a woman of sort of
practical motherly instinct. Her eyes are blue, and clear, and fine,
revealing the wholesome mind behind. She'll be slim, I guess, and her
gown's just swell--real swell. She'll----"
The man broke in on an impulse which he was powerless to deny.
"She won't be tall?" he demanded, his eyes shining into hers with an
intensity which made Jessie shrink before them. "She won't move with
the grace of--of a Juno, straight limbed, erect? She won't have dandy
gray eyes that look through and beyond all the time? She won't have
lovely brown hair which sort of reflects the old sun every time it
shines on it? She won't have a face so beautiful it sets a feller just
crazy to look at it? Say, if it was like that," he cried, in a voice
thrilling with passion, "I'd feel I didn't owe Providence the kick
I've----"
How far his feelings would have carried him it was impossible to say.
He had been caught off his guard, and had flung caution to the winds.
But he was spared the possible consequences by an interruption which
would not be denied. It was an interruption which had claimed them
both at the same instant.
A sound came out of the distance on the still evening air. It came
from the bend of the river where it swung away to the northwest. It
was the sound of the dipping of many paddles, a sound which was of
paramount importance to these people at all times.
The girl was on her feet first. Nor was Murray a second behind her.
Both were gazing intently out in the growing dusk. Simultaneously an
exclamation broke from them. Then the girl spoke while the man
remained silent.
"Canoes," she said. "One, two, three, four--five. Five canoes. I
know whose they are."
Murray was standing close beside her, the roundness of his ungainly
figure aggravated by the contrast. He, too, was gazing hard at the
flotilla. He, too, had counted the canoes as they came into view. He,
too, had recognized them, just as he had recognized the thrill of
delighted anticipation in the girl's voice as she announced her
recognition of them.
He knew, no one better, all that lay behind the shining gray of the
girl's eyes as she beheld the canoes approach. He needed no words to
tell him. And he thanked his stars for the interruption which had
saved him carrying his moment of folly further.
His eyes expressed no anticipation. Their glowing fires seemed to have
become extinguished. There was no warmth in them. There was little
life in their darkly brooding watchfulness. Never was a contrast so
deeply marked between two watchers of the same object. The man was
cold, his expression hard. It was an expression before which even his
habitual smile had been forced to flee. Jessie was radiant.
Excitement surged till she wanted to cry out. To call the name that
was on her lips.
Instead, however, she turned swiftly upon the man at her side, who
instantly read the truth in the radiant gray eyes gazing into his.
"It's--John Kars," she said soberly. Then in a moment came a
repetition. "Fancy. John Kars!"