"daylight will ketch us all wide awake around the fire,--no wonder the
child won't go to bed." She seemed suddenly impressed with the pervasive
cheer. "What a fool that man, Jube Kennedy, must be! How _could_
ennybody hev a sweeter, darlinger home than we uns hev got hyar in
Sunrise Gap!"
On the languorous autumn a fierce winter ensued. The cold came early.
The deciduous growths of the forests were leafless ere November waned,
rifled by the riotous marauding winds. December set in with the gusty
snow flying fast. Drear were the gray skies; ghastly the sheeted ranges.
Drifts piled high in bleak ravines, and the grim gneissoid crags were
begirt with gigantic icicles. But about the little house in Sunrise Gap
that kept so warm a heart, the holly trees showed their glad green
leaves and the red berries glowed with a mystic significance.
As the weeks wore on, the place was often in Kennedy's mind, although he
had not seen it since that autumn afternoon when he had bestirred
himself to rebuke its owner concerning the inadequacies of the domestic
provision. His admonition had been kindly meant and had not deserved the
retort, the flippant ridicule of his spiritual yearnings. Though he
still winced from the recollection, he was sorry that he had resisted
the importunacy of Basil's apology. He realized that Aurelia had
persisted to the limit of her power in the embitterment of the
controversy, but even Aurelia he was disposed to forgive as time passed
on. When Christmas Day dawned, the vague sentiment began to assume the
definiteness of a purpose, and noontide found him on his way to Sunrise
Gap.
There was now no path through the woods; the snow lay deep over all,
unbroken save at long intervals when queer footprints gave token of the
stirring abroad of the sylvan denizens, and he felt an idle interest in
distinguishing the steps of wolf and fox, of opossum and weasel. In the
intricacies of the forest aisles, amid laden boughs of pine and fir,
there was a suggestion of darkness, but all the sky held not enough
light to cast the shadow of a bole on the white blank spaces of the
snow-covered ground. A vague blue haze clothed the air; yet as he drew
near the mountain brink, all was distinct in the vast landscape, the
massive ranges and alternating valleys in infinite repetition.
He wondered when near the house that he had not heard the familiar
barking of the old hound; then he remembered that the sound of his
horse's hoofs was muffled by the snow. He was glad to be unheralded. He
would like to surprise Aurelia into geniality before her vicarious
rancor for Basil's sake should be roused anew. As he emerged from the
thick growths of the holly, with the icy scintillations of its
clustering green leaves and red berries, he drew rein so suddenly that
the horse was thrown back on his haunches. The rider sat as if petrified
in the presence of an awful disaster.
The house was gone! Even the site had vanished! Kennedy stared
bewildered. Slowly the realization of what had chanced here began to
creep through his brain. Evidently there had been a gigantic landslide.
The cliff-like projection was broken sheer off,--hurled into the depths
of the valley. Some action of subterranean waters, throughout ages,
doubtless, had been undermining the great crags till the rocky crust of
the earth had collapsed. He could see even now how the freeze had
fractured outcropping ledges where the ice had gathered in the fissures.
A deep abyss that he remembered as being at a considerable distance from
the mountain's brink, once spanned by a foot-bridge, now showed the
remnant of its jagged, shattered walls at the extreme verge of the
precipice.
A cold chill of horror benumbed his senses. Basil, the wife, the
children,--where were they? A terrible death, surely, to be torn from
the warm securities of the hearth-stone, without a moment's warning, and
hurled into the midst of this frantic turmoil of nature, down to the
depths of the gap,--a thousand feet below! And at what time had this
dread fate befallen his friend? He remembered that at the cross-roads'
store, when he had paused on his way to warm himself that morning, some
gossip was detailing the phenomenon of unseasonable thunder during the
previous night, while others protested that it must have been only the
clamors of "Christmas guns" firing all along the country-side. "A
turrible clap, it was," the raconteur had persisted. "Sounded ez ef all
creation hed split apart." Perhaps, therefore, the catastrophe might be
recent. Kennedy could scarcely command his muscles as he dismounted and
made his way slowly and cautiously to the verge.
Any deviation from the accustomed routine of nature has an unnerving
effect, unparalleled by disaster in other sort; no individual danger or
doom, the aspect of death by drowning, or gunshot, or disease, can so
abash the reason and stultify normal expectation. Kennedy was scarcely
conscious that he saw the vast disorder of the landslide, scattered from
the precipice on the mountain's brink to the depths of the Gap--inverted
roots of great pines thrust out in mid-air, foundations of crags riven
asunder and hurled in monstrous fragments along the steep slant, unknown
streams newly liberated from the caverns of the range and cascading from
the crevices of the rocks. In effect he could not believe his own eyes.
His mind realized the perception of his senses only when his heart
suddenly plunged with a wild hope,--he had discerned amongst the turmoil
a shape of line and rule, the little box-like hut! Caught as it was in
the boughs of a cluster of pines and firs, uprooted and thrust out at an
incline a little less than vertical, the inmates might have been spared
such shock of the fall as would otherwise have proved fatal. Had the
house been one of the substantial log-cabins of the region its timbers
must have been torn one from another, the daubing and chinking scattered
as mere atoms. But the more flimsy character of the little dwelling had
thus far served to save it,--the interdependent "framing" of its
structure held fast; the upright studding and boards, nailed stoutly on,
rendered it indeed the box that it looked. It was, so to speak, built in
one piece, and no part was subjected to greater strain than another. But
should the earth cave anew, should the tough fibres of one of those
gigantic roots tear out from the loosened friable soil, should the
elastic supporting branches barely sway in some errant gust of wind, the
little box would fall hundreds of feet, cracked like a nut, shattering
against the rocks of the levels below.
He wondered if the inmates yet lived,--he pitied them still more if they
only existed to realize their peril, to await in an anguish of fear
their ultimate doom. Perhaps--he felt he was but trifling with
despair--some rescue might be devised.
Such a weird cry he set up on the brink of the mountain!--full of
horror, grief, and that poignant hope. The echoes of the Gap seemed
reluctant to repeat the tones, dull, slow, muffled in snow. But a sturdy
halloo responded from the window, uppermost now, for the house lay on
its side amongst the boughs. Kennedy thought he saw the pallid
simulacrum of a face.
"This be Jube Kennedy," he cried, reassuringly. "I be goin' ter fetch
help,--men, ropes, and a windlass."
"Make haste then,--we uns be nigh friz."
"Ye air in no danger of fire, then?" asked the practical man.
"We hev hed none,--before we war flunged off'n the bluff we hed
squinched the fire ter pledjure Bob, ez he war afeard Santy Claus would
scorch his feet comin' down the chimbley,--powerful lucky fur we uns;
the fire would hev burnt the house bodaciously."
Kennedy hardly stayed to hear. He was off in a moment, galloping at
frantic speed along the snowy trail scarcely traceable in the sad light
of the gray day; taking short cuts through the densities of the laurel;
torn by jagged rocks and tangles of thorny growths and broken branches
of great trees; plunging now and again into deep drifts above concealed
icy chasms, and rescuing with inexpressible difficulty the floundering,
struggling horse; reaching again the open sheeted roadway, bruised,
bleeding, exhausted, yet furiously plunging forward, rousing the
sparsely settled country-side with imperative insistence for help in
this matter of life or death!
Death, indeed, only,--for the enterprise was pronounced impossible by
those more experienced than Kennedy. Among the men now on the bluff were
several who had been employed in the silver mines of this region, and
they demonstrated conclusively that a rope could not be worked clear of
the obstructions of the face of the rugged and shattered cliffs; that a
human being, drawn from the cabin, strapped in a chair, must needs be
torn from it and flung into the abyss below, or beaten to a frightful
death against the jagged rocks in the transit.
"But not ef the chair war ter be steadied by a guy-rope from--say--from
that thar old pine tree over thar," Kennedy insisted, indicating the
long bole of a partially uprooted and inverted tree on the steeps. "The
chair would swing cl'ar of the bluff then."
"But, Jube, it is onpossible ter git a guy-rope over ter that
tree,--more than a man's life is wuth ter try it."
A moment ensued of absolute silence,--space, however, for a hard-fought
battle. The aspect of that mad world below, with every condition of
creation reversed; a mistake in the adjustment of the winch and gear by
the excited, reluctant, disapproving men; an overstrain on the fibres of
the long-used rope; a slip on the treacherous ice; the dizzy whirl of
the senses that even a glance downward at those drear depths set astir
in the brain,--all were canvassed within his mental processes, all were
duly realized in their entirety ere he said with a spare dull voice and
dry lips,--
"Fix ter let me down ter that thar leanin' pine, boys,--I'll kerry a
guy-rope over thar."
At one side the crag beetled, and although it was impossible thence to
reach the cabin with a rope it would swing clear of obstructions here,
and might bring the rescuer within touch of the pine, where could be
fastened the guy-rope; the other end would be affixed to the chair which
could be lowered to the cabin only from the rugged face of the cliff.
Kennedy harbored no self-deception; he more than doubted the outcome of
the enterprise. He quaked and turned pale with dread as with the great
rope knotted about his arm-pits and around his waist he was swung over
the brink at the point where the crag jutted forth,--lower and lower
still; now nearing the slanting inverted pine, caught amidst the debris
of earth and rock; now failing to reach its boughs; once more swinging
back to a great distance, so did the length of the rope increase the
scope of the pendulum; now nearing the pine again, and at last fairly
lodged on the icy bole, knotting and coiling about it the end of the
guy-rope, on which he had come and on which he must needs return.
It seemed, through the inexpert handling of the little group, a long
time before the stout arm-chair was secured to the cables, slowly
lowered, and landed at last on the outside of the hut. Many an anxious
glance was cast at the slate-gray sky. An inopportune flurry of snow, a
flaw of wind,--and even now all would be lost. Dusk too impended, and as
the rope began to coil on the windlass at the signal to hoist every eye
was strained to discern the identity of the first voyagers in this
aerial journey,--the two children, securely lashed to the chair. This
was well,--all felt that both parents might best wait, might risk the
added delay. The chair came swinging easily, swiftly, along the
gradations of the rise, the guy-rope holding it well from the chances of
contact with the jagged projections of the face of the cliff, and the
first shout of triumph rang sonorously from the summit.
When next the chair rested on the cabin beside the window, a thrill of
anxiety and anger went through Kennedy's heart to note, from his perch
on the leaning pine, a struggle between husband and wife as to who
should go first. Each was eager to take the many risks incident to the
long wait in this precarious lodgment. The man was the stronger. Aurelia
was forced into the chair, tied fast, pushed off, waving her hand to her
husband, shedding floods of tears, looking at him for the last time, as
she fancied, and calling out dismally, "Far'well, Basil, far'well."
Even this lugubrious demonstration could not damp the spirits of the men
working like mad at the windlass. They were jovial enough for bursts of
laughter when it became apparent that Basil had utilized the ensuing
interval to tie together, in preparation for the ascent with himself,
the two objects which he next most treasured, his violin and his old
hound. The trusty chair bore all aloft, and Basil was received with
welcoming acclamations.
Before the rope was wound anew and for the last time, the aspect of the
group on the cliff had changed. It had grown eerie, indistinct. The
pines and firs showed no longer their sempervirent green, but were black
amid the white tufted lines on their branches, that still served to
accentuate their symmetry. The vale had disappeared in a sinister abyss
of gloom, though Kennedy would not look down at its menace, but upward,
always upward. Thus he saw, like some radiant and splendid star, the
first torch whitely aglow on the brink of the precipice. It opened long
avenues of light adown the snowy landscape,--soft blue shadows trailed
after it, like half-descried draperies of elusive hovering beings. Soon
the torch was duplicated; another and then another began to glow. Now
several drew together, and like a constellation glimmered crown-like on
the brow of the night, as he felt the rope stir with the signal to
hoist.
Upward, always upward, his eyes on that radiant stellular coronal, as it
shone white and splendid in the snowy night. And now it had lost its
mystic glamour,--disintegrated by gradual approach he could see the long
handles of the pine-knots; the red verges of the flame; the blue and
yellow tones of the focus; the trailing wreaths of dun-tinted smoke that
rose from them. Then became visible the faces of the men who held them,
all crowding eagerly to the verge. But it was in a solemn silence that
he was received; a drear cold darkness, every torch being struck
downward into the snow; a frantic haste in unharnessing him from the
ropes, for he was almost frozen. He was hardly apt enough to interpret
this as an emotion too deep for words, but now and again, as he was
disentangled, he felt about his shoulders a furtive hug, and more than
one pair of the ministering hands must needs pause to wring his own
hands hard. They practically carried him to a fire that had been built
in a sheltered place in one of those grottoes of the region, locally
called "Rock-houses." Its cavernous portal gave upon a dark interior,
and not until they had turned a corner in a tunnel-like passage was
revealed an arched space in a rayonnant suffusion of light, the fire
itself obscured by the figures about it. His eyes were caught first by
the aspect of a youthful mother with a golden-haired babe on her
breast; close by showed the head and horns of a cow; the mule was
mercifully sheltered too, and stood near, munching his fodder; a cluster
of sheep pressed after the steps of half a dozen men, that somehow in
the clare-obscure reminded him of the shepherds of old summoned by good
tidings of great joy.
A sudden figure started up with streaming white hair and patriarchal
beard.
"Will ye deny ez ye hev hed a sign from the heavens, Jubal Kennedy?" the
old circuit-rider straitly demanded. "How could ye hev strengthened yer
heart fur sech a deed onless the grace o' God prevailed mightily within
ye? Inasmuch as ye hev done it unto one o' the least o' these my
brethern, ye hev done it unto me."
"That ain't the _kind_ o' sign, parson," Kennedy faltered. "I be lookin'
fur a meracle in the yearth or in the air, that I kin view or hear."
"The kingdom o' Christ is a spiritual kingdom," said the parson
solemnly. "The kingdom o' Christ is a _spiritual_ kingdom, an' great are
the wonders that are wrought therein."
By CAROLINE LOCKHART
_A NOVEL OF THE REAL WEST_
"ME--SMITH"
Miss Lockhart is a true daughter of the West, her father being a large
ranch-owner and she has had much experience in the saddle and among the
people who figure in her novel. "Smith" is one type of Western "Bad
Man," an unusually powerful and appealing character who grips and holds
the reader through all his deeds, whether good or bad. It is a story
with red blood in it. There is the cry of the coyote, the deadly thirst
for revenge as it exists in the wronged Indian toward the white man, the
thrill of the gaming table, and the gentlenesss of pure, true love. To
the very end the tense dramatism of the tale is maintained without
relaxation.
"Gripping, vigorous story."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
"This is a real novel, a big novel."--_Indianapolis News._
"Not since the publication of 'The Virginian' has so powerful a cowboy
story been told."--_Philadelphia Public Ledger._
"A remarkable book in its strength of portrayal and its directness of
development. It cannot be read without being remembered."--_The World
To-Day._