Beyond all other joys and compensations for these three months in Smoky
Land, there remained—a subject for humble thanks to the skies—the
comradeship of Alice. Every day it made the struggle more worth while,
his happiness more complete.
She made periodical trips to his camps, bringing food for himself and
salt for his sheep, and assisting him as he moved the flock from range
to range. He counted the days of her absence, and the nights that she
sat beside his fire simply opened a new world to him. They had a
thousand things to tell each other: Hugh’s little victories over coyotes
and cougars, the new tricks of Spot the flock leader, some little
faithfulness on the part of Shep, the dog, and their exultation at the
passing of the days. For if they passed the present month in safety, if
Fargo and his gang did not rout them before October first, the victory
was won.
She cooked his meals and mended some of the holes in his soiled
clothing, and her laugh rang with the bells of fairyland over their
silent camp. They had serious moments in which—with far-reaching
intimacy—they told each other their own secret thoughts and
philosophies of life—sober talk such as was never heard in the rooms of
the Greenwood Club. For the first time in his life Hugh had really known
self-expression. The inmost springs of his nature flowed forth. And he
was constantly amazed and delighted by the girl’s ideas and points of
view. There was nothing particularly modern about them. In fact, Hugh
thought that they had passed from the earth in his grandmother’s time.
Of course they were trite, perhaps they could have been proven
ridiculous by the logic of a realist, and the only reason she had for
them was the impulse of her own conscience; yet Hugh found himself
staring at her as if she were a being from another planet. But Hugh’s
amazement was due to his own lack of knowledge of the heart of humanity.
He would have been surprised to know that ninety out of every hundred
girls, east and west and south and north, had the same illogical
conscience, the same high heart, the same ideals. Although he would have
tumbled over backward if any one had told him so, Hugh just hadn’t been
around. He had known but one little circle, and heretofore he hadn’t
been able to see outside it.
Alice was girlish, spontaneous, unaffected to the last degree. Sometimes
they romped and raced like children about their camp fire. They exulted
over their meals, they told high secrets, they tingled and thrilled in
the mystery of the nights. She had a businesslike, matter-of-fact way in
going about her tasks that delighted the man past words. She was as
clean and sweet and unspoiled as the mountain flowers that grew about
her,—but wholly able to take care of herself. As she camped beside the
flocks her pistol was always in reach of her hand. And the very ideas
that Hugh so loved in her simply filled his nights with horror.
Of course it was ridiculous,—but the thoughts of lovers often are. And
he did love her, with all the earnestness of his wakened being, with a
growing, breathless love that seemed natural as living. The point was
passed, long ago, wherein he could doubt that fact. And now he didn’t
even have self-wonder that he should have come to these mountain realms
and loved a mountain girl. It seemed simply his own inevitable destiny.
And he was humble and fearful as a callow boy about the whole thing.
Nothing of his herdsman’s life would have been so amusing to the members
of the Greenwood Club as this. For Hugh had known women in plenty; he
had been an eligible in a circle where eligibles were scarce, and these
clubmen thought that his last delusion in regard to them was gone. He
had been husband-hunted,—and the deer that has been stalked by a cougar
no longer sees beauty in the lights of its eyes! But now his old
arrogance and sophistication had fallen away from him. He searched
frantically and in vain for qualities within himself by which he might
hope to deserve this girl’s love.
Had he not been a waster, a slacker from the works of men? Had he
anything in general or particular because of which he might expect a
girl to love him? The things on which he used to pride himself had been
suddenly revealed as so much dust in his hands—inherited wealth, social
distinction, an influential ancestry. Here, he rightly concluded, these
three things were not worth the powder to blow them up. He did remember,
with some pride, that he had a certain amount of physical strength.
Already that had been of use to Alice, and the time might come wherein
it would be of use again. He was a fairly able sheepman, and he had
already earned over a hundred dollars. But he felt like a peasant,
offering his heart to the queen of the realm. It got down to a serious
matter that as yet he did not feel that he had justified his own
existence, that he had established himself in the great world of men and
toil, and that he had not yet been purged by the fires of trial and
stress, and redeemed in battle.
He mourned her when she left to bring supplies, and welcomed her with
the abandon of a child when she came back to him. In the early nights,
in the fire’s glow, dreams of her were ever with him, filling him with
strange, happy glowings and warm little quivers of delight. But his love
for her did not make him forget his sheep. The great test by which his
metal was tried lay in his degree of success as herder of the flocks.
Never did he get away from a haunting feeling that here—beside the
white sheep—he was face to face with life at last. Here, not in his
cities, were the realities, the essentials of life: the feeding flock,
the shelter, the circle of firelight into which the powers of the
wilderness dared not stalk. Fresh and fresh he felt the age-old appeal
of the soil, the love of the throbbing earth, the inner warmth, an
undying and wondrous communion with nature. He waged his war against the
forces of the wild, and the sense of destiny fulfilled was ever with
him. And why not,—for were men strangers to the sheep? Could their
ancient acquaintance be forgotten in a few little centuries of exile in
cities? Had they not been out—through the long course of the
ages—under the same stars, felt the same winds, endured the same
dangers? In the first dawn of civilization, dim and far away through the
mists of the past, the herdsman cared for his sheep in the green
pastures,—and it was in the blood.
Sometimes this old acquaintance was recalled to Hugh in dreams. There
was one dream in particular that came to him night after night. It never
seemed to vary, and its spell always endured a few moments after
wakening. So real it was, so vivid, it was almost as if it had been some
actual experience in his own life, rather than a remembered vista from
the immeasurable past. He always seemed to be sitting, half-dozing,
before a fire,—a fire not greatly different from that which burned
before him in reality. It was always so red, so cheering, that the love
of it seemed to shiver his heart to pieces. The forest always stretched
about him, silent, mysterious, sinister past all words. And there were
always the sheep.
Always, in his dream, he guarded the sheep. It was a matter of life
itself. And Death was always waiting for him the instant he relaxed his
vigilance. It was not an easy passing, a swift crossing to a happy,
bright, quiet land from which he might return and whisper in the night.
It was always darkness and cold and pain, and most of all it was fear.
The sheep were white in the same moon, the same stars were in the sky.
But the tent was absent. Such a thing was without his bourn of thought.
In the darkness he dared not leave the fire to seek shelter from the
rain. And as he dozed he sat in a somewhat different position,—usually
leaning forward, his hands locked behind his head. And in the summer
nights the hair on his arms drained off the rain.
Shep was still beside him, and the communion between them was even more
close than in life. They seemed almost like brothers, rather than master
and servant. A peace that was almost rapture abided in their
companionship. And it was necessary that Shep remain awake while he
himself dozed. But the dog’s outline was vaguely different. The ears
were always pointed and erect, the tail was not so lifted, and sometimes
when Hugh caught a sudden glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye, a
swift wave of icy terror swept over him. The dog was like
Cry-in-the-night,—that was it! He was gray and white-fanged just like
the wolves themselves.
Even the wind—the air—was different. It was full of smells that
stirred the flesh, and hushed little sounds to freeze the blood with
dread. It was vibrant and shuddering and alive, and the world had not
yet begun to grow old. And he always felt an overwhelming pride in his
own strength. His arms—curiously long and quite black with hair—could
crush the ribs of Cry-in-the-night like an eggshell. His chest was huge,
his legs were knotted and gigantic, and when he saw his reflection in
the water of the spring, the hairy growth was long and matted about his
throat. And clearest of all the dream was the ring of deadly shadows
that ever encroached upon the space of firelight, and the strange twin
lights that ever glowed from their depths.
Two and two, everywhere he looked. They always glowed hungrily, and
their watch was never done. Curious blue-green and yellow disks of fire,
close together and glowing ever in the darkness. Sometimes he would open
his lips and shout,—and for an instant they would draw back. They were
afraid of that wild cry of his, but they were more afraid of the flint
dagger that lay at his side. Ah, they died quickly—with a scream and a
howl—when the Death Flint went into them. It was a good thing to see,
but it also filled the heart with fear. He laughed and exulted when he
remembered how it was even quicker in its stroke than the leap of a
wolf.—But most of all the watchful circle feared the camp fire. They
could not rub the wood and strike the flame: in this he was master,
ruler and monarch of the earth! Cry-in-the-night might kill him in a
fair fight, but still he could not build a fire. The dreamer always felt
a great wave of exultation.
One night he dreamed that the fire burned almost down, and the circle
drew close. He wakened from his doze and shouted at them none too soon.
And a strange, wild cry from his own lips wakened Hugh, in the sheep
camp of the twentieth century, from his dream. He had cried out in his
sleep,—a hoarse, wild, savage cry that left him curiously awed. And the
coyote that had crept close to the flank of the flock slipped quickly
back into the forest.
Hugh got up, stood a moment in the gleam of the late September moon,
then piled more wood upon the fire. The circle of twin lights was a
reality to-night. The days of drought had brought ever more of the wild
hunters about his flock, and almost anywhere he looked he saw their
luminous eyes, two by two, as they waited in the darkness. He glanced
down—but a rifle, not a dagger of flint, lay at his side. He looked out
over the flock, instinctively counting up his markers. Most of the sheep
were asleep, but one—the greatest of them all—stood erect, with
lowered horns, as if on guard. It was Spot the yearling ram, and his
horns looked oddly large in the soft light of the moon.
“Spot, old boy,” the man said, “I believe you’ve got memories too. I
believe you’ve been dreaming—just as I have.”