A CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR MEETING IN THE WILDERNESS
He stepped boldly around the green barrier, and his first glance told him
she was lying there still asleep; but the consciousness of another
presence held him from going away. There, coiled on the ground with
venomous fangs extended and eyes glittering like slimy jewels, was a
rattlesnake, close beside her.
For a second he gazed with a kind of fascinated horror, and his brain
refused to act. Then he knew he must do something, and at once. He had
read of serpents and travellers' encounters with them, but no memory of
what was to be done under such circumstances came. Shoot? He dared not. He
would be more likely to kill the girl than the serpent, and in any event
would precipitate the calamity. Neither was there any way to awaken the
girl and drag her from peril, for the slightest movement upon her part
would bring the poisoned fangs upon her.
He cast his eyes about for some weapon, but there was not a stick or a
stone in sight. He was a good golf-player; if he had a loaded stick, he
could easily take the serpent's head off, he thought; but there was no
stick. There was only one hope, he felt, and that would be to attract the
creature to himself; and he hardly dared move lest the fascinated gaze
should close upon the victim as she lay there sweetly sleeping, unaware of
her new peril.
Suddenly he knew what to do. Silently he stepped back out of sight, tore
off his coat, and then cautiously approached the snake again, holding the
coat up before him. There was an instant's pause when he calculated
whether the coat could drop between the snake and the smooth brown arm in
front before the terrible fangs would get there; and then the coat
dropped, the man bravely holding one end of it as a wall between the
serpent and the girl, crying to her in an agony of frenzy to awaken and
run.
There was a terrible moment in which he realized that the girl was saved
and he himself was in peril of death, while he held to the coat till the
girl was on her feet in safety. Then he saw the writhing coil at his feet
turn and fasten its eyes of fury upon him. He was conscious of being
uncertain whether his fingers could let go the coat, and whether his
trembling knees could carry him away before the serpent struck; then it
was all over, and he and the girl were standing outside the sage-brush,
with the sound of the pistol dying away among the echoes, and the fine
ache of his arm where her fingers had grasped him to drag him from danger.
The serpent was dead. She had shot it. She took that as coolly as she had
taken the bird in its flight. But she stood looking at him with great eyes
of gratitude, and he looked at her amazed that they were both alive, and
scarcely understanding all that had happened.
The girl broke the stillness.
"You are what they call a 'tenderfoot,'" she said significantly.
"Yes," he assented humbly, "I guess I am. I couldn't have shot it to save
anybody's life."
"You are a tenderfoot, and you couldn't shoot," she continued
eulogistically, as if it were necessary to have it all stated plainly,
"but you--you are what my brother used to call 'a white man.' You
couldn't shoot; but you could risk your life, and hold that coat, and look
death in the face. _You_ are no tenderfoot."
There was eloquence in her eyes, and in her voice there were tears. She
turned away to hide if any were in her eyes. But the man put out his hand
on her sure little brown one, and took it firmly in his own, looking down
upon her with his own eyes filled with tears of which he was not ashamed.
"And what am I to say to you for saving my life?" he said.
"I? O, that was easy," said the girl, rousing to the commonplace. "I can
always shoot. Only you were hard to drag away. You seemed to want to stay
there and die with your coat."
"They laughed at me for wearing that coat when we started away. They said
a hunter never bothered himself with extra clothing," he mused as they
walked away from the terrible spot.
"Do you think it was the prayer?" asked the girl suddenly.
"It may be!" said the man with wondering accent.
Then quietly, thoughtfully, they mounted and rode onward.
Their way, due east, led them around the shoulder of a hill. It was
tolerably smooth, but they were obliged to go single file, so there was
very little talking done.
It was nearly the middle of the afternoon when all at once a sound reached
them from below, a sound so new that it was startling. They stopped their
horses, and looked at each other. It was the faint sound of singing wafted
on the light breeze, singing that came in whiffs like a perfume, and then
died out. Cautiously they guided their horses on around the hill, keeping
close together now. It was plain they were approaching some human being or
beings. No bird could sing like that. There were indistinct words to the
music.
They rounded the hillside, and stopped again side by side. There below
them lay the trail for which they had been searching, and just beneath
them, nestled against the hill, was a little schoolhouse of logs,
weather-boarded, its windows open; and behind it and around it were horses
tied, some of them hitched to wagons, but most of them with saddles.
The singing was clear and distinct now. They could hear the words. "O,
that will be glory for me, glory for me, glory for me--"
"What is it?" she whispered.
"Why, I suspect it is a Sunday school or something of the kind."
"O! A school! Could we go in?"
"If you like," said the man, enjoying her simplicity. "We can tie out
horses here behind the building, and they can rest. There is fresh grass
in this sheltered place; see?"
He led her down behind the schoolhouse to a spot where the horses could
not be seen from the trail. The girl peered curiously around the corner
into the window. There sat two young girls about her own age, and one of
them smiled at her. It seemed an invitation. She smiled back, and went on
to the doorway reassured. When she entered the room, she found them
pointing to a seat near a window, behind a small desk.
There were desks all over the room at regular intervals, and a larger desk
up in front. Almost all the people sat at desks.
There was a curious wooden box in front at one side of, the big desk, and
a girl sat before it pushing down some black and white strips that looked
like sticks, and making her feet go, and singing with all her might. The
curious box made music, the same music the people were singing. Was it a
piano? she wondered. She had heard of pianos. Her father used to talk
about them. O, and what was that her mother used to want? A
"cab'net-organ." Perhaps this was a cab'net-organ. At any rate, she was
entranced with the music.
Up behind the man who sat at the big desk was a large board painted black
with some white marks on it. The sunlight glinted across it, and she could
not tell what they were; but, when she moved a little, she saw quite
clearly it was a large cross with words underneath it--"He will hide me."
It was a strange place. The girl looked around shyly, and felt submerged
in the volume of song that rolled around her, from voices untrained,
perhaps, but hearts that knew whereof they sang. To her it was heavenly
music, if she had the least conception of what such music was like.
"Glory," "glory," "glory!" The words seemed to fit the day, and the
sunshine, and the deliverance that had come to her so recently. She looked
around for her companion and deliverer to enjoy it with him, but he had
not come in yet.
The two girls were handing her a book now and pointing to the place. She
could read. Her mother had taught her just a little before the other
children were born, but not much in the way of literature had ever come in
her way. She grasped the book eagerly, hungrily, and looked where the
finger pointed. Yes, there were the words. "Glory for me!" "Glory for me!"
Did that mean her? Was there glory for her anywhere in the world? She
sighed with the joy of the possibility, as the "Glory Song" rolled along,
led by the enthusiasm of one who had recently come from a big city where
it had been sung in a great revival service. Some kind friend had given
some copies of a leaflet containing it and a few other new songs to this
little handful of Christians, and they were singing them as if they had
been a thousand strong.
The singing ceased and the man at the big desk said, "Let us have the
verses."
"'The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting
arms,'" said a careworn woman in the front seat.
"'He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou
trust,'" said a young man next.
"'In the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret
of his tabernacle shall he hide me,'" read the girl who had handed the
book. The slip of paper she had written it on fluttered to the floor at
the feet of the stranger, and the stranger stooped and picked it up,
offering it back; but the other girl shook her head, and the stranger kept
it, looking wonderingly at the words, trying to puzzle out a meaning.
There were other verses repeated, but just then a sound smote upon the
girl's ear which deadened all others. In spite of herself she began to
tremble. Even her lips seemed to her to move with the weakness of her
fear. She looked up, and the man was just coming toward the door; but her
eyes grew dizzy, and a faintness seemed to come over her.
Up the trail on horseback, with shouts and ribald songs, rode four rough
men, too drunk to know where they were going. The little schoolhouse
seemed to attract their attention as they passed, and just for deviltry
they shouted out a volley of oaths and vile talk to the worshippers
within. One in particular, the leader, looked straight into the face of
the young man as he returned from fastening the horses and was about to
enter the schoolhouse, and pretended to point his pistol at him,
discharging it immediately into the air. This was the signal for some wild
firing as the men rode on past the schoolhouse, leaving a train of curses
behind them to haunt the air and struggle with the "Glory Song" in the
memories of those who heard.
The girl looked out from her seat beside the window, and saw the evil face
of the man from whom she had fled. She thought for a terrible minute,
which seemed ages long to her, that she was cornered now. She began to
look about on the people there helplessly, and wonder whether they would
save her, would help her, in her time of need. Would they be able to fight
and prevail against those four terrible men mad with liquor?
Suppose he said she was his--his wife, perhaps, or sister, who had run
away. What could they do? Would they believe her? Would the man who had
saved her life a few minutes ago believe her? Would anybody help her?
The party passed, and the man came in and sat down beside her quietly
enough; but without a word or a look he knew at once who the man was he
had just seen. His soul trembled for the girl, and his anger rose hot. He
felt that a man like that ought to be wiped off the face of the earth in
some way, or placed in solitary confinement the rest of his life.
He looked down at the girl, trembling, brave, white, beside him; and he
felt like gathering her in his arms and hiding her himself, such a frail,
brave, courageous little soul she seemed. But the calm nerve with which
she had shot the serpent was gone now. He saw she was trembling and ready
to cry. Then he smiled upon her, a smile the like of which he had never
given to human being before; at least, not since he was a tiny baby and
smiled confidingly into his mother's face. Something in that smile was
like sunshine to a nervous chill.
The girl felt the comfort of it, though she still trembled. Down her eyes
drooped to the paper in her shaking hands. Then gradually, letter by
letter, word by word, the verse spoke to her. Not all the meaning she
gathered, for "pavilion" and "tabernacle" were unknown words to her, but
the hiding she could understand. She had been hidden in her time of
trouble. Some one had done it. "He"--the word would fit the man by her
side, for he had helped to hide her, and to save her more than once; but
just now there came a dim perception that it was some other He, some One
greater who had worked this miracle and saved her once more to go on
perhaps to better things.
There were many things said in that meeting, good and wise and true. They
might have been helpful to the girl if she had understood, but her
thoughts had much to do. One grain of truth she had gathered for her
future use. There was a "hiding" somewhere in this world, and she had had
it in a time of trouble. One moment more out upon the open, and the
terrible man might have seen her.
There came a time of prayer in which all heads were bowed, and a voice
here and there murmured a few soft little words which she did not
comprehend; but at the close they all joined in "the prayer"; and, when
she heard the words, "Our Father," she closed her eyes, which had been
curiously open and watching, and joined her voice softly with the rest.
Somehow it seemed to connect her safety with "our Father," and she felt a
stronger faith than ever in her prayer.
The young man listened intently to all he heard. There was something
strangely impressive to him in this simple worship out in what to him was
a vast wilderness. He felt more of the true spirit of worship than he had
ever felt at home sitting in the handsomely upholstered pew beside his
mother and sister while the choir-boys chanted the processional and the
light filtered through costly windows of many colors over the large and
cultivated congregation. There was something about the words of these
people that went straight to the heart more than all the intonings of the
cultured voices he had ever heard. Truly they meant what they said, and
God had been a reality to them in many a time of trouble. That seemed to
be the theme of the afternoon, the saving power of the eternal God, made
perfect through the need and the trust of His people. He was reminded more
than once of the incident of the morning and the miraculous saving of his
own and his companion's life.
When the meeting was over, the people gathered in groups and talked with
one another. The girl who had handed the book came over and spoke to the
strangers, putting out her hand pleasantly. She was the missionary's
daughter.
"What is this? School?" asked the stranger eagerly.
"Yes, this is the schoolhouse," said the missionary's daughter; "but this
meeting is Christian Endeavor. Do you live near here? Can't you come every
time?"
"No. I live a long way off," said the girl sadly. "That is, I did. I
don't live anywhere now. I'm going away."
"I wish you lived here. Then you could come to our meeting. Did you have a
Christian Endeavor where you lived?"
"No. I never saw one before. It's nice. I like it."
Another girl came up now, and put out her hand in greeting. "You must come
again," she said politely.
"I don't know," said the visitor. "I sha'n't be coming back soon."
"Are you going far?"
"As far as I can. I'm going East."
"O," said the inquisitor; and then, seeing the missionary's daughter was
talking to some one else, she whispered, nodding toward the man, "Is he
your husband?"
The girl looked startled, while a slow color mounted into her cheeks.
"No," said she gravely, thoughtfully. "But--he saved my life a little
while ago."
"Oh!" said the other, awestruck. "My! And ain't he handsome? How did he do
it?"
But the girl could not talk about it. She shuddered.
"It was a dreadful snake," she said, "and I was--I didn't see it. It was
awful! I can't tell you about it."
"My!" said the girl. "How terrible!"
The people were passing out now. The man was talking with the missionary,
asking the road to somewhere. The girl suddenly realized that this hour of
preciousness was over, and life was to be faced again. Those men, those
terrible men! She had recognized the others as having been among her
brother's funeral train. Where were they, and why had they gone that way?
Were they on her track? Had they any clue to her whereabouts? Would they
turn back pretty soon, and catch her when the people were gone home?
It appeared that the nearest town was Malta, sixteen miles away, down in
the direction where the party of men had passed. There were only four
houses near the schoolhouse, and they were scattered in different
directions along the stream in the valley. The two stood still near the
door after the congregation had scattered. The girl suddenly shivered. As
she looked down the road, she seemed again to see the coarse face of the
man she feared, and to hear his loud laughter and oaths. What if he should
come back again? "I cannot go that way!" she said, pointing down the trail
toward Malta. "I would rather die with wild beasts."
"No!" said the man with decision. "On no account can we go that way. Was
that the man you ran away from?"
"Yes." She looked up at him, her eyes filled with wonder over the way in
which he had coupled his lot with hers.
"Poor little girl!" he said with deep feeling. "You would be better off
with the beasts. Come, let us hurry away from here!"
They turned sharply away from the trail, and followed down behind a family
who were almost out of sight around the hill. There would be a chance of
getting some provisions, the man thought. The girl thought of nothing
except to get away. They rode hard, and soon came within hailing-distance
of the people ahead of them, and asked a few questions.
No, there were no houses to the north until you were over the Canadian
line, and the trail was hard to follow. Few people went that way. Most
went down to Malta. Why didn't they go to Malta? There was a road there,
and stores. It was by all means the best way. Yes, there was another house
about twenty miles away on this trail. It was a large ranch, and was near
to another town that had a railroad. The people seldom came this way, as
there were other places more accessible to them. The trail was little
used, and might be hard to find in some places; but, if they kept the
Cottonwood Creek in sight, and followed on to the end of the valley, and
then crossed the bench to the right, they would be in sight of it, and
couldn't miss it. It was a good twenty miles beyond their house; but, if
the travellers didn't miss the way, they might reach it before dark. Yes,
the people could supply a few provisions at their house if the strangers
didn't mind taking what was at hand.
The man in the wagon tried his best to find out where the two were going
and what they were going for; but the man from the East baffled his
curiosity in a most dexterous manner, so that, when the two rode away from
the two-roomed log house where the kind-hearted people lived, they left no
clue to their identity or mission beyond the fact that they were going
quite a journey, and had got a little off their trail and run out of
provisions.
They felt comparatively safe from pursuit for a few hours at least, for
the men could scarcely return and trace them very soon. They had not
stopped to eat anything; but all the milk they could drink had been given
to them, and its refreshing strength was racing through their veins. They
started upon their long ride with the pleasure of their companionship
strong upon them.
"What was it all about?" asked the girl as they settled into a steady gait
after a long gallop across a smooth level place.
He looked at her questioningly.
"The school. What did it mean? She said it was a Christian Endeavor. What
is that?"
"Why, some sort of a religious meeting, or something of that kind, I
suppose," he answered lamely. "Did you enjoy it?"
"Yes," she answered solemnly, "I liked it. I never went to such a thing
before. The girl said they had one everywhere all over the world. What do
you think she meant?"
"Why, I don't know, I'm sure, unless it's some kind of a society. But it
looked to me like a prayer meeting. I've heard about prayer meetings, but
I never went to one, though I never supposed they were so interesting.
That was a remarkable story that old man told of how he was taken care of
that night among the Indians. He evidently believes that prayer helps
people."
"Don't you?" she asked quickly.
"O, certainly!" he said, "but there was something so genuine about the way
the old man told it that it made you feel it in a new way."
"It is all new to me," said the girl. "But mother used to go to Sunday
school and church and prayer meeting. She's often told me about it. She
used to sing sometimes. One song was 'Rock of Ages.' Did you ever hear
that?
"'Rock of Ages, cleft for me.
Let me hide myself in Thee.'"
She said it slowly and in a singsong voice, as if she were measuring the
words off to imaginary notes. "I thought about that the night I started. I
wished I knew where that rock was. Is there a rock anywhere that they call
the Rock of Ages?"
The young man was visibly embarrassed. He wanted to laugh, but he would
not hurt her in that way again. He was not accustomed to talking
religion; yet here by this strange girl's side it seemed perfectly natural
that he, who knew so very little experimentally himself about it, should
be trying to explain the Rock of Ages to a soul in need. All at once it
flashed upon him that it was for just such souls in need as this one that
the Rock of Ages came into the world.
"I've heard the song. Yes, I think they sing it in all churches. It's
quite common. No, there isn't any place called Rock of Ages. It
refers--that is, I believe--why, you see the thing is figurative--that is,
a kind of picture of things. It refers to the Deity."
"O! Who is that?" asked the girt.
"Why--God." He tried to say it as if he had been telling her it was Mr.
Smith or Mr. Jones, but somehow the sound of the word on his lips thus
shocked him. He did not know how to go on. "It just means God will take
care of people."
"O!" she said, and this time a light of understanding broke over her face.
"But," she added, "I wish I knew what it meant, the meeting, and why they
did it. There must be some reason. They wouldn't do it for nothing. And
how do they know it's all so? Where did they find it out?"
The man felt he was beyond his depth; so he sought to change the subject.
"I wish you would tell me about yourself," he said gently. "I should like
to understand you better. We have travelled together for a good many hours
now, and we ought to know more about each other."
"What do you want to know?" She asked it gravely. "There isn't much to
tell but what I've told you. I've lived on a mountain all my life, and
helped mother. The rest all died. The baby first, and my two brothers, and
father, and mother, and then John. I said the prayer for John, and ran
away."
"Yes, but I want to know about your life. You know I live in the East
where everything is different. It's all new to me out here. I want to
know, for instance, how you came to talk so well. You don't talk like a
girl that never went to school. You speak as if you had read and studied.
You make so few mistakes in your English. You speak quite correctly. That
is not usual, I believe, when people have lived all their lives away from
school, you know. You don't talk like the girls I have met since I came
out here."
"Father always made me speak right. He kept at every one of us children
when we said a word wrong, and made us say it over again. It made him
angry to hear words said wrong. He made mother cry once when she said
'done' when she ought to have said 'did.' Father went to school once, but
mother only went a little while. Father knew a great deal, and when he was
sober he used to teach us things once in a while. He taught me to read. I
can read anything I ever saw."
"Did you have many books and magazines?" he asked innocently.
"We had three books!" she answered proudly, as if that were a great many.
"One was a grammar. Father bought it for mother before they were married,
and she always kept it wrapped up in paper carefully. She used to get it
out for me to read in sometimes; but she was very careful with it, and
when she died I put it in her hands. I thought she would like to have it
close to her, because it always seemed so much to her. You see father
bought it. Then there was an almanac, and a book about stones and earth. A
man who was hunting for gold left that. He stopped over night at our
house, and asked for something to eat. He hadn't any money to pay for
it; so he left that book with us, and said when he found the gold he would
come and buy it back again. But he never came back."
"Is that all that you have ever read?" he asked compassionately.
"O, no! We got papers sometimes. Father would come home with a whole paper
wrapped around some bundle. Once there was a beautiful story about a girl;
but the paper was torn in the middle, and I never knew how it came out."
There was great wistfulness in her voice. It seemed to be one of the
regrets of her girlhood that she did not know how that other girl in the
story fared. All at once she turned to him.
"Now tell me about your life," she said. "I'm sure you have a great deal
to tell."
His face darkened in a way that made her sorry.
"O, well," said he as if it mattered very little about his life, "I had a
nice home--have yet, for the matter of that. Father died when I was
little, and mother let me do just about as I pleased. I went to school
because the other fellows did, and because that was the thing to do. After
I grew up I liked it. That is, I liked some studies; so I went to a
university."
"What is that?"
"O, just a higher school where you learn grown-up things. Then I
travelled. When I came home, I went into society a good deal. But"--and
his face darkened again--"I got tired of it all, and thought I would come
out here for a while and hunt, and I got lost, and I found you!" He smiled
into her face. "Now you know the rest."
Something passed between them in that smile and glance, a flash of the
recognition of souls, and a gladness in each other's company, that made
the heart warm. They said no more for some time, but rode quietly side by
side.
They had come to the end of the valley, and were crossing the bench. The
distant ranch could quite distinctly be seen. The silver moon had come up,
for they had not been hurrying, and a great beauty pervaded everything.
They almost shrank from approaching the buildings and people. They had
enjoyed the ride and the companionship. Every step brought them nearer to
what they had known all the time was an indistinct future from which they
had been joyously shut away for a little time till they might know each
other.