THE CHARACTERS CONCERNED
{ VIOLA LAMBERT, the subject
{ MRS. LAMBERT, her mother
{ JOS. LAMBERT, her step-father
Those { ANTHONY CLARKE, her pastor
in { DR. BRITT, her physician
the Light { MORTON SERVISS, her lover
{ KATE RICE, her friend
{ DR. WEISSMANN, her investigator
{ SIMEON PRATT, her patron
{ WALDRON, her father
Those { MCLEOD, her "control"
in { WALTIE, her poltergeist
the Dark { JENNIE PRATT, Pratt's eldest daughter
{ MRS. PRATT, "Loggy," and others dimly felt
THE TYRANNY OF THE DARK
I
THE SETTING
The village of Colorow is enclosed by a colossal amphitheatre of
dove-gray stone, in whose niches wind-warped pines stand like
spectators silent and waiting. Six thousand feet above the valley
floor green and orange slopes run to the edges of perennial
ice-fields, while farther away, and peering above these almost
inaccessible defences, like tents of besieging Titans, rise three
great mountains gleaming with snow and thunderous with storms.
Altogether a stage worthy of some colossal drama rather than the calm
slumber of a forgotten hamlet.
The railway enters the valley from the south by sinuously following
the windings of a rushing, foam-white stream, and for many miles the
engines cautiously feel their way among stupendous walls, passing
haltingly over bridges hung perilously between perpendicular cliffs by
slender iron rods, or creep like mountain-cats from ledge to ledge,
so that when they have reached safe harbor beside the little red depot
they never fail to pant and wheeze like a tired, gratified dog beside
his master's door. Aside from the coming and going of these trains,
the town is silent as the regarding pines.
The only other ways of entrance to this deep pocket lie over
threadlike trails which climb the divide from Silver City and Toltec
and Vermilion, and loop their terrifying courses down the declivities
trod only by the sturdy burro or the agile, sure-footed
mountain-horse. These wavering paths, worn deep and dusty once, are
grass-grown now, for they were built in the days when silver was
accounted a precious metal, and only an occasional hunter or
prospector makes present use of them.
Colorow itself, once a flaming, tumultuous centre of miners, gamblers,
and social outcasts, is now risen (or declined) to the quiet of a New
England summer resort, supported partly by two or three big mines
(whose white ore is streaked with gold), but more and more by the
growing fame of its mountains and their medicinal springs, for these
splendid peaks have their waters, hot and cold and sweet and bitter,
whose healing powers are becoming known to an ever-growing number of
those Americans who are minded to explore their native land.
This centre of aërial storms, these groups of transcendent summits,
would be more widely known still, but for the singular sense of
proprietorship with which each discoverer regards them. The lucky
traveller who falls into this paradise is seized with a certain
instant jealousy of it, and communicates his knowledge only to his
family and his friends. Nevertheless, its fame spreads slowly, and
each year new discoverers flock in growing numbers to the one little
hotel and its ramshackle bath-house, so that the community once
absolutely and viciously utilitarian begins to take timid account of
its aesthetic surroundings, and here and there a little log-cabin (as
appropriate to this land as the chalet to the Alps) is built beside
the calling ripples of the river, while saddled horses, laden burros
in long lines, and now and then a vast yellow or red ore-wagon
creaking dolefully as it descends, still give evidence of the mining
which goes on far up the zigzag trails towards the soaring, shining
peaks of the Continental Divide.
II
THE MAID ON THE MOUNTAIN-SIDE
One day in July a fair young girl, with beautiful gray eyes, sat
musingly beside one of these southern trails gazing upon the inverted
pyramid of red sky which glowed between the sloping shoulders of the
westward warding peaks. Her exquisite lips, scarlet as strawberry
stains, were drawn into an expression of bitter constraint, and her
brows were unnaturally knit. Her hat lay beside her on the ground, her
brown hair was blowing free, and in her eyes was the look of one
longing for the world beyond the hills. She appeared both lonely and
desolate.
It was a pity to see one so young and so comely confronting with sad
and sullen brow such aërial majesty as the evening presented. It was,
indeed, a sort of impiety, and the girl seemed at last to feel this.
Her frowning brow smoothed out, her lips grew more girlish of line,
and at length, rapt with wonder, she fixed her eyes on a single purple
cloud which was dissolving, becoming each moment smaller, more remote,
like a fleeing eagle, yet burning each instant with even more dazzling
flame of color than before--hasting as if to overtake the failing day.
A dream of still fairer lands, of conquest, and of love, swept over
her--became mirrored in her face. She had at this moment the wistful
gaze which comes to the eyes of the young when desire of the future is
strong.
Upon her musings a small sound broke, so faint, so far, she could not
tell from whence it came nor what its cause might be. It might have
been the rattle of a pebble under the feet of a near-by squirrel or
the scrambling rush of a distant bear. A few moments later the voice
of a man--very diminished and yet unmistakable--came pulsing down the
mountain-side.
The girl rose as lightly, as gracefully as a fawn who, roused but not
affrighted, stands on her imprint in the grass and waits and listens.
The man or men--for another voice could now be heard in answer--came
rapidly on, and soon a couple of men and a small pack-train came out
of a clump of thick trees at the head of a gulch, and, doubling
backward and forward, descended swiftly upon the girl, who stood, with
some natural curiosity, to let the travellers, whoever they might be,
pass and precede her down to the valley. She resented them, for the
reason that they cut short her reverie, her moment of spiritual peace.
The man who first appeared was a familiar type of the West, a small,
lean, sharp-featured, foxy-eyed mountaineer, riding gracefully yet
wearily--the natural horseman and trailer. Behind him two tired
horses, heaped with a camp outfit, stumbled, with low-hanging heads,
while at the rear, sitting his saddle sturdily rather than with
grace, rode a young man bareheaded, but otherwise in the
rough-and-ready dress of a plainsman. His eyes were on the sunset
also, and something in the manner of his beard, as well as in the
poise of his head, proclaimed him to be the master of the little
train, a man of culture and an alien.
At sight of the girl he smiled and bowed with a look of frank and most
respectful admiration, quite removed from the impudent stare of his
guide. His hands were gloved, he wore a neat shirt, and his tie was in
order--so much the girl saw as he faced her--and as he passed she
apprehended something strong and manly in the lines of his back and
shoulders. Plainly he was not to the saddle born, like the man ahead,
and yet he was quite as bronzed and travel-worn.
A turn in the trail brought them both close under her feet, and again
the man in the rear glanced up at the figure poised on the bowlder
above him, and his eyes glowed once more with pleasure. There was in
his look an expression of acknowledged kinship, as of one refined soul
to another, a kind of subtle flattery which pleased while it puzzled
the girl. Men with eyes of that appeal were not common in her world.
The bitter look vanished out of her face. She gazed after the trailer
with the unabashed interest of a child, wondering who he might be. In
that instant her soul, impressionable and eager, received and
retained, like a sensitive plate, every line of his figure, every
minute modelling of his face--even his fashion of saddle and the
leather of his gun-case remained with her as food for reflection, and
as she loitered down the trail a wish to know more about him rose in
her heart. There was a kind of smiling ecstasy on his face before he
saw her--as if he, too, were transported by the scene, and this
expression came at last to be the chief revelation of his character.
[Illustration: "THERE WAS IN HIS LOOK AN EXPRESSION OF
ACKNOWLEDGED KINSHIP"]
The red went out of the sky. The golden eagle of cloud flew home over
the illimitable seas of saffron, the purple shadows rose in the
valleys, the lights of the town began to sparkle. Engine-bells clanged
to and fro, and the strains of a saloon band rose to vex the girl's
poetic soul with repugnant remembrances of the dance-hall. "I suppose
he is only camping through," she thought, a little wistfully,
referring back to the stranger. "I wish I knew who he is."
As she came down to the level of the stream its friendly roar cut off
the ribald music and the clamor of the engines precisely as the bank
shut away the visible town, leaving the little row of pretty cottages
in the ward of the mountains and the martial, ranked, and towering
firs.
At the foot of the trail a gray-haired woman met her. It was her
mother, disturbed, indignant. "Viola Lambert, what do you mean by
staying up there after dark? I'm all a-tremble over you."
"It isn't dark, mother," answered the girl; "and if it were, it isn't
the first time I've been out alone."
Mrs. Lambert's voice softened. "Child, I can hardly see your face!
You must not do such things. I don't mind your being out on horseback,
but you must not go up there afoot. It is dangerous with all these
tramp miners coming and going."
"Well, don't scold--I'm here safe and sound."
"I haven't had such a turn for years, Viola," the mother explained, as
they waited side by side along the narrow walk. "I had an
_impression_--so vivid--that I dropped my work and ran to find you. It
was just as if you called me, asking for help. It seemed to me that
some dreadful thing had happened to you."
"But nothing did. I went up to see the sunset. I didn't meet a soul."
She ended abruptly, for she did not wish to retrace her sad reverie.
"Who were the two men who came down just now? They must have passed
you."
"Yes, they passed me--I didn't know them. The one behind looked like
an 'expert.' Perhaps he has come to examine the San Luis mine. Some
one said they were expecting a man from England."
"He looked more like a Frenchman to me."
"It may be he is," answered Viola, restrainedly.
They turned in at a rustic gateway opening into the yard of a small
and very pretty log-cabin which seemed a toy house, so minute was it
in contrast to the mighty, fir-decked wall of gray and yellow rock
behind it. Flowers had been planted along the path, and through the
open door a red-shaded lamp shone like a poppy. Plainly it was the
home of refined and tasteful women, a place where tall, rude men
entered timidly and with apologies.
"Was there any mail?" asked the girl, as she put aside her hat.
"Not a thing."
The shadow deepened on her small, sensitive face. "Oh, why _don't_ the
girls write? they should know how horribly lonely it is here. I'm
tired of everything to-day, mother--perfectly stone-blue. I don't like
what I am; I'm tired of church-work and the people here. I want to go
back East; I want to change my life completely."
The mother, a handsome woman, with fresh, unlined face, made no reply
to this outburst. "Gusta won't be back until late; we will have to get
our own supper."
The girl seemed rather pleased at this opportunity to do something,
and went to her work cheerfully, moving with such grace and lightness
that the mother stood in doting admiration to watch her; she was so
tall and lithe and full-bosomed--her one treasure.
As she worked, the shadow again lifted from the girl's face, a smile
came back to her scarlet lips, and she sang underbreath as only a
young maiden can sing to whom love is a wonder and marriage a far-off
dream.
She recalled the look which lay on the face of the man who was riding
with bared head in ecstasy of the scene above and below him; but, most
of all, she dwelt upon the gracious and candid glance of admiration
with which he greeted her and which he repeated as he disappeared
below her to be seen no more.
This look went with her to her room, and as she sat at her window,
which opened upon the river, she wondered whether he had gone into
camp in the pine groves just below the bridge, or whether he had taken
lodgings at the hotel.
She had lovers--no girl of her charm could move without meeting the
admiring glances of men; but this stranger's regard was so much more
subtly exalting--it held an impersonal quality--it went beyond her
entire understanding, adding an element of mystery to herself, to him,
and to the sunset.
III
THE MAN
Meanwhile the young tourist had alighted before the door of the
principal hotel, and, after writing his name in a clear and precise
hand on the book in the office, had hastened to his supper, carrying a
most vivid recollection of the slender figure and flushed and speaking
face of the girl on the trail. That moment of meeting, accidental and
fleeting, had already become a most beautiful climax of his
pilgrimage. "She was born of the sunset; she does not really exist,"
he said, with unwonted warmth of phrase. "How could this little mining
town produce so exquisite a flower?"
His grosser needs supplied, he lit his big student's pipe and went out
upon the upper story of the hotel's rude porch, and there sat,
listening to the rush of the stream, while the great yellow stars
appeared one by one above the lofty peaks, and the air grew crisp to
frostiness. He was profoundly at peace with the world and himself, his
physical weariness being just sufficient to give this hour a sound
completeness of content.
As the beauty of the night deepened, the girl's beauty allured like
the moon. He still sought to explain her. "She is some traveller like
myself," he said, "Bret Harte to the contrary, notwithstanding, the
wilderness does not produce maids of her evident refinement and grace.
She comes of a long line of well-bred people."
He was not an emotional person, and had not been permitted to consider
pleasure the chief object, even of a vacation, but he went to his bed
that night well pleased with Colorow, and with a half-defined sense
that this was, after all, the point towards which his long journey,
with all its windings, had really tended. However, he was not ready to
acknowledge that a large part of the charm of the place was due to the
glamour of a slender maid lit by the sunset light.
This delight in the town and its surroundings gained a new quality
next morning as he looked from his window upon a single white cloud
resting like a weary swan on the keen point of old Kanab. Though the
mesas of New Mexico and the deserts of Arizona were his special field,
he bared his head to the charm of "the high country."
Each summer, after months of prolonged peering into the hidden heart
of microscopic things in his laboratory (he was both analytical
chemist and biologist), it was his custom to return for a few weeks to
huge, crude synthetic, nature for relief. After endless discussion of
"whorls of force" and of "the office of germs in the human organism,"
he enjoyed the racy vernacular of the plainsman, to whom bacteria
were as indifferent as blackberry-seeds. Each year he resolved to go
to the forest, to the lake regions, or to the mountains; but as the
day of departure drew near the desert and the strange peoples living
thereon reasserted their dominion, and so he had continued to return
to the sand, to the home of the horned toad and the rattlesnake. These
trips restored the sane balance of his mind. To camp in the chaparral,
to explore the source of streams, and to relive the wonder of the boy
kept his faculties alert and keen.
His love of the sands and the purple buttes of the plain did not blind
him to the beauty of coloring and the gracious majesty of these peaks,
clothed as they were with the russet and gold and amber of ripened
grasses, which grew even to the very summits (only the kingliest of
the peaks were permitted to wear the ermine robes which denoted
sovereignty); the Continental Divide was, indeed, much more impressive
than he had expected it to be.
He was not one of those who seek out strange women, and he had no hope
of meeting the girl of the mountain-side again. He was content to have
her remain a poem--a song of the sunset--a picture seen only for a
moment, yet whose impression outlasts iron. Everything in nature had
converged to make her momentous. His long stay among the ugly, dusky
women of the desert, his exultant joy in the mountain sunset, and his
abounding health (which filled his heart with the buoyancy of a
boy)--all these causes combined to revive emotions which his absorption
in scientific investigation had set in the background--emotions which
concern the common man, but which the deeply ambitious chemist, eager
to discover the chemical molecular structure of the plasm, must put
aside with a firm hand.
IV
A SECOND MEETING
Viola was just leaving her mother's gate the following afternoon when
a man's voice, cordial, assured, and cultivated, startled her.
"Good-morning. Is this your home?"
She looked up to meet the smiling eyes of the stranger horseman. Again
an indefinable charm of manner robbed his greeting of offence, and
quite composedly she replied:
"Yes, this is our home."
"What a view you have, and what music!" He indicated the river which
ran white and broad over its pebbles, just below the walk. "I am
enchanted with the place. I think you must love it very much."
Her face expressed a qualified assent. "Oh yes, but I get tired of it
sometimes, especially in winter when we are all shut in with snow."
"Then you really are a year-round resident? I suppose my view _is_ the
tourist's view. I can't believe anybody lives here in winter. I hope
you won't mind my introducing myself"--he handed her a card. "You made
such a pretty picture up there beside the trail yesterday that I
couldn't forbear speaking to you on a second meeting. I wanted to
know whether you were real or just a fragment of sunset cloud."
The ease and candor of his manner, joined to the effect of the name on
the card, fully reassured her, and she looked up with a smile. "Won't
you come in and rest?"
"Thank you, I should like particularly to do so, I've been for a climb
up that peak behind your cottage and I'm tired."
Her reserve quite melted, the girl led the way to the door where her
mother stood in artless wonder.
"Mother, this is Dr. Serviss, of Corlear College."
"I'm glad to know you, sir," said Mrs. Lambert, with old-fashioned
formality. "Won't you come in?"
"Thank you. It will be a pleasure."
"Are you a physician?" she asked, as she took his hat and stick.
"Oh, dear, no! Nothing so useful as that. I'm a doctor by brevet, as
they say in the army." Then, as though acknowledging that his hostess
was entitled to know a little more about her intrusive guest, he
added: "I am a student of biology, Mrs. Lambert, and assistant to Dr.
Weissmann, the head of the bacteriological department of Corlear
Medical College. We study germs--microscopic 'bugs,'" he ended, with
humorous glance at Viola. "What a charming bungalow you have here! Did
you gather those wild flowers?"
Viola answered in the tone of a pupil to her master, "Yes, sir."
"But some of them grow high. You must be a mountaineer. Pardon my
curiosity--it is inexcusable--but how long have you lived here?"
The mother looked at her daughter for confirmation. "Eight years."
"Of course you are from the East?"
"Yes, from Wisconsin."
He laughed. "_We_ call Wisconsin a Western State. Of course, it's the
ignorant prejudice of the New-Yorker, but I find it hard to think of
you as actual residents of this far-away little town. I thought only
miners lived here?"
"We are miners. My husband has a mine up in the Basin, but he's
putting in some new machinery just now and is unable to come down but
once a week." Then mildly resenting his implied criticism of the town,
she added: "We have just as nice people here as you'll find anywhere."
He responded gallantly, "I am quite prepared to believe that, Mrs.
Lambert. But do many nice people like you live here all the year
round?" He was bent on drawing the girl out, but she did not respond.
The mother answered: "I haven't been away except to take my daughter
East to school."
He was cautious. "By East you mean Milwaukee?"
"Diamond Lake, Wisconsin."
He turned to the girl. "How long were you away?"
"Four years."
"Did you like it?"
"Very much."
"That is the reason you find it lonesome here." Up to this moment his
attitude was that of a teacher towards a pretty pupil. "You miss your
classmates, I suppose? Still there must be diversions here, even for a
young girl."
The mother sighed. "It really is very lonesome here for Viola--if it
weren't for her church work and her music I don't know what she'd do.
There are so few young people, and then her years at the seminary
spoiled her for the society out here, anyway."
"So much the worse for Colorow society," laughed Serviss. Then, to
clear the shadow which had gathered on the girl's face, he said: "I
see a fine piano, and shelves of music books. This argues that you
love music. Won't you sing for me? I am hungry for a song."
"I do not sing," she replied, coldly, "I have no voice."
"Then play for me. I have been for eight weeks on the desert and I am
famishing for music."
"Are you a musician?" asked Mrs. Lambert.
"Oh no, only a music-lover."
"My daughter is passionately fond of the piano," the mother explained,
"and her teachers advised her to go on and make a specialty of it.
They recommended Boston, but Viola wants to go to New York. She wanted
to go last year, but I couldn't let her go. I'd been without her for
four years, and Mr. Lambert's affairs wouldn't permit us both to go,
and so she had to stay; but it _does_ seem too bad for one as gifted
as she is to give it up."
At this moment Serviss changed his entire attitude towards these
people. They were too genuine, too trustful, and too fine to permit of
any patronization, and the girl's dignified silence and the charm of
her pellucid eyes and rose-leaf lips quite transmuted him from the
curious onlooker to the friend. "I can understand your dilemma," he
said, with less of formal cheer and more of genuine sympathy. "And
yet, if your daughter has most decided talent it is only fair to give
her a chance to show what she can do."
The girl flushed and her eyes fell as the mother bent towards her
visitor.
"I wish you would listen to her play, Dr. Serviss, and tell me what
you think of her talent."
His eyes shone with humor. "I will listen with great pleasure; but
don't ask a chemist to judge a pianist. I love music--it is a sweet
noise in my ears--but I can hardly distinguish Chopin from Schumann."
He faced the girl. "Play for me. I shall be very deeply indebted." As
she still hesitated he added: "Please do, or I will certainly think
you consider me intrusive."
As Viola slowly rose, Mrs. Lambert said: "You must not feel that way,
Dr. Serviss. We are highly honored to entertain one so eminent as you
are. I was brought up to value learning. Play for him, Viola."
"What is the reason for her reluctance?" Serviss asked himself. "Is it
shyness? Or does she resent me?"
With a glance of protest at her mother the girl took her seat at the
piano. "I will try," she said, bluntly. "But I know I shall fail."
Twice she laid her hands upon the keys only to snatch them away again
as if they were white-hot metal, and Serviss fancied her cheek grew
pale. The third time she clashed out a few jarring chords intermixed
with quite astonishing roulade on the treble--an unaccountable
interruption, as if a third hand had been thrust in to confuse her.
She stopped, and he began to share her embarrassment.
She tried again, shaking her head determinedly from side to side as if
to escape some invisible annoying object. It seemed as if some mocking
sprite in the instrument were laboring to make her every harmony a
discord, and Serviss keenly regretted his insistence.
Suddenly she sprang up with an impatient, choking cry. "I can't do it!
He won't let me!" she passionately exclaimed, and rushed from the room
leaving her visitor gazing with pity and amazement into the face of
the mother, who seemed troubled but in no wise astounded by her
daughter's hysterical action. She sat in silence--a painful silence,
as if lacking words to express her thought; and Serviss rose, rebuked,
and for the first time ill at ease.
"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Lambert; I didn't intend to embarrass your
daughter."
"She is very nervous--"
"I understand. Being a complete stranger, I should not have insisted.
One of the best singers I ever knew was so morbidly shy that on the
platform she was an absolute failure. Her vocal chords became so
contracted that she sang quite out of tune, and yet among friends she
was magnificent."
The mother's voice was quite calm. "It was not your fault, sir.
Sometimes she's this way, even when her best friends ask her to play.
That's why I fear she will never be able to perform in concerts--she
is _liable_ to these break-downs."
He was puzzled by something concealed in the mother's tone, and pained
and deeply anxious to restore the peaceful charm of the home into which
he had, in a sense, unbiddenly penetrated. "I am guilty--unpardonably
guilty. I beg you to tell her that my request was something more than
polite seeming--I was sincerely eager to hear her play. Perhaps at
another time, when she has come to know me better, she will feel like
trying again. I don't like to think that our acquaintance has ended
thus--in discord. May I not come in again, now that I am, in a sense,
explained?"
He blundered on from sentence to sentence, seeking to soften the
stern, straight line on the mother's lips--a line of singular
repression, sweet but firm.
"I wish you _would_ come again. I should really like your advice about
Viola's future. Can't you come in this evening?"
"I shall be very glad to do so. At what hour?"
"At eight. Perhaps she will be able to play for you then."
With a feeling of having blundered into a most unpleasant predicament,
through a passing interest in a pretty girl, Serviss retreated to his
hotel across the river.
V
PUPIL AND MASTER
Once out of the spell of the immediate presence of this troubled
mother and her appealing daughter, Serviss began to doubt and to
question. "They are almost too simple, too confiding. Why should Mrs.
Lambert, at a first meeting, accidental and without explanation, ask
me to take thought of her daughter's future?" The fact that his
connection with an institution of learning gave him a sort of sanctity
in their eyes did not weigh with him. He was of those who take
professorships in the modern way--with levity, either real or assumed.
"I think, on the whole, I'd better keep out of this family
complication, whatever it may be," he concluded. "This absence of the
husband in the hills may be more significant than at present
appears--it may be a voluntary sequestration. I take the hint. I am
not seeking new responsibilities, and I don't care to act as adviser,
even to a pretty girl--especially _not_ to a pretty girl." And he
waved his hand in the manner of one declining a doubtful cigar.
But this slim young witch, with the scarlet lips and pleading gray
eyes, was not so easily banished. His inward eye dwelt upon her with
increasing joy, "How beautiful she was, as she stood there on that
bowlder! Perhaps she was posing? She is now at the very height of her
girlish charm. What an appeal she must make to the men of this
region--those exquisite lips--that pliant waist--that full bosom!
There is some antagonism between mother and daughter--something more
than appears on the surface. She is both sullen and hysterical. What a
pity!"
She continued to trouble him as he sat again after his evening meal on
the veranda of the hotel. He could hear the slow tramp of heavy boots
along the sidewalks beneath him, and the roar of the Colorow, softened
by distance, rose and fell like a drowsy tune. On the highest peaks
the after-glow still lingered, and from one of the little cottages
deep in the shadow across the stream a light appeared like a signal,
an invitation, and, the blood in him being young, accepted the lure.
He rose with the impulse. "I'm going! Why not? 'Tis a night for
adventure. There's no need of involving myself in any wise with their
future. I'm an outsider, and will take precious good care to stay so."
His face was impassive, but his heart was quick within him as he set
foot on the bridge. "Perhaps this is my Rubicon?" he said, and paused
with a moment's irresolution.
His doubt, his suspicion, instantly vanished as he re-entered the
pretty little sitting-room and faced the sweet-visaged mother, who
tacitly acknowledged her daughter as the cause of his coming by
saying:
"Viola has just stepped over to the parsonage. She will return in a
moment. Won't you please be seated?"
Serviss took a chair, quite ready--even eager--to listen to the
further confidences which he perceived his hostess was about to give
him.
"I hope you won't think it strange, professor--"
He interrupted her. "Please don't call me professor."
"I beg your pardon, sir. I understood that you were a professor in a
university."
She seemed disappointed, and he explained: "It's true I am in the
hand-book as a member of the faculty, and I plead guilty to the degree
of doctor of philosophy--_that_ I am proud of; but to be called
professor robs me of my young humanity." This humorous explanation
seemed to confuse her, and he added, kindly and naturally: "Really,
Mrs. Lambert, I am a chemist and experimentalist in biology. I have no
class-room work, because the college prefers to have me make what they
call 'original investigation.' And, pray, let me say that while I am
very willing to assist your daughter, or to advise you in any way, I
see very little of musical New York. My work confines me to my 'shop'
very closely, and when I go out I associate almost wholly with my
peculiar kind. However, I can easily secure information as to the best
schools of music, for I have several friends who know all about it. I
interrupted you--please continue."
This pleasant, straightforward speech restored her confidence. "I
think I was about to say, sir, that it may seem strange to you that I
should so suddenly ask your advice, but, you see--"
"Oh, not at all," he genially interrupted. "I am consulted on all
kinds of matters; in fact, I pass for a real doctor--out on the trail.
I carry a little medicine-case for emergencies, and I assume all the
authority of the regular practitioner--on occasion. I shall be very
sorry if my distaste for the title 'professor' leads you to think me
unsympathetic. I shall be very glad to assist you in any way."
"Thank you. You see, I was brought up to esteem learning, and we
seldom meet one of your eminence--we are so completely out of the
world here--it is a great pleasure to us--"
Footsteps just outside of the screen-door announced the return of the
girl, who entered composedly, followed by a young man. Her manner was
cold, her glance aloof, as she greeted Serviss.
"I'm glad you came," she said. "I was afraid you would forget us." She
turned towards her escort, who had halted in the doorway. "Professor
Serviss, this is the Reverend Mr. Clarke, the pastor of our church."
As Serviss shook hands with the Reverend Clarke he experienced a
distinct shock of repulsion--an unaccountable feeling, for the
clergyman was decidedly handsome, at first sight. But his hand was
cold, his face pallid, and a bitter line, the worn pathway of a sneer,
curved at one corner of his mouth. "Unwholesome, anæmic," was
Serviss's inward comment as he turned away to address the girl, whose
change of manner exerted a new witchery over him.
She was dressed in black for some reason, and her face seemed both sad
and morose, but the graceful dignity of her strong young body was
enhanced by her dark gown. Her hands, her feet, were shapely, without
being dainty. "Plainly these women come of good stock, no matter what
the husband and father may be," Serviss thought. He resented the
clergyman's intrusive presence more and more. "Is he brought in as a
safeguard?" he asked himself.
Mr. Clarke's attitude was certainly forbidding. He perched in grim,
expectant silence on the edge of his chair, waiting, watching. His
lean face had the blue-white look of the much-shaven actor, and his
manner was as portentous as that of a tragedian.
"What the devil does he mean by staring at me like that?" Serviss
continued to ask himself. "Does he expect me to go off like a bomb?"
He had started a discussion of the weather or some other harmless
topic, when Clarke began, in a deep voice, with the formal inflections
of the parson: "Miss Lambert tells me you are from Corlear University,
professor?"
Serviss groaned and threw up his hands with a comical gesture. "Well,
let it go at that. I suppose it explains me to call me 'professor.'
Yes, I have a connection there--I draw a salary from the
institution."
The clergyman regarded him soberly, as did the women, without sharing
his humor in the least. Evidently being a professor in a university
was no light thing to a Western preacher. "She tells me you have
proposed to act as her adviser--"
Again Serviss protested. "Oh, nothing so formidable as that, my dear
sir. I have promised to make inquiries for her." Then, obscurely moved
to create a better impression in the girl's mind, he added: "I shall
be very happy, of course, to do all that is in my power to aid you,
Miss Lambert, but, as I have just been saying to your mother, I can
only act through my friends. Nobody enjoys music more than I, but no
one can possibly know less about it. In these days of specialization
one is forced to one's own little groove in order to achieve practical
results. General culture is impossible to specially trained sharps
like myself."
"What _is_ your specialty, may I ask?" inquired Clarke, remotely.
"I usually answer 'bugs,' but when I wish to be quite understood I
explain that I am a physiological chemist and biologist. At the
present moment I am assistant in the pathological department of the
Corlear Medical College."
The preacher seemed to lighten a little. "Ah! that is a noble study, a
study of incalculable service to mankind. I am deeply interested in
that line of thought myself--I may say _vitally_ interested, for I
suffer from lung trouble. One by one the germs of disease are being
discovered and their antitoxins catalogued." It was evident that he
was anxious to impress the women with his wonderful understanding of
the scientist's work and aims.
His tone was so sententious that Serviss instantly became flippant, as
an offset. "Yes, one by one we round 'em up! But don't think me
unfriendly to the 'beasts.' They have their uses. I'd no sooner kill a
bacterium than a song-bird. I think we care too highly for the
cancerous and the consumptive. I'm not at all sure that humanity
oughtn't to be hackled like weeds, and so toughen its hold on life.
Germs may be blessings in disguise."
Clarke pursued his way. "How little we know about their
reactions--their secretions. You've given some attention to the X-ray
and its effect on these cells, I presume?"
Serviss inwardly grinned to think what Weissmann would say at sight of
his assistant sitting in solemn discussion of the germs and X-rays
with a village clergyman and two reverential women. "Why, yes, I've
considered it. Naturally, any new thing that bears on my specialty
makes me sit up. I've even done a little experimenting with it."
"But have you considered the bearing of all these subtleties of
science upon"--he hesitated--"a--upon certain--a--occult phenomena?"
Serviss eyed him non-committally. "Well, what, for instance?"
"Well, upon, say, telepathy--and--a--well, upon spiritual healing--and
the like."
"I can't say that I have; I don't exactly see the connection.
Furthermore, I don't believe in these particular delusions. My work
concerns the material facts of life, not the dying superstitions of
the race. I have no patience with any morbid theory of life."
This remark plainly produced a sensation. The preacher cast a
significant glance at the mother, and the girl looked away at the
lamp, a flush upon her face.
"Hello!" exclaimed Serviss, under his breath. "Have I discovered a
neat of cranks? I've been enlisted on somebody's side--I wonder
whose?"
The clergyman faced him again and calmly asked: "Have you ever
_investigated_ these occult phenomena?"
"Certainly not. I have no time to waste on such imaginings. My time is
all taken in a study of certain definite processes in the living
organism."
A light began to glow in the eyes of the young clergyman. "I suppose
you class mental healing among the delusions?"
"Most assuredly I do," answered Serviss, with the remorselessness of
youth.
"You would say that the mind of man cannot mend the body of another--"
"If you mean directly--in the manner of 'faith cures' and the like--I
would answer certainly not, unless the disorder happens to be in
itself due to a delusion. I can imagine the hypochondriac being cured
by mental stimulus." He felt that he was drawing near the point at
issue, and his eyes shone with glee.
The preacher set his trap. "You believe in the action of a drug--say,
prussic acid--you believe it will kill?"
"Yes, and quite irrespective of the opinion of the one who takes it.
His thinking it water will not check or change its action in the
slightest degree."
"But _how_ does it kill?" persisted Clarke. "What does it _do_?"
"If you mean why, at the last analysis, does one drug attack cells and
the other nourish them, I answer, frankly, I don't know--nobody
knows."
Clarke pursued his point. "Under the microscope, the germ of, say,
tetanus is a minute bar with spore at the end like the head of a
tadpole. Of what is this cell composed?"
"Probably of a jelly-like substance with excessively minute filaments,
but we don't know. We are at the limit of the microscope. We trace
certain processes, we even dissect certain cells, but elemental
composition of plasm remains a mystery."
The preacher glowed with triumph. "Then you confess yourself baffled?
The union of matter and spirit is beyond your microscope. What do you
know about a drop of water? You say it is formed of hydrogen and
oxygen in such and such proportions. What _is_ hydrogen? Why do they
unite?"
"I don't know," calmly replied Serviss. "We admit that any material
substance remains inexplicable. The molecule lies far below the line
of visibility. We only push the zone of the known a little farther
into the realm of the unknown; but how does that serve your argument?"
"By demonstrating that the mind of a man is simply the mastering
mystery in a world of mysteries, and that there is no known limit to
what it may do. We say that at the point where life enters to
differentiate the germ is beyond science--there of necessity faith is
born."
"You say 'we'--are you an apostle of 'the new church'?" asked Serviss,
abruptly.
The preacher visibly shrank. "I do not care to announce my growing
conviction to my congregation, at present; but I find many things
about the doctrine which appeal to me. Some form of spiritism is the
coming religion--in my judgment. The old order changeth. The
traditional theology--the very faith I preach--has become too gross,
too materialistic, for this age; some sweeter and more mystic faith is
to follow. Even science is prophesying new power for man, new realms
for the spirit. You men of science pretend to lead, but you are
laggards. You pore upon the culture of germs, but shut your eyes to
the most vital of all truths. Is the life beyond the grave of less
account than the habits of animalculæ?"
The young scientist listened to this query with outward courtesy, but
inwardly his gorge rose. "I see one gain in your new position," he
answered, lightly. "Matter is no longer the dead, inorganic, 'godless
thing' which the old-time theologians declared it to be. Matter, so
far from being some inert lump, is permeated with life--is life
itself. So far as we now know, all the visible and tangible universe
is resolvable into terms of force--that is to say, chemical process.
There may be no line of demarcation between the organic and the
inorganic."
"And yet with your knowledge of the inscrutable final mystery of
matter you set a mark at the grave! You condemn all manifestation of
the spirit, all the phenomena of spiritism, for example?"
"Condemn is not the word--we simply say the phenomena are absurd, the
spirit cannot exist without the body--"
"Have you ever investigated a single form of spirit manifestation?
Have you studied the claims of those who are in touch with the spirit
world?"
"No."
The preacher's sneer broke forth. "I can't see but you scientists are
quite as dogmatic, quite as bigoted as the theologians."
Serviss laughed. "It does look a little that way. However, I'm not as
uninformed as I seem. It happens that I am in close personal contact
with men whose specialty is the study of morbid psychology, and I know
the quality of those who act as mediums for the return of the dead."
The intensity of the interest on the part of the little group before
him was astonishing, not to say appalling. "It is evident that the
mother and her pastor are both of the new dispensation or worse," was
his thought, but his natural courtesy led him to say, placably: "There
are mysteries in the world, I admit--in chemistry as in biology--but
they seem to me to be different in very essence from the 'mysteries'
of spiritualism and all allied 'psychic phenomena,' which appear to me
essentially absurd, ignoble--'ratty,' to use a slang phrase--a faith
founded upon things done in the dark, always in the dark."
The preacher flamed out at this. "I knew you would get round to that;
that is the reason why I began by drawing you out on the X-ray. How
little do we know of motion! The X-ray moves in straight lines, I
understand, while light has a wave motion. Hence they are
antagonistic. May it not be that the spirits of those gone before
manifest by means of an unknown force which light neutralizes? May
this not be the explanation why the phenomena of the spirit world
require darkness?"
"It may," answered Serviss, dryly; "but there is a far easier
explanation--But, see here," he returned to his boyish humor, "this is
my vacation. I came out here to escape 'shop,' and here we are wasting
time on X-rays and spiritism, and boring our patient hostess besides.
Miss Lambert, won't you play for us and clear the air of our
controversial dust?"
The girl, who had been sitting during this conversation in rigid
immobility, intent on every word, now turned towards Clarke as if
asking his consent. The mother, too, seemed to wait anxiously for the
minister's answer, as if wondering whether he would willingly cut
short his interrogation.
His eyes were still glowing with the heat of controversy, but he
gravely said: "I hope you will give me another opportunity to discuss
this matter. It is very important to me."
"Certainly, with pleasure," answered Serviss, glad to rid himself of
the discussion of the moment.
As Viola stood slowly turning the leaves of her music, three loud
knocks sounded upon the inner door, as if an insistent neighbor had
entered and signalled for help. The mother rose and went out
hurriedly, but the clergyman merely glanced after her, and said to the
girl:
"You would better play, Viola."
The girl dashed into a stormy Polish march, which she played very
well, but with a mechanical precision which seemed to offend Clarke,
who rose and laid his hand on her arm. "Wait, you're not in the mood
yet." He turned to Serviss. "The spirit of our discussion is upon her.
She is very sensitive to such things. I will sing first--if you don't
object," he added, in a new tone, a touch of apology in his voice, and
he gave out the effect of addressing an unseen auditor--some one in
the inner room.
"I shall be delighted," replied Serviss, with formal politeness,
though he began to apprehend something morbidly forbidding in the
minister and in his influence on the girl. An extraordinary intimacy
was revealed, not so much in the words he spoke as in the tones he
used. "Here is the girl's lover," he decided.
There was no timidity or hesitation in Viola's manner as she struck
the first chords of an old ballad, and Clarke, transformed by a new
and lofty mood, sang, with notable beauty of phrasing, "The Banks o'
Ben Lomond." Something in the melancholy of the lover's cry seemed to
fit with this singular young preacher's mood. His voice searched the
heart, his eyes misted with feeling, and when he finished Serviss
applauded most fervently, "Bravo!" and impulsively offered his hand.
"My dear fellow, you have a wonderful voice. _You_ are the one to go
to New York; you'd make Carolus look to his laurels. Sing something
else--something of Strauss. Do you know Strauss?"
Clarke smiled with wistful sadness. "I sing very few ballads. My voice
was given me to use in Christ's service, not for the gratification of
my pride."
Serviss recoiled before this sanctimonious speech, and the light went
out of his face. A disgust which he could not entirely conceal crossed
his lips. "My dear sir, you can't serve the Lord better than by
singing beautiful songs to the weary people of this earth. To wear out
a voice like that on pinchbeck hymn tunes is a crime." Then, as if
becoming conscious of a neglect of the girl, he added: "Now that you
are in the mood, Miss Lambert, you must try that sonata again."
The girl seemed not to be offended by his enthusiasm over the
minister's singing, and with a word in a low voice to Clarke, who
placed a sheet of music before her, she began to play, opening the
composition with unexpected breadth and dignity of phrasing. Serviss
listened with growing amazement. Her hands were not large, but they
had ample spread and were under perfect control. There was power in
the poise of her head and in the rhythmic swaying of her body, but her
playing was curiously unfeminine. There was no touch of girlish grace,
of sentiment, in her performance, and with a sudden enlightenment
Serviss inwardly exclaimed: "Aha! A clerical Svengali! This musical
preacher has trained his pupil till she plays as _he_ would play if he
had the digital facility. It's all fine, but it is not the girl," and
the question of their relationship again engaged him.
[Illustration: "SERVISS LISTENED WITH GROWING AMAZEMENT"]
When the final stormy note was still, Viola remained on her stool, as
though waiting for her critic to applaud.
Serviss broke the silence by exclaiming: "See here, you people are
making game of me. You are both professionals in disguise. Come now,
'fess up," he challenged Clarke. "You are Señor Del Corte, barytone of
the Salt-Air Opera Company; and you, Miss Lambert, belong to the Arion
Ladies' Orchestra. I have found you both out!"
The girl smiled with pleasure, but Clarke remained so unassailably
serious that Serviss was moved to further deeps of audacity. "Don't
tell me you are a comedian, also! You certainly have me guessing. Who
are you, really?"
Clarke answered, resentfully: "I am the pastor of the Presbyterian
church in this village, as Miss Lambert has told you, and she is my
organist."
Again that thump three times repeated sounded upon the door. Serviss,
baffled and silenced by Clarke's impenetrable gravity, and by
something inexplicably submissive, yet watchful, in the face of the
girl, felt himself confronted by an intangible, sinister, and
inescapable influence. The young clergyman seemed to darken and
oppress both women. It was as if they were all leagued in a conspiracy
to deceive and cajole. This bewilderment lasted but a moment, and he
rose from his chair with a spring. "Well, now, play something
else--give us a bit of rag-time; that last piece has left us all a
little dashed--try a cake-walk."
Clarke interposed. "Miss Lambert does not play those trashy melodies.
I consider them essentially irreligious."
Serviss resented the preacher's tone, but quickly answered: "They're
not exactly reverent, I'll admit; but without them American music
would be but a poor reflection of the German."
As if to save his reputation the preacher sang "The Palms," and sang
it magnificently; and the girl accompanied him with such accuracy and
good judgment that Serviss was able to infer long hours of practice,
and this did not please him.
"His influence on her and on this household is not good," he decided.
"That chap is decidedly morbid. If he is married, so much the worse.
He's far too handsome to be a safe guide to an impressionable young
girl. There is some mystery here," and he recalled that Viola's face
was troubled when first he saw it. And at the close of this song,
without a glance at the preacher, he offered a parting hand to Viola.
"If I can be of any aid in putting you in touch with a teacher in New
York, please write me. I think you have my card. You play with
astonishing power and brilliancy. You would certainly interest a man
like Greer."
Her face flamed with color--all her sullen restraint vanished, all her
girlish charm came back. "Oh, do you think so? Do you suppose I could
get him to teach me?"
"I don't say that--he is a very busy man--but I think you are
decidedly to be encouraged. But I may be able to hear you again before
I go. I want to hear you play alone."
"I wish you would come again." There was a subtle entreaty in her
voice, almost a prayer; and in her uplifted face was expressed the
respect and confidence of a child. His heart was moved with pity as
well as with admiration, and, turning to the mother, he added: "I
shall probably remain over Sunday, and it would be a pleasure if I
might come again to your pretty home."
Mrs. Lambert's face glowed with pleasure. "It will be a great honor to
have you, sir."
In this spirit he went away, without again taking Clarke's hand, with
a last glance at the girl's face as she stood at the open door to let
him pass. He turned from the gate with a sense of having been
permitted a glance into the very heart of a secret drama which might
at any moment become a tragedy. His interest was profoundly stirred,
his sympathies wholly enlisted in behalf of this girl, so young and so
aspiring.
As he stood above the roaring water he formulated a theory with regard
to the relationship of the personalities he had just left behind him.
"The girl is being persecuted by this man Clarke, who is madly in love
with her. She has an inner repugnance to him; but he is a clergyman,
and that means a great deal to a girl in the adoration stage. Her
mother, a nice, religious sort of person, favors the preacher, of
course; but the father probably despises him. Clarke is evidently
losing his hold on the rock-ballasted keel of his creed, and in his
shipwreck he may carry that girl down with him; such cases are all too
common. If he is married, he is all the more dangerous. But it is not
my duty to interfere." He ended, resolute to put the whole problem
from him: "The girl has legal guardians--on them rests the blame if
she is corrupted. To reform this world has never been my call."
But he could not rid himself of a growing sense of responsibility. His
mind returned again and again to the complication into which he had
suddenly been thrust. "Perhaps this desire on the part of the girl to
go away to study is only an instinctive desire to escape. It would be
like that preacher to have a worn, little, commonplace wife. What can
Lambert be thinking of to let such a man come into his home and direct
the daily life of both his wife and daughter? He is neglecting his
plain duty."
He fell asleep, fancying himself on the way up the trail to the mine,
and when he woke to find the good, rectifying rays of the morning sun
filling his room the theories of the night were absurd. He desired to
see the girl again, not to warn her of her peril, but because she was
piquant and lovely, as befitted her romantic surroundings.
VI
IN THE MARSHALL BASIN
It must have been about eleven o'clock next morning when Serviss rode
up and dismounted at the Lambert gate, and in the flaming light of
mid-day the sense of mystification, the feeling that the girl was in
the coils of some invisible menace, had entirely vanished. The
preacher had sunk to the rôle of a conceited clerical ass who regarded
science as an enemy to his especial theories and the visible universe
as an outlying province of Calvinism; while Viola, who came to the
door, was again most humanly charming, delighting his eyes like the
morning.
She smiled blithely and spoke collectedly, in response to his
greeting; but when he asked her to be his guide to the wonders of the
region her face clouded in dismay.
"Oh, I'm sorry; I wish I could; but I must carry a message up to my
father at the mine."
"Very well, why not take me? I infer you go on horseback?"
She hesitated. "Yes, but it's a long, hard ride--and you said you were
tired of the saddle."
"I was yesterday; but I feel quite rested now. By all means let me
accompany you. I should particularly enjoy mounting high to-day. I
should also like to meet your father."
"Very well, I will speak to mother," she replied, with shining face,
and disappeared within.
The mother, mindful of Serviss's connection with a great university,
made no objection to the plan. On the contrary, she was pleased and
flattered by his interest in her daughter, and a few moments later the
young people rode off up the mountain road side by side and in high
spirits.
Serviss winced at times at the childish flatness of Viola's comment,
but her voice was musical and her face flower-like--therefore he
forgave her. With all his knowledge of the constitution of matter, he
was still young and in the mating mood.
They talked of the flowers, of the trails, of the birds to be found on
the heights for a time; but soon, inevitably, they came to talk of
themselves. Under his questioning she outlined her plans for a musical
education, and this led at last to a consideration of the Reverend Mr.
Clarke.
At the first mention of his name the girl's face distinctly darkened
and her answers became curiously studied, almost evasive--or so it
seemed to Serviss.
"Yes, I play in his church," she said, "and he teaches me. He is a
splendid musician--don't you think so? I owe a great deal to him. He
has helped me so much--especially in my phrasing. He is a wonderful
man. We are fortunate in having him with us."
"He struck me as a little morbid, not to say morose. Has he had
trouble in his church?"
Her answer was deep-toned and affectedly solemn in one so young. "No,
but his wife passed out last year."
"Passed out? What do you mean by that?"
"I mean she died."
"Oh, I see!" His inflection checked her confidence, and they rode for
a little way in silence.
Serviss was thinking. The situation is now clear. Clarke is working
upon this sweet and charming girl in order to have her take the place
of his dead wife. A sorrowful thing to think of, but not so bad as I
have been imagining. At length he asked: "What else can you tell me
about this Mr. Clarke? Is he a native of the West?"
"Oh no, he is from the East. He had a big church in Brooklyn; but his
health gave out and he was forced to leave it. He came here for the
baths and the air. He is much better now."
"He retains all his intellectual diseases, however. What medicine will
he find for those?" Meeting the girl's startled glance, he hastened to
add: "I beg your pardon, I was just wondering if he were as morbid
when he came as he now seems."
"Oh no! He was quite cheerful till his wife went away. That changed
him greatly. For months he hardly left his study. He reads too much
even now. That is why he looks so pale. His house is packed with
books."
"He seems in need of fresh air. How does your father get on with him?"
"Not at all well."
"I inferred that. Your father is a man of deeds--of open air--I take
it."
"Mr. Lambert isn't my own father," she took this opportunity to
explain. "My own father passed to the other side when I was eleven."
"Pardon my curiosity, Miss Lambert, but you've used a phrase once or
twice which I've heard the people of a certain faith use. Is your
mother a spiritualist?"
She looked at him with timid eyes, then turned quickly away. "She--she
used to be; she's studying theosophy now."
"And the minister is trying to convert you all to his especial theory!
I can imagine his discourses. No wonder you want to flee."
The girl's whole face, voice, and manner changed--became bitter,
passionate. "Oh, I hate it! I hate it! I want to be free of it all!"
The intensity of her utterance amazed Serviss, and he studied her
profile in silence before he answered. "I think I know what you mean,
and I sympathize with you. You're too young to be troubled by the
doubts and dismays of men like Clarke. He is preposterous in the face
of a landscape like this. Let us forget him and his 'isms.'" With
these words he straightened in his saddle and lifted his eyes towards
the height before them. "Isn't that superb!"
They were drawing near the great gray boundary-wall of the valley,
and the sound of roaring water grew tumultuous as they rounded the
curve in the road and came into the little triangular nook which had
been anciently formed by the Colorow as it descended in power from its
source in the high parks. On the left the ledges rose almost sheer for
a thousand feet, and from the edge of this cliff ore-buckets, a-slide
on invisible cables, appeared in the sky, swooping like eagles,
silently dropping one by one, to disappear, tamely as doves, in the
gable end of a huge, drab-colored mill which stood upon the flat
beside the stream. Beyond the mill Mount Ignacio rose darkly purple,
hooded in white clouds.
The entire scene was typical of the West, of its energy, its greed,
and its faith. Here was life--life and buoyant health--and the blood
of the young scientist quickened as he comprehended the daring, the
originality of the miner's plan.
"Is this your father's enterprise?" he asked, in the hope of an
affirmative answer. A man of this quality would hang the minister if
necessary.
"Oh no. We've got to climb the hill and cross the upper Basin before
we reach our mine. This is the ore from the San Luis tunnel."
She was, happily, of the sunny world now, and, with a gay smile,
turned her horse into a narrow trail and called back to him: "We climb
here." He followed, admiring the strength and grace of her rounded
figure as her horse zigzagged up the steep acclivity. She was troubled
by no problems at this moment. She was rather a daughter of the
mountains, a sister to the eagles.
She stopped once or twice to permit him to locate the far-famed peaks
rising one by one to the south of them, and the third time she drew
rein he was a-foot, and she said, "We're almost to the top of this
grade; it's easier in the Basin."
"I am thinking only of my horse," he answered. "You see, he is
carrying a forty-pound saddle, and is not so fresh as yours. I'm sorry
to delay you."
The Basin was a most glorious valley, bowl-shaped, green with grass
and groves of aspen and fir, and flooded with a cataract of sunshine.
All about it ran a rim of lofty summits, purple in shadow, garnet and
gold and green in the sun. Here and there a prospect-hole showed like
a scar, or a gray, dismantled stamp-mill stood like a disintegrating
bowlder beside its yellow-gray dump of useless ore. Serviss, familiar
with the rise and fall of the silver-miner, looked over the lovely
valley with a certain sense of satisfaction, for he was able to
reconstruct its beauty before that flood of devastating humankind
swept up from the eastern plain. "Nature is reasserting her dominion,"
he said, aloud. "Mining is a wounding business--like murder."
The girl glanced away to the south. "We'll have to hurry if we reach
camp by one o'clock," she called, and he waved his hand as a sign of
surrender to her leadership.
They overtook a long train of burros bearing a most miscellaneous
cargo of odds and ends of machinery, nail-kegs, iron-rods, bundles of
bolts, lumber, oil, and boxes of groceries.
"This is all father's--all for the new mill," said the girl, nodding
and smiling at the Mexicans in charge of the donkeys. "Hello, Clint!"
she called, cheerily, to another muleteer, a little farther up the
trail, a brown, good-looking young fellow, who saluted her joyfully,
his eyes aglow with adoration.
"Every man is her suitor," thought Serviss, with a twinge of
disapproval. "Think what she must seem to that leather-colored Arab
urging forward those donkeys!" And a knowledge of her danger--he put
it that way--began to oppress him. "She is too fine and sweet to marry
among these rough miners."
She, it seemed, was not afraid of mountaineers, for she had a gay nod
and a bright word for every one she met, though some of them were
brutal-mouthed and grimy and sullen. Serviss derived no comfort from
the fact that the most sinister of them brightened for an instant in
the light of her adorable smile.
At last, far ahead, they came in sight of the mill on a bare peak. The
white clouds which had been silently gathering round the great domes
swiftly overspread the whole sky. The air grew chill as November. The
wind began to roar in the firs with a stern mournfulness which went to
the heart of the man; but the girl, without once stopping her horse,
unrolled her raincoat and put it on, calling back at her cavalier as
she did so with a fine, challenging, gleeful shout.
They were very high now. Perennial ice lay in the gullies and on the
north side of the cliffs, and the air was light and keen. Suddenly the
wind died away. A gray hush came over the valley. The water in the
streams lost its vivid green and became lead-color streaked with white
foam. One by one the mountains were blotted out by the storm. The
world of sky and rocks grew mysterious, menacing; but the girl pushed
fearlessly forward, singing like a robin, while the rain slashed over
her, and the thunder boomed and re-echoed from crag to crag like
warning guns in magnificent alarums. "I love this!" she cried, her
clear voice piercing the veil of water like a flute note. "Don't you?"
Serviss was not without imagination, and the contrast of this jocund,
fearless, free young maid with the silent, constrained girl of the
night before moved him to wonder. "Here she is herself--nature's own
child," he thought. "Last night she was a 'subject'--a plaything of
the preacher's. Strange the mother does not realize her daughter's
danger."
The storm passed as quickly as it came, and when they drew rein at the
mine the sun was shining. The mill, standing on a smooth, steep slope,
and sheltered on the north by a group of low firs, seemed half a ruin,
but was, in fact, being rebuilt and enlarged. All about it were dumps
of clay, slippery with water, and rough bunk-houses and ore-sheds. All
the structures were rude, masculine, utilitarian, and the girl grew
each moment in delicacy and refinement by contrast.
In answer to her halloo a plainly clad man came to the door, his face
set in amazement.
"Why--see here--daughter! I wasn't looking for you to-day."
"I'm here just the same," she laughingly replied. "Here are some
telegrams. Professor Serviss, this is my father."
Joseph Lambert was a small man, with shy, blue eyes and a low and
gentle utterance. He carried his head leaning a little to the left and
seemed a shade discouraged, almost melancholy. He was, however, a
brave, silent, tireless little man, who had made one great fortune in
silver-mines only to lose it in the panic. He was now cannily working
a vein which had a streak of gold in it, and, like all miners, was
just on the point of making a "strike." He was distracted with work,
and, though cordial, could not at the moment give much time to his
visitor.