No more was said. They had breakfast in a strange silence. The wind
brooded its secret in the tree tops. Tappan’s burro strolled into camp,
and caught the stranger’s eye.
“Wal, thet’s shore a fine burro,” he observed. “Never saw the like.”
Tappan performed his camp tasks. And then there was nothing to do but
sit around the fire. Blade evidently waited for the increasing menace
of storm to rouse Tappan to decision. But the graying over of sky and
the increase of wind did not affect Tappan. What did he wait for? The
truth of his thoughts was that he did not like the way Jenet remained
in camp. She was waiting to be packed. She knew they ought to go.
Tappan yielded to a perverse devil of stubbornness. The wind brought a
cold mist, then a flurry of wet snow. Tappan gathered firewood, a large
quantity. Blade saw this and gave voice to earnest fears. But Tappan
paid no heed. By nightfall sleet and snow began to fall steadily. The
men fashioned a rude shack of spruce boughs, ate their supper, and went
to bed early.
It worried Tappan that Jenet stayed right in camp. He lay awake a long
time. The wind rose, and moaned through the forest. The sleet failed,
and a soft, steady downfall of snow gradually set in. Tappan fell
asleep. When he awoke it was to see a forest of white. The trees were
mantled with blankets of wet snow, the ground covered two feet on a
level. But the clouds appeared to be gone, the sky was blue, the storm
over. The sun came up warm and bright.
“It’ll all go in a day,” said Tappan.
“If this was early October I’d agree with you,” replied Blade. “But
it’s only makin’ fer another storm. Can’t you hear thet wind?”
Tappan only heard the whispers of his dreams. By now the snow was
melting off the pines, and rainbows shone everywhere. Little patches
of snow began to drop off the south branches of the pines and spruces,
and then larger patches, until by mid-afternoon white streams and
avalanches were falling everywhere. All of the snow, except in shaded
places on the north sides of trees, went that day, and half of that on
the ground. Next day it thinned out more, until Jenet was finding the
grass and moss again. That afternoon the telltale thin clouds raced up
out of the southwest and the wind moaned its menace.
“Tappan, let’s pack an’ hit it out of hyar,” appealed Blade, anxiously.
“I know this country. Mebbe I’m wrong, of course, but it feels like
storm. Winter’s comin’ shore.”
“Let her come,” replied Tappan, imperturbably.
“Say, do you want to get snowed in?” demanded Blade, out of patience.
“I might like a little spell of it, seein’ it’d be new to me,” replied
Tappan.
“But man, if you ever get snowed in hyar you can’t get out.”
“That burro of mine could get me out.”
“You’re crazy. Thet burro couldn’t go a hundred feet. What’s more,
you’d have to kill her an’ eat her.”
Tappan bent a strange gaze upon his companion, but made no reply. Blade
began to pace up and down the small bare patch of ground before the
camp fire. Manifestly, he was in a serious predicament. That day he
seemed subtly to change, as did Tappan. Both answered to their peculiar
instincts, Blade to that of self-preservation, and Tappan, to something
like indifference. Tappan held fate in defiance. What more could happen
to him?
Blade broke out again, in eloquent persuasion, giving proof of their
peril, and from that he passed to amaze and then to strident anger. He
cursed Tappan for a nature-loving idiot.
“An’ I’ll tell you what,” he ended. “When mornin’ comes I’ll take some
of your grub an’ hit it out of hyar, storm or no storm.”
But long before dawn broke that resolution of Blade’s had become
impracticable. Both men were awakened by a roar of storm through the
forest, no longer a moan, but a marching roar, with now a crash and
then a shriek of gale! By the light of the smouldering camp fire Tappan
saw a whirling pall of snow, great flakes as large as feathers. Morning
disclosed the setting in of a fierce mountain storm, with two feet of
snow already on the ground, and the forest lost in a blur of white.
“I was wrong,” called Tappan to his companion. “What’s best to do now?”
“You damned fool!” yelled Blade. “We’ve got to keep from freezin’ an’
starvin’ till the storm ends an’ a crust comes on the snow.”
For three days and three nights the blizzard continued, unabated in
its fury. It took the men hours to keep a space cleared for their camp
site, which Jenet shared with them. On the fourth day the storm ceased,
the clouds broke away, the sun came out. And the temperature dropped
to zero. Snow on the level just topped Tappan’s lofty stature, and in
drifts it was ten and fifteen feet deep. Winter had set in without
compromise. The forest became a solemn, still, white world. But now
Tappan had no time to dream. Dry firewood was hard to find under the
snow. It was possible to cut down one of the dead trees on the slope,
but impossible to pack sufficient wood to the camp. They had to burn
green wood. Then the fashioning of snowshoes took much time. Tappan had
no knowledge of such footgear. He could only help Blade. The men were
encouraged by the piercing cold forming a crust on the snow. But just
as they were about to pack and venture forth, the weather moderated,
the crust refused to hold their weight, and another foot of snow fell.
“Why in hell didn’t you kill an elk?” demanded Blade, sullenly. He had
become darkly sinister. He knew the peril and he loved life. “Now we’ll
have to kill an’ eat your precious Jenet. An’ mebbe she won’t furnish
meat enough to last till this snow weather stops an’ a good freeze’ll
make travelin’ possible.”
“Blade, you shut up about killin’ an’ eatin’ my burro Jenet,” returned
Tappan, in a voice that silenced the other.
Thus instinctively these men became enemies. Blade thought only of
himself. Tappan had forced upon him a menace to the life of his burro.
For himself Tappan had not one thought.
Tappan’s supplies ran low. All the bacon and coffee were gone. There
was only a small haunch of venison, a bag of beans, a sack of flour,
and a small quantity of salt left.
“If a crust freezes on the snow an’ we can pack that flour, we’ll get
out alive,” said Blade. “But we can’t take the burro.”
Another day of bright sunshine softened the snow on the southern
exposures, and a night of piercing cold froze a crust that would bear a
quick step of man.
“It’s our only chance--an’ damn slim at thet,” declared Blade.
Tappan allowed Blade to choose the time and method, and supplies
for the start to get out of the forest. They cooked all the beans
and divided them in two sacks. Then they baked about five pounds of
biscuits for each of them. Blade showed his cunning when he chose the
small bag of salt for himself and let Tappan take the tobacco. This
quantity of food and a blanket for each Blade declared to be all they
could pack. They argued over the guns, and in the end Blade compromised
on the rifle, agreeing to let Tappan carry that on a possible chance
of killing a deer or elk. When this matter had been decided, Blade
significantly began putting on his rude snowshoes, that had been
constructed from pieces of Tappan’s boxes and straps and burlap sacks.
“Reckon they won’t last long,” muttered Blade.
Meanwhile Tappan fed Jenet some biscuits and then began to strap a
tarpaulin on her back.
“What you doin’?” queried Blade, suddenly.
“Gettin’ Jenet ready,” replied Tappan.
“Ready! For what?”
“Why, to go with us.”
“Hell!” shouted Blade, and he threw up his hands in helpless rage.
Tappan felt a depth stirred within him. He lost his late taciturnity
and silent aloofness fell away from him. Blade seemed on the moment no
longer an enemy. He loomed as an aid to the saving of Jenet. Tappan
burst into speech.
“I can’t go without her. It’d never enter my head. Jenet’s mother was
a good faithful burro. I saw Jenet born way down there on the Rio
Colorado. She wasn’t strong. An’ I had to wait for her to be able to
walk. An’ she grew up. Her mother died, an’ Jenet an’ me packed it
alone. She wasn’t no ordinary burro. She learned all I taught her.
She was different. But I treated her same as any burro. An’ she grew
with the years. Desert men said there never was such a burro as Jenet.
Called her Tappan’s burro, an’ tried to borrow an’ buy an’ steal
her.... How many times in ten years Jenet has done me a good turn I
can’t remember. But she saved my life. She dragged me out of Death
Valley.... An’ then I forgot my debt. I ran off with a woman an’ left
Jenet to wait as she had been trained to wait.... Well, I got back in
time.... An’ now I’ll not leave her here. It may be strange to you,
Blade, me carin’ this way. Jenet’s only a burro. But I won’t leave her.”
“Man, you talk like thet lazy lop-eared burro was a woman,” declared
Blade, in disgusted astonishment.
“I don’t know women, but I reckon Jenet’s more faithful than most of
them.”
“Wal, of all the stark, starin’ fools I ever run into you’re the worst.”
“Fool or not, I know what I’ll do,” retorted Tappan. The softer mood
left him swiftly.
“Haven’t you sense enough to see thet we can’t travel with your burro?”
queried Blade, patiently controlling his temper. “She has little hoofs,
sharp as knives. She’ll cut through the crust. She’ll break through in
places. An’ we’ll have to stop to haul her out--mebbe break through
ourselves. Thet would make us longer gettin’ out.”
“Long or short we’ll take her.”
Then Blade confronted Tappan as if suddenly unmasking his true meaning.
His patient explanation meant nothing. Under no circumstances would he
ever have consented to an attempt to take Jenet out of that snow-bound
wilderness. His eyes gleamed.
“We’ve a hard pull to get out alive. An’ hard-workin’ men in winter
must have meat to eat.”
Tappan slowly straightened up to look at the speaker.
“What do you mean?”
For answer Blade jerked his hand backward and downward, and when it
swung into sight again it held Tappan’s worn and shining rifle. Then
Blade, with deliberate force, that showed the nature of the man, worked
the lever and threw a shell into the magazine. All the while his eyes
were fastened on Tappan. His face seemed that of another man, evil,
relentless, inevitable in his spirit to preserve his own life at any
cost.
“I mean to kill your burro,” he said, in voice that suited his look and
manner.
“No!” cried Tappan, shocked into an instant of appeal.
“Yes, I am, an’ I’ll bet, by God, before we get out of hyar you’ll be
glad to eat some of her meat!”
That roused the slow-gathering might of Tappan’s wrath.
“I’d starve to death before I’d--I’d kill that burro, let alone eat
her.”
“Starve an’ be damned!” shouted Blade, yielding to rage.
Jenet stood right behind Tappan, in her posture of contented repose,
with one long ear hanging down over her gray meek face.
“You’ll have to kill me first,” answered Tappan, sharply.
“I’m good fer anythin’--if you push me,” returned Blade, stridently.
As he stepped aside, evidently so he could have unobstructed aim
at Jenet, Tappan leaped forward and knocked up the rifle as it was
discharged. The bullet sped harmlessly over Jenet. Tappan heard it
thud into a tree. Blade uttered a curse. And as he lowered the rifle
in sudden deadly intent, Tappan grasped the barrel with his left hand.
Then, clenching his right, he struck Blade a sodden blow in the face.
Only Blade’s hold on the rifle prevented him from falling. Blood
streamed from his nose and mouth. He bellowed in hoarse fury,
“I’ll kill you--fer thet!”
Tappan opened his clenched teeth: “No, Blade--you’re not man enough.”
Then began a terrific struggle for possession of the rifle. Tappan beat
at Blade’s face with his sledge-hammer fist. But the strength of the
other made it imperative that he use both hands to keep his hold on
the rifle. Wrestling and pulling and jerking, the men tore round the
snowy camp, scattering the camp fire, knocking down the brush shelter.
Blade had surrendered to a wild frenzy. He hissed his maledictions.
His was the brute lust to kill an enemy that thwarted him. But Tappan
was grim and terrible in his restraint. His battle was to save Jenet.
Nevertheless, there mounted in him the hot physical sensations of the
savage. The contact of flesh, the smell and sight of Blade’s blood, the
violent action, the beastly mien of his foe, changed the fight to one
for its own sake. To conquer this foe, to rend him and beat him down,
blow on blow!
Tappan felt instinctively that he was the stronger. Suddenly he exerted
all his muscular force into one tremendous wrench. The rifle broke,
leaving the steel barrel in his hands, the wooden stock in Blade’s. And
it was the quicker-witted Blade who used his weapon first to advantage.
One swift blow knocked Tappan down. As he was about to follow it up
with another, Tappan kicked his opponent’s feet from under him. Blade
sprawled in the snow, but was up again as quickly as Tappan. They
made at each other, Tappan waiting to strike, and Blade raining blows
on Tappan. These were heavy blows aimed at his head, but which he
contrived to receive on his arms and the rifle barrel he brandished.
For a few moments Tappan stood up under a beating that would have
felled a lesser man. His own blood blinded him. Then he swung his heavy
weapon. The blow broke Blade’s left arm. Like a wild beast, he screamed
in pain; and then, without guard, rushed in, too furious for further
caution. Tappan met the terrible onslaught as before, and watching his
chance, again swung the rifle barrel. This time, so supreme was the
force, it battered down Blade’s arm and crushed his skull. He died on
his feet--ghastly and horrible change!--and swaying backward, he fell
into the upbanked wall of snow, and went out of sight, except for his
boots, one of which still held the crude snowshoe.
Tappan stared, slowly realizing.
“Ahuh, stranger Blade!” he ejaculated, gazing at the hole in the snow
bank where his foe had disappeared. “You were goin’ to--kill an’
eat--Tappan’s burro!”
Then he sighted the bloody rifle barrel, and cast it from him. He
became conscious of injuries which needed attention. But he could do
little more than wash off the blood and bind up his head. Both arms and
hands were badly bruised, and beginning to swell. But fortunately no
bones had been broken.
Tappan finished strapping the tarpaulin upon the burro; and, taking up
both his and Blade’s supply of food, he called out, “Come on, Jenet.”
Which way to go! Indeed, there was no more choice for him than there
had been for Blade. Towards the Rim the snowdrift would be deeper and
impassable. Tappan realized that the only possible chance for him was
down hill. So he led Jenet out of camp without looking back once. What
was it that had happened? He did not seem to be the same Tappan that
had dreamily tramped into this woodland.
A deep furrow in the snow had been made by the men packing firewood
into camp. At the end of this furrow the wall of snow stood higher than
Tappan’s head. To get out on top without breaking the crust presented
a problem. He lifted Jenet up, and was relieved to see that the snow
held her. But he found a different task in his own case. Returning to
camp, he gathered up several of the long branches of spruce that had
been part of the shelter, and carrying them out he laid them against
the slant of snow he had to surmount, and by their aid he got on top.
The crust held him.
Elated and with revived hope, he took up Jenet’s halter and started
off. Walking with his rude snowshoes was awkward. He had to go slowly,
and slide them along the crust. But he progressed. Jenet’s little
steps kept her even with him. Now and then one of her sharp hoofs cut
through, but not to hinder her particularly. Right at the start Tappan
observed a singular something about Jenet. Never until now had she been
dependent upon him. She knew it. Her intelligence apparently told her
that if she got out of this snow-bound wilderness it would be owing to
the strength and reason of her master.
Tappan kept to the north side of the canyon, where the snow crust was
strongest. What he must do was to work up to the top of the canyon
slope, and then keeping to the ridge travel north along it, and so down
out of the forest.
Travel was slow. He soon found he had to pick his way. Jenet appeared
to be absolutely unable to sense either danger or safety. Her
experience had been of the rock confines and the drifting sands of the
desert. She walked where Tappan led her. And it seemed to Tappan that
her trust in him, her reliance upon him, were pathetic.
“Well, old girl,” said Tappan to her, “it’s a horse of another color
now--hey?”
At length he came to a wide part of the canyon, where a bench of land
led to a long gradual slope, thickly studded with small pines. This
appeared to be fortunate, and turned out to be so, for when Jenet broke
through the crust Tappan had trees and branches to hold to while he
hauled her out. The labor of climbing that slope was such that Tappan
began to appreciate Blade’s absolute refusal to attempt getting Jenet
out. Dusk was shadowing the white aisles of the forest when Tappan
ascended to a level. He had not traveled far from camp, and the fact
struck a chill upon his heart.
To go on in the dark was foolhardy. So Tappan selected a thick spruce,
under which there was a considerable depression in the snow, and here
made preparation to spend the night. Unstrapping the tarpaulin, he
spread it on the snow. All the lower branches of this giant of the
forest were dead and dry. Tappan broke off many and soon had a fire.
Jenet nibbled at the moss on the trunk of the spruce tree. Tappan’s
meal consisted of beans, biscuits, and a ball of snow, that he held
over the fire to soften. He saw to it that Jenet fared as well as
he. Night soon fell, strange and weirdly white in the forest, and
piercingly cold. Tappan needed the fire. Gradually it melted the snow
and made a hole, down to the ground. Tappan rolled up in the tarpaulin
and soon fell asleep.
* * * * *
In three days Tappan traveled about fifteen miles, gradually
descending, until the snow crust began to fail to hold Jenet. Then
whatever had been his difficulties before, they were now magnified a
hundredfold. As soon as the sun was up, somewhat softening the snow,
Jenet began to break through. And often when Tappan began hauling her
out he broke through himself. This exertion was killing even to a man
of Tappan’s physical prowess. The endurance to resist heat and flying
dust and dragging sand seemed another kind from that needed to toil
on in this snow. The endless snow-bound forest began to be hideous to
Tappan. Cold, lonely, dreary, white, mournful--the kind of ghastly and
ghostly winter land that had been the terror of Tappan’s boyish dreams!
He loved the sun--the open. This forest had deceived him. It was a wall
of ice. As he toiled on, the state of his mind gradually and subtly
changed in all except the fixed and absolute will to save Jenet. In
some places he carried her.
The fourth night found him dangerously near the end of his stock of
food. He had been generous with Jenet. But now, considering that he had
to do more work than she, he diminished her share. On the fifth day
Jenet broke through the snow crust so often that Tappan realized how
utterly impossible it was for her to get out of the woods by her own
efforts. Therefore Tappan hit upon the plan of making her lie on the
tarpaulin, so that he could drag her. The tarpaulin doubled once did
not make a bad sled. All the rest of that day Tappan hauled her. And so
all the rest of the next day he toiled on, hands behind him, clutching
the canvas, head and shoulders bent, plodding and methodical, like a
man who could not be defeated. That night he was too weary to build a
fire, and too worried to eat the last of his food.
Next day Tappan was not unalive to the changing character of the
forest. He had worked down out of the zone of the spruce trees; the
pines had thinned out and decreased in size; oak trees began to show
prominently. All these signs meant that he was getting down out of the
mountain heights. But the fact, hopeful as it was, had drawbacks. The
snow was still four feet deep on a level and the crust held Tappan only
about half the time. Moreover, the lay of the land operated against
Tappan’s progress. The long, slowly descending ridge had failed. There
were no more canyons, but ravines and swales were numerous. Tappan
dragged on, stern, indomitable, bent to his toil.
When the crust let him down, he hung his snowshoes over Jenet’s back,
and wallowed through, making a lane for her to follow. Two days of such
heart-breaking toil, without food or fire, broke Tappan’s magnificent
endurance. But not his spirit! He hauled Jenet over the snow, and
through the snow, down the hills and up the slopes, through the
thickets, knowing that over the next ridge, perhaps, was deliverance.
Deer and elk tracks began to be numerous. Cedar and juniper trees now
predominated. An occasional pine showed here and there. He was getting
out of the forest land. Only such mighty and justifiable hope as that
could have kept him on his feet.
He fell often, and it grew harder to rise and go on. The hour came
when the crust failed altogether to hold Tappan, and he had to abandon
hauling Jenet. It was necessary to make a road for her. How weary,
cold, horrible, the white reaches! Yard by yard Tappan made his way. He
no longer sweat. He had no feeling in his feet or legs. Hunger ceased
to gnaw at his vitals. His thirst he quenched with snow--soft snow now,
that did not have to be crunched like ice. The pangs in his breast were
terrible--cramps, constrictions, the piercing pains in his lungs, the
dull ache of his overtaxed heart.
Tappan came to an opening in the cedar forest from which he could see
afar. A long slope fronted him. It led down and down to open country.
His desert eyes, keen as those of an eagle, made out flat country,
sparsely covered with snow, and black dots that were cattle. The last
slope! The last pull! Three feet of snow, except in drifts; down and
down he plunged, making way for Jenet! All that day he toiled and fell
and rolled down this league-long slope, wearing towards sunset to the
end of his task, and likewise to the end of his will.
* * * * *
Now he seemed up and now down. There was no sense of cold or weariness.
Only direction! Tappan still saw! The last of his horror at the
monotony of white faded from his mind. Jenet was there, beginning to
be able to travel for herself. The solemn close of endless day found
Tappan arriving at the edge of the timbered country, where wind-bared
patches of ground showed long, bleached grass. Jenet took to grazing.
As for Tappan, he fell with the tarpaulin, under a thick cedar, and
with strengthless hands plucked and plucked at the canvas to spread
it, so that he could cover himself. He looked again for Jenet. She was
there, somehow a fading image, strangely blurred. But she was grazing.
Tappan lay down, and stretched out, and slowly drew the tarpaulin over
him.
* * * * *
A piercing cold night wind swept down from the snowy heights. It wailed
in the edge of the cedars and moaned out towards the open country.
Yet the night seemed silent. The stars shone white in a deep blue
sky--passionless, cold, watchful eyes, looking down without pity or
hope or censure. They were the eyes of Nature. Winter had locked the
heights in its snowy grip. All night that winter wind blew down, colder
and colder. Then dawn broke, steely, gray, with a flare in the east.
Jenet came back where she had left her master. Camp! As she had
returned thousands of dawns in the long years of her service. She had
grazed all night. Her sides that had been flat were now full. Jenet had
weathered another vicissitude of her life. She stood for a while, in a
doze, with one long ear down over her meek face. Jenet was waiting for
Tappan.
But he did not stir from under the long roll of canvas. Jenet waited.
The winter sun rose, in cold yellow flare. The snow glistened as with a
crusting of diamonds. Somewhere in the distance sounded a long-drawn,
discordant bray. Jenet’s ears shot up. She listened. She recognized
the call of one of her kind. Instinct always prompted Jenet. Sometimes
she did bray. Lifting her gray head she sent forth a clarion: “_Hee-haw
hee-haw-haw--hee-haw how-e-e-e!_”