--IN THE WILDERNESS
The golden sun was high in the heavens. Its splendor was pouring down
upon a gently steaming earth. But all its joyous light, all its
perfect beneficence could not undo one particle of the havoc the long
dark hours of night had wrought.
High up on a shattered eminence, where a sea of tumbled rock marked
the face of Devil's Hill, where the great hot lake had been held
suspended, Joan and Buck gazed out upon the battle-ground of nature's
forces.
Presently the girl's eyes came back to the face of her lover. She
could not long keep them from the face, which, such a few hours ago,
she had believed she would never behold again in life. She felt as
though he were one returned to her from the grave, and feared lest she
should wake to find his returning only a dream.
He was a strange figure. The tattered remains of his clothing were
scarcely enough to cover his nakedness, and Joan, with loving,
unskilled hands, had lavered and dressed his wounds with portions of
her own undergarments and the waters of the creek, whither, earlier,
she had laboriously supported his enfeebled body. But Providence had
spared him an added mercy besides bringing him back to life. It seemed
a sheer miracle that his bones had been left whole. His flesh was
torn, his whole body was terribly bruised and lacerated, but that
worst of all disasters in life had been spared him, and he was left
with the painful use of every limb.
But the thought of this miracle left the man untouched. Only did Joan
remember, and offer up her thankfulness. The man was of the wild, he
was young, life was with him, life with all its joys and sorrows, all
its shadowy possibilities, so he recked nothing of what he had
escaped. That was his way.
While Joan's devoted eyes watched the steady light in his, staring out
so intently at the wreck of world before him, no word passed her lips.
It was as though he were the lord of their fate and she waited his
commands.
But for long Buck had no thought for their personal concerns. He
forgot even the pains which racked his torn body, he forgot even the
regrets which the destruction he now beheld had first inspired him
with. He was marveling, he was awed at the thought of those dread
elements, those titanic forces he had witnessed at play.
There lay the hideous skeleton picked bare to the bones. Every
semblance of the beauty lines, which, in the earth's mature
completion, it had worn, had vanished, and only mouldering remains
were left. How had it happened? What terrible, or sublime purpose, had
been achieved during that night of terror? He could not think.
His eyes dropped to that which lay immediately before him. He was
gazing into chaotic depths of torn black rock amidst which a great
cascade of water poured out from the bowels of the earth and flowed on
to join the waters of Yellow Creek. It was the site where had hung the
suspended lake. Half the great hill had been torn away by some
terrible subterranean upheaval, which seemed to have solely occurred
on that side where the lake had been, and where the hill had
confronted the distant camp. Gone were the workings of the miners.
Gone was that great bed of auriferous soil. And in their places lay an
ocean of rock, so vast, so torn, that the power which had hurled it
broadcast was inconceivable to his staggered mind.
For a while he contemplated the scene with thoughts struggling and
emotions stirring. Then with a sigh he looked out beyond. The valley
of the creek, that little narrow strip of open grass-land, bordered by
pine forests all its length, was gone, too. The creek was now a
wide-spread expanse of flowing water, which had swept from its path
the last vestige of the handiwork of those people who had lived upon
the banks of the original stream.
There was not a sign of a house or log hut to be seen anywhere. Gone,
gone, swept away like the buildings of children's toy bricks.
What of those who had dwelt where the water now flowed? Had they, too,
gone on the rushing tide? He wondered. Where had been their escape?
Maybe they had had time. And yet, somehow it seemed doubtful. The
skeleton forests stretched out on every hand to a great distance. They
backed where the camp had stood. They rose up beyond the northern
limits. To the west of the water it was the same. Had he not witnessed
the furnace upon that side? And here, here to the south would they
have faced this terrible barrier belching out its torrential waters,
perhaps amidst fire and smoke?
He did not know. He could not think. They were gone as everything else
that indicated life was gone, and--they two were left alone in a
wilderness of stricken earth.
He sighed again as he thought of the gracious woods which the long
centuries had built up. All Nature's wonderful labors, the patient
efforts of ages, wiped out in a few moments of her own freakish mood.
It was heart-breaking to one who had always loved the wild hills where
the all-powerful Dame's whimsies had so long run riot.
Then as he stared out upon the steaming horizon where hills greater
and greater rose up confronting him and narrowed the limits of his
vision, he saw where the dividing line ran. He remembered suddenly
that even in her destructions Nature had still controlled. The floods
of the heavens must have been abruptly poured out at some time during
the night, or the fire would still be raging on, searching out fresh
fuel beyond those hills, traveling on on and on through the limitless
forests which lay to the north, and south, and west.
The memory gave him fresh hope. It told him that the world was still
outside waiting to welcome them to its hostels. And so he turned at
last to the patient woman at his side.
"It seems so a'mighty queer, little Joan," he said gently. "It
seems so a'mighty queer I can't rightly get the hang of things.
Yesterday--yesterday--why, yesterday all this," he waved an arm to
indicate the broken world about him, "was as God made it, an' now
ther's jest ruin--blank ruin that'll take all your life, and mine, an'
dozens who're comin' after us to--to build up agin. Yesterday this
camp was full of busy folk chasin' a livin' from the products Nature
had set here. Now she's wiped 'em out. Why? Yesterday a good man was
threatened by man's law, an' it looked as if that law was to suck us
all into its web an' make criminals of us. Now he's gone an' the
law'll be chased back to hunt around for its prey in places with less
danger to 'em. It's all queer--mighty queer. An' it's queerer still to
think of you an' me sittin' here puzzlin' out these things."
"Yes."
Joan nodded without removing her eyes from the face she loved so well.
Then after a pause she went on--
"You think--he's dead?"
Buck was some time before he answered her. His grave eyes were fixed
on a spot across the water, where a break in the charred remains of
the forest revealed a sky-line of green grass.
"How else?" he said, at last. "He was behind me with your aunt. He was
on the hill. You've scoured what remains of the plateau. Wal, he ain't
there, an' he didn't come down the path wher' we come. We ain't see
'em anyways. Yep," he went on, with a sigh, "guess the Padre's dead,
an' one o' them rocks down ther' is markin' his grave. Seems queer. He
went with her. She was the woman he had loved. They've gone together,
even though she just--hated him. He was a good man an'--he'd got grit.
He was the best man in the world an'--an' my big friend."
His voice was husky with emotion, and something like a sob came with
his last word, and Joan's eyes filled with tears of sympathy and
regret.
"Tell me," he went on, after a pause. "I ain't got it right. The fall
knocked you plumb out. An' then?"
His eyes were still on the distant break of the trees.
"I don't know what happened," Joan said wearily, spreading out her
drenched skirt to the now blazing sun. "I know I woke up quite
suddenly, feeling so cold that even my teeth were chattering. The rain
was falling like--like hailstones. It was dark, so dark, and I was
terribly afraid. I called to you, but got no answer, and--and I
thought I was alone. It was terrible. The thunder had ceased, and the
lightning was no longer playing. There was no longer any forest fire,
or--or earthquakings. All was still and black, and the rain--oh, it
was dreadful. I sat where I was, calling you at intervals. I sat on,
and on, and on, till I thought the dark would never go, that day would
never break again, and I began to think that all the world had come to
an end, and I, alone, was left. Then at last the rain stopped, and I
saw that day was breaking. But it was not until broad daylight that I
knew where I was. And then--and then I saw you lying close at my feet.
Oh, Buck, don't let me think of it any more. Don't remind me of it. It
was awful. I believed you were dead--dead. And it seemed to me that my
heart died, too. It was so dreadful that I think I--I was mad. And
then--you saved me--again."
Buck raised a stiff arm and gently drew her toward him with a
wonderfully protecting movement. The girl yielded herself to him, and
he kissed her sweet upturned lips.
"No, little Joan, gal. Don't you think of it. We got other things to
think of--a whole heap."
"Yes, yes," cried the girl eagerly. "We've got life--together."
Buck nodded with a grave smile.
"An' we must sure keep it."
He released her and struggled to his feet, where he stood supporting
himself by clinging to a projection of rock.
"What do you mean, Buck? What are you going to do?" Joan demanded
anxiously, springing to her feet and shaking out her drenched skirt.
"Do? Why, look yonder. Ther' across the water. Ther' wher' them
burnt-up woods break. See that patch o' grass on the sky-line? Look
close, an' you'll see two--somethings standin' right ther'. Wal, we
got to git near enough that way so Caesar can hear my whistle."
"Caesar? Is--is that Caesar? Why--how----?"
Buck nodded his head.
"Maybe I'm guessin'. I ain't sayin'. But--wal, you can't be sure this
ways off. Y' see, Caesar has a heap o' sense, an' his saddle-bags are
loaded down with a heap o' good food. An' you're needin' that--same as
me."