Part 4

In an age of rush and hurry like that of today, an age in which there are innumerable calls on the leisure time of everyone, it is possible that here and there throughout the ranks of the public who have read this chronicle there may be one or two who for various reasons found themselves unable to attend the annual Flower and Vegetable Show at Shrewsbury. Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe of Badgwick Hall was there, of course, but it would not have escaped the notice of a close observer that his mien lacked something of the haughty arrogance which had characterized it in other years. From time to time, as he paced the tent devoted to the exhibition of vegetables, he might have been seen to bite his lip, and his eye had something of that brooding look which Napoleon's must have worn after Waterloo.

But there is the right stuff in Sir Gregory. He is a gentleman and a sportsman. In the Parsloe-Parsloe tradition there is nothing small or mean. Halfway down the tent he stopped, and with a quick manly gesture thrust out his hand.

"Congratulate you, Emsworth," he said huskily.

Lord Emsworth looked up with a start. He had been deep in his thoughts.

"Thanks, my dear fellow. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you very much." He hesitated. "Er--can't both win, if you understand me."

Sir Gregory puzzled it out.

"No," he said. "No. See what you mean. Can't both win."

He nodded and walked on, with who knows what vultures gnawing at his broad bosom? And Lord Emsworth--with Angus McAllister, who had been a silent witness of the scene, at his side--turned once more to stare reverently at that which lay on the strawy bottom of one of the largest packing cases ever seen in Shrewsbury town.

Inside it, something vast and golden beamed up at him.

A card had been attached to the exterior of the packing case. It bore the simple legend:

PUMPKINS. FIRST PRIZE.

THE MILKY WAY

_By_ Stewart Edward White

STEWART EDWARD WHITE

Stewart Edward White, one of the best-known of American authors, was born in Grand Rapids, Mich., on March 12, 1873, grew up in lumber camps, and has been an adventurer, explorer, and hunter all his life. At his home, Little Hill, Burlingame, Calif., a separate building houses his trophies from Alaska and elsewhere, including three African expeditions. Readers will scarcely require to be reminded of such novels as _The Blazed Trail_, _The Silent Places_, _The Riverman_, _The Leopard Woman_, the California trilogy, _Gold_, _The Gray Dawn_ and _The Rose Dawn_, _The Glory Hole_, etc., or of such stories as _Arizona Nights_.

For some years Mr. White has owned a yacht on which during the summer months he has cruised off the coast of British Columbia; and it will be apparent to readers of this story that it may be based on an actual occurrence only slightly varnished. I have refrained from asking Mr. White as to the facts, if any. The story, which first appeared in Collier's for June 6, 1925, was read at one-thirty in the morning by an editor who had spent the whole evening with manuscripts and was intolerably weary. After he had got over laughing he found himself quite rested and decided that perhaps others might experience the same beneficial result.

THE MILKY WAY[1]

[1] Copyright, 1925, by Stewart Edward White.

Somewhere along the British Columbia coast a well-found schooner yacht moved in a thick, lazy mist. Glenn Walker, the owner thereof, Aline, his comparatively recent wife, and Jimmy Forbes, together with the mate, were all gathered about the wheel, combining their skill and knowledge. The crow's nest aloft was occupied by a lookout man. A sailor near the after hatch at intervals worked a crank that actuated a bellows that, in turn, emitted a long, hollow groan. In addition, Walker from time to time pulled the air-whistle cord. Then the entire yacht fell silent, and everybody listened intently for an echo that should indicate the proximity of islands and rocks. Throughout all the ship's company was that nervous, intent, uneasy alertness that is aroused only by a fog in uncertain, broken, or unknown waters. Even Sam, the negro cook, had deserted his galley and, an unusual solemnity adding a quite superfluous shadow to his countenance, was gazing ahead.

"The worst of it is these confounded currents," observed Walker impatiently, breaking the silence. "You can figure out where you ought to be all right, but you can't tell where the currents may have set you! We ought to be hearing from Disaster Point about now." He pulled the whistle cord. All listened. Nothing! "Nice, cheerful optimist named this country!" he grumbled. "Disaster Point; Desolation Sound; Wreck Reef; Beware Passage; Destruction Point; Grief Point----"

Nobody replied. All understood that the skipper was merely relieving pressure.

The sailor mechanically cranked his machine. In answer to its hoarse shout a booming bellow blared through the mist dead ahead. Walker's hand jerked to the engine-room bell. The yacht came to a quivering standstill. The water fell quiet under her counter as the reverse ceased to operate. She lay gently rocking in the smooth swell. All listened.

Nothing! Walker waved his hand toward the sailor operating the fog horn.

It squawked; and almost immediately was answered from out the mists.

"No lighthouses up here, as I remember it," stated Walker, but in a note of inquiry.

"No, sir; none," rejoined the mate positively.

"Doesn't sound like any ship's foghorn I ever heard, though."

"No, sir; more like a fixed signal."

The mate took two steps to their own foghorn, thrust the sailor aside, and manipulated the crank, one long blast, followed by three short ones. After a short interval he was answered; but, as before, only by the single long-drawn-out note.

"Private signal; not in the books," he explained. "But everyone navigating this coast knows it. Either that fellow's a cod-headed fool or we're up against a fixed signal."

"Maybe it's a new establishment," suggested Jimmy Forbes.

"What I was thinking, sir. But why isn't it reported in this year's 'Information for Mariners'? They don't grow these things overnight."

Walker rang again, and the yacht's auxiliary engines fell silent.

"I don't hear any engine," he voiced the result of a short interval of listening. "I'd better start up again and keep under control." He signaled the engineer, and the yacht began to creep forward at a snail's pace.

Jimmy Forbes and Aline sauntered forward to the bitts. Jimmy clenched his pipe in his teeth, his hands were deep in his pockets, and his face was alight. She glanced up at him.

"What is it?" she asked, struck by his expression.

"My psychic antennæ are vibrating," said he. "I smell adventure."

"Fog thinning aloft, sir," came the sailor's voice from the crow's nest.

The invisible horn continued to blare at intervals, but the exact direction or distance of its source was rendered uncertain by the peculiar and baffling acoustic properties of the fog. At each repetition everybody aboard the yacht strained his ears, and at each silence exchanged low-voiced opinions, all different.

With the shattering effect of an explosion the lookout man's voice came again from aloft. The effect was of the release from a spell, a pearl-gray clogging muffled spell cast on sight and sound by the spirit of the fog.

"Cow ho!" cried he.

A moment's incredulous silence was broken by an exasperated bellow of inquiry from both Walker and his mate.

"Cow ho!" the sailor obligingly repeated.

"You triple idiot," shouted Walker, "what are you talking about?"

"It's a cow, sir," explained the lookout man.

"I can see her above the fog. She's standing on a sort of high peak of rock that sticks up. Five points to sta'board, sir. She's a spotted cow," he added after a moment, "and she's got a calf with her."

"What in the name of Peter the Hermit do you suppose I care for her color or her calf?" roared Walker, exasperated.

The mate was already eagerly searching the chart.

"It must be this little group here, sir," he indicated. "We've been set west'ard by the tides."

"No bottom at ten," sang out the leadsman, who unbidden had cast his lead.

In the bow Aline was looking at her chuckling brother. "You knew it was a cow!" she accused him.

"I told you my psychic antennæ were quivering. You see, each and every living thing has its own special aura which it emanates, or in the midst of which it lives, so to speak. When two living things come near enough to one another the auras contact or perhaps slightly intermingle. One who--like me--is sensitive or especially trained in the occult lore of the East is aware of the fact, and may even identify the nature of that aura. It's very simple." He caught her accusing eye. "And then, too," he continued, "it sounded like a cow."

The fog continued to thin overhead, while still remaining opaque below, as is often the habit of fogs. Dazzling bits of sky became visible, like blue jewels set in cotton wool. Those on deck shortly became possessed of the vision that had earlier been vouchsafed the lookout man, nearer heaven. On a flat-topped spire of rock stood a veritable spotted cow, with a smaller but gangle-legged replica of herself snuggled alongside. The spire lifted sheer from the rolling fog clouds below. Its top was perhaps ten feet across; its sides apparently almost precipitous. The cow was as though upon an altar. There needed only a few seraphim or cherubim leaning their chins over the clouds below to complete an entirely appropriate setting. The idea was put forward by Aline.

"Should the cherubim be small chubby calves' heads with wings?" she inquired. "Or perhaps little fat pigs?"

Appropriate leisure for the admiration of the spectacle was, however, denied them. The spell was broken by the sudden appearance alongside of an agitated man in a small boat. He was a stockily built person, with a round red face, a shock of brown hair, and an anxious and serious eye.

"Say," he called without preliminary, "can some of you fellows help me with my cow?"

"What's the matter with your cow?" asked Walker.

"I can't get her down. She's clumb up atop and she can't get down. I never knew a more gentle cow, but I can't do nothing with her. She never acted this way before. Something must have scared her; and then she had her calf, and now she's gone crazy. If my piston-rod bearing hadn't give out, me and my partner'd have done something, but as it is she ain't had a drop or a bite for two days except what I've got up to her, and what with a new calf--by golly, you fellers come along just right!"

"With the permission of the owner, here," struck in Jimmy, who, in common with the entire yacht's company was leaning over the rail, "I would propose that you come on deck and embroider with the glittering high lights of lucidity your suggestive but somewhat obscure narrative."

The man stared at him. "Huh?" he ejaculated.

"Come aboard and have a drink and tell us about it."

The owner of the cow, painter in hand, immediately swarmed over the side. The attentive steward dived below to reappear with a bottle and glasses.

"Better drop your hook," suggested the stranger, his eye on the bottle.

"Is there good bottom here?" queried Walker doubtfully.

"Sure. And good shelter. You're in Graveyard Cove."

"By the mark, seven!" sang out the leadsman hastily.

"Let go the anchor!" commanded Walker sharply.

"The cow," Jimmy Forbes was observing, "is, as perhaps you know, a sacred animal among the Hindus. It therefore possesses for me, as a humble Follower of the Path, a peculiar interest and significance. The sight of one of these animals elevated to a position that I can only regard as symbolical is significant of more than chance. I can see in this concatenation of circumstances an interweaving of the threads of Karma which may----"

"Give me that bottle!" Aline interrupted him severely.

She removed the cork and handed it, together with a tall glass from the tray, to the newcomer. Jimmy sighed.

"Blinded," he murmured--"not so particularly to my occult lore as to the alcoholic habits of the local native."

The glass was intended for high-balls, the soda for which was ready on the tray. The man filled it three fourths full of whisky. This he at once prepared to drink.

"Don't you take any water?" gasped Aline.

"Not if the whisky is good, ma'am."

He drank it in long gulps, set down the glass without a shudder and, thus fortified, gave an account of himself. He lived, it seems, with his partner on another small island a few miles distant. They ran a cattle ranch. Jimmy pricked up his ears at this statement.

"How many head of stock have you?" he asked.

"Eleven," said the man. "We had twelve last year, but we killed one for beef."

The spotted cow, being about to calve, and the grass becoming scant on the "ranch" the idea had occurred to him to transfer her to this island for better forage, and he did so.

"How?" asked Aline.

"In my gas boat, ma'am."

"But how?"

"I just put her in the cockpit and brought her over."

"I don't see how in the world----"

"It was easy enough, ma'am. I never knew a more gentle cow. Only trouble was, it was choppy and she got seasick some."

The crossing and the landing had been successfully accomplished. All seemed to be going well. Then trouble began.

The cow, after falling too eagerly on the new feed, had been seized by a sudden panic.

"I can't think what ailed her," complained the man. "There wa'n't nothing I could see to scare her. But she begun to run around and bellow and curl her tail, and I couldn't do nothing with her nohow. And she's the gentlest critter I ever see. I quit trying to get nigh her, because I didn't want her to run around and get het up--she with her calf, you see--but that didn't do no good. And how she done it, I don't know, but somehow she managed to scramble right up to the top of the island. Why, a goat couldn't hardly make it! Once she got up there she quieted down, but there she was! She can't get down nohow, and I can't figger no way to get her down. She's had her calf up there, and there ain't no food or water, so I had to carry up what I could, and she just stands there and bellers. And then when I started to go get my partner to figger something out, my engine breaks down; and I ain't got no small boat with me, and there I am."

"In your estimate of your cattle holdings, did you include the calf?" inquired Jimmy.

"Huh?"

"Have you eleven head counting or not counting the calf?"

"The calf makes twelve."

"What on earth has that to do with it?" demanded Aline.

"I was just figuring whether it meant a nine or an eight and a half per cent loss," submitted her brother meekly. "At any rate, a heavy loss for any large industry."

The stranger looked at Jimmy suspiciously, but otherwise ignored him.

"You can just bet I was glad to hear you fellows whistling," he concluded his narrative.

The fog was now returning into the invisible. There was no motion, just a withdrawal as though into a fourth dimension without disturbance of the three in which we live. The surroundings were becoming distinguishable.

The yacht was shortly seen to be at anchor in a crescent-shaped bight with long rocky arms on either side. A sparsely wooded shore rose close by in a series of low rocky terraces to the central spire on the top of which stood the spotted cow and her calf. The spire was perhaps ten feet high above the last terrace, and seemed to afford various small hand- or footholds in the shape of miniature ledges and crevices, but would appear to be, as the cow's owner had said, problematically scalable to even the skiptious goat.

"Do you mean to say that cow actually climbed up there?" demanded Walker, after surveying the situation.

"I don't think she flew," said the man, and he said it seriously, which pleased Aline.

"Well, let's go ashore and look things over," suggested Walker. "I expect we'll have to help out."

"Any objection to the men landing, sir?" inquired the mate. "Good chance to stretch their legs."

"None. But leave one aboard."

The small boats were put overside, and shortly the ship's crew stood on the island. They ascended by a series of broad shallow terraces, where they grouped themselves at the foot of the spire and looked up. The cow looked down.

"It's plain enough where she got up," observed Walker after a pause--"she could do it if she scrambled hard and kept scrambling. And it's equally plain why she doesn't get down. But I believe she might be led if it were done carefully."

"I figured that," agreed the cow's owner, "if she'd come down gentle; but she's all het up and excited. And she's the gentlest critter I ever see. You can do anything with her. But now I can't even get a rope on her."

A deprecating cough called attention to the steward.

"Beg pardon, sir, but, if I might try? You see, sir, I was cow hand for two years in the Argentine pampas, and I learned methods."

"A hundred and sixty-seven," murmured Aline.

Jimmy raised an inquiring eyebrow in her direction.

"It's Johnston's age," she explained to him aside, "according to the number of years he says he has done different things. He was a hundred and sixty-five yesterday."

Receiving permission, the steward procured a rope and rapidly climbed to the miniature plateau, to the farther edge of which the cow promptly retired with her calf behind her.

"You see," he said modestly, addressing the multitude from his vantage point, "it's partly confidence and partly secret master words which have been known to animal tamers from time immemorial."

"If you know any secret master words, you'd better say them quick," warned Forbes suddenly.

Without waiting for the secret words, and disregarding the confidence entirely, the cow uttered a bellow and dashed at the steward. The latter, caught unawares by this unsportsmanlike conduct, recovered his wits only in time to dodge sidewise and escape impalement by the skin of his teeth. Now ensued a brief but lively game of tag within most inadequate boundaries. The cow was It, but seemed likely not long to remain so. Before the spectators could either formulate an idea for rescue or even make a move toward it, Johnston, escaping death thrice by a hand-breadth, was seen to topple for a moment on the far edge, throw up his hands, and disappear.

Cries and movements. Above the confusion rose the roaring voice of the cow's owner:

"Can he swim?"

Several voices answered him in the affirmative.

"Then he's all right. The cliff is straight up on that side into deep water. They's no rocks there."

Two men tumbled into the dinghy and rowed madly around the nearer of the two points. Suspended action for a short interval. Shortly it reappeared, and all could see that Johnston sat now in the stern sheets, streaming sea water. His remarks could not be distinguished at the distance, but from his posture, gestures, and the sound of his voice it was evident that he was addressing the spotted cow.

"Undoubtedly the secret words, though a trifle belated," observed Jimmy. "The creature should now be quite tamed."

"I never see her act up so before," said the cow's owner. "She's the gentlest critter----"

"Well," urged Walker genially, "any more volunteers? Any more buckaroos in this outfit?"

He ran his eye over the crew, grinning cheerfully at them. They grinned back, glanced at one another, shook their heads.

"No? Well, come on, boys, let's see what we can do."

He was warming up to the situation. He had been sitting on a rock, like Aline and his brother-in-law, as a spectator. Now he rose and became the central figure--with due deference to the cow.

"Johnston has the right idea--in a way," said he. "The first thing is to get a rope on her. Got to get hold of her. I don't know much about cows, but I do know that with a rope around the base of the horns you can do most anything with them, and around the neck is no good. That right?" he asked the cow's owner. "By the way, what's your name?"

"My name's Teller. Yes, that's right."

"Any of you men throw a lariat? No? How about you? You're a ranchman."

"I ain't never tried."

"Well, I can't either--to amount to much. But I've had to catch my horse a few times down in the cow country. Get me a stout line. I think I can make a running noose."

Armed with his impromptu lasso, he started toward the rock.

"You aren't going up there?" cried Aline, alarmed.

"Don't worry; I have the greatest respect for the old girl."

He made his way to a point just below the little plateau, assured himself of a good foothold, whirled the loop around his head, cowboy fashion, and began to cast. The cow backed away to the far edge, planted her feet and snorted. The position was awkward, Walker's skill negligible, and the cow proved to be unexpectedly clever in ducking. Again and again he hurled the rope, dragged it back empty, and reformed the loop. Sometimes the loop would not spread, sometimes the rope fell short, at encouraging moments it fell across the cow, twice it actually settled over the horns and the attentive bystanders uttered a yell, but before Walker in his unfavorable position could take in the slack the cow lowered her head and flipped her horns and the wide loop slipped off. By now the sun was shining brightly. Walker took off his coat and wiped his brow.

"Gosh, this is hot work!" he remarked.

After the hundredth cast or so, he paused for a rest.

"I'm afraid I'm no Buffalo Bill," he confessed after another series of failures. "One of you row off and tell that ineffable ass, Johnston, to come back--to come ashore and have a try at this. He ought to know how to throw a lasso if he was with the Argentine Gauchos for two years."

While one of the men was gone in the dinghy Walker leaned against the rock, resting. Presently the emissary returned.

"Johnston says they didn't lasso them down where he was," reported the man, grinning. "He says they used bolos."

"Humph!" grunted Walker. "He's better read than I imagined."

He took up the rope again and hurled the loop carelessly and disgustedly in the general direction of the cow. It settled about the animal's horns.

"Stand by!" "Haul her!" "Take in your slack!" broke out a chorus of yells.

The loop tightened. Walker descended from his elevated perch, bringing with him the end of the long line.

"Now you've got her, what are you going to do with her?" murmured Forbes.

But Walker, now wholly in the spirit of solving a difficult problem, had his ideas.

"Get the calf down, and she'll follow of her own accord," he replied promptly. "Here, some of you fellows take the end of the rope and keep her from charging at me, and I'll see what can be done."

The cow securely tethered to one end of the plateau, Walker ventured to mount to the other. Then ensued a game first of blandishment--futile--then of dodge. The calf had been instructed by Mother to view all proceedings with suspicion; on no account to do anything he was expected to do; and to distrust all creatures that did not progress on four legs. Infantile as he was, the calf had understood and obeyed perfectly, a wonderful example to the young independents of other species.

"That won't work," confessed Walker at length, descending the cliff.

"If you did get the calf, probably the cow wouldn't be calm enough to pick her way down so difficult a path," consoled Aline. "Your flannels are a sight!"

"There's something in that," assented Walker. "Darn my flannels."

"She's always been the gentlest critter I ever----"

"Well, she's reformed now," Walker cut him short. "Any suggestions, anybody?"

The two groups had gradually drawn together until now master and crew were gathered close. Nobody said anything for a moment.