Part 1

Produced by Al Haines.

*THE*

*HEART OF THE RED FIRS*

A STORY OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

BY

*ADA WOODRUFF ANDERSON*

ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES GRUNWALD

BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1909

_Copyright, 1908,_ BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

_All rights reserved_

Published April, 1908

Printers B. J. Parkhill & Co., Printers, Boston, U.S.A.

TO THOSE FEW REMAINING PIONEERS, WHO KNEW THE NISQUALLY TRAIL INTO THE GREAT SOLITUDES, IN TIMES BEFORE THE LOGGING RAILROAD DEVASTATED THE PUGET SOUND HILLS, AND THE WILDER- NESS BEGAN TO RECEDE AT THE COMING OF THE BUILDER OF TOWNSITES.

*CONTENTS*

CHAPTER

I. The Teacher and the Freak of the Strange Thoroughbred II. The Leaning Tower III. The Camp at the Headwaters IV. "Ther Biggest Coward in ther Woods" V. Stratton's Way VI. Mose VII. The Instrument of Tyee Sahgalee VIII. "I'm Going to Make Him White" IX. Uncle Silas X. Lem and the *Phantom* XI. The House-Raising XII. A Face in the Night XIII. The Pressure of the Thumb-Screw XIV. The Salmon-trollers XV. The Man in the Tide-rip XVI. The Fiery Lane XVII. The Man Who Bungled XVIII. Water-logged XIX. "Andromeda Has Found a Perseus" XX. The Grand Coup XXI. Hide and Seek XXII. For Little Silas XXIII. "As Long as We Two Live" XXIV. "A Man Of Straw" XXV. The Rockslide XXVI. The Judge XXVII. Lem Creates Fiction XXVIII. The Pressure of the Wilderness XXIX. The Crack of Doom XXX. The Lost Prospect

*LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS*

"He looked down into her lifted face, believing yet not believing" . . . Frontispiece

"She paused, swaying in the hot gale"

"'I like you as well as I could like any American with un-American ways'"

"He turned and looked into the fire"

*THE HEART OF THE RED FIRS*

*CHAPTER I*

*THE TEACHER AND THE FREAK OF THE STRANGE THOROUGHBRED*

The children were putting away their books. The afternoon sun, streaming through the uncurtained windows, made patches of heat on the hewn cedar flooring, and the new, unpainted desks sent forth pitch and the fragrance of fir. Suddenly a shadow crossed one of these squares of light, and Lem Myers, who was seated nearest the raised sash, whispered an audible warning: "Mose, your dad's comin'."

The boy sprang to his feet and stood facing the open door. The intruder entered without ceremony. He had the lank black hair and mustache, eyes flashing under shaggy brows, of the Canadian-French, and the powerful shoulders and sinewy frame of a voyageur of the Hudson Bay Company. Two hounds which followed him, stopped with their forepaws on the threshold and reconnoitered the room suspiciously.

He strode directly up the aisle to the waiting boy, and laying a hand roughly on his neck, said, with growing heat, "Din' I tell you doan' tek dat gun? Oui, two, t'ree tam I ees say let eet 'lone."

Mose rocked under the grasp but he bore it with the silent fortitude inherited from an Indian mother; the white in him only found expression in the dull glow of his cheek, the tense arms and the hands clenched at his sides.

"Din' I say A'm goin' t'rash you? Nawitka, for sure. T'ief! Cultus Siwash!" And with a climax of invective, hurled forth in a mixture of French, English and Indian, the man raised his hand and struck a hard blow.

Before he could repeat it the teacher stepped between them. She had a bright, speaking face, eyes that laughed or stormed on occasion, a mouth mobile, alluring, with charm of lurking merriment, and a chin delicately square, that lifted when she spoke, with an indescribable air of decision.

"How do you do, Mr. Laramie," she said, and offered her hand, while, at the same time, with the other palm she impelled Mose back into his seat. "You are just in time to hear us sing."

He had ignored the hand, but she quickly placed her chair for him, smiling, and commenced in a clear, full mezzo:

"We now are youthful sailors, we are not far from shore, But soon we mean to journey the ocean o'er and o'er."

She lifted her music book from her desk and found the place for him, but he refused it with a shake of his head, and taking the seat with manifest reluctance, pulled his old squirrel-skin cap over his brows, scowling first at her, then more darkly at Mose, and finally in general at the school.

The children swelled the chorus lustily. And the Canadian liked music. It was his vulnerable point. He began to beat time to this brisk measure with his clumsy boot; cautiously at first, then with great vigor, while his voice broke into a hoarse hum.

The song was hardly finished when she tapped the bell for dismissal.

"It ees gre't museek," said Laramie, rising. "Oui, a gre't song." His glance moved, challenging possible contradiction, and rested on Mose's seat. It was vacant. "Dem it," he cried with returning wrath.

But the teacher went swiftly down the aisle before him. "Here is your gun," she said, and dragged it from behind the door. Her voice trembled a little; entreaty rose through the courage in her eyes.

He took the rifle, turning it in his brawny hands to give it a close scrutiny. When, with a final click of the hammer, he raised his glance, the entreaty was gone; she stood with her arms folded, chin high, watching him. It was as though she measured him.

His mouth worked in an unaccustomed smile. "Say, Mees," he said, "what ees dis you tole dose chillun 'bout de eart' ees roun? You mek fun for dem, yaas?"

There was a silent moment while the amazement came and went in her face; a touch of merriment dimpled her mouth. Then, "It is quite true," she answered, gravely, "the earth is round."

"Roun'? Sacre, Mees, but we mus' fall off."

She shook her head. "Come, I will show you." And she led the way back to her desk, and taking a small globe in her hands, went through the usual explanation slowly, simply, with infinite patience, as she would have told a little child. But Laramie had convictions of his own. He had seen the great Pacific, oh, yes, often, when he had journeyed for the fur company to Nootka; and he had watched ships approach from the far horizon, but to see the masts first proved nothing; a vessel was most all sail. And it was true that once he had met a sailor who said he had taken a ship at Quebec and sailed straight on and on, and without turning back had found himself again at home. But plainly the man had lied, for how could one make la bon voyage up the Fraser, through the big lakes and down the St. Lawrence in a great vessel? Bah, every one knew it could only be done in a canoe. "De eart' roun'?" he concluded. "No, no, Mees, you doan' mek me beli've dat. But it ees gre't joke; oui, a gre't joke, ha, ha. Well, good-by, Mees. Tek care yourse'f."

He shouldered the gun and strode away through the door. At the same time there was the snapping of a twig and a glimpse of retreating bare heels at the corner of the house, and while the Canadian moved down the river trail a pair of keen eyes, set in a ferret-shaped face, peered at him from behind the angle. They were the eyes of Lem Myers. When he had satisfied himself that Laramie was truly on his way he came cautiously to the threshold. The teacher was seated at her desk using her pencil with rapid, decisive strokes. He crossed the floor to the platform before she was conscious of his presence.

"Well, Lem," and she smiled down at him, "are you waiting for me?"

"Wal, yes; thort I'd wait an' see it out." He slipped up behind her chair to look over her shoulder, bending his head as she moved her hand, the better to follow her work. "Oh, gee," he exclaimed suddenly, slapping his knees, "gee. You're a-settin' here a-makin' er picture of him, an' I 'lowed all ther time you was scared."

"Scared?" She suspended her pencil to look at him.

"Yes, Mose was gone an' ther wan't nobody else ter hit."

"Hit? Do you mean he might have struck me?" She rose to her feet, facing the boy. "Do you-- Do men in this settlement ever strike the women?"

He gave her a sidelong glance and thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets. "You bet," he answered.

There was a brief silence, then she said, and the vibration had not gone from her voice, "No, Lem, I was not afraid, but I might have been if I had known. Where I have lived men never strike women; they have other ways. I was just thinking of Mose. I wanted to ask Mr. Laramie not to be hard with him."

"Oh, don't you bother 'bout Mose. He kin take care hisself. He's got more muscle now'n any other boy in ther hull deestrict, an' it won't be long 'fore he kin turn in an' thrash ther ole man."

There was another silence; the merriment again dimpled her mouth and she looked off through the open door. Lem stooped and picked up a loose sheet that had fluttered from the sketchbook to the floor. "Gee," he said, "gee, but you kin draw."

"Yes?" Her glance returned and rested on the sheet interestedly. "What is it, Lem?"

"Why, it's er picture of ther timber-cruiser an' that ther black horse o' his. Here's ther same nice little star atween ther eyes, an' I've seen him fling up his head an' point one ear jes that erway."

"So you know Colonel," she said, flushing, yet pleased at the recognition. "Mr. Forrest bought him when he was a colt. He broke him, and I am the only woman who ever mounted him."

"I 'low then you kin ride some. Ther ain't never be'n no sech stepper in this hull deestrict. Mill Thornton calc'lated he hed er prize when he raised ther sorrel filly, but gee, I've seen ther black leave her clear out o' sight in less'n er minute."

The teacher laughed softly. "I know, I know, the beauty. And his master, Lem. Did you ever see such a man in the saddle? So straight, so easy, so ready at just the right instant with a quiet word, or else that soft whistle."

"He kin ride," admitted Lem. "I've never seen him fizzle, an' he's be'n out here off an' on considerable; timber-cruisin' first an' then prospectin'. He 'lowed last year he'd struck er gold mine or somethin'."

"I know," she repeated, "I know. It was only a few miles from here he found those splendid indications."

"Yes," said the boy with his impish smile, "an' lost 'em."

"The mineral is there," she said with an upward tilt of her chin. "The ore he brought down assayed remarkably rich. But he had broken his compass that day and a heavy mist settled over every peak and spur. There was absolutely nothing to mark a course from. Still, it's there, Lem, locked in the heart of the hills. He will find it again, sometime."

She went over and took her hat from its peg on the wall, and Lem followed, waiting on the steps while she locked the door.

"There will be no more timber-cruising when he takes his position at the new mills," she said as they started up the trail; "no more chances to prospect. But he is coming out to the settlement before he goes to Seattle, for a last trip into the hills, and, if your mother can go with us, he intends to take me, to see the Cascades at close range, and the canyon and the leaning tower, and spend a night or two in his favorite camp at the headwaters."

A few rods from the schoolhouse the trail to the Myers clearing, which was her boarding-place, began an abrupt ascent across the face of a burned over ridge. They made the first part in silence, then she paused to look back on the desolate waste. "Oh," she said, "it's like the end of the world. It's always so wretchedly hot on this dead side-hill; the gravel shifts so underfoot. It's very different on the Tumwater road."

"Whar's that?" asked Lem.

"Why, it's the way from Olympia to the Tumwater mills where Mr. Forrest has lived since he was a small boy. And it's through the woods and down a great ridge, with glimpses of blue sea between the firs, and always, even in warmest weather, a cool, salt breeze. The lower falls of the Des Chutes plunge into the Sound there, at Tumwater, and their thunder fills the gorge. We used to go down often, walking or riding, and sometimes when the wind and tide were right, we sailed. I suppose, Lem, you never have seen a yacht?"

"Wal, no, I dunno's I hev."

"Then you have missed a great deal. But the first time I go down to the Sound I'll take you; and Mr. Kingsley, my brother-in-law, will have us aboard the _Phantom_. Then, out past the old monastery on Priest Point, we'll catch a swinging breeze, and all the running waves will toss their whitecaps,--you'll like that, even if the scud whips your face,--and someone, my sister perhaps, will start 'The White Squall.' It's the best sea song, made for the accompaniment of water on a cleaving keel."

For a moment she forgot the boy. She stood looking off across the charred stumps and skeletons of trees, as though she saw far away that blue sea she loved, and expected to hear that rush and gurgle along a moving keel. And he, this urchin who had lived his life among the weasels and squirrels in the heart of the great forest, who knew nothing of whitecaps, to whom scud was a new and vague torment, waited with his ferret eyes upon her, sharp chin lifted, lips apart. Her glance fell. Their eyes met and she laughed. "Would you like to make that trip down to Puget Sound, Lem?"

He dropped his head, and slipping back to his place at her heels as she resumed the climb, answered with brief emphasis, "You bet."

At the top of the ridge the trail entered the forest. The boughs of the friendly firs clasped overhead; a carpet of needles was underfoot. Moss rioted everywhere, on logs, rocks, the trunks of the living trees. Still, it was less insistent than the salal, which pushed its stiff glossy leaves through dense growths of alder and hazel, and the fern, which sent up slender stems, forming a lattice for honeysuckle and pea, and high above her head spread umbrella fronds. It was cooler and she quickened her pace. Lem began to whistle, then to answer the birds, and presently she, too, was calling, cautiously at first, taking lessons from the boy, and all the wood was full of voices.

At length there was the noise of running water and they came down to a brook. It was their half-way place. Mid-channel, Lem had built a water wheel. He had set a squirrel trap on the bank, and a larger one for mink, and had made a bench for the teacher, by rolling a short log against a trunk, securing it with stakes. She seated herself and he waded out into the stream. He plucked a leaf from an overhanging bough, and shaping a drinking-cup, brought her a draught. She laid her hat in her lap and resting her head on the trunk, idly watched him while he examined the traps, and drew from a hollow cedar his alder pole, equipped with primitive line, and baited the hook with a grasshopper. But while he tried pool and shallow ineffectually, her glance moved absently up-stream, and presently she sang in a soft undertone:

She shone in the light of de - clin - ing day, And each sail was set, And each heart .. was ... gay:

The noise of running water became the music of the sea; the bole on which she leaned was a heaving mast, and the stir of hemlock boughs above changed to the bellying of voluminous canvas. Once more the moon hung low over the Tumwater hills, silvering the cove, and on the port bow the Des Chutes plunged out of blackness and swayed, sparkling, like a curtain of roped pearls between beetling cliffs. Her sister's contralto, swelled by Kingsley's tenor, took up the chorus, but clearer, close beside her, subduing his fine baritone to her own voice, sang Paul Forrest.

At last she drew a full breath and returned to the present. She brushed her hand across her eyes and looked at Lem. The next instant she was on her feet. She ran down the bank and out upon the stepping-stones, watching the boy. "Play him, Lem," she cried softly, "play him, tire him. Don't be in a hurry."

"Gee, gee!" Lem set his teeth between the exclamations, and gripped the pole in both hands. "Oh, gee!"

He began to move down-stream, splashing ankle-deep, plunging over his knees in hollows. His steps quickened. He tripped on a sunken snag, recovered, fell sprawling across a dipping log, and was up instantly, steadying, playing the jerking line.

"That's right, Lem, slowly, tire him. Now--" She clasped her hands over an imaginary rod, lifted in unison, and as though she felt that great weight on the boy's line--"Now. Oh, you haven't, you haven't lost him?"

The chagrined sportsman stood regarding his remaining bit of string. Then he threw the pole down disgustedly and returned to the crossing, He gave the teacher one sidelong look and dropped his eyes.

"Never mind, Lem," she said. "It was fine. The gamiest I ever saw."

He lifted his head. "You kin bet on that," he answered. "Ther's jes one of him in this here creek. He's ther great Tyee. But gee, gee, I don't see how he hed water 'nough ter keep him erfloat."

The teacher laughed softly. She started on over the stream, but, lifting her glance from the dripping boy, she met suddenly the amused gaze of an auditor who had stopped on the bank. His mount, a dappled chestnut with a silver mane, the alert head, depth of chest, long, sleek body and nimble limbs of a thoroughbred, was, in that forest settlement, remarkable, but the man himself possessed a striking personality. He carried his large frame with almost military erectness and yet with the freedom of young muscles bred to the saddle. He wore cavalry boots and English-made riding-clothes, and his coat opened on an immaculate silk shirt bosom. His face, stamped with inherited fineness of living, was undeniably handsome, but his lip took a mocking curve when he smiled, his chin had length rather than breadth, and in his eyes, which were singularly light under black lashes and brows, smouldered a magnetic heat; they drew or repelled.

The rise from the brook was abrupt, the path narrow, and the teacher waited on a larger stone while the stranger rode down into the ford. He removed his hat with the usual salutation of the trail, and crushing it carelessly under his arm, would have passed directly on, but the horse, suspicious of some movement of Lem's, made a sudden detour that brought him almost upon her. She started to spring to another rock, her foot slipped, and to steady herself she threw up her hand. It came in contact with the chestnut's bridle below the bit. Instantly he reared, wheeled, and coming down, gripped the bank with his forefeet, and was off like a bird.

Lem crawled out of the pool into which he had plunged to avoid those striking hoofs, and the teacher hurried on over the crossing. But, unexpectedly, at the top of the bank she met the rider returning, and she and the boy crowded quickly into the salal to give him room. He still carried his hat under his bridle arm; a rifle in a leather case swung, undamaged, from the saddle; a small canvas-covered pack rested, unbroken, above the crupper, and the thoroughbred paced gently down into the stream and moving on slowly, trotted up the opposite side and disappeared among the firs.

"He kin ride," said Lem at last. "An' I 'low that ther chestnut kin travel. But he'd be mighty oncertain in er race. Ef it kem to it,"--he paused to follow the teacher back into the trail,--"ef it kem to it, I dunno but what I'd resk my pile on ther timber-cruiser an' ther black."

*CHAPTER II*

*THE LEANING TOWER*

Suddenly Forrest, who had taken the lead, turned and laid his hand on his horse's rein. "Back, Colonel," he said, "back. Steady, now, steady."

The trail, which ran between the edge of a windfall and the brink of a cliff, was cut off by a slide.

Presently, when there was room, the teacher slipped down from the saddle, and Forrest turned the black and led him into a small open on the level shoulder to which they had climbed. Below them they heard the voices of the settlers urging Ginger, the other horse, up the sharp incline; then, with a final clatter of tin and scraping of hoofs, he appeared over the spur. He dropped his muzzle abjectly to the heather, showing covertly the whites of his eyes; his legs seemed to shorten like set posts, while Mrs. Myers, who followed closely, stopped to look at the pack. She tucked in a loose end of canvas and made a new hitch in a length of rope. She had a deft yet masculine touch, and it was her husband's standing tribute that she knew more about packing than he did; when Marthy fixed a load, it stayed.

There was nothing weak and little effeminate about Martha. Her scant cotton gown, without decoration, was shortened above a streak of coarse gray hose; her shoes were of calf, heavy, unshapely, and her hat, Eben's winter one, had seen protracted service. It shaded a face darkened by exposure to wind and sun, and seamed not by age but habitual anxiety.

The settler mounted a log and cast a slow glance along the windfall. There were mighty firs, centuries old, with their trunks hurled in air; boles of ancient cedars snapped mid-length; giant hemlocks held uptilted and forming a breastwork for living trees; gnarled roots locking with green branches; all dropped together like jackstraws, the playthings of Titan winds. Presently Martha joined him and they began to work along the labyrinth, picking a course for the horses.

Forrest had tied the black, and, taking advantage of the delay, led the teacher to a better view-point of the canyon, which swept below them, rounding the opposite ridge in the shape of a crescent. A granite tower, crowning a higher cliff, held the curve. It was a curious pile, of boulders fitted nicely, block on block, with loophole and parapet, and the whole structure tilted slightly, leaning towards the precipice.

The girl seated herself on a stone in the shade of a stunted fir, and Forrest, a little worn from the long tramp, threw himself on the ground, putting aside his hat and resting his head on his hand, his elbow on the earth, while he looked off down the gorge. "Somewhere in there," he said, "beyond that curve, I ought to find my lost prospect. The mother lode should crop out in one of those lower bluffs towards the Des Chutes. The thunder of the river reached me not long before,--I remember that clearly,--but I wish the place I staked that day had only been in range of that fine old landmark, the tower."

She looked down thoughtfully into the wooded gorge. "In such a tangle you might pass the place a dozen times. Your stakes must have been overgrown in a few weeks with fern and salal, or shoots of alder. It's really beginning again."

"Almost." He set his square jaw and a vertical line deepened between his eyes. "Still, it's there and sooner or later I'll find it. But I must make the most of this trip; I can't hope for many days off at the Freeport mills. That's the worst of it,"--he smiled, shaking his head,--"no more timber-cruising; nothing to take me out-of-doors."

"Do you know, I can't think of Tumwater, the mills, the falls, the ridge road, without remembering you? You've been a part of it, Paul; the spirit of it all."