Part 12

Mill Thornton, who managed its final transportation, over twenty miles of trail from Yelm Station, was greatly interested in the innovation. She showed him Forrest's drawing, explaining it, and read to him a circular, which was enclosed with the hose and described its use. Then they went down to the falls and located the stone ledge. And in the end she contracted with the young rancher to do the mechanical work, in exchange for enough of the water power to supply a small flume to his claim. This was really another stroke of policy to insure her own trees, and Eben, who came out to "hev er look at ther water works," laughed. "Fur long-headedness," he told Thornton, "yes, an' grit, I 'low I'll stake my next pile on ther schoolmarm; yes, sir, ther schoolmarm, an' ergainst any durn man in this here hull deestrict."

It was Alice's intention to keep the canvas stretched in position during the dry season. Later, if the cleared land should cease to husband moisture, she might utilize it for irrigation. It had been laid for trial across the new meadow, which, cutting a wide swathe through the jungle, reached from the small open that surrounded the cottage to the river; but Myers having brought two Jerseys, which he had pastured several weeks, and turned them into the field, it was necessary, until a track outside could be leveled, to store the hose in the stable.

The meadow fence was built of heavy cedar rails, fixed horizontally and without nails. They needed no fastening but the uprights that held the crossed ends of each section. Parallel with it and forming a lane, ran a pile of dry brush, accumulated in clearing and ready to burn after the first rainfall. Backward from it and the untouched jungle that bordered the stream, sheltering that nest of a cottage pushing up and up the grassy slope, rose the ranks of the trees, free of undergrowth as a park, and including what Forrest had called "the heart of the red firs."

Time was precious on school mornings, and the teacher, early astir, was leading the black to water. She saw the sun touch the tops of the higher trees as she crossed the open from the stable. She noticed that the light wind drew from the river and was fragrant with balsams, and that it brought, already, a promise of heat. Then suddenly she stopped and inhaled a deeper breath, that was a different pungence. It was, unmistakably the burning resin of boughs. In the moment she waited, trying to locate the fire, Mother Girard with her empty pail, hurried from the meadow. She came to say that one of the Jerseys had been milked, and that the trail of the trespasser was still fresh on the dew. It left the lower end of the field, and, skirting the brush pile, turned up-stream. And it was there, at the farther end of the slashing, that, while she listened, the teacher saw a thin line of smoke.

Mose, working on that track for the hose near the upper end of the meadow fence, dropped his spade and ran. He tried to beat out the breaking flames, but others were eating under and through the dry criss-cross of branches; every instant they seized on a new layer, snapped, crackled, sent out another jet of smoke. It was not a case for shovelled earth. The pile was too high, too porous; it exposed a dozen open draughts on all sides, and the breeze, sucking in, found as many flues. Clearly the brush pile must burn, and only a miracle could save that portion of the fence bordering the narrow lane. He hurried to the corner to disconnect the rails. At the same time a standing tree, the first in a clump of young firs at the end of the slashing, ignited. The resinous needles sizzed, popped like a string of firecrackers. With the wind pulling as it did from the river, this meant the fire would sweep directly into the big timber, and in that event the cabin also was doomed. He left the fence, running to bring an ax to cut away some hazels adjoining the dangerous clump. Then, as he went, he suddenly remembered the canvas hose. In a moment he was at the stable and met the teacher and Mother Girard dragging the roll through the door.

The three together got it to the meadow and over the lowered bars. But while they ran, unrolling the canvas towards the river, two other trees in that clump began to send out those ominous little reports. The field was long, it seemed to increase in length, but before they reached the end of it Thornton came. He was able alone to finish stretching the hose and connect it with the flume, and sent Mose back to the nozzle end. The old mother hurried to drive the Jerseys to a safer distance, and Alice started to return to the maple near the stable where she had tied the horse. But, as she followed the fence, she noticed that some of the dead branches which littered the lane outside were burning. Every moment flames crept from another undermined section of the brush pile, but every moment counted. Any instant the big canvas would begin to fill; it was yet possible to save the fence. She climbed up and swung herself over into the lane. She ran along, pulling away the more dangerous limbs. And it grew hotter with each step. She covered her cheek with her hand; that too seemed to blister. She stumbled around, baffled, and looked towards the river. The whole clump of young firs was a blazing mass, and the hazels adjoining shrivelled and crackled. She started to go back into the field. Then she saw that smoke was rising in little puffs all among the rails. A curling red wave rippled along the top one, reaching for her hand; tiny blue tongues, orange ones, lapped and licked the scorching cedar everywhere. Then, while she wavered, trying to choose the less dangerous bars, she was enveloped in a great outpour of smoke. She staggered a few steps stifled, blinded; her feet tripped over a tangled mesh of twigs and she went down.

Beyond the fence the canvas began to distend. It rounded full; like a waking leviathan it stretched, squirmed. Thornton, running with the flow to help Mose at the nozzle, passed without seeing her. Then Stratton came. He had hurried from his lodge at the first hint of smoke; he had learned, in a word from Mose, where to look for her, and he discovered her. He put his shoulder to an upright and wrenched it away. He grasped the rails,--his hands blistered,--and flung them down. He bent to lift her, shielding her with his body, but at the same time a burning sapling, looped in the slashing, sprang, released like an unstrung bow, and struck the back of his head. He pitched, groaning, face downward. The smoke thinned but the brush pile became a roaring furnace. He got to his knees, groped for her, and half dragged, half carried her out of that fiery lane.

Her dress was burning; he smothered the flames, turning her on the meadow grass; he strangled more persistent vipers with his arms. But the pain from the blow was very great. He saw things all red, all black; they mixed in a blur. He stretched himself on the earth a breathing space and closed his eyes. "Great God," he muttered, "Great God, she must not have inhaled fire." And the words begun in imprecation ended like a prayer.

When he recovered enough to see, he found her sitting up, dazed a little, trembling, but watching Thornton and Mose, who at last had turned the flood on the blazing brush pile. The spray of it drifted over them, and presently a cloud of steam. With Stratton's help she was able to rise, and they went up through the field towards the cabin. Sometimes he put his arm under her shoulders, holding her on her feet; and sometimes he stumbled apart and stood for an instant with his eyes closed, while his teeth gripped the nether lip. Neither spoke until they reached the balcony steps. Then they stopped and she looked back at the men with the hose. "They will save the trees," she said. "See, the fire is under control; they have saved the trees."

But Stratton was looking at her. The coolness and mockery had dropped from him in that hour, like a broken mask. The emotions and passions kept in leash through months fought in his face. He saw her rock unsteadily again on her feet, and new strength surged to his arms. "Damn the trees," he answered, and lifted her and carried her up to the door. "Damn Slocum and his pipe; damn--myself."

She did not hear him. Her body had yielded to complete collapse. He watched her still face, cradled in the curve of his arm, and once while he crossed the room he bent his lips to her cheek. But something, that indefinable something that had baffled him on the glacier, seemed to push him back. It was as though her white spirit cried "no," and again his own soul shrank.

He laid her on a couch. He brought water and bathed her face. One cheek, the right one, was blistered; her lips were scorched; and one hand, also the right one, was burned horribly. He found olive oil in a small cupboard and, with little further search, some cotton stuff which he tore into bandages. He wrapped the hand,--both of his own were smarting, miserably,--and fixed an oiled pad for her cheek; and he moistened her lips, pouring oil between them, generously.

At this she opened her eyes and smiled. "Don't trouble," she said, "I didn't inhale any fire. I remembered to cover my mouth." Her lids drooped again, but she added softly, "They are fine--old--trees."

"The finest in the world," he answered, "but the price--was too high."

He lifted her other hand to bandage a slighter burn, and his own fingers trembled. When he finished he did not release it directly, but sat looking down at the uncovered, gently hollowed palm. She had very nice hands; he had always noticed that; not too small but beautifully made. Then it came over him where, once before, he had seen their loveliness spoiled. It was that day on Mt. Rainier when she had rescued him from the crevasse. And now, at last, he had been able to square that debt. He bent suddenly and kissed the palm. "Keep your trees," he said; "stay here in the wilderness as long as you want to, but give me the right to be near you, always, and protect you."

Her eyelids fluttered open. She looked at him startled. He leaned nearer. His voice quickened; it became a sensitive, soft-toned instrument, vibrant with tenderness. "Marry me, Alice," he said, "and I will shape my whole life to yours. You shall never see a city or a crowd if you say so. I will create an Eden out of this homestead; and when the settlement grows too civilized, when there is nothing left to reclaim or build, I will take you to new solitudes; I will carry you away in that schooner of mine, up and up into the Alaska wilderness, and on some unknown fiord set up another Paradise."

"Oh," she said at last, "please, please don't say any more." She tried to rise but her lips went white and she sank back on her pillows. In her haste she had pressed on the maimed hand. "I shouldn't have allowed you to say this," she hurried on with great effort, "but--I am very--tired. I--I don't think clearly. Wait. Listen. We have just come through a desperate time together. You saved--me. How can I be angry with you--so soon? But you have no right to speak like this to me. I have no right to hear you. You know I am going to marry Judge Kingsley."

"You are not. Unless," his voice held a threat, "you believe that you love him."

She closed her eyes again; the lids quivered, her lips, her whole face. "If I had not," she answered, and the words were almost a whisper, "could I have promised to marry him?"

He was silent then. He leaned back in his chair. Presently he reached, groping, and found a strip of the cotton stuff, which he dipped in the basin of water, and laid on his eyes.

Finally she looked at him. "Oh," she said, "you were hurt. You should have told me. I should have seen. What can I do for you?"

"Nothing," he answered, "nothing, thank you. It is a pain in my head that takes me from time to time. Something struck me, I think, out there in that fiery lane."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said. "I'm so sorry--in both ways. Please don't think I'm ungrateful. I have always liked you, and believed in you, even when you seemed to lose faith in yourself. I knew, underneath, you were all right. And if it was friendliness you asked--"

"Friendliness?" He threw the bandage aside and started to his feet. "Friendliness? No. It's you I want--all of you--heart and body and soul--to have--to keep." He moved, stumbling a little to the door. He put his hand to his eyes and waited a moment, then he turned and came back half way. "I was wrong," he said, and his voice struck a lower key, "I was wrong, pardon me. And I accept that friendliness, yes, as long as you say so."

He swung on his heel then, and went out of the room. That night, in his lodge, he laid ink and stationery on his table and commenced a letter. He wrote the date, and under it, in a large firm hand:

"JUDGE SILAS KINGSLEY, "WASHINGTON, D.C. "MY DEAR SIR:--

Then he paused. He laid the pen down and leaned back in his chair for a long interval in thought. But when he resumed the task it was with quickness and decision and no further halt.

"I am addressing you, as Miss Hunter's guardian, to let you know that today I have asked her to be my wife. Though I had contemplated this for some time the matter was precipitated by a serious fire on her homestead, during which I was privileged to be of service. She was rescued from a dangerous position, painfully, though not deeply burned, and I trust will send you the particulars soon.

"It is natural you should wish to learn something further in regard to my financial circumstances and social standing, and I am enclosing the cards of several Seattle friends whom it is very possible you know; also the address of Sir McDonald of Victoria, who was my father's close friend and can tell you all about me. You will remember I have taken up my father's business of fur dealer, which he carried on so long and successfully, and, as soon as the construction of my new steam-schooner is completed, I expect to equip her for extensive operations northward in Alaska, making a specialty of sealskins and sable, with what can be secured of otter and silver fox. I believe I may be considered in a position to support a wife comfortably.

"As to the rest, I have every reason to think Miss Hunter is not indifferent to me, though she feels, in honor, bound by her promise to you. I trust you will understand it is most difficult for me to make this statement, but I am confident you will not care to longer hold her to an engagement, which she made in gratitude and through a conscientious sense of duty, and which I believe was urged on your part, simply through a desire to see her future secure.

"Most sincerely and respectfully yours, "MARK DOUGLAS STRATTON."

He folded this letter slowly and put it in the envelope, which he addressed carefully. The pain had returned to his head. The Judge's name seemed suddenly to be written in blood. It trailed from his pen. Still he finished, and groping in his pocketbook found a stamp.

Then he rose to his feet. He closed his eyes and clasped his hands at the back of his head. "My God," he groaned, "Oh, my--God!" He went over and threw himself face downward on his bed. But in a moment he was up again, stumbling across the floor, in agony. Finally he stopped and knelt near the inner wall and felt for the third board. It was of hewn cedar and heavy enough to go unnailed. He raised it, not without difficulty, and found a long narrow box set in the earth, underneath. He lifted the lid and took out one of several packages that filled it. He unrolled the wrapping of coarse flannel far enough to reach a small tin; then he laid the bundle aside and stood turning this in his hands. It was a five-tael opium can such as is used in transporting the crude drug. "Well," he told himself, "why not? The stuff is sold, daily, over every druggist's counter, for pain not half--as horrible--as this."

He took his knife and sprung the end of the tin enough to pour a little of the thick, sticky substance into a glass. "It is--strong--of course," he said; "a drop or two, diluted, ought to be sufficient." He added the water, stirred it, and drank it off.

In a very short time the relief came. He sat down on the edge of his bed and drew off one of his riding-boots; then he tried to pull the other and failed. He stretched himself, dressed, on the couch, and groping weakly, found a blanket and succeeded in covering his knees.

When he wakened it was daybreak and some one, a man, was working in the room. He was kneeling by that uncovered box and removing the packages to a canvas sack, open beside him on the hewn floor. Stratton watched him a silent moment, then, "Where is Slocum, Smith?" he asked.

The man turned on his knees. It was a writhing movement and he threw his head like a startled snake. "Slocum hyas scare," he answered. "He doan' come here today."

"Afraid of me, is he? Well, he has reason to be. I told him to keep away from that homestead. I told him, when I gave him that tobacco, to be careful where he smoked."

"Slocum hyas cultus," said the man. "Slocum no count." He resumed his work, but after a silent moment, he reared his head again to say, "Mose find some plas where Slocum ees sleep. He ees see Slocum's blanket by one beeg cedar log, an' some brush on top, nawitka, to mek roof. An' Mose ees know it ees Slocum's bed, for he ees fin under dat blanket, Yelm Jim's gun."

Stratton understood. He seemed to see Alice, now, with that bandaged hand, following Mose through the underbrush to see for herself that human lair. His glance moved from Smith and that stuff on the floor. A great revulsion suddenly came over him. The pain in his head was dull; it no longer troubled him, but he turned his face to the wall and set his teeth over a groan.

At last he heard Smith put the plank back in its place and start with the filled sack across the floor. He stopped him at the door. "It will be safer for Slocum, after this," he said, "to stay on the other side of the Pass. Let him help you through the mountains, this trip, Smith, but see that you leave him there."

*CHAPTER XVII*

*THE MAN WHO BUNGLED*

Early in the autumn Samantha and young Thornton were married. The teacher, in a letter to her sister, said it was a charming wedding. She told how the schoolhouse was converted into a bower for the occasion; how all the settlement was there, displaying heirlooms of finery, but nothing equalled Laramie's vest of blue and crimson satin brocade, which he wore over a new woolen shirt, and with an extra polish of the cowskin shoes. And she told how, when the old minister, imported from Olympia for the ceremony, stood waiting on the platform under a canopy of fern, and she, herself, commenced a bit of Mendelssohn's march on Eben's violin, the bridal couple in the doorway made a picture to remember; how Samantha was delightful in a crisp white muslin, and when she hung back shyly, Mill grasped her arm and dragged her up the aisle. How his face was red--possibly his stiff collar was a size too small--and his eyes flashed defiance, like a pirate convoying a risky prize. She told also how, when the ordeal was safely through, and Samantha rode the sorrel to her new home, Thornton walking at her side, all the district followed for the housewarming. But though she described minutely this cabin, and the improvements and values of the claim, of that other section almost adjoining, where lived their nearest neighbor, she still had nothing to say.

And it was an early autumn morning, a few days after the wedding, that the bars of the lower meadow fence were found down, and Mother Girard again discovered that one of the Jerseys, straying or driven out under cover of the timber, had been milked. The impressions were still fresh on the dew and the teacher joined Mose in search of the trespasser. This time the track skirted the jungle, and, rounding the slope, entered the canyon, where they met a beaten path leading from the upper end of Stratton's quarter-section. The river was bridged there by a fallen tree, below which it widened into a ford, and this new trail wound up the precipitous side of the gorge, some distance beyond the cliff that was capped by the leaning tower. The footprints took that direction.

Suddenly they both stopped and stood looking up at the stronghold. Then they turned to each other. A line of smoke, rising behind the tower, marked a camp-fire.

"But," she said at last, "if he wants milk he must ask me for it." And she started bravely up the side of the canyon.

Mose pressed after her closely. Finally he said, "It ees bes' you let me go firs', Mees. He ees have one good gun, for sure."

She swung around. "Isn't it Slocum?"

Mose shook his head. "No, Slocum doan' come roun' dis ranch some more. Monjee, he's too mooch 'fraid to stop roun' here. But Pete Smith, he doan' care, so long he ain' see Mill."

"Pete Smith." She paused, shivering a little, then she laughed. "It's funny, Mose, how creepy just his name makes me feel. I--I guess I will let you go first--if you aren't afraid. But wait, what makes you think it is Pete Smith?"

"For dat las' night, when A'm come back wid dose trout I catch down stream, I see heem by Mo'sieur's plas. Sacre, but he ees going fin' he ees lose some blankets, an' flour an' sugar, 'bout ev'ryt'ing, when he comes home."

"You mean Pete had broken into the lodge. Oh, you should have gone directly for Mill Thornton. But you tried to stop him, Mose? You at least warned him that you surely would get word to Mr. Stratton?"

Again Mose shook his head. "You mus' on'stan' it ees bes' I let Pete 'lone. He doan' want me talk to heem dare. Monjee, no. It ees lak I doan' see heem. Nawitka, I come straight 'way home."

He moved his rifle into the curve of his arm, and pushed by Alice, leading on up the bluff, through labyrinths of hazel and alder, up short sections of gullies. Just under the summit he stopped. "I doan' lak lose dis fine new gun," he said softly, and began to fondle the stock. "She's mooch more fine dan dat good gun of Pete Smith's. Nawitka, Mees, mebbe he ees watch us come 'cross de gorge. Mebbe he ees goin' have one drop on us. Den it ees bes' I leave dis gran' gun here; you think so, ya-as?

"Perhaps, Mose. I hadn't thought of--that. It seemed safe to have it along. He's the most hideous man. But he can't help that. And if he is on--guard--well, leave the gun, Mose. Of course he wouldn't harm us. He wouldn't dare."

Mose stood the rifle carefully in a hollow trunk, and moved on cautiously. She kept very close to him up to the top of the bluff, and there she laid her hand on his arm. "I'm frightened, Mose," she whispered. "I'm frightened."

He looked at her gravely. "Mebbe you doan' care so mooch 'bout dat milk now," he said.

She pulled herself straight. "It isn't the loss of the milk, Mose; you should understand that. It's the principle. He can't take anything of mine. It's wrong. Besides, if I let this go, unnoticed, we might wake up any morning to find greater things missing. We might even find Colonel gone."

She lifted her head higher and moved forward with new resolve. Mose kept pace with her, and presently they halted, screened by a mesh of young hemlock boughs, and looked out into the boulder-strewn open behind the tower.