Part 3

Martha rose with suppressed energy, and lifting a bough, laid it on the fire. "He's be'n nigh onter all winter an' spring gettin' out ther legs an' arms," she said, resuming her place, "but he calc'lates ef he kin only find ther hull thing ther's folks 'ud pay consider'ble fur it."

"I 'lowed mebbe, fur instance," explained Myers, "that ther museum ter Washington, what that Gov'ment man was talkin' 'bout last year when he was stoppin' here, would give me er pretty good price. He says they buy up old bones o' anything curious or over-sized."

"No doubt," said Forrest slowly, "no doubt. But I believe, Eben, the time spent on your ranch would count for more. That's a fine meadow you have, and a few additional acres cleared and seeded with alfalfa would mean almost riches to you."

Myers struck a match and, screening it with his hand, lighted his pipe. Martha watched him. Her lips twitched a little and an unspoken appeal rose in her anxious eyes. She only said, presently, "Mebbe he's right, Eben. That ther meadow's be'n a mighty good pasture. Before we hed it you used to spend er sight o' time drivin' ther cattle over here to ther south slope in ther cold spells. Onct," she paused, looking off through the great natural park, "when Lem was a baby I kem over ther hills an' toted him in my lap. It commenced ter snow an' I lost ther trail."

"An' it was yonder," said Eben, pointing riverward, "close onter that ther black snag, I found her. She'd hitched ther cayuse an' took off his pack, an' Lem, ther little bugger, was did up in er extry blanket, peart as er chipmunk in er hole. She was settin' down by er good fire a eatin' her supper."

Martha smiled, her shadowy, brief smile. "I counted on his lookin' fur me," she said, "an' 'lowed he'd scent the bacon. His rations was erbout give out."

The long Northern twilight deepened; the nearer trees stood out tall and spectral against vague shadow; a bat with low swoops approached and was lost in the gloom; a white owl settled, dazed, on a fir bough, and from time to time mingled his hoot with the note of the cataract. Once the sound of sliding rock came from some high shoulder and was followed by a rush of earth lower on the slope.

Alice leaned back comfortably on an old cedar trunk with chairlike arms, and lifted her face, listening. "How the hills answer each other," she said; "every sound multiplies."

Forrest settled himself in one of his easy attitudes in front of the fire. "It reminds me of a trip I made last year over the new railroad in Oregon." He paused and his listeners waited, expectantly. He had a deep, pleasing voice and the gift of the story teller. "They had taken me aboard a construction train. There are points on the Columbia where the slopes rise abruptly eight hundred feet, and the soil is loose with a perilous mixture of boulders. They had scores of Chinamen at work to bulkhead these places, and the big timbers up there looked like scaffoldings of toothpicks. But a whole crew of track-walkers couldn't keep the danger off, and we were speeding along when suddenly there was a terrific sound. It was like musketry multiplied by echoes on echoes. Then looking up we saw ahead an immense rock moving down the mountain. The engineer reversed his lever and jumped. The next instant the boulder struck the engine and hurled it into the river."

She caught her breath. "And you, Paul?"

"I?" He turned to her with his smile of the eyes. "Why, I was in the caboose. The coupling broke and separated the rest of the train from the engine. It was the closest shave I ever had."

"And you never told me."

"The greatest devastator is the frost," he said after a moment. "It drives the wedge ready for the heavy rains. But I remember a place on the Snoqualmie that has been crossed by an avalanche of snow. It has left a clean-swept track through the timber, and the trees, hurled with incredible force, block the river from bank to bank. It's the most terrible jam ever heard of. You know the place, Eben?"

But the settler answered only with a gentle nod. He sat with his chin on his breast, holding his empty pipe on his knee. Martha nudged him, but he slept placidly on.

Alice lifted her glance once more to the shadowy slope. Presently she began to sing in a sweet undertone, "The Day Is Done." And after the first measure Forrest took up the song, and the two voices, rising, swelling, started a refrain from cliff and spur. The last echo drifted and died in a far canyon. A great hush rested on the wilderness. There was a soft illumination on a high peak, then every crest and shoulder was silvered by the rising moon.

The song was followed by many; the parts of old operas which they had been accustomed to sing with her sister and Philip, on winter evenings in Judge Kingsley's parlor, or in summer time becalmed aboard the _Phantom_. And at last it was Schubert's "Serenade."

Forrest rose to his feet and stood with his arms resting on the top of the trunk behind her. This song had always been a favorite; they sang it well together. But a new personality crept into the familiar tones; an awakened sadness. And the romance of the place, the mystery of night and the near heavens, gave setting to his part and spoke for him.

She took up the song, but it became suddenly, for the first time, too difficult to sing. Her notes faltered and broke. He finished the part alone.

*CHAPTER IV*

*"THER BIGGEST COWARD IN THER WOODS"*

Forrest was lying on his blanket, his feet to the camp-fire, hands clasped under his head, his wakeful face raised to the near stars. An arm's-length from him Myers slumbered, audibly. Stillness rested on the small white tent. But presently his horse tramped uneasily, pulling on his picket rope, and the young man rose and went over to him. "So, Colonel," he said softly, "restless, too, are you? Steady, now, steady, we'll work it off, old fellow, so."

He found the bridle and, mounting without a saddle turned up the lofty slope. The horse flung his head, and with some airy stepping by the white tent, set himself willingly to the ascent. The firelight, as he passed, brought out the silver star between his intelligent eyes, the one marking, from the tips of his sensitive ears to his nimble hind feet, in a handsome, jet-black coat.

The settler stirred and rose on his elbow with an inquiring "Hello!" And Forrest called back, "I'm just going up to the summit for another look around, and to try to shape a course for the day's tramp."

Myers laughed and settled back comfortably to his blanket. "I 'low," he told himself, yawning, "he ain't likely ter see much more'n fog."

Half way up the hill Forrest halted, breathing his horse on a level spur, and looked down over the tops of the firs. "It's a natural town site," he said aloud; "and when the country opens it's bound to be a mining center. There's a fortune in that water power, but I should set up my own stamp mills there at the falls, and build cottages for the men to the right on that knoll. And meantime--meantime--what an Eden it would make." He turned with a quick upward lift of his head. "Come, Colonel, come," he said, "we must keep a tighter rein. It's summer now, and she isn't over the novelty; but it won't last through the first September rains. Even if she loved me--I could never ask her to bury herself up here in the wilderness; her--with her ideals and dreams, and all those nice, luxurious ways."

He rode on in silence. The moon paled; there were no longer stars, and, as he reached the summit and looked eastward, he saw the first streak of light broadening and toning to green on the horizon. The peaks and shoulders of the Cascades loomed against it purplish black, but all their base, the valleys, foothills, sank in a white fog that lifted slowly to meet the dawn. The sky warmed to yellow; a far spur flushed. He felt the rising moisture in the air, drew a damp breath. A belt of high cloud crimsoned, and he saw nothing more.

The fog closed in, billow on billow, flooding the canyon, lapping the ledge where he stopped. Then for a moment the white sea parted, and the granite tower hung tilting over the abyss. It stood solitary, like a lighthouse on a stormy coast, and in another instant was blotted out.

He dismounted, and with his hand on his horse's neck, his hat pushed back, stood watching these waves, flowing, separating, rolling together, rushing out. "And it's something you can't grapple with, or put down," he said at last. "You've got to push into it, blind, or wait for it to break. It's like the future. That's it; I could give a year or two to the grind at Freeport, easily enough, if I was only reasonably sure. But it's all a chance. A chance that no other man will stumble on my find, or want this section, or the water power, a chance,--" he began to smooth the black's mane gently,--"a chance, old boy, that she will care enough for me, some day, to wait for me."

The defiance faded from his face. He took his lariat coil, and seating himself on a rock, allowed the horse to go the length of the rope, seeking a scant forage. Presently he breathed a whistle; it settled into a definite tune:

He went over it again and again, with variations that were not the notes of a flute, nor yet of a thrush but something of each and more; an expression so sweet, so tender, so full of subtlety, that you must have guessed the meaning even though you had never heard the words of the song.

He broke off finally and sat for a long interval looking absently into the fog. When he started to his feet a brisk wind was blowing and overhead the mist was like pulverized gold. "Come, Colonel," he said, "we must get out of this; I can't afford to wait any longer and you must put me back in camp inside an hour."

But suddenly, as he turned his horse, picking up the thread of trail which on rock and heather was repeatedly lost, a broad shaft of sunshine struck the hilltop, and directly the crest of Mt. Rainier rose like a phantom from the rushing sea. Then everywhere, through the fog that parted and closed, and parted again like a rent curtain in the wind, dome and pinnacle gleamed opal or rose in the full glory of the morning. And the sun went with him down the slope, touching the higher spurs, the tops of the firs, and finally the small white tent in the open, and the edge of the dense undergrowth that followed the watercourse.

Myers welcomed him with a long "Hello," and the teacher waved her hand and stood for a moment watching him as he wound down between the great boles, then she turned her attention to the broiling trout which she herself had caught below the falls. The soft flush of the early morning was on her cheek; its sparkle was in her eyes.

But during breakfast he had little to say to her; he seemed more interested in the settler and his views of homestead and pre-emption rights, timber laws and government surveys.

"I 'low," said Eben, "you ain't countin' on takin' up ord'nary land, yourself? You're jest huntin' fur a gold mine."

"There's nothing I would like better than to find and open up my lost prospect," answered Forrest, "but, if I could spare the time now, to-day, I should file on this section, right here in the heart of the red firs. It's the best vacant piece I know of."

"Do you mean," asked Alice, with awakened interest, "that you would homestead it, like any settler?"

"Yes; and put a timber filing on the quarter adjoining to take in those fine old trees up the slope. It's one of the best stretches of red fir in the whole Washington forest."

"But," she said thoughtfully, "there is plenty of fine standing timber close to the Sound, where transportation to the lumber mills is easy; here it would be a tremendous problem."

"True, and I shouldn't think of spoiling this park for years. It's just a good section to hold for the future. And, well, I'm fond of the place; I shall be sorry to know any other man has taken possession."

"I see," she said after a moment, "I see. And of course you would secure the water power at the same time. And while you lived here you would be close at hand to carry on your prospecting, perhaps development."

"Yes, that's what I've wanted to do, but"--he shook his head and looked at her with his smile of the eyes,--"that position at the Freeport mills was too good to refuse; and if I do find my mine, it's going to call for capital at the start. I can't expect to interest other money until I am able to make some sort of a showing."

He rose to his feet and stood looking off to a high shoulder of the hills. Then, presently, he and Eben were starting on their tramp, the day of search for the lost prospect. The sun fell in long shafts between the boughs and her glance followed him from light to shade. Martha also, standing a few steps away, looked in the same direction, her head bent a little forward, her knotted fingers shading her anxious eyes.

"Ther ain't many like him," she said at length, dropping her hand.

"No," answered the teacher, absently, "no; walking or riding, it's a pleasure to watch him. He is so strong, so self-reliant and yet so--kind; in every way he is the finest man I know. He stands alone."

"I meant Eben," said Martha with her shadowy smile. She paused, watching the teacher's face, for she flushed hotly to the ears. "He's good-looking, an' he's got consider'ble grit when he gets started. He's always a plannin' an' a studyin', but he ain't ever hed er show. Ef he hed, I don't s'pose I'd ever a got him."

"I'm sure," said Alice warmly, "Mr. Myers himself won a great prize. Why, you plow, sow, reap; you milk and drive the herds. You carry on the whole farm. He never could do without you."

"He always 'lowed I was a good worker," and Martha turned to gather up the breakfast things.

Presently the teacher asked, "With a clear trail, about how long would it take to ride from here to the schoolhouse?"

"Why, I jedge you could do it in erbout five hours. It's roundabout, you see, an' you'd hev ter go clear to our place an' ercross."

"But with a new branch cut directly through?"

"Land, you could do it in half ther time, an' take er stepper like Colonel, he could make it in two hours, or likely one an' er half."

The teacher began to walk back and forth through the open. Her hands were clasped loosely behind her, she looked off absently through the trees, and her swift thoughts alternately clouded and brightened her speaking face. After a while she approached Forrest's picketed horse. He lifted his head from the luscious grass and she stood for a moment smoothing his ruffled mane. "If we only could do it," she said softly, "if we only could, Colonel; it would pay your hire."

Later, while they were walking to the river, she, herself, displayed a sudden interest in homestead laws, gathering from Mrs. Myers both small and valuable detail as to the methods of clearing land and building a cabin.

Martha found a seat below the falls and took out her knitting, a sock for Eben, while the teacher chose a place a little down-stream and opened her sketchbook. She began to outline the cataract, but she studied the perspective less and less and finally not at all. Then for an idle interval she leaned on the boulder at her elbow and looked dreamily up through the great park. When she bent again to her work, behold, the torrent was but a background for a figure, young, well-knit, in short sack coat and trousers bound in leggins. And so engrossed was she in producing those strong lines of brow and chin, the quiet, searching, humor-haunting eyes, the mouth severe yet tender, that she did not know that Martha had risen quickly, and stood listening with her alert gaze searching the jungle directly behind her. She was only roused by the close snapping of a branch and a sudden sense of peril.

She started to her feet, dropping the book, and faced the thicket. The color went from her lips. There, in a tangle of hazel, tawny, handsome, with swaying tail and brilliant eyes fixed on her, stood a well grown cougar.

The next instant Martha reached her side. She had caught up from the ground a stout bough, and she swung it, thrust it at the brute, shouting. Alice, quick to grasp the expedient, armed herself with another fallen branch. The beast gave back a step, another, and the two women pressed him slowly, cautiously. At length he turned and slunk reluctantly away into the timber.

"Ef Eben hed left ther gun," said Martha, wiping the perspiration from her face, "it 'ud saved us consider'ble bother. But I jedge we best get back ter the open an' hev er look at ther horses."

Alice stood with her eyes fixed on the point where the cougar had disappeared. Her breast heaved with deep, quick breaths and she still grasped her heavy hemlock bough with both hands. At last she dragged her gaze away and met Martha's serious glance. She could not speak but her spirit rose and recognized in silent tribute, the great soul of the pioneer.

Martha put her shoulder to an encroaching bough and led the way back to the stream. Presently she stooped and picked up the sketchbook, and, having smoothed the leaves, gave it to the artist. Then Alice said slowly, "I shall always remember--as long as I live--what you did."

"Oh, land," and Martha smiled, "it wa'n't much ter do. An' a cougar's ther biggest coward in ther woods. He wouldn't dast ter tech er man, lest he was cornered or hungry; but I 'low he hed er pretty good chanct when he kem ercross you."

A little farther on she possessed herself of her dropped knitting, and, having gained the path, she moved towards camp, setting her needles and picking up lost stitches. But her knotty fingers worked mechanically; they trembled slightly, and her anxious eyes repeatedly swept the jungle. She knew that a cougar, hunting, does not so easily abandon his quarry. Though cautious, hesitating, he trails his game for hours, constantly preparing for, while he is diverted from an attack. She also knew that, like the human coward, once assailed and cornered, he becomes a fury.

In the open they found Ginger standing with hoofs planted like a figure in stone; but the black, in his terror, had circled and recircled the alder to which he was tied, winding his lariat, and, reduced to an arm's-length of rope, he made short and frenzied plunges to break free. Suddenly he stopped, dragged back the limit of the line, and stood trembling.

Instantly Martha understood. She ran forward, dropping her knitting, and picked up another bough. The cougar had reached a vine maple a few rods from the black. She saw his tawny body outstretched on the great curving branch of the parted bole. "Pile them pieces o' spruce on ther fire," she said coolly. "Make er smoke. Then slack up Colonel's rope an' get him back behind it."

She stepped between the horse and the cougar, again lifting the heavy limb, swinging it, thrusting it, but avoiding direct contact with the beast, and renewing her shouts. Before she had finished her directions Alice had caught up a resinous branch and thrown it on the embers. It crackled noisily and sent out a great cloud of smoke, which the wind, setting from the river, carried directly into the eyes and nostrils of the panther. He began to retreat, snarling, along the maple. Presently he dropped to the ground, and while Martha pressed him, step by step, the girl, who had succeeded in loosening the lariat, urged the horse around the fire.

Again the cougar turned and disappeared. Colonel was finally picketed near the old cedar trunk, and they piled fresh boughs on the fire, still pursuing the panther with thick, pungent smoke. Then they rested, gathering themselves, in the brief reprieve, for his certain return.

The black, less panic-ridden, continued to listen or tug at his rope. The other horse began to browse. The suspense pressed. Then, suddenly, a rifle shot startled the solitudes. And while the two women stood marking the puff of smoke, which rose a few yards off, there came a clamor of snarls. Two hounds slunk through the underbrush into the open and waited, shaking. A second report rang through the hills, then, the cries having ceased, one of the dogs plucked up courage and sounded a clarion. After a moment his mate returned into the thicket, alert, cautious, feeling ground. The first hound crept in his wake, and directly their baying, multiplied as by a score of throats, filled the wood.

The dogs were Laramie's, and the women followed them, seeking their master, but the hunter was Mose. The cougar was stretched in his death throes before him, on a bed of trampled fern and broken boughs.

"Saprie," he exclaimed as the teacher approached, "if I ees have dat gun of Laramie's I doan' have some trouble to keel heem de firs' shot. But dis gun dat Yelm Jim ees lend to me, he ees buy long tam 'go to de Hudson Bay Companee; an' for sure dey ees sell heem one no 'count Injun gun."

"Oh," said Alice, her voice shaking, "it was a grand shot--Mose. And you--you came--just--in time."

"Monjee, Mees, ees it dis cougar ees give you some trouble, a'ready?"

She could not speak again directly; she could only nod her head, affirmatively. But Martha smiled grimly. "Wal, yes," she said; "he's be'n er trailin' us, off 'n on, fur a good spell; an' Eben, he's prospectin' down ther canyon with ther rifle."

"So," said Mose, "so, but it ees good t'ing I come 'long den. You see dose dogs ees track me las' night to Yelm Jim's cabane, an' I ees keep dem to hunt some mowitch to-day. Dey ees fine dogs for trail de deer, ya-as, but A'm mooch shame how dey ees scare' of dis cougar. Cultus Pichou." He paused to cuff aside one of the snuffing hounds. "So you ees come back now, hey? You ees have de brave heart now dat you ees see dis cougar ees be keel. Nawitka, Mees, you doan' have to be some more 'fraid. Dis sacre cougar," and he thrust his foot against the lax body, "he ees sure 'nough dead."

They went back to the open, but in a little while, when Mose had been shown the maple where the cougar had crept in ambush, and the clump of hazels where he had first appeared, the boy returned to secure the pelt. Martha joined him, but Alice stopped at the old cedar trunk and sank down into its chairlike arms. On a log near her Mrs. Myers had left the provision bag, and not far from it, against a fir, Mose had stood the musket. She felt a security in the gun and in having him within call, and she closed her eyes, relaxing her strained muscles and nerves.

She was roused by some moving body in the underbrush, and she started up instantly, at tight tension once more. A man was retreating from the open into the jungle, riverward. He looked back, scowling over his shoulder at her, and she recognized the shaggy, unkempt head and gaunt face of Slocum. The next moment he was gone, and with him had disappeared the food supply and Yelm Jim's musket.

She ran, calling Mose, and met him returning with the pelt. But there was nothing he could do. It was useless, unarmed, to trail the trespasser. He stood staring in the direction the man had taken; the color glowed in his cheeks. He dropped the skin in a heap on the ground and clenched his hands, slowly, twice, as he had the day at school when Laramie struck him. But his volubility died. The Indian in him wakened and effaced the White. His lips set in a thin line; his face became a mask through which his eyes only flamed heat. Presently he turned and stalked swiftly away, towards the settlement. He stopped once to whistle the dogs, but when Alice followed him, calling him back, it was as though he had not heard.

"Oh," she said, returning to Martha, "Yelm Jim will blame him. He may punish him, cruelly."