The Freebooters of the Wilderness Part 37

Yet Eleanor was glad. The babble gave her opportunity for withdrawal in her own thoughts; and when she came back to the Ranch House with Matthews, leaving Lizzie still boasting at the School, she hardly noticed that her father stopped the frontiersman on the threshold, but she pa.s.sed out to the steamer chair on her own piazza. What was _It_?

Eleanor could not have answered if she had tried. She only knew that she had drunk of the fulness of living, and that time could not rob her of that consciousness. It was there, forever with her, breathing in every breath, pulsing in the rhythm of her blood, "Closer than hands or feet," as the Pantheistic poet has sung, immanent, enveloping, possessory, obsessory, warm, living, a flooding realization of life, giving tone to every touch of existence, like the strings of the violin to the bow of the skilled musician. She wanted to sing; the long, low, jubilant chant of womanhood which no poet has yet sung. By the joy of it, she knew what the sorrow of it must be. By the purity, she realized what the poisoning of the fountain springs of life could mean.

By the triumph, she realized what the defeat, the debas.e.m.e.nt could be.

She thought of love as a fountain spring, a spring into which you could not both cast defilement and drink of waters undefiled; as an altar flame fed with incense lighting the darkness; and one could no more offend love with impurity, than cast the dung heap on the altar flame and not expect blastment. She wanted to clap her hands as the gay, twinkling cottonwoods were clapping theirs to the sunset; to dance and beat gypsy tambourines as the pines were throbbing and harping and clicking to the age-old melodies of Pan. She wanted--what was it? Had the Israelitish women of old timed their joy to the rhythm of the dance; or was it a later strain, the strain from the tribal woman of the plains who heard a voice in the music of the laughing leaves, and the throb of the river, and the shout of the sun-glinted cataract, and the little lispings and whisperings of the waves among the reeds? The stars came p.r.i.c.king out. Each hung a tiny censer flame to the altar of night and holiness and mystery. She knew she could never again see the stars come p.r.i.c.king through the purple dusk without feeling the stab of joy that had wakened death to life when recognition had struck fire in consciousness. She knew, then, there was no eternity long enough for the joy of _It_, nor heaven high enough for the reach of _It_, nor h.e.l.l deep enough for the wrong of _It_.

There was a click of the mosquito wire door opening out on her piazza.

It was her father.

"Matthews and I are going to take the fast team and the light buckboard and drive down to Smelter City to-night. Will you be all right, Eleanor?"

"I? Oh, of course! Nothing wrong is there, Father?"

"Nothing, whatever!" She remembered afterwards the s.h.i.+ne and look of lonely longing in the black eyes. "We have to be in Smelter City, tomorrow; think it best to drive down in the cool of evening! Day stage is a tiresome drive. You'll be all right, Eleanor?"

If she could only have known, how she would have spent herself in his arms; but it is, perhaps, a part of the irony of life that the best service is silent; that the loudest service, like the big drum, is the emptiest; only we never know the quality of that big drum till a specially hard knock tests it. She remembered afterwards how he half hesitated. He was not a demonstrative man, nor a handling one; only a dumb doer of things next, regardless of consequences; and we don't realize what that means till we are too old to pay tribute and they to whom tribute is due have pa.s.sed our reach.

"I, oh, of course I'll be all right! Would you like a lunch or something?"

"No, never mind! Keep Calamity by you! Go to bed early, have a good sleep! 'Night," he said. The mosquito door clicked and he had gone.

A moment later, the yellow buck board had rattled down the River road, and her father did what he had never done before, he turned and lightly waved his hat.

If Eleanor could have known it, he was saying at that moment:

"Matthews, you can fight the world, the flesh, and the devil; but you can't fight against the stars."

The old frontiersman didn't answer for a little. When he spoke, it was very soberly:

"No, when it's that, you'll work for the stars spite o' y'rself! Why, A contrived the meetin' myself this vera afternoon; wha' d' y' think o'

that for an old fool? A'll be goin' back empty handed, an' all m' own doin'!"

"And I'll have built plans for twenty years on,--on the sands," and MacDonald flicked the bronchos up with his whip.

There was a long silence but for the crunch of the wheels through the road dust.

"MacDonald," said Matthews abruptly, "A'm goin' t' see this thing thro'. A don't mean y'r daughter's love; th' angels o' Heaven have that in _their_ own charge! A'm referrin' t' this mine thing! There's evil brewin'! A'm goin' t' see this thing thro'; an' A make no doubt y'r goin' to do th' same! A'm no wantin' t' pry into y'r affairs, MacDonald; but--is y'r will made an' secure?"

The sheep rancher flicked his whip at the bronchos and took firmer hold of the reins.

"Copper rivetted," he said.

We call _It_ clairvoyance; and we call _It_ intuition; and we call _It_ instinct; and we might as well call it x, y, z for all these terms mean. We do not know what they mean. Neither do we know what _It_ is.

We hear _It_ and obey _It_; and _It_ brings blessedness. In the din of life's insistent noise, we sometimes do not hear _It_. That is, we do not hear _It_ until afterwards when the curse has come. Then, we remember that we did hear _It_, though we did not heed it.

It was so with Eleanor after her father pa.s.sed from the Ranch House that night. Afterwards, she knew that she had noticed the wistful look on his face; but the memory of it did not come to the surface of thought till she heard the click of Calamity's door in the bas.e.m.e.nt and recollected his words; "Keep Calamity by you." Also, at that very moment, a great gray racing motor car swerved out across the white bridge from the Senator's ranch buildings and went spinning down the Valley road, the twin lanterns before and behind cutting the dark in the double sword of a great search light that etched the sheathed pine needles and twinkling cottonwoods in black against a background of gold. Eleanor was perfectly certain she saw the same two hats in the back seat that had met Wayland at the Cabin that afternoon.

"Calamity," she called down over the piazza railing.

The native woman came up the piazza stairs on a pattering run.

"Why has everybody gone down to Smelter City to-night? Is anything wrong?"

The Cree woman's shawl had fallen back from her head. She stood kneading her fingers in and out of her palms. There was a strange wild look in the dark eyes and her breathing labored. "It ees Moyese," said Calamity slowly. "He 'xamin d' mine t'-morrow."

"Why, Calamity, that is perfect nonsense! Moyese won't examine the mine, at all! This young fellow from Was.h.i.+ngton is the one to examine the mine?"

Calamity continued to knit her fingers in and out. "All 'same," she said, "Messieu Waylan', he telephone Messieu MacDonal' come 'mine help him t'-morrow!"

"Telephone my father? Why, how could he? I have been right here, Calamity?"

"You go see Missy Villam, leetle gurl," explained Calamity. "Messieu Waylan' he ride down hog back trail woods all night, 'lone! He ring ting--ling--says he go 'samin mine."

Then, the child's babble, the looks of the two at the Cabin, her father's wistful face, the quick departure of Matthews and himself, followed almost immediately by Moyese's motor, confirmed Calamity's incoherent account. Eleanor ran out to the telephone in the living room, and rang for the Ranger's Cabin. There was no answer on the local circuit, and Central at Smelter City could only say "They don't answer! Try local!"

Yet why should she feel such alarm? Had he not gone down to the Desert, and come back, and she had not known fear? Was the fear for her father? Was it her father's wistful look? What could she do?

Would he wish her to do anything? This, too, was on the Firing Line, but reason how she would, she could not subdue her fears, nor keep the tremor from her hands as she ran back to the bed room dimly lighted by the candle above the desk at the head of the bed.

"Calamity, you don't think there is any danger to Father?"

Then Calamity did the strangest thing that ever Eleanor had seen her do. She had thrown off the shawl. She had drawn herself up on moccasined tip-toes, and seemed suddenly to have thrown off age and abuse and disgrace and rags and sin, with her eyes fixed stonily on the far s.p.a.ces of her wrecked youth, the lids wide open, the whites glistening, a mad look in the dilated pupils s.h.i.+ning like fire; and her fingers were knitting in and out of her palms.

"M' man," she whispered, "dey keel heem, dey hang heem! M' babee, dey take it away, d' pries' he sing--sing an' wave candle an' bury it in snow. Leetle Ford, d' keel heem! D' punish Indian man, d' hang heem, m' man! Moyese, he keel leetle Ford: he go free, not'ng hurt heem!"

She burst out laughing, low voiced cunning laughter. "I go see," she said. "I ride down hog's back t' d' mine! I go see! Messieu MacDonal'--He help me! I help heem! I go see," and before Eleanor had grasped the import of the words, the woman had darted out into the dark; and a moment later, Eleanor heard the bas.e.m.e.nt door clang. There was the pound-pound of a horse being pulled hither and thither, leaping to a wild gallop, then the figure of Calamity bare-headed, riding bareback and astride, cut the moonlight; and the ring of hoof beats echoed back from the rocks of some one going furious, heedless up the face of the Ridge towards the hog's back trail.

Eleanor called up the Mission School telephone: Mr. Williams had heard nothing; he didn't believe there was any cause for alarm; the child was patently and plainly an astounding little liar! About Calamity? Oh, yes, Eleanor was not to be alarmed! She had gone off in those mad fits ever since her baby died up on Saskatchewan. It had been very distressing; was in winter time, and she wouldn't release the dead child from her arms; they had to take it from her by force; she always came back after a week or two of wandering! Would Eleanor like some one to come over and stay in the Ranch House? And Eleanor being a true descendant of the Man with the Iron Hand flaunted personal fear; and went back to a sleepless but not unhappy night in her room. Why did the news that Calamity's child had died bring such a sense of relief?

How simply does life deck out her tragedies! There is no prelude of low-toned plaintive orchestral music tuned to expectancy. There is no thunder barrel; or if there is a thunder barrel, you may know that the tragedy is theatrical and hollow in proportion to the size of its emptiness. And there is no graceful curtain-drop between it and real life, permitting you to rise from your place and go home happy.

MacDonald was stepping into the bucket to descend the last shaft of the mine when something on the edge of the _Brule_ arrested his glance; in fact, two things: one was Calamity coming out from the trail of the hog's back through the young cottonwoods and poplars, riding bareback and looking very mad, indeed; the other, was O'Finnigan from Shanty Town on foot, staggering and mad as whiskey could make him, coming up the narrow rock trail from Smelter City.

"Go on," said MacDonald curtly to the others. "I'll keep the notes safe up here, and give Sheriff Flood a hand at the hoist!"

All had gone well, exceedingly well, in the examination of the mine.

It had begun sharp at twelve o'clock when the day s.h.i.+ft came out with their dinner pails. It will be remembered the Ridge sloped down to a burnt area, known as the _Brule_, overgrown with young poplars and birches and yet younger pines. The _Brule_ slanted down to a roll of rock and s.h.i.+ngle and gravel above the City known as Coal Hill. It was on the face of this hill that the mines lay. You could see the black veins coming out on the face of the cliff; and into the cliff penetrated two parallel tunnels. Up and down from these tunnels rattled the trucks on serial tramways to and from the Smelter, weaving in and out of the tunnel mouths like shuttles, run by gravitation pressure. If the mines were worthless, or worth only the five, ten, and three-hundred dollars that the Ring had paid the "dummy"

homesteaders for each quarter section, these s.h.i.+fts of a hundred men at a time, and trucks and tramways would have offered a puzzle to any one but the downy-lipped youth, who had come to examine them.

When Wayland arrived at the mine with Matthews and MacDonald, he found the federal investigator on hand with Mr. Bat Brydges, who was out for news features, and the news editor of the "Smelter City Herald," who somehow gave the Ranger a look mingled of smothered anger and friendliness. If Mr. Bat Brydges felt any embarra.s.sment, he did not show it. Indeed, the handy man would have felt proud of the very things of which he had accused the Ranger; and it is to be doubted if the door of decent shame remained open; if, indeed, the harboring of thoughts like the flocking of the carrion bird to putridity does not pre-suppose a kind of inner death. And as the party were donning blue overalls to descend into the mine, who should come on the scene but Mr.

Sheriff Flood, "to see that ev'thing waz al' right," he explained, exhibiting a protuberant rotundity due reverse of the compa.s.s that had been most prominent when Wayland last saw him; and if the doughty defender of the law felt any embarra.s.sment, like the handy man, he did not show it. Indeed, this mighty man of valor could truthfully be described as fat of brain, fat of chops, fat of neck, and fattest of all in the rotundity of this strutting stomach. In fact, he seemed proud of that hummocky part of his anatomy and swung it round at you and rested his hands clasped across it as he talked.

"Jis' thought I'd happen along! Wife didn't want me to: women are all skeery that way; but I jis' thought I'd happen along an' nut let her know!"

"All sorts o' things might chance in a mine, mightn't they?" cut in Matthews with a twinkle of his eye more merry than good natured.

The Sheriff smiled a sickly smile and ''lowed they could'; and everybody walked into the lowest tunnel leaving the fire guard lanterns outside; for this tunnel was lighted by electricity. As they all walked in, the Sheriff was to the rear.

"Here, you, Mr. Sheriff," Matthews blurted out, going to the rear of the procession, "seems to me my place is kind o' back o' behind o' you."