initial commit of ebook 26475HEADmain

1 files changed, 8360 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/26475-8.txt b/26475-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bc00167
--- /dev/null
+++ b/26475-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8360 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Franklin K. Mathiews
+
+Release Date: August 29, 2008 [EBook #26475]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMPFIRE STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Emmy and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BOY SCOUTS BOOK OF CAMPFIRE STORIES
+
+[Illustration: THERE, STANDING KNEE-DEEP IN THE WATER, WAS THE BIGGEST
+AND BLACKEST MOOSE IN THE WORLD]
+
+
+
+
+THE BOY SCOUTS BOOK OF CAMPFIRE STORIES
+
+          EDITED
+          WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
+
+BY
+
+FRANKLIN K. MATHIEWS
+
+          CHIEF SCOUT LIBRARIAN,
+          BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
+
+PUBLISHED FOR
+
+THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA
+
+[Illustration]
+
+          D. APPLETON-CENTURY COMPANY
+          INCORPORATED
+          NEW YORK             1933
+
+
+
+          COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
+
+          D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+
+          All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof,
+          must not be reproduced in any form without
+          permission of the publishers.
+
+          PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
+
+THE campfire for ages has been the place of council and friendship and
+story-telling. The mystic glow of the fire quickens the mind, warms the
+heart, awakens memories of happy, glowing tales that fairly leap to the
+lips. The Boy Scouts of America has incorporated the "campfire" in its
+program for council and friendship and story-telling. In one volume, the
+_Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories_ makes available to scoutmasters
+and other leaders a goodly number of stories worthy of their attention,
+and when well told likely to arrest and hold the interest of boys in
+their early teens, when "stirs the blood--to bubble in the veins."
+
+At this time, when the boy is growing so rapidly in brain and body, he
+can have no better teacher than some mighty woodsman. Now should be
+presented to him stirring stories of the adventurous lives of men who
+live in and love the out-of-doors. Says Professor George Walter Fiske:
+"Let him emulate savage woodcraft; the woodsman's keen, practiced
+vision; his steadiness of nerve; his contempt for pain, hardship and the
+weather; his power of endurance, his observation and heightened senses;
+his delight in out-of-door sports and joys and unfettered happiness with
+untroubled sleep under the stars; his calmness, self-control, emotional
+steadiness; his utter faithfulness in friendships; his honesty, his
+personal bravery."
+
+The Editor likes to think that quite a few of the stories found in the
+_Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories_ present companions for the mind
+of this hardy sort, and hopes, whether boys read or are told these
+stories, they will prove to be such as exalt and inspire while they
+thrill and entertain.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                            PAGE
+        INTRODUCTION                                                    v
+     I. SILVERHORNS                                  _Henry van Dyke_   1
+    II. WILD HORSE HUNTER                                 _Zane Grey_  21
+   III. HYDROPHOBIC SKUNK                             _Irvin S. Cobb_  90
+    IV. THE OLE VIRGINIA                       _Stewart Edward White_ 100
+     V. THE WEIGHT OF OBLIGATION                          _Rex Beach_ 108
+    VI. THAT SPOT                                       _Jack London_ 140
+   VII. WHEN LINCOLN LICKED A BULLY                _Irving Bacheller_ 155
+  VIII. THE END OF THE TRAIL                    _Clarence E. Mulford_ 180
+    IX. DEY AIN'T NO GHOSTS                     _Ellis Parker Butler_ 201
+     X. THE NIGHT OPERATOR                         _Frank L. Packard_ 218
+    XI. CHRISTMAS EVE IN A LUMBER CAMP                 _Ralph Connor_ 258
+   XII. THE STORY THAT THE KEG TOLD ME _Adirondack (W. H. H.) Murray_ 275
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+I.--Silverhorns[1]
+
+_By Henry van Dyke_
+
+
+THE railway station of Bathurst, New Brunswick, did not look
+particularly merry at two o'clock of a late September morning. There was
+an easterly haze driving in from the Baie des Chaleurs and the darkness
+was so saturated with chilly moisture that an honest downpour of rain
+would have been a relief. Two or three depressed and somnolent travelers
+yawned in the waiting room, which smelled horribly of smoky lamps. The
+telegraph instrument in the ticket office clicked spasmodically for a
+minute, and then relapsed into a gloomy silence. The imperturbable
+station master was tipped back against the wall in a wooden armchair,
+with his feet on the table, and his mind sunk in an old Christmas number
+of the _Cowboy Magazine_. The express agent, in the baggage-room, was
+going over his last week's waybills and accounts by the light of a
+lantern, trying to locate an error, and sighing profanely to himself as
+he failed to find it. A wooden trunk tied with rope, a couple of dingy
+canvas bags, a long box marked "Fresh Fish! Rush!" and two large leather
+portmanteaus with brass fittings were piled on the luggage truck at the
+far end of the platform; and beside the door of the waiting room,
+sheltered by the overhanging eaves, was a neat traveling bag, with a gun
+case and a rod case leaning against the wall. The wet rails glittered
+dimly northward and southward away into the night. A few blurred lights
+glimmered from the village across the bridge.
+
+Dudley Hemenway had observed all these features of the landscape with
+silent dissatisfaction, as he smoked steadily up and down the platform,
+waiting for the Maritime Express. It is usually irritating to arrive at
+the station on time for a train on the Intercolonial Railway. The
+arrangement is seldom mutual; and sometimes yesterday's train does not
+come along until to-morrow afternoon. Moreover, Hemenway was inwardly
+discontented with the fact that he was coming out of the woods instead
+of going in. "Coming out" always made him a little unhappy, whether his
+expedition had been successful or not. He did not like the thought that
+it was all over; and he had the very bad habit, at such times, of
+looking ahead and computing the slowly lessening number of chances that
+were left to him.
+
+"Sixty odd years--I may get to be that old and keep my shooting sight,"
+he said to himself. "That would give me a couple of dozen more camping
+trips. It's a short allowance. I wonder if any of them will be more
+lucky than this one. This makes the seventh year I've tried to get a
+moose; and the odd trick has gone against me every time."
+
+He tossed away the end of his cigar, which made a little trail of sparks
+as it rolled along the sopping platform, and turned to look in through
+the window of the ticket office. Something in the agent's attitude of
+literary absorption aggravated him. He went round to the door and opened
+it.
+
+"Don't you know or care when this train is coming?"
+
+"Nope," said the man placidly.
+
+"Well, when? What's the matter with her? When is she due?"
+
+"Doo twenty minits ago," said the man. "Forty minits late down to
+Moocastle. Git here quatter to three, ef nothin' more happens."
+
+"But what has happened? What's wrong with the beastly old road, anyhow?"
+
+"Freight car skipped the track," said the man, "up to Charlo. Everythin'
+hung up an' kinder goin' slow till they git the line clear. Dunno
+nothin' more."
+
+With this conclusive statement the agent seemed to disclaim all
+responsibility for the future of impatient travelers, and dropped his
+mind back into the magazine again. Hemenway lit another cigar and went
+into the baggage room to smoke with the expressman. It was nearly three
+o'clock when they heard the far-off shriek of the whistle sounding up
+from the south; then, after an interval, the puffing of the engine on
+the upgrade; then the faint ringing of the rails, the increasing clatter
+of the train, and the blazing headlight of the locomotive swept slowly
+through the darkness, past the platform. The engineer was leaning on one
+arm, with his head out of the cab window, and Hemenway nodded as he
+passed and hurried into the ticket office, where the ticktack of a
+conversation by telegraph was soon under way. The black porter of the
+Pullman car was looking out from the vestibule, and when he saw Hemenway
+his sleepy face broadened into a grin reminiscent of many generous tips.
+
+"Howdy, Mr. Hennigray," he cried; "glad to see yo' ag'in, sah! I got yo'
+section all right, sah! Lemme take yo' things, sah! Train gwine to stop
+hy'eh fo' some time yet, I reckon."
+
+"Well, Charles," said Hemenway, "you take my things and put them in the
+car. Careful with that gun now! The Lord only knows how much time this
+train's going to lose. I'm going ahead to see the engineer."
+
+Angus McLeod was a grizzle-bearded Scotchman who had run a locomotive on
+the Intercolonial ever since the road was cut through the woods from New
+Brunswick to Quebec. Every one who traveled often on that line knew him,
+and all who knew him well enough to get below his rough crust, liked
+him for his big heart.
+
+"Hallo, McLeod," said Hemenway as he came up through the darkness, "is
+that you?"
+
+"It's nane else," answered the engineer as he stepped down from his cab
+and shook hands warmly. "Hoo are ye, Dud, an' whaur hae ye been
+murderin' the innocent beasties noo? Hae ye kilt yer moose yet? Ye've
+been chasin' him these mony years."
+
+"Not much murdering," replied Hemenway. "I had a queer trip this
+time--away up the Nepisiguit, with old McDonald. You know him, don't
+you?"
+
+"Fine do I ken Rob McDonald, an' a guid mon he is. Hoo was it that ye
+couldna slaughter stacks o' moose wi' him to help ye? Did ye see nane at
+all?"
+
+"Plenty, and one with the biggest horns in the world! But that's a long
+story, and there's no time to tell it now."
+
+"Time to burrn, Dud, nae fear o' it! 'Twill be an hour afore the line's
+clear to Charlo an' they lat us oot o' this. Come awa' up into the cab,
+mon, an' tell us yer tale. 'Tis couthy an' warm in the cab, an' I'm
+willin' to leesten to yer bluidy advaintures."
+
+So the two men clambered up into the engineer's seat. Hemenway gave
+McLeod his longest and strongest cigar, and filled his own briar-wood
+pipe. The rain was now pattering gently on the roof of the cab. The
+engine hissed and sizzled patiently in the darkness. The fragrant smoke
+curled steadily from the glowing tip of the cigar; but the pipe went out
+half a dozen times while Hemenway was telling the story of Silverhorns.
+
+"We went up the river to the big rock, just below Indian Falls. There we
+made our main camp, intending to hunt on Forty-two Mile Brook. There's
+quite a snarl of ponds and bogs at the head of it, and some burned hills
+over to the west, and it's very good moose country.
+
+"But some other party had been there before us, and we saw nothing on
+the ponds, except two cow moose and a calf. Coming out the next morning
+we got a fine deer on the old wood road--a beautiful head. But I have
+plenty of deer heads already."
+
+"Bonny creature!" said McLeod. "An' what did ye do wi' it, when ye had
+murdered it?"
+
+"Ate it, of course. I gave the head to Billy Boucher, the cook. He said
+he could get ten dollars for it. The next evening we went to one of the
+ponds again, and Injun Pete tried to 'call' a moose for me. But it was
+no good. McDonald was disgusted with Pete's calling; said it sounded
+like the bray of a wild ass of the wilderness. So the next day we gave
+up calling and traveled the woods over toward the burned hills.
+
+"In the afternoon McDonald found an enormous moose-track; he thought it
+looked like a bull's track, though he wasn't quite positive. But then,
+you know, a Scotchman never likes to commit himself, except about
+theology or politics."
+
+"Humph!" grunted McLeod in the darkness, showing that the strike had
+counted.
+
+"Well, we went on, following that track through the woods, for an hour
+or two. It was a terrible country, I tell you: tamarack swamps, and
+spruce thickets, and windfalls, and all kinds of misery. Presently we
+came out on a bare rock on the burned hillside, and there, across a
+ravine, we could see the animal lying down, just below the trunk of a
+big dead spruce that had fallen. The beast's head and neck were hidden
+by some bushes, but the fore shoulder and side were in clear view, about
+two hundred and fifty yards away. McDonald seemed to be inclined to
+think that it was a bull and that I ought to shoot. So I shot, and
+knocked splinters out of the spruce log. We could see them fly. The
+animal got up quickly, and looked at us for a moment, shaking her long
+ears; then the huge unmitigated cow vamoosed into the brush. McDonald
+remarked that it was 'a varra fortunate shot, almaist providaintial!'
+And so it was; for if it had gone six inches lower, and the news gotten
+out at Bathurst, it would have cost me a fine of two hundred dollars."
+
+"Ye did weel, Dud," puffed McLeod; "varra weel indeed--for the coo!"
+
+"After that," continued Hemenway, "of course my nerve was a little
+shaken, and we went back to the main camp on the river, to rest over
+Sunday. That was all right, wasn't it, Mac!"
+
+"Aye!" replied McLeod, who was a strict member of the Presbyterian
+church at Moncton. "That was surely a varra safe thing to do. Even a
+hunter, I'm thinkin', wouldna like to be breakin' twa commandments in
+the ane day--the foorth and the saxth!"
+
+"Perhaps not. It's enough to break one, as you do once a fortnight when
+you run your train into Rivičre du Loup Sunday morning. How's that, you
+old Calvinist?"
+
+"Dudley, ma son," said the engineer, "dinna airgue a point that ye canna
+understond. There's guid an' suffeecient reasons for the train. But
+ye'll ne'er be claimin' that moose huntin' is a wark o' necessity or
+maircy?"
+
+"No, no, of course not; but then, you see, barring Sundays, we felt that
+it was necessary to do all we could to get a moose, just for the sake of
+our reputations. Billy, the cook, was particularly strong about it. He
+said that an old woman in Bathurst, a kind of fortune teller, had told
+him that he was going to have 'la bonne chance' on this trip. He wanted
+to try his own mouth at 'calling.' He had never really done it before.
+But he had been practicing all winter in imitation of a tame cow moose
+that Johnny Moreau had, and he thought he could make the sound 'b'en
+bon.' So he got the birch-bark horn and gave us a sample of his skill.
+McDonald told me privately that it was 'nae sa bad; a deal better than
+Pete's feckless bellow.' We agreed to leave the Indian to keep the camp
+(after locking up the whisky flask in my bag), and take Billy with us on
+Monday to 'call' at Hogan's Pond.
+
+"It's a small bit of water, about three quarters of a mile long and four
+hundred yards across, and four miles back from the river. There is no
+trail to it, but a blazed line runs part of the way, and for the rest
+you follow up the little brook that runs out of the pond. We stuck up
+our shelter in a hollow on the brook, half a mile below the pond, so
+that the smoke of our fire would not drift over the hunting ground, and
+waited till five o'clock in the afternoon. Then we went up to the pond,
+and took our position in a clump of birch trees on the edge of the open
+meadow that runs round the east shore. Just at dark Billy began to call,
+and it was beautiful. You know how it goes. Three short grunts, and then
+a long ooooo-aaaa-ooooh, winding up with another grunt! It sounded
+lonelier than a love-sick hippopotamus on the house top. It rolled and
+echoed over the hills as if it would wake the dead.
+
+"There was a fine moon shining, nearly full, and a few clouds floating
+by. Billy called, and called, and called again. The air grew colder and
+colder; light frost on the meadow grass; our teeth were chattering,
+fingers numb.
+
+"Then we heard a bull give a short bawl, away off to the southward.
+Presently we could hear his horns knock against the trees, far up on
+the hill. McDonald whispered, 'He's comin',' and Billy gave another
+call.
+
+"But it was another bull that answered, back of the north end of the
+pond, and pretty soon we could hear him rapping along through the woods.
+Then everything was still. 'Call agen,' says McDonald, and Billy called
+again.
+
+"This time the bawl came from another bull, on top of the western hill,
+straight across the pond. It seemed to start up the other two bulls, and
+we could hear all three of them thrashing along, as fast as they could
+come, towards the pond. 'Call agen, a wee one,' says McDonald, trembling
+with joy. And Billy called a little seducing call, with two grunts at
+the end.
+
+"Well, sir, at that, a cow and a calf came rushing down through the
+brush not two hundred yards away from us, and the three bulls went
+splash into the water, one at the south end, one at the north end, and
+one on the west shore. 'Land,' whispers McDonald, 'it's a meenadgerie!'"
+
+"Dud," said the engineer, getting down to open the furnace door a crack,
+"this is mair than murder ye're comin' at; it's a buitchery--or else
+it's juist a pack o' lees."
+
+"I give you my word," said Hemenway, "it's all true as the catechism.
+But let me go on. The cow and the calf only stayed in the water a few
+minutes, and then ran back through the woods. But the three bulls went
+sloshing around in the pond as if they were looking for something. We
+could hear them, but we could not see any of them, for the sky had
+clouded up, and they kept far away from us. Billy tried another short
+call, but they did not come any nearer. McDonald whispered that he
+thought the one in the south end might be the biggest, and he might be
+feeding, and the two others might be young bulls, and they might be
+keeping away because they were afraid of the big one. This seemed
+reasonable; and I said that I was going to crawl around the meadow to
+the south end. 'Keep near a tree,' says Mac; and I started.
+
+"There was a deep trail, worn by animals, through the high grass; and in
+this I crept along on my hands and knees. It was very wet and muddy. My
+boots were full of cold water. After ten minutes I came to a little
+point running out into the pond, and one young birch growing on it.
+Under this I crawled, and rising up on my knees looked over the top of
+the grass and bushes.
+
+"There, in a shallow bay, standing knee-deep in the water, and rooting
+up the lily stems with his long, pendulous nose, was the biggest and
+blackest bull moose in the world. As he pulled the roots from the mud
+and tossed up his dripping head I could see his horns--four and a half
+feet across, if they were an inch, and the palms shining like tea trays
+in the moonlight. I tell you, old Silverhorns was the most beautiful
+monster I ever saw.
+
+"But he was too far away to shoot by that dim light, so I left my birch
+tree and crawled along toward the edge of the bay. A breath of wind must
+have blown across me to him, for he lifted his head, sniffed, grunted,
+came out of the water, and began to trot slowly along the trail which
+led past me. I knelt on one knee and tried to take aim. A black cloud
+came over the moon. I couldn't see either of the sights on the gun. But
+when the bull came opposite to me, about fifty yards off, I blazed away
+at a venture.
+
+"He reared straight up on his hind legs--it looked as if he rose fifty
+feet in the air--wheeled, and went walloping along the trail, around the
+south end of the pond. In a minute he was lost in the woods. Good-by,
+Silverhorns!"
+
+"Ye tell it weel," said McLeod, reaching out for a fresh cigar. "Fegs!
+Ah doot Sir Walter himsel' couldna impruve upon it. An, sae thot's the
+way ye didna murder puir Seelverhorrns? It's a tale I'm joyfu' to be
+hearin'."
+
+"Wait a bit," Hemenway answered. "That's not the end, by a long shot.
+There's worse to follow. The next morning we returned to the pond at
+day-break, for McDonald thought I might have wounded the moose. We
+searched the bushes and the woods where he went out very carefully,
+looking for drops of blood on his trail."
+
+"Bluid!" groaned the engineer. "Hech, mon, wouldna that come nigh to
+mak' ye greet, to find the beast's red bluid splashed over the leaves,
+and think o' him staggerin' on thro' the forest, drippin' the heart oot
+o' him wi' every step?"
+
+"But we didn't find any blood, you old sentimentalist. That shot in the
+dark was a clear miss. We followed the trail by broken bushes and
+footprints, for half a mile, and then came back to the pond and turned
+to go down through the edge of the woods to the camp.
+
+"It was just after sunrise. I was walking a few yards ahead, McDonald
+next, and Billy last. Suddenly he looked around to the left, gave a low
+whistle and dropped to the ground, pointing northward. Away at the head
+of the pond, beyond the glitter of the sun on the water, the big
+blackness of Silverhorns' head and body was pushing through the bushes,
+dripping with dew.
+
+"Each of us flopped down behind the nearest shrub as if we had been
+playing squat tag. Billy had the birch-bark horn with him, and he gave a
+low, short call. Silverhorns heard it, turned, and came parading slowly
+down the western shore, now on the sand beach, now splashing through the
+shallow water. We could see every motion and hear every sound. He
+marched along as if he owned the earth, swinging his huge head from side
+to side and grunting at each step.
+
+"You see, we were just in the edge of the woods, strung along the south
+end of the pond, Billy nearest the west shore, where the moose was
+walking, McDonald next, and I last, perhaps fifteen yards farther to
+the east. It was a fool arrangement, but we had no time to think about
+it. McDonald whispered that I should wait until the moose came close to
+us and stopped.
+
+"So I waited. I could see him swagger along the sand and step out around
+the fallen logs. The nearer he came the bigger his horns looked; each
+palm was like an enormous silver fish fork with twenty prongs. Then he
+went out of my sight for a minute as he passed around a little bay in
+the southwest corner, getting nearer and nearer to Billy. But I could
+still hear his steps distinctly--slosh, slosh, slosh--thud, thud, thud
+(the grunting had stopped)--closer came the sound, until it was directly
+behind the dense green branches of a fallen balsam tree, not twenty feet
+away from Billy. Then suddenly the noise ceased. I could hear my own
+heart pounding at my ribs, but nothing else. And of Silverhorns not hair
+nor hide was visible. It looked as if he must be a Boojum, and had the
+power to 'softly and silently vanish away.'
+
+"Billy and Mac were beckoning to me fiercely and pointing to the green
+balsam top. I gripped my rifle and started to creep toward them. A
+little twig, about as thick as the tip of a fishing rod, cracked under
+my knee. There was a terrible crash behind the balsam, a plunging
+through the underbrush and a rattling among the branches, a lumbering
+gallop up the hill through the forest, and Silverhorns was gone into the
+invisible.
+
+"He had stopped behind the tree because he smelled the grease on
+Billy's boots. As he stood there, hesitating, Billy and Mac could see
+his shoulder and his side through a gap in the branches--a dead-easy
+shot. But so far as I was concerned, he might as well have been in
+Alaska. I told you that the way we had placed ourselves was a fool
+arrangement. But McDonald would not say anything about it, except to
+express his conviction that it was not predestinated we should get that
+moose."
+
+"Ah dinna ken ould Rob had sae much theology aboot him," commented
+McLeod. "But noo I'm thinkin' ye went back to yer main camp, an' lat
+puir Seelverhorrns live oot his life?"
+
+"Not much, did we! For now we knew that he wasn't badly frightened by
+the adventure of the night before, and that we might get another chance
+at him. In the afternoon it began to rain; and it poured for forty-eight
+hours. We covered in our shelter before a smoky fire, and lived on short
+rations of crackers and dried prunes--it was a hungry time."
+
+"But wasna there slathers o' food at the main camp? Ony fule wad ken
+enough to gae doon to the river an' tak' a guid fill-up."
+
+"But that wasn't what we wanted. It was Silverhorns. Billy and I made
+McDonald stay, and Thursday afternoon, when the clouds broke away, we
+went back to the pond to have a last try at turning our luck.
+
+"This time we took our positions with great care, among some small
+spruces on a joint that ran out from the southern meadow. I was farthest
+to the west; McDonald (who had also brought his gun) was next; Billy,
+with the horn, was farthest away from the point where he thought the
+moose would come out. So Billy began to call, very beautifully. The long
+echoes went bellowing over the hills. The afternoon was still and the
+setting sun shone through a light mist, like a ball of red gold.
+
+"Fifteen minutes after sundown Silverhorns gave a loud bawl from the
+western ridge and came crashing down the hill. He cleared the bushes two
+or three hundred yards to our left with a leap, rushed into the pond,
+and came wading around the south shore toward us. The bank here was
+rather high, perhaps four feet above the water, and the mud below it was
+deep, so that the moose sank in to his knees. I give you my word, as he
+came along there was nothing visible to Mac and me except his ears and
+his horns. Everything else was hidden below the bank.
+
+"There were we behind our little spruce trees. And there was
+Silverhorns, standing still now, right in front of us. And all that Mac
+and I could see were those big ears and those magnificent antlers,
+appearing and disappearing as he lifted and lowered his head. It was a
+fearful situation. And there was Billy, with his birch-bark hooter,
+forty yards below us--he could see the moose perfectly.
+
+"I looked at Mac, and he looked at me. He whispered something about
+predestination. Then Billy lifted his horn and made ready to give a
+little soft grunt, to see if the moose wouldn't move along a bit, just
+to oblige us. But as Billy drew in his breath, one of those fool flies
+that are always blundering around a man's face flew straight down his
+throat. Instead of a call he burst out with a furious, strangling fit of
+coughing. The moose gave a snort, and a wild leap in the water, and
+galloped away under the bank, the way he had come. Mac and I both fired
+at his vanishing ears and horns, but of course----"
+
+"All Aboooard!" The conductor's shout rang along the platform.
+
+"Line's clear," exclaimed McLeod, rising. "Noo we'll be off! Wull ye
+stay here wi' me, or gang awa' back to yer bed?"
+
+"Here," answered Hemenway, not budging from his place on the bench.
+
+The bell clanged, and the powerful machine puffed out on its flaring way
+through the night. Faster and faster came the big explosive breaths,
+until they blended in a long steady roar, and the train was sweeping
+northward at forty miles an hour. The clouds had broken; the night had
+grown colder; the gibbous moon gleamed over the vast and solitary
+landscape. It was a different thing to Hemenway, riding in the cab of
+the locomotive, from an ordinary journey in the passenger car or an
+unconscious ride in the sleeper. Here he was on the crest of motion, at
+the forefront of speed, and the quivering engine with the long train
+behind it seemed like a living creature leaping along the track. It
+responded to the labor of the fireman and the touch of the engineer
+almost as if it could think and feel. Its pace quickened without a jar;
+its great eye pierced the silvery space of moonlight with a shaft of
+blazing yellow; the rails sang before it and trembled behind it; it was
+an obedient and joyful monster, conquering distance and devouring
+darkness.
+
+On the wide level barrens beyond the Tęte-á-Gouche River the locomotive
+reached its best speed, purring like a huge cat and running smoothly.
+McLeod leaned back on his bench with a satisfied air.
+
+"She's doin' fine, the nicht," said he. "Ah'm thinkin', whiles, o' yer
+auld Seelverhorrns. Whaur is he noo? Awa' up on Higan' Pond, gallantin'
+around i' the licht o' the mune wi' a lady moose, an' the gladness juist
+bubblin' in his hairt. Ye're no sorry that he's leevin' yet, are ye,
+Dud?"
+
+"Well," answered Hemenway slowly, between the puffs of his pipe, "I
+can't say I'm sorry that he's alive and happy, though I'm not glad that
+I lost him. But he did his best, the old rogue; he played a good game,
+and he deserved to win. Where he is now nobody can tell. He was
+traveling like a streak of lightning when I last saw him. By this time
+he may be----"
+
+"What's yon?" cried McLeod, springing up. Far ahead, in the narrow apex
+of the converging rails stood a black form, motionless, mysterious.
+McLeod grasped the whistle cord. The black form loomed higher in the
+moonlight and was clearly silhouetted against the horizon--a big moose
+standing across the track. They could see his grotesque head, his
+shadowy horns, high, sloping shoulders. The engineer pulled the cord.
+The whistle shrieked loud and long.
+
+The moose turned and faced the sound. The glare of the headlight
+fascinated, challenged, angered him. There he stood defiant, front feet
+planted wide apart, head lowered, gazing steadily at the unknown enemy
+that was rushing toward him. He was the monarch of the wilderness. There
+was nothing in the world that he feared, except those strange-smelling
+little beasts on two legs who crept around through the woods and shot
+fire out of sticks. This was surely not one of those treacherous
+animals, but some strange new creature that dared to shriek at him and
+try to drive him out of its way. He would not move. He would try his
+strength against this big yellow-eyed beast.
+
+"Losh!" cried McLeod; "he's gaun' to fecht us!" and he dropped the cord,
+grabbed the levers, and threw the steam off and the brakes on hard. The
+heavy train slid groaning and jarring along the track. The moose never
+stirred. The fire smoldered in his small narrow eyes. His black crest
+was bristling. As the engine bore down upon him, not a rod away, he
+reared high in the air, his antlers flashing in the blaze, and struck
+full at the headlight with his immense fore feet. There was a shattering
+of glass, a crash, a heavy shock, and the train slid on through the
+darkness, lit only by the moon.
+
+Thirty or forty yards beyond, the momentum was exhausted and the engine
+came to a stop. Hemenway and McLeod clambered down and ran back, with
+the other trainmen and a few of the passengers. The moose was lying in
+the ditch beside the track, stone dead and frightfully shattered. But
+the great head and the vast spreading antlers were intact.
+
+"Seelverhorrns, sure enough!" said McLeod, bending over him. "He was
+crossin' frae the Nepisiguit to the Jacquet; but he didna get across.
+Weel, Dud, are ye glad? Ye hae kilt yer first moose!"
+
+"Yes," said Hemenway, "it's my first moose. But it's your first moose,
+too. And I think it's our last. Ye gods, what a fighter!"
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] From _Days Off_. Copyright, 1907, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Used
+by permission of the publishers.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+II.--The Wild-Horse Hunter[2]
+
+_By Zane Grey_
+
+
+I
+
+THREE wild-horse hunters made camp one night beside a little stream in
+the Sevier Valley, five hundred miles, as a crow flies, from Bostil's
+Ford.
+
+These hunters had a poor outfit, excepting, of course, their horses.
+They were young men, rangy in build, lean and hard from life in the
+saddle, bronzed like Indians, still-faced, and keen-eyed. Two of them
+appeared to be tired out, and lagged at the camp-fire duties. When the
+meager meal was prepared they sat, cross-legged, before a ragged
+tarpaulin, eating and drinking in silence.
+
+The sky in the west was rosy, slowly darkening. The valley floor
+billowed away, ridged and cut, growing gray and purple and dark. Walls
+of stone, pink with the last rays of the setting sun, inclosed the
+valley, stretching away toward a long, low, black mountain range.
+
+The place was wild, beautiful, open, with something nameless that made
+the desert different from any other country. It was, perhaps, a
+loneliness of vast stretches of valley and stone, clear to the eye, even
+after sunset. That black mountain range, which looked close enough to
+ride to before dark, was a hundred miles distant.
+
+The shades of night fell swiftly, and it was dark by the time the
+hunters finished the meal. Then the camp fire had burned low. One of the
+three dragged branches of dead cedars and replenished the fire. Quickly
+it flared up, with the white flame and crackle characteristic of dry
+cedar. The night wind had risen, moaning through the gnarled, stunted
+cedars near by, and it blew the fragrant wood smoke into the faces of
+the two hunters, who seemed too tired to move.
+
+"I reckon a pipe would help me make up my mind," said one.
+
+"Wal, Bill," replied the other, dryly, "your mind's made up, else you'd
+not say smoke."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because there ain't three pipefuls of thet precious tobacco left."
+
+"Thet's one apiece, then. . . . Lin, come an' smoke the last pipe with
+us."
+
+The tallest of the three, he who had brought the firewood, stood in the
+bright light of the blaze. He looked the born rider, light, lithe,
+powerful.
+
+"Sure, I'll smoke," he replied.
+
+Then, presently, he accepted the pipe tendered him, and, sitting down
+beside the fire, he composed himself to the enjoyment which his
+companions evidently considered worthy of a decision they had reached.
+
+"So this smokin' means you both want to turn back?" queried Lin, his
+sharp gaze glancing darkly bright in the glow of the fire.
+
+"Yep, we'll turn back. An', Gee! the relief I feel!" replied one.
+
+"We've been long comin' to it, Lin, an' thet was for your sake," replied
+the other.
+
+Lin slowly pulled at his pipe and blew out the smoke as if reluctant to
+part with it. "Let's go on," he said, quietly.
+
+"No. I've had all I want of chasin' thet wild stallion," returned Bill,
+shortly.
+
+The other spread wide his hands and bent an expostulating look upon the
+one called Lin. "We're two hundred miles out," he said. "There's only a
+little flour left in the bag. No coffee! Only a little salt! All the
+hosses except your big Nagger are played out. We're already in strange
+country. An' you know what we've heerd of this an' all to the south.
+It's all caņons, an' somewheres down there is thet awful caņon none of
+our people ever seen. But we've heerd of it. An awful cut-up country."
+
+He finished with a conviction that no one could say a word against the
+common sense of his argument. Lin was silent, as if impressed.
+
+Bill raised a strong, lean, brown hand in a forcible gesture. "We can't
+ketch Wildfire!"
+
+That seemed to him, evidently, a more convincing argument than his
+comrade's.
+
+"Bill is sure right, if I'm wrong, which I ain't," went on the other.
+"Lin, we've trailed thet wild stallion for six weeks. Thet's the longest
+chase he ever had. He's left his old range. He's cut out his band, an'
+left them, one by one. We've tried every trick we know on him. An' he's
+too smart for us. There's a hoss! Why, Lin, we're all but gone to the
+dogs chasin' Wildfire. An' now I'm done, an' I'm glad of it."
+
+There was another short silence, which presently Bill opened his lips to
+break.
+
+"Lin, it makes me sick to quit. I ain't denyin' thet for a long time
+I've had hopes of ketchin' Wildfire. He's the grandest hoss I ever laid
+eyes on. I reckon no man, onless he was an Arab, ever seen as good a
+one. But now thet's neither here nor there. . . . We've got to hit the
+back trail."
+
+"Boys, I reckon I'll stick to Wildfire's tracks," said Lin, in the same
+quiet tone.
+
+Bill swore at him, and the other hunter grew excited and concerned.
+
+"Lin Slone, are you gone plumb crazy over thet red hoss?"
+
+"I--reckon," replied Slone. The working of his throat as he swallowed
+could be plainly seen by his companions.
+
+Bill looked at his ally as if to confirm some sudden understanding
+between them. They took Slone's attitude gravely and they wagged their
+heads doubtfully. . . . It was significant of the nature of riders that
+they accepted his attitude and had consideration for his feelings. For
+them the situation subtly changed. For weeks they had been three
+wild-horse wranglers on a hard chase after a valuable stallion. They had
+failed to get even close to him. They had gone to the limit of their
+endurance and of the outfit, and it was time to turn back. But Slone had
+conceived that strange and rare longing for a horse--a passion
+understood, if not shared, by all riders. And they knew that he would
+catch Wildfire or die in the attempt. From that moment their attitude
+toward Slone changed as subtly as had come the knowledge of his feeling.
+The gravity and gloom left their faces. It seemed they might have
+regretted what they had said about the futility of catching Wildfire.
+They did not want Slone to see or feel the hopelessness of his task.
+
+"I tell you, Lin," said Bill, "your hoss Nagger's as good as when we
+started."
+
+"Aw, he's better," vouchsafed the other rider. "Nagger needed to lose
+some weight. Lin, have you got an extra set of shoes for him?"
+
+"No full set. Only three left," replied Lin, soberly.
+
+"Wal, thet's enough. You can keep Nagger shod. An' _mebbe_ thet red
+stallion will get sore feet an' go lame. Then you'd stand a chance."
+
+"But Wildfire keeps travelin' the valleys--the soft ground," said Slone.
+
+"No matter. He's leavin' the country, an' he's bound to strike sandstone
+sooner or later. Then, by gosh! mebbe he'll wear off them hoofs."
+
+"Say, can't he ring bells offen the rocks?" exclaimed Bill.
+
+"Boys, do you think he's leavin' the country?" inquired Slone,
+anxiously.
+
+"Sure he is," replied Bill. "He ain't the first stallion I've chased off
+the Sevier range. An' I know. It's a stallion thet makes for new
+country, when you push him hard."
+
+"Yep, Lin, he's sure leavin'," added the other comrade. "Why, he's
+traveled a bee line for days! I'll bet he's seen us many a time.
+Wildfire's about as smart as any man. He was born wild, an' his dam was
+born wild, an' there you have it. The wildest of all wild creatures--a
+wild stallion, with the intelligence of a man! A grand hoss, Lin, but
+one thet has killed stallions all over the Sevier range. A wild
+stallion thet's a killer! I never liked him for thet. Could he be
+broke?"
+
+"I'll break him," said Lin Slone, grimly. "It's gettin' him thet's the
+job. I've got patience to break a hoss. But patience can't catch a
+streak of lightnin'."
+
+"Nope; you're right," replied Bill. "If you have some luck you'll get
+him--mebbe. If he wears out his feet, or if you crowd him into a narrow
+caņon, or run him into a bad place where he can't get by you. Thet might
+happen. An' then, with Nagger, you stand a chance. Did you ever tire
+thet hoss?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"An' how fur did you ever run him without a break? Why, when we ketched
+thet sorrel last year I rode Nagger myself--thirty miles, most at a hard
+gallop. An' he never turned a hair!"
+
+"I've beat thet," replied Lin. "He could run hard fifty miles--mebbe
+more. Honestly, I never seen him tired yet. If only he was fast!"
+
+"Wal, Nagger ain't so slow, come to think of thet," replied Bill, with a
+grunt. "He's good enough for you not to want another hoss."
+
+"Lin, you're goin' to wear out Wildfire, an' then trap him somehow--is
+thet the plan?" asked the other comrade.
+
+"I haven't any plan. I'll just trail him, like a cougar trails a deer."
+
+"Lin, if Wildfire gives you the slip he'll have to fly. You've got the
+best eyes for tracks of any wrangler in Utah."
+
+Slone accepted the compliment with a fleeting, doubtful smile on his
+dark face. He did not reply, and no more was said by his comrades. They
+rolled with backs to the fire. Slone put on more wood, for the keen wind
+was cold and cutting; and then he lay down, his head on his saddle, with
+a goatskin under him and a saddle blanket over him.
+
+All three were soon asleep. The wind whipped the sand and ashes and
+smoke over the sleepers. Coyotes barked from near in darkness, and from
+the valley ridge came the faint mourn of a hunting wolf. The desert
+night grew darker and colder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Stewart brothers were wild-horse hunters for the sake of trades and
+occasional sales. But Lin Slone never traded nor sold a horse he had
+captured. The excitement of the game, and the lure of the desert, and
+the love of a horse were what kept him at the profitless work. His type
+was rare in the uplands.
+
+These were the early days of the settlement of Utah, and only a few of
+the hardiest and most adventurous pioneers had penetrated the desert in
+the southern part of that vast upland. And with them came some of that
+wild breed of riders to which Slone and the Stewarts belonged. Horses
+were really more important and necessary than men; and this singular
+fact gave these lonely riders a calling.
+
+Before the Spaniards came there were no horses in the West. Those
+explorers left or lost horses all over the southwest. Many of them were
+Arabian horses of purest blood. American explorers and travelers, at the
+outset of the nineteenth century, encountered countless droves of wild
+horses all over the plains. Across the Grand Caņon, however, wild horses
+were comparatively few in number in the early days; and these had
+probably come in by way of California.
+
+The Stewarts and Slone had no established mode of catching wild horses.
+The game had not developed fast enough for that. Every chase of horse or
+drove was different; and once in many attempts they met with success.
+
+A favorite method originated by the Stewarts was to find a water hole
+frequented by the band of horses or the stallion wanted, and to build
+round this hole a corral with an opening for the horses to get in. Then
+the hunters would watch the trap at night, and if the horses went in to
+drink, a gate was closed across the opening.
+
+Another method of the Stewarts was to trail a coveted horse up on a mesa
+or highland, places which seldom had more than one trail of ascent and
+descent, and there block the escape, and cut lines of cedars, into which
+the quarry was run till captured. Still another method, discovered by
+accident, was to shoot a horse lightly in the neck and sting him. This
+last, called creasing, was seldom successful, and for that matter in
+any method ten times as many horses were killed as captured.
+
+Lin Slone helped the Stewarts in their own way, but he had no especial
+liking for their tricks. Perhaps a few remarkable captures of remarkable
+horses had spoiled Slone. He was always trying what the brothers claimed
+to be impossible. He was a fearless rider, but he had the fault of
+saving his mount, and to kill a wild horse was a tragedy for him. He
+would much rather have hunted alone, and he had been alone on the trail
+of the stallion Wildfire when the Stewarts had joined him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lin Slone awoke next morning and rolled out of his blanket at his usual
+early hour. But he was not early enough to say good-by to the Stewarts.
+They were gone.
+
+The fact surprised him and somehow relieved him. They had left him more
+than his share of the outfit, and perhaps that was why they had slipped
+off before dawn. They knew him well enough to know that he would not
+have accepted it. Besides, perhaps they felt a little humiliation at
+abandoning a chase which he chose to keep up. Anyway, they were gone,
+apparently without breakfast.
+
+The morning was clear, cool, with the air dark like that before a storm,
+and in the east, over the steely wall of stone, shone a redness growing
+brighter.
+
+Slone looked away to the west, down the trail taken by his comrades,
+but he saw nothing moving against that cedar-dotted waste.
+
+"Good-by," he said, and he spoke as if he was saying good-by to more
+than comrades.
+
+"I reckon I won't see Sevier Village soon again--an' maybe never," he
+soliloquized.
+
+There was no one to regret him, unless it was old Mother Hall, who had
+been kind to him on those rare occasions when he got out of the
+wilderness. Still, it was with regret that he gazed away across the red
+valley to the west. Slone had no home. His father and mother had been
+lost in the massacre of a wagon train by Indians, and he had been one of
+the few saved and brought to Salt Lake. That had happened when he was
+ten years old. His life thereafter had been hard, and but for his sturdy
+Texas training he might not have survived. The last five years he had
+been a horse hunter in the wild uplands of Nevada and Utah.
+
+Slone turned his attention to the pack of supplies. The Stewarts had
+divided the flour and the parched corn equally, and unless he was
+greatly mistaken they had left him most of the coffee and all of the
+salt.
+
+"Now I hold that decent of Bill an' Abe," said Slone, regretfully. "But
+I could have got along without it better 'n they could."
+
+Then he swiftly set about kindling a fire and getting a meal. In the
+midst of his task a sudden ruddy brightness fell around him. Lin Slone
+paused in his work to look up.
+
+The sun had risen over the eastern wall.
+
+"Ah!" he said, and drew a deep breath.
+
+The cold, steely, darkling sweep of desert had been transformed. It was
+now a world of red earth and gold rocks and purple sage, with everywhere
+the endless straggling green cedars. A breeze whipped in, making the
+fire roar softly. The sun felt warm on his cheek. And at the moment he
+heard the whistle of his horse.
+
+"Good old Nagger!" he said. "I shore won't have to track you this
+mornin'."
+
+Presently he went off into the cedars to find Nagger and the mustang
+that he used to carry a pack. Nagger was grazing in a little open patch
+among the trees, but the pack horse was missing. Slone seemed to know in
+what direction to go to find the trail, for he came upon it very soon.
+The pack horse wore hobbles, but he belonged to the class that could
+cover a great deal of ground when hobbled. Slone did not expect the
+horse to go far, considering that the grass thereabouts was good. But in
+a wild-horse country it was not safe to give any horse a chance. The
+call of his wild brethren was irresistible. Slone, however, found the
+mustang standing quietly in a clump of cedars, and, removing the
+hobbles, he mounted and rode back to camp. Nagger caught sight of him
+and came at his call.
+
+This horse Nagger appeared as unique in his class as Slone was rare
+among riders. Nagger seemed of several colors, though black
+predominated. His coat was shaggy, almost woolly, like that of a sheep.
+He was huge, raw-boned, knotty, long of body and long of leg, with the
+head of a war charger. His build did not suggest speed. There appeared
+to be something slow and ponderous about him, similar to an elephant,
+with the same suggestion of power and endurance.
+
+Slone discarded the pack saddle and bags. The latter were almost empty.
+He roped the tarpaulin on the back of the mustang, and, making a small
+bundle of his few supplies, he tied that to the tarpaulin. His blanket
+he used for a saddle blanket on Nagger. Of the utensils left by the
+Stewarts he chose a couple of small iron pans, with long handles. The
+rest he left. In his saddle bags he had a few extra horseshoes, some
+nails, bullets for his rifle, and a knife with a heavy blade.
+
+"Not a rich outfit for a far country," he mused. Slone did not talk very
+much, and when he did he addressed Nagger and himself simultaneously.
+Evidently he expected a long chase, one from which he would not return,
+and light as his outfit was it would grow too heavy.
+
+Then he mounted and rode down the gradual slope, facing the valley and
+the black, bold, flat mountain to the southeast. Some few hundred yards
+from camp he halted Nagger and bent over in the saddle to scrutinize
+the ground.
+
+The clean-cut track of a horse showed in the bare, hard sand. The hoof
+marks were large, almost oval, perfect in shape, and manifestly they
+were beautiful to Lin Slone. He gazed at them for a long time, and then
+he looked across the dotted red valley up to the vast ridgy steppes,
+toward the black plateau and beyond. It was the look that an Indian
+gives to a strange country. Then Slone slipped off the saddle and knelt
+to scrutinize the horse tracks. A little sand had blown into the
+depressions, and some of it was wet and some of it was dry. He took his
+time about examining it, and he even tried gently blowing other sand
+into the tracks, to compare that with what was already there. Finally he
+stood up and addressed Nagger.
+
+"Reckon we won't have to argue with Abe an' Bill this mornin'," he said,
+with satisfaction. "Wildfire made that track yesterday, before sunup."
+
+Thereupon Slone remounted and put Nagger to a trot. The pack horse
+followed with an alacrity that showed he had no desire for loneliness.
+
+As straight as a bee line Wildfire had left a trail down into the floor
+of the valley. He had not stopped to graze, and he had not looked for
+water. Slone had hoped to find a water hole in one of the deep washes in
+the red earth, but if there had been any water there Wildfire would have
+scented it. He had not had a drink for three days that Slone knew of.
+And Nagger had not drunk for forty hours. Slone had a canvas water bag
+hanging over the pommel, but it was a habit of his to deny himself, as
+far as possible, till his horse could drink also. Like an Indian, Slone
+ate and drank but little.
+
+It took four hours of steady trotting to reach the middle and bottom of
+that wide, flat valley. A network of washes cut up the whole center of
+it, and they were all as dry as bleached bone. To cross these Slone had
+only to keep Wildfire's trail. And it was proof of Nagger's quality that
+he did not have to veer from the stallion's course.
+
+It was hot down in the lowland. The heat struck up, reflected from the
+sand. But it was a March sun, and no more than pleasant to Slone. The
+wind rose, however, and blew dust and sand in the faces of horse and
+rider. Except lizards Slone did not see any living things.
+
+Miles of low greasewood and sparse yellow sage led to the first almost
+imperceptible rise of the valley floor on that side. The distant cedars
+beckoned to Slone. He was not patient, because he was on the trail of
+Wildfire; but, nevertheless, the hours seemed short.
+
+Slone had no past to think about, and the future held nothing except a
+horse, and so his thoughts revolved the possibilities connected with
+this chase of Wildfire. The chase was hopeless in such country as he was
+traversing, and if Wildfire chose to roam around valleys like this one
+Slone would fail utterly. But the stallion had long ago left his band of
+horses, and then, one by one his favorite consorts, and now he was
+alone, headed with unerring instinct for wild, untrammeled ranges. He
+had been used to the pure, cold water and the succulent grass of the
+cold desert uplands. Assuredly he would not tarry in such barren lands
+as these.
+
+For Slone an ever-present and growing fascination lay in Wildfire's
+clear, sharply defined tracks. It was as if every hoof mark told him
+something. Once, far up the interminable ascent, he found on a ridge top
+tracks showing where Wildfire had halted and turned.
+
+"Ha, Nagger!" cried Slone, exultingly. "Look there! He's begun facin'
+about. He's wonderin' if we're still after him. He's worried. . . . But
+we'll keep out of sight--a day behind."
+
+When Slone reached the cedars the sun was low down in the west. He
+looked back across the fifty miles of valley to the colored cliffs and
+walls. He seemed to be above them now, and the cool air, with tang of
+cedar and juniper, strengthened the impression that he had climbed high.
+
+A mile or more ahead of him rose a gray cliff with breaks in it and a
+line of dark cedars or piņons on the level rims. He believed these
+breaks to be the mouths of caņons, and so it turned out. Wildfire's
+trail led into the mouth of a narrow caņon with very steep and high
+walls. Nagger snorted his perception of water, and the mustang whistled.
+Wildfire's tracks led to a point under the wall where a spring gushed
+forth. There were mountain lion and deer tracks also, as well as those
+of smaller game.
+
+Slone made camp here. The mustang was tired. But Nagger, upon taking a
+long drink, rolled in the grass as if he had just begun the trip. After
+eating, Slone took his rifle and went out to look for deer. But there
+appeared to be none at hand. He came across many lion tracks, and saw,
+with apprehension, where one had taken Wildfire's trail. Wildfire had
+grazed up the caņon, keeping on and on, and he was likely to go miles in
+a night. Slone reflected that as small as were his own chances of
+getting Wildfire, they were still better than those of a mountain lion.
+Wildfire was the most cunning of all animals--a wild stallion; his speed
+and endurance were incomparable; his scent as keen as those animals that
+relied wholly upon scent to warn them of danger; and as for sight, it
+was Slone's belief that no hoofed creature, except the mountain sheep
+used to high altitudes, could see as far as a wild horse.
+
+It bothered Slone a little that he was getting into a lion country.
+Nagger showed nervousness, something unusual for him. Slone tied both
+horses with long halters and stationed them on patches of thick grass.
+Then he put a cedar stump on the fire and went to sleep. Upon awakening
+and going to the spring he was somewhat chagrined to see that deer had
+come down to drink early. Evidently they were numerous. A lion country
+was always a deer country, for the lions followed the deer.
+
+Slone was packed and saddled and on his way before the sun reddened the
+caņon wall. He walked the horses. From time to time he saw signs of
+Wildfire's consistent progress. The caņon narrowed and the walls grew
+lower and the grass increased. There was a decided ascent all the time.
+Slone could find no evidence that the caņon had ever been traveled by
+hunters or Indians. The day was pleasant and warm and still. Every once
+in a while a little breath of wind would bring a fragrance of cedar and
+piņon, and a sweet hint of pine and sage. At every turn he looked ahead,
+expecting to see the green of pine and the gray of sage. Toward the
+middle of the afternoon, coming to a place where Wildfire had taken to a
+trot, he put Nagger to that gait, and by sundown had worked up to where
+the caņon was only a shallow ravine. And finally it turned once more, to
+lose itself in a level where straggling pines stood high above the
+cedars, and great, dark-green silver spruces stood above the pines. And
+here were patches of sage, fresh and pungent, and long reaches of
+bleached grass. It was the edge of a forest. Wildfire's trail went on.
+Slone came at length to a group of pines, and here he found the remains
+of a camp fire, and some flint arrow-heads. Indians had been in there,
+probably having come from the opposite direction to Slone's. This
+encouraged him, for where Indians could hunt so could he. Soon he was
+entering a forest where cedars and piņons and pines began to grow
+thickly. Presently he came upon a faintly defined trail, just a dim,
+dark line even to an experienced eye. But it was a trail, and Wildfire
+had taken it.
+
+Slone halted for the night. The air was cold. And the dampness of it
+gave him an idea there were snow banks somewhere not far distant. The
+dew was already heavy on the grass. He hobbled the horses and put a bell
+on Nagger. A bell might frighten lions that had never heard one. Then he
+built a fire and cooked his meal.
+
+It had been long since he had camped high up among the pines. The sough
+of the wind pleased him, like music. There had begun to be prospects of
+pleasant experience along with the toil of chasing Wildfire. He was
+entering new and strange and beautiful country. How far might the chase
+take him? He did not care. He was not sleepy, but even if he had been it
+developed that he must wait till the coyotes ceased their barking round
+his camp fire. They came so close that he saw their gray shadows in the
+gloom. But presently they wearied of yelping at him and went away. After
+that the silence, broken only by the wind as it roared and lulled,
+seemed beautiful to Slone. He lost completely that sense of vague regret
+which had remained with him, and he forgot the Stewarts. And suddenly he
+felt absolutely free, alone, with nothing behind to remember, with wild,
+thrilling, nameless life before him. Just then the long mourn of a
+timber wolf wailed in with the wind. Seldom had he heard the cry of one
+of those night wanderers. There was nothing like it--no sound like it to
+fix in the lone camper's heart the great solitude and the wild.
+
+
+II
+
+In the early morning when all was gray and the big, dark pines were
+shadowy specters, Slone was awakened by the cold. His hands were so numb
+that he had difficulty starting a fire. He stood over the blaze, warming
+them. The air was nipping, clear and thin, and sweet with frosty
+fragrance.
+
+Daylight came while he was in the midst of his morning meal. A white
+frost covered the ground and crackled under his feet as he went out to
+bring in the horses. He saw fresh deer tracks. Then he went back to camp
+for his rifle. Keeping a sharp lookout for game, he continued his search
+for the horses.
+
+The forest was open and parklike. There were no fallen trees or
+evidences of fire. Presently he came to a wide glade in the midst of
+which Nagger and the pack mustang were grazing with a herd of deer. The
+size of the latter amazed Slone. The deer he had hunted back on the
+Sevier range were much smaller than these. Evidently these were mule
+deer, closely allied to the elk. They were so tame they stood facing him
+curiously, with long ears erect. It was sheer murder to kill a deer
+standing and watching like that, but Slone was out of meat and hungry
+and facing a long, hard trip. He shot a buck, which leaped spasmodically
+away, trying to follow the herd, and fell at the edge of the glade.
+Slone cut out a haunch, and then, catching the horses, he returned to
+camp, where he packed and saddled, and at once rode out on the dim
+trail.
+
+The wilderness of the country he was entering was evident in the fact
+that as he passed the glade where he had shot the deer a few minutes
+before, there were coyotes quarreling over the carcass.
+
+Slone could see ahead and on each side several hundred yards, and
+presently he ascertained that the forest floor was not so level as he
+had supposed. He had entered a valley or was traversing a wide, gently
+sloping pass. He went through thickets of juniper, and had to go around
+clumps of quaking asp. The pines grew larger and farther apart. Cedars
+and piņons had been left behind, and he had met with no silver spruces
+after leaving camp. Probably that point was the height of a divide.
+There were banks of snow in some of the hollows on the north side.
+Evidently the snow had very recently melted, and it was evident also
+that the depth of snow through here had been fully ten feet, judging
+from the mutilation of the juniper trees where the deer, standing on the
+hard, frozen crust, had browsed upon the branches.
+
+The quiet of the forest thrilled Slone. And the only movement was the
+occasional gray flash of a deer or coyote across a glade. No birds of
+any species crossed Slone's sight. He came, presently, upon a lion track
+in the trail, made probably a day before. Slone grew curious about it,
+seeing how it held, as he was holding, to Wildfire's tracks. After a
+mile or so he made sure the lion had been trailing the stallion, and for
+a second he felt a cold contraction of his heart. Already he loved
+Wildfire, and by virtue of all this toil of travel considered the wild
+horse his property.
+
+"No lion could ever get close to Wildfire," he soliloquized, with a
+short laugh. Of that he was absolutely certain.
+
+The sun rose, melting the frost, and a breath of warm air, laden with
+the scent of pine, moved heavily under the huge, yellow trees. Slone
+passed a point where the remains of an old camp fire and a pile of deer
+antlers were further proof that Indians visited this plateau to hunt.
+From this camp broader, more deeply defined trails led away to the south
+and east. Slone kept to the east trail, in which Wildfire's tracks and
+those of the lion showed clearly. It was about the middle of the
+forenoon when the tracks of the stallion and lion left the trail to lead
+up a little draw where grass grew thick. Slone followed, reading the
+signs of Wildfire's progress, and the action of his pursuer, as well as
+if he had seen them. Here the stallion had plowed into a snow bank,
+eating a hole two feet deep; then he had grazed around a little; then on
+and on; there his splendid tracks were deep in the soft earth. Slone
+knew what to expect when the track of the lion veered from those of the
+horse, and he followed the lion tracks. The ground was soft from the
+late melting of snow, and Nagger sunk deep. The lion left a plain track.
+Here he stole steadily along; there he left many tracks at a point where
+he might have halted to make sure of his scent. He was circling on the
+trail of the stallion, with cunning intent of ambush. The end of this
+slow, careful stalk of the lion, as told in his tracks, came upon the
+edge of a knoll where he had crouched to watch and wait. From this perch
+he had made a magnificent spring--Slone estimating it to be forty
+feet--but he had missed the stallion. There were Wildfire's tracks
+again, slow and short, and then deep and sharp where in the impetus of
+fright he had sprung out of reach. A second leap of the lion, and then
+lessening bounds, and finally an abrupt turn from Wildfire's trail told
+the futility of that stalk. Slone made certain that Wildfire was so keen
+that as he grazed along he had kept to open ground.
+
+Wildfire had run for a mile, then slowed down to a trot, and he had
+circled to get back to the trail he had left. Slone believed the horse
+was just so intelligent. At any rate, Wildfire struck the trail again,
+and turned at right angles to follow it.
+
+Here the forest floor appeared perfectly level. Patches of snow became
+frequent, and larger as Slone went on. At length the patches closed up,
+and soon extended as far as he could see. It was soft, affording
+difficult travel. Slone crossed hundreds of deer tracks, and the trail
+he was on evidently became a deer runway.
+
+Presently, far down one of the aisles between the great pines Slone saw
+what appeared to be a yellow cliff, far away. It puzzled him. And as he
+went on he received the impression that the forest dropped out of sight
+ahead. Then the trees grew thicker, obstructing his view. Presently the
+trail became soggy and he had to help his horse. The mustang floundered
+in the soft snow and earth. Cedars and piņons appeared again, making
+travel still more laborious.
+
+All at once there came to Slone a strange consciousness of light and
+wind and space and void. On the instant his horse halted with a snort.
+Slone quickly looked up. Had he come to the end of the world? An abyss,
+a caņon, yawned beneath him, beyond all comparison in its greatness. His
+keen eye, educated to desert distance and dimension swept down and
+across, taking in the tremendous truth, before it staggered his
+comprehension. But a second sweeping glance, slower, becoming
+intoxicated with what it beheld, saw gigantic cliff steppes and yellow
+slopes dotted with cedars, leading down to clefts filled with purple
+smoke, and these led on and on to a ragged red world of rock, bare,
+shining, bold, uplifted in mesa, dome, peak, and crag, clear and strange
+in the morning light, still and sleeping like death.
+
+This, then, was the great caņon, which had seemed like a hunter's fable
+rather than truth. Slone's sight dimmed, blurring the spectacle, and he
+found that his eyes had filled with tears. He wiped them away and looked
+again and again, until he was confounded by the vastness and grandeur
+and the vague sadness of the scene. Nothing he had ever looked at had
+affected him like this caņon, although the Stewarts had tried to prepare
+him for it.
+
+It was the horse hunter's passion that reminded him of his pursuit. The
+deer trail led down through a break in the wall. Only a few rods of it
+could be seen. This trail was passable, even though choked with snow.
+But the depth beyond this wall seemed to fascinate Slone and hold him
+back, used as he was to desert trails. Then the clean mark of Wildfire's
+hoof brought back the old thrill.
+
+"This place fits you, Wildfire," muttered Slone, dismounting.
+
+He started down, leading Nagger. The mustang followed. Slone kept to the
+wall side of the trail, fearing the horses might slip. The snow held
+firmly at first and Slone had no trouble. The gap in the rim rock
+widened to a slope thickly grown over with cedars and piņons and
+manzanita. This growth made the descent more laborious, yet afforded
+means at least for Slone to go down with less danger. There was no
+stopping. Once started, the horses had to keep on. Slone saw the
+impossibility of ever climbing out while that snow was there. The trail
+zigzagged down and down. Very soon the yellow wall hung tremendously
+over him, straight up. The snow became thinner and softer. The horses
+began to slip. They slid on their haunches. Fortunately the slope grew
+less steep, and Slone could see below where it reached out to
+comparatively level ground. Still, a mishap might yet occur. Slone kept
+as close to Nagger as possible, helping him whenever he could do it. The
+mustang slipped, rolled over, and then slipped past Slone, went down the
+slope to bring up in a cedar. Slone worked down to him and extricated
+him. Then the huge Nagger began to slide. Snow and loose rock slid with
+him, and so did Slone. The little avalanche stopped of its own accord,
+and then Slone dragged Nagger on down and down, presently to come to the
+end of the steep descent. Slone looked up to see that he had made short
+work of a thousand-foot slope. Here cedars and piņons grew thickly
+enough to make a forest. The snow thinned out to patches, and then
+failed. But the going remained bad for a while as the horses sank deep
+in a soft red earth. This eventually grew more solid and finally dry.
+Slone worked out of the cedars to what appeared a grassy plateau
+inclosed by the great green and white slope with its yellow wall
+overhanging, and distant mesas and cliffs. Here his view was restricted.
+He was down on the first bench of the great caņon. And there was the
+deer trail, a well-worn path keeping to the edge of the slope. Slone
+came to a deep cut in the earth, and the trail headed it, where it began
+at the last descent of the slope. It was the source of a caņon. He
+could look down to see the bare, worn rock, and a hundred yards from
+where he stood the earth was washed from its rims and it began to show
+depth and something of that ragged outline which told of violence of
+flood. The trail headed many caņons like this, all running down across
+this bench, disappearing, dropping invisibly. The trail swung to the
+left under the great slope, and then presently it climbed to a higher
+bench. Here were brush and grass and huge patches of sage, so pungent
+that it stung Slone's nostrils. Then he went down again, this time to
+come to a clear brook lined by willows. Here the horses drank long and
+Slone refreshed himself. The sun had grown hot. There was fragrance of
+flowers he could not see and a low murmur of a waterfall that was
+likewise invisible. For most of the time his view was shut off, but
+occasionally he reached a point where through some break he saw towers
+gleaming red in the sun. A strange place, a place of silence, and smoky
+veils in the distance. Time passed swiftly. Toward the waning of the
+afternoon he began to climb what appeared to be a saddle of land,
+connecting the caņon wall on the left with a great plateau, gold-rimmed
+and pine-fringed, rising more and more in his way as he advanced. At
+sunset Slone was more shut in than for several hours. He could tell the
+time was sunset by the golden light on the cliff wall again overhanging
+him. The slope was gradual up to this pass to the saddle, and upon
+coming to a spring and the first pine trees, he decided to halt for
+camp. The mustang was almost exhausted.
+
+Thereupon he hobbled the horses in the luxuriant grass round the spring,
+and then unrolled his pack. Once as dusk came stealing down, while he
+was eating his meal, Nagger whistled in fright. Slone saw a gray,
+pantherish form gliding away into the shadows. He took a quick shot at
+it, but missed.
+
+"It's a lion country, all right," he said. And then he set about
+building a big fire on the other side of the grassy plot, so as to have
+the horses between fires. He cut all the venison into thin strips, and
+spent an hour roasting them. Then he lay down to rest, and he said:
+"Wonder where Wildfire is to-night? Am I closer to him? Where's he
+headin' for?"
+
+The night was warm and still. It was black near the huge cliff, and
+overhead velvety blue, with stars of white fire. It seemed to him that
+he had become more thoughtful and observing of the aspects of his wild
+environment, and he felt a welcome consciousness of loneliness. Then
+sleep came to him and the night seemed short. In the gray dawn he arose
+refreshed.
+
+The horses were restive. Nagger snorted a welcome. Evidently they had
+passed an uneasy night. Slone found lion tracks at the spring and in
+sandy places. Presently he was on his way up to the notch between the
+great wall and the plateau. A growth of thick scrub oak made travel
+difficult. It had not appeared far up to that saddle, but it was far.
+There were straggling pine trees and huge rocks that obstructed his
+gaze. But once up he saw that the saddle was only a narrow ridge, curved
+to slope up on both sides.
+
+Straight before Slone and under him opened the caņon, blazing and
+glorious along the peaks and ramparts, where the rising sun struck,
+misty and smoky and shadowy down in those mysterious depths.
+
+It took an effort not to keep on gazing. But Slone turned to the grim
+business of his pursuit. The trail he saw leading down had been made by
+Indians. It was used probably once a year by them; and also by wild
+animals, and it was exceedingly steep and rough. Wildfire had paced to
+and fro along the narrow ridge of that saddle, making many tracks,
+before he had headed down again. Slone imagined that the great stallion
+had been daunted by the tremendous chasm, but had finally faced it,
+meaning to put this obstacle between him and his pursuers. It never
+occurred to Slone to attribute less intelligence to Wildfire than that.
+So, dismounting, Slone took Nagger's bridle and started down. The
+mustang with the pack was reluctant. He snorted and whistled and pawed
+the earth. But he would not be left alone, so he followed.
+
+The trail led down under cedars that fringed a precipice. Slone was
+aware of this without looking. He attended only to the trail and to his
+horse. Only an Indian could have picked out that course, and it was
+cruel to put a horse to it. But Nagger was powerful, sure-footed, and
+he would go anywhere that Slone led him. Gradually Slone worked down and
+away from the bulging rim wall. It was hard, rough work, and risky
+because it could not be accomplished slowly. Brush and rocks, loose
+shale and weathered slope, long, dusty inclines of yellow earth, and
+jumbles of stone--these made bad going for miles of slow, zigzag trail
+down out of the cedars. Then the trail entered what appeared to be a
+ravine.
+
+That ravine became a caņon. At its head it was a dry wash, full of
+gravel and rocks. It began to cut deep into the bowels of the earth. It
+shut out sight of the surrounding walls and peaks. Water appeared from
+under a cliff and, augmented by other springs, became a brook. Hot, dry,
+and barren at its beginning, this cleft became cool and shady and
+luxuriant with grass and flowers and amber moss with silver blossoms.
+The rocks had changed color from yellow to deep red. Four hours of
+turning and twisting, endlessly down and down, over bowlders and banks
+and every conceivable roughness of earth and rock, finished the pack
+mustang; and Slone mercifully left him in a long reach of caņon where
+grass and water never failed. In this place Slone halted for the noon
+hour, letting Nagger have his fill of the rich grazing. Nagger's three
+days in grassy upland, despite the continuous travel by day, had
+improved him. He looked fat, and Slone had not yet caught the horse
+resting. Nagger was iron to endure. Here Slone left all the outfit
+except what was on his saddle, and the sack containing the few pounds
+of meat and supplies, and the two utensils. This sack he tied on the
+back of his saddle, and resumed his journey.
+
+Presently he came to a place where Wildfire had doubled on his trail and
+had turned up a side caņon. The climb out was hard on Slone, if not on
+Nagger. Once up, Slone found himself upon a wide, barren plateau of
+glaring red rock and clumps of greasewood and cactus. The plateau was
+miles wide, shut in by great walls and mesas of colored rock. The
+afternoon sun beat down fiercely. A blast of wind, as if from a furnace,
+swept across the plateau, and it was laden with red dust. Slone walked
+here, where he could have ridden. And he made several miles of
+up-and-down progress over this rough plateau. The great walls of the
+opposite side of the caņon loomed appreciably closer. What, Slone
+wondered, was at the bottom of this rent in the earth? The great desert
+river was down there, of course, but he knew nothing of it. Would that
+turn back Wildfire? Slone thought grimly how he had always claimed
+Nagger to be part fish and part bird. Wildfire was not going to escape.
+
+By and by only isolated mescal plants with long, yellow-plumed spears
+broke the bare monotony of the plateau. And Slone passed from red sand
+and gravel to a red, soft shale, and from that to hard, red rock. Here
+Wildfire's tracks were lost, the first time in seven weeks. But Slone
+had his direction down that plateau with the cleavage lines of caņons
+to right and left. At times Slone found a vestige of the old Indian
+trail, and this made him doubly sure of being right. He did not need to
+have Wildfire's tracks. He let Nagger pick the way, and the horse made
+no mistake in finding the line of least resistance. But that grew harder
+and harder. This bare rock, like a file, would soon wear Wildfire's
+hoofs thin. And Slone rejoiced. Perhaps somewhere down in this awful
+chasm he and Nagger would have if out with the stallion. Slone began to
+look far ahead, beginning to believe that he might see Wildfire. Twice
+he had seen Wildfire, but only at a distance. Then he had resembled a
+running streak of fire, whence his name, which Slone had given him.
+
+This bare region of rock began to be cut up into gullies. It was
+necessary to head them or to climb in and out. Miles of travel really
+meant little progress straight ahead. But Slone kept on. He was hot and
+Nagger was hot, and that made hard work easier. Sometimes on the wind
+came a low thunder. Was it a storm or an avalanche slipping or falling
+water? He could not tell. The sound was significant and haunting.
+
+Of one thing he was sure--that he could not have found his back trail.
+But he divined he was never to retrace his steps on this journey. The
+stretch of broken plateau before him grew wilder and bolder of outline,
+darker in color, weirder in aspect and progress across it grew slower,
+more dangerous. There were many places Nagger should not have been put
+to--where a slip meant a broken leg. But Slone could not turn back. And
+something besides an indomitable spirit kept him going. Again the sound
+resembling thunder assailed his ears, louder this time. The plateau
+appeared to be ending in a series of great capes or promontories. Slone
+feared he would soon come out upon a promontory from which he might see
+the impossibility of further travel. He felt relieved down in the
+gullies, where he could not see far. He climbed out of one, presently,
+from which there extended a narrow ledge with a slant too perilous for
+any horse. He stepped out upon that with far less confidence than
+Nagger. To the right was a bulge of low wall, and a few feet to the left
+a dark precipice. The trail here was faintly outlined, and it was six
+inches wide and slanting as well. It seemed endless to Slone, that
+ledge. He looked only down at his feet and listened to Nagger's steps.
+The big horse trod carefully, but naturally, and he did not slip. That
+ledge extended in a long curve, turning slowly away from the precipice,
+and ascending a little at the further end. Slone drew a deep breath of
+relief when he led Nagger up on level rock.
+
+Suddenly a strange yet familiar sound halted Slone, as if he had been
+struck. The wild, shrill, high-pitched, piercing whistle of a stallion!
+Nagger neighed a blast in reply and pounded the rock with his iron-shod
+hoofs. With a thrill Slone looked ahead.
+
+There, some few hundred yards distant, on a promontory, stood a red
+horse.
+
+"It's Wildfire!" breathed Slone, tensely.
+
+He could not believe his sight. He imagined he was dreaming. But as
+Nagger stamped and snorted defiance Slone looked with fixed and keen
+gaze, and knew that beautiful picture was no lie.
+
+Wildfire was as red as fire. His long mane, wild in the wind, was like a
+whipping, black-streaked flame. Silhouetted there against that caņon
+background he seemed gigantic, a demon horse, ready to plunge into fiery
+depths. He was looking back over his shoulder, his head very high, and
+every line of him was instinct with wildness. Again he sent out that
+shrill, air-splitting whistle. Slone understood it to be a clarion call
+to Nagger. If Nagger had been alone Wildfire would have killed him. The
+red stallion was a killer of horses. All over the Utah ranges he had
+left the trail of a murderer. Nagger understood this, too, for he
+whistled back in rage and terror. It took an iron arm to hold him. Then
+Wildfire plunged, apparently down, and vanished from Slone's sight.
+
+Slone hurried onward, to be blocked by a huge crack in the rocky
+plateau. This he had to head. And then another and like obstacle checked
+his haste to reach that promontory. He was forced to go more slowly.
+Wildfire had been close only as to sight. And this was the great caņon
+that dwarfed distance and magnified proximity. Climbing down and up,
+toiling on, he at last learned patience. He had seen Wildfire at close
+range. That was enough. So he plodded on, once more returning to careful
+regard of Nagger. It took an hour of work to reach the point where
+Wildfire had disappeared.
+
+A promontory indeed it was, overhanging a valley a thousand feet below.
+A white torrent of a stream wound through it. There were lines of green
+cottonwoods following the winding course. Then Slone saw Wildfire slowly
+crossing the flat toward the stream. He had gone down that cliff, which
+to Slone looked perpendicular.
+
+Wildfire appeared to be walking lame. Slone, making sure of this,
+suffered a pang. Then, when the significance of such lameness dawned
+upon him he whooped his wild joy and waved his hat. The red stallion
+must have heard, for he looked up. Then he went on again and waded into
+the stream, where he drank long. When he started to cross, the swift
+current drove him back in several places. The water wreathed white
+around him. But evidently it was not deep, and finally he crossed. From
+the other side he looked up again at Nagger and Slone, and, going on, he
+soon was out of sight in the cottonwoods.
+
+"How to get down!" muttered Slone.
+
+There was a break in the cliff wall, a bare stone slant where horses had
+gone down and come up. That was enough for Slone to know. He would have
+attempted the descent if he were sure no other horse but Wildfire had
+ever gone down there. But Slone's hair began to rise stiff on his head.
+A horse like Wildfire, and mountain sheep and Indian ponies, were all
+very different from Nagger. The chances were against Nagger.
+
+"Come on, old boy. If I can do it, you can," he said.
+
+Slone had never seen a trail as perilous as this. He was afraid for his
+horse. A slip there meant death. The way Nagger trembled in every muscle
+showed his feelings. But he never flinched. He would follow Slone
+anywhere, providing Slone rode him or led him. And here, as riding was
+impossible, Slone went before. If the horse slipped there would be a
+double tragedy, for Nagger would knock his master off the cliff. Slone
+set his teeth and stepped down. He did not let Nagger see his fear. He
+was taking the greatest risk he had ever run.
+
+The break in the wall led to a ledge, and the ledge dropped from step to
+step, and these had bare, slippery slants between. Nagger was splendid
+on a bad trail. He had methods peculiar to his huge build and great
+weight. He crashed down over the stone steps, both front hoofs at once.
+The slants he slid down on his haunches with his forelegs stiff and the
+iron shoes scraping. He snorted and heaved and grew wet with sweat. He
+tossed his head at some of the places. But he never hesitated and it was
+impossible for him to go slowly. Whenever Slone came to corrugated
+stretches in the trail he felt grateful. But these were few. The rock
+was like smooth red iron. Slone had never seen such hard rock. It took
+him long to realize that it was marble. His heart seemed a tense,
+painful knot in his breast, as if it could not beat, holding back in the
+strained suspense. But Nagger never jerked on the bridle. He never
+faltered. Many times he slipped, often with both front feet, but never
+with all four feet. So he did not fall. And the red wall began to loom
+above Sloan. Then suddenly he seemed brought to a point where it was
+impossible to descend. It was a round bulge, slanting fearfully, with
+only a few rough surfaces to hold a foot. Wildfire had left a broad,
+clear-swept mark at that place, and red hairs on some of the sharp
+points. He had slid down. Below was an offset that fortunately prevented
+further sliding. Slone started to walk down this place, but when Nagger
+began to slide Slone had to let go the bridle and jump. Both he and the
+horse landed safely. Luck was with them. And they went on, down and
+down, to reach the base of the great wall, scraped and exhausted, wet
+with sweat, but unhurt. As Slone gazed upward he felt the impossibility
+of believing what he knew to be true. He hugged and petted the horse.
+Then he led on to the roaring stream.
+
+It was green water white with foam. Slone waded in and found the water
+cool and shallow and very swift. He had to hold to Nagger to keep from
+being swept downstream. They crossed in safety. There in the sand
+showed Wildfire's tracks. And here were signs of another Indian camp,
+half a year old.
+
+The shade of the cotton woods was pleasant. Slone found this valley
+oppressively hot. There was no wind and the sand blistered his feet
+through his boots. Wildfire held to the Indian trail that had guided him
+down into this wilderness of worn rock. And that trail crossed the
+stream at every turn of the twisting, narrow valley. Slone enjoyed
+getting into the water. He hung his gun over the pommel and let the
+water roll him. A dozen times he and Nagger forded the rushing torrent.
+Then they came to a boxlike closing of the valley to caņon walls, and
+here the trail evidently followed the stream bed. There was no other
+way. Slone waded in, and stumbled, rolled, and floated ahead of the
+sturdy horse. Nagger was wet to his breast, but he did not fall. This
+gulch seemed full of a hollow rushing roar. It opened out into a wide
+valley. And Wildfire's tracks took to the left side and began to climb
+the slope.
+
+Here the traveling was good, considering what had been passed. Once up
+out of the valley floor Slone saw Wildfire far ahead, high on the slope.
+He did not appear to be limping, but he was not going fast. Slone
+watched as he climbed. What and where would be the end of this chase?
+
+Sometimes Wildfire was plain in his sight for a moment, but usually he
+was hidden by rocks. The slope was one great talus, a jumble of
+weathered rock, fallen from what appeared a mountain of red and yellow
+wall. Here the heat of the sun fell upon him like fire. The rocks were
+so hot Slone could not touch them with bare hand. The close of the
+afternoon was approaching, and this slope was interminably long. Still,
+it was not steep, and the trail was good.
+
+At last from the height of slope Wildfire appeared, looking back and
+down. Then he was gone. Slone plodded upward. Long before he reached
+that summit he heard the dull rumble of the river. It grew to be a roar,
+yet it seemed distant. Would the great desert river stop Wildfire in his
+flight? Slone doubted it. He surmounted the ridge, to find the caņon
+opening in a tremendous gap, and to see down, far down, a glittering,
+sun-blasted slope merging into a deep, black gulch where a red river
+swept and chafed and roared.
+
+Somehow the river was what he had expected to see. A force that had cut
+and ground this caņon could have been nothing but a river like that. The
+trail led down, and Slone had no doubt that it crossed the river and led
+up out of the caņon. He wanted to stay there and gaze endlessly and
+listen. At length he began the descent. As he proceeded it seemed that
+the roar of the river lessened. He could not understand why this was so.
+It took half an hour to reach the last level, a ghastly, black, and
+iron-ribbed caņon bed, with the river splitting it. He had not had a
+glimpse of Wildfire on this side of the divide, but he found his tracks,
+and they led down off the last level, through a notch in the black bank
+of marble to a sand bar and the river.
+
+Wildfire had walked straight off the sand into the water. Slone studied
+the river and shore. The water ran slow, heavily, in sluggish eddies.
+From far up the caņon came the roar of a rapid, and from below the roar
+of another, heavier and closer. The river appeared tremendous, in ways
+Slone felt rather than realized, yet it was not swift. Studying the
+black, rough wall of rock above him, he saw marks where the river had
+been sixty feet higher than where he stood on the sand. It was low,
+then. How lucky for him that he had gotten there before flood season! He
+believed Wildfire had crossed easily, and he knew Nagger could make it.
+Then he piled and tied his supplies and weapons high on the saddle, to
+keep them dry, and looked for a place to take to the water.
+
+Wildfire had sunk deep before reaching the edge. Manifestly he had
+lunged the last few feet. Slone found a better place, and waded in,
+urging Nagger. The big horse plunged, almost going under, and began to
+swim. Slone kept upstream beside him. He found, presently, that the
+water was thick and made him tired, so it was necessary to grasp a
+stirrup and be towed. The river appeared only a few hundred feet wide,
+but probably it was wider than it looked. Nagger labored heavily near
+the opposite shore; still, he landed safely upon a rocky bank. There
+were patches of sand in which Wildfire's tracks showed so fresh that
+the water had not yet dried out of them.
+
+Slone rested his horse before attempting to climb out of that split in
+the rock. However, Wildfire had found an easy ascent. On this side of
+the caņon the bare rock did not predominate. A clear trail led up a
+dusty, gravelly slope, upon which scant greasewood and cactus appeared.
+Half an hour's climbing brought Slone to where he could see that he was
+entering a vast valley, sloping up and narrowing to a notch in the dark
+cliffs, above which towered the great red wall and about that the slopes
+of cedar and the yellow rim rock.
+
+And scarcely a mile distant, bright in the westering sunlight, shone the
+red stallion, moving slowly.
+
+Slone pressed on steadily. Just before dark he came to an ideal spot to
+camp. The valley had closed up, so that the lofty walls cast shadows
+that met. A clump of cottonwoods surrounding a spring, abundance of rich
+grass, willows and flowers lining the banks, formed an oasis in the bare
+valley. Slone was tired out from the day of ceaseless toil down and up,
+and he could scarcely keep his eyes open. But he tried to stay awake.
+The dead silence of the valley, the dry fragrance, the dreaming walls,
+the advent of night low down, when up on the ramparts the last red rays
+of the sun lingered, the strange loneliness--these were sweet and
+comforting to him.
+
+And that night's sleep was as a moment. He opened his eyes to see the
+crags and towers and peaks and domes, and the lofty walls of that vast,
+broken chaos of caņons across the river. They were now emerging from the
+misty gray of dawn, growing pink and lilac and purple under the rising
+sun.
+
+He arose and set about his few tasks, which, being soon finished,
+allowed him an early start.
+
+Wildfire had grazed along no more than a mile in the lead. Slone looked
+eagerly up the narrowing caņon, but he was not rewarded by a sight of
+the stallion. As he progressed up a gradually ascending trail he became
+aware of the fact that the notch he had long looked up to was where the
+great red walls closed in and almost met. And the trail zigzagged up
+this narrow vent, so steep that only a few steps could be taken without
+rest. Slone toiled up for an hour--an age--till he was wet, burning,
+choked, with a great weight on his chest. Yet still he was only halfway
+up that awful break between the walls. Sometimes he could have tossed a
+stone down upon a part of the trail, only a few rods below, yet many,
+many weary steps of actual toil. As he got farther up the notch widened.
+What had been scarcely visible from the valley below was now colossal in
+actual dimensions. The trail was like a twisted mile of thread between
+two bulging mountain walls leaning their ledges and fronts over this
+tilted pass.
+
+Slone rested often. Nagger appreciated this and heaved gratefully at
+every halt. In this monotonous toil Slone forgot the zest of his
+pursuit. And when Nagger suddenly snorted in fright Slone was not
+prepared for what he saw.
+
+Above him ran a low, red wall, around which evidently the trail led. At
+the curve, which was a promontory, scarcely a hundred feet in an air
+line above him, he saw something red moving, bobbing, coming out into
+view. It was a horse.
+
+Wildfire--no farther away than the length of three lassos!
+
+There he stood looking down. He fulfilled all of Slone's dreams. Only he
+was bigger. But he was so magnificently proportioned that he did not
+seem heavy. His coat was shaggy and red. It was not glossy. The color
+was what made him shine. His mane was like a crest, mounting, then
+falling low. Slone had never seen so much muscle on a horse. Yet his
+outline was graceful, beautiful. The head was indeed that of the wildest
+of all wild creatures--a stallion born wild--and it was beautiful,
+savage, splendid, everything but noble. Slone thought that if a horse
+could express hate, surely Wildfire did then. It was certain that he did
+express curiosity and fury.
+
+Slone shook a gantleted fist at the stallion, as if the horse were
+human. That was a natural action for a rider of his kind. Wildfire
+turned away, showed bright against the dark background, and then
+disappeared.
+
+
+III
+
+That was the last Slone saw of Wildfire for three days.
+
+It took all of this day to climb out of the caņon. The second was a slow
+march of thirty miles into a scrub cedar and piņon forest, through which
+the great red and yellow walls of the caņon could be seen. That night
+Slone found a water hole in a rocky pocket and a little grass for
+Nagger. The third day's travel consisted of forty miles or more through
+level pine forest, dry and odorous, but lacking the freshness and beauty
+of the forest on the north side of the caņon. On this south side a
+strange feature was that all the water, when there was any, ran away
+from the rim. Slone camped this night at a muddy pond in the woods,
+where Wildfire's tracks showed plainly.
+
+On the following day Slone rode out of the forest into a country of
+scanty cedars, bleached and stunted, and out of this to the edge of a
+plateau, from which the shimmering desert flung its vast and desolate
+distances, forbidding and menacing. This was not the desert upland
+country of Utah, but a naked and bony world of colored rock and sand--a
+painted desert of heat and wind and flying sand and waterless wastes and
+barren ranges. But it did not daunt Slone. For far down on the bare,
+billowing ridges moved a red speck, at a snail's pace, a slowly moving
+dot of color which was Wildfire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On open ground like this, Nagger, carrying two hundred and fifty pounds,
+showed his wonderful quality. He did not mind the heat nor the sand nor
+the glare nor the distance nor his burden. He did not tire. He was an
+engine of tremendous power.
+
+Slone gained upon Wildfire, and toward evening of that day he reached to
+within half a mile of the stallion. And he chose to keep that far
+behind. That night he camped where there was dry grass, but no water.
+
+Next day he followed Wildfire down and down, over the endless swell of
+rolling red ridges, bare of all but bleached white grass and meager
+greasewood, always descending in the face of that painted desert of bold
+and ragged steppes. Slone made fifty miles that day, and gained the
+valley bed, where a slender stream ran thin and spread over a wide sandy
+bottom. It was salty water, but it was welcome to both man and beast.
+
+The following day he crossed, and the tracks of Wildfire were still wet
+on the sand bars. The stallion was slowing down. Slone saw him, limping
+along, not far in advance. There was a ten-mile stretch of level ground,
+blown hard as rock, from which the sustenance had been bleached, for not
+a spear of grass grew there. And following that was a tortuous passage
+through a weird region of clay dunes, blue and violet and heliotrope and
+lavender, all worn smooth by rain and wind. Wildfire favored the soft
+ground now. He had deviated from his straight course. And he was partial
+to washes and dips in the earth where water might have lodged. And he
+was not now scornful of a green-scummed water hole with its white margin
+of alkali. That night Slone made camp with Wildfire in plain sight. The
+stallion stopped when his pursuers stopped. And he began to graze on the
+same stretch with Nagger. How strange this seemed to Slone!
+
+Here at this camp was evidence of Indians. Wildfire had swung round to
+the north in his course. Like any pursued wild animal, he had begun to
+circle. And he had pointed his nose toward the Utah he had left.
+
+Next morning Wildfire was not in sight, but he had left his tracks in
+the sand. Slone trailed him with Nagger at a trot. Toward the head of
+this sandy flat Slone came upon old cornfields, and a broken dam where
+the water had been stored, and well-defined trails leading away to the
+right. Somewhere over there in the desert lived Indians. At this point
+Wildfire abandoned the trail he had followed for many days and cut out
+more to the north. It took all the morning hours to climb three great
+steppes and benches that led up to the summit of a mesa, vast in extent.
+It turned out to be a sandy waste. The wind rose and everywhere were
+moving sheets of sand, and in the distance circular yellow dust devils,
+rising high like water spouts, and back down in the sun-scorched valley
+a sandstorm moved along majestically, burying the desert in its yellow
+pall.
+
+Then two more days of sand and another day of a slowly rising ground
+growing from bare to gray and gray to green, and then to the purple of
+sage and cedar--these three grinding days were toiled out with only one
+water hole.
+
+And Wildfire was lame and in distress and Nagger was growing gaunt and
+showing strain; and Slone, haggard and black and worn, plodded miles and
+miles on foot to save his horse.
+
+Slone felt that it would be futile to put the chase to a test of speed.
+Nagger could never head that stallion. Slone meant to go on and on,
+always pushing Wildfire, keeping him tired, wearied, and worrying him,
+till a section of the country was reached where he could drive Wildfire
+into some kind of a natural trap. The pursuit seemed endless. Wildfire
+kept to open country where he could not be surprised.
+
+There came a morning when Slone climbed to a cedared plateau that rose
+for a whole day's travel, and then split into a labyrinthine maze of
+caņons. There were trees, grass, water. It was a high country, cool and
+wild, like the uplands he had left. For days he camped on Wildfire's
+trail, always relentlessly driving him, always watching for the trap he
+hoped to find. And the red stallion spent much of this time of flight in
+looking backward. Whenever Slone came in sight of him he had his head
+over his shoulder, watching. And on the soft ground of these caņons he
+had begun to recover from his lameness. But this did not worry Slone.
+Sooner or later Wildfire would go down into a high-walled wash, from
+which there would be no outlet; or he would wander into a box caņon; or
+he would climb out on a mesa with no place to descend, unless he passed
+Slone; or he would get cornered on a soft, steep slope where his hoofs
+would sink deep and make him slow. The nature of the desert had changed.
+Slone had entered a wonderful region, the like of which he had not
+seen--a high plateau criss-crossed in every direction by narrow caņons
+with red walls a thousand feet high.
+
+And one of the strange turning caņons opened into a vast valley of
+monuments.
+
+The plateau had weathered and washed away, leaving huge sections of
+stone walls, all standing isolated, different in size and shape, but all
+clean-cut, bold, with straight lines. They stood up everywhere,
+monumental, towering, many-colored, lending a singular and beautiful
+aspect to the great green and gray valley, billowing away to the north,
+where dim, broken battlements mounted to the clouds.
+
+The only living thing in Slone's sight was Wildfire. He shone red down
+on the green slope.
+
+Slone's heart swelled. This was the setting for that grand horse--a
+perfect wild range. But also it seemed the last place where there might
+be any chance to trap the stallion. Still that did not alter Slone's
+purpose, though it lost to him the joy of former hopes. He rode down the
+slope, out upon the billowing floor of the valley. Wildfire looked back
+to see his pursuers, and then the solemn stillness broke to a wild,
+piercing whistle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Day after day, camping where night found him, Slone followed the
+stallion, never losing sight of him till darkness had fallen. The valley
+was immense and the monuments miles apart. But they always seemed close
+together and near him. The air magnified everything. Slone lost track of
+time. The strange, solemn, lonely days and the silent, lonely nights,
+and the endless pursuit, and the wild, weird valley--these completed the
+work of years on Slone and he became satisfied, unthinking, almost
+savage.
+
+The toil and privation had worn him down and he was like iron. His
+garments hung in tatters; his boots were ripped and soleless. Long since
+his flour had been used up, and all his supplies except the salt. He
+lived on the meat of rabbits, but they were scarce, and the time came
+when there were none. Some days he did not eat. Hunger did not make him
+suffer. He killed a desert bird now and then, and once a wildcat
+crossing the valley. Eventually he felt his strength diminishing, and
+then he took to digging out the pack rats and cooking them. But these,
+too, were scarce. At length starvation faced Slone. But he knew he would
+not starve. Many times he had been within rifle shot of Wildfire. And
+the grim, forbidding thought grew upon him that he must kill the
+stallion. The thought seemed involuntary, but his mind rejected it.
+Nevertheless, he knew that if he could not catch the stallion he would
+kill him. That had been the end of many a desperate rider's pursuit of a
+coveted horse.
+
+While Slone kept on his merciless pursuit, never letting Wildfire rest
+by day, time went on just as relentlessly. Spring gave way to early
+summer. The hot sun bleached the grass; water holes failed out in the
+valley, and water could be found only in the caņons; and the dry winds
+began to blow the sand. It was a sandy valley, green and gray only at a
+distance, and out toward the north there were no monuments, and the slow
+heave of sand lifted toward the dim walls.
+
+Wildfire worked away from this open valley, back to the south end, where
+the great monuments loomed, and still farther back, where they grew
+closer, till at length some of them were joined by weathered ridges to
+the walls of the surrounding plateau. For all that Slone could see,
+Wildfire was in perfect condition. But Nagger was not the horse he had
+been. Slone realized that in one way or another the pursuit was
+narrowing down to the end.
+
+He found a water hole at the head of a wash in a split in the walls, and
+here he let Nagger rest and graze one whole day--the first day for a
+long time that he had not kept the red stallion in sight. That day was
+marked by the good fortune of killing a rabbit, and while eating it his
+gloomy, fixed mind admitted that he was starving. He dreaded the next
+sunrise. But he could not hold it back. There, behind the dark
+monuments, standing sentinel-like, the sky lightened and reddened and
+burnt into gold and pink, till out of the golden glare the sun rose
+glorious. And Slone, facing the league-long shadows of the monuments,
+rode out again into the silent, solemn day, on his hopeless quest.
+
+For a change Wildfire had climbed high up a slope of talus, through a
+narrow pass, rounded over with drifting sand. And Slone gazed down into
+a huge amphitheater full of monuments, like all that strange country. A
+basin three miles across lay beneath him. Walls and weathered slants of
+rock and steep slopes of reddish-yellow sand inclosed this oval
+depression. The floor was white, and it seemed to move gently or radiate
+with heat waves. Studying it, Slone made out that the motion was caused
+by wind in long bleached grass. He had crossed small areas of this grass
+in different parts of the region.
+
+Wildfire's tracks led down into this basin, and presently Slone, by
+straining his eyes, made out the red spot that was the stallion.
+
+"He's lookin' to quit the country," soliloquized Slone, as he surveyed
+the scene.
+
+With keen, slow gaze Slone studied the lay of wall and slope, and when
+he had circled the huge depression he made sure that Wildfire could not
+get out except by the narrow pass through which he had gone in. Slone
+sat astride Nagger in the mouth of this pass--a wash a few yards wide,
+walled by broken, rough rock on one side and an insurmountable slope on
+the other.
+
+"If this hole was only little, now," sighed Slone, as he gazed at the
+sweeping, shimmering oval floor, "I might have a chance. But down
+there--we couldn't get near him."
+
+There was no water in that dry bowl. Slone reflected on the uselessness
+of keeping Wildfire down there, because Nagger could not go without
+water as long as Wildfire. For the first time Slone hesitated. It seemed
+merciless to Nagger to drive him down into this hot, windy hole. The
+wind blew from the west, and it swooped up the slope, hot, with the odor
+of dry, dead grass.
+
+But that hot wind stirred Slone with an idea, and suddenly he was tense,
+excited, glowing, yet grim and hard.
+
+"Wildfire, I'll make you run with your namesake in that high grass,"
+called Slone. The speech was full of bitter failure, of regret, of the
+hardness of a rider who could not give up the horse to freedom.
+
+Slone meant to ride down there and fire the long grass. In that wind
+there would indeed be wildfire to race with the red stallion. It would
+perhaps mean his death; at least it would chase him out of that hole,
+where to follow him would be useless.
+
+"I'd make you hump now to get away if I could get behind you," muttered
+Slone. He saw that if he could fire the grass on the other side the wind
+of flame would drive Wildfire straight toward him. The slopes and walls
+narrowed up to the pass, but high grass grew to within a few rods of
+where Slone stood. But it seemed impossible to get behind Wildfire.
+
+"At night--then--I could get round him," said Slone, thinking hard and
+narrowing his gaze to scan the circle of wall and slope. "Why not? . . .
+No wind at night. That grass would burn slow till mornin'--till the wind
+came up--an' it's been west for days."
+
+Suddenly Slone began to pound the patient Nagger and to cry out to him
+in wild exultance.
+
+"Old horse, we've got him! We've got him! We'll put a rope on him before
+this time to-morrow!"
+
+Slone yielded to his strange, wild joy, but it did not last long, soon
+succeeding to sober, keen thought. He rode down into the bowl a mile,
+making absolutely certain that Wildfire could not climb out on that
+side. The far end, beyond the monuments, was a sheer wall of rock. Then
+he crossed to the left side. Here the sandy slope was almost too steep
+for even him to go up. And there was grass that would burn. He returned
+to the pass assured that Wildfire had at last fallen into a trap the
+like Slone had never dreamed of. The great horse was doomed to run into
+living flame or the whirling noose of a lasso.
+
+Then Slone reflected. Nagger had that very morning had his fill of good
+water--the first really satisfying drink for days. If he was rested that
+day, on the morrow he would be fit for the grueling work possibly in
+store for him. Slone unsaddled the horse and turned him loose, and with
+a snort he made down the gentle slope for the grass. Then Slone carried
+his saddle to a shady spot afforded by a slab of rock and a dwarf cedar,
+and here he composed himself to rest and watch and think and wait.
+
+Wildfire was plainly in sight no more than two miles away. Gradually he
+was grazing along toward the monuments and the far end of the great
+basin. Slone believed, because the place was so large, that Wildfire
+thought there was a way out on the other side or over the slopes or
+through the walls. Never before had the farsighted stallion made a
+mistake. Slone suddenly felt the keen, stabbing fear of an outlet
+somewhere. But it left him quickly. He had studied those slopes and
+walls. Wildfire could not get out, except by the pass he had entered,
+unless he could fly.
+
+Slone lay in the shade, his head propped on his saddle, and while gazing
+down into the shimmering hollow he began to plan. He calculated that he
+must be able to carry fire swiftly across the far end of the basin, so
+that he would not be absent long from the mouth of the pass. Fire was
+always a difficult matter, since he must depend only on flint and steel.
+He decided to wait till dark, build a fire with dead cedar sticks, and
+carry a bundle of them with burning ends. He felt assured that the wind
+caused by riding would keep them burning. After he had lighted the grass
+all he had to do was to hurry back to his station and there await
+developments.
+
+The day passed slowly, and it was hot. The heat-waves rose in dark,
+wavering lines and veils from the valley. The wind blew almost a gale.
+Thin, curling sheets of sand blew up over the crests of the slopes, and
+the sound it made was a soft, silken rustling, very low. The sky was a
+steely blue above and copper close over the distant walls.
+
+That afternoon, toward the close, Slone ate the last of the meat. At
+sunset the wind died away and the air cooled. There was a strip of red
+along the wall of rock and on the tips of the monuments, and it lingered
+there for long, a strange, bright crown. Nagger was not far away, but
+Wildfire had disappeared, probably behind one of the monuments.
+
+When twilight fell Slone went down after Nagger and, returning with him,
+put on bridle and saddle. Then he began to search for suitable sticks of
+wood. Farther back in the pass he found stunted dead cedars, and from
+these secured enough for his purpose. He kindled a fire and burned the
+ends of the sticks into red embers. Making a bundle of these, he put
+them under his arm, the dull, glowing ends backward, and then mounted
+his horse.
+
+It was just about dark when he faced down into the valley. When he
+reached level ground he kept to the edge of the left slope and put
+Nagger to a good trot. The grass and brush were scant here, and the
+color of the sand was light, so he had no difficulty in traveling. From
+time to time his horse went through grass, and its dry, crackling
+rustle, showing how it would burn, was music to Slone. Gradually the
+monuments began to loom up, bold and black against the blue sky, with
+stars seemingly hanging close over them. Slone had calculated that the
+basin was smaller than it really was, in both length and breadth. This
+worried him. Wildfire might see or hear or scent him, and make a break
+back to the pass and thus escape. Slone was glad when the huge, dark
+monuments were indistinguishable from the black, frowning wall. He had
+to go slower here, because of the darkness. But at last he reached the
+slow rise of jumbled rock that evidently marked the extent of weathering
+on that side. Here he turned to the right and rode out into the valley.
+The floor was level and thickly overgrown with long, dead grass and dead
+greasewood, as dry as tinder. It was easy to account for the dryness;
+neither snow nor rain had visited that valley for many months. Slone
+whipped one of the sticks in the wind and soon had the smouldering end
+red and showering sparks. Then he dropped the stick in the grass, with
+curious intent and a strange feeling of regret.
+
+Instantly the grass blazed with a little sputtering roar. Nagger
+snorted. "Wildfire!" exclaimed Slone. That word was a favorite one with
+riders, and now Slone used it both to call out his menace to the
+stallion and to express his feeling for that blaze, already running
+wild.
+
+Without looking back, Slone rode across the valley, dropping a glowing
+stick every quarter of a mile. When he reached the other side there were
+a dozen fires behind him, burning slowly, with white smoke rising
+lazily. Then he loped Nagger along the side back to the sandy ascent,
+and on up to the mouth of the pass. There he searched for tracks.
+Wildfire had not gone out, and Slone experienced relief and exultation.
+He took up a position in the middle of the narrowest part of the pass,
+and there, with Nagger ready for anything, he once more composed himself
+to watch and wait.
+
+Far across the darkness of the valley, low down, twelve lines of fire,
+widely separated, crept toward one another. They appeared thin and slow,
+with only an occasional leaping flame. And some of the black spaces must
+have been monuments, blotting out the creeping snail lines of red. Slone
+watched, strangely fascinated.
+
+"What do you think of that?" he said, aloud, and he meant his query for
+Wildfire.
+
+As he watched the lines perceptibly lengthened and brightened and pale
+shadows of smoke began to appear. Over at the left of the valley the two
+brightest fires, the first he had started, crept closer and closer
+together. They seemed long in covering distance. But not a breath of
+wind stirred, and besides they really might move swiftly, without
+looking so to Slone. When the two lines met a sudden and larger blaze
+rose.
+
+"Ah!" said the rider, and then he watched the other lines creeping
+together. How slowly fire moved, he thought. The red stallion would have
+every chance to run between those lines, if he dared. But a wild horse
+fears nothing like fire. This one would not run the gantlet of flames.
+Nevertheless Slone felt more and more relieved as the lines closed. The
+hours of the night dragged past until at length one long, continuous
+line of fire spread level across the valley, its bright, red line broken
+only where the monuments of stone were silhouetted against it.
+
+The darkness of the valley changed. The light of the moon changed. The
+radiance of the stars changed. Either the line of fire was finding
+denser fuel to consume or it was growing appreciably closer, for the
+flames began to grow, to leap, and to flare.
+
+Slone strained his ears for the thud of hoofs on sand.
+
+The time seemed endless in its futility of results, but fleeting after
+it had passed; and he could tell how the hours fled by the
+ever-recurring need to replenish the little fire he kept burning in the
+pass.
+
+A broad belt of valley grew bright in the light, and behind it loomed
+the monuments, weird and dark, with columns of yellow and white smoke
+wreathing them.
+
+Suddenly Slone's sensitive ear vibrated to a thrilling sound. He leaned
+down to place his ear to the sand. Rapid, rhythmic beat of hoofs made
+him leap to his feet, reaching for his lasso with right hand and a gun
+with his left.
+
+Nagger lifted his head, sniffed the air, and snorted. Slone peered into
+the black belt of gloom that lay below him. It would be hard to see a
+horse there, unless he got high enough to be silhouetted against that
+line of fire now flaring to the sky. But he heard the beat of hoofs,
+swift, sharp, louder--louder. The night shadows were deceptive. That
+wonderful light confused him, made the place unreal. Was he dreaming? Or
+had the long chase and his privations unhinged his mind? He reached for
+Nagger. No! The big black was real, alive, quivering, pounding the sand.
+He scented an enemy.
+
+Once more Slone peered down into the void or what seemed a void. But it,
+too, had changed, lightened. The whole valley was brightening. Great
+palls of curling smoke rose white and yellow, to turn back as the
+monuments met their crests, and then to roll upward, blotting out the
+stars. It was such a light as he had never seen, except in dreams. Pale
+moonlight and dimmed starlight and wan dawn all vague and strange and
+shadowy under the wild and vivid light of burning grass.
+
+In the pale path before Slone, that fanlike slope of sand which opened
+down into the valley, appeared a swiftly moving black object, like a
+fleeing phantom. It was a phantom horse. Slone felt that his eyes,
+deceived by his mind, saw racing images. Many a wild chase he had lived
+in dreams on some far desert. But what was that beating in his
+ears--sharp, swift, even, rhythmic? Never had his ears played him false.
+Never had he heard things in his dreams. That running object was a horse
+and he was coming like the wind. Slone felt something grip his heart.
+All the time and endurance and pain and thirst and suspense and longing
+and hopelessness--the agony of the whole endless chase--closed tight on
+his heart in that instant.
+
+The running horse halted just in the belt of light cast by the burning
+grass. There he stood sharply defined, clear as a cameo, not a hundred
+paces from Slone. It was Wildfire.
+
+Slone uttered an involuntary cry. Thrill on thrill shot through him.
+Delight and hope and fear and despair claimed him in swift, successive
+flashes. And then again the ruling passion of a rider held him--the
+sheer glory of a grand and unattainable horse. For Slone gave up
+Wildfire in that splendid moment. How had he ever dared to believe he
+could capture that wild stallion? Slone looked and looked, filling his
+mind, regretting nothing, sure that the moment was reward for all he had
+endured.
+
+The weird lights magnified Wildfire and showed him clearly. He seemed
+gigantic. He shone black against the fire. His head was high, his mane
+flying. Behind him the fire flared and the valley-wide column of smoke
+rolled majestically upward, and the great monuments seemed to retreat
+darkly and mysteriously as the flames advanced beyond them. It was a
+beautiful, unearthly spectacle, with its silence the strangest feature.
+
+But suddenly Wildfire broke that silence with a whistle which to Slone's
+overstrained faculties seemed a blast as piercing as the splitting sound
+of lightning. And with the whistle Wildfire plunged up toward the pass.
+
+Slone yelled at the top of his lungs and fired his gun before he could
+terrorize the stallion and drive him back down the slope. Soon Wildfire
+became again a running black object, and then he disappeared.
+
+The great line of fire had gotten beyond the monuments and now stretched
+unbroken across the valley from wall to slope. Wildfire could never
+pierce that line of flames. And now Slone saw, in the paling sky to the
+east, that dawn was at hand.
+
+
+IV
+
+Slone looked grimly glad when simultaneously with the first red flash of
+sunrise a breeze fanned his cheek. All that was needed now was a west
+wind. And here came the assurance of it.
+
+The valley appeared hazy and smoky, with slow, rolling clouds low down
+where the line of fire moved. The coming of daylight paled the blaze of
+the grass, though here and there Slone caught flickering glimpses of
+dull red flame. The wild stallion kept to the center of the valley,
+restlessly facing this way and that, but never toward the smoke. Slone
+made sure that Wildfire gradually gave ground as the line of smoke
+slowly worked toward him.
+
+Every moment the breeze freshened, grew steadier and stronger, until
+Slone saw that it began to clear the valley of the low-hanging smoke.
+There came a time when once more the blazing line extended across from
+slope to slope.
+
+Wildfire was cornered, trapped. Many times Slone nervously uncoiled and
+recoiled his lasso. Presently the great chance of his life would
+come--the hardest and most important throw he would ever have with a
+rope. He did not miss often, but then he missed sometimes, and here he
+must be swift and sure. It annoyed him that his hands perspired and
+trembled and that something weighty seemed to obstruct his breathing. He
+muttered that he was pretty much worn out, not in the best of condition
+for a hard fight with a wild horse. Still he would capture Wildfire; his
+mind was unalterably set there. He anticipated that the stallion would
+make a final and desperate rush past him; and he had his plan of action
+all outlined. What worried him was the possibility of Wildfire's doing
+some unforeseen feat at the very last. Slone was prepared for hours of
+strained watching, and then a desperate effort, and then a shock that
+might kill Wildfire and cripple Nagger, or a long race and fight.
+
+But he soon discovered that he was wrong about the long watch and wait.
+The wind had grown strong and was driving the fire swiftly. The flames,
+fanned by the breeze, leaped to a formidable barrier. In less than an
+hour, though the time seemed only a few moments to the excited Slone,
+Wildfire had been driven down toward the narrowing neck of the valley,
+and he had begun to run, to and fro, back and forth. Any moment, then,
+Slone expected him to grow terrorized and to come tearing up toward the
+pass.
+
+Wildfire showed evidence of terror, but he did not attempt to make the
+pass. Instead he went at the right-hand slope of the valley and began to
+climb. The slope was steep and soft, yet the stallion climbed up and up.
+The dust flew in clouds; the gravel rolled down, and the sand followed
+in long streams. Wildfire showed his keenness by zigzagging up the
+slope.
+
+"Go ahead, you red devil!" yelled Slone. He was much elated. In that
+soft bank Wildfire would tire out while not hurting himself.
+
+Slone watched the stallion in admiration and pity and exultation.
+Wildfire did not make much headway, for he slipped back almost as much
+as he gained. He attempted one place after another where he failed.
+There was a bank of clay, some few feet high, and he could not round it
+at either end or surmount it in the middle. Finally he literally pawed
+and cut a path, much as if he were digging in the sand for water. When
+he got over that he was not much better off. The slope above was endless
+and grew steeper, more difficult toward the top. Slone knew absolutely
+that no horse could climb over it. He grew apprehensive, however, for
+Wildfire might stick up there on the slope until the line of fire
+passed. The horse apparently shunned any near proximity to the fire, and
+performed prodigious efforts to escape.
+
+"He'll be ridin' an avalanche pretty soon," muttered Slone.
+
+Long sheets of sand and gravel slid down to spill thinly over the low
+bank. Wildfire, now sinking to his knees, worked steadily upward till he
+had reached a point halfway up the slope, at the head of a long, yellow
+bank of treacherous-looking sand. Here he was halted by a low bulge,
+which he might have surmounted had his feet been free. But he stood deep
+in the sand. For the first time he looked down at the sweeping fire, and
+then at Slone.
+
+Suddenly the bank of sand began to slide with him. He snorted in fright.
+The avalanche started slowly and was evidently no mere surface slide. It
+was deep. It stopped--then started again--and again stopped. Wildfire
+appeared to be sinking deeper and deeper. His struggles only embedded
+him more firmly. Then the bank of sand, with an ominous, low roar, began
+to move once more. This time it slipped swiftly. The dust rose in a
+cloud, almost obscuring the horse. Long streams of gravel rattled down,
+and waterfalls of sand waved over the steppes of the slope.
+
+Just as suddenly the avalanche stopped again. Slone saw, from the great
+oval hole it had left above, that it was indeed deep. That was the
+reason it did not slide readily. When the dust cleared away Slone saw
+the stallion, sunk to his flanks in the sand, utterly helpless.
+
+With a wild whoop Slone leaped off Nagger, and, a lasso in each hand, he
+ran down the long bank. The fire was perhaps a quarter of a mile
+distant, and, since the grass was thinning out, it was not coming so
+fast as it had been. The position of the stallion was halfway between
+the fire and Slone, and a hundred yards up the slope.
+
+Like a madman Slone climbed up through the dragging, loose sand. He was
+beside himself with a fury of excitement. He fancied his eyes were
+failing him, that it was not possible the great horse really was up
+there, helpless in the sand. Yet every huge stride Slone took brought
+him closer to a fact he could not deny. In his eagerness he slipped, and
+fell, and crawled, and leaped, until he reached the slide which held
+Wildfire prisoner.
+
+The stallion might have been fast in quicksand, up to his body, for all
+the movement he could make. He could move only his head. He held that
+up, his eyes wild, showing the whites, his foaming mouth wide open, his
+teeth gleaming. A sound like a scream rent the air. Terrible fear and
+hate were expressed in that piercing neigh. And shaggy, wet, dusty red,
+with all of brute savageness in the look and action of his head, he
+appeared hideous.
+
+As Slone leaped within roping distance the avalanche slipped a foot or
+two, halted, slipped once more, and slowly started again with that low
+roar. He did not care whether it slipped or stopped. Like a wolf he
+leaped closer, whirling his rope. The loop hissed round his head and
+whistled as he flung it. And when fiercely he jerked back on the rope,
+the noose closed tight round Wildfire's neck.
+
+"I--got--a rope--on him!" cried Slone, in hoarse pants.
+
+He stared, unbelieving. It was unreal, that sight--unreal like the slow,
+grinding movement of the avalanche under him. Wildfire's head seemed a
+demon head of hate. It reached out, mouth agape, to bite, to rend. That
+horrible scream could not be the scream of a horse.
+
+Slone was a wild-horse hunter, a rider, and when that second of
+incredulity flashed by, then came the moment of triumph. No moment could
+ever equal that one, when he realized he stood there with a rope around
+that grand stallion's neck. All the days and the miles and the toil and
+the endurance and the hopelessness and the hunger were paid for in that
+moment. His heart seemed too large for his breast.
+
+"I tracked--you!" he cried, savagely. "I stayed--with you! An' I got a
+rope--on you! An'--I'll ride you--you red devil!"
+
+The passion of the man was intense. That endless, racking pursuit had
+brought out all the hardness the desert had engendered in him. Almost
+hate, instead of love, spoke in Slone's words. He hauled on the lasso,
+pulling the stallion's head down and down. The action was the lust of
+capture as well as the rider's instinctive motive to make the horse fear
+him. Life was unquenchably wild and strong in that stallion; it showed
+in the terror which made him hideous. And man and beast somehow
+resembled each other in that moment which was inimical to noble life.
+
+The avalanche slipped with little jerks, as if treacherously loosing its
+hold for a long plunge. The line of fire below ate at the bleached grass
+and the long column of smoke curled away on the wind.
+
+Slone held the taut lasso with his left hand, and with the right he
+swung the other rope, catching the noose round Wildfire's nose. Then
+letting go of the first rope he hauled on the other, pulling the head of
+the stallion far down. Hand over hand Slone closed in on the horse. He
+leaped on Wildfire's head, pressed it down, and, holding it down on the
+sand with his knees, with swift fingers he tied the nose in a
+hackamore--an improvised halter. Then, just as swiftly, he bound his
+scarf tight round Wildfire's head, blindfolding him.
+
+"All so easy!" exclaimed Slone, under his breath. "Who would believe it!
+Is it a dream?"
+
+He rose and let the stallion have a free head.
+
+"Wildfire, I got a rope on you--an' a hackamore--an' a blinder," said
+Slone. "An' if I had a bridle I'd put that on you. Who'd ever believe
+you'd catch yourself, draggin' in the sand?"
+
+Slone, finding himself falling on the sand, grew alive to the augmented
+movement of the avalanche. It had begun to slide, to heave and bulge and
+crack. Dust rose in clouds from all around. The sand appeared to open
+and let him sink to his knees. The rattle of gravel was drowned in a
+soft roar. Then he shot down swiftly, holding the lassos, keeping
+himself erect, and riding as if in a boat. He felt the successive
+steppes of the slope, and then the long incline below, and then the
+checking and rising and spreading of the avalanche as it slowed down on
+the level. All movement then was checked violently. He appeared to be
+half buried in sand. While he struggled to extricate himself the thick
+dust blew away and, settled so that he could see. Wildfire lay before
+him, at the edge of the slide, and now he was not so deeply embedded as
+he had been up on the slope. He was struggling and probably soon would
+have been able to get out. The line of fire was close now, but Slone did
+not fear that.
+
+At his shrill whistle Nagger bounded toward him, obedient, but snorting,
+with ears laid back. He halted. A second whistle started him again.
+Slone finally dug himself out of the sand, pulled the lassos out, and
+ran the length of them toward Nagger. The black showed both fear and
+fight. His eyes rolled and he half shied away.
+
+"Come on!" called Slone, harshly.
+
+He got a hand on the horse, pulled him round, and, mounting in a flash,
+wound both lassos round the pommel of the saddle.
+
+"Haul him out, Nagger, old boy!" cried Slone, and he dug spurs into the
+black.
+
+One plunge of Nagger's slid the stallion out of the sand. Snorting,
+wild, blinded, Wildfire got up, shaking in every limb. He could not see
+his enemies. The blowing smoke, right in his nose, made scent
+impossible. But in the taut lassos he sensed the direction of his
+captors. He plunged, rearing at the end of the plunge, and struck out
+viciously with his hoofs. Slone, quick with spur and bridle, swerved
+Nagger aside and Wildfire, off his balance, went down with a crash.
+Slone dragged him, stretched him out, pulled him over twice before he
+got forefeet planted. Once up, he reared again, screeching his rage,
+striking wildly with his hoofs. Slone wheeled aside and toppled him over
+again.
+
+"Wildfire, it's no fair fight," he called, grimly. "But you led me a
+chase. An' you learn right now I'm boss!"
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[2] From _Wildfire_. Copyright, 1916, by Harper and Brothers, New York
+and London. Reprinted by special permission of author and publisher.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+III.--The Hydrophobic Skunk[3]
+
+_By Irvin S. Cobb_
+
+
+THE Hydrophobic Skunk resides at the extreme bottom of the Grand Caņon
+and, next to a Southern Republican who never asked for a Federal office,
+is the rarest of living creatures. He is so rare that nobody ever saw
+him--that is, nobody except a native. I met plenty of tourists who had
+seen people who had seen him, but never a tourist who had seen him with
+his own eyes. In addition to being rare, he is highly gifted.
+
+I think almost anybody will agree with me that the common, ordinary
+skunk has been most richly dowered by Nature. To adorn a skunk with any
+extra qualifications seems as great a waste of the raw material as
+painting the lily or gilding refined gold. He is already amply equipped
+for outdoor pursuits. Nobody intentionally shoves him round; everybody
+gives him as much room as he seems to need. He commands respect--nay,
+more than that, respect and veneration--wherever he goes. Joy riders
+never run him down and foot passengers avoid crowding him into a corner.
+You would think Nature had done amply well by the skunk; but no--the
+Hydrophobic Skunk comes along and upsets all these calculations. Besides
+carrying the traveling credentials of an ordinary skunk, he is rabid in
+the most rabidissimus form. He is not mad just part of the time, like
+one's relatives by marriage--and not mad most of the time, like the
+old-fashioned railroad ticket agent--but mad all the time--incurably,
+enthusiastically and unanimously mad! He is mad and he is glad of it.
+
+We made the acquaintance of the Hydrophobic Skunk when we rode down
+Hermit Trail. The casual visitor to the Grand Caņon first of all takes
+the rim drive; then he essays Bright Angel Trail, which is sufficiently
+scary for his purposes until he gets used to it; and after that he grows
+more adventurous and tackles Hermit Trail, which is a marvel of
+corkscrew convolutions, gimleting its way down this red abdominal wound
+of a caņon to the very gizzard of the world. Here, Johnny, our guide,
+felt moved to speech, and we hearkened to his words and hungered for
+more, for Johnny knows the ranges of the Northwest as a city dweller
+knows his own little side street. In the fall of the year Johnny comes
+down to the Caņon and serves as a guide a while; and then, when he gets
+so he just can't stand associating with tourists any longer, he packs
+his war bags and journeys back to the Northern Range and enjoys the
+company of cows a spell. Cows are not exactly exciting, but they don't
+ask fool questions.
+
+A highly competent young person is Johnny and a cow-puncher of parts.
+Most of the Caņon guides are cow-punchers--accomplished ones, too, and
+of high standing in the profession. With a touch of reverence Johnny
+pointed out to us Sam Scovel, the greatest bronco buster of his time,
+now engaged in piloting tourists.
+
+"Can he ride?" echoed Johnny in answer to our question. "Scovel could
+ride an earthquake if she stood still long enough for him to mount! He
+rode Steamboat--not Young Steamboat, but Old Steamboat! He rode Rocking
+Chair, and he's the only man that ever did that and was not called on in
+a couple of days to attend his own funeral."
+
+We went on and on at a lazy mule trot, hearing the unwritten annals of
+the range from one who had seen them enacted at first hand. Pretty soon
+we passed a herd of burros with mealy, dusty noses and spotty hides,
+feeding on prickly pears and rock lichens; and just before sunset we
+slid down the last declivity out upon the plateau and came to a camp as
+was a camp!
+
+This was roughing it de luxe with a most de-luxey vengeance! Here were
+three tents, or rather three canvas houses, with wooden half walls; and
+they were spick-and-span inside and out, and had glass windows in them
+and doors and matched wooden floors. . . . The mess tent was provided
+with a table with a clean cloth to go over it, and there were china
+dishes and china cups and shiny knives, forks and spoons. . . . Bill was
+in charge of the camp--a dark, rangy, good-looking leading man of a
+cowboy, wearing his blue shirt and his red neckerchief with an air.
+
+That Johnny certainly could cook! Served on china dishes upon a
+cloth-covered table, we had mounds of fried steaks and shoals of fried
+bacon; and a bushel, more or less, of sheepherder potatoes; and green
+peas and sliced peaches out of cans; and sour-dough biscuits as light as
+kisses and much more filling; and fresh butter and fresh milk; and
+coffee as black as your hat and strong as sin. How easy it is for
+civilized man to become primitive and comfortable in his way of eating,
+especially if he has just ridden ten miles on a buckboard and nine more
+on a mule and is away down at the bottom of the Grand Caņon--and there
+is nobody to look on disapprovingly when he takes a bite that would be a
+credit to a steam shovel!
+
+Despite all reports to the contrary, I wish to state that it is no
+trouble at all to eat green peas off a knife-blade--you merely mix them
+in with potatoes for a cement; and fried steak--take it from an old
+steak eater--tastes best when eaten with those tools of Nature's own
+providing, both hands and your teeth. An hour passed--busy, yet
+pleasant--and we were both gorged to the gills and had reared back with
+our cigars lit to enjoy a third jorum of black coffee apiece, when
+Johnny, speaking in an offhand way to Bill, who was still hiding away
+biscuits inside of himself like a parlor prestidigitator, said:
+
+"Seen any of them old Hydrophobies the last day or two?"
+
+"Not so many," said Bill casually. "There was a couple out last night
+pirootin' round in the moonlight. I reckon, though, there'll be quite a
+flock of 'em out to-night. A new moon always seems to fetch 'em up from
+the river."
+
+Both of us quit blowing on our coffee and we put the cups down. I think
+I was the one who spoke.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I asked, "but what did you say would be out
+to-night?"
+
+"We were just speakin' to one another about them Hydrophoby Skunks,"
+said Bill apologetically. "This here Caņon is where they mostly hang out
+and frolic 'round."
+
+I laid down my cigar, too. I admit I was interested.
+
+"Oh!" I said softly--like that. "Is it? Do they?"
+
+"Yes," said Johnny. "I reckin there's liable to be one come shovin' his
+old nose into that door any minute. Or probably two--they mostly travels
+in pairs--sets, as you might say."
+
+"You'd know one the minute you saw him, though," said Bill. "They're
+smaller than a regular skunk and spotted where the other kind is
+striped. And they got little red eyes. You won't have no trouble at all
+recognizin' one."
+
+It was at this juncture that we both got up and moved back by the stove.
+It was warmer there and the chill of evening seemed to be settling down
+noticeably.
+
+"Funny thing about Hydrophoby Skunks," went on Johnny after a moment of
+pensive thought--"mad, you know!"
+
+"What makes them mad?" The two of us asked the question together.
+
+"Born that way!" explained Bill--"mad from the start, and won't never do
+nothin' to get shut of it."
+
+"Ahem--they never attack humans, I suppose?"
+
+"Don't they?" said Johnny, as if surprised at such ignorance. "Why,
+humans is their favorite pastime! Humans is just pie to a Hydrophoby
+Skunk. It ain't really any fun to be bit by a Hydrophoby Skunk neither."
+He raised his coffee cup to his lips and imbibed deeply.
+
+"Which you certainly said something then, Johnny," stated Bill. "You
+see," he went on, turning to us, "they aim to catch you asleep and they
+creep up right soft and take holt of you--take holt of a year
+usually--and clamp their teeth and just hang on for further orders. Some
+says they hang on till it thunders, same as snappin' turtles. But that's
+a lie, I judge, because there's weeks on a stretch down here when it
+don't thunder. All the cases I ever heard of they let go at sunup."
+
+"It is right painful at the time," said Johnny, taking up the thread of
+the narrative; "and then in nine days you go mad yourself. Remember that
+fellow the Hydrophoby Skunk bit down here by the rapids, Bill? Let's see
+now--what was that hombre's name?"
+
+"Williams," supplied Bill--"Heck Williams. I saw him at Flagstaff when
+they took him there to the hospital. That guy certainly did carry on
+regardless. First he went mad and his eyes turned red, and he got so he
+didn't have no real use for water--well, them prospectors don't never
+care much about water anyway--and then he got to snappin' and bitin' and
+foamin' so's they had to strap him down to his bed. He got loose
+though."
+
+"Broke loose, I suppose?" I said.
+
+"No, he bit loose," said Bill with the air of one who would not deceive
+you even in a matter of small details.
+
+"Do you mean to say he bit those leather straps in two?"
+
+"No, sir; he couldn't reach them," explained Bill, "so he bit the bed in
+two. Not in one bite, of course," he went on. "It took him several. I
+saw him after he was laid out. He really wasn't no credit to himself as
+a corpse."
+
+I'm not sure, but I think my companion and I were holding hands by now.
+Outside we could hear that little lost echo laughing to itself. It was
+no time to be laughing either. Under certain circumstances I don't know
+of a lonelier place anywhere on earth than that Grand Caņon.
+
+Presently my friend spoke, and it seemed to me his voice was a mite
+husky. Well, he had a bad cold.
+
+"You said they mostly attack persons who are sleeping out, didn't you?"
+
+"That's right, too," said Johnny, and Bill nodded in affirmation.
+
+"Then, of course, since we sleep indoors everything will be all right,"
+I put in.
+
+"Well, yes and no," answered Johnny. "In the early part of the evening a
+Hydrophoby is liable to do a lot of prowlin' round outdoors; but toward
+mornin' they like to get into camps--they dig up under the side walls or
+come up through the floor--and they seem to prefer to get in bed with
+you. They're cold-blooded, I reckin, same as rattlesnakes. Cool nights
+always do drive 'em in, seems like."
+
+"It's going to be sort of coolish to-night," said Bill casually.
+
+It certainly was. I don't remember a chillier night in years. My teeth
+were chattering a little--from cold--before we turned in. I retired with
+all my clothes on, including my boots and leggings, and I wished I had
+brought along my ear muffs. I also buttoned my watch into my lefthand
+shirt pocket, the idea being if for any reason I should conclude to move
+during the night I would be fully equipped for traveling. The door would
+not stay closely shut--the door-jamb had sagged a little and the wind
+kept blowing the door ajar. But after a while we dozed off.
+
+It was one twenty-seven A. M. when I woke with a violent start. I know
+this was the exact time because that was when my watch stopped. I peered
+about me in the darkness. The door was wide open--I could tell that.
+Down on the floor there was a dragging, scuffling sound, and from almost
+beneath me a pair of small red eyes peered up phosphorescently.
+
+"He's here!" I said to my companion as I emerged from my blankets; and
+he, waking instantly, seemed instinctively to know whom I meant. I used
+to wonder at the ease with which a cockroach can climb a perfectly
+smooth wall and run across the ceiling. I know now that to do this is
+the easiest thing in the world--if you have the proper incentive behind
+you. I had gone up one wall of the tent and had crossed over and was in
+the act of coming down the other side when Bill burst in, his eyes
+blurred with sleep, a lighted lamp in one hand and a gun in the other.
+
+I never was so disappointed in my life because it wasn't a Hydrophobic
+Skunk at all. It was a pack rat, sometimes called a trade rat, paying us
+a visit. The pack or trade rat is also a denizen of the Grand Caņon. He
+is about four times as big as an ordinary rat and has an appetite to
+correspond. He sometimes invades your camp and makes free with your
+things, but he never steals anything outright--he merely trades with
+you; hence his name. He totes off a side of meat or a bushel of meal and
+brings a cactus stalk in; or he will confiscate your saddlebags and
+leave you in exchange a nice dry chip. He is honest, but from what I can
+gather he never gets badly stuck on a deal.
+
+Next morning at breakfast Johnny and Bill were doing a lot of laughing
+between them over something or other.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[3] From _Roughing It de Luxe_. Copyright, 1914, by George H. Doran
+Company. Reprinted by special permission of author and publisher.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+IV.--The Ole Virginia[4]
+
+_By Stewart Edward White_
+
+
+THE ring around the sun had thickened all day long, and the turquoise
+blue of the Arizona sky had filmed. Storms in the dry countries are
+infrequent, but heavy; and this surely meant storm. We had ridden since
+sunup over broad mesas, down and out of deep caņons, along the base of
+the mountains in the wildest parts of the territory. The cattle were
+winding leisurely toward the high country; the jack rabbits had
+disappeared; the quail lacked; we did not see a single antelope in the
+open.
+
+"It's a case of hold up," the Cattleman ventured his opinion. "I have a
+ranch over in the Double R. Charley and Windy Bill hold it down. We'll
+tackle it. What do you think?"
+
+The four cowboys agreed. We dropped into a low, broad watercourse,
+ascended its bed to big cottonwoods and flowing water, followed it into
+box caņons between rim rock carved fantastically and painted like a
+Moorish faįade, until at last in a widening below a rounded hill, we
+came upon an adobe house, a fruit tree, and a round corral. This was the
+Double R.
+
+Charley and Windy Bill welcomed us with soda biscuits. We turned our
+horses out, spread our beds on the floor, filled our pipes, and squatted
+on our heels. Various dogs of various breeds investigated us. It was
+very pleasant, and we did not mind the ring around the sun.
+
+"Somebody else coming," announced the Cattleman finally.
+
+"Uncle Jim," said Charley, after a glance.
+
+A hawk-faced old man with a long white beard and long white hair rode
+out from the cottonwoods. He had on a battered broad hat abnormally high
+of crown, carried across his saddle a heavy "eight square" rifle, and
+was followed by a half-dozen lolloping hounds.
+
+The largest and fiercest of the latter, catching sight of our group,
+launched himself with lightning rapidity at the biggest of the ranch
+dogs, promptly nailed that canine by the back of the neck, shook him
+violently a score of times, flung him aside, and pounced on the next.
+During the ensuing few moments that hound was the busiest thing in the
+West. He satisfactorily whipped four dogs, pursued two cats up a tree,
+upset the Dutch oven and the rest of the soda biscuits, stampeded the
+horses, and raised a cloud of dust adequate to represent the smoke of
+battle. We others were too paralyzed to move. Uncle Jim sat placidly on
+his white horse, his thin knees bent to the ox-bow stirrups, smoking.
+
+In ten seconds the trouble was over, principally because there was no
+more trouble to make. The hound returned leisurely, licking from his
+chops the hair of his victims. Uncle Jim shook his head.
+
+"Trailer," said he sadly, "is a little severe."
+
+We agreed heartily, and turned in to welcome Uncle Jim with a fresh
+batch of soda biscuits.
+
+The old man was one of the typical "long hairs." He had come to the
+Galiuro Mountains in '69, and since '69 he had remained in the Galiuro
+Mountains, spite of man or the devil. At present he possessed some
+hundreds of cattle, which he was reputed to water, in a dry season, from
+an ordinary dish pan. In times past he had prospected.
+
+That evening, the severe Trailer having dropped to slumber, he held
+forth on big-game hunting and dogs, quartz claims and Apaches.
+
+"Did you ever have any very close calls?" I asked.
+
+He ruminated a few moments, refilled his pipe with some awful tobacco,
+and told the following experience:
+
+"In the time of Geronimo I was living just about where I do now; and
+that was just about in line with the raiding. You see, Geronimo, and Ju,
+and old Loco used to pile out of the reservation at Camp Apache, raid
+south to the line, slip over into Mexico when the soldiers got too
+promiscuous, and raid there until they got ready to come back. Then
+there was always a big medicine talk. Says Geronimo:
+
+"'I am tired of the warpath. I will come back from Mexico with all my
+warriors, if you will escort me with soldiers and protect my people.'
+
+"'All right,' says the General, being only too glad to get him back at
+all.
+
+"So, then, in ten minutes there wouldn't be a buck in camp, but next
+morning they shows up again, each with about fifty head of hosses.
+
+"'Where'd you get those hosses?' asks the General, suspicious.
+
+"'Had 'em pastured in the hills,' answers Geronimo.
+
+"'I can't take all those hosses with me; I believe they're stolen!' says
+the General.
+
+"'My people cannot go without their hosses,' says Geronimo.
+
+"So, across the line they goes, and back to the reservation. In about a
+week there's fifty-two frantic Greasers wanting to know where's their
+hosses. The army is nothing but an importer of stolen stock, and knows
+it, and can't help it.
+
+"Well, as I says, I'm between Camp Apache and the Mexican line, so that
+every raiding party goes right on past me. The point is that I'm a
+thousand feet or so above the valley, and the renegades is in such a
+hurry about that time that they never stop to climb up and collect me.
+Often I've watched them trailing down the valley in a cloud of dust.
+Then, in a day or two, a squad of soldiers would come up and camp at my
+spring for a while. They used to send soldiers to guard every water hole
+in the country so the renegades couldn't get water. After a while, from
+not being bothered none, I got to thinking I wasn't worth while with
+them.
+
+"Me and Johnny Hooper were pecking away at the Ole Virginia mine then.
+We'd got down about sixty feet, all timbered, and was thinking of
+crosscutting. One day Johnny went to town, and that same day I got in a
+hurry and left my gun at camp.
+
+"I worked all the morning down at the bottom of the shaft, and when I
+see by the sun it was getting along towards noon, I put in three good
+shots, tamped 'em down, lit the fuses, and started to climb out.
+
+"It ain't noways pleasant to light a fuse in a shaft, and then have to
+climb out a fifty-foot ladder, with it burning behind you. I never did
+get used to it. You keep thinking, 'Now, suppose there's a flaw in that
+fuse, or something, and she goes off in six seconds instead of two
+minutes? Where'll you be then?' It would give you a good boost towards
+your home on high, anyway.
+
+"So I climbed fast, and stuck my head out the top without looking--and
+then I froze solid enough. There, about fifty feet away, climbing up
+the hill on mighty tired hosses, was a dozen of the ugliest Chiricahuas
+you ever don't want to meet, and in addition a Mexican renegade named
+Maria, who was worse than any of 'em. I see at once their hosses was
+tired out, and they had a notion of camping at my water hole, not
+knowing nothing about the Ole Virginia mine.
+
+"For two bits I'd have let go all holts and dropped backwards, trusting
+to my thick head for easy lighting. Then I heard a little fizz and
+sputter from below. At that my hair riz right up so I could feel the
+breeze blow under my hat. For about six seconds I stood there like an
+imbecile, grinning amiably. Then one of the Chiricahuas made a sort of
+grunt, and I sabed that they'd seen the original exhibit your Uncle Jim
+was making of himself.
+
+"Then that fuse gave another sputter and one of the Apaches said, 'Un
+dah.' That means 'white man.' It was harder to turn my head than if I'd
+had a stiff neck; but I managed to do it, and I see that my ore dump
+wasn't more than ten foot away. I mighty near overjumped it; and the
+next I knew I was on one side of it and those Apaches on the other.
+Probably I flew; leastways I don't seem to remember jumping.
+
+"That didn't seem to do me much good. The renegades were grinning and
+laughing to think how easy a thing they had; and I couldn't rightly
+think up any arguments against the notion--at least from their
+standpoint. They were chattering away to each other in Mexican for the
+benefit of Maria. Oh, they had me all distributed, down to my suspender
+buttons! And me squatting behind that ore dump about as formidable as a
+brush rabbit!
+
+"Then, all at once, one of my shots went off down in the shaft.
+
+"'Boom!' says she, plenty big; and a slather of rocks and stones come
+out of the mouth, and began to dump down promiscuous on the scenery. I
+got one little one in the shoulder blade, and found time to wish my ore
+dump had a roof. But those renegades caught it square in the thick of
+trouble. One got knocked out entirely for a minute, by a nice piece of
+country rock in the head.
+
+"'Otra vez!' yells I, which means 'again.'
+
+"'Boom!' goes the Ole Virginia prompt as an answer.
+
+"I put in my time dodging, but when I gets a chance to look, the Apaches
+has all got to cover and is looking scared.
+
+"'Otra vez!' yells I again.
+
+"'Boom!' says the Ole Virginia.
+
+"This was the biggest shot of the lot, and she surely cut loose. I ought
+to have been halfway up the hill watching things from a safe distance,
+but I wasn't. Lucky for me the shaft was a little on the drift, so she
+didn't quite shoot my way. But she distributed about a ton over those
+renegades. They sort of half got to their feet uncertain.
+
+"'Otra vez!' yells I once more, as bold as if I could keep her shooting
+all day.
+
+"It was just a cold, raw blazer; and if it didn't go through I could see
+me as an Apache parlor ornament. But it did. Those Chiricahuas give one
+yell and skipped. It was surely a funny sight, after they got aboard
+their war ponies, to see them trying to dig out on horses too tired to
+trot.
+
+"I didn't stop to get all the laughs, though. In fact, I give one jump
+off that ledge, and I lit a-running. A quarter-hoss couldn't have beat
+me to that shack. There I grabbed my good old gun, old Meat-in-the-pot,
+and made a climb for the tall country."
+
+Uncle Jim stopped with an air of finality, and began lazily to refill
+his pipe. From the open mud fireplace he picked a coal. Outside, the
+rain, faithful to the prophecy of the wide-ringed sun, beat fitfully
+against the roof.
+
+"That was the closest call I ever had," said he at last.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[4] From _Arizona Nights_. Reprinted by special permission of publisher
+and author. Copyright, 1907, by Doubleday, Page and Company.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+V.--The Weight of Obligation[5]
+
+_By Rex Beach_
+
+
+THIS is the story of a burden, the tale of a load that irked a strong
+man's shoulders. To those who do not know the North it may seem strange,
+but to those who understand the humors of men in solitude, and the
+extravagant vagaries that steal in upon their minds, as fog drifts with
+the night, it will not appear unusual. There are spirits in the
+wilderness, eerie forces which play pranks; some droll or whimsical,
+others grim.
+
+Johnny Cantwell and Mortimer Grant were partners, trail mates, brothers
+in soul if not in blood. The ebb and flood of frontier life had brought
+them together, its hardships had united them until they were as one.
+They were something of a mystery to each other, neither having
+surrendered all his confidence, and because of this they retained their
+mutual attraction. They had met by accident, but they remained together
+by desire.
+
+The spirit of adventure bubbled merrily within them, and it led them
+into curious byways. It was this which sent them northward from the
+States in the dead of winter, on the heels of the Stony River strike; it
+was this which induced them to land at Katmai instead of Illiamna,
+whither their land journey should have commenced.
+
+"There are two routes over the coast range," the captain of the _Dora_
+told them, "and only two. Illiamna Pass is low and easy, but the
+distance is longer than by way of Katmai. I can land you at either
+place."
+
+"Katmai is pretty tough, isn't it?" Grant inquired.
+
+"We've understood it's the worst pass in Alaska." Cantwell's eyes were
+eager.
+
+"It's awful! Nobody travels it except natives, and they don't like it.
+Now, Illiamna--"
+
+"We'll try Katmai. Eh, Mort?"
+
+"Sure! They don't come hard enough for us, Cap. We'll see if it's as bad
+as it's painted."
+
+So, one gray January morning they were landed on a frozen beach, their
+outfit was flung ashore through the surf, the lifeboat pulled away, and
+the _Dora_ disappeared after a farewell toot of her whistle. Their last
+glimpse of her showed the captain waving good-by and the purser flapping
+a red tablecloth at them from the after-deck.
+
+"Cheerful place, this," Grant remarked, as he noted the desolate
+surroundings of dune and hillside.
+
+The beach itself was black and raw where the surf washed it, but
+elsewhere all was white, save for the thickets of alder and willow which
+protruded nakedly. The bay was little more than a hollow scooped out of
+the Alaskan range; along the foothills behind there was a belt of spruce
+and cottonwood and birch. It was a lonely and apparently unpeopled
+wilderness in which they had been set down.
+
+"Seems good to be back in the North again, doesn't it?" said Cantwell,
+cheerily. "I'm tired of the booze, and the street cars, and the dames,
+and all that civilized stuff. I'd rather be broke in Alaska--with
+you--than a banker's son, back home."
+
+Soon a globular Russian half-breed, the Katmai trader, appeared among
+the dunes, and with him were some native villagers. That night the
+partners slept in a snug log cabin, the roof of which was chained down
+with old ships' cables. Petellin, the fat little trader, explained that
+roofs in Katmai had a way of sailing off to seaward when the wind blew.
+He listened to their plan of crossing the divide and nodded.
+
+It could be done, of course, he agreed, but they were foolish to try it,
+when the Illiamna route was open. Still, now that they were here, he
+would find dogs for them, and a guide. The village hunters were out
+after meat, however, and until they returned the white men would need to
+wait in patience.
+
+There followed several days of idleness, during which Cantwell and Grant
+amused themselves around the village, teasing the squaws, playing games
+with the boys, and flirting harmlessly with the girls, one of whom, in
+particular, was not unattractive. She was perhaps three-quarters Aleut,
+the other quarter being plain coquette, and, having been educated at the
+town of Kodiak, she knew the ways and the wiles of the white man.
+
+Cantwell approached her, and she met his extravagant advances more than
+halfway. They were getting along nicely together when Grant, in a spirit
+of fun, entered the game and won her fickle smiles for himself. He joked
+his partner unmercifully, and Johnny accepted defeat gracefully, never
+giving the matter a second thought.
+
+When the hunters returned, dogs were bought, a guide was hired, and, a
+week after landing, the friends were camped at timber line awaiting a
+favorable moment for their dash across the range. Above them, white
+hillsides rose in irregular leaps to the gash in the saw-toothed barrier
+which formed the pass; below them a short valley led down to Katmai and
+the sea. The day was bright, the air clear, nevertheless after the guide
+had stared up at the peaks for a time he shook his head, then reëntered
+the tent and lay down. The mountains were "smoking"; from their tops
+streamed a gossamer veil which the travelers knew to be drifting snow
+clouds carried by the wind. It meant delay, but they were patient.
+
+They were up and going on the following morning, however, with the
+Indian in the lead. There was no trail; the hills were steep; in places
+they were forced to unload the sled and hoist their outfit by means of
+ropes, and as they mounted higher the snow deepened. It lay like loose
+sand, only lighter; it shoved ahead of the sled in a feathery mass; the
+dogs wallowed in it and were unable to pull, hence the greater part of
+the work devolved upon the men. Once above the foothills and into the
+range proper, the going became more level, but the snow remained
+knee-deep.
+
+The Indian broke trail stolidly; the partners strained at the sled,
+which hung back like a leaden thing. By afternoon the dogs had become
+disheartened and refused to heed the whip. There was neither fuel nor
+running water, and therefore the party did not pause for luncheon. The
+men were sweating profusely from their exertions and had long since
+become parched with thirst, but the dry snow was like chalk and scoured
+their throats.
+
+Cantwell was the first to show the effects of his unusual exertions, for
+not only had he assumed a lion's share of the work, but the last few
+months of easy living had softened his muscles, and in consequence his
+vitality was quickly spent. His undergarments were drenched; he was
+fearfully dry inside; a terrible thirst seemed to penetrate his whole
+body; he was forced to rest frequently.
+
+Grant eyed him with some concern, finally inquiring, "Feel bad,
+Johnny?"
+
+Cantwell nodded. Their fatigue made both men economical of language.
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Thirsty!" The former could barely speak.
+
+"There won't be any water till we get across. You'll have to stand it."
+
+They resumed their duties; the Indian "swish-swished" ahead, as if
+wading through a sea of swan's-down; the dogs followed listlessly; the
+partners leaned against the stubborn load.
+
+A faint breath finally came out of the north, causing Grant and the
+guide to study the sky anxiously. Cantwell was too weary to heed the
+increasing cold. The snow on the slopes above began to move; here and
+there, on exposed ridges, it rose in clouds and puffs; the cleancut
+outlines of the hills became obscured as by a fog; the languid wind bit
+cruelly.
+
+After a time Johnny fell back upon the sled and exclaimed: "I'm--all in,
+Mort. Don't seem to have the--guts." He was pale, his eyes were
+tortured. He scooped a mitten full of snow and raised it to his lips,
+then spat it out, still dry.
+
+"Here! Brace up!" In a panic of apprehension at this collapse Grant
+shook him; he had never known Johnny to fail like this. "Take a drink;
+it'll do you good." He drew a bottle from one of the dunnage bags and
+Cantwell seized it avidly. It was wet; it would quench his thirst, he
+thought. Before Mort could check him he had drunk a third of the
+contents.
+
+The effect was almost instantaneous, for Cantwell's stomach was empty
+and his tissues seemed to absorb the liquor like a dry sponge; his
+fatigue fell away, he became suddenly strong and vigorous again. But
+before he had gone a hundred yards the reaction followed. First his mind
+grew thick, then his limbs became unmanageable and his muscles flabby.
+He was drunk. Yet it was a strange and dangerous intoxication, against
+which he struggled desperately. He fought it for perhaps a quarter of a
+mile before it mastered him; then he gave up.
+
+Both men knew that stimulants are never taken on the trail, but they had
+never stopped to reason why, and even now they did not attribute
+Johnny's breakdown to the brandy. After a while he stumbled and fell,
+then, the cool snow being grateful to his face, he sprawled there
+motionless until Mort dragged him to the sled. He stared at his partner
+in perplexity and laughed foolishly. The wind was increasing, darkness
+was near, they had not yet reached the Bering slope.
+
+Something in the drunken man's face frightened Grant and, extracting a
+ship's biscuit from the grub box, he said, hurriedly: "Here, Johnny. Get
+something under your belt, quick."
+
+Cantwell obediently munched the hard cracker, but there was no moisture
+on his tongue; his throat was paralyzed; the crumbs crowded themselves
+from the corners of his lips. He tried with limber fingers to stuff
+them down, or to assist the muscular action of swallowing, but finally
+expelled them in a cloud. Mort drew the parka hood over his partner's
+head, for the wind cut like a scythe and the dogs were turning tail to
+it, digging holes in the snow for protection. The air about them was
+like yeast; the light was fading.
+
+The Indian snowshoed his way back, advising a quick camp until the storm
+abated, but to this suggestion Grant refused to listen, knowing only too
+well the peril of such a course. Nor did he dare take Johnny on the
+sled, since the fellow was half asleep already, but instead whipped up
+the dogs and urged his companion to follow as best he could.
+
+When Cantwell fell, for a second time, he returned, dragged him forward,
+and tied his wrists firmly, yet loosely, to the load.
+
+The storm was pouring over them now, like water out of a spout; it
+seared and blinded them; its touch was like that of a flame.
+Nevertheless they struggled on into the smother, making what headway
+they could. The Indian led, pulling at the end of a rope; Grant strained
+at the sled and hoarsely encouraged the dogs; Cantwell stumbled and
+lurched in the rear like an unwilling prisoner. When he fell his
+companion lifted him, then beat him, cursed him, tried in every way to
+rouse him from his lethargy.
+
+After an interminable time they found they were descending and this gave
+them heart to plunge ahead more rapidly. The dogs began to trot as the
+sled overran them; they rushed blindly into gullies, fetching up at the
+bottom in a tangle, and Johnny followed in a nerveless, stupefied
+condition. He was dragged like a sack of flour for his legs were limp
+and he lacked muscular control, but every dash, every fall, every quick
+descent drove the sluggish blood through his veins and cleared his brain
+momentarily. Such moments were fleeting, however; much of the time his
+mind was a blank, and it was only by a mechanical effort that he fought
+off unconsciousness.
+
+He had vague memories of many beatings at Mort's hands, of the slippery
+clean-swept ice of a stream over which he limply skidded, of being
+carried into a tent where a candle flickered and a stove roared. Grant
+was holding something hot to his lips, and then--
+
+It was morning. He was weak and sick; he felt as if he had awakened from
+a hideous dream. "I played out, didn't I?" he queried, wonderingly.
+
+"You sure did," Grant laughed. "It was a tight squeak, old boy. I never
+thought I'd get you through."
+
+"Played out! I--can't understand it." Cantwell prided himself on his
+strength and stamina, therefore the truth was unbelievable. He and Mort
+had long been partners, they had given and taken much at each other's
+hands, but this was something altogether different. Grant had saved his
+life, at risk of his own; the older man's endurance had been the greater
+and he had used it to good advantage. It embarrassed Johnny tremendously
+to realize that he had proved unequal to his share of the work, for he
+had never before experienced such an obligation. He apologized
+repeatedly during the few days he lay sick, and meanwhile Mort waited
+upon him like a mother.
+
+Cantwell was relieved when at last they had abandoned camp, changed
+guides at the next village, and were on their way along the coast, for
+somehow he felt very sensitive about his collapse. He was, in fact,
+extremely ashamed of himself.
+
+Once he had fully recovered he had no further trouble, but soon rounded
+into fit condition and showed no effects of his ordeal. Day after day he
+and Mort traveled through the solitudes, their isolation broken only by
+occasional glimpses of native villages, where they rested briefly and
+renewed their supply of dog feed.
+
+But although the younger man was now as well and strong as ever, he was
+uncomfortably conscious that his trail mate regarded him as the weaker
+of the two and shielded him in many ways. Grant performed most of the
+unpleasant tasks, and occasionally cautioned Johnny about overdoing.
+This protective attitude at first amused, then offended Cantwell, it
+galled him until he was upon the point of voicing his resentment, but
+reflected that he had no right to object, for, judging by past
+performances, he had proved his inferiority. This uncomfortable
+realization forever arose to prevent open rebellion, but he asserted
+himself secretly by robbing Grant of his self-appointed tasks. He rose
+first in the mornings, he did the cooking, he lengthened his turns
+ahead of the dogs, he mended harness after the day's hike had ended. Of
+course the older man objected, and for a time they had a good-natured
+rivalry as to who should work and who should rest--only it was not quite
+so good-natured on Cantwell's part as he made it appear.
+
+Mort broke out in friendly irritation one day: "Don't try to do
+everything, Johnny. Remember I'm no cripple."
+
+"Humph! You proved that. I guess it's up to me to do your work."
+
+"Oh, forget that day on the pass, can't you?"
+
+Johnny grunted a second time, and from his tone it was evident that he
+would never forget, unpleasant though the memory remained. Sensing his
+sullen resentment, the other tried to rally him, but made a bad job of
+it. The humor of men in the open is not delicate; their wit and their
+words become coarsened in direct proportion as they revert to the
+primitive; it is one effect of the solitudes.
+
+Grant spoke extravagantly, mockingly, of his own superiority in a way
+which ordinarily would have brought a smile to Cantwell's lips, but the
+latter did not smile. He taunted Johnny humorously on his lack of
+physical prowess, his lack of good looks and manly qualities--something
+which had never failed to result in a friendly exchange of badinage; he
+even teased him about his defeat with the Katmai girl.
+
+Cantwell did respond finally, but afterward he found himself wondering
+if Mort could have been in earnest. He dismissed the thought with some
+impatience. But men on the trail have too much time for their thoughts;
+there is nothing in the monotonous routine of the day's work to distract
+them, so the partner who had played out dwelt more and more upon his
+debt and upon his friend's easy assumption of preëminence. The weight of
+obligation began to chafe him, lightly at first, but with
+ever-increasing discomfort. He began to think that Grant honestly
+considered himself the better man, merely because chance had played into
+his hands.
+
+It was silly, even childish, to dwell on the subject, he reflected, and
+yet he could not banish it from his mind. It was always before him, in
+one form or another. He felt the strength in his lean muscles, and
+sneered at the thought that Mort should be deceived. If it came to a
+physical test he felt sure he could break his slighter partner with his
+bare hands, and as for endurance--well, he was hungry for a chance to
+demonstrate it.
+
+They talked little; men seldom converse in the wastes, for there is
+something about the silence of the wilderness which discourages speech.
+And no land is so grimly silent, so hushed and soundless, as the frozen
+North. For days they marched through desolation, without glimpse of
+human habitation, without sight of track or trail, without sound of a
+human voice to break the monotony. There was no game in the country,
+with the exception of an occasional bird or rabbit, nothing but the
+white hills, the fringe of alder tops along the watercourses, and the
+thickets of gnarled, unhealthy spruce in the smothered valleys.
+
+Their destination was a mysterious stream at the headwaters of the
+unmapped Kuskokwim, where rumor said there was gold, and whither they
+feared other men were hastening from the mining country far to the
+north.
+
+Now it is a penalty of the White Country that men shall think of women;
+Cantwell began to brood upon the Katmai girl, for she was the last; her
+eyes were haunting and distance had worked its usual enchantment. He
+reflected that Mort had shouldered him aside and won her favor, then
+boasted of it. Johnny awoke one night with a dream of her, and lay
+quivering.
+
+"She was only a squaw," he said, half aloud. "If I'd really tried--"
+
+Grant lay beside him, snoring, the heat of their bodies intermingled.
+The waking man tried to compose himself, but his partner's stertorous
+breathing irritated him beyond measure; for a long time he remained
+motionless, staring into the gray blurr of the tent top. He had played
+out. He owed his life to the man who had cheated him of the Katmai girl,
+and that man knew it. He had become a weak, helpless thing, dependent
+upon another's strength, and that other now accepted his superiority as
+a matter of course. The obligation was insufferable, and--it was
+unjust. The North had played him a devilish trick, it had betrayed him,
+it had bound him to his benefactor with chains of gratitude which were
+irksome. Had they been real chains they could have galled him no more
+than at this moment.
+
+As time passed the men spoke less frequently to each other. Grant joshed
+his mate roughly, once or twice, masking beneath an assumption of
+jocularity his own vague irritation at the change that had come over
+them. It was as if he had probed at an open wound with clumsy fingers.
+
+Cantwell had by this time assumed most of those petty camp tasks which
+provoke tired trailers, those humdrum duties which are so trying to
+exhausted nerves, and of course they wore upon him as they wear upon
+every man. But, once he had taken them over, he began to resent Grant's
+easy relinquishment; it rankled him to realize how willingly the other
+allowed him to do the cooking, the dish-washing, the fire-building, the
+bed-making. Little monotonies of this kind form the hardest part of
+winter travel, they are the rocks upon which friendships founder and
+partnerships are wrecked. Out on the trail, nature equalizes the work to
+a great extent, and no man can shirk unduly, but in camp, inside the
+cramped confines of a tent pitched on boughs laid over the snow, it is
+very different. There one must busy himself while the other rests and
+keeps his legs out of the way if possible. One man sits on the bedding
+at the rear of the shelter, and shivers, while the other squats over a
+tantalizing fire of green wood, blistering his face and parboiling his
+limbs inside his sweaty clothing. Dishes must be passed, food divided,
+and it is poor food, poorly prepared at best. Sometimes men criticize
+and voice longings for better grub and better cooking. Remarks of this
+kind have been known to result in tragedies, bitter words and flaming
+curses--then, perhaps, wild actions, memories of which the later years
+can never erase.
+
+It is but one prank of the wilderness, one grim manifestation of its
+silent forces.
+
+Had Grant been unable to do his part Cantwell would have willingly
+accepted the added burden, but Mort was able, he was nimble and "handy,"
+he was the better cook of the two; in fact, he was the better man in
+every way--or so he believed. Cantwell sneered at the last thought, and
+the memory of his debt was like bitter medicine.
+
+His resentment--in reality nothing more than a phase of insanity begot
+of isolation and silence--could not help but communicate itself to his
+companion, and there resulted a mutual antagonism, which grew into a
+dislike, then festered into something more, something strange,
+reasonless, yet terribly vivid and amazingly potent for evil. Neither
+man ever mentioned it--their tongues were clenched between their teeth
+and they held themselves in check with harsh hands--but it was
+constantly in their minds, nevertheless. No man who has not suffered the
+manifold irritations of such an intimate association can appreciate the
+gnawing canker of animosity like this. It was dangerous because there
+was no relief from it: the two were bound together as by gyves; they
+shared each other's every action and every plan; they trod in each
+other's tracks, slept in the same bed, ate from the same plate. They
+were like prisoners ironed to the same staple.
+
+Each fought the obsession in his own way, but it is hard to fight the
+impalpable, hence their sick fancies grew in spite of themselves. Their
+minds needed food to prey upon, but found none. Each began to criticize
+the other silently, to sneer at his weaknesses, to meditate derisively
+upon his peculiarities. After a time they no longer resisted the advance
+of these poisonous thoughts, but welcomed it.
+
+On more than one occasion the embers of their wrath were upon the point
+of bursting into flame, but each realized that the first ill-considered
+word would serve to slip the leash from those demons that were straining
+to go free, and so managed to restrain himself.
+
+The crisis came one crisp morning when a dog team whirled around a bend
+in the river and a white man hailed them. He was the mail carrier, on
+his way out from Nome, and he brought news of the "inside."
+
+"Where are you boys bound for?" he inquired when greetings were over
+and gossip of the trail had passed.
+
+"We're going to the Stony River strike," Grant told him.
+
+"Stony River? Up the Kuskokwim?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+The mail man laughed. "Can you beat that? Ain't you heard about Stony
+River?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Why, it's a fake--no such place."
+
+There was a silence; the partners avoided each other's eyes.
+
+"MacDonald, the fellow that started it, is on his way to Dawson. There's
+a gang after him, too, and if he's caught it'll go hard with him. He
+wrote the letters--to himself--and spread the news just to raise a
+grubstake. He cleaned up big before they got onto him. He peddled his
+tips for real money."
+
+"Yes!" Grant spoke quietly. "Johnny bought one. That's what brought us
+from Seattle. We went out on the last boat and figured we'd come in from
+this side before the break-up. So--fake!"
+
+"Gee! You fellers bit good." The mail carrier shook his head. "Well!
+You'd better keep going now; you'll get to Nome before the season opens.
+Better take dogfish from Bethel--it's four bits a pound on the Yukon.
+Sorry I didn't hit your camp last night; we'd 'a' had a visit. Tell the
+gang that you saw me." He shook hands ceremoniously, yelled at his
+panting dogs, and went swiftly on his way, waving a mitten on high as he
+vanished around the next bend.
+
+The partners watched him go, then Grant turned to Johnny, and repeated:
+"Fake! MacDonald stung you."
+
+Cantwell's face went as white as the snow behind him, his eyes blazed.
+"Why did you tell him I bit?" he demanded harshly.
+
+"Hunh! _Didn't_ you bite? Two thousand miles afoot; three months of
+Hades; for nothing. That's biting some."
+
+"_Well!_" The speaker's face was convulsed, and Grant's flamed with an
+answering anger. They glared at each other for a moment. "Don't blame
+me. You fell for it, too."
+
+"I----" Mort checked his rushing words.
+
+"Yes, _you_! Now, what are you going to do about it? Welsh?"
+
+"I'm going through to Nome." The sight of his partner's rage had set
+Mort to shaking with a furious desire to fly at his throat, but
+fortunately, he retained a spark of sanity.
+
+"Then shut up, and quit chewing the rag. You--talk too much."
+
+Mort's eyes were bloodshot; they fell upon the carbine under the sled
+lashings, and lingered there, then wavered. He opened his lips,
+reconsidered, spoke softly to the team, then lifted the heavy dog whip
+and smote the Malemutes with all his strength.
+
+The men resumed their journey without further words, but each was
+cursing inwardly.
+
+"So! I talk too much," Grant thought. The accusation struck in his mind
+and he determined to speak no more.
+
+"He blames me," Cantwell reflected, bitterly. "I'm in wrong again and he
+couldn't keep his mouth shut. A fine partner, he is!"
+
+All day they plodded on, neither trusting himself to speak. They ate
+their evening meal like mutes; they avoided each other's eyes. Even the
+guide noticed the change and looked on curiously.
+
+There were two robes and these the partners shared nightly, but their
+hatred had grown so during the past few hours that the thought of lying
+side by side, limb to limb, was distasteful.
+
+Yet neither dared suggest a division of the bedding, for that would have
+brought further words and resulted in the crash which they longed for,
+but feared. They stripped off their furs, and lay down beside each other
+with the same repugnance they would have felt had there been a serpent
+in the couch.
+
+This unending malevolent silence became terrible. The strain of it
+increased, for each man now had something definite to cherish in the
+words and the looks that had passed. They divided the camp work with
+scrupulous nicety, each man waited upon himself and asked no favors. The
+knowledge of his debt forever chafed Cantwell; Grant resented his
+companion's lack of gratitude.
+
+Of course they spoke occasionally--it was beyond human endurance to
+remain entirely dumb--but they conversed in monosyllables, about trivial
+things, and their voices were throaty, as if the effort choked them.
+Meanwhile they continued to glow inwardly at a white heat.
+
+Cantwell no longer felt the desire merely to match his strength against
+Grant's; the estrangement had become too wide for that; a physical
+victory would have been flat and tasteless; he craved some deeper
+satisfaction. He began to think of the ax--just how or when or why he
+never knew. It was a thin-bladed, polished thing of frosty steel, and
+the more he thought of it the stronger grew his impulse to rid himself
+once for all of that presence which exasperated him. It would be very
+easy, he reasoned; a sudden blow, with the weight of his shoulders
+behind it--he fancied he could feel the bit sink into Grant's flesh,
+cleaving bone and cartilages in its course--a slanting downward stroke,
+aimed at the neck where it joined the body, and he would be forever
+satisfied. It would be ridiculously simple. He practiced in the gloom of
+evening as he felled spruce trees for firewood; he guarded the ax
+religiously; it became a living thing which urged him on to violence. He
+saw it standing by the tent fly when he closed his eyes to sleep; he
+dreamed of it; he sought it out with his eyes when he first awoke. He
+slid it loosely under the sled lashings every morning, thinking that its
+use could not long be delayed.
+
+As for Grant, the carbine dwelt forever in his mind, and his fingers
+itched for it. He secretly slipped a cartridge into the chamber, and
+when an occasional ptarmigan offered itself for a target he saw the
+white spot on the breast of Johnny's reindeer parka, dancing ahead of
+the Lyman bead.
+
+The solitude had done its work; the North had played its grim comedy to
+the final curtain, making sport of men's affections and turning love to
+rankling hate. But into the mind of each man crept a certain craftiness.
+Each longed to strike, but feared to face the consequences. It was
+lonesome, here among the white hills and the deathly silences, yet they
+reflected that it would be still more lonesome if they were left to keep
+step with nothing more substantial than a memory. They determined,
+therefore, to wait until civilization was nearer, meanwhile rehearsing
+the moment they knew was inevitable. Over and over in their thoughts
+each of them enacted the scene, ending it always with the picture of a
+prostrate man in a patch of trampled snow which grew crimson as the
+other gloated.
+
+They paused at Bethel Mission long enough to load with dried salmon,
+then made the ninety-mile portage over lake and tundra to the Yukon.
+There they got their first touch of the "inside" world. They camped in a
+barabora where white men had slept a few nights before, and heard their
+own language spoken by native tongues. The time was growing short now,
+and they purposely dismissed their guide, knowing that the trail was
+plain from there on. When they hitched up, on the next morning, Cantwell
+placed the ax, bit down, between the tarpaulin and the sled rail,
+leaving the helve projecting where his hand could reach it. Grant thrust
+the barrel of the rifle beneath a lashing, with the butt close by the
+handle-bars, and it was loaded.
+
+A mile from the village they were overtaken by an Indian and his squaw,
+traveling light behind hungry dogs. The natives attached themselves to
+the white men and hung stubbornly to their heels, taking advantage of
+their tracks. When night came they camped alongside, in the hope of
+food. They announced that they were bound for St. Michaels, and in spite
+of every effort to shake them off they remained close behind the
+partners until that point was reached.
+
+At St. Michaels there were white men, practically the first Johnny and
+Mort had encountered since landing at Katmai, and for a day at least
+they were sane. But there were still three hundred miles to be traveled,
+three hundred miles of solitude and haunting thoughts. Just as they were
+about to start, Cantwell came upon Grant and the A. C. agent, and heard
+his name pronounced, also the word "Katmai." He noted that Mort fell
+silent at his approach, and instantly his anger blazed afresh. He
+decided that the latter had been telling the story of their experience
+on the pass and boasting of his service. So much the better, he
+thought, in a blind rage; that which he planned doing would appear all
+the more like an accident, for who would dream that a man could kill the
+person to whom he owed his life?
+
+That night he waited for a chance.
+
+They were camped in a dismal hut on a wind-swept shore; they were alone.
+But Grant was waiting also, it seemed. They lay down beside each other,
+ostensibly to sleep; their limbs touched; the warmth from their bodies
+intermingled, but they did not close their eyes.
+
+They were up and away early, with Nome drawing rapidly nearer. They had
+skirted an ocean, foot by foot; Bering Sea lay behind them, now, and its
+northern shore swung westward to their goal. For two months they had
+lived in silent animosity, feeding on bitter food while their elbows
+rubbed.
+
+Noon found them floundering through one of those unheralded storms which
+make coast travel so hazardous. The morning had turned off gray, the sky
+was of a leaden hue which blended perfectly with the snow underfoot,
+there was no horizon, it was impossible to see more than a few yards in
+any direction. The trail soon became obliterated and their eyes began to
+play tricks. For all they could distinguish, they might have been
+suspended in space; they seemed to be treading the measures of an
+endless dance in the center of a whirling cloud. Of course it was cold,
+for the wind off the open sea was damp, but they were not men to turn
+back.
+
+They soon discovered that their difficulty lay not in facing the storm,
+but in holding to the trail. That narrow, two-foot causeway, packed by a
+winter's travel and frozen into a ribbon of ice by a winter's frosts,
+afforded their only avenue of progress, for the moment they left it the
+sled plowed into the loose snow, well-nigh disappearing and bringing the
+dogs to a standstill. It was the duty of the driver, in such case, to
+wallow forward, right the load if necessary, and lift it back into
+place. These mishaps were forever occurring, for it was impossible to
+distinguish the trail beneath its soft covering. However, if the
+driver's task was hard it was no more trying than that of the man ahead,
+who was compelled to feel out and explore the ridge of hardened snow and
+ice with his feet, after the fashion of a man walking a plank in the
+dark. Frequently he lunged into the drifts with one foot, or both; his
+glazed mukluk soles slid about, causing him to bestride the invisible
+hogback, or again his legs crossed awkwardly, throwing him off his
+balance. At times he wandered away from the path entirely and had to
+search it out again. These exertions were very wearing and they were
+dangerous, also, for joints are easily dislocated, muscles twisted, and
+tendons strained.
+
+Hour after hour the march continued, unrelieved by any change, unbroken
+by any speck or spot of color. The nerves of their eyes, wearied by
+constant nearsighted peering at the snow, began to jump so that vision
+became untrustworthy. Both travelers appreciated the necessity of
+clinging to the trail, for, once they lost it, they knew they might
+wander about indefinitely until they chanced to regain it or found their
+way to the shore, while always to seaward was the menace of open water,
+of air holes, or cracks which might gape beneath their feet like jaws.
+Immersion in this temperature, no matter how brief, meant death.
+
+The monotony of progress through this unreal, leaden world became almost
+unbearable. The repeated strainings and twistings they suffered in
+walking the slippery ridge reduced the men to weariness; their legs grew
+clumsy and their feet uncertain. Had they found a camping place they
+would have stopped, but they dared not forsake the thin thread that
+linked them with safety to go and look for one, not knowing where the
+shore lay. In storms of this kind men have lain in their sleeping bags
+for days within a stone's throw of a road-house or village. Bodies have
+been found within a hundred yards of shelter after blizzards have
+abated.
+
+Cantwell and Grant had no choice, therefore, except to bore into the
+welter of drifting flakes.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when the latter met with an accident.
+Johnny, who had taken a spell at the rear, heard him cry out, saw him
+stagger, struggle to hold his footing, then sink into the snow. The
+dogs paused instantly, lay down, and began to strip the ice pellets
+from between their toes.
+
+Cantwell spoke harshly, leaning upon the handle-bars: "Well! What's the
+idea?"
+
+It was the longest sentence of the day.
+
+"I've--hurt myself." Mort's voice was thin and strange; he raised
+himself to a sitting posture, and reached beneath his parka, then lay
+back weakly. He writhed, his face was twisted with pain. He continued to
+lie there, doubled into a knot of suffering. A groan was wrenched from
+between his teeth.
+
+"Hurt? How?" Johnny inquired, dully.
+
+It seemed very ridiculous to see that strong man kicking around in the
+snow.
+
+"I've ripped something loose--here." Mort's palms were pressed in upon
+his groin, his fingers were clutching something. "Ruptured--I guess." He
+tried again to rise, but sank back. His cap had fallen off and his
+forehead glistened with sweat.
+
+Cantwell went forward and lifted him. It was the first time in many days
+that their hands had touched, and the sensation affected him strangely.
+He struggled to repress a devilish mirth at the thought that Grant had
+played out--it amounted to that and nothing less; the trail had
+delivered him into his enemy's hands, his hour had struck. Johnny
+determined to square the debt now, once for all, and wipe his own mind
+clean of that poison which corroded it. His muscles were strong, his
+brain clear, he had never felt his strength so irresistible as at this
+moment, while Mort, for all his boasted superiority, was nothing but a
+nerveless thing hanging limp against his breast. Providence had arranged
+it all. The younger man was impelled to give raucous voice to his glee,
+and yet--his helpless burden exerted an odd effect upon him.
+
+He deposited his foe upon the sled and stared at the face he had not met
+for many days. He saw how white it was, how wet and cold, how weak and
+dazed, then as he looked he cursed inwardly, for the triumph of his
+moment was spoiled.
+
+The ax was there, its polished bit showed like a piece of ice, its helve
+protruded handily, but there was no need of it now; his fingers were all
+the weapons Johnny needed; they were more than sufficient, in fact, for
+Mort was like a child.
+
+Cantwell was a strong man, and, although the North had coarsened him,
+yet underneath the surface was a chivalrous regard for all things weak,
+and this the trail madness had not affected. He had longed for this
+instant, but now that it had come he felt no enjoyment, since he could
+not harm a sick man and waged no war on cripples. Perhaps, when Mort had
+rested, they could settle their quarrel; this was as good a place as
+any. The storm hid them, they would leave no traces, there could be no
+interruption.
+
+But Mort did not rest. He could not walk; movement brought excruciating
+pain.
+
+Finally Cantwell heard himself saying: "Better wrap up and lie still
+for a while. I'll get the dogs underway." His words amazed him dully.
+They were not at all what he had intended to say.
+
+The injured man demurred, but the other insisted gruffly, then brought
+him his mittens and cap, slapping the snow out of them before rousing
+the team to motion. The load was very heavy now, the dogs had no
+footprints to guide them, and it required all of Cantwell's efforts to
+prevent capsizing. Night approached swiftly, the whirling snow particles
+continued to flow past upon the wind, shrouding the earth in an
+impenetrable pall.
+
+The journey soon became a terrible ordeal, a slow, halting progress that
+led nowhere and was accomplished at the cost of tremendous exertion.
+Time after time Johnny broke trail, then returned and urged the huskies
+forward to the end of his tracks. When he lost the path he sought it
+out, laboriously hoisted the sledge back into place, and coaxed his
+four-footed helpers to renewed effort. He was drenched with
+perspiration, his inner garments were steaming, his outer ones were
+frozen into a coat of armor; when he paused he chilled rapidly. His
+vision was untrustworthy, also, and he felt snow blindness coming on.
+Grant begged him more than once to unroll the bedding and prepare to
+sleep out the storm; he even urged Johnny to leave him and make a dash
+for his own safety, but at this the younger man cursed and told him to
+hold his tongue.
+
+Night found the lone driver slipping, plunging, lurching ahead of the
+dogs, or shoving at the handle-bars and shouting at the dogs. Finally,
+during a pause for rest he heard a sound which roused him. Out of the
+gloom to the right came the faint complaining howl of a malemute; it was
+answered by his own dogs, and the next moment they had caught a scent
+which swerved them shoreward and led them scrambling through the drifts.
+Two hundred yards, and a steep bank loomed above, up and over which they
+rushed, with Cantwell yelling encouragement; then a light showed, and
+they were in the lee of a low-roofed hut.
+
+A sick native, huddled over a Yukon stove, made them welcome to his mean
+abode, explaining that his wife and son had gone to Unalaklik for
+supplies.
+
+Johnny carried his partner to the one unoccupied bunk and stripped his
+clothes from him. With his own hands he rubbed the warmth back into
+Mortimer's limbs, then swiftly prepared hot food, and, holding him in
+the hollow of his aching arm, fed him, a little at a time. He was like
+to drop from exhaustion, but he made no complaint. With one folded robe
+he made the hard boards comfortable, then spread the other as a
+covering. For himself he sat beside the fire and fought his weariness.
+When he dozed off and the cold awakened him, he renewed the fire; he
+heated beef tea, and, rousing Mort, fed it to him with a teaspoon. All
+night long, at intervals, he tended the sick man, and Grant's eyes
+followed him with an expression that brought a fierce pain to Cantwell's
+throat.
+
+"You're mighty good--after the rotten way I acted," the former whispered
+once.
+
+And Johnny's big hand trembled so that he spilled the broth.
+
+His voice was low and tender as he inquired, "Are you resting easier
+now?"
+
+The other nodded.
+
+"Maybe you're not hurt badly, after--all. God! That would be awful----"
+Cantwell choked, turned away, and, raising his arms against the log
+wall, buried his face in them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The morning broke clear; Grant was sleeping. As Johnny stiffly mounted
+the creek bank with a bucket of water he heard a jingle of sleighbells
+and saw a sled with two white men swing in toward the cabin.
+
+"Hello!" he called, then heard his own name pronounced.
+
+"Johnny Cantwell, by all that's holy!"
+
+The next moment he was shaking hands vigorously with two old friends
+from Nome.
+
+"Martin and me are bound for Saint Mikes," one of them explained. "Where
+the deuce did you come from, Johnny?"
+
+"The 'outside.' Started for Stony River, but--"
+
+"Stony River!" The newcomers began to laugh loudly and Cantwell joined
+them. It was the first time he had laughed for weeks. He realized the
+fact with a start, then recollected also his sleeping partner, and said:
+
+"Sh-h! Mort's inside, asleep!"
+
+During the night everything had changed for Johnny Cantwell; his mental
+attitude, his hatred, his whole reasonless insanity. Everything was
+different now, even his debt was canceled, the weight of obligation was
+removed, and his diseased fancies were completely cured.
+
+"Yes! Stony River," he repeated, grinning broadly. "I bit!"
+
+Martin burst forth, gleefully: "They caught MacDonald at Holy Cross and
+ran him out on a limb. He'll never start another stampede. Old man Baker
+gun-branded him."
+
+"What's the matter with Mort?" inquired the second traveler.
+
+"He's resting up. Yesterday, during the storm he--" Johnny was upon the
+point of saying "played out," but changed it to "had an accident. We
+thought it was serious, but a few days' rest'll bring him around all
+right. He saved me at Katmai, coming in. I petered out and threw up my
+tail, but he got me through. Come inside and tell him the news."
+
+"Sure thing."
+
+"Well, well!" Martin said. "So you and Mort are still partners, eh?"
+
+"_Still_ partners?" Johnny took up the pail of water. "Well, rather!
+We'll always be partners." His voice was young and full and hearty as he
+continued: "Why, Mort's the best fellow in the world. I'd lay down my
+life for him."
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[5] From _The Crimson Garden_. Copyright, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1916, by
+Harper and Brothers. Reprinted by special permission of publisher and
+author.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+VI.--That Spot[6]
+
+_By Jack London_
+
+
+I DON'T think much of Stephen Mackaye any more, though I used to swear
+by him. I know that in those days I loved him more than my brother. If
+ever I meet Stephen Mackaye again, I shall not be responsible for my
+actions. It passes beyond me that a man with whom I shared food and
+blanket, and with whom I mushed over the Chilcoot Trail, should turn out
+the way he did. I always sized Steve up as a square man, a kindly
+comrade, without an iota of anything vindictive or malicious in his
+nature. I shall never trust my judgment in men again. Why, I nursed that
+man through typhoid fever; we starved together on the headwaters of the
+Stewart; and he saved my life on the Little Salmon. And now, after the
+years we were together, all I can say of Stephen Mackaye is that he is
+the meanest man I ever knew.
+
+We started for the Klondike in the fall rush of 1897, and we started
+too late to get over Chilcoot Pass before the freeze-up. We packed our
+outfit on our backs part way over, when the snow began to fly, and then
+we had to buy dogs in order to sled it the rest of the way. That was how
+we came to get that Spot. Dogs were high, and we paid one hundred and
+ten dollars for him. He looked worth it. I say _looked_, because he was
+one of the finest-appearing dogs I ever saw. He weighed sixty pounds,
+and he had all the lines of a good sled animal. We never could make out
+his breed. He wasn't husky, nor Malemute, nor Hudson Bay; he looked like
+all of them and he didn't look like any of them; and on top of it all he
+had some of the white man's dog in him, for on one side, in the thick of
+the mixed yellow-brown-red-and-dirty-white that was his prevailing
+color, there was a spot of coal-black as big as a water bucket. That was
+why we called him Spot.
+
+He was a good looker all right. When he was in condition his muscles
+stood out in bunches all over him. And he was the strongest-looking
+brute I ever saw in Alaska, also the most intelligent-looking. To run
+your eyes over him, you'd think he could outpull three dogs of his own
+weight. Maybe he could, but I never saw it. His intelligence didn't run
+that way. He could steal and forage to perfection; he had an instinct
+that was positively gruesome for divining when work was to be done and
+for making a sneak accordingly; and for getting lost and not staying
+lost he was nothing short of inspired. But when it came to work, the
+way that intelligence dribbled out of him and left him a mere clot of
+wobbling, stupid jelly would make your heart bleed.
+
+There are times when I think it wasn't stupidity. Maybe, like some men I
+know, he was too wise to work. I shouldn't wonder if he put it all over
+us with that intelligence of his. Maybe he figured it all out and
+decided that a licking now and again and no work was a whole lot better
+than work all the time and no licking. He was intelligent enough for
+such a computation. I tell you, I've sat and looked into that dog's eyes
+till the shivers ran up and down my spine and the marrow crawled like
+yeast, what of the intelligence I saw shining out. I can't express
+myself about that intelligence. It is beyond mere words. I saw it,
+that's all. At times it was like gazing into a human soul, to look into
+his eyes; and what I saw there frightened me and started all sorts of
+ideas in my own mind of reincarnation and all the rest. I tell you I
+sensed something big in that brute's eyes; there was a message there,
+but I wasn't big enough myself to catch it. Whatever it was (I know I'm
+making a fool of myself)--whatever it was, it baffled me. I can't give
+an inkling of what I saw in that brute's eyes; it wasn't light, it
+wasn't color; it was something that moved, away back, when the eyes
+themselves weren't moving. And I guess I didn't see it move, either; I
+only sensed that it moved. It was an expression,--that's what it
+was,--and I got an impression of it. No; it was different from a mere
+expression; it was more than that. I don't know what it was, but it gave
+me a feeling of kinship just the same. Oh, no, not sentimental kinship.
+It was, rather, a kinship of equality. Those eyes never pleaded like a
+deer's eyes. They challenged. No, it wasn't defiance. It was just a calm
+assumption of equality. And I don't think it was deliberate. My belief
+is that it was unconscious on his part. It was there because it was
+there, and it couldn't help shining out. No, I don't mean shine. It
+didn't shine; it _moved_. I know I'm talking rot, but if you'd looked
+into that animal's eyes the way I have, you'd understand. Steve was
+affected the same way I was. Why, I tried to kill that Spot once--he was
+no good for anything; and I fell down on it. I led him out into the
+brush, and he came along slow and unwilling. He knew what was going on.
+I stopped in a likely place, put my foot on the rope, and pulled my big
+Colt's. And that dog sat down and looked at me. I tell you he didn't
+plead. He just looked. And I saw all kinds of incomprehensible things
+moving, yes, _moving_, in those eyes of his. I didn't really see them
+move; I thought I saw them, for, as I said before, I guess I only sensed
+them. And I want to tell you right now that it got beyond me. It was
+like killing a man, a conscious, brave man who looked calmly into your
+gun as much as to say, "Who's afraid?" Then, too, the message seemed so
+near that, instead of pulling the trigger quick, I stopped to see if I
+could catch the message. There it was, right before me, glimmering all
+around in those eyes of his. And then it was too late. I got scared. I
+was trembly all over, and my stomach generated a nervous palpitation
+that made me seasick. I just sat down and looked at that dog, and he
+looked at me, till I thought I was going crazy. Do you want to know what
+I did? I threw down the gun and ran back to camp with the fear of God in
+my heart. Steve laughed at me. But I notice that Steve led Spot into the
+woods, a week later, for the same purpose, and that Steve came back
+alone, and a little later Spot drifted back, too.
+
+At any rate, Spot wouldn't work. We paid a hundred and ten dollars for
+him from the bottom of our sack, and he wouldn't work. He wouldn't even
+tighten the traces. Steve spoke to him the first time we put him in
+harness, and he sort of shivered, that was all. Not an ounce on the
+traces. He just stood still and wobbled, like so much jelly. Steve
+touched him with the whip. He yelped, but not an ounce. Steve touched
+him again, a bit harder, and he howled--the regular long wolf howl. Then
+Steve got mad and gave him half a dozen, and I came on the run from the
+tent.
+
+I told Steve he was brutal with the animal, and we had some words--the
+first we'd ever had. He threw the whip down in the snow and walked away
+mad. I picked it up and went to it. That Spot trembled and wobbled and
+cowered before ever I swung the lash, and with the first bite of it he
+howled like a lost soul. Next he lay down in the snow. I started the
+rest of the dogs, and they dragged him along, while I threw the whip
+into him. He rolled over on his back and bumped along, his four legs
+waving in the air, himself howling as though he was going through a
+sausage machine. Steve came back and laughed at me, and I apologized for
+what I'd said.
+
+There was no getting any work out of that Spot; and to make up for it,
+he was the biggest pig-glutton of a dog I ever saw. On top of that, he
+was the cleverest thief. These was no circumventing him. Many a
+breakfast we went without our bacon because Spot had been there first.
+And it was because of him that we nearly starved to death up the
+Stewart. He figured out the way to break into our meat cache, and what
+he didn't eat, the rest of the team did. But he was impartial. He stole
+from everybody. He was a restless dog, always very busy snooping around
+or going somewhere. And there was never a camp within five miles that he
+didn't raid. The worst of it was that they always came back on us to pay
+his board bill, which was just, being the law of the land; but it was
+mighty hard on us, especially that first winter on the Chilcoot, when we
+were busted, paying for whole hams and sides of bacon that we never ate.
+He could fight, too, that Spot. He could do everything but work. He
+never pulled a pound, but he was the boss of the whole team. The way he
+made those dogs stand around was an education. He bullied them, and
+there was always one or more of them fresh-marked with his fangs. But he
+was more than a bully. He wasn't afraid of anything that walked on four
+legs; and I've seen him march, single-handed, into a strange team,
+without any provocation whatever, and put the _kibosh_ on the whole
+outfit. Did I say he could eat? I caught him eating the whip once.
+That's straight. He started in at the lash, and when I caught him he was
+down to the handle, and still going.
+
+But he was a good looker. At the end of the first week we sold him for
+seventy-five dollars to the Mounted Police. They had experienced dog
+drivers, and we knew that by the time he'd covered the six hundred miles
+to Dawson he'd be a good sled dog. I say we _knew_, for we were just
+getting acquainted with that Spot. A little later we were not brash
+enough to know anything where he was concerned. A week later we woke up
+in the morning to the dangedest dog fight we'd ever heard. It was that
+Spot come back and knocking the team into shape. We ate a pretty
+depressing breakfast, I can tell you; but cheered up two hours afterward
+when we sold him to an official courier, bound in to Dawson with
+government dispatches. That Spot was only three days in coming back,
+and, as usual, celebrated his arrival with a rough-house.
+
+We spent the winter and spring, after our own outfit was across the
+pass, freighting other people's outfits; and we made a fat stake. Also,
+we made money out of Spot. If we sold him once, we sold him twenty
+times. He always came back, and no one asked for their money. We didn't
+want the money. We'd have paid handsomely for any one to take him off
+our hands for keeps. We had to get rid of him, and we couldn't give him
+away, for that would have been suspicious. But he was such a fine looker
+that we never had any difficulty in selling him. "Unbroke," we'd say,
+and they'd pay any old price for him. We sold him as low as twenty-five
+dollars, and once we got a hundred and fifty for him. That particular
+party returned him in person, refused to take his money back, and the
+way he abused us was something awful. He said it was cheap at the price
+to tell us what he thought of us; and we felt he was so justified that
+we never talked back. But to this day I've never quite regained all the
+old self-respect that was mine before that man talked to me.
+
+When the ice cleared out of the lakes and river, we put our outfit in a
+Lake Bennet boat and started for Dawson. We had a good team of dogs, and
+of course we piled them on top the outfit. That Spot was along--there
+was no losing him; and a dozen times, the first day, he knocked one or
+another of the dogs overboard in the course of fighting with them. It
+was close quarters, and he didn't like being crowded.
+
+"What that dog needs is space," Steve said the second day. "Let's maroon
+him."
+
+We did, running the boat in at Caribou Crossing for him to jump ashore.
+Two of the other dogs, good dogs, followed him; and we lost two whole
+days trying to find them. We never saw those two dogs again; but the
+quietness and relief we enjoyed made us decide, like the man who refused
+his hundred and fifty, that it was cheap at the price. For the first
+time in months Steve and I laughed and whistled and sang. We were as
+happy as clams. The dark days were over. The nightmare had been lifted.
+That Spot was gone.
+
+Three weeks later, one morning, Steve and I were standing on the river
+bank at Dawson. A small boat was just arriving from Lake Bennett. I saw
+Steve give a start, and heard him say something that was not nice and
+that was not under his breath. Then I looked; and there, in the bow of
+the boat, with ears pricked up, sat Spot. Steve and I sneaked
+immediately, like beaten curs, like cowards, like absconders from
+justice. It was this last that the lieutenant of police thought when he
+saw us sneaking. He surmised that there were law officers in the boat
+who were after us. He didn't wait to find out, but kept us in sight, and
+in the M.&.M. saloon got us in a corner. We had a merry time explaining,
+for we refused to go back to the boat and meet Spot; and finally he held
+us under guard of another policeman while he went to the boat. After we
+got clear of him, we started for the cabin, and when we arrived, there
+was that Spot sitting on the stoop waiting for us. Now how did he know
+we lived there? There were forty thousand people in Dawson that summer,
+and how did he _savvy_ our cabin out of all the cabins? How did he know
+we were in Dawson, anyway? I leave it to you. But don't forget what I
+have said about his intelligence and that immortal something I have seen
+glimmering in his eyes.
+
+There was no getting rid of him any more. There were too many people in
+Dawson who had bought him up on Chilcoot, and the story got around. Half
+a dozen times we put him on board steamboats going down the Yukon; but
+he merely went ashore at the first landing and trotted back up the bank.
+We couldn't sell him, we couldn't kill him (both Steve and I had tried),
+and nobody else was able to kill him. He bore a charmed life. I've seen
+him go down in a dog fight on the main street with fifty dogs on top of
+him, and when they were separated, he'd appear on all his four legs,
+unharmed, while two of the dogs that had been on top of him would be
+lying dead.
+
+I saw him steal a chunk of moose meat from Major Dinwiddie's cache so
+heavy that he could just keep one jump ahead of Mrs. Dinwiddie's squaw
+cook, who was after him with an ax. As he went up the hill, after the
+squaw gave out, Major Dinwiddie himself came out and pumped his
+Winchester into the landscape. He emptied his magazine twice, and never
+touched that Spot. Then a policeman came along and arrested him for
+discharging firearms inside the city limits. Major Dinwiddie paid his
+fine, and Steve and I paid him for the moose meat at the rate of a
+dollar a pound, bones and all. That was what he paid for it. Meat was
+high that year.
+
+I am only telling what I saw with my own eyes. And now I'll tell you
+something, also. I saw that Spot fall through a water hole. The ice was
+three and a half feet thick, and the current sucked him under like a
+straw. Three hundred yards below was the big water hole used by the
+hospital. Spot crawled out of the hospital water hole, licked off the
+water, bit out the ice that had formed between his toes, trotted up the
+bank, and whipped a big Newfoundland belonging to the Gold Commissioner.
+
+In the fall of 1898, Steve and I poled up the Yukon on the last water,
+bound for Stewart River. We took the dogs along, all except Spot. We
+figured we'd been feeding him long enough. He'd cost us more time and
+trouble and money and grub than we'd got by selling him on the
+Chilcoot--especially grub. So Steve and I tied him down in the cabin and
+pulled our freight. We camped that night at the mouth of Indian River,
+and Steve and I were pretty facetious over having shaken him. Steve was
+a funny cuss, and I was just sitting up in the blankets and laughing
+when a tornado hit camp. The way that Spot walked into those dogs and
+gave them what-for was hair-raising. Now how did he get loose? It's up
+to you. I haven't any theory. And how did he get across the Klondike
+River? That's another facer. And anyway, how did he know we had gone up
+the Yukon? You see, we went by water, and he couldn't smell our tracks.
+Steve and I began to get superstitious about that dog. He got on our
+nerves, too; and, between you and me, we were just a mite afraid of him.
+
+The freeze-up came on when we were at the mouth of Henderson Creek, and
+we traded him off for two sacks of flour to an outfit that was bound up
+White River after copper. Now that whole outfit was lost. Never trace
+nor hide nor hair of men, dogs, sleds, or anything was ever found. They
+dropped clean out of sight. It became one of the mysteries of the
+country. Steve and I plugged away up the Stewart, and six weeks
+afterward that Spot crawled into camp. He was a perambulating skeleton,
+and could just drag along; but he got there. And what I want to know is
+who told him we were up the Stewart? We could have gone a thousand other
+places. How did he know? You tell me, and I'll tell you.
+
+No losing him. At the Mayo he started a row with an Indian dog. The buck
+who owned the dog took a swing at Spot with an ax, missed him, and
+killed his own dog. Talk about magic and turning bullets aside--I, for
+one, consider it a blamed sight harder to turn an ax aside with a big
+buck at the other end of it. And I saw him do it with my own eyes. That
+buck didn't want to kill his own dog. You've got to show me.
+
+I told you about Spot breaking into our meat cache. It was nearly the
+death of us. There wasn't any more meat to be killed, and meat was all
+we had to live on. The moose had gone back several hundred miles and the
+Indians with them. There we were. Spring was on, and we had to wait for
+the river to break. We got pretty thin before we decided to eat the
+dogs, and we decided to eat Spot first. Do you know what that dog did?
+He sneaked. Now how did he know our minds were made up to eat him? We
+sat up nights laying for him, but he never came back, and we ate the
+other dogs. We ate the whole team.
+
+And now for the sequel. You know what it is when a big river breaks up
+and a few billion tons of ice go out, jamming and milling and grinding.
+Just in the thick of it, when the Stewart went out, rumbling and
+roaring, we sighted Spot out in the middle. He'd got caught as he was
+trying to cross up above somewhere. Steve and I yelled and shouted and
+ran up and down the bank, tossing our hats in the air. Sometimes we'd
+stop and hug each other, we were that boisterous, for we saw Spot's
+finish. He didn't have a chance in a million. He didn't have any chance
+at all. After the ice-run, we got into a canoe and paddled down to the
+Yukon, and down the Yukon to Dawson, stopping to feed up for a week at
+the cabins at the mouth of Henderson Creek. And as we came in to the
+bank at Dawson, there sat that Spot, waiting for us, his ears pricked
+up, his tail wagging, his mouth smiling, extending a hearty welcome to
+us. Now how did he get out of that ice? How did he know we were coming
+to Dawson, to the very hour and minute, to be out there on the bank
+waiting for us?
+
+The more I think of that Spot, the more I am convinced that there are
+things in this world that go beyond science. On no scientific grounds
+can that Spot be explained. It's psychic phenomena, or mysticism, or
+something of that sort, I guess, with a lot of theosophy thrown in. The
+Klondike is a good country. I might have been there yet, and become a
+millionaire, if it hadn't been for Spot. He got on my nerves. I stood
+him for two years altogether, and then I guess my stamina broke. It was
+the summer of 1899 when I pulled out. I didn't say anything to Steve. I
+just sneaked. But I fixed it up all right. I wrote Steve a note, and
+enclosed a package of "rough-on-rats," telling him what to do with it. I
+was worn down to skin and bone by that Spot, and I was that nervous that
+I'd jump and look around when there wasn't anybody within hailing
+distance. But it was astonishing the way I recuperated when I got quit
+of him. I got back twenty pounds before I arrived in San Francisco, and
+by the time I'd crossed the ferry to Oakland I was my old self again, so
+that even my wife looked in vain for any change in me.
+
+Steve wrote to me once, and his letter seemed irritated. He took it kind
+of hard because I'd left him with Spot. Also, he said he'd used the
+"rough-on-rats," per directions, and that there was nothing doing. A
+year went by. I was back in the office and prospering in all ways--even
+getting a bit fat. And then Steve arrived. He didn't look me up. I read
+his name in the steamer list, and wondered why. But I didn't wonder
+long. I got up one morning and found that Spot chained to the gate-post
+and holding up the milkman. Steve went north to Seattle, I learned, that
+very morning. I didn't put on any more weight. My wife made me buy him a
+collar and tag, and within an hour he showed his gratitude by killing
+her pet Persian cat. There is no getting rid of that Spot. He will be
+with me until I die, for he'll never die. My appetite is not so good
+since he arrived, and my wife says I am looking peaked. Last night that
+Spot got into Mr. Harvey's hen house (Harvey is my next door neighbor)
+and killed nineteen of his fancy-bred chickens. I shall have to pay for
+them. My neighbors on the other side quarreled with my wife and then
+moved out. Spot was the cause of it. And that is why I am disappointed
+in Stephen Mackaye. I had no idea he was so mean a man.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[6] From _Lost Face_. Copyright, 1910, by the Macmillan Company.
+Reprinted by special permission of the publisher.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+VII.--When Lincoln Licked a Bully[7]
+
+_By Irving Bacheller_
+
+          _In "A Man For the Ages" Irving Bacheller tells
+          the story of Abraham Lincoln's life and career in
+          the form of a novel. He represents that the book
+          is written by the grandson of one Samson Traylor,
+          who is presented as a friend of Lincoln's. The
+          story that follows is an abbreviation of the
+          account of the journey of Samson Traylor and his
+          wife and two children and their dog, Sambo, in
+          1831, from Vergennes, Vermont, to the Illinois
+          country; and the part "Abe" Lincoln, a clerk in
+          Denton Offut's store at New Salem, had in building
+          a log cabin for them upon their arrival there; and
+          concludes by telling how Lincoln licked a
+          bully._--THE EDITOR.
+
+
+IN the early summer of 1831 Samson Traylor and his wife, Sarah, and two
+children left their old home near the village of Vergennes, Vermont, and
+began their travels toward the setting sun with four chairs, a bread
+board and rolling-pin, a feather bed and blankets, a small
+looking-glass, a skillet, an ax, a pack basket with a pad of sole
+leather on the same, a water pail, a box of dishes, a tub of salt pork,
+a rifle, a teapot, a sack of meal, sundry small provisions and a violin,
+in a double wagon drawn by oxen. . . . A young black shepherd dog with
+tawny points and the name of Sambo followed the wagon or explored the
+fields and woods it passed.
+
+The boy Josiah--familiarly called Joe--sits beside his mother. He is a
+slender, sweet-faced boy. He is looking up wistfully at his mother. The
+little girl Betsey sits between him and her father.
+
+That evening they stopped at the house of an old friend some miles up
+the dusty road to the north.
+
+"Here we are--goin' west," Samson shouted to the man at the doorstep.
+
+He alighted and helped his family out of the wagon.
+
+"You go right in--I'll take care o' the oxen," said the man.
+
+Samson started for the house with the girl under one arm and the boy
+under the other. A pleasant-faced woman greeted them with a hearty
+welcome at the door.
+
+"You poor man! Come right in," she said.
+
+"Poor! I'm the richest man in the world," said he. "Look at the gold on
+that girl's head--curly, fine gold, too--the best there is. She's
+Betsey--my little toy woman--half past seven years old--blue eyes--helps
+her mother get tired every day. Here's my toy man Josiah--yes, brown
+hair and brown eyes like Sarah--heart o' gold--helps his mother,
+too--six times one year old."
+
+"What pretty faces!" said the woman as she stooped and kissed them.
+
+"Yes, ma'am. Got 'em from the fairies," Samson went on. "They have all
+kinds o' heads for little folks, an' I guess they color 'em up with the
+blood o' roses an' the gold o' buttercups an' the blue o' violets.
+Here's this wife o' mine. She's richer'n I am. She owns all of us. We're
+her slaves."
+
+"Looks as young as she did the day she was married--nine years ago,"
+said the woman.
+
+"Exactly!" Samson exclaimed. "Straight as an arrow and proud! I don't
+blame her. She's got enough to make her proud I say. I fall in love
+again every time I look into her big brown eyes."
+
+The talk and laughter brought the dog into the house.
+
+"There's Sambo, our camp follower," said Samson. "He likes us, one and
+all, but he often feels sorry for us because we cannot feel the joy that
+lies in buried bones and the smell of a liberty pole or a gate post."
+
+They had a joyous evening and a restful night with these old friends and
+resumed their journey soon after daylight. They ferried across the lake
+at Burlington and fared away over the mountains and through the deep
+forest on the Chateaugay trail. . . .
+
+They had read a little book called _The Country of the Sangamon_. The
+latter was a word of the Pottawatomies meaning "land of plenty." It was
+the name of a river in Illinois draining "boundless, flowery meadows of
+unexampled beauty and fertility, belted with timber, blessed with shady
+groves, covered with game and mostly level, without a stick or a stone
+to vex the plowman." Thither they were bound to take up a section of
+government land.
+
+They stopped for a visit with Elisha Howard and his wife, old friends of
+theirs, who lived in the village of Malone, which was in Franklin
+County, New York. There they traded their oxen for a team of horses.
+They were large gray horses named Pete and Colonel. The latter was fat
+and good-natured. His chief interest in life was food. Pete was always
+looking for food and perils. Colonel was the near horse. Now and then
+Samson threw a sheepskin over his back and put the boy on it and tramped
+along within arm's reach of Joe's left leg. This was a great delight to
+the little lad.
+
+They proceeded at a better pace to the Black River country, toward
+which, in the village of Canton, they tarried again for a visit with
+Captain Moody and Silas Wright, both of whom had taught school in the
+town of Vergennes.
+
+They proceeded through DeKalb, Richville and Gouverneur and Antwerp and
+on to the Sand Plains. They had gone far out of their way for a look at
+these old friends of theirs.
+
+Every day the children would ask many questions, as they rode along,
+mainly about the beasts and birds in the dark shadows of the forest
+through which they passed. These were answered patiently by their father
+and mother and every answer led to other queries.
+
+"You're a funny pair," said their father one day. "You have to turn over
+every word we say to see what's under it. I used to be just like ye,
+used to go out in the lot and tip over every stick and stone I could
+lift to see the bugs and crickets run. You're always hopin' to see a
+bear or a panther or a fairy run out from under my remarks."
+
+"Wonder why we don't see no bears?" Joe asked.
+
+"'Cause they always see us first or hear us comin'," said his father.
+"If you're goin' to see ol' Uncle Bear ye got to pay the price of
+admission."
+
+"What's that?" Joe asked.
+
+"Got to go still and careful so you'll see him first. If this old wagon
+didn't talk so loud and would kind o' go on its tiptoes maybe we'd see
+him. He don't like to be seen. Seems so he was kind o' shamed of
+himself, an' I wouldn't wonder if he was. He's done a lot o' things to
+be 'shamed of."
+
+"What's he done?" Joe asked.
+
+"Ketched sheep and pigs and fawns and run off with 'em."
+
+"What does he do with 'em?"
+
+"Eats 'em up. Now you quit. Here's a lot o' rocks and mud and I got to
+tend to business. You tackle yer mother and chase her up and down the
+hills a while and let me get my breath."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the twenty-ninth day after their journey began they came in sight of
+the beautiful green valley of the Mohawk. As they looked from the hills
+they saw the roof of the forest dipping down to the river shores and
+stretching far to the east and west and broken, here and there, by small
+clearings. Soon they could see the smoke and spires of the thriving
+village of Utica.
+
+Here they bought provisions and a tin trumpet for Joe, and a doll with a
+real porcelain face for Betsey, and turned into the great main
+thoroughfare of the north leading eastward to Boston and westward to a
+shore of the midland seas. This road was once the great trail of the
+Iroquois, by them called the Long House, because it had reached from the
+Hudson to Lake Erie, and in their day had been well roofed with foliage.
+Here the travelers got their first view of a steam engine. The latter
+stood puffing and smoking near the village of Utica, to the horror and
+amazement of the team and the great excitement of those in the wagon.
+The boy clung to his father for fear of it.
+
+Samson longed to get out of the wagon and take a close look at the noisy
+monster, but his horses were rearing in their haste to get away, and
+even a short stop was impossible. Sambo, with his tail between his
+legs, ran ahead, in a panic, and took refuge in some bushes by the
+roadside.
+
+"What was that, father?" the boy asked when the horses had ceased to
+worry over this new peril.
+
+"A steam engyne," he answered. "Sarah, did ye get a good look at it?"
+
+"Yes; if that don't beat all the newfangled notions I ever heard of,"
+she exclaimed.
+
+"It's just begun doin' business," said Samson.
+
+"What does it do?" Joe asked.
+
+"On a railroad track it can grab hold of a house full o' folks and run
+off with it. Goes like the wind, too."
+
+"Does it eat 'em up?" Joe asked.
+
+"No. It eats wood and oil and keeps yellin' for more. I guess it could
+eat a cord o' wood and wash it down with half a bucket o' castor oil in
+about five minutes. It snatches folks away to some place and drops 'em.
+I guess it must make their hair stand up and their teeth chatter."
+
+"Does it hurt anybody?" Joe asked hopefully.
+
+"Well, sir, if anybody wanted to be hurt and got in its way, I rather
+guess he'd succeed purty well. It's powerful. Why, if a man was to ketch
+hold of the tail of a locomotive, and hang on, it would jerk the toe
+nails right off him."
+
+Joe began to have great respect for locomotives.
+
+Soon they came in view of the famous Erie Canal, hard by the road.
+Through it the grain of the far West had just begun moving eastward in a
+tide that was flowing from April to December. Big barges, drawn by mules
+and horses on its shore, were cutting the still waters of the canal.
+They stopped and looked at the barges and the long tow ropes and the
+tugging animals.
+
+"There is a real artificial river, hundreds o' miles long, handmade of
+the best material, water tight, no snags or rocks or other
+imperfections, durability guaranteed," said Samson. "It has made the
+name of DeWitt Clinton known everywhere."
+
+"I wonder what next!" Sarah exclaimed.
+
+They met many teams and passed other movers going west, and some
+prosperous farms on a road wider and smoother than any they had
+traveled. They camped that night, close by the river, with a Connecticut
+family on its way to Ohio with a great load of household furniture on
+one wagon and seven children in another. There were merry hours for the
+young, and pleasant visiting between the older folk that evening at the
+fireside. There was much talk among the latter about the great Erie
+Canal.
+
+So they fared along through Canandaigua and across the Genesee to the
+village of Rochester and on through Lewiston and up the Niagara River to
+the Falls, and camped where they could see the great water flood and
+hear its muffled thunder. . . .
+
+"Children," said Samson, "I want you to take a good look at that. It's
+the most wonderful thing in the world and maybe you'll never see it
+again."
+
+"The Indians used to think that the Great Spirit was in this river,"
+said Sarah.
+
+"Kind o' seems to me they were right," Samson remarked thoughtfully.
+"Kind o' seems as if the great spirit of America was in that water. It
+moves on in the way it wills and nothing can stop it. Everything in its
+current goes along with it. . . ."
+
+They had the lake view and its cool breeze on their way to Silver Creek,
+Dunkirk and Erie, and a rough way it was in those days.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They fared along through Indiana and over the wide savannas of Illinois,
+and on the ninety-seventh day of their journey they drove through
+rolling, grassy, flowering prairies and up a long, hard hill to the
+small log cabin settlement of New Salem, Illinois, on the shore of the
+Sangamon. They halted about noon in the middle of this little prairie
+village, opposite a small clapboarded house. A sign hung over its door
+which bore the rudely lettered words: "Rutledge's Tavern."
+
+A long, slim, stoop-shouldered young man sat in the shade of an oak tree
+that stood near a corner of the tavern, with a number of children
+playing around him. He had sat leaning against the tree trunk reading a
+book. He had risen as they came near and stood looking at them, with the
+book under his arm. . . .
+
+He wore a hickory shirt without a collar or coat or jacket. One
+suspender held up his coarse, linsey trousers, the legs of which fitted
+closely and came only to a blue yarn zone above his heavy cowhide shoes.
+Samson writes that he "fetched a sneeze and wiped his big nose with a
+red handkerchief" as he stood surveying them in silence, while Dr. John
+Allen, who had sat on the doorstep reading a paper--a kindly-faced man
+of middle age with a short white beard under his chin--greeted them
+cheerfully.
+
+The withering sunlight of a day late in August fell upon the dusty
+street, now almost deserted. Faces at the doors and windows of the
+little houses were looking out at them. Two ragged boys and a
+ginger-colored dog came running toward the wagon. The latter and Sambo
+surveyed each other with raised hair and began scratching the earth,
+straight-legged, whining meanwhile, and in a moment began to play
+together. A man in blue jeans who sat on the veranda of a store
+opposite, leaning against its wall, stopped whittling and shut his
+jacknife.
+
+"Where do ye hail from?" the Doctor asked.
+
+"Vermont," said Samson.
+
+"All the way in that wagon?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I guess you're made o' the right stuff," said the Doctor. "Where ye
+bound?"
+
+"Don't know exactly. Going to take up a claim somewhere."
+
+"There's no better country than right here. This is the Canaan of
+America. We need people like you. Unhitch your team and have some dinner
+and we'll talk things over after you're rested. I'm the doctor here and
+I ride all over this part o' the country. I reckon I know it pretty
+well."
+
+A woman in a neat calico dress came out of the door--a strong built and
+rather well favored woman with blond hair and dark eyes.
+
+"Mrs. Rutledge, these are travelers from the East," said the Doctor.
+"Give 'em some dinner, and if they can't pay for it, I can. They've come
+all the way from Vermont."
+
+"Good land! Come right in an' rest yerselves. Abe, you show the
+gentleman where to put his horses an' lend him a hand."
+
+Abe extended his long arm toward Samson and said "Howdy" as they shook
+hands.
+
+"When his big hand got hold of mine, I kind of felt his timber," Samson
+writes. "I says to myself, 'There's a man it would be hard to tip over
+in a rassle.'"
+
+"What's yer name? How long ye been travelin'? My conscience! Ain't ye
+wore out?" the hospitable Mrs. Rutledge was asking as she went into the
+house with Sarah and the children. "You go and mix up with the little
+ones and let yer mother rest while I git dinner," she said to Joe and
+Betsey, and added as she took Sarah's shawl and bonnet: "You lop down
+an' rest yerself while I'm flyin' around the fire."
+
+"Come all the way from Vermont?" Abe asked as he and Samson were
+unhitching.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"By jing!" the slim giant exclaimed. "I reckon you feel like throwin'
+off yer harness an' takin' a roll in the grass."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tavern was the only house in New Salem with stairs in it. Stairs so
+steep, as Samson writes, that "they were first cousins to the ladder."
+There were four small rooms above them. Two of these were parted by a
+partition of cloth hanging from the rafters. In each was a bed and
+bedstead and smaller beds on the floor. In case there were a number of
+adult guests the bedstead was screened with sheets hung upon strings.
+
+In one of these rooms the travelers had a night of refreshing sleep.
+
+After riding two days with the Doctor, Samson bought the claim of one
+Isaac Gollaher to a half section of land a little more than a mile from
+the western end of the village. He chose a site for his house on the
+edge of an open prairie.
+
+"Now we'll go over and see Abe," said Dr. Allen, after the deal was
+made. "He's the best man with an ax and a saw in this part of the
+country. He clerks for Mr. Offut. Abe Lincoln is one of the best fellows
+that ever lived--a rough diamond just out of the great mine of the
+West, that only needs to be cut and polished."
+
+Denton Offut's store was a small log structure about twenty by twenty
+which stood near the brow of the hill east of Rutledge's Tavern. When
+they entered it Abe lay at full length on the counter, his head resting
+on a bolt of blue denim as he studied a book in his hand. He wore the
+same shirt and one suspender and linsey trousers which he had worn in
+the dooryard of the tavern, but his feet were covered only by his blue
+yarn socks.
+
+Abe laid aside his book and rose to a sitting posture.
+
+"Mr. Traylor," said Doctor Allen, "has just acquired an interest in all
+our institutions. He has bought the Gollaher tract and is going to build
+a house and some fences. Abe, couldn't you help get the timber out in a
+hurry so we can have a raising within a week? You know the art of the ax
+better than any of us."
+
+Abe looked at Samson.
+
+"I reckon he and I would make a good team with the ax," he said. "He
+looks as if he could push a house down with one hand and build it up
+with the other. You can bet I'll be glad to help in any way I can."
+
+Next morning at daylight two parties went out in the woods to cut timber
+for the home of the newcomers. In one party were Harry Needles carrying
+two axes and a well-filled luncheon pail; Samson with a saw in his hand
+and the boy Joe on his back; Abe with saw and ax and a small jug of root
+beer and a book tied in a big red handkerchief and slung around his
+neck. When they reached the woods Abe cut a pole for the small boy and
+carried him on his shoulder to the creek and said:
+
+"Now you sit down here and keep order in this little frog city. If you
+hear a frog say anything improper you fetch him a whack. Don't allow any
+nonsense. We'll make you Mayor of Frog City."
+
+The men fell to with axes and saws while Harry limbed the logs and
+looked after the Mayor. Their huge muscles flung the sharp axes into the
+timber and gnawed through it with a saw. Many big trees fell before
+noontime when they stopped for luncheon. While they were eating Abe
+said:
+
+"I reckon we better saw out a few boards this afternoon. Need 'em for
+the doors. We'll tote a couple of logs up on the side o' that knoll, put
+'em on skids an' whip 'em up into boards with the saw."
+
+Samson took hold of the middle of one of the logs and raised it from the
+ground.
+
+"I guess we can carry 'em," he said.
+
+"Can ye shoulder it?" Abe asked.
+
+"Easy," said Samson as he raised an end of the log, stepped beneath it
+and, resting its weight on his back, soon got his shoulder near its
+center and swung it clear of the ground and walked with it to the
+knollside where he let it fall with a resounding thump that shook the
+ground. Abe stopped eating and watched every move in this remarkable
+performance. The ease with which the big Vermonter had so defied the law
+of gravitation with that unwieldly stick amazed him.
+
+"That thing'll weigh from seven to eight hundred pounds," said he. "I
+reckon you're the stoutest man in this part o' the state an' I'm quite a
+man myself. I've lifted a barrel o' whisky and put my mouth to the bung
+hole. I never drink it."
+
+"Say," he added as he sat down and began eating a doughnut. "If you ever
+hit anybody take a sledge hammer or a crowbar. It wouldn't be decent to
+use your fist."
+
+"Don't talk when you've got food in your mouth," said Joe who seemed to
+have acquired a sense of responsibility for the manners of Abe.
+
+"I reckon you're right," Abe laughed. "A man's ideas ought not to be
+mingled with cheese and doughnuts."
+
+"Once in a while I like to try myself in a lift," said Samson. "It feels
+good. I don't do it to show off. I know there's a good many men stouter
+than I be. I guess you're one of 'em."
+
+"No, I'm too stretched out--my neck is too far from the ground," Abe
+answered. "I'm like a crowbar. If I can get my big toe or my fingers
+under anything I can pry some."
+
+After luncheon he took off his shoes and socks.
+
+"When I'm working hard I always try to give my feet a rest and my brain
+a little work at noontime," he remarked. "My brain is so far behind the
+procession I have to keep putting the gad on it. Give me twenty minutes
+of Kirkham and I'll be with you again."
+
+He lay down on his back under a tree with his book in hand and his feet
+resting on the tree trunk well above him. Soon he was up and at work
+again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they were getting ready to go home that afternoon Joe got into a
+great hurry to see his mother. It seemed to him that ages had elapsed
+since he had seen her--a conviction which led to noisy tears.
+
+Abe knelt before him and comforted the boy. Then he wrapped him in his
+jacket and swung him in the air and started for home with Joe astride
+his neck.
+
+Samson says in his diary: "His tender play with the little lad gave me
+another look at the man Lincoln."
+
+"Some one proposed once that we should call that stream the Minnehaha,"
+said Abe as he walked along. "After this Joe and I are going to call it
+the Minneboohoo."
+
+The women of the little village had met at a quilting party at ten
+o'clock with Mrs. Martin Waddell. There Sarah had had a seat at the
+frame and heard all the gossip of the countryside. . . .
+
+So the day passed with them and was interrupted by the noisy entrance of
+Joe, soon after candlelight, who climbed on the back of his mother's
+chair and kissed her and in breathless eagerness began to relate the
+history of his own day.
+
+That ended the quilting party and Sarah and Mrs. Rutledge and her
+daughter Ann joined Samson and Abe and Harry Needles who were waiting
+outside and walked to the tavern with them.
+
+John McNeil, whom the Traylors had met on the road near Niagara Falls
+and who had shared their camp with them, arrived on the stage that
+evening. . . . Abe came in, soon after eight o'clock, and was introduced
+to the stranger. All noted the contrast between the two young men as
+they greeted each other. Abe sat down for a few minutes and looked sadly
+into the fire but said nothing. He rose presently, excused himself and
+went away.
+
+Soon Samson followed him. Over at Offut's store he did not find Abe, but
+Bill Berry was drawing liquor from the spigot of a barrel set on blocks
+in a shed connected with the rear end of the store and serving it to a
+number of hilarious young Irishmen. The young men asked Samson to join
+them.
+
+"No, thank you. I never touch it," he said.
+
+"We'll come over here an' learn ye how to enjoy yerself some day," one
+of them said.
+
+"I'm pretty well posted on that subject now," Samson answered.
+
+It is likely that they would have begun his schooling at once but when
+they came out into the store and saw the big Vermonter standing in the
+candlelight their laughter ceased for a moment. Bill was among them
+with a well-filled bottle in his hand.
+
+He and the others got into a wagon which had been waiting at the door
+and drove away with a wild Indian whoop from the lips of one of the
+young men.
+
+Samson sat down in the candlelight and Abe in a moment arrived.
+
+"I'm getting awful sick o' this business," said Abe.
+
+"I kind o' guess you don't like the whisky part of it," Samson remarked,
+as he felt a piece of cloth.
+
+"I hate it," Abe went on. "It don't seem respectable any longer."
+
+"Back in Vermont we don't like the whisky business."
+
+"You're right, it breeds deviltry and disorder. In my youth I was
+surrounded by whisky. Everybody drank it. A bottle or a jug of liquor
+was thought to be as legitimate a piece of merchandise as a pound of tea
+or a yard of calico. That's the way I've always thought of it. But
+lately I've begun to get the Yankee notion about whisky. When it gets
+into bad company it can raise the devil."
+
+Soon after nine o'clock Abe drew a mattress filled with corn husks from
+under the counter, cleared away the bolts of cloth and laid it where
+they had been and covered it with a blanket.
+
+"This is my bed," said he. "I'll be up at five in the morning. Then I'll
+be making tea here by the fireplace to wash down some jerked meat and a
+hunk o' bread. At six or a little after I'll be ready to go with you
+again. Jack Kelso is going to look after the store to-morrow."
+
+He began to laugh.
+
+"Ye know when I went out of the tavern that little vixen stood peekin'
+into the window--Bim, Jack's girl," said Abe. "I asked her why she
+didn't go in and she said she was scared. 'Who you 'fraid of?' I asked.
+'Oh, I reckon that boy,' says she. And honestly her hand trembled when
+she took hold of my arm and walked to her father's house with me."
+
+Abe snickered as he spread another blanket. "What a cut-up she is! Say,
+we'll have some fun watching them two I reckon," he said.
+
+The logs were ready two days after the cutting began. Martin Waddell and
+Samuel Hill sent teams to haul them. John Cameron and Peter Lukins had
+brought the window sash and some clapboards from Beardstown in a small
+flat boat. Then came the day of the raising--a clear, warm day early in
+September. All the men from the village and the near farms gathered to
+help make a home for the newcomers. Samson and Jack Kelso went out for a
+hunt after the cutting and brought in a fat buck and many grouse for the
+bee dinner, to which every woman of the neighborhood made a contribution
+of cake or pie or cookies or doughnuts.
+
+"What will be my part?" Samson had inquired of Kelso.
+
+"Nothing but a jug of whisky and a kind word and a house warming," Kelso
+had answered.
+
+They notched and bored the logs and made pins to bind them and cut those
+that were to go around the fireplace and window spaces. Strong, willing
+and well-trained hands hewed and fitted the logs together. Alexander
+Ferguson lined the fireplace with a curious mortar made of clay in which
+he mixed grass for a binder. This mortar he rolled into layers called
+"cats," each eight inches long and three inches thick. Then he laid them
+against the logs and held them in place with a woven network of sticks.
+The first fire--a slow one--baked the clay into a rigid stonelike sheath
+inside the logs and presently the sticks were burned away. The women had
+cooked the meats by an open fire and spread the dinner on a table of
+rough boards resting on poles set in crotches. At noon one of them
+sounded a conch shell. Then with shouts of joy the men hurried to the
+fireside and for a moment there was a great spluttering over the wash
+basins. Before they ate every man except Abe and Samson "took a pull at
+the jug--long or short"--to quote a phrase of the time.
+
+It was a cheerful company that sat down upon the grass around the table
+with loaded plates. Their food had its extra seasoning of merry jests
+and loud laughter. Sarah was a little shocked at the forthright
+directness of their eating, no knives or forks or napkins being needed
+in that process. Having eaten, washed and packed away their dishes the
+women went home at two. Before they had gone Samson's ears caught a
+thunder of horses' feet in the distance. Looking in its direction he saw
+a cloud of dust in the road and a band of horsemen riding toward them at
+full speed. Abe came to him and said:
+
+"I see the boys from Clary's Grove are coming. If they get mean let me
+deal with 'em. It's my responsibility. I wouldn't wonder if they had
+some of Offut's whisky with them."
+
+The boys arrived in a cloud of dust and a chorus of Indian whoops and
+dismounted and hobbled their horses. They came toward the workers, led
+by burly Jack Armstrong, a stalwart, hard-faced blacksmith of about
+twenty-two with broad, heavy shoulders, whose name has gone into
+history. They had been drinking some but no one of them was in the least
+degree off his balance. They scuffled around the jug for a moment in
+perfect good nature and then Abe and Mrs. Waddell provided them with the
+best remnants of the dinner. They were rather noisy. Soon they went up
+on the roof to help with the rafters and the clapboarding. They worked
+well a few minutes and suddenly they came scrambling down for another
+pull at the jug. They were out for a spree and Abe knew it and knew
+further that they had reached the limit of discretion.
+
+"Boys, there are ladies here and we've got to be careful," he said. "Did
+I ever tell you what Uncle Jerry Holman said of his bull calf? He said
+the calf was such a _suckcess_ that he didn't leave any milk for the
+family and that while the calf was growin' fat the children was growin'
+poor. In my opinion you're about fat enough for the present. Let's stick
+to the job till four o'clock. Then we'll knock off for refreshments."
+
+The young revelers gathered in a group and began to whisper together.
+Samson writes that it became evident then they were going to make
+trouble and says:
+
+          "We had left the children at Rutledge's in the
+          care of Ann. I went to Sarah and told her she had
+          better go on and see if they were all right.
+
+          "'Don't you get in any fight,' she said, which
+          shows that the women knew what was in the air.
+
+          "Sarah led the way and the others followed her."
+
+Those big, brawny fellows from the grove when they got merry were
+looking always for a chance to get mad at some man and turn him into a
+plaything. A victim had been a necessary part of their sprees. Many a
+poor fellow had been fastened in a barrel and rolled down hill or nearly
+drowned in a ducking for their amusement. A chance had come to get mad
+and they were going to make the most of it. They began to growl with
+resentment. Some were wigging their leader Jack Armstrong to fight Abe.
+One of them ran to his horse and brought a bottle from his saddlebag. It
+began passing from mouth to mouth. Jack Armstrong got the bottle before
+it was half emptied, drained it and flung it high in the air. Another
+called him a hog and grappled him around the waist and there was a
+desperate struggle which ended quickly. Armstrong got a hold on the neck
+of his assailant and choked him until he let go. This was not enough for
+the sturdy bully of Clary's Grove. He seized his follower and flung him
+so roughly on the ground that the latter lay for a moment stunned.
+Armstrong had got his blood warm and was now ready for action. With a
+wild whoop he threw off his coat, unbuttoned his right shirtsleeve and
+rolled it to the shoulder and declared in a loud voice, as he swung his
+arm in the air, that he could "outjump, outhop, outrun, throw down, drag
+out an' lick any man in New Salem."
+
+In a letter to his father Samson writes:
+
+          "Abe was working at my elbow. I saw him drop his
+          hammer and get up and make for the ladder. I knew
+          something was going to happen and I followed him.
+          In a minute every one was off the roof and out of
+          the building. I guess they knew what was coming.
+          The big lad stood there swinging his arm and
+          yelling like an Injun. It was a big arm and
+          muscled and corded up some but I guess if I'd
+          shoved the calico off mine and held it up he'd a
+          pulled down his sleeve. I suppose the feller's arm
+          had a kind of a mule's kick in it, but, good
+          gracious! If he'd a seen as many arms as you an' I
+          have that have growed up on a hickory helve he'd a
+          known that his was nothing to brag of. I didn't
+          know just how good a man Abe was and I was kind o'
+          scairt for a minute. I never found it so hard work
+          to do nothin' as I did then. Honest my hands kind
+          o' ached. I wanted to go an' cuff that feller's
+          ears an' grab hold o' him an' toss him over the
+          ridge pole. Abe went right up to him an' said:
+
+          "'Jack, you ain't half so bad or half so cordy as
+          ye think ye are. You say you can throw down any
+          man here. I reckon I'll have to show ye that
+          you're mistaken. I'll rassle with ye. We're
+          friends an' we won't talk about lickin' each
+          other. Le's have a friendly rassle.'
+
+          "In a second the two men were locked together.
+          Armstrong had lunged at Abe with a yell. There was
+          no friendship in the way he took hold. He was
+          going to do all the damage he could in any way he
+          could. He tried to butt with his head and ram his
+          knee into Abe's stomach as soon as they came
+          together. Half-drunk Jack is a man who would bite
+          your ear off. It was no rassle; it was a fight.
+          Abe moved like lightning. He acted awful limber
+          an' well-greased. In a second he had got hold of
+          the feller's neck with his big right hand and
+          hooked his left into the cloth on his hip. In that
+          way he held him off and shook him as you've seen
+          our dog shake a woodchuck. Abe's blood was hot. If
+          the whole crowd had piled on him I guess he would
+          have come out all right, for when he's roused
+          there's something in Abe more than bones and
+          muscles. I suppose it's what I feel when he speaks
+          a piece. It's a kind of lightning. I guess it's
+          what our minister used to call the power of the
+          spirit. Abe said to me afterwards that he felt as
+          if he was fighting for the peace and honor of New
+          Salem.
+
+          "A friend of the bully jumped in and tried to
+          trip Abe. Harry Needles stood beside me. Before I
+          could move he dashed forward and hit that feller
+          in the middle of his forehead and knocked him
+          flat. Harry had hit Bap McNoll the cock fighter. I
+          got up next to the kettle then and took the scum
+          off it. Fetched one of them devils a slap with the
+          side of my hand that took the skin off his face
+          and rolled him over and over. When I looked again
+          Armstrong was going limp. His mouth was open and
+          his tongue out. With one hand fastened to his
+          right leg and the other on the nape of his neck
+          Abe lifted him at arm's length and gave him a toss
+          in the air. Armstrong fell about ten feet from
+          where Abe stood and lay there for a minute. The
+          fight was all out of him and he was kind of dazed
+          and sick. Abe stood up like a giant and his face
+          looked awful solemn.
+
+          "'Boys, if there's any more o' you that want
+          trouble you can have some off the same piece,' he
+          said.
+
+          "They hung their heads and not one of them made a
+          move or said a word. Abe went to Armstrong and
+          helped him up.
+
+          "'Jack, I'm sorry that I had to hurt you,' he
+          said. 'You get on to your horse and go home.'
+
+          "'Abe, you're a better man than me,' said the
+          bully, as he offered his hand to Abe. 'I'll do
+          anything you say.'"
+
+So the Clary's Grove gang was conquered. They were to make more trouble
+but not again were they to imperil the foundations of law and order in
+the little community of New Salem.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[7] From _A Man For the Ages_. Copyright, 1919, by the Bobbs-Merrill
+Company. Used by special permission of the publishers.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+VIII.--The End of the Trail[8]
+
+_By Clarence E. Mulford_
+
+          _Buck Peters, foreman of Bar-20 Ranch had many
+          cowboys; Pete Wilson, Red Connors, Billy Williams,
+          Johnny Nelson, and a goodly number more, but chief
+          among them was Hopalong Cassidy. Many interesting
+          stories are told about him in "Bar-20 Days" but
+          none of his thrilling experiences ever ended as
+          did the one recited in this most unusual story,
+          "The End of the Trail."_--THE EDITOR.
+
+
+WHEN one finds on his ranch the carcasses of two cows on the same day,
+and both are skinned, there can be only one conclusion. The killing and
+skinning of two cows out of herds that are numbered by thousands need
+not, in themselves, bring lines of worry to any foreman's brow; but
+there is the sting of being cheated, the possibility of the losses going
+higher unless a sharp lesson be given upon the folly of fooling with a
+very keen and active buzz-saw,--and it was the determination of the
+outfit of the Bar-20 to teach that lesson, and as quickly as
+circumstances would permit.
+
+It was common knowledge that there was a more or less organized band of
+shiftless malcontents making its headquarters in and near Perry's Bend,
+some distance up the river, and the deduction in this case was easy. The
+Bar-20 cared very little about what went on at Perry's Bend--that was a
+matter which concerned only the ranches near that town--so long as no
+vexatious happenings sifted too far south. But they had so sifted, and
+Perry's Bend, or rather the undesirable class hanging out there, was due
+to receive a shock before long.
+
+About a week after the finding of the first skinned cows, Pete Wilson
+tornadoed up to the bunk house with a perforated arm. Pete was on foot,
+having lost his horse at the first exchange of shots, which accounts for
+the expression describing his arrival. Pete hated to walk, he hated
+still more to get shot, and most of all he hated to have to admit that
+his rifle-shooting was so far below par. He had seen the thief at work
+and, too eager to work up close to the cattle skinner before announcing
+his displeasure, had missed the first shot. When he dragged himself out
+from under his deceased horse the scenery was undisturbed save for a
+small cloud of dust hovering over a distant rise to the north of him.
+After delivering a short and bitter monologue he struck out for the
+ranch and arrived in a very hot and wrathful condition. It was
+contagious, that condition, and before long the entire outfit was in
+the saddle and pounding north, Pete overjoyed because his wound was so
+slight as not to bar him from the chase. The shock was on the way, and
+as events proved, was to be one long to linger in the minds of the
+inhabitants of Perry's Bend and the surrounding range.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The patrons of the Oasis liked their tobacco strong. The pungent smoke
+drifted in sluggish clouds along the low, black ceiling, following its
+upward slant toward the east wall and away from the high bar at the
+other end. This bar, rough and strong, ran from the north wall to within
+a scant two feet of the south wall, the opening bridged by a hinged
+board which served as an extension to the counter. Behind the bar was a
+rear door, low and double, the upper part barred securely--the lower
+part was used most. In front of and near the bar was a large round
+table, at which four men played cards silently, while two smaller tables
+were located along the north wall. Besides dilapidated chairs there were
+half a dozen low wooden boxes partly filled with sand, and attention was
+directed to the existence and purpose of these by a roughly lettered
+sign on the wall, reading: "Gents will look for a box first," which the
+"gents" sometimes did. The majority of the "gents" preferred to aim at
+various knotholes in the floor and bet on the result, chancing the
+outpouring of the proprietor's wrath if they missed.
+
+On the wall behind the bar was a smaller and neater request: "Leave your
+guns with the bartender.--Edwards." This, although a month old, still
+called forth caustic and profane remarks from the regular frequenters of
+the saloon, for hitherto restraint in the matter of carrying weapons had
+been unknown. They forthwith evaded the order in a manner consistent
+with their characteristics--by carrying smaller guns where they could
+not be seen. The majority had simply sawed off a generous part of the
+long barrels of their Colts and Remingtons, which did not improve their
+accuracy.
+
+Edwards, the new marshal of Perry's Bend, had come direct from Kansas
+and his reputation as a fighter had preceded him. When he took up his
+first day's work he was kept busy proving that he was the rightful owner
+of it and that it had not been exaggerated in any manner or degree. With
+the exception of one instance the proof had been bloodless, for he
+reasoned that gun-play should give way, whenever possible, to a crushing
+"right" or "left" to the point of the jaw or the pit of the stomach. His
+proficiency in the manly art was polished and thorough and bespoke
+earnest application. The last doubting Thomas to be convinced came to
+five minutes after his diaphragm had been rudely and suddenly raised
+several inches by a low right hook, and as he groped for his bearings
+and got his wind back again he asked, very feebly, where "Kansas" was;
+and the name stuck.
+
+The marshal did not like the Oasis; indeed, he went further and
+cordially hated it. Harlan's saloon was a thorn in his side and he was
+only waiting for a good excuse to wipe it off the local map. He was the
+Law, and behind him were the range riders, who would be only too glad to
+have the nest of rustlers wiped out and its gang of ne'er-do-wells
+scattered to the four winds. Indeed, he had been given to understand in
+a most polite and diplomatic way that if this were not done lawfully,
+they would try to do it themselves, and they had great faith in their
+ability to handle the situation in a thorough and workmanlike manner.
+This would not do in a law-abiding community, as he called the town, and
+so he had replied that the work was his, and that it would be performed
+as soon as he believed himself justified to act. Harlan and his friends
+were fully conversant with the feeling against them and had become a
+little more cautious, alertly watching out for trouble.
+
+On the evening of the day which saw Pete Wilson's discomfiture most of
+the _habitués_ had assembled in the Oasis where, besides the
+card-players already mentioned, eight men lounged against the bar. There
+was some laughter, much subdued talking, and a little whispering. More
+whispering went on under that roof than in all the other places in town
+put together; for here rustling was planned, wayfaring strangers were
+"trimmed" in "frame-up" at cards, and a hunted man was certain to find
+assistance. Harlan had once boasted that no fugitive had ever been
+taken from his saloon, and he was behind the bar and standing on the
+trap door which led to the six-by-six cellar when he made the assertion.
+It was true, for only those in his confidence knew of the place of
+refuge under the floor: it had been dug at night and the dirt carefully
+disposed of.
+
+It had not been dark very long before talking ceased and card-playing
+was suspended while all looked up as the front door crashed open and two
+punchers entered, looking the crowd over with critical care.
+
+"Stay here, Johnny," Hopalong told his youthful companion, and then
+walked forward, scrutinizing each scowling face in turn, while Johnny
+stood with his back to the door, keenly alert, his right hand resting
+lightly on his belt not far from the holster.
+
+Harlan's thick neck grew crimson and his eyes hard. "Lookin' fer
+something?" he asked with bitter sarcasm, his hands under the bar.
+Johnny grinned hopefully and a sudden tenseness took possession of him
+as he watched for the first hostile move.
+
+"Yes," Hopalong replied coolly, appraising Harlan's attitude and look in
+one swift glance, "but it ain't here, now. Johnny, get out," he ordered,
+backing after his companion, and safely outside, the two walked towards
+Jackson's store, Johnny complaining about the little time spent in the
+Oasis.
+
+As they entered the store they saw Edwards, whose eyes asked a
+question.
+
+"No; he ain't in there yet," Hopalong replied.
+
+"Did you look all over? Behind th' bar?" Edwards asked, slowly. "He
+can't get out of town through that cordon you've got strung around it,
+an' he ain't nowhere else. Leastwise, I couldn't find him."
+
+"Come on back!" excitedly exclaimed Johnny, turning towards the door.
+"You didn't look behind th' bar! Come on--bet you ten dollars that's
+where he is!"
+
+"Mebby yo're right, Kid," replied Hopalong, and the marshal's nodding
+head decided it.
+
+In the saloon there was strong language, and Jack Quinn, expert skinner
+of other men's cows, looked inquiringly at the proprietor. "What's up
+now, Harlan?"
+
+The proprietor laughed harshly but said nothing--taciturnity was his one
+redeeming trait. "Did you say cigars?" he asked, pushing a box across
+the bar to an impatient customer. Another beckoned to him and he leaned
+over to hear the whispered request, a frown struggling to show itself on
+his face. "Nix; you know my rule. No trust in here."
+
+But the man at the far end of the line was unlike the proprietor and he
+prefaced his remarks with a curse. "_I_ know what's up! They want Jerry
+Brown, that's what! An' I hopes they don't get him, th' bullies!"
+
+"What did he do? Why do they want him?" asked the man who had wanted
+trust.
+
+"Skinning. He was careless or crazy, working so close to their ranch
+houses. Nobody that had any sense would take a chance like that,"
+replied Boston, adept at sleight-of-hand with cards and very much in
+demand when a frame-up was to be rung in on some unsuspecting stranger.
+His one great fault in the eyes of his partners was that he hated to
+divvy his winnings and at times had to be coerced into sharing equally.
+
+"Aw, them big ranches make me mad," announced the first speaker. "Ten
+years ago there was a lot of little ranchers, an' every one of 'em had
+his own herd, an' plenty of free grass an' water fer it. Where are th'
+little herds now? Where are th' cows that we used to own?" he cried,
+hotly. "What happens to a maverick-hunter, nowadays? If a man helps
+hisself to a pore, sick dogie he's hunted down! It can't go on much
+longer, an' that's shore."
+
+Slivers Lowe leaped up from his chair. "Yo're right, Harper! Dead right!
+_I_ was a little cattle owner onct, so was you, an' Jerry, an' most of
+us!" Slivers found it convenient to forget that fully half of his small
+herd had perished in the bitter and long winter of five years before,
+and that the remainder had either flowed down his parched throat or been
+lost across the big round table near the bar. Not a few of his cows were
+banked in the East under Harlan's name.
+
+The rear door opened slightly and one of the loungers looked up and
+nodded. "It's all right Jerry. But get a move on!"
+
+"Here, _you_!" called Harlan, quickly bending over the trap door,
+"_Lively!_"
+
+Jerry was halfway to the proprietor when the front door swung open and
+Hopalong, closely followed by the marshal, leaped into the room, and
+immediately thereafter the back door banged open and admitted Johnny.
+Jerry's right hand was in his side coat pocket and Johnny, young and
+self-confident, and with a lot to learn, was certain that he could beat
+the fugitive on the draw.
+
+"I reckon you won't blot no more brands!" he cried, triumphantly,
+watching both Jerry and Harlan.
+
+The card-players had leaped to their feet and at a signal from Harlan
+they surged forward to the bar and formed a barrier between Johnny and
+his friends; and as they did so that puncher jerked at his gun, twisting
+to half face the crowd. At that instant fire and smoke spurted from
+Jerry's side coat pocket and the odor of burning cloth arose. As Johnny
+fell, the rustler ducked low and sprang for the door. A gun roared twice
+in the front of the room and Jerry staggered a little and cursed as he
+gained the opening, but he plunged into the darkness and threw himself
+into the saddle on the first horse he found in the small corral.
+
+When the crowd massed, Hopalong leaped at it and strove to tear his way
+to the opening at the end of the bar, while the marshal covered Harlan
+and the others. Finding that he could not get through, Hopalong sprang
+on the shoulder of the nearest man and succeeded in winging the fugitive
+at the first shot, the other going wild. Then, frantic with rage and
+anxiety, he beat his way through the crowd, hammering mercilessly at
+heads with the butt of his Colt, and knelt at his friend's side.
+
+Edwards, angered almost to the point of killing, ordered the crowd to
+stand against the wall, and laughed viciously when he saw two men
+senseless on the floor. "Hope he beat in yore heads!" he gritted,
+savagely. "Harlan, put yore paws up in sight or I'll drill you clean!
+Now climb over an' get in line--quick!"
+
+Johnny moaned and opened his eyes. "Did--did I--get him?"
+
+"No; but he gimleted you, all right," Hopalong replied. "You'll come
+'round if you keep quiet." He arose, his face hard with the desire to
+kill. "I'm coming back for _you_, Harlan, after I get yore friend! An'
+all th' rest of you pups, too!"
+
+"Get me out of here," whispered Johnny.
+
+"Shore enough, Kid; but keep quiet," replied Hopalong, picking him up in
+his arms and moving carefully towards the door. "We'll get him, Johnny;
+an' all th' rest, too, when"--the voice died out in the direction of
+Jackson's and the marshal, backing to the front door, slipped out and to
+one side, running backward, his eyes on the saloon.
+
+"Yore day's about over, Harlan," he muttered.
+
+"There's going to be some few funerals around here before many hours
+pass."
+
+When he reached the store he found the owner and two Double-Arrow
+punchers taking care of Johnny. "Where's Hopalong?" he asked.
+
+"Gone to tell his foreman," replied Jackson. "Hey, youngster, you let
+them bandages alone! Hear me?"
+
+"Hullo, Kansas," remarked John Bartlett, foreman of the Double-Arrow. "I
+come nigh getting yore man; somebody rode past me like a streak in th'
+dark, so I just ups an' lets drive for luck, an' so did he. I heard him
+cuss an' I emptied my gun after him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The rain slanted down in sheets and the broken plain, thoroughly
+saturated, held the water in pools or sent it down the steep side of the
+cliff to feed the turbulent flood which swept along the bottom,
+foam-flecked and covered with swiftly moving driftwood. Around a bend
+where the angry water flung itself against the ragged bulwark of rock
+and flashed away in a gleaming line of foam, a horseman appeared,
+bending low in the saddle for better protection against the storm. He
+rode along the edge of the stream on the farther bank, opposite the
+steep bluff on the northern side, forcing his wounded and jaded horse to
+keep fetlock deep in the water which swirled and sucked about its legs.
+He was trying his hardest to hide his trail. Lower down the hard, rocky
+ground extended to the water's edge, and if he could delay his pursuers
+for an hour or so, he felt that, even with his tired horse, he would
+have more than an even chance.
+
+But they had gained more than he knew. Suddenly above him on the top of
+the steep bluff across the torrent a man loomed up against the clouds,
+peered intently and then waved his sombrero to an unseen companion. A
+puff of smoke flashed from his shoulder and streaked away, the report of
+the shot lost in the gale. The fugitive's horse reared and plunged into
+the deep water and with its rider was swept rapidly towards the bend,
+the way they had come.
+
+"That makes th' fourth time I've missed that coyote!" angrily exclaimed
+Hopalong as Red Connors joined him.
+
+The other quickly raised his rifle and fired; and the horse, spilling
+its rider out of the saddle, floated away tail first. The fugitive,
+gripping his rifle, bobbed and whirled at the whim of the greedy water
+as shots struck near him. Making a desperate effort, he staggered up the
+bank and fell exhausted behind a bowlder.
+
+"Well, th' coyote is afoot, anyhow," said Red, with great satisfaction.
+
+"Yes; but how are we going to get to him?" asked Hopalong. "We can't get
+th' cayuses down here, an' we can't swim _that_ water without them. And
+if we could, he'd pot us easy."
+
+"There's a way out of it somewhere," Red replied, disappearing over the
+edge of the bluff to gamble with Fate.
+
+"Hey! Come back here, you chump!" cried Hopalong, running forward.
+"He'll get you, shore!"
+
+"That's a chance I've got to take if I get him," was the reply.
+
+A puff of smoke sailed from behind the bowlder on the other bank and
+Hopalong, kneeling for steadier aim, fired and then followed his friend.
+Red was downstream casting at a rock across the torrent but the wind
+toyed with the heavy, water-soaked _reata_ as though it were a string.
+As Hopalong reached his side a piece of driftwood ducked under the water
+and an angry humming sound died away downstream. As the report reached
+their ears a jet of water spurted up into Red's face and he stepped back
+involuntarily.
+
+"He's some shaky," Hopalong remarked, looking back at the wreath of
+smoke above the bowlder. "I reckon I must have hit him harder than I
+thought in Harlan's. Gee! he's wild as blazes!" he ejaculated as a
+bullet hummed high above his head and struck sharply against the rock
+wall.
+
+"Yes," Red replied, coiling the rope. "I was trying to rope that rock
+over there. If I could anchor to that, th' current would push us over
+quick. But it's too far with this wind blowing."
+
+"We can't do nothing here 'cept get plugged. He'll be getting steadier
+as he rests from his fight with th' water," Hopalong remarked, and added
+quickly, "Say, remember that meadow back there a ways? We can make her
+from there, all right."
+
+"Yo're right; that's what we've got to do. He's sending 'em nearer every
+shot--Gee! I could 'most feel th' wind of that one. An' blamed if it
+ain't stopped raining. Come on."
+
+They clambered up the slippery, muddy bank to where they had left their
+horses, and cantered back over their trail. Minute after minute passed
+before the cautious skulker among the rocks across the stream could
+believe in his good fortune. When he at last decided that he was alone
+again he left his shelter and started away, with slowly weakening
+stride, over cleanly washed rock where he left no trail.
+
+It was late in the afternoon before the two irate punchers appeared upon
+the scene, and their comments, as they hunted slowly over the hard
+ground, were numerous and bitter. Deciding that it was hopeless in that
+vicinity, they began casting in great circles on the chance of crossing
+the trail further back from the river. But they had little faith in
+their success. As Red remarked, snorting like a horse in his disgust,
+"I'll bet four dollars an' a match he's swum down th' river just to have
+th' laugh on us." Red had long since given it up as a bad job, though
+continuing to search, when a shout from the distant Hopalong sent him
+forward on a run.
+
+"Hey, Red!" cried Hopalong, pointing ahead of them. "Look there! Ain't
+that a house?"
+
+"Naw; course not! It's a--it's a ship!" Red snorted sarcastically. "What
+did you think it might be?"
+
+"G'wan!" retorted his companion. "It's a mission."
+
+"Ah, g'wan yorself! What's a mission doing up here?" Red snapped.
+
+"What do you think they do? What do they do anywhere?" hotly rejoined
+Hopalong, thinking about Johnny. "There! See th' cross?"
+
+"Shore enough!"
+
+"An' there's tracks at last--mighty wobbly, but tracks just th' same.
+Them rocks couldn't go on forever. Red, I'll bet he's cashed in by this
+time."
+
+"Cashed nothing! Them fellers don't."
+
+"Well, if he's in that joint we might as well go back home. We won't get
+him, not nohow," declared Hopalong.
+
+"Huh! You wait an' see!" replied Red, pugnaciously.
+
+"Reckon you never run up agin' a mission real hard," Hopalong responded,
+his memory harking back to the time he had disagreed with a convent, and
+they both meant about the same to him as far as winning out was
+concerned.
+
+"Think I'm a fool kid?" snapped Red, aggressively.
+
+"Well, you ain't no _kid_."
+
+"You let _me_ do th' talking; _I'll_ get him."
+
+"All right; an' I'll do th' laughing," snickered Hopalong, at the door.
+"Sic 'em, Red!"
+
+The other boldly stepped into a small vestibule, Hopalong close at his
+heels. Red hitched his holster and walked heavily into a room at his
+left. With the exception of a bench, a table, and a small altar, the
+room was devoid of furnishings, and the effect of these was lost in the
+dim light from the narrow windows. The peculiar, not unpleasant odor of
+burning incense and the dim light awakened a latent reverence and awe in
+Hopalong, and he sneaked off his sombrero, an inexplicable feeling of
+guilt stealing over him. There were three doors in the walls, deeply
+shrouded in the dusk of the room, and it was very hard to watch all
+three at once. . . .
+
+Red listened intently and then grinned. "Hear that? They're playing
+dominoes in there--come on!"
+
+"Aw, you chump! 'Dominee' means 'mother' in Latin, which is what they
+speaks."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Hanged if I can tell--I've heard it somewhere, that's all."
+
+"Well, I don't care what it means. This is a frame-up so that coyote can
+get away. I'll bet they gave him a cayuse an' started him off while
+we've been losing time in here. I'm going inside an' ask some
+questions."
+
+Before he could put his plan into execution, Hopalong nudged him and he
+turned to see his friend staring at one of the doors. There had been no
+sound, but he would swear that a monk stood gravely regarding them, and
+he rubbed his eyes. He stepped back suspiciously and then started
+forward again.
+
+"Look here, stranger," he remarked, with quiet emphasis, "we're after
+that cow-lifter, an' we mean to get him. Savvy?"
+
+The monk did not appear to hear him, so he tried another trick. "_Habla
+espaņola?_" he asked, experimentally.
+
+"You have ridden far?" replied the monk in perfect English.
+
+"All th' way from th' Bend," Red replied, relieved. "We're after Jerry
+Brown. He tried to kill Johnny, judgin' from th' tracks."
+
+"And if you capture him?"
+
+"He won't have no more use for no side pocket shooting."
+
+"I see; you will kill him."
+
+"Shore's it's wet outside."
+
+"I'm afraid you are doomed to disappointment."
+
+"Ya-as?" asked Red with a rising inflection.
+
+"You will not want him now," replied the monk.
+
+Red laughed sarcastically and Hopalong smiled.
+
+"There ain't a-going to be no argument about it. Trot him out," ordered
+Red, grimly.
+
+The monk turned to Hopalong. "Do you, too, want him?"
+
+Hopalong nodded.
+
+"My friends, he is safe from your punishment."
+
+Red wheeled instantly and ran outside, returning in a few moments,
+smiling triumphantly. "There are tracks coming in, but there ain't none
+going away. He's here. If you don't lead us to him we'll shore have to
+rummage around an' poke him out for ourselves: which is it?"
+
+"You are right--he is here, and he is not here."
+
+"We're waiting," Red replied, grinning.
+
+"When I tell you that you will not want him, do you still insist on
+seeing him?"
+
+"We'll see him, an' we'll want him, too."
+
+As the rain poured down again the sound of approaching horses was heard,
+and Hopalong ran to the door in time to see Buck Peters swing off his
+mount and step forward to enter the building. Hopalong stopped him and
+briefly outlined the situation, begging him to keep the men outside. The
+monk met his return with a grateful smile and, stepping forward, opened
+the chapel door, saying, "Follow me."
+
+The unpretentious chapel was small and nearly dark, for the usual
+dimness was increased by the lowering clouds outside. The deep, narrow
+window openings, fitted with stained glass, ran almost to the rough-hewn
+rafters supporting the steep-pitched roof, upon which the heavy rain
+beat again with a sound like that of distant drums. Gusts of rain and
+the water from the roof beat against the south windows, while the
+wailing wind played its mournful cadences about the eaves, and the
+stanch timbers added their creaking notes to swell the dirgelike chorus.
+
+At the farther end of the room two figures knelt and moved before the
+white altar, the soft light of flickering candles playing fitfully upon
+them and glinting from the altar ornaments, while before a rough coffin,
+which rested upon two pedestals, stood a third, whose rich, sonorous
+Latin filled the chapel with impressive sadness. "Give eternal rest to
+them, O Lord,"--the words seeming to become a part of the room. The
+ineffably sad, haunting melody of the mass whispered back from the roof
+between the assaults of the enraged wind, while from the altar came the
+responses in a low Gregorian chant, and through it all the clinking of
+the censer chains added intermittent notes. Aloft streamed the vapor of
+the incense, wavering with the air currents, now lost in the deep
+twilight of the sanctuary, and now faintly revealed by the glow of the
+candles, perfuming the air with its aromatic odor.
+
+As the last deep-toned words died away the celebrant moved slowly around
+the coffin, swinging the censer over it and then, sprinkling the body
+and making the sign of the cross above its head, solemnly withdrew.
+
+From the shadows along the side walls other figures silently emerged and
+grouped around the coffin. Raising it they turned it slowly around and
+carried it down the dim aisle in measured tread, moving silently as
+ghosts.
+
+"He is with God, Who will punish according to his sins," said a low
+voice, and Hopalong started, for he had forgotten the presence of the
+guide. "God be with you, and may you die as he died--repentant and in
+peace."
+
+Buck chafed impatiently before the chapel door leading to a small,
+well-kept graveyard, wondering what it was that kept quiet for so long a
+time his two most assertive men, when he had momentarily expected to
+hear more or less turmoil and confusion.
+
+_C-r-e-a-k!_ He glanced up, gun in hand and raised as the door swung
+slowly open. His hand dropped suddenly and he took a short step forward;
+six black-robed figures shouldering a long box stepped slowly past him,
+and his nostrils were assailed by the pungent odor of the incense.
+Behind them came his fighting punchers, humble, awed, reverent, their
+sombreros in their hands, and their heads bowed.
+
+"What in blazes!" exclaimed Buck, wonder and surprise struggling for the
+mastery as the others cantered up.
+
+"He's cashed," Red replied, putting on his sombrero and nodding toward
+the procession.
+
+Buck turned like a flash and spoke sharply: "Skinny! Lanky! Follow that
+glory-outfit, an' see what's in that box!"
+
+Billy Williams grinned at Red. "Yo're shore pious, Red."
+
+"Shut up!" snapped Red, anger glinting in his eyes, and Billy subsided.
+
+Lanky and Skinny soon returned from accompanying the procession.
+
+"I had to look twict to be shore it was him. His face was plumb happy,
+like a baby. But he's gone, all right," Lanky reported.
+
+"All right--he knowed how he'd finish when he began. Now for that dear
+Mr. Harlan," Buck replied, vaulting into the saddle. He turned and
+looked at Hopalong, and his wonder grew. "Hey, _you!_ Yes, _you!_ Come
+out of that an' put on yore lid! Straddle leather--we can't stay here
+all night."
+
+Hopalong started, looked at his sombrero and silently obeyed. As they
+rode down the trail and around a corner he turned in his saddle and
+looked back; and then rode on, buried in thought.
+
+Billy, grinning, turned and playfully punched him in the ribs. "Gettin'
+glory, Hoppy?"
+
+Hopalong raised his head and looked him steadily in the eyes; and Billy,
+losing his curiosity and the grin at the same instant, looked ahead,
+whistling softly.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[8] From _Bar-20 Days_. Copyright, 1911, by A. C. McClurg and Company.
+Reprinted by special permission of author and publisher.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+IX.--Dey Ain't No Ghosts[9]
+
+_By Ellis Parker Butler_
+
+
+ONCE 'pon a time dey was a li'l black boy whut he name was Mose. An'
+whin he come erlong to be 'bout knee-high to a mewel, he 'gin to git
+powerful 'fraid ob ghosts, 'ca'se dey's a grabeyard in de hollow, an' a
+buryin'-ground on de hill, an' a cemuntary in betwixt an' between, an'
+dey ain't nuffin' but trees nowhar in de clearin' by de shanty an' down
+de hollow whar de pumpkin-patch am.
+
+An' whin de night come erlong, dey ain't no sounds at all whut kin be
+heard in dat locality but de rain-doves, whut mourn out,
+"Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!" jes dat trembulous an' scary, an' de owls, whut mourn
+out, "Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!" more trembulous an' scary dan dat, an' de
+wind, whut mourn out, "You-_you_-o-o-o!" mos' scandalous, trembulous an'
+scary ob all. Dat a powerful onpleasant locality for a li'l black boy
+whut he name was Mose.
+
+'Ca'se dat li'l black boy he so specially black he can't be seen in de
+dark _at_ all 'cept by de whites ob he eyes. So whin he go outen de
+house at night, he ain't dast shut he eyes, 'ca'se den ain't nobody can
+see him in de least. He jest as invidsible as nuffin'! An' who know but
+whut a great, big ghost bump right into him 'ca'se it can't see him? An'
+dat shore w'u'd scare dat li'l black boy powerful bad, 'ca'se yever'body
+knows whut a cold, damp pussonality a ghost is.
+
+So whin dat li'l black Mose go' outen de shanty at night, he keep he
+eyes wide open, you may be shore. By day he eyes 'bout de size ob
+butter-pats, an' come sundown he eyes 'bout de size ob saucers; but whin
+he go outer de shanty at night, he eyes am de size ob de white chiny
+plate whut set on de mantel; an' it powerful hard to keep eyes whut am
+de size ob dat from a-winkin' an' a-blinkin'.
+
+So whin Hallowe'en come erlong, dat li'l black Mose he jes mek up he
+mind he ain't gwine outen de shack at all. He cogitate he gwine stay
+right snug in de shack wid he pa an' he ma, 'ca'se de rain-doves tek
+notice dat de ghosts are philanderin' roun' de country, 'ca'se dey
+mourn out, "Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!" an' de owls dey mourn out, "You-_you_-o-o-o!"
+De eyes ob dat li'l black Mose dey as big as de white chiny plate whut
+set on de mantel by side de clock, an' de sun jes a-settin'!
+
+So dat all right. Li'l black Mose he scrooge back in de corner by de
+fireplace, an' he 'low he gwine stay dere till he gwine _to_ bed. But
+bimeby Sally Ann, whut live up de road, draps in, an' Mistah Sally Ann,
+whut is her husban', he draps in an' Zack Badget an' de school-teacher
+whut board at Unc' Silas Diggs's house drap in, an' a powerful lot ob
+folks drap in. An' li'l black Mose he seen dat gwine be one s'prise
+party, an' he right down cheerful 'bout dat.
+
+So all dem folks shake dere hands an' 'low "Howdy," an' some ob dem say:
+"Why, dere's li'l Mose! Howdy, li'l Mose?" An' he so please he jes grin
+an' grin, 'ca'se he ain't reckon whut gwine happen. So bimeby Sally Ann,
+whut live up de road, she say, "Ain't no sort o' Hallowe'en lest we got
+a jack-o'-lantern." An' de school-teacher, whut board at Unc' Silas
+Diggs's house, she 'low, "Hallowe'en jes no Hallowe'en _at_ all 'thout
+we got a jack-o'-lantern." An' li'l black Mose he stop a-grinnin', an'
+he scrooge so far back in de corner he 'most scrooge frough de wall. But
+dat ain't no use, 'ca'se he ma say, "Mose, go on down to de
+pumpkin-patch an' fotch a pumpkin."
+
+"I ain't want to go," say li'l black Mose.
+
+"Go on erlong wid yo'," say he ma, right commandin'.
+
+"I ain't want to go," say Mose ag'in.
+
+"Why ain't yo' want to go?" he ma ask.
+
+"'Ca'se I's afraid ob de ghosts," say li'l black Mose, an' dat de
+particular truth an' no mistake.
+
+"Dey ain't no ghosts," say de school-teacher, whut board at Unc' Silas
+Diggs's house, right peart.
+
+"'Co'se dey ain't no ghosts," say Zack Badget, whut dat 'feared ob
+ghosts he ain't dar' come to li'l black Mose's house ef de
+school-teacher ain't ercompany him.
+
+"Go 'long wid your ghosts!" say li'l black Mose's ma.
+
+"Wha' yo' pick up dat nonsense?" say he pa. "Dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+An' dat whut all dat s'prise-party 'lows: dey ain't no ghosts. An' dey
+'low dey mus' hab a jack-o'-lantern or de fun all spiled. So dat li'l
+black boy whut he name is Mose he done got to fotch a pumpkin from de
+pumpkin-patch down de hollow. So he step outen de shanty an' he stan' on
+de doorstep twell he get he eyes pried open as big as de bottom ob he
+ma's washtub, mostly, an' he say, "Dey ain't no ghosts." An' he put one
+foot on de ground, an' dat was de fust step.
+
+An' de rain-dove say, "Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!"
+
+An' li'l black Mose he tuck anudder step.
+
+An' de owl mourn out, "Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!"
+
+An' li'l black Mose he tuck anudder step.
+
+An' de wind sob out, "You-_you_-o-o-o!"
+
+An' li'l black Mose he tuck one look ober he shoulder an' he shut he
+eyes so tight dey hurt round de aidges, an' he pick up he foots an' run.
+Yas, sah, he run right peart fast. An' he say: "Dey ain't no ghosts. Dey
+ain't no ghosts." An' he run erlong de paff whut lead by de
+buryin'-ground on de hill, 'ca'se dey ain't no fince eround dat
+buryin'-ground at all.
+
+No fince; jes de big trees whut de owls an' de rain-doves sot in an'
+mourn an' sob, an' whut de wind sigh an' cry frough. An' bimeby somefin'
+jes _brush_ li'l Mose on de arm, which mek him run jest a bit more
+faster. An' bimeby somefin' jes _brush_ li'l Mose on de cheek, which mek
+him run erbout as fast as he can. An' bimeby somefin' _grab_ li'l Mose
+by de aidge of he coat, an' he fight an' struggle an' cry out: "Dey
+ain't no ghosts. Dey ain't no ghosts." An' dat ain't nuffin' but de wild
+brier whut grab him, an' dat ain't nuffin' but de leaf ob a tree whut
+brush he cheek, an' dat ain't nuffin' but de branch ob a hazel-bush whut
+brush he arm. But he downright scared jes de same, an' he ain't lost no
+time, 'ca'se de wind an' de owls an' de rain-doves dey signerfy whut
+ain't no good. So he scoot past dat buryin'-ground whut on de hill, an'
+dat cemuntary whut betwixt an' between, an' dat grabeyard in de hollow,
+twell he come to de pumpkin-patch, an' he rotch down an' tek erhold ob
+de bestest pumpkin whut in de patch. An' he right smart scared. He jes
+de mostest scared li'l black boy whut yever was. He ain't gwine open he
+eyes fo' nuffin', 'ca'se de wind go, "You-_you_-o-o-o!" an' de owls go,
+"Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!" an' de rain-doves go, "Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!"
+
+He jes speculate, "Dey ain't no ghosts," an' wish he hair don't stand on
+ind dat way. An' he jes cogitate, "Dey ain't no ghosts," an' wish he
+goose-pimples don't rise up dat way. An' he jes 'low, "Dey ain't no
+ghosts," an' wish he backbone ain't all trembulous wid chills dat way.
+So he rotch down, an' he rotch down, twell he git a good hold on dat
+pricklesome stem of dat bestest pumpkin whut in de patch, an' he jes
+yank dat stem wid all he might.
+
+"_Let loosen my head!_" say a big voice all on a suddent.
+
+Dat li'l black boy whut he name is Mose he jump 'most outen he skin. He
+open he eyes an' he 'gin to shake like de aspen tree, 'ca'se whut dat
+a-standin' right dar behind him but a 'mendjous big ghost! Yas, sah, dat
+de bigges', whites' ghost whut yever was. An' it ain't got no head.
+Ain't go no head _at_ all. Li'l black Mose he jest drap on he knees an'
+he beg an' pray:
+
+"Oh, 'scuse me! 'Scuse me, Mistah Ghost!" he beg. "Ah ain't mean no harm
+at all."
+
+"Whut for you try to take my head?" as' de ghost in dat fearsome voice
+whut like de damp wind outen de cellar.
+
+"'Scuse me! 'Scuse me!" beg li'l Mose. "Ah ain't know dat was yo' head,
+an' I ain't know you was dar _at_ all. 'Scuse me!"
+
+"Ah 'scuse you ef you do me dis favor," say de ghost. "Ah got somefin'
+powerful _im_portant to say unto you, an' Ah can't say hit 'ca'se Ah
+ain't got no head; an' whin Ah ain't got no head, Ah ain't got no mouf,
+an' whin Ah ain't got no mouf, Ah can't talk _at_ all."
+
+An' dat right logical fo' shore. Can't nobody talk whin he ain't got no
+mouf, an' can't nobody have no mouf whin he ain't got no head, an' whin
+li'l black Mose he look, he see dat ghost ain't go no head _at_ all.
+Nary head.
+
+So de ghost say:
+
+"Ah come on down yere fo' to git a pumpkin fo' a head, an' Ah pick dat
+ixact pumpkin whut yo' gwine tek, an' Ah don't like dat one bit. No,
+sah. Ah feel like Ah pick yo' up an' carry yo' away, an' nobody see you
+no more for yever. But Ah got somefin' powerful _im_portant to say unto
+yo', an' if yo' pick up dat pumpkin an' sot it on de place whar my head
+ought to be, Ah let you off dis time, 'ca'se Ah ain't been able to talk
+fo' so long Ah'm right hongry to say somefin'!"
+
+So li'l black Mose he heft up dat pumpkin, an' de ghost he bent down,
+an' li'l black Mose he sot dat pumpkin on dat ghostses neck. An' right
+off dat pumpkin head 'gin to wink an' blink like a jack-o'-lantern, an'
+right off dat pumpkin head 'gin to glimmer an' glow frough de mouf like
+a jack-o'-lantern, an' right off dat ghost start to speak. Yas, sah,
+dass so.
+
+"Whut yo' want to say unto me?" _in_quire li'l black Mose.
+
+"Ah want to tell yo'," say de ghost, "dat yo' ain't need yever be
+skeered of ghosts, 'ca'se dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+An' whin he say dat de ghost jes vanish away like de smoke in July. He
+ain't even linger round dat locality like de smoke in Yoctober. He jes
+dissipate outen de air, an' he gone _in_tirely.
+
+So li'l Mose he grab up de nex' bestest pumpkin an' he scoot. An' whin
+he come to de grabeyard in de hollow, he goin' erlong same as yever,
+on'y faster, whin he reckon, he'll pick up a club _in_ case he gwine
+have trouble. An' he rotch down an' rotch down, an' tek hold of a lively
+appearin' hunk o' wood whut right dar. An' whin he grab dat hunk of
+wood. . . .
+
+"_Let loosen my leg!_" say a big voice all on a suddent.
+
+Dat li'l black boy 'most jump outen he skin, 'ca'se right dar in de paff
+is six 'mendjus big ghosts, an' de bigges' ain't got but one leg. So
+li'l black Mose jes natchully handed dat hunk of wood to dat bigges'
+ghost, an' he say:
+
+"'Scuse me, Mistah Ghost; Ah ain't know dis your leg."
+
+An' whut dem six ghostes do but stand round an' confabulate? Yas, sah,
+dass so. An' whin dey do so, one say:
+
+"'Pears like dis a mighty likely li'l black boy. Whut we gwine do fo' to
+_re_ward him fo' politeness?"
+
+"Tell him whut de truth is 'bout ghosts."
+
+So de bigges' ghost he say:
+
+"Ah gwine tell yo' somethin' important whut yever'body don't know: Dey
+_ain't_ no ghosts."
+
+An' whin he say dat, de ghosts jes natchully vanish away, an' li'l black
+Mose he proceed up de paff. He so scared he hair jes yank at de roots,
+an' when de wind go "Oo-_oo_-oo-o-o," an' de owl go, "Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!"
+an' de rain-doves go, "You-_you_-o-o-o!" he jes tremble an' shake. An'
+bimeby he come to de cemuntary whut betwixt an' between, an' he shore is
+mighty skeered, 'ca'se dey is a whole comp'ny of ghostes lined up along
+de road, an' he 'low he ain't gwine spind no more time palaverin' wid
+ghostes. So he step offen de road fo' to go round erbout, an' he step on
+a pine-stump whut lay right dar.
+
+"_Git offen my chest!_" say a big voice all on a suddent, 'ca'se dat
+stump am been selected by de captain ob de ghostes for to be he chest,
+'ca'se he ain't got no chest betwixt he shoulders an' he legs. An' li'l
+black Mose he hop offen dat stump right peart. Yes, _sah;_ right peart.
+
+"'Scuse me! 'Scuse me!" dat li'l black Mose beg an' pleed, an' de
+ghostes ain't know whuther to eat him all up or not, 'ca'se he step on
+de boss ghostes's chest dat a-way. But bimeby they 'low they let him go
+'ca'se dat was an accident, an' de captain ghost he say, "Mose, you
+Mose, Ah gwine let you off dis time, 'ca'se you ain't nuffin' but a
+misabul li'l tremblin' nigger; but Ah want you should remimber one
+thing mos' particular'."
+
+"Ya-yas, sah," say dat li'l black boy; "Ah'll remimber. What is dat Ah
+got to remimber?"
+
+De captain ghost he swell up, an' he swell up, twell he as big as a
+house, an' he say in a voice whut shake de ground:
+
+"Dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+So li'l black Mose he bound to remimber dat, an' he rise up an' mek a
+bow, an' he proceed toward home right libely. He do, indeed.
+
+An' he gwine along jes as fast as he kin whin he come to de aidge ob de
+buryin'-ground whut on de hill, an' right dar he bound to stop, 'ca'se
+de kentry round about am so populate he ain't able to go frough. Yas,
+sah, seem like all de ghostes in de world havin' de conferince right
+dar. Seem like all de ghosteses whut yever was am havin' a convintion on
+dat spot. An' dat li'l black Mose so skeered he jes fall down on e' old
+log whut dar an' screech an' moan! An' all on a suddent de log up and
+spoke to li'l Mose:
+
+"_Get offen me! Get offen me!_" yell dat log.
+
+So li'l black Mose he git offen dat log, an' no mistake.
+
+An' soon as he git offen de log, de log uprise, an' li'l black Mose he
+see dat dat log am de king ob all de ghostes. An' whin de king uprise,
+all de congregation crowd round li'l black Mose, an' dey am about leben
+millium an' a few lift over. Yes, sah; dat de reg'lar annyul Hallowe'en
+convintion whut li'l black Mose interrup. Right dar am all de sperits in
+de world, an' all de ha'nts in de world, an' all de hobgoblins in de
+world, an' all de ghouls in de world, an' all de spicters in de world,
+an' all de ghostes in de world. An' whin dey see li'l black Mose, dey
+all gnash dey teef an' grin 'ca'se it gettin' erlong toward dey-all's
+lunchtime. So de king, whut he name old Skull-an'-Bones, he step on top
+ob li'l Mose's head, an' he say:
+
+"Gin'l'min, de convintion will come to order. De sicretary please note
+who is prisint. De firs' business whut come before de convintion am:
+whut we gwine do to a li'l black boy whut stip on de king an' maul all
+ober de king an' treat de king dat disdespictful."
+
+An' li'l black Mose jes moan an' sob:
+
+"'Scuse me! 'Scuse me, Mistah King! Ah ain't mean no harm _at_ all."
+
+But nobody ain't pay no attintion to him at all, 'ca'se yevery one
+lookin' at a monstrous big ha'nt whut name Bloody Bones, whut rose up
+an' spoke.
+
+"Your Honor, Mistah King, an' gin'l'min _an'_ ladies," he say, "dis am a
+right bad case ob _lazy majesty_, 'ca'se de king been step on. Whin
+yevery li'l black boy whut choose gwine wander round at night an' stip
+on de king of ghostes, it ain't no time for to palaver, it ain't no time
+for to prevaricate, it ain't no time for to cogitate, it ain't no time
+do nuffin' but tell de truth, an' de whole truth, an' nuffin but de
+truth."
+
+An' all dem ghostes sicond de motion, an' dey canfabulate out loud
+erbout it, an' de noise soun like de rain-doves goin', "Oo-_oo_-o-o-o!"
+an' de owls goin', "Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!" an' de wind goin',
+"You-_you_-o-o-o!" So dat risolution am passed unanermous, an' no
+mistake.
+
+So de king ob de ghosts, whut name old Skull-an'-Bones, he place he hand
+on de head ob li'l black Mose, an' he hand feel like a wet rag, an' he
+say:
+
+"Dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+An' one ob de hairs whut on de head ob li'l black Mose turn white.
+
+An' de monstrous big ha'nt whut he name Bloody Bones he lay he hand on
+de head ob li'l black Mose, and he hand feel like a toadstool in de cool
+ob de day, an' he say:
+
+"Dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+An' anudder ob de hairs whut on de head ob li'l black Mose turn white.
+
+An' a heejus sperit whut he name Moldy Pa'm place he hand on de head ob
+li'l black Mose, an' he hand feel like ye yunner side ob a lizard, an'
+he say:
+
+"Dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+An' anudder ob de hairs whut on de head ob li'l black Mose turn white
+_as_ snow.
+
+An' a perticklar bent-up hobgoblin he put hand on de head ob li'l black
+Mose, an' he mek dat same _re_mark, and dat whole convintion ob ghostes
+an' spicters an' ha'nts an' yever-thing, which am more 'n a millium,
+pass by so quick dey-all's hands feel lak de wind whut blow outen de
+cellar whin de day am hot, an' dey-all say, "Dey ain't no ghosts." Yas,
+sah, dey-all say dem wo'ds so fas' it soun like de wind whin it moan
+frough de turkentine-trees whut behind de cider-priss. An' yevery hair
+whut on li'l black Mose's head turn white. Dat whut happen whin a li'l
+black boy gwine meet a ghost convintion dat a-way. Dat's so he ain't
+gwine fergit to remimber dey ain't no ghosts. 'Ca'se ef a li'l black boy
+gwine imaginate dey _is_ ghostes, he gwine be skeered in de dark. An'
+dat a foolish thing for to imaginate.
+
+So prisintly all de ghostes am whiff away, like de fog outen de holler
+whin de wind blow' on it, an' li'l black Mose he ain' see 'ca'se for to
+remain in dat locality no longer. He rotch down, an' he raise up de
+pumpkin, an' he perambulate right quick to he ma's shack, an' he lift up
+de latch, an' he open de do', an' he yenter in. An' he say:
+
+"Yere's de pumpkin."
+
+An' he ma an' he pa, an' Sally Ann, whut live up de road, an' Mistah
+Sally Ann, whut her husban', an' Zack Badget, an' de school-teacher whut
+board at Unc' Silas Diggs's house, an' all de powerful lot of folks whut
+come to de doin's, dey all scrooged back in de cornder ob de shack,
+'ca'se Zack Badget he been done tell a ghost-tale, an' de rain-doves
+gwine "Ooo-_oo_-o-o-o!" an' de owls am gwine, "Whut-_whoo_-o-o-o!" and
+de wind it gwine, "You-_you_-o-o-o!" an' yever'body powerful skeered.
+'Ca'se li'l black Mose he come a-fumblin' an' a-rattlin' at de do' jes
+whin dat ghost-tale mos' skeery, an' yever'body gwine imaginate dat de
+ghost a-fumblin' an' a-rattlin' at de do'. Yas, sah. So li'l black Mose
+he turn he white head, an' he look roun' an' peer roun', an' he say:
+
+"Whut you all skeered fo'?"
+
+'Ca'se ef anybody skeered, he want to be skeered, too. Dat's natural.
+But de school-teacher, whut live at Unc' Silas Diggs's house, she say:
+
+"Fo' de lan's sake, we fought you was a ghost!"
+
+So li'l black Mose he sort ob sniff an' he sort ob sneer, an' he 'low:
+
+"Huh! dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+Den he ma she powerful took back dat li'l black Mose he gwine be so
+upotish an' contrydict folks whut know 'rifmeticks an' algebricks an'
+gin'ral countin' widout fingers, like de school-teacher whut board at
+Unc' Silas Diggs's house knows, an' she say:
+
+"Huh; whut you know 'bout ghosts, anner way?"
+
+An' li'l black Mose he jes kinder stan' on one foot, an' he jes kinder
+suck he thumb, an' he jes kinder 'low:
+
+"I don' know nuffin' erbout ghosts, 'ca'se dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+So he pa gwine whop him fo' tellin' a fib 'bout dey ain't no ghosts whin
+yever'body know dey is ghosts; but de school-teacher, whut board at Unc'
+Silas Diggs's house, she tek note de hair ob li'l black Mose's head am
+plumb white, an' she tek note li'l black Mose's face am de color of
+wood-ash, so she jes retch one arm round dat li'l black boy, an' she jes
+snuggle him up, an' she say:
+
+"Honey lamb, don't you be skeered; ain' nobody gwine hurt you. How you
+know dey ain't no ghosts?"
+
+An' li'l black Mose he kinder lean up 'g'inst de school-teacher whut
+board at Unc' Silas Diggs's house, an' he 'low:
+
+"'Ca'se--'ca'se--'ca'se I met de cap'n ghost, an' I met de gin'ral
+ghost, an' I met de king ghost, an' I met all de ghostes whut yever was
+in de whole worl', an' yevery ghost say de same thing: 'Dey ain't no
+ghosts.' An' if de cap'n ghost an' de gin'ral ghost an' de king ghost
+an' all de ghostes in de whole worl' don' know ef dar am ghostes, who
+does?"
+
+"Das right; das right, honey lamb," say de school-teacher. An' she say:
+"I been s'picious dey ain' no ghostes dis long whiles, an' now I know.
+Ef all de ghostes say dey ain' no ghosts, dey _ain'_ no ghosts."
+
+So yever'body 'low dat o cep' Zack Badget, whut been tellin' de
+ghost-tale, an' he ain' gwine say "Yis" an' he ain' gwine say "No,"
+'ca'se he right sweet on de school-teacher; but he know right well he
+done seen plinty ghostes in he day. So he boun' to be sure fust. So he
+say to li'l black Mose:
+
+"'Tain' likely you met up wid a monstrous big ha'nt whut live down de
+lane whut he name Bloody Bones?"
+
+"Yas," say li'l black Mose, "I done met up wid him."
+
+"An' did old Bloody Bones done tol' you dey ain' no ghosts?" say Zack
+Badget.
+
+"Yas," say li'l black Mose, "he done tell me perzactly dat."
+
+"Well, if _he_ tol' you dey ain' no ghosts," say Zack Badget, "I got to
+'low dey ain't no ghosts, 'ca'se he ain't gwine tell no lie erbout it. I
+know dat Bloody Bones ghost sence I was a piccaninny, an' I done met up
+wif him a powerful lot o' times, an' he ain't gwine tell no lie erbout
+it. Ef dat perticklar ghost say dey ain't no ghosts, dey ain't no
+ghosts."
+
+So yever'body say:
+
+"Das right; dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+An' dat mek li'l black Mose feel mighty good, 'ca'se he ain' lek
+ghostes. He reckon he gwine be a heap mo' comfortable in he mind sence
+he know dey ain't no ghosts, an' he reckon he ain' gwine be skeered of
+nuffin' never no more. He ain't gwine min' de dark, an' he ain't gwine
+min' de rain-doves whut go, "Ooo-_oo_-o-o-o!" an' he ain' gwine min' de
+owls whut go, "Who-_who_-o-o-o!" an' he ain' gwine min' de wind whut go,
+"You-_you_-o-o-o!" nor nuffin, nohow. He gwine be brave as a lion, sence
+he know fo' sure dey ain' no ghosts. So prisintly he ma say:
+
+"Well, time fo' a li'l black boy whut he name is Mose to be gwine up de
+ladder to de loft to bed."
+
+An' li'l black Mose he 'low he gwine wait a bit. He 'low he gwine jes
+wait a li'l bit. He 'low he gwine be no trouble _at_ all ef he jes been
+let wait twell he ma she gwine up de ladder to de loft to bed, too. So
+he ma she say:
+
+"Git erlong wid yo'! Whut you skeered ob whin dey ain't no ghosts?"
+
+An' li'l black Mose he scrooge, an' he twist, an' he pucker up he mouf,
+an' he rub he eyes, an' prisintly he say right low:
+
+"I ain't skeered ob ghosts whut am, 'ca'se dey ain't no ghosts."
+
+"Den what am yo' skeered ob?" ask he ma.
+
+"Nuffin'," say de li'l black boy whut he name is Mose; "but I jes feel
+kinder oneasy 'bout de ghosts whut ain't."
+
+Jes lak white folks! Jes lak white folks!
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[9] Copyright, 1913, by the Century Company. Reprinted by special
+permission of the author.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+X.--The Night Operator[10]
+
+_By Frank L. Packard_
+
+
+TODDLES, in the beginning, wasn't exactly a railroad man--for several
+reasons. First he wasn't a man at all; second, he wasn't, strictly
+speaking, on the company's pay roll; third, which is apparently
+irrelevant, everybody said he was a bad one; and fourth--because Hawkeye
+nicknamed him Toddles.
+
+Toddles had another name--Christopher Hyslop Hoogan--but Big Cloud never
+lay awake at nights losing any sleep over that. On the first run that
+Christopher Hyslop Hoogan ever made, Hawkeye looked him over for a
+minute, said, "Toddles," shortlike--and, shortlike, that settled the
+matter so far as the Hill Division was concerned. His name was Toddles.
+
+Piecemeal, Toddles wouldn't convey anything to you to speak of. You'd
+have to see Toddles coming down the aisle of a car to get him at
+all--and then the chances are you'd turn around after he'd gone by and
+stare at him, and it would be even money that you'd call him back and
+fish for a dime to buy something by way of excuse. Toddles got a good
+deal of business that way. Toddles had a uniform and a regular run all
+right, but he wasn't what he passionately longed to be--a legitimate,
+dyed-in-the-wool railroader. His pay check, plus commissions, came from
+the News Company down East that had the railroad concession. Toddles was
+a newsboy. In his blue uniform and silver buttons, Toddles used to stack
+up about the height of the back of the car seats as he hawked his wares
+along the aisles; and the only thing that was big about him was his
+head, which looked as though it had got a whopping big lead on his
+body--and didn't intend to let the body cut the lead down any. This
+meant a big cap, and, as Toddles used to tilt the vizor forward, the tip
+of his nose, bar his mouth which was generous, was about all one got of
+his face. Cap, buttons, magazines and peanuts, that was Toddles--all
+except his voice. Toddles had a voice that would make you jump if you
+were nervous the minute he opened the car door, and if you weren't
+nervous you would be before he had reached the other end of the
+aisle--it began low down somewhere on high G and went through you shrill
+as an east wind, and ended like the shriek of a brake-shoe with
+everything the Westinghouse equipment had to offer cutting loose on a
+quick stop.
+
+Hawkeye? That was what Toddles called his beady-eyed conductor in
+retaliation. Hawkeye used to nag Toddles every chance he got, and, being
+Toddles' conductor, Hawkeye got a good many chances. In a word, Hawkeye,
+carrying the punch on the local passenger, that happened to be the run
+Toddles was given when the News Company sent him out from the East, used
+to think he got a good deal of fun out of Toddles--only his idea of fun
+and Toddles' idea of fun were as divergent as the poles, that was all.
+
+Toddles, however, wasn't anybody's fool, not by several degrees--not
+even Hawkeye's. Toddles hated Hawkeye like poison; and his hate, apart
+from daily annoyances, was deep-seated. It was Hawkeye who had dubbed
+him "Toddles." And Toddles repudiated the name with his heart, his
+soul--and his fists.
+
+Toddles wasn't anybody's fool, whatever the division thought, and he was
+right down to the basic root of things from the start. Coupled with the
+stunted growth that nature in a miserly mood had doled out to him, none
+knew better than himself that the name of "Toddles," keeping that nature
+stuff patently before everybody's eyes, damned him in his aspirations
+for a bona fide railroad career. Other boys got a job and got their feet
+on the ladder as call-boys, or in the roundhouse; Toddles got--a grin.
+Toddles pestered everybody for a job. He pestered Carleton, the super.
+He pestered Tommy Regan, the master mechanic. Every time that he saw
+anybody in authority Toddles spoke up for a job, he was in deadly
+earnest--and got a grin. Toddles with a basket of unripe fruit and stale
+chocolates and his "best-seller" voice was one thing; but Toddles as
+anything else was just--Toddles.
+
+Toddles repudiated the name, and did it forcefully. Not that he couldn't
+take his share of a bit of guying, but because he felt that he was face
+to face with a vital factor in the career he longed for--so he fought.
+And if nature had been niggardly in one respect, she had been generous
+in others; Toddles, for all his size, possessed the heart of a lion and
+the strength of a young ox, and he used both, with black and bloody
+effect, on the eyes and noses of the call-boys and younger element who
+called him Toddles. He fought it all along the line--at the drop of the
+hat--at a whisper of "Toddles." There wasn't a day went by that Toddles
+wasn't in a row; and the women, the mothers of the defeated warriors
+whose eyes were puffed and whose noses trickled crimson, denounced him
+in virulent language over their washtubs and the back fences of Big
+Cloud. You see, they didn't understand him, so they called him a "bad
+one," and, being from the East and not one of themselves, "a New York
+gutter snipe."
+
+But, for all that, the name stuck. Up and down through the Rockies it
+was--Toddles. Toddles, with the idea of getting a lay-over on a siding,
+even went to the extent of signing himself in full--Christopher Hyslop
+Hoogan--every time his signature was in order; but the official
+documents in which he was concerned, being of a private nature between
+himself and the News Company, did not, in the very nature of things,
+have much effect on the Hill Division. Certainly the big fellows never
+knew he had any name but Toddles--and cared less. But they knew him as
+Toddles, all right! All of them did, every last one of them! Toddles was
+everlastingly and eternally bothering them for a job. Any kind of a job,
+no matter what, just so it was real railroading, and so a fellow could
+line up with everybody else when the pay car came along, and look
+forward to being something some day.
+
+Toddles, with time, of course, grew older, up to about seventeen or so,
+but he didn't grow any bigger--not enough to make it noticeable! Even
+Toddles' voice wouldn't break--it was his young heart that did all the
+breaking there was done. Not that he ever showed it. No one ever saw a
+tear in the boy's eyes. It was clenched fists for Toddles, clenched
+fists and passionate attack. And therein, while Toddles had grasped the
+basic truth that his nickname militated against his ambitions, he erred
+in another direction that was equally fundamental, if not more so.
+
+And here, it was Bob Donkin, the night dispatcher, as white a man as his
+record after years of train-handling was white, a railroad man from the
+ground up if there ever was one, and one of the best, who set
+Toddles--but we'll come to that presently. We've got our "clearance"
+now, and we're off with "rights" through.
+
+No. 83, Hawkeye's train--and Toddles'--scheduled Big Cloud on the
+eastbound run at 9.05; and, on the night the story opens, they were
+about an hour away from the little mountain town that was the divisional
+point, as Toddles, his basket of edibles in the crook of his arm, halted
+in the forward end of the second-class smoker to examine again the
+fistful of change that he dug out of his pants pocket with his free
+hand.
+
+Toddles was in an unusually bad humor, and he scowled. With exceeding
+deftness he separated one of the coins from the others, using his
+fingers like the teeth of a rake, and dropped the rest back jingling
+into his pocket. The coin that remained he put into his mouth, and bit
+on it--hard. His scowl deepened. Somebody had presented Toddles with a
+lead quarter.
+
+It wasn't so much the quarter, though Toddles' salary wasn't so big as
+some people's who would have felt worse over it, it was his _amour
+propre_ that was touched--deeply. It wasn't often that any one could put
+so bald a thing as lead money across on Toddles. Toddles' mind harked
+back along the aisles of the cars behind him. He had only made two sales
+that round, and he had changed a quarter each time--for the pretty girl
+with the big picture hat, who had giggled at him when she bought a
+package of chewing gum; and the man with the three-carat diamond tie-pin
+in the parlor car, a little more than on the edge of inebriety, who had
+got on at the last stop, and who had bought a cigar from him.
+
+Toddles thought it over for a bit; decided he wouldn't have a fuss with
+a girl anyway, balked at a parlor car fracas with a drunk, dropped the
+coin back into his pocket, and went on into the combination baggage and
+express car. Here, just inside the door, was Toddles', or, rather, the
+News Company's chest. Toddles lifted the lid; and then his eyes shifted
+slowly and traveled up the car. Things were certainly going badly with
+Toddles that night.
+
+There were four men in the car: Bob Donkin, coming back from a holiday
+trip somewhere up the line; MacNicoll, the baggage-master; Nulty, the
+express messenger--and Hawkeye. Toddles' inventory of the contents of
+the chest had been hurried--but intimate. A small bunch of six bananas
+was gone, and Hawkeye was munching them unconcernedly. It wasn't the
+first time the big, hulking, six-foot conductor had pilfered the boy's
+chest, not by many--and never paid for the pilfering. That was Hawkeye's
+idea of a joke.
+
+Hawkeye was talking to Nulty, elaborately simulating ignorance of
+Toddles' presence--and he was talking about Toddles.
+
+"Sure," said Hawkeye, his mouth full of banana, "he'll be a great
+railroad man some day! He's the stuff they're made of! You can see it
+sticking out all over him! He's only selling peanuts now till he grows
+up and----"
+
+Toddles put down his basket and planted himself before the conductor.
+
+"You pay for those bananas," said Toddles in a low voice--which was
+high.
+
+"When'll he grow up?" continued Hawkeye, peeling more fruit. "I don't
+know--you've got me. The first time I saw him two years ago, I'm hanged
+if he wasn't bigger than he is now--guess he grows backwards. Have a
+banana?" He offered one to Nulty, who refused it.
+
+"You pay for those bananas, you big stiff!" squealed Toddles
+belligerently.
+
+Hawkeye turned his head slowly and turned his little beady, black eyes
+on Toddles, then he turned with a wink to the others, and for the first
+time in two years offered payment. He fished into his pocket and handed
+Toddles a twenty-dollar bill--there always was a mean streak in Hawkeye,
+more or less of a bully, none too well liked, and whose name on the pay
+roll, by the way, was Reynolds.
+
+"Take fifteen cents out of that," he said, with no idea that the boy
+could change the bill.
+
+For a moment Toddles glared at the yellow-back, then a thrill of unholy
+glee came to Toddles. He could just about make it, business all around
+had been pretty good that day, particularly on the run west in the
+morning.
+
+Hawkeye went on with the exposition of his idea of humor at Toddles'
+expense; and Toddles went back to his chest and his reserve funds.
+Toddles counted out eighteen dollars in bills, made a neat pile of four
+quarters--the lead one on the bottom--another neat pile of the odd
+change, and returned to Hawkeye. The lead quarter wouldn't go very far
+toward liquidating Hawkeye's long-standing indebtedness--but it would
+help some.
+
+Queer, isn't it--the way things happen? Think of a man's whole life,
+aspirations, hopes, ambitions, everything, pivoting on--a lead quarter!
+But then they say that opportunity knocks once at the door of every man;
+and, if that be true, let it be remarked in passing that Toddles wasn't
+deaf!
+
+Hawkeye, making Toddles a target for a parting gibe, took up his lantern
+and started through the train to pick up the fates from the last stop.
+In due course he halted before the inebriated one with the glittering
+tie-pin in the smoking compartment of the parlor car.
+
+"Ticket, please," said Hawkeye.
+
+"Too busy to buysh ticket," the man informed him, with heavy confidence.
+"Whash fare Loon Dam to Big Cloud?"
+
+"One-fifty," said Hawkeye curtly.
+
+The man produced a roll of bills, and from the roll extracted a
+two-dollar note.
+
+Hawkeye handed him back two quarters, and started to punch a cash-fare
+slip. He looked up to find the man holding out one of the quarters
+insistently, if somewhat unsteadily.
+
+"What's the matter?" demanded Hawkeye brusquely.
+
+"Bad," said the man.
+
+A drummer grinned; and an elderly gentleman, from his magazine, looked
+up inquiringly over his spectacles.
+
+"Bad!" Hawkeye brought his elbow sharply around to focus his lamp on the
+coin; then he leaned over and rang it on the window sill--only it
+wouldn't ring. It was indubitably bad. Hawkeye, however, was dealing
+with a drunk--and Hawkeye always did have a mean streak in him.
+
+"It's perfectly good," he asserted gruffly.
+
+The man rolled an eye at the conductor that mingled a sudden shrewdness
+and anger, and appealed to his fellow travelers. The verdict was against
+Hawkeye, and Hawkeye ungraciously pocketed the lead piece and handed
+over another quarter.
+
+"Shay," observed the inebriated one insolently, "shay, conductor, I
+don't like you. You thought I was--hic!--s'drunk I wouldn't know--eh?
+Thash where you fooled yerself!"
+
+"What do you mean?" Hawkeye bridled virtuously for the benefit of the
+drummer and the old gentleman with the spectacles.
+
+And then the other began to laugh immoderately.
+
+"Same ol' quarter," said he. "Same--hic!--ol' quarter back again. Great
+system--peanut boy--conductor--hic! Pass it off on one--other passes it
+off on some one else. Just passed it off on--hic!--peanut boy for a
+joke. Goin' to give him a dollar when he comes back."
+
+"Oh, you did, did you!" snapped Hawkeye ominously. "And you mean to
+insinuate that I deliberately tried to----"
+
+"Sure!" declared the man heartily.
+
+"You're a liar!" announced Hawkeye, spluttering mad. "And what's more,
+since it came from you, you'll take it back!" He dug into his pocket for
+the ubiquitous lead piece.
+
+"Not--hic!--on your life!" said the man earnestly. "You hang on to it,
+old top. I didn't pass it off on _you_."
+
+"Haw!" exploded the drummer suddenly. "Haw--haw, haw!"
+
+And the elderly gentleman smiled.
+
+Hawkeye's face went red, and then purple.
+
+"Go 'way!" said the man petulantly. "I don't like you. Go 'way! Go an'
+tell peanuts I--hic!--got a dollar for him."
+
+And Hawkeye went--but Toddles never got the dollar. Hawkeye went out of
+the smoking compartment of the parlor car with the lead quarter in his
+pocket--because he couldn't do anything else--which didn't soothe his
+feelings any--and he went out mad enough to bite himself. The drummer's
+guffaw followed him, and he thought he even caught a chuckle from the
+elderly party with the magazine and spectacles.
+
+Hawkeye was mad; and he was quite well aware, painfully well aware that
+he had looked like a fool, which is about one of the meanest feelings
+there is to feel; and, as he made his way forward through the train, he
+grew madder still. That change was the change from his twenty-dollar
+bill. He had not needed to be told that the lead quarter had come from
+Toddles. The only question at all in doubt was whether or not Toddles
+had put the counterfeit coin over on him knowingly and with malice
+aforethought. Hawkeye, however, had an intuition deep down inside of him
+that there wasn't any doubt even about that, and as he opened the door
+of the baggage car his intuition was vindicated. There was a grin on the
+faces of Nulty, MacNicoll and Bob Donkin that disappeared with
+suspicious celerity at sight of him as he came through the door.
+
+There was no hesitation then on Hawkeye's part. Toddles, equipped for
+another excursion through the train with a stack of magazines and books
+that almost hid him, received a sudden and vicious clout on the side of
+the ear.
+
+"You'd try your tricks on me, would you?" Hawkeye snarled. "Lead
+quarters--eh?" Another clout. "I'll teach you, you blasted little runt!"
+
+And with the clouts, the stack of carefully balanced periodicals went
+flying over the floor; and with the clouts, the nagging, and the
+hectoring, and the bullying, that had rankled for close on two years in
+Toddles' turbulent soul, rose in a sudden all-possessing sweep of fury.
+Toddles was a fighter--with the heart of a fighter. And Toddles' cause
+was just. He couldn't reach the conductor's face--so he went for
+Hawkeye's legs. And the screams of rage from his high-pitched voice, as
+he shot himself forward, sounded like a cageful of Australian cockatoos
+on the rampage.
+
+Toddles was small, pitifully small for his age; but he wasn't an infant
+in arms--not for a minute. And in action Toddles was as near to a wild
+cat as anything else that comes handy by way of illustration. Two legs
+and one arm he twined and twisted around Hawkeye's legs; and the other
+arm, with a hard and knotty fist on the end of it, caught the conductor
+a wicked jab in the region of the bottom button of the vest. The brass
+button peeled the skin off Toddles' knuckles, but the jab doubled the
+conductor forward, and coincident with Hawkeye's winded grunt, the
+lantern in his hand sailed ceilingwards, crashed into the center lamps
+in the roof of the car, and down in a shower of tinkling glass, dripping
+oil and burning wicks, came the wreckage to the floor.
+
+There was a yell from Nulty; but Toddles hung on like grim death.
+Hawkeye was bawling fluent profanity and seeing red. Toddles heard one
+and sensed the other--and he clung grimly on. He was all doubled up
+around Hawkeye's knees, and in that position Hawkeye couldn't get at him
+very well; and, besides, Toddles had his own plan of battle. He was
+waiting for an extra heavy lurch of the car.
+
+It came. Toddles' muscles strained legs and arms and back in concert,
+and for an instant across the car they tottered, Hawkeye staggering in a
+desperate attempt to maintain his equilibrium--and then down--speaking
+generally, on a heterogeneous pile of express parcels; concretely, with
+an eloquent squnch, on a crate of eggs, thirty dozen of them, at forty
+cents a dozen.
+
+Toddles, over his rage, experienced a sickening sense of disaster, but
+still he clung; he didn't dare let go. Hawkeye's fists, both in an
+effort to recover himself and in an endeavor to reach Toddles, were
+going like a windmill; and Hawkeye's threats were something terrifying
+to listen to. And now they rolled over, and Toddles was underneath; and
+then they rolled over again; and then a hand locked on Toddles' collar,
+and he was yanked, terrier-fashion, to his feet.
+
+His face white and determined, his fists doubled, Toddles waited for
+Hawkeye to get up--the word "run" wasn't in Toddles' vocabulary. He
+hadn't long to wait.
+
+Hawkeye lunged up, draped in the broken crate--a sight. The road always
+prided itself on the natty uniforms of its train crews, but Hawkeye
+wasn't dressed in uniform then--mostly egg yolks. He made a dash for
+Toddles, but he never reached the boy. Bob Donkin was between them.
+
+"Cut it out!" said Donkin coldly, as he pushed Toddles behind him. "You
+asked for it, Reynolds, and you got it. Now cut it out!"
+
+And Hawkeye "cut it out." It was pretty generally understood that Bob
+Donkin never talked much for show, and Bob Donkin was bigger than
+Toddles, a whole lot bigger, as big as Hawkeye himself. Hawkeye "cut it
+out."
+
+Funny, the egg part of it? Well, perhaps. But the fire wasn't. True,
+they got it out with the help of the hand extinguishers before it did
+any serious damage, for Nulty had gone at it on the jump; but while it
+lasted the burning oil on the car floor looked dangerous. Anyway, it was
+bad enough so that they couldn't hide it when they got into Big
+Cloud--and Hawkeye and Toddles went on the carpet for it the next
+morning in the super's office.
+
+Carleton, "Royal" Carleton, reached for a match, and, to keep his lips
+straight, clamped them firmly on the amber mouthpiece of his brier, and
+stumpy, big-paunched Tommy Regan, the master mechanic, who was sitting
+in a chair by the window, reached hurriedly into his back pocket for his
+chewing and looked out of the window to hide a grin, as the two came in
+and ranged themselves in front of the super's desk--Hawkeye, six feet
+and a hundred and ninety pounds, with Toddles trailing him, mostly cap
+and buttons and no weight at all.
+
+Carleton didn't ask many questions--he'd asked them before--of Bob
+Donkin--and the dispatcher hadn't gone out of his way to invest the
+conductor with any glorified halo. Carleton, always a strict
+disciplinarian, said what he had to say and said it quietly; but he
+meant to let the conductor have the worst of it, and he did--in a way
+that was all Carleton's own. Two years' picking on a youngster didn't
+appeal to Carleton, no matter who the youngster was. Before he was half
+through he had the big conductor squirming. Hawkeye was looking for
+something else--besides a galling and matter-of-fact impartiality that
+accepted himself and Toddles as being on exactly the same plane and
+level.
+
+"There's a case of eggs," said Carleton at the end. "You can divide up
+the damage between you. And I'm going to change your runs, unless you've
+got some good reason to give me why I shouldn't?"
+
+He waited for an answer.
+
+Hawkeye, towering, sullen, his eyes resting bitterly on Regan, having
+caught the master mechanic's grin, said nothing; Toddles, whose head
+barely showed over the top of Carleton's desk, and the whole of him
+sizing up about big enough to go into the conductor's pocket, was
+equally silent--Toddles was thinking of something else.
+
+"Very good," said Carleton suavely, as he surveyed the ridiculous
+incongruity before him. "I'll change your runs, then. I can't have you
+two _men_ brawling and prize-fighting every trip."
+
+There was a sudden sound from the window, as though Regan had got some
+of his blackstrap juice down the wrong way.
+
+Hawkeye's face went black as thunder.
+
+Carleton's face was like a sphinx.
+
+"That'll do, then," he said. "You can go, both of you."
+
+Hawkeye stamped out of the room and down the stairs. But Toddles stayed.
+
+"Please, Mr. Carleton, won't you give me a job on----" Toddles stopped.
+
+So had Regan's chuckle. Toddles, the irrepressible, was at it again--and
+Toddles after a job, any kind of a job, was something that Regan's
+experience had taught him to fly from without standing on the order of
+his flight. Regan hurried from the room.
+
+Toddles watched him go--kind of speculatively, kind of reproachfully.
+Then he turned to Carleton.
+
+"Please give me a job, Mr. Carleton," he pleaded. "Give me a job, won't
+you?"
+
+It was only yesterday on the platform that Toddles had waylaid the super
+with the same demand--and about every day before that as far back as
+Carleton could remember. It was hopelessly chronic. Anything convincing
+or appealing about it had gone long ago--Toddles said it parrot-fashion
+now. Carleton took refuge in severity.
+
+"See here, young man," he said grimly, "you were brought into this
+office for a reprimand and not to apply for a job! You can thank your
+stars and Bob Donkin you haven't lost the one you've got. Now, get out!"
+
+"I'd make good if you gave me one," said Toddles earnestly. "Honest, I
+would, Mr. Carleton."
+
+"Get out!" said the super, not altogether unkindly. "I'm busy."
+
+Toddles swallowed a lump in his throat--but not until after his head was
+turned and he'd started for the door so the super couldn't see it.
+Toddles swallowed the lump--and got out. He hadn't expected anything
+else, of course. The refusals were just as chronic as the demands. But
+that didn't make each new one any easier for Toddles. It made it worse.
+
+Toddles' heart was heavy as he stepped out into the hall, and the iron
+was in his soul. He was seventeen now, and it looked as though he never
+would get a chance--except to be a newsboy all his life. Toddles
+swallowed another lump. He loved railroading; it was his one ambition,
+his one desire. If he could ever get a chance, he'd show them! He'd show
+them that he wasn't a joke, just because he was small!
+
+Toddles turned at the head of the stairs to go down, when somebody
+called his name.
+
+"Here--Toddles! Come here!"
+
+Toddles looked over his shoulder, hesitated, then marched in through the
+open door of the dispatchers' room. Bob Donkin was alone there.
+
+"What's your name--Toddles?" inquired Donkin, as Toddles halted before
+the dispatcher's table.
+
+Toddles froze instantly--hard. His fists doubled; there was a smile on
+Donkin's face. Then his fists slowly uncurled; the smile on Donkin's
+face had broadened, but there wasn't any malice in the smile.
+
+"Christopher Hyslop Hoogan," said Toddles, unbending.
+
+Donkin put his hand quickly to his mouth--and coughed.
+
+"Um-m!" said he pleasantly. "Super hard on you this morning--Hoogan?"
+
+And with the words Toddles' heart went out to the big dispatcher:
+"Hoogan"--and a man-to-man tone.
+
+"No," said Toddles cordially. "Say, I thought you were on the night
+trick."
+
+"Double-shift--short-handed," replied Donkin. "Come from New York, don't
+you?"
+
+"Yes," said Toddles.
+
+"Mother and father down there still?"
+
+It came quick and unexpected, and Toddles stared for a moment. Then he
+walked over to the window.
+
+"I haven't got any," he said.
+
+There wasn't any sound for an instant, save the clicking of the
+instruments; then Donkin spoke again--a little gruffly:
+
+"When are you going to quit making a fool of yourself?"
+
+Toddles swung from the window, hurt. Donkin, after all, was like all the
+rest of them.
+
+"Well?" prompted the dispatcher.
+
+"You go to blazes!" said Toddles bitterly, and started for the door.
+
+Donkin halted him.
+
+"You're only fooling yourself, Hoogan," he said coolly. "If you wanted
+what you call a real railroad job as much as you pretend you do, you'd
+get one."
+
+"Eh?" demanded Toddles defiantly; and went back to the table.
+
+"A fellow," said Donkin, putting a little sting into his words, "never
+got anywhere by going around with a chip on his shoulder fighting
+everybody because they called him Toddles, and making a nuisance of
+himself with the Big Fellows until they got sick of the sight of him."
+
+It was a pretty stiff arraignment. Toddles choked over it, and the angry
+blood flushed to his cheeks.
+
+"That's all right for you!" he spluttered out hotly. "You don't look too
+small for the train crews or the roundhouse, and they don't call you
+Toddles so's nobody'll forget it. What'd _you_ do?"
+
+"I'll tell you what I'd do," said Donkin quietly. "I'd make everybody
+on the division wish their own name was Toddles before I was through
+with them, and I'd _make_ a job for myself."
+
+Toddles blinked helplessly.
+
+"Getting right down to a cash fare," continued Donkin, after a moment,
+as Toddles did not speak, "they're not so far wrong, either, about you
+sizing up pretty small for the train crews or the roundhouse, are they?"
+
+"No-o," admitted Toddles reluctantly; "but----"
+
+"Then why not something where there's no handicap hanging over you?"
+suggested the dispatcher--and his hand reached out and touched the
+sender. "The key, for instance?"
+
+"But I don't know anything about it," said Toddles, still helplessly.
+
+"That's just it," returned Donkin smoothly. "You never tried to learn."
+
+Toddles' eyes widened, and into Toddles' heart leaped a sudden joy. A
+new world seemed to open out before him in which aspirations, ambitions,
+longings all were a reality. A key! That _was_ real railroading, the
+top-notch of railroading, too. First an operator, and then a dispatcher,
+and--and--and then his face fell, and the vision faded.
+
+"How'd I get a chance to learn?" he said miserably. "Who'd teach me?"
+
+The smile was back on Donkin's face as he pushed his chair from the
+table, stood up, and held out his hand--man-to-man fashion.
+
+"I will," he said. "I liked your grit last night, Hoogan. And if you
+want to be a railroad man, I'll make you one--before I'm through. I've
+some old instruments you can have to practice with, and I've nothing to
+do in my spare time. What do you say?"
+
+Toddles didn't say anything. For the first time since Toddles' advent to
+the Hill Division, there were tears in Toddles' eyes for some one else
+to see.
+
+Donkin laughed.
+
+"All right, old man, you're on. See that you don't throw me down. And
+keep your mouth shut; you'll need all your wind. It's work that counts,
+and nothing else. Now chase yourself! I'll dig up the things you'll
+need, and you can drop in here and get them when you come off your run
+to-night."
+
+Spare time! Bob Donkin didn't have any spare time those days! But that
+was Donkin's way. Spence sick, and two men handling the dispatching
+where three had handled it before, didn't leave Bob Donkin much spare
+time--not much. But a boost for the kid was worth a sacrifice. Donkin
+went at it as earnestly as Toddles did--and Toddles was in deadly
+earnest.
+
+When Toddles left the dispatcher's office that morning with Donkin's
+promise to teach him the key, Toddles had a hazy idea that Donkin had
+wings concealed somewhere under his coat and was an angel in disguise;
+and at the end of two weeks he was sure of it. But at the end of a month
+Bob Donkin was a god! Throw Bob Donkin down! Toddles would have sold
+his soul for the dispatcher.
+
+It wasn't easy, though; and Bob Donkin wasn't an easy-going taskmaster,
+not by long odds. Donkin had a tongue, and on occasions could use it.
+Short and quick in his explanations, he expected his pupil to get it
+short and quick; either that, or Donkin's opinion of him. But Toddles
+stuck. He'd have crawled on his knees for Donkin anywhere, and he worked
+like a major--not only for his own advancement, but for what he came to
+prize quite as much, if not more, Donkin's approval.
+
+Toddles, mindful of Donkin's words, didn't fight so much as the days
+went by, though he found it difficult to swear off all at once; and on
+his runs he studied his Morse code, and he had the "calls" of every
+station on the division off by heart right from the start. Toddles
+mastered the "sending" by leaps and bounds; but the "taking" came
+slower, as it does for everybody--but even at that, at the end of six
+weeks, if it wasn't thrown at him too fast and hard, Toddles could get
+it after a fashion.
+
+Take it all around, Toddles felt like whistling most of the time; and,
+pleased with his own progress, looked forward to starting in presently
+as a full-fledged operator.
+
+He mentioned the matter to Bob Donkin--once. Donkin picked his words and
+spoke fervently. Toddles never brought the subject up again.
+
+And so things went on. Late summer turned to early fall, and early fall
+to still sharper weather, until there came the night that the operator
+at Blind River muddled his orders and gave No. 73, the westbound fast
+freight, her clearance against the second section of the eastbound
+Limited that doomed them to meet somewhere head-on in the Glacier Caņon;
+the night that Toddles--but there's just a word or two that comes
+before.
+
+When it was all over, it was up to Sam Beale, the Blind River operator,
+straight enough. Beale blundered. That's all there was to it; that
+covers it all--he blundered. It would have finished Beale's railroad
+career forever and a day--only Beale played the man, and the instant he
+realized what he had done, even while the tail lights of the freight
+were disappearing down the track and he couldn't stop her, he was
+stammering the tale of his mistake over the wire, the sweat beads
+dripping from his wrist, his face gray with horror, to Bob Donkin under
+the green-shaded lamp in the dispatchers' room at Big Cloud, miles away.
+
+Donkin got the miserable story over the chattering wire--got it before
+it was half told--cut Beale out and began to pound the Gap call. And as
+though it were before him in reality, that stretch of track, fifteen
+miles of it, from Blind River to the Gap, unfolded itself like a grisly
+panorama before his mind. There wasn't a half mile of tangent at a
+single stretch in the whole of it. It swung like the writhings of a
+snake, through cuts and tunnels, hugging the caņon walls, twisting this
+way and that. Anywhere else there might be a chance, one in a thousand
+even, that they would see each other's headlights in time--here it was
+disaster quick and absolute.
+
+Donkin's lips were set in a thin, straight line. The Gap answered him;
+and the answer was like the knell of doom. He had not expected anything
+else; he had only hoped against hope. The second section of the Limited
+had pulled out of the Gap, eastbound, two minutes before. The two trains
+were in the open against each other's orders.
+
+In the next room, Carleton and Regan, over their pipes, were at their
+nightly game of pedro. Donkin called them--and his voice sounded strange
+to himself. Chairs scraped and crashed to the floor, and an instant
+later the super and the master mechanic were in the room.
+
+"What's wrong, Bob?" Carleton flung the words from him in a single
+breath.
+
+Donkin told them. But his fingers were on the key again as he talked.
+There was still one chance, worse than the thousand-to-one shot; but it
+was the only one. Between the Gap and Blind River, eight miles from the
+Gap, seven miles from Blind River, was Cassil's Siding. But there was no
+night man at Cassil's, and the little town lay a mile from the station.
+It was ten o'clock--Donkin's watch lay face up on the table before
+him--the day man at Cassil's went off at seven--the chance was that the
+day man _might_ have come back to the station for something or other!
+
+Not much of a chance? No--not much! It was a possibility, that was all;
+and Donkin's fingers worked--the seventeen, the life and death--calling,
+calling on the night trick to the day man at Cassil's Siding.
+
+Carleton came and stood at Donkin's elbow, and Regan stood at the other;
+and there was silence now, save only for the key that, under Donkin's
+fingers, seemed to echo its stammering appeal about the room like the
+sobbing of a human soul.
+
+"CS--CS--CS," Donkin called; and then, "the seventeen," and then, "hold
+second Number Two." And then the same thing over and over again.
+
+And there was no answer.
+
+It had turned cold that night and there was a fire in the little heater.
+Donkin had opened the draft a little while before, and the sheet-iron
+sides now began to purr red-hot. Nobody noticed it. Regan's kindly,
+good-humored face had the stamp of horror in it, and he pulled at his
+scraggly brown mustache, his eyes seemingly fascinated by Donkin's
+fingers. Everybody's eyes, the three of them, were on Donkin's fingers
+and the key. Carleton was like a man of stone, motionless, his face set
+harder than face was ever carved in marble.
+
+It grew hot in the room; but Donkin's fingers were like ice on the key,
+and, strong man though he was, he faltered.
+
+"Oh, my God!" he whispered--and never a prayer rose more fervently from
+lips than those three broken words.
+
+Again he called, and again, and again. The minutes slipped away. Still
+he called--with the life and death--the "seventeen"--called and called.
+And there was no answer save that echo in the room that brought the
+perspiration streaming down from Regan's face, a harder light into
+Carleton's eyes and a chill like death into Donkin's heart.
+
+Suddenly Donkin pushed back his chair; and his fingers, from the key,
+touched the crystal of his watch.
+
+"The second section will have passed Cassil's now," he said in a
+curious, unnatural, matter-of-fact tone. "It'll bring them together
+about a mile east of there--in another minute."
+
+And then Carleton spoke--master railroader, "Royal" Carleton, it was up
+to him then, all the pity of it, the ruin, the disaster, the lives out,
+all the bitterness to cope with as he could. And it was in his eyes, all
+of it. But his voice was quiet. It rang quick, peremptory, his
+voice--but quiet.
+
+"Clear the line, Bob," he said. "Plug in the round-house for the
+wrecker--and tell them to send uptown for the crew."
+
+Toddles? What did Toddles have to do with this? Well, a good deal, in
+one way and another. We're coming to Toddles now. You see, Toddles,
+since his fracas with Hawkeye, had been put on the Elk River local run
+that left Big Cloud at 9.45 in the morning for the run west, and
+scheduled Big Cloud again on the return trip at 10.10 in the evening.
+
+It had turned cold that night, after a day of rain. Pretty cold--the
+thermometer can drop on occasions in the late fall in the mountains--and
+by eight o'clock, where there had been rain before, there was now a thin
+sheeting of ice over everything--very thin--you know the kind--rails and
+telegraph wires glistening like the decorations on a Christmas
+tree--very pretty--and also very nasty running on a mountain grade.
+Likewise, the rain, in a way rain has, had dripped from the car roofs to
+the platforms--the local did not boast any closed vestibules--and had
+also been blown upon the car steps with the sweep of the wind, and,
+having frozen, it stayed there. Not a very serious matter; annoying,
+perhaps, but not serious, demanding a little extra caution, that was
+all.
+
+Toddles was in high fettle that night. He had been getting on famously
+of late; even Bob Donkin had admitted it. Toddles, with his stack of
+books and magazines, an unusually big one, for a number of the new
+periodicals were out that day, was dreaming rosy dreams to himself as he
+started from the door of the first-class smoker to the door of the
+first-class coach. In another hour now he'd be up in the dispatcher's
+room at Big Cloud for his nightly sitting with Bob Donkin. He could see
+Bob Donkin there now; and he could hear the big dispatcher growl at him
+in his bluff way: "Use your head--use your head--_Hoogan!_" It was
+always "Hoogan," never "Toddles." "Use your head"--Donkin was
+everlastingly drumming that into him; for the dispatcher used to
+confront him suddenly with imaginary and hair-raising emergencies, and
+demand Toddles' instant solution. Toddles realized that Donkin was
+getting to the heart of things, and that some day he, Toddles, would be
+a great dispatcher--like Donkin. "Use your head, Hoogan"--that's the way
+Donkin talked--"anybody can learn a key, but that doesn't make a
+railroad man think quick and think _right_. Use your----"
+
+Toddles stepped out on the platform--and walked on ice. But that wasn't
+Toddles' undoing. The trouble with Toddles was that he was walking on
+air at the same time. It was treacherous running, they were nosing a
+curve, and in the cab, Kinneard, at the throttle, checked with a little
+jerk at the "air." And with the jerk, Toddles slipped; and with the
+slip, the center of gravity of the stack of periodicals shifted, and
+they bulged ominously from the middle. Toddles grabbed at them--and his
+heels went out from under him. He ricocheted down the steps, snatched
+desperately at the handrail, missed it, shot out from the train, and,
+head, heels, arms and body going every which way at once, rolled over
+and over down the embankment. And, starting from the point of Toddles'
+departure from the train, the right of way for a hundred yards was
+strewn with "the latest magazines" and "new books just out to-day."
+
+Toddles lay there, a little, curled, huddled heap, motionless in the
+darkness. The tail lights of the local disappeared. No one aboard would
+miss Toddles until they got into Big Cloud--and found him gone. Which is
+Irish for saying that no one would attempt to keep track of a newsboy's
+idiosyncrasies on a train; it would be asking too much of any train
+crew; and, besides, there was no mention of it in the rules.
+
+It was a long while before Toddles stirred; a very long while before
+consciousness crept slowly back to him. Then he moved, tried to get
+up--and fell back with a quick, sharp cry of pain. He lay still, then,
+for a moment. His ankle hurt him frightfully, and his back, and his
+shoulder, too. He put his hand to his face where something seemed to be
+trickling warm--and brought it away wet. Toddles, grim little warrior,
+tried to think. They hadn't been going very fast when he fell off. If
+they had, he would have been killed. As it was, he was hurt, badly hurt,
+and his head swam, nauseating him.
+
+Where was he? Was he near any help? He'd have to get help somewhere,
+or--or with the cold and--and everything he'd probably die out here
+before morning. Toddles shouted out--again and again. Perhaps his voice
+was too weak to carry very far; anyway, there was no reply.
+
+He looked up at the top of the embankment, clamped his teeth, and
+started to crawl. If he got up there, perhaps he could tell where he
+was. It had taken Toddles a matter of seconds to roll down; it took him
+ten minutes of untold agony to get up. Then he dashed his hand across
+his eyes where the blood was, and cried a little with the surge of
+relief. East, down the track, only a few yards away, the green eye of a
+switch lamp winked at him.
+
+Where there was a switch lamp there was a siding, and where there was a
+siding there was promise of a station. Toddles, with the sudden uplift
+upon him, got to his feet and started along the track--two steps--and
+went down again. He couldn't walk, the pain was more than he could
+bear--his right ankle, his left shoulder, and his back--hopping only
+made it worse--it was easier to crawl.
+
+And so Toddles crawled.
+
+It took him a long time even to pass the switch light. The pain made him
+weak, his senses seemed to trail off giddily every now and then, and
+he'd find himself lying flat and still beside the track. It was a white,
+drawn face that Toddles lifted up each time he started on
+again--miserably white, except where the blood kept trickling from his
+forehead.
+
+And then Toddles' heart, stout as it was, seemed to snap. He had reached
+the station platform, wondering vaguely why the little building that
+loomed ahead was dark--and now it came to him in a flash, as he
+recognized the station. It was Cassil's Siding--_and there was no night
+man at Cassil's Siding!_ The switch lights were lighted before the day
+man left, of course. Everything swam before Toddles' eyes. There--there
+was no help here. And yet--yet perhaps--desperate hope came
+again--perhaps there might be. The pain was terrible--all over him.
+And--and he'd got so weak now--but it wasn't far to the door.
+
+Toddles squirmed along the platform, and reached the door finally--only
+to find it shut and fastened. And then Toddles fainted on the threshold.
+
+When Toddles came to himself again, he thought at first that he was up
+in the dispatcher's room at Big Cloud with Bob Donkin pounding away on
+the battered old key they used to practice with--only there seemed to be
+something the matter with the key, and it didn't sound as loud as it
+usually did--it seemed to come from a long way off somehow. And then,
+besides, Bob was working it faster than he had ever done before when
+they were practicing. "Hold second"--second something--Toddles couldn't
+make it out. Then the "seventeen"--yes, he knew that--that was the life
+and death. Bob was going pretty quick, though. Then "CS--CS--CS"--Toddles'
+brain fumbled a bit over that--then it came to him. CS was the call for
+Cassil's Siding. _Cassil's Siding!_ Toddles' head came up with a jerk.
+
+A little cry burst from Toddles' lips--and his brain cleared. He wasn't
+at Big Cloud at all--he was at Cassil's Siding--and he was hurt--and
+that was the sounder inside calling, calling frantically for Cassil's
+Siding--where he was.
+
+The life and death--_the seventeen_--it sent a thrill through Toddles'
+pain-twisted spine. He wriggled to the window. It, too, was closed, of
+course, but he could hear better there. The sounder was babbling madly.
+
+"Hold second----"
+
+He missed it again--and as, on top of it, the "seventeen" came pleading,
+frantic, urgent, he wrung his hands.
+
+"Hold second"--he got it this time--"Number Two."
+
+Toddles' first impulse was to smash in the window and reach the key. And
+then, like a dash of cold water over him, Donkin's words seemed to ring
+in his ears: "Use your head."
+
+With the "seventeen" it meant a matter of minutes, perhaps even seconds.
+Why smash the window? Why waste the moment required to do it simply to
+answer the call? The order stood for itself--"Hold second Number Two."
+That was the second section of the Limited, east-bound. Hold her! How?
+There was nothing--not a thing to stop her with. "Use your head," said
+Donkin in a far-away voice to Toddles' wobbling brain.
+
+Toddles looked up the track--west--where he had come from--to where the
+switch light twinkled green at him--and, with a little sob, he started
+to drag himself back along the platform. If he could throw the switch,
+it would throw the light from green to red, and--and the Limited would
+take the siding. But the switch was a long way off.
+
+Toddles half fell, half bumped from the end of the platform to the right
+of way. He cried to himself with low moans as he went along. He had the
+heart of a fighter, and grit to the last tissue; but he needed it all
+now--needed it all to stand the pain and fight the weakness that kept
+swirling over him in flashes.
+
+On he went, on his hands and knees, slithering from tie to tie--and from
+one tie to the next was a great distance. The life and death, the
+dispatcher's call--he seemed to hear it yet--throbbing, throbbing on the
+wire.
+
+On he went, up the track; and the green eye of the lamp, winking at him,
+drew nearer. And then suddenly, clear and mellow through the mountains,
+caught up and echoed far and near, came the notes of a chime whistle
+ringing down the gorge.
+
+Fear came upon Toddles then, and a great sob shook him. That was the
+Limited coming now! Toddles' fingers dug into the ballast, and he
+hurried--that is, in bitter pain, he tried to crawl a little faster. And
+as he crawled, he kept his eyes strained up the track--she wasn't in
+sight yet around the curve--not yet, anyway.
+
+Another foot, only another foot, and he would reach the siding
+switch--in time--in plenty of time. Again the sob--but now in a burst of
+relief that, for the moment, made him forget his hurts. He was in time!
+
+He flung himself at the switch lever, tugged upon it and then,
+trembling, every ounce of remaining strength seeming to ooze from him,
+he covered his face with his hands. It was _locked_--padlocked.
+
+Came a rumble now--a distant roar, growing louder and louder,
+reverberating down the caņon walls--louder and louder--nearer and
+nearer. "Hold second Number Two. Hold second Number Two"--the
+"seventeen," the life and death, pleading with him to hold Number Two.
+And she was coming now, coming--and--and--the switch was locked. The
+deadly nausea racked Toddles again; there was nothing to do
+now--nothing. He couldn't stop her--couldn't stop her. He'd--he'd
+tried--very hard--and--and he couldn't stop her now. He took his hands
+from his face, and stole a glance up the track, afraid almost, with the
+horror that was upon him, to look.
+
+She hadn't swung the curve yet, but she would in a minute--and come
+pounding down the stretch at fifty miles an hour, shoot by him like a
+rocket to where, somewhere ahead, in some form, he did not know what,
+only knew that it was there, death and ruin and----
+
+"_Use your head!_" snapped Donkin's voice to his consciousness.
+
+Toddles' eyes were on the light above his head. It blinked _red_ at him
+as he stood on the track facing it; the green rays were shooting up and
+down the line. He couldn't swing the switch--but the _lamp_ was
+there--and there was the red side to show just by turning it. He
+remembered then that the lamp fitted into a socket at the top of the
+switch stand, and could be lifted off--if he could reach it!
+
+It wasn't very high--for an ordinary-sized man--for an ordinary-sized
+man had to get at it to trim and fill it daily--only Toddles wasn't an
+ordinary-sized man. It was just nine or ten feet above the rails--just a
+standard siding switch.
+
+Toddles gritted his teeth, and climbed upon the base of the switch--and
+nearly fainted as his ankle swung against the rod. A foot above the base
+was a footrest for a man to stand on and reach up for the lamp, and
+Toddles drew himself up and got his foot on it--and then at his full
+height the tips of his fingers only just touched the bottom of the lamp.
+Toddles cried aloud, and the tears streamed down his face now. Oh, if he
+weren't hurt--if he could only shin up another foot--but--but it was all
+he could do to hang there where he was.
+
+_What was that!_ He turned his head. Up the track, sweeping in a great
+circle as it swung the curve, a headlight's glare cut through the
+night--and Toddles "shinned" the foot. He tugged and tore at the lamp,
+tugged and tore at it, loosened it, lifted it from its socket, sprawled
+and wriggled with it to the ground--and turned the red side of the lamp
+against second Number Two.
+
+The quick, short blasts of a whistle answered, then the crunch and grind
+and scream of biting brake-shoes--and the big mountain racer, the 1012,
+pulling the second section of the Limited that night, stopped with its
+pilot nosing a diminutive figure in a torn and silver-buttoned uniform,
+whose hair was clotted red, and whose face was covered with blood and
+dirt.
+
+Masters, the engineer, and Pete Leroy, his fireman, swung from the
+gangways; Kelly, the conductor, came running up from the forward coach.
+
+Kelly shoved his lamp into Toddles' face--and whistled low under his
+breath.
+
+"Toddles!" he gasped; and then, quick as a steel trap: "What's wrong?"
+
+"I don't know," said Toddles weakly. "There's--there's something wrong.
+Get into the clear--on the siding."
+
+"Something wrong," repeated Kelly, "and you don't----"
+
+But Masters cut the conductor short with a grab at the other's arm that
+was like the shutting of a vise--and then bolted for his engine like a
+gopher for its hole. From down the track came the heavy, grumbling roar
+of a freight. Everybody flew then, and there was quick work done in the
+next half minute--and none too quickly done--the Limited was no more
+than on the siding when the fast freight rolled her long string of
+flats, boxes and gondolas thundering by.
+
+And while she passed, Toddles, on the platform, stammered out his story
+to Kelly.
+
+Kelly didn't say anything--then. With the express messenger and a
+brakeman carrying Toddles, Kelly kicked in the station door, and set his
+lamp down on the operator's table.
+
+"Hold me up," whispered Toddles--and, while they held him, he made the
+dispatcher's call.
+
+Big Cloud answered him on the instant. Haltingly, Toddles reported the
+second section "in" and the freight "out"--only he did it very slowly,
+and he couldn't think very much more, for things were going black. He
+got an order for the Limited to run to Blind River and told Kelly, and
+got the "complete"--and then Big Cloud asked who was on the wire, and
+Toddles answered that in a mechanical sort of a way without quite
+knowing what he was doing--and went limp in Kelly's arms.
+
+And as Toddles answered, back in Big Cloud, Regan, the sweat still
+standing out in great beads on his forehead, fierce now in the revulsion
+of relief, glared over Donkin's left shoulder, as Donkin's left hand
+scribbled on a pad what was coming over the wire.
+
+Regan glared fiercely--then he spluttered:
+
+"Who's Christopher Hyslop Hoogan--h'm?"
+
+Donkin's lips had a queer smile on them.
+
+"Toddles," he said.
+
+Regan sat down heavily in his chair.
+
+"_What?_" demanded the super.
+
+"Toddles," said Donkin. "I've been trying to drum a little railroading
+into him--on the key."
+
+Regan wiped his face. He looked helplessly from Donkin to the super, and
+then back again at Donkin.
+
+"But--but what's he doing at Cassil's Siding? How'd he get there--h'm?
+H'm? How'd he get there?"
+
+"I don't know," said Donkin, his fingers rattling the Cassil's Siding
+call again. "He doesn't answer any more. We'll have to wait for the
+story till they make Blind River, I guess."
+
+And so they waited. And presently at Blind River, Kelly, dictating to
+the operator--not Beale, Beale's day man--told the story. It lost
+nothing in the telling--Kelly wasn't that kind of man--he told them what
+Toddles had done, and he left nothing out; and he added that they had
+Toddles on a mattress in the baggage car, with a doctor they had
+discovered amongst the passengers looking after him.
+
+At the end, Carleton tamped down the dottle in the bowl of his pipe
+thoughtfully with his forefinger--and glanced at Donkin.
+
+"Got along far enough to take a station key somewhere?" he inquired
+casually. "He's made a pretty good job of it as the night operator at
+Cassil's."
+
+Donkin was smiling.
+
+"Not yet," he said.
+
+"No?" Carleton's eyebrows went up. "Well, let him come in here with you,
+then, till he has; and when you say he's ready, we'll see what we can
+do. I guess it's coming to him; and I guess"--he shifted his glance to
+the master mechanic--"I guess we'll go down and meet Number Two when she
+comes in, Tommy."
+
+Regan grinned.
+
+"With our hats in our hands," said the big-hearted master mechanic.
+
+Donkin shook his head.
+
+"Don't you do it," he said. "I don't want him to get a swelled head."
+
+Carleton stared; and Regan's hand, reaching into his back pocket for his
+chewing, stopped midway.
+
+Donkin was still smiling.
+
+"I'm going to make a railroad man out of Toddles," he said.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[10] One of a number of stories from book bearing same title, _The Night
+Operator_. Copyright, 1919, by George H. Doran Company. Reprinted by
+special permission of publisher and author.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XI.--Christmas Eve in a Lumber Camp[11]
+
+_By Ralph Connor_
+
+
+IT was due to a mysterious dispensation of Providence and a good deal to
+Leslie Graeme that I found myself in the heart of the Selkirks for my
+Christmas eve as the year 1882 was dying. It had been my plan to spend
+my Christmas far away in Toronto, with such bohemian and boon companions
+as could be found in that cosmopolitan and kindly city. But Leslie
+Graeme changed all that, for, discovering me in the village of Black
+Rock, with my traps all packed, waiting for the stage to start for the
+Landing, thirty miles away, he bore down upon me with resistless force,
+and I found myself recovering from my surprise only after we had gone in
+his lumber sleigh some six miles on our way to his camp up in the
+mountains. I was surprised and much delighted, though I would not allow
+him to think so, to find that his old-time power over me was still
+there. He could always in the old varsity days--dear, wild days--make
+me do what he liked. He was so handsome and so reckless, brilliant in
+his class work, and the prince of half backs on the Rugby field, and
+with such power of fascination as would "extract the heart out of a
+wheelbarrow," as Barney Lundy used to say. And thus it was that I found
+myself just three weeks later--I was to have spent two or three days--on
+the afternoon of December 24, standing in Graeme's Lumber Camp No. 2,
+wondering at myself. But I did not regret my changed plans, for in those
+three weeks I had raided a cinnamon bear's den and had wakened up a
+grizzly---- But I shall let the grizzly finish the tale; he probably
+sees more humor in it than I.
+
+The camp stood in a little clearing, and consisted of a group of three
+long, low shanties with smaller shacks near them, all built of heavy,
+unhewn logs, with door and window in each. The grub camp, with cook-shed
+attached, stood in the middle of the clearing; at a little distance was
+the sleeping camp with the office built against it, and about a hundred
+yards away on the other side of the clearing stood the stables, and near
+them the smiddy. The mountains rose grandly on every side, throwing up
+their great peaks into the sky. The clearing in which the camp stood was
+hewn out of a dense pine forest that filled the valley and climbed
+halfway up the mountain sides and then frayed out in scattered and
+stunted trees.
+
+It was one of those wonderful Canadian winter days, bright, and with a
+touch of sharpness in the air that did not chill, but warmed the blood
+like drafts of wine. The men were up in the woods, and the shrill scream
+of the bluejay flashing across the open, the impudent chatter of the red
+squirrel from the top of the grub camp, and the pert chirp of the
+whisky-jack, hopping about on the rubbish-heap, with the long, lone cry
+of the wolf far down the valley, only made the silence felt the more.
+
+As I stood drinking in with all my soul the glorious beauty and the
+silence of mountain and forest, with the Christmas feeling stealing into
+me, Graeme came out from his office, and catching sight of me, called
+out, "Glorious Christmas weather, old chap!" And then, coming nearer,
+"Must you go to-morrow?"
+
+"I fear so," I replied, knowing well that the Christmas feeling was on
+him, too.
+
+"I wish I were going with you," he said quietly.
+
+I turned eagerly to persuade him, but at the look of suffering in his
+face the words died at my lips, for we both were thinking of the awful
+night of horror when all his bright, brilliant life crashed down about
+him in black ruin and shame. I could only throw my arm over his shoulder
+and stand silent beside him. A sudden jingle of bells roused him, and,
+giving himself a little shake, he exclaimed, "There are the boys coming
+home."
+
+Soon the camp was filled with men talking, laughing, chaffing like
+light-hearted boys.
+
+"They are a little wild to-night," said Graeme, "and to-morrow they'll
+paint Black Rock red."
+
+Before many minutes had gone the last teamster was "washed up," and all
+were standing about waiting impatiently for the cook's signal--the
+supper to-night was to be "something of a feed"--when the sound of bells
+drew their attention to a light sleigh drawn by a buckskin broncho
+coming down the hillside at a great pace.
+
+"The preacher, I'll bet, by his driving," said one of the men.
+
+"Bedad, and it's him has the foine nose for turkey!" said Blaney, a
+good-natured, jovial Irishman.
+
+"Yes, or for pay-day, more like," said Keefe, a black-browed, villainous
+fellow countryman of Blaney's and, strange to say, his great friend.
+
+Big Sandy McNaughton, a Canadian Highlander from Glengarry, rose up in
+wrath.
+
+"Bill Keefe," said he with deliberate emphasis, "you'll just keep your
+dirty tongue off the minister; and as for your pay, it's little he sees
+of it, or any one else except Mike Slavin, when you's too dry to wait
+for some one to treat you, or perhaps Father Ryan, when the fear of
+hell-fire is on you."
+
+The men stood amazed at Sandy's sudden anger and length of speech.
+
+"_Bon!_ Dat's good for you, my bully boy," said Baptiste, a wiry little
+French-Canadian, Sandy's sworn ally and devoted admirer ever since the
+day when the big Scotchman, under great provocation, had knocked him
+clean off the dump into the river and then jumped in for him.
+
+It was not till afterward I learned the cause of Sandy's sudden wrath
+which urged him to such unwonted length of speech. It was not simply
+that the Presbyterian blood carried with it reverence for the minister,
+but that he had a vivid remembrance of how, only a month ago, the
+minister had got him out of Mike Slavin's saloon and out of the clutches
+of Keefe and Slavin and their gang of bloodsuckers.
+
+Keefe started up with a curse. Baptiste sprang to Sandy's side, slapped
+him on the back, and called out:
+
+"You keel him, I'll hit [eat] him up, me."
+
+It looked as if there might be a fight, when a harsh voice said in a
+low, savage tone:
+
+"Stop your row, you fools; settle it, if you want to, somewhere else."
+
+I turned, and was amazed to see old man Nelson, who was very seldom
+moved to speech.
+
+There was a look of scorn on his hard iron-gray face, and of such
+settled fierceness as made me quite believe the tales I had heard of his
+deadly fights in the mines at the coast. Before any reply could be made
+the minister drove up and called out in a cheery voice:
+
+"Merry Christmas, boys! Hello, Sandy! _Comment įa va_, Baptiste? How do
+you do, Mr. Graeme?"
+
+"First rate. Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Connor, sometime medical
+student, now artist, hunter, and tramp at large, but not a bad sort."
+
+"A man to be envied," said the minister, smiling. "I am glad to know any
+friend of Mr. Graeme's."
+
+I liked Mr. Craig from the first. He had good eyes that looked straight
+out at you, a clean-cut, strong face well set on his shoulders, and
+altogether an upstanding, manly bearing. He insisted on going with Sandy
+to the stables to see Dandy, his broncho, put up.
+
+"Decent fellow," said Graeme; "but though he is good enough to his
+broncho, it is Sandy that's in his mind now."
+
+"Does he come out often? I mean, are you part of his parish, so to
+speak?"
+
+"I have no doubt he thinks so; and I'm blowed if he doesn't make the
+Presbyterians of us think so too." And he added after a pause: "A dandy
+lot of parishioners we are for any man. There's Sandy, now, he would
+knock Keefe's head off as a kind of religious exercise; but to-morrow
+Keefe will be sober and Sandy will be drunk as a lord, and the drunker
+he is the better Presbyterian he'll be, to the preacher's disgust." Then
+after another pause he added bitterly: "But it is not for me to throw
+rocks at Sandy. I am not the same kind of fool, but I am a fool of
+several other sorts."
+
+Then the cook came out and beat a tattoo on the bottom of a dishpan.
+Baptiste answered with a yell. But though keenly hungry, no man would
+demean himself to do other than walk with apparent reluctance to his
+place at the table. At the further end of the camp was a big fireplace,
+and from the door of the fireplace extended the long board tables,
+covered with platters of turkey not too scientifically carved, dishes of
+potatoes, bowls of apple sauce, plates of butter, pies, and smaller
+dishes distributed at regular intervals. Two lanterns hanging from the
+roof and a row of candles stuck into the wall on either side by means of
+slit sticks cast a dim, weird light over the scene.
+
+There was a moment's silence, and at a nod from Graeme Mr. Craig rose
+and said:
+
+"I don't know how you feel about it, men, but to me this looks good
+enough to be thankful for."
+
+"Fire ahead, sir," called out a voice quite respectfully, and the
+minister bent his head and said:
+
+"For Christ the Lord who came to save us, for all the love and goodness
+we have known, and for these Thy gifts to us this Christmas night, our
+Father, make us thankful. Amen."
+
+"_Bon!_ Dat's fuss rate," said Baptiste. "Seems lak dat's make me hit
+[eat] more better for sure." And then no word was spoken for a quarter
+of an hour. The occasion was far too solemn and moments too precious for
+anything so empty as words. But when the white piles of bread and the
+brown piles of turkey had for a second time vanished, and after the last
+pie had disappeared, there came a pause and a hush of expectancy,
+whereupon the cook and cookee, each bearing aloft a huge, blazing
+pudding, came forth.
+
+"Hooray!" yelled Blaney; "up wid yez!" and grabbing the cook by the
+shoulders from behind, he faced him about.
+
+Mr. Craig was the first to respond, and seizing the cookee in the same
+way, called out: "Squad, fall in! quick march!" In a moment every man
+was in the procession.
+
+"Strike up, Batchees, ye little angel!" shouted Blaney, the appellation
+a concession to the minister's presence; and away went Baptiste in a
+rollicking French song with the English chorus--
+
+          Then blow, ye winds, in the morning,
+            Blow, ye winds, ay oh!
+          Blow, ye winds, in the morning,
+            Blow, blow, blow.
+
+And at each "blow" every boot came down with a thump on the plank floor
+that shook the solid roof. After the second round Mr. Craig jumped upon
+the bench and called out:
+
+"Three cheers for Billy the cook!"
+
+In the silence following the cheers Baptiste was heard to say:
+
+"_Bon!_ Dat's mak me feel lak hit dat puddin' all hup meself, me."
+
+"Hear till the little baste!" said Blaney in disgust.
+
+"Batchees," remonstrated Sandy gravely, "ye've more stomach than
+manners."
+
+"Fu sure! but de more stomach, dat's more better for dis puddin',"
+replied the little Frenchman cheerfully.
+
+After a time the tables were cleared and pushed back to the wall and
+pipes were produced. In all attitudes suggestive of comfort the men
+disposed themselves in a wide circle about the fire, which now roared
+and crackled up the great wooden chimney hanging from the roof. The
+lumberman's hour of bliss had arrived. Even old man Nelson looked a
+shade less melancholy than usual as he sat alone, well away from the
+fire, smoking steadily and silently. When the second pipes were well
+a-going one of the men took down a violin from the wall and handed it to
+Lachlan Campbell. There were two brothers Campbell just out from Argyll,
+typical Highlanders: Lachlan, dark, silent, melancholy, with the face of
+a mystic, and Angus, red-haired, quick, impulsive, and devoted to his
+brother, a devotion he thought proper to cover under biting, sarcastic
+speech.
+
+Lachlan, after much protestation, interposed with gibes from his
+brother, took the violin, and in response to the call from all sides
+struck up "Lord Macdonald's Reel."
+
+In a moment the floor was filled with dancers, whooping and cracking
+their fingers in the wildest manner. Then Baptiste did the "Red River
+Jig," a most intricate and difficult series of steps, the men keeping
+time to the music with hands and feet.
+
+When the jig was finished Sandy called for "Lochaber No More," but
+Campbell said:
+
+"No! no! I cannot play that to-night. Mr. Craig will play."
+
+Craig took the violin, and at the first note I knew he was no ordinary
+player. I did not recognize the music, but it was soft and thrilling,
+and got in by the heart till every one was thinking his tenderest and
+saddest thoughts.
+
+After he had played two or three exquisite bits he gave Campbell his
+violin, saying, "Now, 'Lochaber,' Lachlan."
+
+Without a word Lachlan began, not "Lochaber"--he was not ready for that
+yet--but "The Flowers o' the Forest," and from that wandered through
+"Auld Robin Gray" and "The Land o' the Leal," and so got at last to that
+most soul-subduing of Scottish laments, "Lochaber No More." At the first
+strain his brother, who had thrown himself on some blankets behind the
+fire, turned over on his face feigning sleep. Sandy McNaughton took his
+pipe out of his mouth and sat up straight and stiff, staring into
+vacancy, and Graeme, beyond the fire, drew a short, sharp breath. We had
+often sat, Graeme and I, in our student days, in the drawing-room at
+home, listening to his father wailing out "Lochaber" upon the pipes, and
+I well knew that the awful minor strains were now eating their way into
+his soul.
+
+Over and over again the Highlander played his lament. He had long since
+forgotten us, and was seeing visions of the hills and lochs and glens of
+his far-away native land, and making us, too, see strange things out of
+the dim past. I glanced at old man Nelson, and was startled at the
+eager, almost piteous look in his eyes, and I wished Campbell would
+stop. Mr. Craig caught my eye, and stepping over to Campbell held out
+his hand for the violin. Lingeringly and lovingly the Highlander drew
+out the last strain and silently gave the minister his instrument.
+
+Without a moment's pause, and while the spell of "Lochaber" was still
+upon us, the minister, with exquisite skill, fell into the refrain of
+that simple and beautiful camp-meeting hymn, "The Sweet By-and-By."
+After playing the verse through once he sang softly the refrain. After
+the first verse the men joined in the chorus; at first timidly, but by
+the time the third verse was reached they were shouting with throats
+full open, "We shall meet on that beautiful shore." When I looked at
+Nelson the eager light had gone out of his eyes, and in its place was a
+kind of determined hopelessness, as if in this new music he had no part.
+
+After the voices had ceased Mr. Craig played again the refrain, more and
+more softly and slowly; then laying the violin on Campbell's knees, he
+drew from his pocket his little Bible and said:
+
+"Men, with Mr. Graeme's permission I want to read you something this
+Christmas eve. You will all have heard it before, but you will like it
+none the less for that."
+
+His voice was soft, but clear and penetrating, as he read the eternal
+story of the angels and the shepherds and the Babe. And as he read, a
+slight motion of the hand or a glance of an eye made us see, as he was
+seeing, that whole radiant drama. The wonder, the timid joy, the
+tenderness, the mystery of it all, were borne in upon us with
+overpowering effect. He closed the book, and in the same low, clear
+voice went on to tell us how, in his home years ago, he used to stand on
+Christmas eve listening in thrilling delight to his mother telling him
+the story, and how she used to make him see the shepherds and hear the
+sheep bleating near by, and how the sudden burst of glory used to make
+his heart jump.
+
+"I used to be a little afraid of the angels, because a boy told me they
+were ghosts; but my mother told me better, and I didn't fear them any
+more. And the Baby, the dear little Baby--we all love a baby." There was
+a quick, dry sob; it was from Nelson. "I used to peek through under to
+see the little one in the straw, and wonder what things swaddling
+clothes were. Oh, it was so real and so beautiful!" He paused, and I
+could hear the men breathing.
+
+"But one Christmas eve," he went on in a lower, sweeter tone, "there was
+no one to tell me the story, and I grew to forget it and went away to
+college, and learned to think that it was only a child's tale and was
+not for men. Then bad days came to me and worse, and I began to lose my
+grip of myself, of life, of hope, of goodness, till one black Christmas,
+in the slums of a far-away city, when I had given up all and the devil's
+arms were about me, I heard the story again. And as I listened, with a
+bitter ache in my heart--for I had put it all behind me--I suddenly
+found myself peeking under the shepherds' arms with a child's wonder at
+the Baby in the straw. Then it came over me like great waves that His
+name was Jesus, because it was He that should save men from their sins.
+Save! Save! The waves kept beating upon my ears, and before I knew I had
+called out, 'Oh! can He save me?' It was in a little mission meeting on
+one of the side streets, and they seemed to be used to that sort of
+thing there, for no one was surprised; and a young fellow leaned across
+the aisle to me and said: 'Why, you just bet He can!' His surprise that
+I should doubt, his bright face and confident tone, gave me hope that
+perhaps it might be so. I held to that hope with all my soul,
+and"--stretching up his arms, and with a quick glow in his face and a
+little break in his voice--"He hasn't failed me yet; not once, not
+once!"
+
+He stopped quite short, and I felt a good deal like making a fool of
+myself, for in those days I had not made up my mind about these things.
+Graeme, poor old chap, was gazing at him with a sad yearning in his dark
+eyes; big Sandy was sitting very stiff and staring harder than ever into
+the fire; Baptiste was trembling with excitement; Blaney was openly
+wiping the tears away, but the face that held my eyes was that of old
+man Nelson. It was white, fierce, hungry-looking, his sunken eyes
+burning, his lips parted as if to cry. The minister went on.
+
+"I didn't mean to tell you this, men; it all came over me with a rush;
+but it is true, every word, and not a word will I take back. And,
+what's more, I can tell you this: what He did for me He can do for any
+man, and it doesn't make any difference what's behind him, and"--leaning
+slightly forward, and with a little thrill of pathos vibrating in his
+voice--"oh, boys, why don't you give Him a chance at you? Without Him
+you'll never be the men you want to be, and you'll never get the better
+of that that's keeping some of you now from going back home. You know
+you'll never go back till you're the men you want to be." Then, lifting
+up his face and throwing back his head, he said, as if to himself,
+"Jesus! He shall save His people from their sins," and then, "Let us
+pray."
+
+Graeme leaned forward with his face in his hands; Baptiste and Blaney
+dropped on their knees; Sandy, the Campbells, and some others stood up.
+Old man Nelson held his eye steadily on the minister.
+
+Only once before had I seen that look on a human face. A young fellow
+had broken through the ice on the river at home, and as the black water
+was dragging his fingers one by one from the slippery edges, there came
+over his face that same look. I used to wake up for many a night after
+in a sweat of horror, seeing the white face with its parting lips and
+its piteous, dumb appeal, and the black water slowly sucking it down.
+
+Nelson's face brought it all back; but during the prayer the face
+changed and seemed to settle into resolve of some sort, stern, almost
+gloomy, as of a man with his last chance before him.
+
+After the prayer Mr. Craig invited the men to a Christmas dinner next
+day in Black Rock. "And because you are an independent lot, we'll charge
+you half a dollar for dinner and the evening show." Then leaving a
+bundle of magazines and illustrated papers on the table--a godsend to
+the men--he said good-by and went out.
+
+I was to go with the minister, so I jumped into the sleigh first and
+waited while he said good-by to Graeme, who had been hard hit by the
+whole service and seemed to want to say something. I heard Mr. Craig say
+cheerfully and confidently: "It's a true bill: try Him."
+
+Sandy, who had been steadying Dandy while that interesting broncho was
+attempting with great success to balance himself on his hind legs, came
+to say good-by.
+
+"Come and see me first thing, Sandy."
+
+"Aye! I know; I'll see ye, Mr. Craig," said Sandy earnestly as Dandy
+dashed off at a full gallop across the clearing and over the bridge,
+steadying down when he reached the hill.
+
+"Steady, you idiot!"
+
+This was to Dandy, who had taken a sudden side spring into the deep
+snow, almost upsetting us. A man stepped out from the shadow. It was old
+man Nelson. He came straight to the sleigh and, ignoring my presence
+completely, said:
+
+"Mr. Craig, are you dead sure of this? Will it work?"
+
+"Do you mean," said Craig, taking him up promptly, "can Jesus Christ
+save you from your sins and make a man of you?"
+
+The old man nodded, keeping his hungry eyes on the other's face.
+
+"Well, here's His message to you: 'The Son of Man is come to seek and to
+save that which was lost.'"
+
+"To me? To me?" said the old man eagerly.
+
+"Listen; this, too, is His word: 'Him that cometh unto Me I will in no
+wise cast out.' That's for you, for here you are, coming."
+
+"You don't know me, Mr. Craig. I left my baby fifteen years ago
+because----"
+
+"Stop!" said the minister. "Don't tell me, at least not to-night;
+perhaps never. Tell Him who knows it all now and who never betrays a
+secret. Have it out with Him. Don't be afraid to trust Him."
+
+Nelson looked at him, with his face quivering, and said in a husky
+voice:
+
+"If this is no good, it's hell for me."
+
+"If it is no good," replied Craig almost sternly, "it's hell for all of
+us."
+
+The old man straightened himself up, looked up at the stars, then back
+at Mr. Craig, then at me, and drawing a deep breath said:
+
+"I'll try Him." As he was turning away the minister touched him on the
+arm and said quietly:
+
+"Keep an eye on Sandy to-morrow."
+
+Nelson nodded and we went on; but before we took the next turn I looked
+back and saw what brought a lump into my throat. It was old man Nelson
+on his knees in the snow, with his hands spread upward to the stars,
+and I wondered if there was any One above the stars and nearer than the
+stars who could see. And then the trees hid him from my sight.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[11] From _Black Rock_. Reprinted by special permission of publisher,
+The Fleming H. Revell Company.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XII.--The Story That the Keg Told Me
+
+_By Adirondack (W. H. H.) Murray_
+
+          _The author is "Adirondack Murray" because he,
+          more than any other man, rediscovered for the past
+          and present generation the wonderful Adirondack
+          Woods. We are grateful to Mr. Archibald Rutledge
+          for having shortened the story, and to Mr.
+          Murray's publishers, De Wolfe and Fiske Company,
+          for permission to print it in the abbreviated
+          form._--THE EDITOR.
+
+
+IT was near the close of a sultry day in midsummer, which I had spent in
+exploring a part of the shore line of the lake where I was camping, and
+wearied with the trip I had made, I was returning toward the camp.
+
+The lake was a very secluded sheet of water hidden away between the
+mountains, not marked on the map, whose very existence was unsuspected
+by me until I had a few days before accidentally stumbled upon it.
+Indeed, in all the world there is hardly another sheet of water so
+likely to escape the eye, not only of the tourist and the sportsman, but
+also of the hunter and the trapper. Day by day as I paddled over the
+lake or explored its shores the conviction grew upon me that the place
+had never before been visited by any human being. The more I examined
+and explored, the more this belief grew upon me. The thought was ever
+with me. But on this afternoon as I was paddling leisurely along, my
+paddle struck some curious object in the water. I reached down and
+lifted it into the boat. It was a Keg!
+
+Amazed, I sat looking at this proof that my lake was not so unknown as I
+had supposed it to be. Where had it come from? How did it get here? Who
+brought it, and for what purpose? These and similar questions I put to
+myself as I paddled onward toward my camp.
+
+After having built my camp fire I seated myself with my back against a
+pine; it was then that my gaze again fell on the Keg, which I had
+brought up from the boat and had set on the ground across the fire from
+me. I sat wondering where it had come from, and what had become of him
+who must once have handled it. . . . It may be that I was awake; it may
+be that I was asleep; but as I was thus looking steadily and curiously
+at the Keg, it seemed to change its appearance. It was no longer a Keg:
+it was a man! A queer little man he was, with strange little legs, and
+the funniest little body, and the tiniest little face! Then, standing
+bold upright, and looking at me with eyes that glistened like black
+beads, the miraculous Keg-Man opened his mouth and began to talk!
+
+"I desire to tell you my story," it said; "the story of the man who
+brought me here; why he did it, and what became of him; how he lived and
+died.
+
+"The earliest remembrance I have of myself is of the cooper's shop where
+I was made. Although I look worn now, I can recall the time when all my
+staves were smooth and clean, so that the oak-grain showed clearly from
+the top to the bottom of me, and my steel hoops were strong and bright.
+The cooper made me on his honor and took a deal of honest pride in
+putting me together, as every workman should in doing his work. I
+remember that when I was finished and the cooper had sanded me off and
+oiled me, he set me up on a bench and said to his apprentice boy:
+'There, that Keg will last till the Judgment Day, and well on toward
+night at that.' I wondered at that.
+
+"One day a few weeks later a man came into the shop and said, 'Have you
+a good strong keg for sale?'
+
+"He put the question in such a half-spiteful, half-suspicious way that I
+eyed him curiously. And a very peculiar man I saw. He was not more than
+forty years old, of good height and strongly built. He was a gentleman,
+evidently, although his face was darkly tanned and his clothes were old
+and threadbare. His mouth was small. His lips were thin, and had a look
+of being drawn tightly over his teeth. His chin was long, his jaws large
+and strong. His hair was thin and brown. But the remarkable feature of
+his face was his eyes. They were blue-gray in color, small, and deeply
+set under his arching eye-brows. How hard and steel-like they were, and
+restless as a rat's! And what an intense look of suspicion there was in
+them; a half-scared, defiant look, as if their owner felt every one to
+be his enemy. Ah, what eyes they were! I came to know them well
+afterward, and to know what the wild, strange light in them meant; but
+of that by and by.
+
+"'Have you a good strong keg for sale?' he shouted to my master, who
+turned round and looked squarely at the questioner.
+
+"'Yes, I have, Mr. Roberts. Do you want one?'
+
+"'Yes!' returned the other; 'but I want a strong one--_strong_, do you
+hear?'
+
+"'Here's a keg,' said my master, tapping me with his mallet, 'that I
+made with my own hands from the very best stuff. It will last as long as
+steel and white oak staves will last.'
+
+"The price was paid with a muttered protest and Roberts hoisted me under
+his arm and bore me from the shop.
+
+"As we hurried along, I noticed that my new master spoke to no one, and
+that people looked at him coldly or wonderingly. At last we came to a
+common-looking house set back from the road, with a very high fence
+built around it and a heavy padlock on the front gate. There were great
+strong wooden shutters at every window. My master entered the house and
+set me down on the floor, then went to the door and locked it, drawing
+two large iron bars across it. He went to every window to see if it was
+fastened.
+
+Carrying a candle in one hand and a great bludgeon in the other, he
+examined every room, every closet, the attic, and the cellar. After this
+he came back to me, set me on a table, started one of my hoops, and took
+out one of my heads. From a cupboard he got a large sheepskin, and with
+a pair of shears fitted me with a lining of it. I must say that he did
+it with cleverness, and he seemed well pleased with his work.
+
+"When he had done all this, he brought his bludgeon and laid it on the
+table beside me; also he laid there a large knife. Then he went to the
+chimney and brought the ash-pail, which was full of ashes; from the
+cupboard he brought an earthen jar; from under the bed he fetched a bag;
+from the cellar he returned with a sack, all damp and moldy. When he had
+all these side by side near the table, he sat down. Then out of the
+ash-pail he took a small pot, and having carefully blown the ashes off,
+he turned it bottom-upward on the table. And what do you think was in
+it?
+
+"Gold coins! Some red and some yellow, but all gold!
+
+"He emptied each of the other receptacles, and out there flowed heaps of
+gold coins almost without number! How they gleamed and glistened! How
+they clinked and jingled! And how the deep and narrow eyes of my master
+glittered, but how the lips drew apart in a wild smile!
+
+"It was a fearful sight to see him playing with the gold and to hear him
+laugh over his treasure. It was dreadful to think that a human soul
+could love money so. And he did love it--madly, with all the strength of
+his nature.
+
+"He would take up a coin and look at it as a father might look upon the
+face of a favorite child. Ah, me, 'twas dreadful! He would take up a
+piece and say to it, 'Thou art better to me than a wife'; and to
+another, 'Thou art dearer than father or mother!' Ah, such blasphemy as
+I heard that night! How the sweet and blessed things of human life were
+derided, and the things that are divine and holy sneered at!
+
+"At length he fell to counting his gold; and for a long, long time he
+counted, until his hands shook, and his eyes gleamed as if he were mad.
+When he had counted all, he jumped from his seat, shouting like a
+maniac, 'Sixteen thousand, six hundred and sixty-six dollars!' Again and
+again he shouted this in wild triumph.
+
+"After a while he sobered down, and inside of me he began to pack away
+his treasures--carefully, caressingly, as a mother might lay her
+children to sleep. When I was full to the brim with shining gold, he put
+my head on, fitted the upper hoop on snugly, and then put me in the bed.
+The great knife he slipped under the pillow. Then, blowing out the
+light, he lay down beside me with one arm thrown about me. So the
+miser, clasping me to his heart, fell asleep.
+
+"Day after day, night after night, this selfsame performance was
+repeated. My master did little work; indeed, he did not seem eager to
+increase his store, but merely to hold it safely. But about this he was
+so anxious that he was in a fever of excitement all the time. For days
+he would not leave the house. Never was he free from the fear of losing
+his money. And this suspicion had poisoned his whole life, had made him
+hate his kind and lose all belief in the love and the goodness of God,
+that he had once professed.
+
+"One day in summer he left the front door open. I was drowsing, when
+suddenly I heard him give a frightened yell. In the doorway stood a man
+and a woman. The man was the village pastor, and the woman, I soon
+learned, was my master's wife. For a moment my master stood looking
+angrily at them. Then he said abruptly, 'Why did you come here?'
+
+"'John,' said the woman, 'your child Mary is dying; and I thought that
+you, her father, would want to see her before she passed away.' Her
+voice choked, and her breast heaved with sobs.
+
+"'Dying, is she?' said my master brutally. 'I don't believe it. You are
+simply after my gold. You might as well get away from here,' he added
+with a threatening look.
+
+"'John,' returned the woman, great tears coming to her eyes, 'I never in
+my life lied to you. Mary is dying, and I could not let her go without
+giving you a chance to see her. Last night in her delirium she begged
+for you. She wants you, John; she wants to say good-by to you!'
+
+"But my master remained unmoved. The sinister look in the eyes, the
+doggedness of the face did not change. He stared at them; then he
+shouted in frenzy: 'You lie! You want my money! Everybody wants it!
+Everybody loves it! There isn't an honest man in the world! All are
+thieves! All are lovers of gold! I know by your looks that you love it,'
+he went on; 'and you can't fool me by your tears and your preaching. You
+get out of this house!' he suddenly shrieked, 'or I will kill you,--both
+of you!' He swore a terrible oath and stepped back to seize the heavy
+bludgeon on the table. The woman cried out in fear and turned away
+weeping. But the parson stood his ground.
+
+"'John Roberts,' he said, 'thou art a doomed man. The lust of gold that
+destroys so many is in thee strong and mighty, and only God can save
+thee, nor He against thy will. Repent, or thou shalt perish in a lonely
+place, on a dark night, with none to help thee or hear thy cries; and
+all thy gold shall perish with thee.' So saying, he turned and slowly
+left the house.
+
+"For a moment my master stood glaring at the retreating forms of those
+who had come to him as friends, but whom he had treated as enemies; then
+he rushed for the door and locked it. After that he lifted me tenderly
+upon the table, laughed softly, patted me with his hands, and stroked me
+caressingly. 'My gold,' he kept repeating, 'my precious, precious gold!'
+And as night came on, he poured out the gold and counted the glittering
+pieces. Again and again he counted his treasure until deep midnight had
+settled over all.
+
+"But when he awoke in the morning he was very nervous. All day long he
+neither opened the door nor unbarred the shutters. All the while he kept
+muttering to himself as if planning some crafty plot. I could not know
+what all this might mean, but I caught enough of his talk to understand
+that he was more than ever suspicious of losing his money, was fearing
+all man-kind more and more, and was trying to devise some scheme whereby
+he could find a place where no one could molest him or try to steal his
+gold. 'They will get it yet,' he kept saying, 'unless I can go where no
+one can find me.' Then he would curse his kind.
+
+"At last, after hours of muttering and tramping back and forth in the
+darkened house, he suddenly seemed to find his decision. I shall never
+forget the terrible expression of evil triumph on his face as he paused
+before me and shouted:
+
+"'I'll go! Go where they can never find me! I want to be alone with my
+money, where I can spread it out and see it shine! I will go where there
+is not a man!'
+
+"After my master had said that, he made no further remarks; but he
+began with eager haste to pack a few things for his journey. He put me
+in a sack in which I could neither see nor hear what was happening; and
+that was all I knew for many a day. But all the while I felt myself
+being _carried, carried, carried_! One day I realized that I had been
+put in a boat; then we went on and on, day after day. Finally the boat
+was stopped and I was carried ashore. Then for the first time in many a
+long day I was taken from the bag. Again I saw the world about me. But
+how different were my surroundings from those of my old home! Where was
+I? I was on the very point of land off which you found me this evening.
+
+"For the first few weeks of our stay on the shores of this lonely lake,
+things continued almost as they had been at home. The gold was my
+master's single thought. He seemed happy, almost joyous, in the thought
+that he and I were at last out of the reach of men. Most of his time was
+spent looking at his gold. Every morning and every evening he would take
+me down to that point yonder where the sun shines clearly, and there
+would pour the treasure out in a great pile. He always did this
+exultingly. And his greatest pleasure was to play with the yellow coins,
+to count them over and over, and to laugh to himself in a satisfied way.
+
+"But after a time I could see that a change was coming over my master.
+He grew grave and quiet. No, more, as he poured out his gold, did he
+chuckle and laugh to himself. All his movements seemed listless. He
+counted his money less frequently, and when he did so it was in a
+half-hearted manner. One day I even saw him go away and leave the yellow
+heap lying on the sands. At last one day he came, packed the gold in me,
+and put in my head with the greatest care. Moreover, when he went back
+to the camp, he left me there on the beach! I felt very strange and
+lonely, and the night seemed long indeed.
+
+"At last the daybreak came, and glad I was to see it. But it was not
+until near sunset that my master came down to the point where I was. His
+face was as I had never seen it before. It was the countenance of a man
+who had suffered much, and who was still suffering. He came to me,
+paused before me, and said: 'For thee, thou cursed gold, I have wasted
+my life and ruined my soul!'
+
+"For some time he stood thus looking at me; then he began to walk up and
+down the strip of beach, wringing his hands and beating his breast. 'Oh,
+if I could only do it!' he kept saying; 'if I could only do it! If I
+could, there might be hope, even for me. Lord, help me to do it! Lord,
+help me!'
+
+"After many hours of this, which I knew to be mental torment for my poor
+wretched master, when he was exhausted in body and in mind, he came back
+along the sands toward me. To my astonishment he knelt down beside me,
+he placed his hands together, he lifted his face skyward. My master
+prayed!
+
+"'Lord of the great world,' he said, 'come to my aid or I am lost. In
+Thy great mercy, save me! Hear where no man may hear, hear Thou my cry;
+Thou Lord of heavenly mercy, lend me thine aid!'
+
+"He paused, and over his face I seemed to see the dawning of a deep
+peace. He rose to his feet, lifted me, and bore me down to the boat.
+Then he slowly paddled away toward the center of the lake, repeating his
+prayer. At last he checked the boat; then, having looked toward the sky,
+he said in a low, sweet voice, 'Lord, Thou hast given me grace and
+strength.' At that he lifted me high above his head----"
+
+There was a crash as if pieces of wood were falling together and my eyes
+opened with a snap. My fire had smoldered down. The Keg, heated by the
+fire, had tumbled inward, and lay there in a confused heap.
+
+"What a queer dream," I said to myself. I was really beginning to
+believe that these things had happened. I rose to my feet and stepped
+down to the edge of the lonely water. I am not ashamed to say that my
+blood was chilled at what I saw. As I looked across the lake, within
+twenty feet of where I had found the Keg, there was a boat with a man
+sitting motionless in it!
+
+When that mysterious canoe appeared on the bosom of the lonely lake, I
+thought that I was looking upon a vision of a spectral nature. In spite
+of all my belief that I was alone on this remote beach, there sat the
+man in the boat, only a few rods off shore. He was as a mirage, as
+silent as the very lake itself. A few eerie moments passed; then the
+boat began to move slowly toward me, gently propelled by a skillful
+paddle. As it approached, the light of the full moon streaming upon it
+made it easy for me to study its occupants. Near the bow I could discern
+a hound crouching. In the stern sat the paddler, his rifle across his
+knees.
+
+"Hello, the camp there!" shouted the man in the boat.
+
+"Hello!" I called, glad enough to find that my strange visitor was no
+apparition.
+
+The canoe came ashore, I greeted the boatman, and together we walked up
+toward the camp, the hound following us in a leisurely fashion. There I
+replenished the fire. Then for a moment the stranger and I stood and
+looked at each other. He was over six feet in height, but so
+symmetrically proportioned in his physical stature that, great as it
+was, he was neither awkward nor ungainly. But for the fact that his eye
+had lost its earlier brightness and that his hair was sprinkled with
+threads of gray, it would have been impossible to believe that he had
+reached three-score years and ten, for his form was still erect, his
+step elastic, and his voice clear and strong. His features were regular
+and strong, giving proof of the man's self-reliant and indomitable
+character. Years, perhaps a lifetime of activity in the woods and on the
+lakes, had bronzed the man. From beneath heavy eyebrows looked eyes
+gray in color and baffling in depth. The man's whole appearance
+attracted me singularly.
+
+"Thank ye for your welcome, mister," he began. "I shouldn't have dropped
+in on ye at this onseemly hour, but the line of your smoke caught my eye
+as I was turning the point yonder. I didn't expect to find a human being
+on these shores. I ax your pardon for comin' in on ye, but I have
+memories of this spot that made me think strange things when I saw your
+camp. I am John Norton, the trapper. And who might you be, young man?"
+
+"I am Henry Herbert," I replied; "but just call me plain Henry."
+
+"Well, Henry," began the old trapper, "I am going to call you that. When
+men meet in the woods they don't put on any airs. I have been in these
+woods sixty-two years, and they have been a home for me, for my father
+and mother are gone, and I have never had wife nor child of my own. And
+I have heard of you, Henry. Ye be no stranger to me. For ten years back
+I have heard how you like to travel the woods and the waters by
+yourself, larning things that Nature does not tell about in crowds. I
+have heard, too, that you be a good shot, and that you know the ways of
+outwitting the trout and the pickerel. Hearing about you this way, I
+knew some day that I would come across your trail; but I never thought
+to run agin you to-night, for I'd no idee that mortal man knowed this
+lake, save me--save me and that other. . . ."
+
+The old man paused, seated himself on the end of a log, and gazed into
+the fire with a solemn look on his face.
+
+I did not feel like breaking in on his meditations, whatever they might
+be. I was silent out of deference to his memories.
+
+"This lake," John Norton said at length, "this lake is a strange place.
+I have been here for eleven years. No other place in all this wide
+country makes me feel as this place does."
+
+Again he fell into a reverie. I, meanwhile, busied myself with supper;
+and as soon as this was prepared, the two of us enjoyed it as only
+woodmen can.
+
+"If you know me," I said, "we are no strangers to each other, for I know
+you. Who draws the steadiest bead with a rifle; who is the best boatman
+who ever feathered paddle, and who is as honest a man as ever drew
+breath?--who, but John Norton, whom I have always been wanting to meet.
+No man could be as welcome to my camp."
+
+"Well, well," laughed the old man, "when you're at home you must be one
+of them detective fellows. I see we aren't no strangers to each other.
+And if while in these woods old John Norton can teach you any trick of
+huntin' or of fishin' or of trappin', be sure he will do so for the
+welcome you have give him."
+
+So we sat on either side of the fire, silent for a few moments. Then the
+old trapper said:
+
+"I am thinking of the things that happened here long years agone.
+Strange things have come to pass on this very point. It is eleven year
+this very night that me and the hound slept here, and a solemn night it
+was, too. . . . God of heaven, man, what is that?"
+
+The old man's startled ejaculation brought me to my feet as if a panther
+were upon me. Glancing at the spot he had indicated by look and gesture,
+I beheld only the shattered portion of the Keg. Not knowing what to make
+of the trapper's excited action, I said: "That? That is only a Keg I
+picked up in the lake this evening."
+
+John Norton rose in silence to his feet and went over to where the
+staves lay. One of these he picked up and held contemplatively in his
+hand.
+
+"The ways of the Lord are past the knowing of mortals," he said. "But
+perhaps in the long run He brings the wrong to the right, and so makes
+the evil in the world to praise him. Henry," said the Old Trapper,
+looking keenly at me, "I have a mind to tell you the story of the man
+who owned that Keg. A strange tale it be, but a true one, and the
+teachings of it be solemn."
+
+Eagerly I urged him to give me the story, a part of which, at least, I
+felt that I already knew.
+
+"It was eleven year agone, in this very month, that I came down the
+inlet yonder into the lake. The moon was nigh her full, and everything
+looked solemn and white just as it do now. Lord knows I little thought
+to meet a man in these solitudes when I run agin what I am telling ye
+of.
+
+"I was paddling down this side of the lake when I heard the strangest
+sounds I ever heard coming out of a bird or beast. Ye better believe,
+Henry, that I sot and listened until I was nothing but ears. But nary a
+thing could I make out of it. After awhile I said I would try to ambush
+the creetur and find out what mouth had a language that old John Norton
+couldn't understand. As I got nearer the shore, my boat just drifting in
+the moonlight, I heerd a kind of crawling sound as if the brute was
+a-trailing himself on the ground. The shake of a bush give me the line
+on him, and I felt sure that in a minute I could let the lead drive
+where it ought to go. I had my rifle to my face, when by the Lord of
+marcy, Henry, I diskivered I had ambushed a man!
+
+"And, Henry," he continued, "the words of the man was words of prayer.
+Never in my life was I taken so unawares or was so unbalanced as when I
+heard the voice of that man I had mistook for an animal break out in
+prayer. For a minute the blood stopped in my heart and my hair moved in
+my scalp; then I shook like a man with the chills. I had come that nigh
+being a murderer, Henry!
+
+"How that man prayed! He prayed for help as one calls to a comrade when
+his boat has gone down under him in the rapids, and he knows he must
+have help or die. This man's soul was struggling hard, I tell ye. The
+words of his cry come out of his mouth like the words of one who is
+surely lost unless somebody saves him. It's dreadful for a man to live
+in such a way that he has to pray in that fashion; for we ought to live,
+Henry, so that it is cheerful-like to meet the Lord, and pleasant to
+hold converse with Him.
+
+"I sot in my boat till his praying was done; then I hugged myself close
+in under the bushes, for I heard him coming down toward the shore. And
+he did come, and come close to me; and in his arms he carried something
+very heavy. In a moment I heard him shove a boat out from the bushes;
+then, getting in, he pushed off into the lake. He held for the center of
+it; and when he had come nigh to the middle of it, he laid his paddle
+down, and lifted something into the air. This he turned upside down, and
+out streamed into the water something that glinted in the moonlight.
+After that, he come paddling back for the shore. Myself--I kept shy of
+the man that night, but the next morning I went to the stranger's camp.
+
+"There was nothing in sight but an old ragged tent, sagging at every
+seam. I called aloud so that mayhap the man would answer me. But no
+answer came. I walked up to the tent and drew aside the rotten flap.
+And, Henry, there lay the man senseless before me! I thought he was
+dead, and I onkivered my head. But the hound here knowed better, for he
+began to wag his tail. I went in, and found that the man was still
+breathing. I lifted him in my arms, Henry, and bore him out of the foul
+air of that tent, taking him down to the warm sunshine on the point.
+
+"For a long while I thought he was going to die in my arms. He just lay
+there lifeless-like, a-looking across the lake with eyes half-shut. But
+the sun and air revived him; and after a long while he stirs and says:
+
+"'Old man, who are you who are so kind to me?'
+
+"I tells him I was John Norton, the trapper.
+
+"'I am John Roberts,' he says, 'and I haven't a friend on the earth, nor
+do I deserve one. Old man, you cannot understand, because you have lived
+an innocent life, but I am a sinner--a wretched sinner. And my moments
+here are numbered. I will tell you of my crimes; I will confess them,
+for they lie heavy on my heart.
+
+"'John Norton, I was a miser; I had a heart with a passion for gold. For
+the evil love of money I turned my face away from my kind. My wife I
+deserted. My only child I refused, with curses, to see, even when she
+sent for me as she lay dying. John Norton, I gave all for gold. And the
+more I loved it, the more I hated man. With my dreadful lust there grew
+suspicion of every one. All ties of affection were severed. I lived
+alone, hoarding my gold and gloating over it.
+
+"'At last I fled from the habitations of men, bringing my gold, my god,
+with me in a Keg. Here on this lonely shore I thought to be happy, far
+from my own kind, far from any danger that my precious treasure be
+stolen. But, John Norton--and a dying man is speaking--for all my
+counting of the bright gold on the sands here, and my dancing about it
+as a devil might, laughing and singing--I was unhappy. I knew that God
+was watching me and was disapproving. I could not but think of my wife
+and child. The thought of them began to make the gold hateful to me. Ah,
+then, old man, I began to pray the Lord to deliver me! It was a bitter
+struggle I fought, but at length He rescued me. He gave me strength,
+John Norton, to overcome the Wicked One; He gave me strength to break
+away from my sin; He gave me strength last night to pour every piece of
+gold that had been for me both love and life, into the lake there. I
+shall never see it more, and I am happy.'
+
+"After that, he lay silent-like, looking up at the blue sky. Then his
+eyes closed, and I thought him sleeping. But suddenly he started up, 'A
+light, a light! I see a light!' Then, Henry, he sank back into my arms
+and spoke no more. I hope my passing may be as peaceful as his, and my
+face as calm as was his after his battle of life was over.
+
+"The next day I buried him up yonder under them hemlocks--having no one
+to help me, but doing it respectful-like, as all such should be done.
+There he lies, Henry, the man who was the owner of that Keg--John
+Roberts--the miser who repented before it was too late. Nor do I doubt,"
+he added, in his kindly tone, "but he's been forgiven by those he
+wronged."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Words that have varied hyphenation: a-way, clean-cut, camp-fire,
+east-bound, round-house.
+
+Page 32, "Naggar" changed to "Nagger" (to find Nagger)
+
+Page 200, "Skinney" changed to "Skinny" (Skinny soon returned)
+
+Page 237, "Toodles" changed to "Toddles" (Toddles swung from)
+
+Page 243, "pur" changed to "purr" (began to purr)
+
+Page 270, "But" changed to "but" (but the face)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMPFIRE STORIES ***
+
+***** This file should be named 26475-8.txt or 26475-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/4/7/26475/
+
+Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Emmy and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.