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<h1> SILAS STRONG,<br/> EMPEROR OF THE WOODS </h1>
<h2> By Irving Bacheller </h2>
<h4>
New York and London Harper and Brothers Publishers
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<h5>
1906
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<h3> TO MY FRIEND THE LATE ARCHER BROWN </h3>
<p>in memory of summer days when we wandered far and sat down to rest by
springs and brooks in the doomed empire of Strong and talked of saving it
and of better times and knew not they were impossible.</p>
<p>Some of the people of these pages, when the author endeavored to regulate
their conduct according to well-known rules of literary construction,
declared themselves free and independent. When, urged by him, they tried
to speak and act in the fashion of most novels, they laughed, and seemed
to be ashamed of themselves, and with good reason.</p>
<p>They are slow, stubborn, modest, shy, and used to the open. Not for them
are the narrow stage, the swift action, the fine-wrought chain of artful
incident that characterize a modern romance.</p>
<p>Of late authors have succeeded rather well in turning people into animals
and animals into people. Why not, if one's art can perform miracles? This
book aims not to emulate or amend the work of the Creator. Its people are
just folks of a very old pattern, its animals rather common and of small
attainments. It is in no sense a literary performance. It pretends to be
nothing more than a simple account of one summer's life, pretty much as it
was lived, in a part of the Adirondacks. It goes on about as things happen
there, with a leisurely pace, like that of the woods lover on a trail who
may be halted by nothing more than a flower or a bird-song. One day
follows another in the old fashion of those places where men go for rest
and avarice quits them with bloody spurs and they forget the calendar and
measure time on the dial of the heavens.</p>
<p>The book has one high ambition. It has tried to tell the sad story of the
wilderness itself—to show, from the woodsman's view-point, the play
of great forces which have been tearing down his home and turning it into
the flesh and bone of cities.</p>
<p>Were it to cause any reader to value what remains of the forest above its
market-price and to do his part in checking the greed of the saws, it
would be worth while—bad as it is.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><br/><br/></p>
<p><b>CONTENTS</b></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>SILAS STRONG</b> </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0002"> I </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0003"> II </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0004"> III. </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0005"> IV </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0006"> V </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0007"> VI </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0008"> VII </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0009"> VIII </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0010"> IX. </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0011"> X </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0012"> XI. </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0013"> XII. </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0014"> XIII </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0015"> XIV </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0016"> XV </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0017"> XVI </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0018"> XVII </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0019"> XVIII </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0020"> XIX </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0021"> XX </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0022"> XXI </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0023"> XII </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0024"> XXIII </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0025"> XXIV </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0026"> XXV </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0027"> XXVI </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0028"> XXVII </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0029"> XXVIII </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0030"> XXIX </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0031"> XXX </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0032"> XXXI </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0033"> XXXII </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0034"> XXXIII </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0035"> XXXIV </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0036"> XXXV </SPAN></p>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_4_0037"> XXXVI </SPAN></p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
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<br/>
<h2> SILAS STRONG </h2>
<p><br/><br/></p>
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<br/>
<h2> I </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE song of the
saws began long ago at the mouths of the rivers. Slowly the axes gnawed
their way southward, and the ominous, prophetic chant followed them. Men
seemed to goad the rivers to increase their speed. They caught and held
and harnessed them as if they had been horses and drove them into flumes
and leaped them over dams and pulled and hauled and baffled them until
they broke away with the power of madness in their rush. But, even then,
the current of the rivers would not do; the current of thunderbolts could
not have whirled the wheels with speed enough.</p>
<p>Now steam bursts upon the piston-head with the power of a hundred horses.
The hungry steel races through columns of pine as if they were soft as
butter and its' bass note booms night and day to the heavens. Hear it now.
The burden of that old song is m-o-r-e, m-o-r-e, m-o-r-e!</p>
<p>It is doleful music, God knows, but, mind you, it voices the need of the
growing land. It sings of the doom of the woods. It may be heard all along
the crumbling edge of the wilderness from Maine to Minnesota. Day by day
hammers beat time while the saws continue their epic chorus.</p>
<p>There are towers and spires and domes and high walls where, in our
boyhood, there were only trees far older than the century, and these
rivers that flow north go naked in open fields for half their journey.
Every spring miles of timber come plunging over cataracts and rushing
through rapids and crowding into slow water on its way to the saws. There
a shaft of pine which has been a hundred years getting its girth is ripped
into slices and scattered upon the stack in a minute. A new river, the
rushing, steam-driven river of steel, bears it away to the growing cities.
Silas Strong once wrote in his old memorandum-book these words: "Strong
says to himself seems so the world was goin' to be peeled an' hollered out
an' weighed an' measured an' sold till it's all et up like an apple."</p>
<p>On the smooth shore of the river below Raquette Falls, and within twenty
rods of his great mill, lived a man of the name of Gordon with two
motherless children. Pity about him! Married a daughter of "Bill" Strong
up in the woods—an excellent woman—made money and wasted it
and went far to the bad. Good fellow, drink, poker, and so on down the
hill! His wife died leaving two children—blue-eyed little people
with curly, flaxen hair—a boy of four a girl of nearly three years.
The boy's full name was John Socksmith Gordon—reduced in familiar
parlance to Socky. The girl was baptized Susan Bradbury Gordon, but was
called Sue.</p>
<p>Their Uncle Silas Strong came to the funeral of their mother. He had
travelled more than eighty miles in twenty-four-hours, his boat now above
and now beneath him. He brought his dog and rifle, and wore a great steel
watch-chain and a pair of moccasins w with fringe on the sides, and a
wolf-skin jacket. He carried the children on his shoulders and tossed them
in the air, while his great size and odd attire seemed to lay hold of
their spirits.</p>
<p>As time passed, a halo of romantic splendor gathered about this uncle's
memory. One day Socky heard him referred to as the "Emperor of the Woods."
He was not long finding out that an emperor was a very grand person who
wore gold on his head and shoulders and rode a fine horse and was always
ready for a fight. So their ideal gathered power and richness, one might
say, the longer he lived in their fancy. They loved their father, but as a
hero he had not been a great success. There was a time when both had
entertained some hope for him, but as they saw how frequently he grew
"tired" they gave their devotion more and more to this beloved memory.
Their uncle's home was remote from theirs, and so his power over them had
never been broken by familiarity.</p>
<p>Socky and Sue told their young friends all they had been able to learn of
their Uncle Silas, and, being pressed for more knowledge, had recourse to
invention. Stories which their father had told grew into wonder-tales of
the riches, the strength, the splendor, and the general destructive power
of this great man. Sue, the first day she went to Sunday-school, when the
minister inquired who slew a lion by the strength of his hands,
confidently answered, "Uncle Silas."</p>
<p>There was one girl in the village who had an Uncle Phil with a fine air of
authority and a wonderful watch and chain; there was yet another with an
Uncle Henry, who enjoyed the distinction of having had the small-pox;
there was a boy, also, who had an Uncle Reuben with a wooden leg and a
remarkable history, and a wen beside his nose with a wart on the same. But
these were familiar figures, and while each had merits of no low degree,
their advocates were soon put to shame by the charms of that mysterious
and remote Uncle Silas.</p>
<p>There was a little nook in the lumber-yard where children used to meet
every Saturday for play and free discussion. There, now and then, some
new-comer entered an uncle in the competition. There, always, a primitive
pride of blood asserted itself in the remote descendants, shall we say, of
many an ancient lord and chieftain. One day—Sue was then five and
Socky six years of age—Lizzie Cornell put a cousin on exhibit in
this little theatre of childhood. He was a boy with red hair and superior
invention from out of town. He stood near Lizzie—a deep and
designing miss—and said not a word, until Sue began about her Uncle
Silas.</p>
<p>It was a new tale of that remarkable hunter which her father had related
the night before while she lay waiting for the sandman. She told how her
uncle had seen a panther one day when he was travelling without a gun. His
dog chased the panther and soon drove him up a tree. Now, it seemed, the
only thing in the nature of a weapon the hunter had with him was a piece
of new rope for his canoe. After a moment's reflection the great man
climbed the tree and threw a noose over the panther's neck while his
faithful dog was barking below. Then the cute Uncle Silas made his rope
fast to a limb and shook the tree so that when the panther jumped for the
ground he hung himself.</p>
<p>To most of those who heard the narrative it seemed to be a rather
creditable exploit, showing, as it did, a shrewdness and ready courage of
no mean order on the part of Uncle Silas. Murmurs of glad approval were
hushed, however, by the voice of the red-headed boy.</p>
<p>"Pooh! that's nothing," said he, with contempt. "My Uncle Mose chased a
panther once an' overtook him and ketched him by the tail an' fetched his
head agin a tree, quick as a flash, an' knocked his brains out."</p>
<p>His words ran glibly and showed an off-hand mastery of panthers quite
unequalled. Here was an uncle of marked superiority and promise.</p>
<p>There was a moment of silence in the crowd.</p>
<p>"If ye don't believe it," said the red-headed boy, "I can show ye a vest
my mother made out o' the skin."</p>
<p>That was conclusive. Sue blushed for shame and looked into the face of
Socky. Her mouth drooped a little and her under lip trembled with anxiety.
Doubt, thoughtfulness, and confusion were on the face of her brother. He
scraped the sand with his foot. He felt that he had sometimes stretched
the truth a little, but this—this went beyond his capacity for
invention.</p>
<p>"Don't believe it," he whispered, with half a sneer as he glanced down at
Sue.</p>
<p>Lizzie Cornell began to titter. All eyes were fixed upon the unhappy pair
as if to say, "How about your Uncle Silas now?" The populace, deserting
the standard of the old king, gathered in front of the red-headed boy and
began to inquire into the merits of Uncle Mose.</p>
<p>Socky and Sue hesitated. Curiosity struggled with resentment. Slowly and
thoughtfully they walked away. For a moment neither spoke. Soon a cheering
thought came into the mind of Sue.</p>
<p>"Maybe Uncle Silas has ketched a panther by the tail, too," said she,
hopefully. Socky, his hands in his pockets, looked down with a dazed
expression.</p>
<p>"I'm going to ask father," said he, thoughtfully.</p>
<p>It was now late in the afternoon. They went home and sat in silence on the
veranda, watching for their father. The old Frenchwoman who kept house for
him tried to coax them in, but they would make no words with her. Long
they sat there looking wistfully down the river-bank.</p>
<p>Presently Sue hauled out of her pocket a tiny rag doll which she carried
for casual use. It came handy in moments of loneliness and despair outside
the house. She toyed with its garments, humming in a motherly fashion. It
was nearly dark when they saw their father staggering homeward according
to his habit. They knew not yet the meaning of that wavering walk.</p>
<p>"There he comes!" said Socky, as they both ran to meet him. "He can't
carry us to-night. He's awful tired."</p>
<p>They thought him "tired." They kissed him and took his hands in theirs,
and led him into the house. Stern and silent he sat down beside them at
the supper-table. The children were also silent and sober-faced from
intuitive sympathy. They could not yet introduce the topic which weighed
upon them.</p>
<p>Socky looked at his father. For the first time he noted that his clothes
were shabby; he knew that a few days before his father had lost his watch.
The boy stole away from the table, and went to his little trunk and
brought the sacred thing which his teacher had given him Christmas Day—a
cheap watch that told time with a noisy and inspiring tick. He laid it
down by his father's plate.</p>
<p>"There," said he, "I'm going to let you wear my watch."</p>
<p>It was one of those deep thrusts which only the hand of innocence can
administer. Richard Gordon took the watch in his hand and sat a moment
looking down. The boy manfully resumed his chair.</p>
<p>"It don't look very well for you to be going around without a watch," he
remarked, taking up his piece of bread and butter.</p>
<p>His father put the watch in his pocket.</p>
<p>"You can let me wear it Sundays," the boy added. "You won't need it
Sundays."</p>
<p>A smile overspread the man's face.</p>
<p>The children, quick to see their opportunity, approached him on either
side. Sue put her arms around the neck of her father and kissed him.</p>
<p>"Tell us a story about Uncle Silas," she pleaded.</p>
<p>"Uncle Silas!" he exclaimed. "We're all going to see him in a few days."</p>
<p>The children were mute with surprise. Sue's little doll dropped from her
hands to the floor. Her face changed color and she turned quickly, with a
loud cry, and drummed on the table so that the dishes rattled. Socky
leaned over the back of a chair and shook his head, and gave his feet a
fling and then recovered his dignity.</p>
<p>"Now don't get excited," remarked their father.</p>
<p>They ran out of the room, and stood laughing and whispering together for a
moment. Then they rushed back.</p>
<p>"When are we going?" the boy inquired.</p>
<p>"In a day or two," said Gordon, who still sat drinking his tea.</p>
<p>Sue ran to tell Aunt Marie, the housekeeper, and Socky sat in his little
rocking-chair for a moment of sober thought.</p>
<p>"Look here, old chap," said Gordon, who was wont to apply the terms of
mature good-fellowship to his little son. Socky came and stood by the side
of his father.</p>
<p>"You an' I have been friends for some time, haven't we?" was the strange
and half-maudlin query which Gordon put to his son.</p>
<p>The boy smiled and came nearer.</p>
<p>"An' I've always treated ye right—ain't I? Answer me."</p>
<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
<p>"Well, folks say you're neglected an' that you don't have decent clothes
an' that you might as well have no father at all. Now, old boy, I'm going
to tell you the truth; I'm broke—failed in business, an' have had to
give up. Understand me; I haven't a cent in the world."</p>
<p>The man smote his empty pocket suggestively. The boy was now deeply
serious. Not able to comprehend the full purport of his father's words, he
saw something in the face before him which began to hurt. His lower lip
trembled a little.</p>
<p>"Don't worry, old friend," said Gordon, clapping him on the shoulder.</p>
<p>Just then Sue came running back.</p>
<p>"Say," said she, climbing on a round of her father's chair, "did Uncle
Silas ever ketch a panther by the tail?"</p>
<p>The children held their breaths waiting for the answer.</p>
<p>"Ketch a panther by the tail!" their father exclaimed. "Whatever put that
in your head?"</p>
<p>Sue answered with some show of excitement. Her words came fast.</p>
<p>"Lizzie Cornell's cousin he said that his Uncle Mose had ketched a panther
by the tail an' knocked his brains out."</p>
<p>Their father smiled again.</p>
<p>"That kind o' floored ye, didn't it, old girl?" said he, with a kiss.
"Le's see," he continued, drawing the children close on either side of
him. "I don' know as he ever ketched a panther by the tail, but I'll tell
ye what he did do. One day when he hadn't any gun with him he come acrost
a big bear, an' Uncle Sile fetched him a cuff with his fist an' broke the
bear's neck, an' then he brought him home on his back an' et him for
dinner."</p>
<p>"Oh!" the girl exclaimed, her mouth and eyes wide open.</p>
<p>Socky whistled a shrill note of surprise and thankfulness. Then he clucked
after the manner of one starting his horse.</p>
<p>"My stars!" he exclaimed, and so saying he skipped across the floor and
brought his fist down heavily upon the lounge. Uncle Silas had been saved—plucked,
as it were, from the very jaws of obscurity.</p>
<p>When they were ready to get into bed the children knelt as usual before
old Aunt Marie, the housekeeper. Sue ventured to add a sentence to her
prayer. "God bless Uncle Silas," said she, "and make him very—very——"</p>
<p>The girl hesitated, trying to find the right word.</p>
<p>"Powerful," her brother suggested, still in the attitude of devotion.</p>
<p>"Powerful," repeated Sue, in a trembling voice, and then added: "for
Christ's sake. Amen."</p>
<p>They lay a long time discussing what they should say and do when at last
they were come into the presence of the great man. Suddenly a notion
entered the mind of Socky that, in order to keep the favor of fortune, he
must rise and clap his hand three times upon the round top of the posts at
the foot of the bed. Accordingly he rose and satisfied this truly pagan
impulse.</p>
<p>Then he repeated the story of his uncle and the bear over and over again,
pausing thoughtfully at the point of severest action and adding a little
color to heighten the effect. Here and there Sue prompted him, and details
arose which seemed to merit careful consideration.</p>
<p>"I wouldn't wonder but what Uncle Silas must 'a' spit on his hand before
he struck the bear," said Socky, remembering how strong men often prepared
themselves for a difficult undertaking.</p>
<p>When the story had been amplified, in a generous degree, and well
committed to memory, they began to talk of Lizzie Cornell and her cousin,
the red-headed boy, and planned how they would seek them out next day and
defy them with the last great achievement of their Uncle Silas.</p>
<p>"He's a nasty thing," the girl exclaimed, suddenly.</p>
<p>"I feel kind o' sorry for him," said Socky, with a sigh.</p>
<p>"Why?"</p>
<p>"Cos he thinks his uncle beats the world an' he ain't nowhere."</p>
<p>"Maybe he'll want to fight," said Sue.</p>
<p>"Then I'll fetch him a cuff."</p>
<p>"S'pose you was to break his neck?"</p>
<p>"I'll hit him in the breast," said Socky, thoughtfully, feeling his
muscle.</p>
<p>Sue soon fell asleep, but Socky lay thinking about his father. He had
crossed the edge of the beginning of trouble. He thought of those words—and
of a certain look which accompanied them—"I haven't got a cent in
the world." What did they mean? He could only judge from experience—from
moments when he had stood looking through glass windows and showcases at
things which had tempted him and which he had not been able to enjoy. Oh,
the bitter pain of it! Must his father endure that kind of thing? He lay
for a few moments weeping silently.</p>
<p>All at once the thought of his little bank came to him. It was nearly full
of pennies. He rose in bed and listened. The room was dark, but he could
hear Aunt Marie at work in the kitchen. That gave him courage, and he
crept stealthily out of bed and went to his trunk and felt for the little
square house of painted tin with a slot in the chimney. It lay beneath his
Sunday clothes, and he raised and gently shook it. He could hear that
familiar and pleasant sound of the coin.</p>
<p>Meanwhile his father had been sitting alone. For weeks he had been rapidly
going downhill. His friends had all turned against him. He had been fairly
stoned with reproaches. He could see only trouble behind, disgrace before,
and despair on either side. He held a revolver in his hand. A child's
voice rang out in the silence, calling "father."</p>
<p>Gordon leaned forward upon the table. He began to be conscious of things
beyond himself. He heard the great mill-saw roaring in the still night; he
heard the tick of the clock near him. Suddenly his little son peered
through the halfopen door.</p>
<p>"Father," Socky whispered.</p>
<p>Gordon started from his chair, and, seeing the boy, sat down again.</p>
<p>Socky was near crying but restrained himself. Without a word he deposited
his bank on the table. It was a moment of solemn renunciation. He was like
one before the altar giving up the vanities of the world. He looked
soberly at his father and said, "I'm going to give you all my money."</p>
<p>Gordon said not a word and there was a moment of silence.</p>
<p>"More than a dollar in it," the boy suggested, proudly.</p>
<p>Still his father sat resting his head upon his hand in silence while he
seemed to be trying the point of a pen.</p>
<p>"You may give me five cents if you've a mind to when you open it," Socky
added.</p>
<p>Gordon turned slowly and kissed the forehead of his little son. The boy
put his arms around the neck of his father and begged him to come and lie
upon the bed and tell a story.</p>
<p>So it happened the current of ruin was turned aside—the
heat-oppressed brain diverted from its purpose. For as the man lay beside
his children he began to think of them and less of himself. "I cannot
leave them," he concluded. "When I go I shall take them with me."</p>
<p>In the long, still hours he lay thinking.</p>
<p>The south wind began to stir the pines, and cool air from out of the wild
country came through an open window. Fathoms of dusty, dead air which had
hung for weeks over the valley, growing hotter and more oppressive in the
burning sunlight, moved away. A cloud passing northward flung a sprinkle
of rain upon the broad, smoky flats and was drained before it reached the
great river. All who were sick and weary felt the ineffable healing of the
woodland breeze. It soothed the aching brain of the mill-owner and
slackened the ruinous toil of his thoughts.</p>
<p>Gordon slept soundly for the first time in almost a month.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
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<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> II </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>EXT morning Gordon
felt better. He began even to consider what he could do to mend his life.
The children got ready for Sunday-school and were on their way to church
an hour ahead of time. Sue, in her white dress and pretty bonnet, walked
with a self-conscious, don't-touch-me air. Socky, in his little sailor
suit, had the downward eye of meditation. Each carried a Testament and
looked neither to right nor left. They hurried as if eager for spiritual
refreshment. They were, however, like the veriest barbarians setting out
with spears and arrows in quest of revenge. They were thinking of Lizzie
Cornell and that boy of the red head and the doomed uncle. Socky's lips
moved silently as he hurried. One might have inferred that he was
repeating his golden text. Such an inference would have been far from the
truth. He was, in fact, tightening the grasp of memory on those inspiring
words: "an' Uncle Sile fetched him a cuff with his fist an' broke the
bear's neck, an' then he brought him home on his back an' et him for
dinner." They joined a group of children who were sitting on the steps of
the old church. Their hearts beat fast when they saw Lizzie coming with
her cousin, the red-headed boy.</p>
<p>A number went forth to meet the two.</p>
<p>"Tell us the badger story," said they to the red-headed boy.</p>
<p>"Pooh! that ain't much," he answered, modestly.</p>
<p>"Please tell us," they insisted.</p>
<p>"Wal, one day my Uncle Mose see a side-hill badger—"</p>
<p>"What's a side-hill badger?" a voice interrupted.</p>
<p>"An animal what lives on a hill, an' has legs longer on one side than on t
'other, so 't he can run round the side of it," said he, glibly, and with
a look of pity for such ignorance.</p>
<p>"Go on with the story," said another voice.</p>
<p>"My Uncle Mose sat an' watched one day up in the limb of a tree above the
hole of a badger. By-an'-by an ol' he badger come out, an' my uncle
dropped onto his back, an' rode him round an' round the hill 'til he was
jes' tuckered out.</p>
<p>Then Uncle Mose put a rope on his neck an' tied him to a tree, an' the ol'
badger dug an' dug until they was a hole in the ground so big you could
put a house in it. An' my uncle he got an idee, an' so one day he fetched
him out to South Colton an' learnt him how to dig wells an' cellars, an'
bym-by the ol' badger could earn more money than a hired man."</p>
<p>"Shucks!" said Socky, turning upon his adversary with sneering, studied
scorn. "That's nothing!"</p>
<p>Then proudly stepping forward, he flung the latest exploit of his Uncle
Silas into the freckled face of the red-headed boy. It stunned the able
advocate of old Moses Leonard—a mighty hunter in his time—and
there fell a moment of silence followed by murmurs of applause.</p>
<p>The little barbarian—Lizzie Cornell—had begun to scent the
battle and stood sharpening an arrow.</p>
<p>"It's a lie," said the red-headed boy, recovering the power of speech.</p>
<p>"His father's a thief an' a drunkard, anyway." That was the arrow of
Lizzie Cornell.</p>
<p>Socky had raised his fists to vindicate his honor, when, hearing the
remark about his father, he turned quickly upon the girl who made it.</p>
<p>What manner of rebuke he would have administered, history is unable to
record. The minister had come. The children began to scatter. Lizzie and
her red-headed cousin ran around the church. Socky and Sue stood with
angry faces.</p>
<p>Suddenly Socky leaned upon the church door and burst into tears. He dimly
comprehended the disgrace which Lizzie had sought to put upon him. The
minister could not persuade him to enter the church or to explain the
nature of his trouble.</p>
<p>When all had gone into Sunday-school, the boy turned, wiping his eyes. Sue
stood beside him, a portrait of despair.</p>
<p>"Le's go home an' tell our father," said she.</p>
<p>They started slowly, but as their indignation grew their feet hurried.
Neither spoke in the long journey to their door. They ran through the hall
and rushed in upon their father who sat reading.</p>
<p>"Oh, father!" said the girl, in excited tones; "Lizzie Cornell says you're
a thief an' a drunkard."</p>
<p>Gordon rose and turned pale.</p>
<p>The hands and voices of the children were ever raised against him.</p>
<p>"It's a lie!" said he, turning away.</p>
<p>He stood a moment looking out of the window. He must take them to some
lonely part of the wilderness and there make an end of his trouble and of
theirs. He turned to the children, saying, "Right after dinner we'll start
for the woods."</p>
<p>So it befell that in the afternoon of a Sunday late in June, Socky and
Sue, with all their effects in a pack-basket, and their father beside
them, started in a spring-wagon over the broad, stony terraces that lift
southward into thickening woods, on their way to great peril.</p>
<p>And so, too, it befell that in leaving home and the tearful face of dear
Aunt Marie, they were sustained by a thought of that good and mighty man
whom they hoped soon to see—their Uncle Silas.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> III. </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE day was hot and
still. Slowly they mounted the foot-hills between meadows aglow with
color. The country seemed to flow ever downward past their sleepy eyes on
its way to the great valley. The daisies were like white foam on the slow
cascade of Bowman's Hill, and there were masses of red and yellow which
appeared to be drifting on the flats. A driver sat on the front seat, and
Gordon behind with Socky and Sue. The little folk chattered together and
wearied their father with queries about birds and beasts. By-and-by the
girl grew silent, her chin sank upon her breast, and her head began to
shake and sway as their wagon clattered over the rough road. In a moment
Socky's head was nodding also, and the feet of both swung limp below the
wagon-seat.</p>
<p>They had seemed to sink and rise and struggle and cry out in the silence,
and were now as those drowned beneath it. Gordon drew them towards him and
lifted their legs upon the cushioned wagon-seat. He sat thinking as they
rode. They had been hard on him—those creditors. He had not meant to
steal, but only to borrow that small sum which he had taken out of the
business in order to feed and clothe the children who lay beside him.
True, some dollars of it had gone to buy oblivion—a few hours of
unearned, of unholy relief. How else, thought he, could he have stood the
reproaches of brutal men?</p>
<p>They arrived at Tupper's Mill late in the afternoon. There Gordon found a
canoe and made ready. At this point the river turned like a scared horse
and ran east by south, around Tup-per Ridge, in a wide loop, and, as if
doubting its way, slackened pace, and, wavering right and left, moved
slowly into the shade of the forest, and then, as if reassured, went on at
a full gallop, leaping over the cliff at Fiddler's Falls. Below, it turned
to the north, and, seeming to see its way at last, grew calm and crossed
the flats wearily, covered with foam.</p>
<p>Socky woke and rubbed his eyes when he and his sister were taken out of
the wagon. Sue continued to sleep, although carried like a sack of meal
under the arm of the driver and Silas Strong laid amidships on a blanket.
Mr. Tupper, the mill man, gave them a piece of meat which, out of courtesy
to the law, he called "mountain lamb." With pack aboard and Socky on a
blanket in the bow, Gordon pushed his canoe into the current.</p>
<p>All who journeyed to the Lost River country from the neighborhood of
Hillsborough arrived at Tupper's late in the afternoon. There, generally,
they took canoe and paddled six miles to a log inn at the head of the
still water. But as Gordon started from Tupper's Mill down stream he had
in mind a destination not on any map of this world. Socky sat facing him,
a little hand on either gunwale.</p>
<p>Socky had thought often that day of the incident of the night before and
of his father's poverty. Now he looked him over from head to foot. He saw
the little steel chain fastened to his father's waistcoat and leading into
the pocket where he knew that his own watch lay hidden. The look of it
gave him a feeling of great virtue and satisfaction.</p>
<p>"Father, will you please tell me what time it is?" he inquired.</p>
<p>Gordon removed the watch from his pocket. "Half-past six. We've got to
push on."</p>
<p>It was fine to see that watch in his father's hand.</p>
<p>"I'm going to give it to you," said the boy, soberly. "You can wear it
Sundays an' every day."</p>
<p>Gordon looked into the eyes of his son. He saw there the white soul of the
little traveller just entering upon the world.</p>
<p>"I'm going to buy you some new clothes, too," said Socky, now overflowing
with generosity.</p>
<p>"Where'll you get the money?"</p>
<p>"From my Uncle Silas." After a few moments Socky added, "If I was Lizzie
Cornell's father I'd give her a good whipping."</p>
<p>They rode in silence awhile, and soon the boy lay back on his blanket
looking up at the sky.</p>
<p>"Father," said he, presently.</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"I'm good to you, ain't I?"</p>
<p>"Very."</p>
<p>There was a moment of silence, and then the boy added, "I love you."</p>
<p>Those words gave the man a new sense of comfort. If he could have done so
he would have embraced his son and covered his face with kisses.</p>
<p>The sun had sunk low and they were entering the edge of the night and the
woodland. Soon the boy fell asleep. The silence of the illimitable sky
seemed to be flooding down and delightful sounds were drifting on its
current. They had passed the inn, long ago and walls of fir and pine were
on either side of them. Gordon put into a deep cove, stopping under the
pine-trees with his bow on a sand-bar. Then he let himself down,
stretching his legs on the canoe bottom and lying back on his blanket.</p>
<p>For a long time he lay there thinking. He had been a man of some
refinement, and nature had punished him, after an old fashion, for the
abuse of it with extreme sensitiveness. He had come to the Adirondacks
from a New England city and married and gone into business. At first he
had prospered, and then he had begun to go down.</p>
<p>He had been a lover of music and a reader of the poets. As he lay thinking
in the early dusk he heard the notes of the wood-thrush. That bird was
like a welcoming trumpeter before the gate of a palace; it bade him be at
home. Above all he could hear the water song of Fiddler's Falls—the
tremulous, organ bass of rock caverns upon which the river drummed as it
fell, the chorus of the on-rushing stream and great overtones in the
timber.</p>
<p>Sound and rhythm seemed to be full of that familiar strain—so like a
solemn warning:</p>
<p><br/><br/><SPAN name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004"> </SPAN></p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG src="images/0038.jpg" alt="0038m " width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<h5>
<SPAN href="images/0038.jpg"><ANTIMG src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </SPAN>
</h5>
<p>A long time he sat hearing it. He began to feel ashamed of his folly and
awakened to the inspiration of a new purpose. He rose and looked about
him.</p>
<p>When you enter a house you begin to feel the heart of its owner. Something
in the walls and furnishings, something in the air—is it a vibration
which dead things have gathered from the living?—bids you welcome or
warns you to depart. It is the true voice of the master. As Gordon came
into the wilderness he felt like one returning to his father's house. In
this great castle the heart of its Master seemed to speak to him with a
tenderness fatherly and unmistakable.</p>
<p>A subtle force like that we find in houses built with hands now bade him
welcome. "Lie down and rest, my son," it seemed to say. "Let not your
heart be troubled. Here in your Father's house are forgiveness and
plenty."</p>
<p>He put away the thought of death. He covered the sleeping boy and girl,
pushed his canoe forward upon the sand, and lying back comfortably soon
fell asleep.</p>
<p>He awoke refreshed at sunrise. The great, green fountain of life, in the
midst of which he had rested, now seemed to fill his heart with its
uplifting joy and energy and persistence.</p>
<p>He built a fire under the trees and broiled the meat and made toast and
coffee. He lifted the children in his arms and kissed them with unusual
tenderness.</p>
<p>"To-day we'll see Uncle Silas," Gordon assured them.</p>
<p>"My Uncle Silas!" said the boy, fondly.</p>
<p>"He's mine, too," Sue declared.</p>
<p>"He's both of our'n," Socky allowed, as they began to eat their breakfast.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> IV </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>ILAS STRONG, or
"Panther Sile," as the hunters called him, spent every winter in the
little forest hamlet of Pitkin and every summer in the woods.</p>
<p>Lawrence County was the world, and game, wood, and huckleberries the
fulness thereof; all beyond was like the reaches of space unexplored and
mysterious. God was only a word—one may almost say—and mostly
part of a compound adjective; hell was Ogdensburg, to which he had once
journeyed; and the devil was Colonel Jedson. This latter opinion, it
should be said, grew out of an hour in which the Colonel had bullied him
in the witness-chair, and not to any lasting resemblance.</p>
<p>As to Ogdensburg itself, the hunter had based his judgment upon evidence
which, to say the least, was inconclusive. When Sile and the city first
met, they regarded each other with extreme curiosity. A famous hunter, as
he moved along the street with rifle, pack, and panther-skin, Sile was
trying to see everything, and everything seemed to be trying to see Sile.
The city was amused while the watchful eye of Silas grew weary and his
bosom filled with distrust. One tipsy man offered him a jack-knife as a
compliment to the length of his nose, and before he could escape a new
acquaintance had wrongfully borrowed his watch. His conclusions regarding
the city were now fully formed. He broke with it suddenly, and struck out
across country and tramped sixty miles without a rest. Ever after the
thought of Ogdensburg revived memories of confusion, headache, and
irreparable loss. So, it is said, when he heard the minister describing
hell one Sunday at the little school-house in Pitkin, he had no doubt
either of its existence or its location.</p>
<p>All this, however, relates to antecedent years of our history—years
which may not be wholly neglected if one is to understand what follows
them.</p>
<p>After the death of his sister—the late Mrs. Gordon—Strong
began to read his Bible and to cut his trails of thought further and
further towards his final destination. A deeper reverence and a more
correct notion of the devil rewarded his labor.</p>
<p>It must be added that his meditations led him to one remarkable conclusion—namely,
that all women were angels. His parents had left him nothing save a maiden
sister named Cynthia, and characterized by some as "a reg'lar human
panther."</p>
<p>"Wherever Sile is they's panthers," said a guide once, in the little store
at Pitkin.</p>
<p>"Don't make no dif'er'nce whuther he's t' home er in the woods," said
another, solemnly.</p>
<p>That was when God owned the wilderness and kept there a goodly number of
his big cats, four of which had fallen before the rifle of Strong.</p>
<p>Cynthia, in his view, had a special sanctity, but there was another woman
whom he regarded with great tenderness—a cheery-faced maiden lady of
his own age and of the name of Annette.</p>
<p>To Silas she was always Lady Ann. He gave her this title without any
thought or knowledge of foreign customs. "Miss Roice" would have been too
formal, and "Ann" or "Annette" would have been too familiar. "Lady Ann"
seemed to have the proper ring of respect, familiarity, and distinction.
In his view a "lady" was a creature as near perfection as anything could
be in this world.</p>
<p>When a girl of eighteen she had taught in the log school-house. Since the
death of her mother the care of the little home had fallen upon her. She
was a well-fed, cheerful, and comely creature with a genius for
housekeeping.</p>
<p>June had come, and Silas was getting ready to go into camp. There was no
longer any peace for him in the clearing. The odor of the forest and the
sight of the new leaves gave him no rest. Had he not heard in his dreams
the splash of leaping trout, and deer playing in the lily-pads? In the
midst of his preparations, although a silent man, the tumult of joy in his
breast came pouring out in the whistled refrain of "Yankee Doodle." It was
a general and not a special sense of satisfaction which caused him to
shake with laughter now and then as he made his way along the rough road.
Sometimes he rubbed his long nose thoughtfully.</p>
<p>A nature-loving publisher, who often visited his camp, had printed some
cards for him. They bore these modest words:</p>
<h3> S. STRONG </h3>
<h3> GUIDE AND CONTRIVER </h3>
<p>He was able in either capacity, but his great gift lay in tongue control—in
his management of silence. He was what they called in that country "a
one-word man." The phrase indicated that he was wont to express himself
with all possible brevity. He never used more than one word if that could
be made to satisfy the demands of politeness and perspicacity. Even though
provocation might lift his feeling to high degrees of intensity, and well
beyond the pale of Christian sentiment, he was never profuse.</p>
<p>His oaths would often hiss and hang fire a little, but they were in the
end as brief and emphatic as the crack of a rifle. This trait of brevity
was due, in some degree, to the fact that he stammered slightly,
especially in moments of excitement, but more to his life in the silence
of the deep woods.</p>
<p>Silas Strong had filled his great pack at the store and was nearing his
winter home—a rude log-house in the little forest hamlet. He let the
basket down from his broad back to the doorstep. His sister Cynthia,
small, slim, sternfaced, black-eyed, heart and fancy free, stood looking
down at him.</p>
<p>"Wal, what now?" she demanded, in a voice not unlike that of a pea-hen.</p>
<p>"T'-t'-morrer," he stammered, in a loud and cheerful tone.</p>
<p>"What time to-morrer?"</p>
<p>"D-daylight."</p>
<p>"I knew it," she snapped, sinking into a chair, the broom in her hands,
and a woful look upon her. "You've got t' hankerin'."</p>
<p>Silas said nothing, but entered the house and took a drink of water.
Cynthia snapped:</p>
<p>"If I wanted t' marry Net Roice I'd marry 'er an' not be dilly-dallyin'
all my life."</p>
<p>Cynthia was now fifty years of age, and regarded with a stern eye every
act of man which bore any suggestion of dilly-dallying.</p>
<p>"Ain't g-good'nough," he stammered, calmly.</p>
<p>"You're fool 'nough," she declared, with a twang of ill-nature.</p>
<p>"S-supper, Mis' Strong," said he, stirring the fire.</p>
<p>Whenever his sister indulged in language of unusual loudness and severity
he was wont to address her in a gentle tone as "Mis' Strong"—the
only kind of retaliation to which he resorted. He shortened the "Miss" a
little, so that his words might almost be recorded as "Mi' Strong." In
those rare and cheerful moments when her mood was more in harmony with his
own he called her "Sinth" for short. In his letters, which were few, he
had addressed her as "deer sinth." She was, therefore, a compound person,
consisting of a severe and dissenting character called "Mis' Strong," and
a woman of few words and a look of sickliness and resignation who answered
to the pseudonyme of "Sinth."</p>
<p>Born and brought up in the forest, there was much in Silas and Cynthia
that suggested the wild growth of the woodland. Their sister—the
late Mrs. Gordon—had beauty and a head for books. She had gone to
town and worked for her board and spent a year in the academy. Silas and
Cynthia, on the other hand, were without beauty or learning or refinement,
nor had they much understanding of the laws of earth or heaven, save what
nature had taught them; but the devotion of this man to that querulous
little wild-cat of a sister was remarkable. She was to him a sacred
heritage. For love of her he had carried with him these ten years a
burden, as it were, of suppressed and yearning affection. Silas Strong
alone might even have been "good enough," in his own estimation, but he
accepted "Mis' Strong" as a kind of flaw in his own character.</p>
<p>Every June he went to his camp at Lost River, taking Sinth to cook for
him, and returning in the early winter. Next day, at sunrise, they were to
start for the woods.</p>
<p>To-day he helped to get supper, and, having wiped the dishes, put on his
best suit, his fine boots, his new felt hat, and walked a mile to the
little farm of Uncle Ben Roice. He carried with him a gray squirrel in a
cage, and, as he walked, sang in a low voice:</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
"All for the love of a charmin' creature,</p>
<p class="indent15">
All for the love of a lady fair."</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>It was like any one of a thousand visits he had made there. Annette met
him at the door.</p>
<p>"Why, of all things!" said she. "What have you here?"</p>
<p>"C'ris'mus p-present, Lady Ann," said he.</p>
<p>It should be said that with Silas a gift was a "Christmas present" every
day in the year—the cheerful spirit of that time being always with
him.</p>
<p>He proudly put the cage in her hands.</p>
<p>"Much obliged to you, Sile," said she, laughing.</p>
<p>"S-Strong's ahead!" he stammered, cheerfully.</p>
<p>This indicated that in his fight with the powers of evil Strong felt as if
he had at least temporary advantage. When, perhaps, after a moment of
anger it seemed that the Evil One had got the upper hold on him, he was
wont to exclaim, "Satan's ahead!" But the historian is glad to say that
those occasions were, in the main, rare and painful.</p>
<p>"Strong will never give in," said Annette, with laughter.</p>
<p>Strong's affection was expressed only in signs and tokens. Of the former
there were his careful preparation for each visit, and many sighs and
blushes, and now and then a tender glance of the eye. Of tokens there had
been many—a tame fox, ten mink-skins, a fawn, a young thrush, a
pancake-turner carved out of wood, and other important trifles. For twenty
years he had been coming, but never a word of love had passed between
them.</p>
<p>Silas sat in a strong wooden chair. Under the sky he never thought of his
six feet and two inches of bone and muscle; now it seemed to fill his
consciousness and the little room in which he sat. To-day and generally he
leaned against the wall, a knee in his hands as if to keep himself in
proper restraint.</p>
<p>"Did you just come to bring me that squirrel?" Annette inquired.</p>
<p>"No," he answered.</p>
<p>"What then?"</p>
<p>"Squirrel come t' b-bring me."</p>
<p>"Silas Strong!" she exclaimed, playfully, amazed by his frankness.</p>
<p>He put his big hand over his face and enjoyed half a minute of silent
laughter.</p>
<p>"Silas Strong!" she repeated.</p>
<p>"Present,"'said he, as if answering the call of the roll, and sobering as
he uncovered his face.</p>
<p>In conversation Silas had a way of partly closing one eye while the other
opened wide beneath a lifted brow. The one word of the Emperor was
inadequate. He was, indeed, present, but he was extremely happy also, a
condition which should have been freely acknowledged. It must be said,
however, that his features made up in some degree for the idleness of his
tongue. He brushed them with a downward movement, of his hand, as if to
remove all traces of levity and prepare them for their part in serious
conversation.</p>
<p>"All w-well?" he inquired, soberly.</p>
<p>"Eat our allowance," said she, sitting near him. "How's Miss Strong?"</p>
<p>"S-supple!" he answered. Then he ran his fingers through his blond hair
and soberly exclaimed, "Weasels!"</p>
<p>This remark indicated that weasels had been killing the poultry and
applying stimulation to the tongue of Miss Strong. Silas had sent her
fowls away to market the day before.</p>
<p>"Too bad!" was the remark of Lady Ann.</p>
<p>"Fisht?" By this word Silas meant to inquire if she had been fishing.</p>
<p>"Yesterday. Over at the falls—caught ten," said she, getting busy
with her knitting. "B-big?"</p>
<p>"Three that long," she answered, measuring with her thread.</p>
<p>He gave a loud whistle of surprise, thought a moment, and exclaimed,
"M-mountaneyous!" He used this word when contemplating in imagination news
of a large and important character.</p>
<p>"How have you been?"</p>
<p>"Stout," he answered, drawing in his breath.</p>
<p>Annette rose and seemed to go in search of something. The kindly gray eyes
of Silas Strong followed her. A smile lighted up his face. It was a very
plain face, but there was yet something fine about it, something which
invited confidence and respect. The Lady Ann entered her own room, and
soon returned.</p>
<p>"Shut yer eyes," said she.</p>
<p>"What f-for?"</p>
<p>"Chris'mas present."</p>
<p>Silas obeyed, and she thrust three pairs of socks into his coat-pocket.
With a smile he drew them out. Then a partly smothered laugh burst from
his lips, and he held his hand before his face and shook with good
feeling.</p>
<p>"S-socks!" he exclaimed.</p>
<p>"There are two parts of a man which always ought to be kep' warm—his
heart an' his feet," said she.</p>
<p>Silas whacked his knee with his palm and laughed heartily, his wide eye
aglow with merriment. His expression quickly turned serious.</p>
<p>"B-bears plenty!" he exclaimed, as he felt of the socks and looked them
over. This remark indicated that a season of unusual happiness and
prosperity had arrived.</p>
<p>Worked in white yarn at the top of each leg were the words, "Remember me."</p>
<p>"T-till d-death," he whispered.</p>
<p>"With me on your mind an' them on your feet you ought to be happy," said
Annette.</p>
<p>"An' w-warm," he answered, soberly.</p>
<p>Presently she read aloud to him from the <i>St. Lawrence Republican</i>.</p>
<p>"S-some day," said Silas, when at last he had risen to go.</p>
<p>"Some day," she repeated, with a smile.</p>
<p>The only sort of engagement between them lay in the two words "some day."
They served as an avowal of love and intention. Amplified, as it were, by
look and tone as well as by the pressure of the hand-clasp, they were
understood of both.</p>
<p>To-day as Annette returned the assurance she playfully patted his cheek, a
rare token of her approval.</p>
<p>Silas left her at the door and made his way down the dark road. He began
to give himself some highly pleasing assurances.</p>
<p>"S-some day—tall t-talkin'," he stammered, in a whisper, and then he
began to laugh silently.</p>
<p>"Patted my cheek!" he whispered. Then he laughed again.</p>
<p>At the store he had filled his pack with flour, ham, butter, and like
provisions for Lost River camp. At Annette's he had filled his heart with
renewed hope and happiness and was now prepared for the summer. While he
walked along he fell to speculating as to whether Annette could live under
the same roof with Cynthia. A hundred times he had considered whether he
could ask her, and as usual he concluded, "Ca-can't."</p>
<p>The hunter had an old memorandum-book which was a kind of storehouse for
thought, hope, and reflection. Therein he seemed always to regard himself
objectively and spoke of Strong as if he were quite another person. Before
going to bed that evening he made these entries:</p>
<p><i>"June the 23. Strong is all mellered up. </i></p>
<p>"Snags."</p>
<p>With him the word "meller" meant to soften, and sometimes, even, to
conquer with the club.</p>
<p>The word "snags" undoubtedly bore reference to the difficulties that beset
his way.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> V </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>ILAS and his
sister ate their breakfast by candle-light and were off on the trail
before sunrise, a small, yellow dog of the name of Zeb following. Zeb was
a bear-dog with a cross-eye and a serious countenance. He was, in the
main, a brave but a prudent animal. One day he attacked a bear, which had
been stunned by a bullet, and before he could dodge the bear struck him
knocking an eye out. Strong had put it back, and since that day his dog
had borne a cross-eye.</p>
<p>Zeb had a sense of dignity highly becoming in a creature of his
attainments. This morning, however, he scampered up and down the trail,
whining with great joy and leaping to lick the hand of his master. "Sinth"
walked spryly, a little curt in her manner, but passive and resigned.
Silas carried a heavy pack, a coon in a big cage, and led a fox. When he
came to soft places he set the cage down and tethered the fox, and, taking
Sinth in his arms, carried her as one would carry a baby. Having gained
better footing, he would let Sinth down upon a log or a mossy rock to rest
and return for his treasures. After two or three hours of travel the
complaining "Mis' Strong" would appear.</p>
<p>"Seems so ye take pleasure wearin' me out on these here trails," she would
say. "Why don't ye walk a little faster?"</p>
<p>"W-whoa!" he would answer, cheerfully. "Roughlocks!"</p>
<p>The roughlock, it should be explained, was a form of brake used by
log-haulers to check their bobs on a steep hill. In the conversation of
Silas it was a cautionary signal meaning hold up and proceed carefully.</p>
<p>"You don't care if you do kill me—gallopin' through the woods here
jes' like a houn' after a fox. I won't walk another step—not another
step."</p>
<p>"Rur-roughlocks!" he commanded himself, as he tied the fox and set the
coon down.</p>
<p>"Won't ride either," she would declare, with emphasis.</p>
<p>"W-wings on, Mis' Strong?" Silas had been known to ask, in a tone of great
gentleness.</p>
<p>She would be apt to answer, "If I had wings, I'd see the last o' you."</p>
<p>Then a little time of rest and silence, after which the big, gentle hunter
would shoulder his pack and lift in his arms the slender and complaining
Miss Strong and carry her up the long grade of Bear Mountain. Then he
would make her comfortable and return for his pets.</p>
<p>That day, having gone back for the fox and the coon, he concluded to try
the experiment of putting them together. Before then he had given the
matter a good deal of thought, for if the two were in a single package, as
it were, the problem of transportation would be greatly simplified. He
could fasten the coon cage on the top of his pack, and so avoid doubling
the trail. He led the fox and carried the coon to the point where Sinth
awaited him. Then he removed the chain from the fox's collar, carefully
opened the cage, and thrust him in. The swift effort of both animals to
find quarter nearly overturned the cage. Spits and growls of warning
followed one another in quick succession. Then each animal braced himself
against an end of the cage, indulging, as it would seem, in continuous
complaint and recrimination.</p>
<p>"Y-you behave!" said Silas, wamingly, as he put the cage on top of his
basket and fastened a stout cord from bars to buckles.</p>
<p>"They 'll fight!" Sinth exclaimed.</p>
<p>"Let 'em f-fight," said Silas, who had sat down before his pack and
adjusted the shoulder-straps.</p>
<p>The growling increased as he rose carefully to his feet, and with a swift
movement coon and fox exchanged positions. Sinth descended the long hill
afoot, and Silas went on cautiously, a low, continuous murmur of hostile
sound rising in the air behind him. Each animal seemed to think it
necessary to remind the other with every breath he took that he was
prepared to defend himself. Their enmity was, it would appear, deep and
racial.</p>
<p>At Cedar Swamp, in the flat below, the big hunter took Sinth in his arms.
Then the sound of menace and complaint rose before and behind him. Slowly
he proceeded, his feet sinking deep in the wet moss. Stepping on hummocks
in a dead creek, he slipped and fell. The little animals were flung about
like shot in a bottle. Each seemed to hold the other responsible for his
discomfiture. They came together in deadly conflict. The sounds in the
cage resembled an explosion of fire-crackers under a pan. Sinth lifted her
voice in a loud outcry of distress and accusation. Without a word the
hunter scrambled to his feet, renewed his hold upon the complaining Sinth,
and set out for dry land. Luckily the mud was not above his boot-tops. The
cage creaked and hurtled. The animals rolled from side to side in their
noisy encounter. The indignant Sinth struggled to get free with loud,
hysteric cries. Strong ran beneath his burden. He gained the dry trail,
and set his sister upon the ground. He flung off the shoulder-straps, and
with a stick separated the animals. He opened the cage and seized the fox
by the nape of the neck, and, before he could haul him forth, got a nip on
the back of his hand. He lifted the spitting fox and fastened the chain
upon his collar. Then Silas put his hands on his hips and blew like a
frightened deer.</p>
<p>"Hell's b-bein' raised," he muttered, as if taking counsel with himself
against Satan. "C-careful!" He was in a mood between amusement and anger,
but was dangerously near the latter.</p>
<p>A little profanity, felt but not expressed, warmed his spirit, so that he
kicked the coon's cage and tumbled it bottom side up. In a moment he
recovered self-control, righted the cage, and whispered, "S-Satan's
ahead!"</p>
<p>The wound upon his hand was bleeding, but he seemed not to mind it.</p>
<p>Having done his best for the comfort of his sister, he brushed the mud
from his boots and trousers, filled his pipe, and sat meditating in a
cloud of tobacco-smoke. Presently he rose and shouldered his pack and
untied the fox and lifted the coon cage.</p>
<p>"I'll walk if it kills me!" Sinth exclaimed, rising with a sigh of utter
recklessness.</p>
<p>"'T-'tain't fur," said Strong, as they renewed their journey.</p>
<p>It was past mid-day when they got to camp, and Sinth lay down to rest
while he fried some ham and boiled the potatoes and made tea and flapjacks
by an open fire.</p>
<p>When he sat on his heels and held his pan over the fire, the long woodsman
used to shut up, as one might say, somewhat in the fashion of a
jack-knife. He was wont to call it "settin' on his hunches." His great
left hand served for a movable screen to protect his face from the heat.
As the odor and sound of the frying rose about him, his features took on a
look of-great benevolence. It was a good part of the meal to hear him
announce, "Di-dinner," in a tender and cheerful tone. As he spoke it the
word was one of great capacity for suggestion. When the sound of it rose
and lingered on its final r, that day they arrived at Lost River camp,
Sinth awoke and came out-of-doors.</p>
<p>"Strong's g-gainin'!" he exclaimed, cheerfully, meaning thereby to
indicate that he hoped soon to overtake his enemy.</p>
<p>The table of bark, fastened to spruce poles, each end lying in a crotch,
had been covered with a mat of ferns and with clean, white dishes. Silas
began to convey the food from fire to table. To his delight he observed
that "Mis' Strong" had gone into retirement. The face of his sister now
wore its better look of sickliness and resignation.</p>
<p>"Opeydildock?" he inquired, tenderly, pouring from a flask into a cup.</p>
<p>"No, sir," she answered, curtly, her tone adding a rebuke to her negative
answer.</p>
<p>"Le's s-set," said he, soberly.</p>
<p>They sat and ate their dinner, after which Silas went back on the trail to
cut and bring wood for the camp-fire. When his job was finished, the rooms
were put to rights, the stove was hot and clean, and an excellent supper
waiting.</p>
<p>Strong's camp consisted of three little log cabins and a large cook-tent.
The end of each cabin was a rude fireplace built of flat rocks enclosed by
upright logs which, lined with sheet-iron, towered above the roof for a
chimney. Each floor an odd mosaic of wooden blocks, each wall sheathed
with redolent strips of cedar, each rude divan bottomed with deer-skin and
covered with balsam pillows, each bedstead of peeled spruce neatly cut and
joined—the whole represented years of labor. Every winter Silas had
come through the woods on a big sled with "new improvements" for camp. Now
there were spring-beds and ticks filled with husks in the cabins, a stove
and all needed accessories in the cook-tent.</p>
<p>Ever since he could carry a gun Silas had set his traps and hunted along
the valley of Lost River, ranging over the wild country miles from either
shore. Twenty thousand acres of the wilderness, round about, had belonged
to Smith & Gordon, who gave him permission to build his camp. When he
built, timber and land had little value. Under the great, green roof from
Bear Mountain to Four Ponds, from the Raquette to the Oswegatchie, one
might have enjoyed the free hospitality of God.</p>
<p>From a time he could not remember, this great domain had been the home of
Silas Strong. He loved it, and a sense of proprietorship had grown within
him. Therein he had need only of matches, a blanket, and a rifle. One
might have led him blindfolded, in the darkest night, to any part of it
and soon he would have got his bearings. In many places the very soles of
his feet would have told him where he stood.</p>
<p>Long ago its owners had given him charge of this great tract. He had
forbidden the hounding of deer and all kinds of greedy slaughter, and had
made campers careful with fire. Soon he came to be called "The Emperor of
the Woods," and every hunter respected his laws.</p>
<p>Slowly steam-power broke through the hills and approached the ramparts of
the Emperor. This power was like one of the many hands of the republic
gathering for its need. It started wheels and shafts and bore day and
night upon them. Now the song of doom sounded in far corridors of the
great sylvan home of Silas Strong.</p>
<p>It was only a short walk to where the dead hills lay sprinkled over with
ashes, their rock bones bleaching in the sun beneath columns of charred
timber. The spruce and pine had gone with the ever-flowing stream, and
their dead tops had been left to dry and burn with unquenchable fury at
the touch of fire, and to destroy everything, root and branch, and the
earth out of which it grew.</p>
<p>It concerned him much to note, everywhere, signs of a change in
proprietorship. In Strong's youth one felt, from end to end of the forest,
this invitation of its ancient owner, "Come all ye that are weary and
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Now one saw much of this legend in
the forest ways, "All persons are forbidden trespassing on this property
under penalty of the law." Proprietorship had, seemingly, passed from God
to man. The land was worth now thirty dollars an acre. Silas had
established his camp when the boundaries were indefinite and the old
banners of welcome on every trail, and he felt the change.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> VI </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T was near sunset
of the second day after the arrival of Sinth and Silas. They sat together
in front of the cook-tent. Silas leaned forward smoking a pipe. His great,
brawny arms, bare to the elbow, rested on his knees. His faded felt hat
was tilted back. He was looking down at the long stretch of still water,
fringed with lily-pads, and reflecting the colors of either shore.</p>
<p>"You'ain't got a cent to yer name," said Sinth, who was knitting. She gave
the yam a pull, and, as she did so, glanced up at her brother.</p>
<p>"B-better times!" said he, rubbing his hands.</p>
<p>"Better times!" she sneered. "I'd like to know how you can make money an'
charge a dollar a day for board."</p>
<p>Sportsmen visiting there paid for their board, and they with whom Silas
went gave him three dollars a day for his labor.</p>
<p>The truth was that prosperity and Miss Strong were things irreconcilable.
The representatives of prosperity who came to Lost River camp were often
routed by the eye of resentment and the unruly tongue. Strong knew all
this, but she was not the less sacred on that account. This year he had
planned to bring a cow to camp and raise the price of board.</p>
<p>"You s-see," Strong insisted.</p>
<p>"Huh!" Sinth went on; "we'll mos' kill ourselves, an' nex' spring we won't
have nothin' but a lot o' mink-skins."</p>
<p>Miss Strong, as if this reflection had quite overcome her, gathered up her
knitting and hastened into the cook-tent, where for a moment she seemed to
be venting her spite on the flat-irons and the tea-kettle. Strong sat
alone, smoking thoughtfully. Soon he heard footsteps on the trail. A
stranger, approaching, bade him good-evening.</p>
<p>"From the Migley Lumber Company," the stranger began, as he gave a card to
Strong. "We have bought the Smith & Gordon tract. I have come to bring
this letter and have a talk with you."</p>
<p>Strong read the letter carefully. Then he rose and put his hands in his
pockets, and, with a sly wink at the stranger, walked slowly down the
trail. He wished to go where Sinth would not be able to hear them. Some
twenty rods away both sat down upon a log. The letter was, in effect, an
order of eviction.</p>
<p>"I got t' g-go?" the Emperor inquired.</p>
<p>"That's about the size of it," said the stranger.</p>
<p>"Can't," Strong answered.</p>
<p>"Well, there's no hurry," said the other. "We shall be cutting here in the
fall. I won't disturb you this year."</p>
<p>Silas rose and stood erect before the lumberman.</p>
<p>"Cut everyth-thing?" he inquired, his hand sweeping outward in a gesture
of peculiar eloquence.</p>
<p>"Everything from Round Ridge to Carter's Plain," said the other.</p>
<p>Strong deliberately took off his jacket and laid it on a stump. He flung
his hat upon the ground. Evidently something unusual was about to happen.
Then, forthwith, he broke the silence of more than forty years and opened
his heart to the stranger. He could not control himself; his tongue almost
forgot its infirmity; his words came faster and easier as he went on.</p>
<p>"N-no, no," he said, "it can't be. Ye 'ain't no r-right t' do it, fer ye
can't never put the w-woods back agin. My God, sir, I've w-wan-dered over
these hills an' flats ever since I was a little b-boy. There ain't a
critter on 'em that d-don't know me. Seems so they was all my b-brothers.
I've seen men come in here nigh dead an' go back w-well. They's m-med'cine
here t' cure all the sickness in a hunderd cities; they's f-fur 'nough
here t' c-cover their naked—they's f-food'nough t' feed their hungry—an'
they's w-wood 'nough t' keep 'em w-warm. God planted these w-woods an'
stocked 'em, an' nobody's ever d-done a day's work here 'cept me. Now you
come along an' say you've bought 'em an' are g-goin 't' shove us out. I
c-can't understand it. God m-made the sky an' l-lifted up the trees t'
sweep the dust out of it an' pump water into the clouds an' g-give out the
breath o' the g-ground. Y-you 'ain't no right t' git together down there
in Albany an' make laws ag'in' the will o' God. Ye r-rob the world when ye
take the tree-tops out o' the sky. Ye might as well take the clouds out of
it. God has gi'n us g-good air an' the woods an' the w-wild cattle, an'
it's free—an' you—you're g-goin 't' turn ev'rybody out o' here
an' seize the g-gift an' trade it fer d-dollars—you d—-little
bullcook!"</p>
<p>A "bullcook," it should be explained, was the chore-boy in a lumber-camp.</p>
<p>Strong sat down and took out an old red handkerchief and wiped his eyes.</p>
<p>He was thinking of the springs and brooks and rivers, of the cool shade,
of the odors of the woodland, of the life-giving air, of the desolation
that was to come.</p>
<p>"It's business," said the stranger, as if that word must put an end to all
argument.</p>
<p>A sound broke the silence like that of distant thunder.</p>
<p>"Hear th-that," Strong went on. "It's the logs g-goin' over Rainbow Falls.
They've been stole off the state l-lands. Th-that's business, too.
Business is king o' this c-country. He t-takes everything he can l-lay his
hands on. He'd t-try t' 'grab heaven if he could g-git over the f-fence
an' b-back agin."</p>
<p>"I am not here to discuss that," said the stranger, rising to go.</p>
<p>"Had s-supper?" Silas asked.</p>
<p>"I've a lunch in the canoe, thank you. The moon is up, an' I'm going to
push on to Copper Falls. Migley will be waiting for me. We shall camp
there for a day or two at Cedar Spring. Good-night."</p>
<p>"Good-night."</p>
<p>It was growing dark. Strong's outbreak had wearied him. He groaned and
shook his head and stood a moment thinking. In the distance he could hear
the hoot of an owl and the bull bass of frogs booming over the still
water.</p>
<p>"G-gone!" he exclaimed, presently. Soon he added, in a mournful tone,
"W-wouldn't d-dast tell Mis' Strong."</p>
<p>He started slowly towards the camp.</p>
<p>"I'll l-lie to her," he whispered, as he went along.</p>
<p>Before going to bed he made this note in his memorandum-book:</p>
<p><i>"June the 26 More snags Strong says trubel is like small-pox thing to
do is kepe it from spreadin."</i></p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> VII </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>INCE early May
there had been no rain save a sprinkle now and then. From Lake Ontario to
Lake Champlain, from the St. Lawrence to Sandy Hook, the earth had been
scorching under a hot sun. The heat and dust of midsummer had dimmed the
glory of June.</p>
<p>People those days were thinking less of the timber of the woods and more
of their abundant, cool, and living green. The inns along the edge of the
forest were filling up.</p>
<p>About eleven o'clock of a morning late in June, a young man arrived at
Lost River camp—one Robert Master, whose father owned a camp and
some forty thousand acres not quite a day's tramp to the north. He was a
big, handsome youth of twenty-two, just out of college. Sinth regarded
every new-comer as a natural enemy. She suspected most men of laziness and
a capacity for the oppression of females. She stood in severe silence at
the door of the cook-tent and looked him over as he came. Soon she went to
the stove and began to move the griddles. Silas entered with an armful of
wood.</p>
<p>"If he thinks I'm goin' to wait on him hand an' foot, he's very much
mistaken," said Sinth.</p>
<p>"R-roughlocks!" Silas answered, calmly, as he put a stick on the fire.</p>
<p>Sinth made no reply, but began sullenly rushing to and fro with pots and
pans. Soon her quick knife had taken the jackets off a score of potatoes.
While her hands flew, water leaped on the potatoes, and the potatoes
tumbled into the pot, and the pot jumped into the stove-hole as the
griddle took a slide across the top of the stove. And so with a rush of
feet and a rattle of pots and pans and a sliding of griddles and a banging
of iron doors "Mis' Strong" wore off her temper at hard work.</p>
<p>The Emperor used to smile at this variety of noise and call it "f-f-female
profanity," a phrase not wholly inapt. When the "sport" had finished his
dinner, and she and her brother sat side by side at the table, she was
plain Sinth again, with a look of sickliness and resignation. She ate
freely—but would never confess her appetite—and so leisurely
that Strong often had most of the dishes washed before she had finished
eating.</p>
<p>The young man was eager to begin fishing, and soon after dinner the
Emperor took him over to Catamount Pond. On their way the young man spoke
of the object of his visit.</p>
<p>"Mr. Strong, you know my father?" he half inquired.</p>
<p>"Ay-ah," the Emperor answered.</p>
<p>"He's been a property-holder in this county for five years, every summer
of which I have spent on his land. I feel at home in the woods, and I cast
my first vote at Tifton."</p>
<p>Strong listened thoughtfully.</p>
<p>"I want to do what I can to save the wilderness," young Master went on.</p>
<p>"R-right!" said the Emperor.</p>
<p>"If I were in the Legislature, I believe I could accomplish something.
Anyhow, I am going to make a fight for the vacant seat in the Assembly."</p>
<p>Strong surveyed him from head to foot.</p>
<p>"I wish you would do what you can for me in Pitkin."</p>
<p>"Uh-huh!" Strong answered, in a gentle tone, without opening his lips. It
was a way he had of expressing uncertainty leaning towards affirmation. He
liked the young man; there was, indeed, something grateful to him in the
look and voice of a gentleman.</p>
<p>"You'll never be ashamed of me—I'll see to that," said Master.</p>
<p>Having reached the little pond, Strong gave him his boat, and promised to
return and bring him into camp at six. Here and there trout were breaking
through the smooth plane of water.</p>
<p>The Emperor took a bee-line over the wooded ridge to Robin Lake. There he
spent an hour repairing his bark shanty and gathering balsam boughs for a
bed. Stepping on a layer of spruce poles over which the boughs were to be
spread, in a dark corner of the shanty, his foot went through and came
down upon the nest of one of the most disagreeable creatures in the
wilderness. He sprang away with an oath and fled into the open air. For a
moment he expressed himself in a series of sharp reports, Then, picking up
a long pole, he met the offenders leaving their retreat, and "mellered"
them, as he explained to Sinth that evening.</p>
<p>"T-take that, Amos," he muttered, as he gave one of them another blow.</p>
<p>It should be borne in mind that he called every member of this malodorous
tribe "Amos," because the meanest man he ever knew had borne that name.</p>
<p>He put his heel in the crotch of a fallen limb and drew his boot. Then he
cautiously cut off the leg of his trousers at the knee, and, poking cloth
and leather into a little hollow, buried them under black earth.</p>
<p>Slowly the "Emperor of the Woods" climbed a ridge on his way to Lost River
camp, one leg bare to the knee. Walking, he thought of Annette. Lately
misfortune had come between them, and now he seemed to be getting farther
from the trail of happiness.</p>
<p>At a point on Balsam Hill he came into the main thoroughfare of the
woodsmen which leads from Bear Mountain to Lost River camp. Where he could
see far down the big trail, under arches of evergreen, he sat on a stump
to rest. His bootless foot, now getting sore, rested on a giant toadstool.</p>
<p>Thus enthroned, the Emperor looked down at his foot and reconsidered the
relative positions of himself and the Evil One. His faded crown of felt
tilting over one ear, his rough, bearded face wet with perspiration, his
patched trousers truncated over the right knee, below which foot and leg
were uncovered, he was an emperor more distinguished for his appearance
than his lineage.</p>
<p>He took out his old memorandum-book and made this note in it with a stub
of a pencil:</p>
<p><i>"June the 27 Strong says one Amos in the bush is worth two in yer
company an a pair of britches."</i></p>
<p>The Emperor, although in the main a serious character, enjoyed some
private fun with this worn little book, which he always carried with him.
Therein he did most of his talking, with secret self-applause now and
then, one may fancy. It has thrown some light on the inner life of the
man, and, in a sense, it is one of the figures of our history.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> VIII </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>ILAS put the book
in his pocket and looked down the trail. Some ten rods away two children
were running towards him, their hands full of wild flowers. They were
Socky and Sue, on their way to Lost River camp, and were the first
children—save one—who had ever set their feet on the old
trail. Gordon walked slowly, under a heavy pack, well behind them. They
knew they were near their destination. Their father could scarcely keep
them in hailing distance.</p>
<p>Sue had observed that Socky's generosity in the matter of the tin bank had
pleased her father, and so, after much thought, she had determined to make
a venture in benevolence.</p>
<p>"When I see Uncle Silas," said she, "I'm going to give him the twenty-five
cents my Aunt Marie gave me."</p>
<p>"Pooh! he's got loads of money," Socky answered.</p>
<p>They stopped suddenly. Sue dropped her flowers and turned to run. Socky
gave a little jump and recovered his courage. Both retreated a few steps.
There, before them, was the dejected "Emperor of the Woods."</p>
<p>"Says I!" he exclaimed, looking down calmly from his throne.</p>
<p>Socky glanced up at him fearfully.</p>
<p>"Who b-be you?"</p>
<p>"John Socksmith Gordon."</p>
<p>"T-y-ty!" exclaimed the Emperor, an expression, as the historian
believes', of great surprise, standing, perhaps, for the old oath "By
'Mighty." It consisted of the pronunciation of the two letters separately
and then together.</p>
<p>The Emperor turned to the girl. "And y-yourn?" he inquired.</p>
<p>"Susan Bradbury Gordon," she answered, in a half-whisper.</p>
<p>"I tnum!" exclaimed the Emperor, shaking his bootless foot, whereupon the
new-comers retreated a little farther. The singular word "tnum" expressed
an unusual degree of interest on the part of the Emperor. "G-goin' fur?"
he inquired.</p>
<p>"To Lost River, to see my Uncle Silas."</p>
<p>The Emperor gave a loud whistle of surprise, and repeated the exclamation—"I
tnum!"</p>
<p>"My father's coming," said Socky, as he pointed down the trail.</p>
<p>"Whee-o!" whistled the "Emperor of the Woods," who now perceived his
brother-in-law ascending the trail.</p>
<p>"Old man, what are you doing there?" Gordon asked.</p>
<p>"Thinkin' out some th-thoughts," said the Emperor, soberly, as he came
into the trail, limping on his bare foot, and shook hands. There were
greetings, and the hunter briefly apologized for his bare leg and
explained it.</p>
<p>"Well, how are you?" Gordon asked.</p>
<p>"S-supple!" Strong answered, cheerfully.</p>
<p>The children got behind their father, peering from either side of him as
they saw this uncouth figure coming near. Sue pressed the hand of her
brother so tightly as to cause the boy to break her hold upon him.</p>
<p>"R-ride?" said the Emperor, putting his great hand on the head of the boy
and shaking it a little. Socky looked up at him with large, wondering,
timid eyes. Sue hid her face under the coat-tails of her father.</p>
<p>"They'd rather walk; come on," said Gordon.</p>
<p>The men proceeded slowly over the hill and down into the valley of Lost
River. The children followed, some twenty paces behind, whispering
together. They were still in happy ignorance of the identity of the
strange man.</p>
<p>"S-sold out—eh?" said the hunter.</p>
<p>"Sold out! Sorry! They're going to shove a railroad in here and begin
cutting."</p>
<p>A smothered oath broke from the lips of the Emperor. Gordon came near to
him and whispered:</p>
<p>"Sile," said he, "don't swear before the kids. I'm bad enough, but I've
always been careful about that. Going to leave 'em here if you'll let me."</p>
<p>"G-good—" The Emperor stopped short and his voice fell into
thoughtful silence.</p>
<p>As they came in sight of the little clearing and the tent and cabins of
Lost River camp, Sue and Socky ran ahead of the men.</p>
<p>"I'm in trouble," Gordon went on. "My account at the mill is overdrawn.
They've pushed me to the verge of madness. I must have a little help."</p>
<p>The woodsman stopped and put his hand on the shoulder of Gordon.</p>
<p>"Been f-foolish, Dick?" said he, kindly.</p>
<p>"I'm done with that. I want to begin new. I need a little money to throw
to the wolves."</p>
<p>"How m-much?"</p>
<p>"Four hundred dollars would do me."</p>
<p>Strong beckoned to him.</p>
<p>"C-come to my goosepen," said the hunter, as he led the way to an old
basswood some fifty paces from the camp. He removed a piece of bark which
fitted nicely over a hole in the tree-trunk. He put his hand in the hole
which he called a goosepen and took out a roll of bills.</p>
<p>"You save like a squirrel," said Gordon.</p>
<p>"Dunno no other w-way," Strong answered as he began to count the money.
"Three hundred an' s-seventy dollars," he said, presently, and gave it to
his brother-in-law. He felt in the hole again. "B-bank's failed!" he
added.</p>
<p>The kindness of the woodland was in the face of the hunter. He was like an
old hickory drawing its nourishment from the very bosom of the earth and
freely giving its crop. Where he fed there was plenty, and he had no more
thought of his own needs than a tree.</p>
<p>"Thank you' It's enough," said Gordon. "Better keep some of it."</p>
<p>"N-no good here," Strong answered, with his old reliance on the bounty of
nature.</p>
<p>"I'll go out to Pitkin in the morning. I'm going to get a new start in the
world. If you'll take care of the children I'll send you some money every
month. You've been a brother to me, and I'll not forget."</p>
<p>The Emperor sat upon a log and took a pencil and an old memorandum-book
from his pocket and wrote on a leaf this letter to Annette:</p>
<p><i>"Deer frend—I am wel compny com today I dunno when I'll see you.
woods is hot and dry fish plenty Socks on feel splendid hopin for better
times "yours trewly </i></p>
<p>"S. Strong.</p>
<p>"P. S.—Strong's ahed."</p>
<p>In truth, the whole purpose of the letter lay in that laconic postscript,
expressing, as it did, a sense of moral triumph under great difficulties.</p>
<p>The Emperor stripped a piece of bark off a birch-tree, trimmed it with his
knife, and, enfolding it around the letter, bound it in the middle with a
long thorn which he drew out of the lapel of his "jacket." He handed the
missive to Gordon, saying, "F-for Ann Roice."</p>
<p>The children stood peering into an open door when the men came and flung
down their packs.</p>
<p>Sinth had gone to work in the garden, which was near the river-bank. Silas
Strong entered his cabin. The children came to their father, who had
seated himself on a chopping-block. Having forgotten the real Uncle Silas,
they had been looking for that splendid creature of whom they had dreamed.</p>
<p>"Father," Socky whispered, "where is Uncle Silas?"</p>
<p>"That was Uncle Silas," said Gordon.</p>
<p>The eyes of the children were fixed upon his, while their faces began to
change color. The long, dark lashes of little Sue quivered for a second as
if she had received a blow. Socky's glance fell; his trembling hands,
which lay on the knee of Gordon, seemed to clutch at each other; then his
right thumb stood up straight and stiff; his lips parted. One might have
observed a little upward twitch of the muscles under either cheek. It
signalized the first touch of bitter disappointment.</p>
<p>"That man?" he whispered, looking up doubtfully as he pointed in the
direction of the door into which Strong had disappeared.</p>
<p>"That's Uncle Silas," said Gordon, with smiling amusement.</p>
<p>Socky turned and spat upon the ground.</p>
<p>Slowly he walked away, scuffing his feet. Sue followed with a look of
dejection. They went behind the camp and found the big potato-hole and
crawled into it. The bottom was covered with dry leaves. They sat down,
but neither spoke. Socky leaned forward, his chin upon his hands.</p>
<p>"Do you like Uncle Silas?" Sue whispered.</p>
<p>For a moment Socky did not change his attitude or make any reply.</p>
<p>"I wouldn't give him no twenty-five cents," Sue added.</p>
<p>"Don't speak to me," Socky answered, with a quick movement of his knee.</p>
<p>It was a time of sad discovery—that pathetic day when the first
castle of childhood falls upon its builder.</p>
<p>"I'm going home," said Sue.</p>
<p>"You won't be let," Socky answered, his under lip trembling as he thought
of the old lumberyard.</p>
<p>Suddenly he lay over on the leaves, his forehead on his elbow, and wept in
silence. Sue lay beside him, her cheek partly covered by golden curls. She
felt badly, but did not give way. They were both utterly weary and cast
down. Sue lay on her back and drew out her tiny doll much as a man would
light a cigarette in his moment of abstraction. She flirted it in the air
and brought it down upon her breast. The doll had come out of her pocket
just in time to save her. She lay yawning a few moments, then fell asleep,
and soon Socky joined her.</p>
<p>Gordon lay down upon a bed in one of the cabins. He, too, was weary and
soon forgot his troubles. The Emperor, having shifted his garments, went
behind the camp and stood looking down at his sorrowing people. A smile
spread over his countenance. It came and passed like a billow of sunlight
flooding over the hills. He shook his head with amusement.</p>
<p>Soon he turned away and sauntered slowly towards the river-bank. These,
children had been flung, as it were, upon the ruin of his hopes. What
should he do with them and with "Mis' Strong"? Suddenly a reflection of
unusual magnitude broke from his lips.</p>
<p>"They's g-got t' be tall contrivin'," he whispered, with a sigh.</p>
<p>Sinth, who had been sowing onions, heard him coming and rose to her feet.</p>
<p>"G-Gordon!" said he, pointing towards camp. "Anybody with him?" she
asked..</p>
<p>"The childem," said he. "G-goin't' leave 'em."</p>
<p>Sinth turned with a look of alarm.</p>
<p>"C-can't swear, nuther," Strong added.</p>
<p>"He can take 'em back," said Miss Strong, with flashing eyes and a flirt
of her apron.</p>
<p>"R-roughlocks!" the Emperor demanded, in a low tone.</p>
<p>"Who'll tek care of 'em?"</p>
<p>"M-me."</p>
<p>"Heavens!" she exclaimed, her voice full of despair.</p>
<p>"C-come, Mis' Strong." So saying, Silas took the arm of his complaining
sister and led her up the hill.</p>
<p>When he had come to the potato-hole he pointed down at the children. They
had dressed with scrupulous care for the eye of him who, not an hour
since, had been the greatest of all men. The boy lay in his only wide,
white collar and necktie, in his best coat and knee-breeches. The girl had
on her beloved brown dress and pink sun-bonnet. It was a picture to fill
one's eyes, and all the more if one could have seen the hearts of those
little people. A new look came into the face of Sinth.</p>
<p>"Land sakes!" she exclaimed, raising one of her hands and letting it fall
again; "she looks like Sister Thankful—don't she, don't she, Silas?"</p>
<p>Sinth wiped her eyes with her apron. The heart of Silas Strong had also
been deeply touched.</p>
<p>"R-reg'lar angel!" he exclaimed, thoughtfully. After a moment of silence
he added, "K-kind o' like leetle f-fawns."</p>
<p>They turned away, proceeding to the cook-tent. Sinth looked as if she were
making up her mind; Silas as if his were already made up. Sinth began to
rattle the pots and pans.</p>
<p>"Sh-h!" Silas hissed, as he fixed the fire.</p>
<p>"What's the matter?" she demanded.</p>
<p>"W-wake 'em up."</p>
<p>"Hope I will," she retorted, loudly.</p>
<p>Strong strode off in the trail to Catamount Pond, where he was to get
Master.</p>
<p>Zeb, the bear-dog, had been digging at a foxhole over in Birch Hollow.
Growing weary and athirst, by-and-by he relinquished his enterprise,
crossed to the trail, and, discovering the scent of strangers, hurried
home. Soon he found those curious little folks down in the potato-hole. He
had never seen a child before. He smelled them over cautiously. His
opinion was extremely favorable. His tail began to wag, and, unable to
restrain his enthusiasm, he expressed himself in a loud bark.</p>
<p>The children awoke, and Zeb retreated. Socky and Sue rose, the latter
crying, while that little, yellow snip of a bear-dog, with cross-eye and
curving tail, surveyed them anxiously. He backed away as if to coax them
out of the hole. When they had come near he seemed to be wiping one foot
after another upon the ground vigorously. As he did so he growled in a
manner calculated to inspire respect. Then he ran around them in a wide
circle at high speed, growling a playful challenge. Socky, who had some
understanding of dogs, dashed upon Zeb, and soon they were all at play
together.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> IX. </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>N Catamount Pond
young Master had enjoyed a memorable day. He was an expert fisherman, but
the lonely quiet of the scene had been more than fish to him: of it was a
barren ridge, from the top of which a broken column of dead pine, like a
shaft of wrought marble, towered straight and high above the woods. The
curving shore had a fringe of lily-pads, starred here and there with white
tufts. Around thickets of birch, on a point of land, a little cove was the
end of all the deer-trails that came out of Jiminy Swamp. It was the
gateway of the pond for all who journeyed thither to eat and drink. There
were white columns on either side, and opposite the cove's end was a
thicket of tamarack, clear of brush. A deep mat of vivid green moss came
to the water's edge. When one had rounded the point in his canoe, he could
see into those cool, dark alleys of the deer, leading off through slender
tamaracks. A little beyond were the rock bastions of Painter Mountain,
five hundred' feet above the water.</p>
<p>The young man, having grown weary of fishing, leaned back, lighted his
pipe, and drifted. He could hear the chattering of a hedgehog up in the
dry timber, and the scream of a hawk, like the whistle of some craft,
leagues away on the sunlit deep of silence. A wild goose steered straight
across the heavens, far bound, his wings making a noise like the cleaving
of water and the creak of full sails. He saw the man below him and flung a
cry overboard. A great bee, driven out of a lily, threw his warning loop
around the head of the intruder and boomed out of hearing. Those threads
of sound seemed to bind the tongue of the youth, and to connect his soul
with the great silence into which they ran.</p>
<p>Robert Master had crossed that desert of uncertainty which lies between
college and the beginning of a career. At last he had made his plan. He
would try in his own simple way to serve his country. He was a man of "the
new spirit," of pure ideals, of high patriotism. He had set out to try to
make his way in politics.</p>
<p>He had been one of the "big men," dauntless and powerful, who had saved
the day for his <i>alma mater</i> more than once on the track and the
gridiron. Handsome was a word which had been much applied to him. Hard
work in the open air had given him a sturdy figure and added the glow of
health and power to a face of unusual refinement. It was the face of a man
with whom the capacity, for stern trials had come by acquisition and not
by inheritance. He had cheerful brown eyes and a smile of good-nature that
made him beloved. His father was at the big camp, some twenty miles away,
his mother and sister having gone abroad. He and his father were fond of
their forest home; the ladies found it a bore. They loved better the grand
life and the great highways of travel.</p>
<p>Master sat in the centre of his canoe; an elbow rested on his paddle which
lay athwart the gunwales. He drifted awhile. He had chosen his life work
but not his life partner. He pictured to himself the girl he would love,
had he ever the luck to find her. He had thrown off his hat, and his dark
hair shone in the sunlight. Soon he pushed slowly down the pond. In a
moment he stilled his paddle and sat looking into Birch Cove. Two fawns
were playing in the edge of the water, while their dam, with the dignity
of a matron, stood on the shore looking down at them. The fawns gambolled
in the shallows like a colt at play, now and then dashing their muzzles in
the cool water. Their red coats were starred white as if with snow-flakes.
The deer stood a moment looking at Master, stamped her feet, and retired
into one of the dark alleys. In a moment her fawns followed.</p>
<p>Turning, the fisherman beheld what gave him even greater surprise. In the
shadow of the birches, on a side of the cove and scarcely thirty feet from
his canoe, a girl sat looking at him. She wore a blue knit jacket and gray
skirt. There was nothing on her head save its mass of light hair that fell
curling on her shoulders. Her skin was brown as a berry, her features of a
noble and delicate mould. Her eyes, blue and large, made their potent
appeal to the heart of Master. They were like those of his dreams—he
could never forget them. So far it's the old story of love at sight—but
listen. For half a moment they looked into each other's eyes. Then the
girl, as if she were afraid of him, rose and disappeared among the columns
of white birch.</p>
<p>Long he sat there wondering about this strange vision of girlhood, until
he heard the halloo of Silas Strong. Turning his canoe, he pushed for the
landing.</p>
<p>"L-lucky?" Strong asked.</p>
<p>"Twenty fish, and I saw the most beautiful woman in the world."</p>
<p>"Where?"</p>
<p>"Sitting on the shore of Birch Cove. Any camp near?"</p>
<p>The Emperor shook his head thoughtfully as he lighted his pipe. The two
made their way up the trail.</p>
<p>"W-wonder if it's her?" Strong whispered to himself as he walked along.</p>
<p>After supper that evening Silas Strong gathered a heap of wood for a
bonfire—a way he had of celebrating arrivals at Lost River camp.
Soon he was running upon hands and knees in the firelight, with Socky and
Sue on his back.</p>
<p>"Silas Strong!" was the seornful exclamation of Sinth, as she took a seat
by the fire, "P-present!" he answered, as he werit on, the children
laughing merrily. "Be you a man 'or a fool?"</p>
<p>"Both;" he answered, ceasing his harlequinade. Sinth began her knitting,
wearing, a look of injury. "Plumb crazy 'bout them air childern!" she
exclaimed.</p>
<p>The "Emperor of the Woods" sat on a log, breathing heavily, with Sue and
Socky upon his knees.</p>
<p>"B-bears plenty, Mis' Strong," was the gentle reply of Silas.</p>
<p>"Mis' Strong!" said she, as if insulted. "What ye Mis' Strongin' me for?"</p>
<p>When others were present she was wont to fling back upon him this burning
query. Now it seemed to stimulate him to a rather unusual effort.</p>
<p>"S-some folks b-better when ye miss 'em," he suggested, with a smile of
good-nature.</p>
<p>Miss Strong gathered up her knitting and promptly retired, from the scene.
Sue and Socky lay back on the lap of their Uncle Silas looking into the
fire. They now saw in him great possibilities. Socky, in particular, had
begun to regard him as likely to be useful if not highly magnificent.</p>
<p>Sue lay back and began to make a drowsy display of her learning:</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent20">
"Intry, mintry, cutry com,</p>
<p class="indent20">
Apple-seed an' apple-thorn,</p>
<p class="indent20">
Wire, brier, limber lock,</p>
<p class="indent20">
Twelve geese all in a white flock;</p>
<p class="indent20">
Some fly east an' some fly west</p>
<p class="indent20">
An' some fly over the cuckoo's nest."</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>Miss Strong returned shortly and found the children asleep on the knees of
their uncle. In a moment Silas turned his ear and listened.</p>
<p>"Hark!" he whispered.</p>
<p>They could hear some one approaching on the dark trail. A man oddly
picturesque, with a rifle on his shoulder, strode into the firelight. He
wore knee-breeches and a coat of buckskin. He had a rugged face, a sturdy
figure, and was, one would have guessed, some sixty years of age.</p>
<p>A fringe of thin, white hair showed below his cap. He had a white
mustache, through which a forgotten cigar protruded. His black eyes glowed
in the firelight beneath silvered brows. He nodded as they greeted him.
His ruddy face wrinkled thoughtfully as he turned to Gordon.</p>
<p>"It's a long time," said he, offering his hand.</p>
<p>"Some years," Gordon answered, as he took the hand of Dunmore.</p>
<p>"W-welcome!" said Silas Strong.</p>
<p>"Boneka!" Dunmore exclaimed, gruffly, but with a faint smile. For years it
had been his customary word of greeting.</p>
<p>"The Emperor and his court!" he went on, as he looked about him. "Who are
these?" He surveyed the sleeping children.</p>
<p>"The Duke and Duchess of Hillsborough—nephew and niece of the
Emperor," Master answered, giving them titles which clung to Socky and Sue
for a twelvemonth.</p>
<p>"The first children I've ever seen in the woods except my own," said the
white-haired man.</p>
<p>Zeb ran around the chair of the Emperor, growling and leaping playfully at
Socky and Sue.</p>
<p>"The court jester!" said Dunmore, looking down at the dog.</p>
<p>He stood a moment with his back to the blazing logs.</p>
<p>Then he went to the chair of the Emperor, and put his hand under the chin
of little Sue and looked into her face. In half a moment he took her in
his arms and sat down by the fireside. The child was yawning wearily.</p>
<p>"Heigh-ho!" he exclaimed; "let's away to the Isles of Rest."</p>
<p>He rocked back and forth as he held her against his breast and sang this
lullaby:</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
"Jack Tot was as big as a baby's thumb,</p>
<p class="indent15">
And his belly could hold but a drop and a crumb,</p>
<p class="indent20">
And a wee little sailor was he—Heigh-ho!</p>
<p class="indent20">
A very fine sailor was he.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
'He made his boat of a cocoa-nut shell,</p>
<p class="indent15">
He sails her at night and he steers her well</p>
<p class="indent20">
With the wing of a bumble-bee—Heigh-ho!</p>
<p class="indent20">
With the wing of a bumble-bee.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
'She is rigged with the hair of a lady's curl,</p>
<p class="indent15">
And her lantern is made of a gleaming pearl,</p>
<p class="indent20">
And it never goes out in a gale—Heigh-ho!</p>
<p class="indent20">
It never goes out in a gale.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
'Her mast is made of a very long thorn,</p>
<p class="indent15">
She calls her crew with a cricket's horn,</p>
<p class="indent20">
And a spider spun her sail—Heigh-ho!</p>
<p class="indent20">
A spider he spun her sail.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
'She carries a cargo of baby souls,</p>
<p class="indent15">
And she crosses the terrible nightmare shoals</p>
<p class="indent20">
On her way to the Isles of Rest—Heigh-ho!</p>
<p class="indent20">
We're off for the Isles of Rest.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
'And often they smile as the good ship sails—</p>
<p class="indent15">
Then the skipper is telling incredible tales</p>
<p class="indent20">
With many a merry jest—Heigh-ho!</p>
<p class="indent20">
He's fond of a merry jest.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
'When the little folks yawn they are ready to go,</p>
<p class="indent15">
And Jack Tot is lifting his sail—Hee-hoo!</p>
<p class="indent20">
In the swell how the little folks nod—He-hoo!</p>
<p class="indent20">
Just see how the little folks nod.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
'And some have sailed off when the sky was black,</p>
<p class="indent15">
And the poor little sailors have never come back,</p>
<p class="indent20">
But have steered for the City of God—Heigh-ho!</p>
<p class="indent20">
The beautiful City of God!"</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>The white-haired man closed his eyes and his voice sank low, and the last
words fell softly in a solemn silence that lasted for a long moment after
the lullaby was finished. Presently Sinth came to take the sleeping child.</p>
<p>"These little folks will take our peace away from us," said he, in a
warning tone.</p>
<p>"Why?"</p>
<p>"The call of the sown land is in their voices," said he. "They give me sad
thoughts."</p>
<p>Sinth smiled and introduced the young man to Dunmore.</p>
<p>"Boneka!" said the latter as they shook hands.</p>
<p>The curiosity of Master was aroused by the strange greeting. He smiled,
and answered, modestly, "I don't understand you."</p>
<p>The stranger sat silent, gazing into the fire, until Silas, who was
evidently in the secret, said to his guest, "Tell 'em."</p>
<p>"There was once a very wise and honored chief," began Dunmore, after a
pause, and looking into the eyes of the young man. "Long before the lumber
hunter had begun to shear the hills, he dwelt among them, with his good
people. He was a great law-giver, and his law was all in two words—'<i>Be
kind.</i>' Kindness begat kindness, and peace reigned, to be broken only
by some far-come invader. But as time went on quarrels arose and the law
was forgotten. Thereupon the chief invited a great council and organized
the Society of the Magic Word. Every member promised that whenever the
greeting 'Boneka' were given him, he would smile and bow and answer,
'Ranokoli.' The greeting meant 'Peace,' and the answer, 'I forgive.'</p>
<p>"Then, one by one, the law-giver called his councillors before him, and to
each he said: 'The Great Spirit is in this greeting. I defy you to hear it
and keep a sober face.'</p>
<p>"Then he said 'Boneka,' and the man would try to resist the influence of
the spirit, but soon smiled in spite of himself, amid the laughter of the
tribe, and said 'Ranokoli.' Thereafter, when a quarrel arose between two
people, an outsider, approaching, would greet them with the magic word,
and immediately they would bow and smile, and answer, 'I forgive.' But,
nevertheless, if one had wronged another he was justly punished by the
chief. So it was that a great ruler made an end of quarrels among his
people."</p>
<p>"A grand idea!" said young Master. "Let's all join that society."</p>
<p>"Those in favor of the suggestion will please say ay." It was Dunmore who
put the question, and, after a vote in its favor, dictated the pledge, as
follows:</p>
<p><i>"For value received from my Loving Father, I promise to give to any of
His children, on demand, a smile and full forgiveness."</i></p>
<p>All signed it, and so half in play the old Society of the Magic Word was
revived at Lost River camp.</p>
<p>The white-haired man rose and walked to the trail and turned suddenly.</p>
<p>"Strong," said he, "I'm leaving the woods for a week. If they need your
help at home they'll send word to you."</p>
<p>With that he disappeared in the dark trail.</p>
<p>The three other men still sat by the camp-fire.</p>
<p>"Who is Dunmore?" Master inquired, turning to Gordon.</p>
<p>The latter lighted his pipe and began the story.</p>
<p>"An odd man who's spent the most of his life in the woods," said Gordon.
"Came in here for his health long ago from I don't know where; grew
strong, and has always stuck to the woods. Had to work, like the rest of
us, when I knew him. Thirty years ago he began work in this part of the
country as a boom rat—so they tell me. It was on a big drive way
down the Oswegatchie.</p>
<p>"Before we bought the Bear Mountain and Lost River tracts we were looking
for a good cruiser—some one to go through here and estimate the
timber for us. Well, Dunmore was recommended for the job, and we hired
him. He and I travelled over some thirty thousand acres, camping wherever
night overtook us. It did not take me long to discover that he was a
gifted man. Many an evening, as we sat by our lonely fire in the woods, I
have wept and laughed over his poems."</p>
<p>"Poems!" Master exclaimed.</p>
<p>"That's the only word for it," Gordon went on. "The man is a woods lover
and a poet. One night he told me part of his life story. Sile, you
remember when the old iron company shut down their works at Tifton. Well,
everybody left the place except Tom Muir, the postmaster. He was a
widower, and lived with one child—a girl about nineteen years old
when the forest village died. Dunmore married that girl. He told me how
beautiful she was and how he loved her. Well, they didn't get along
together. He was fond of the woods and she was not.</p>
<p>"For five years they lived together in the edge of the wilderness. Then
she left him. Well—poor woman!—it was a lonely life, and some
tourist fell in love with her, they tell me. I don't know about that.
Anyhow, Dunmore was terribly embittered. A little daughter had been born
to them. She was then three years of age."</p>
<p>"She's the angel y-you met to-day over by the p-pond," Strong put in,
looking at Master.</p>
<p>Gordon lighted his pipe and went on with his story.</p>
<p>"Dunmore said that a relative had left him a little money. I remember we
were camping that night on the shore of Buckhorn. Its beauty appealed to
him. He said he'd like to buy that section and build him a camp on the
pond and spend the rest of his life there.</p>
<p>"'But,' said I, 'you couldn't bring up your daughter in the woods.'
Buckhorn was then thirty miles from anywhere.</p>
<p>"'That's just what I wish to do,' he answered. 'The world is so full of d———d
spaniels'—I remember that was the phrase he used—and there's
so much infamy among men, I'd rather keep her out of it. I want her to be
as pure at twenty as she is now. I can teach her all I wish her to know.'</p>
<p>"Well, I sold him the Buckhorn tract. He built his camp, and moved there
with the little girl and his mother—a woman of poor health and well
past middle age. He brought an old colored man and his wife to be their
servants, and there they are to-day—Dunmore and his mother and the
girl and the two servants, now grown rather aged, they tell me."</p>
<p>"They have never left the woods?" said Master, as if it were too
incredible.</p>
<p>"Dunmore goes to New York, but not oftener than once a year," Gordon went
on. "He has property—a good deal of property, I suppose, and has to
give it some attention. The others have never left the woods."</p>
<p>"Sends home b-big boxes, an' I t-tote 'em in," Silas explained.</p>
<p>"Do you mean to tell me that Dunmore's daughter has never seen the
clearing since she was a baby?"</p>
<p>Strong's interest was thoroughly aroused. He took off his coat and laid it
down carefully, as if he were about to go in swimming. He was wont to do
this when his thoughts demanded free and full expression.</p>
<p>"B-been t' Tillbury post-office w-with the ol' man—n-no further,"
Strong explained. "Dunmore says she 'ain't never s-seen a child 'cept one.
That was a b-baby. Some man an' his w-wife come through here w-with it
from the n-north th-three year ago."</p>
<p>"Fact is, I think he feared for a long time that his wife would try to get
possession of the child," said Gordon. "Late years, I understand, the girl
has had to take care of the old lady. In a letter to me once Dunmore
referred to his daughter as the 'little nun of the green veil,' and spoke
of her devotion to her grandmother."</p>
<p>Gordon rose and went to his bed in one of the cabins. Strong and the young
man kept their seats at the camp-fire, talking of Dunmore and his daughter
and their life in the woods. The Emperor, who felt for this lonely child
of the forest, talked from a sense of duty.</p>
<p>"S-sail in," he presently said. "S-sail in an' t-tame her."</p>
<p>"I don't know how to begin."</p>
<p>"She'll be there t-to-morrer sure," Strong declared.</p>
<p>"So shall I," said the young man.</p>
<p>"C-cal'late she's w-wownded, too," Strong suggested. "B-be careful. She's
like a w-wild deer."</p>
<p>They were leaving the fire on their way to bed. The young man stopped and
repeated the words incredulously—"Like a wild deer!"</p>
<p>"T-take the ch-childem with ye," Strong advised. "She'll w-want t' look
'em over."</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> X </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>OCKY woke early
next morning, and lay looking up at the antlers, guns, and rifles which
adorned the wall. On a table near him were some of the treasures of that
sylvan household—a little book entitled <i>Melinda</i>, a dingy
Testament, a plush-covered photograph-album, and a stuffed bird on a wire
bough.</p>
<p>Sinth and the album were inseparable. She sometimes left the dingy
Testament or the little book entitled <i>Melinda</i> at her Pitkin home,
but not the plush-covered album. That was the one link which connected
her, not only with the past, but with a degree of respectability, and even
with a vague hope of paradise. What a pantheon of family deities! What a
museum of hair and whiskers! What a study of the effect of terror,
headache, rheumatism, weariness, Sunday apparel, tight boots, and reckless
photography upon the human countenance!</p>
<p>Therein was the face of Sinth, indescribably gnarled by the lens; a
daguerreotype of her grandmother adorned with lace and tokens of a more
cheerful time in the family history; faces and forms which for Sinth
recalled her play-days, and were gone as hopelessly.</p>
<p>Just after supper the night before, Socky had seen his uncle apply grease
to a number of boots and guns. The boy had been permitted to put his hands
in the thick oil of the bear, and, while its odor irked him a little, it
had, as it were, reduced the friction on his bearings. Since then the gear
of his imagination had seemed to work easier, and had carried him far
towards the goal of manhood.</p>
<p>Immediately after waking he found the bottle of bear's-oil and poured some
on his own boots and rubbed it in. He was now delighted with the look of
them. It was wonderful stuff, that bear's-oil. It made everything look
shiny and cheerful, and gave one a grateful sense of high accomplishment.</p>
<p>Soon he had greased the bird and the bush, and the oil had dripped on the
album and the dingy Testament and the little book entitled <i>Melinda</i>.
Then he greased the feet and legs of Zeb, who lay asleep in a corner, and
who promptly awoke and ran across the floor and leaped through an open
window, and hid himself under a boat, as if for proper consideration of
ways and means. In a few moments Socky had greased the shoes of his
sister, and a ramrod which lay on the window-sill, and taken the latter
into bed with him.</p>
<p>Soon he began to miss the good Aunt Marie, for, generally, when he first
awoke he had gone and got into bed with her. He held to the ramrod and
sustained himself with manly reflections, whispering as they came to mind:
"I'm going to be a man. I ain't no cry-baby. I'm going to kill bears and
send the money to my father, an' my Uncle Silas will give me a
rocking-horse an' a silver dofunny—he said he would."</p>
<p>He ceased to whisper. An imaginary bear had approached the foot of the bed
just in time to save him, for the last of his reflections had been
interrupted by little sobs. He struck bravely with the ramrod and felled
the bear, and got out of bed and skinned him and hung his hide over the
back of a chair. He found some potatoes in a sack beside the fireplace,
and put down a row for the bear's body and some more for the feet and
legs. Then he greased the bear's feet and got into bed again, for Sue had
awoke and begun to cry.</p>
<p>"What's the matter?" he inquired.</p>
<p>"I want my Aunt Marie," the girl sobbed.</p>
<p>"Stop, Uncle Silas 'll hear you," said Socky.</p>
<p>"I don't care."</p>
<p>"I'd be 'shamed," the boy answered, his own voice trembling with
suppressed emotion.</p>
<p>Since a talk he had had with his father the day before, he felt a large
and expanding sense of responsibility for his sister. Just now an-idea
occurred to him—why shouldn't he, in his own person, supply the
deficiencies of the great man they had come to see?</p>
<p>"I'll be your Uncle Silas," he remarked. "I'm a man now, an' I've killed a
bear."</p>
<p>"Where is he?"</p>
<p>"Dead on the floor there."</p>
<p>She covered her face with the blankets.</p>
<p>"I'm going to have a pair o' moccasins an' a rifle, an' I'll carry you on
my b-back." He had stammered on the last word after the manner of his
uncle.</p>
<p>Just then they heard a singular creaking outside the door, and before
either had time to speak it was flung open. They were both sitting up in
bed as their Uncle Silas entered.</p>
<p>"I tnum!" said he, cheerfully.</p>
<p>Suddenly he saw the bird and the books and the table-top and the potatoes
and the ramrod and the hands of Socky. He whistled ruefully; his smile
faded.</p>
<p>"W-well greased!" he said, looking down at the books and the bird.</p>
<p>He found a gun-rag and wiped up the oil as best he could.</p>
<p>"She'll r-raise—" The remark ended in a cough as he wiped the books.
Then he covered them with an empty meal-bag.</p>
<p>The children began to dress while Strong went half-way up the ladder and
called to Gordon, still asleep in the loft above. Then he sat on the bed
and helped the boy and girl get their clothes buttoned..</p>
<p>"My little f-fawns!" he muttered, with a laugh.</p>
<p>He had sat up until one o'clock at work in his little shop by the light of
a lantern. He had sawed some disks from a round beech log and bored holes
in them. He had also made axles and a reach and tongue, and put them
together. Then he had placed a cross-bar and a pivot on the front axle and
fastened a starch-box over all. The result was a wagon, which he had
arisen early to finish, and with which he had come to wake "the little
fawns." Now, when they were dressed, he sat them side by side in the
wagon-box and clattered off down the trail.</p>
<p>At first the children sat silent, oppressed as they were by the odor of
bear's-oil, not yet entirely removed from their hands and faces. As the
wagon proceeded they began to laugh and call the dog. Zeb peered from
under the friendly cover of the boat, and gave a yearning bark which
seemed to express regret, not wholly unmingled with accusation, that on
account of other engagements he would be unable to accept their kind
invitation. At the boat-house were soap and towel and glad deliverance
from the flavor of the bear. On their return "Mis' Strong" met them at the
door of the cook-tent. She raised both hands above her head.</p>
<p>"My album!" she gasped.</p>
<p>"T-y-ty!" the Emperor whispered.</p>
<p>"An' the book my mother gave me!" she exclaimed, her tone rising from
despair to anger. "They're ruined—Silas Strong!"</p>
<p>"N-nonsense," said her brother, calmly.</p>
<p>"Nonsense!" she exclaimed, tauntingly. "Silas Strong, do you know what has
been done to 'em?"</p>
<p>"G-greased," he answered, mildly. "D-do 'em good."</p>
<p>She ran into the cook-tent and returned with the sacred album. There was
an odd menace in her figure as she displayed the book. She spread it open.</p>
<p>"Look at my grandfather!" she demanded.</p>
<p>The bear's-oil had added emphasis to a subtle, inherent suggestion of
smothered profanity in the image of her ancestor. It had, as it were,
given clearness to an expression of great physical discomfort.</p>
<p>"L-limber him up," said the Emperor, quite soberly.</p>
<p>Master and Gordon were now approaching. The former took off his hat and
bowed to the indignant Sinth and blandly remarked, "Boneka, madam."</p>
<p>The men had begun to laugh. Sinth changed color. She looked down. A smile
began to light her thin face. She turned away, repeated the magic word in
a low voice, and added, "I forgive." She walked hurriedly through the
cook-tent to her own quarters, and sat down and wept as if, in truth, the
oil had entered her soul. It was, in a way, pathetic—her devotion to
the tawdry plush and this poor shadow of her ancestor—and the
historian has a respect for it more profound, possibly, than his words may
indicate. She would have given her album for her friend, and it may be
questioned if any man hath greater love than this.</p>
<p>When she entered the dinner-tent and sat down to stir batter for the
excellent "flapjacks" of Lost River camp, the children came and kissed her
and stood looking up into her face. Socky had begun to comprehend his
relation to the trouble. Shame, guilt, and uncertainty were in his
countenance. Urgent queries touching the use and taste and constitution of
batter and its feeling on the index-finger of one's hand were pressing
upon him, but he saw that, in common decency, they must be deferred.</p>
<p>"Aunt Sinthy," said the little Duke of Hillsborough.</p>
<p>"What?" she answered.</p>
<p>"I won't never grease your album again."</p>
<p>The woman laughed, placed the pan on the table, and put her arms around
the child. Then she answered, in a tone of good-nature, "If it had been
anything else in this world, I wouldn't have minded."</p>
<p>Just then Zeb slowly entered the cook-tent. He had got rid of some of the
oil, but had acquired a cough. The hair on every leg was damp and matted.
He seemed to doubt his fitness for social enjoyment. In a tentative manner
he surveyed the breakfast-party, as if to study his effect upon the human
species. The Emperor patted him and felt of his legs.</p>
<p>"What's the matter o' him?" Sinth inquired.</p>
<p>"G-greased!" said the Emperor, with a loud laugh, in which the campers
joined, whereat the dog fled from the cook-tent.</p>
<p>"S-slippery mornin'!" Strong exclaimed, while he stood looking through the
doorway.</p>
<p>"Hard t' keep yer feet," said Sinth, who had caught the contagion of good
feeling which had begun to prevail. It was, indeed, a remark not without
some spiritual significance.</p>
<p>So it befell: the spirit of that old chief whose body had long been given
to the wooded hills came into Lost River camp.</p>
<p>Gordon hurried away after breakfast. While the children stood looking down
the trail and waving their hands and weeping, Silas Strong ran past them
two or three times with the noisy little wagon. Its consoling clatter
silenced them. There had been a deep purpose in the heart of the Emperor
while he spent half the night in his workshop. Gordon had laughingly
explained the cause of their disappointment on arriving at Lost River
camp. Strong was trying to recover their esteem.</p>
<p>"C-come on!" he shouted.</p>
<p>Soon Socky and Sue sat in the little wagon on their way to Catamount Pond
with their Uncle Silas and the young fisherman.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XI. </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE sky was clear,
and the rays of the sun fell hot upon the dry woods that morning when
Master and the children and their Uncle Silas reached the landing at
Catamount. Its eastern shore lay deep under cool shadows. The water plane
was like taut canvas on which a glowing picture of wooded shore and sky
and mountain had been painted. Golden robins darted across a cove and sang
in the tree-tops.</p>
<p>Master righted his canoe and put the children aboard and took his place in
the stern-seat.</p>
<p>"I'll slip over to R-Robin," said the Emperor as he shoved the canoe into
deep water. With him to "slip" meant to go, and in his speech he always
"slipped" from one point to another.</p>
<p>Master pushed through the pads and slowly cut the still shadow. The
inverted towers of Painter Mountain began to quake beneath his canoe. Sue
sat in the bow and Socky behind her. The curly hair of the girl, which
had, indeed, the silken yellow of a corn-tassel, showed beneath her little
pink bonnet. Something about her suggested the rose half open. Socky wore
his rabato and necktie and best suit of clothes. They were both in purple
and fine linen, so to speak—-no one had thought to tell them better.</p>
<p>As they came near the point of Birch Cove, Master began to turn the bow
and check his headway. There, on a moss-covered rock, stood the maiden
whom he had seen the day before. A crow with a small scarlet ribbon about
his neck clung upon her shoulder. The girl was looking at the two
children. The bird rose on his wings and, after a moment of hesitation,
flew towards them, the ends of the scarlet ribbon fluttering in the air.
Socky drew back as the crow lighted on a gunwale near his side. Sue clung
to the painter and sat looking backward with curiosity and fear in her
face. The crow turned his head, surveying them as if he were, indeed,
quite overcome with amazement.</p>
<p>"Sit still," said Master, quietly. "He won't hurt you."</p>
<p>The bird rose in the air again, and, darting downward, seized a shiny
buckle above the visor of the boy's cap, which lay on the canoe bottom,
and bore cap and all to his young mistress. Socky began to cry with alarm.</p>
<p>Master reassured him and paddled slowly towards the moss-covered rock.
Silently his bow touched the shore. He stuck his paddle in the sand. He
stepped into the shallow water and helped the children ashore. In the edge
of the tamaracks and now partly hidden by their foliage, Miss Dunmore
stood looking at the children. Her figure was tall, erect, and oddly
picturesque. Somehow she reminded Master of a deer halted in its flight by
curiosity. Her face, charming in form and expression, betrayed a childish
timidity and innocence. Her large, blue eyes were full of wonder. Pretty
symbols of girlish vanity adorned her figure. There were fresh violets on
her bodice, and a delicate, lacy length of the moss-vine woven among her
curls. The girl's hair, wonderfully full and rich in color, had streaks of
gold in it. A beaded belt and holster of Indian make held a small pistol.</p>
<p>"Miss Dunmore, I believe?" he ventured.</p>
<p>The girl retired a step or two and stood looking timidly, first at him and
then at the children. Her manner betrayed excitement. She addressed him
with hesitation. "My—my name is Edith Dunmore," she said, in a tone
just above a whisper. With trembling hands she picked a spray of tamarack
that for a moment obscured her face.</p>
<p>"You are the nun of the green veil. I have heard of you," said Master.</p>
<p>"I—I must not speak to you, sir," she said, as she retreated a
little farther.</p>
<p>"My name is Master—Robert Master," said he. "I shall stay only a
minute, but these children would like to know you." While speaking he had
returned to his canoe. Socky and Sue stood still, looking up at the
maiden.</p>
<p>"Children!" she exclaimed, in a low, sweet, tremulous, tone, as she took a
step towards them. "The wonderful little children?"</p>
<p>"Sometimes I think they are brownies," he answered, with a smile of
amusement. "But their uncle calls them little fawns."</p>
<p>Her right hand, which held the spray of tamarack, fell to her side; her
left hand clung to a branch on which the crow sat a little above her
shoulder, and her cheek lay upon her arm as she looked down wistfully,
fondly, at the children. Her blue eyes were full of curiosity.</p>
<p>Socky and Sue regarded the beautiful maiden with a longing akin to that in
her. In all there was a deep, mysterious desire which had grown out of
nature's need—in them for a mother, in her for the endearing touch
of those newly come into the world and for their high companionship.
Moreover, these two little ones, who had now a dim and imperfect
recollection of their mother, had shaped an ideal—partly through the
help of Gordon—to take its place. Therein they saw a lady, young and
beautiful and more like this one who stood before them than like any they
had yet beheld. Sue grasped the hand of her brother, and both stood gazing
at the maiden, but neither spoke nor moved for a moment. Edith Dun-more
leaned forward a little, looking into their faces.</p>
<p>"Can you not speak to me?" she asked.</p>
<p>Socky began to be embarrassed; his eyes fell; he shook his head
doubtfully.</p>
<p>Edith Dunmore looked up at the stalwart figure of the young man. Their
eyes met. She quickly turned away. The tame crow, on the bough above,
began to laugh and chatter as if he thought it all an excellent joke.</p>
<p>"May—I—take them in my arms?" she asked, with hesitation.</p>
<p>"Yes; but I warn you—they have a way of stealing one's heart."</p>
<p>"Ah-h-h-h-h!" croaked the little crow, in a warning cry, as if he had seen
at once the peril of it.</p>
<p>She had begun to move slowly, almost timidly, towards the children. She
knelt before them and took the little hand of Sue in hers and looked upon
it with wonder. She touched it with her lips; she pressed it against her
cheek; she trembled beneath its power. The touch of the child's hand was,
for her, it would almost seem, like that of One on the eyes of Bartimeus.
Suddenly, as by a miracle, Edith Dunmore rose out of childhood. The veil
of the nun was rent away. She was a woman fast coming into riches of
unsuspected inheritance. She put her arms about the two and gently drew
them towards her and held them close. Her embrace and the touch of her
breast upon theirs were grateful to them, and they kissed her. Her eyes
were wet, her sweet voice full of familiar but uncomprehended longing when
she said, "Dear little children!"</p>
<p>"Tut, <i>tut!</i>" said the tame crow, who had crept to the end of his
branch, where he stood looking down at them. In a moment he began to break
the green twigs and let them fall on the head of his mistress.</p>
<p>Sue felt the hair and looked into the face and eyes of the maiden with
wondering curiosity. Socky ran his fingers over the beaded belt. Both had
a suspicion which they dared not express that here was an angel in some
way related to their mother.</p>
<p>"You are a beautiful lady," said the boy, with childish frankness.</p>
<p>Master has often tried to describe the scene. He confesses that words,
even though vivid and well spoken, cannot make one to understand the
something which lay beneath all said and done, and which went to his heart
so that for a time he turned and walked away from them.</p>
<p>"Do you remember when you were fairies?" the girl asked of the children.</p>
<p>The latter shook their heads.</p>
<p>"Tell us about the fairies," Sue proposed, timidly.</p>
<p>"They are old, old people—so my father has told me," said the
beautiful lady. "They came into this world thousands of years ago riding
in a great cloud that was drawn by wild geese. The fairies came down, each
on a big flake of snow, and got off in the tree-tops and never went away.
At first they were the teentiest folks—so little that a hundred of
them could stand on a maple leaf—and very, very old. My father says
they were never young in their lives, and I guess they have always lived.
They rode around on the backs of the birds and saw everything in the world
and had such a good time they all began to grow young. Now, as they grew
young they grew bigger and bigger, and every spring a lot more of the
little old people came out of the sky and began to grow young like the
others. And by-and-by some of them were as big as your thumb and bigger."</p>
<p>"How big do they grow?" the boy asked.</p>
<p>"As they grow young they keep growing bigger. By-and-by the birds cannot
carry them. Then they have to walk, and for the first time in their lives
they begin to get hungry and learn to cry and nobody knows what is the
matter with them. The fairies complain about the noise they make, and one
night a little old woman takes them down into the woods to get them out of
the way. And violets grow wherever their feet touch the ground, and they
sit in a huckleberry bush and make a noise like the cry of a spotted fawn.
The fawns hear them and know very well what they are crying for. The fawns
have always loved them. When the fairies come down out of the tree-tops
they always ride on the fawns, and where they have sat you can see a
little white spot about as big as a flake of snow. That's why the fawns
are spotted, and you know how shy they are—they mustn't let anybody
see the fairies. Well, the young ones sit there in a huckleberry bush
crying. The little animals come and lick their faces and tell them of a
wonderful spring where milk flows out of a little hill and has a magic
power in it, for even if one were crying and tasted the milk he always
became happy. The young fairies climb on the backs of the fawns and ride
away. By-and-by the fawns come to their mothers and their mothers tell
them that no one who has teeth in his head can drink at the spring. So
they wonder what to do. By-and-by they go to the woodpecker, for he has a
pair of forceps and can pull anything, and the woodpecker pulls their
teeth. Then the young fairies do nothing but ride around—each on a
spotted fawn—and drink at the wonderful spring and grow fat and
lazy, and the birds pull every hair out of their heads to build nests
with. They live down in the woods, for they cannot climb the trees any
more, and one day they fall asleep for the first time and tumble off the
fawns and lie on the ground dreaming.</p>
<p>"They dream of the fairy-heaven where they shall grow old again and each
shall have a mother and his own wonderful spring of milk. Now that day
trees begin to grow in the ground beneath them. The trees grow fast, and
all in a night they lift the sleeping fairies far above the ground. The
wind rocks them and they lie dreaming in the tree-tops until a crane, as
he is crossing over the sky, looks down and sees them and goes and takes
them away. You know the cranes have to go through the sky every day and
pick up the young fairies."</p>
<p>She paused and sat holding the hands of little Sue and looking at them as
if their beauty were a great wonder.</p>
<p>"Where do they take them?"</p>
<p>Master was returning, and the girl rose like one afraid and whispered to
the children, "I will tell you if—if you will come again."</p>
<p>"I shall ask your father if I may come and see you," said Master as he
came near.</p>
<p>"Ha! ha! ha!" the bird croaked, fluttering in the air and lighting on the
shoulder of his mistress.</p>
<p>The children stepped aside quickly, as if in fear of it.</p>
<p>She took the crow on her finger and held him at arm's-length. He turned
and tried to catch an end of the scarlet ribbon. She was a picture then to
remind one of the days of falconry. She ran a few paces up a green aisle
in the thicket. She stopped where the young man was unable to see her.</p>
<p>"Could—could you bring the children again, sir?" she asked.</p>
<p>"On Thursday, at the same hour," he answered.</p>
<p>He heard again the warning of the little crow and her footsteps growing
fainter in the dark trail of the deer.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XII. </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>ASTER paddled
slowly to the landing where he had left Strong, and gathered lilies while
they waited. He pushed up to the shore as soon as the Emperor had arrived.
"Sp'ilt," said the latter, pointing in the direction of Robin Lake.</p>
<p>"You mean that we cannot use the camp over there?"</p>
<p>"Ay-ah," Strong almost whispered, with a face in which perspiration was
mingled with regret and geniality.</p>
<p>"S-see 'er?"</p>
<p>"Yes," Master answered. "The children were a great help. She fell in love
with them. We are to meet her again Thursday."</p>
<p>"Uh-huh!" Strong exclaimed, in a tone which seemed to say, "I told you
so."</p>
<p>"S-sociable?" he inquired, after a little pause.</p>
<p>"No, but interested."</p>
<p>"Uh-huh, says I!" the Emperor exclaimed again, with playful conceit. When
he was in the mood of self-congratulation he had an odd way of bringing
out those two words—"says I."</p>
<p>"She was afraid of me. I backed away and said very little," Master
explained.</p>
<p>"Th-they'll t-tame her," the Emperor assured him.</p>
<p>"She has a wonderful crow with her," said the young man.</p>
<p>"Her g-guide," Strong explained. "Alwus knows the n-nighest way home."</p>
<p>"If you'll help me, I'll make my camp here," said Master.</p>
<p>"Ay-ah," the Emperor answered.</p>
<p>His manner and his odd remark were full of approval and almost
affectionate admiration. In half a moment his tongue lazily added, "L-lean
her 'gin th-that air rock." In his conversation he conferred the feminine
gender upon all inanimate things—a kind of compliment to the sex he
revered so highly.</p>
<p>"How long will it take?"</p>
<p>"Day," said Strong, surveying the ground.</p>
<p>"I have to speak in Hillsborough on the Fourth. Suppose we tackle it on my
return?"</p>
<p>Strong agreed, and while he and the children set out for camp Master
remained to fish.</p>
<p>Two "sports" had arrived in the absence of the Emperor and were shooting
at a mark—a pastime so utterly foolish in the view of Silas Strong
that he would rarely permit any one at Lost River camp to indulge in it.
He who discharged his rifle without sufficient provocation was roughly
classed with that breed of hounds which had learned no better than to bark
at a squirrel.</p>
<p>"Paunchers!" he muttered, as he came up the trail.</p>
<p>It should be explained here that he divided all "would-be sportsmen" into
three classes—namely, swishers, pouters, and paunchers. A swisher
was one who filled the air within reach of his cast, catching trees and
bushes, but no fish; a pouter, one who baited and hauled his fish as if it
were no better than a bull-pout; a pauncher was wont to hit his deer "in
the middle" and never saw him again.</p>
<p>The Emperor stopped suddenly. He had seen a twig fall near him and heard
the whiz of a bullet.</p>
<p>"Whoa!" he called, his voice ringing in the timber. "H-hold on!"</p>
<p>The Migleys—father and son—of Migleyville, hastened to greet
the "Emperor of the Woods."</p>
<p>They were the heralds of the great king of which Strong had complained
that night he laid his heart bare and whose name was Business—a king
who ruled not with the sword, but with flattery and temptation and artful
devices. The Emperor knew that they were the men who had bought his
stronghold; that they were come to shove the frontier of their king far
beyond the Lost River country; that axes and saws and dams and flooded
flats and whirling wheels and naked hill-sides would soon follow them.</p>
<p>"How are you, Mr. Strong?" said the elder Migley, who, by his son, was
familiarly called "Pop." He overflowed with geniality. "Glad to see you.
Hot an' dry out in the clearing. Little track-worn. Thought we'd come in
here for a breath o' fresh air an' a week or two o' sport. Have a drink?"</p>
<p>He winked one eye in a significant manner, which seemed to say that he had
plenty and was out for a good time.</p>
<p>"N-no th-thanks," said Strong, as he surveyed the stout figure of the
elder Migley.</p>
<p>Here was one of the royal family of Business, in dress neatly symbolic,
for Mr. Migley wore a light suit of clothes divided into checks of
considerable magnitude by stripes that ran, as it were, north, south,
east, and west. The broad convexity of his front resembled, in some
degree, an atlas globe. One might have located any part of his system by
degrees of latitude and longitude. His equator was represented by a large
golden chain which curved in a great arc from one pocket of his waistcoat
to the other. As he walked one might have imagined that he was moving in
his orbit. His large, full face was adorned with a chin-whisker and a
selfish and prosperous-looking nose. It had got possession of nearly all
the color in his countenance, and occupied more than its share of space.
The son, "Tom," had older manners and a more severe face. He carried with
him a look of world-weariness and a sense of all-embracing knowledge so
frequently derived from youthful experience. He was the-only-son type of
domestic tyrant—overfed, selfish, brutal, wearied by adulation,
crowned with curly hair.</p>
<p>"Look at that boy," the elder Migley whispered, pointing at the fat young
man of twenty-three who sat on a door-sill cleaning his rifle. "Ain't he a
picture? Got a fast mark in Hash-ford Seminary." Mr. Migley owned a number
of trotting-horses, and his conversation was always flavored with the cant
of the stable.</p>
<p>Strong looked sadly at the fat young man, who was, indeed, the very
personification of pulp, and thought of the doom of the woods.</p>
<p>The elder Migley, as if able to read the mind of Strong, offered him the
consolation of a cigar. Then he reached to the pegs above him and lowered
a quaking whip of greenheart which he had put together soon after his
arrival.</p>
<p>"Heft it," he whispered, pressing his rod upon the Emperor. "Ain't that a
dandy?"</p>
<p>He looked into the eyes of the woodsman. He winked a kind of challenge,
and added, "Seems to me that ought to fetch 'em."</p>
<p>"Mebbe," Strong answered, gently swaying the rod. He was never too free in
committing himself.</p>
<p>"Got it for Tommy," said the new sportsman. "Ketched a four-pounder with
it—ask him if I didn't." Mr. Migley had the habit of
self-corroboration, and Strong used to say that he never believed that
kind of a liar.</p>
<p>"Le's go an' try 'em," Migley suggested.</p>
<p>The Emperor smoked thoughtfully a moment.</p>
<p>"D-down river, bym-by," he said, pointing at the cook-tent as if he had
now to prepare the dinner.</p>
<p>Strong had seen the Migleys before, although he had never entertained
them. They had paunched and pouted in territory not far remote from Lost
River, and won a reputation which had travelled among the guides. They
worked hard, and hurried out of the woods with all the fish and meat they
could carry, and no respect for any law save one—the law of
gravitation. They sat down or lay upon their backs every half-hour. Now,
it seemed, they were to abandon the vulgar art of the pouter for one more
gentle and becoming.</p>
<p>Strong hastened to the cook-tent, where he found Sinth treating the
children to sugared cakes and words of motherly fondness.</p>
<p>"Teenty little dears!" she was saying when Silas entered the door.</p>
<p>She rose quickly, and hurried to the stove with a kind of shame on her
countenance. Silas kept a sober face while he went for the water-pail, as
if he had not "took notice." His joy broke free and expressed itself in
loud laughter on his way to the spring.</p>
<p>"Snook!" Sinth exclaimed, her face red with embarrassment as she heard
him. She poked the fire with great energy, and added: "Let the fool laugh.
I don't care if he did hear me."</p>
<p>A new impulse from the heart of nature entered the Migley breast. Father
and son were seeking an opportunity to use their muscles. The son seized a
girder above his head and began to chin it; the father went to work with
an axe, and his enthusiasm fell in heavy blows upon a beech log.</p>
<p>Strong peered through the window at him and muttered the one contemptuous
word, "W-woodpecker!"</p>
<p>A poor chopper in that part of the country was always classed with the
woodpeckers.</p>
<p>Dinner over, the elder Migley opened his tin fishing-box and displayed an
assortment of cheap flies and leaders.</p>
<p>"Well, captain," said the young man, as he turned to Strong, "if you'll
show us where the trout live, we'll show you who they belong to." He
passed judgment and bestowed rank upon a great many people, and most of
his brevets, if he had been frank with them, would have put his life in
peril.</p>
<p>"Pop" Migley touched a rib of the Emperor with his big, coercive thumb,
shut one eye, and produced a kind of snore in his larynx.</p>
<p>The wit of his son had increased the cheerfulness of Mr. Migley. He began
telling coarse tales, and continued until, as the Emperor would say, he
had "emptied his reel." The man who talked too much always had a "big
reel," in the thought of the Emperor, and "slack line" was the phrase he
applied to empty words.</p>
<p>With everything ready for sport, they proceeded to the landing on Lost
River and were soon seated in a long canoe.</p>
<p>"We'll t-try Dunmore's trout," said Strong as they left the shore.</p>
<p>"Dunmore's trout?" said the elder Migley.</p>
<p>"Ay-uh," the Emperor answered. "He hitched onto an' l-lost him."</p>
<p>"Oh, it's that fish I've heard about that grabbed off one of Dunmore's
flies," said the elder Migley.</p>
<p>"Uh-huh," the Emperor assented.</p>
<p>As a matter of fact, the old gentleman who lived on the shore of Buckhorn
had done a good deal of talking about this remarkable fish.</p>
<p>Father and son sat with rods in hand while Strong worked through the still
water and down a long rush of rapids and halted below them near a deep
pool flecked with foam.</p>
<p>"C-cast," said he.</p>
<p>With a wild swish and a spasmodic movement of arm and shoulder, "Pop"
Migley, who sat amidships, tipped the canoe until it took water.</p>
<p>Strong dashed his paddle and recovered balance. The young man swore.</p>
<p>"C-cast yer <i>f-flies</i>," Strong suggested, and his emphasis clearly
indicated that the fisherman should cease casting his body.</p>
<p>Again the <i>nouveau</i> worked his rod, whipping its point to the water
fore and aft. Flies and leader clawed over the back of Silas Strong,
fetching his hat off. Before he could recover, the young man went into
action. Strong ducked in time to save an ear, splashing his paddle again
to keep the canoe on its bottom. The tail-fly had caught above his elbow.
When Strong tried to loosen its hold the young man was tugging at the
line. Strong endeavored to speak, but somehow the words wouldn't come.
Suddenly the other rod came back with a powerful swing and smote him on
the top of his head.</p>
<p>He had been trying to say "See here," but his tongue had halted on the s.
Then he took a new tack, as it were, and tried a phrase which began with
the letter g, and had fair success with it.</p>
<p>Both Migleys gave a start of surprise. The Emperor waited to recover
self-control and felt a touch of remorse.</p>
<p>"Le' me c-climb a t-tree," he suggested, presently.</p>
<p>The elder Migley burst into loud laughter.</p>
<p>"Stop fooling!" said the young man. "I'd like to get some fish."</p>
<p>He swung his rod, and was again tugging at the shirt-sleeve of the
Emperor.</p>
<p>Strong blew as he clung to the leader.</p>
<p>"C-cast c-crossways," he commanded, with a gesture.</p>
<p>The fishermen rested a moment. A hundred feet or so below them Strong saw
a squirrel crossing the still water. Suddenly there was a movement behind
him, and he sank out of sight. In half a moment he rose again, swimming
with frantic haste to reach a clump of alder branches. Strong knew the
mysterious villain of this little drama of the river, but said not a word
of what he had seen.</p>
<p>The "sports" resumed fishing with less confidence and more care. Soon they
were able to reach off twenty feet or so, but they raked the air with
deadly violence, and every moment one leader was laying hold of the other
or catching in a tree-top. Strong pulled down bough after bough to free
the flies. Presently they were caught high in a balsam.</p>
<p>"Take us where there's trout. What do you think we're fishing for,
anyway?" said young Migley.</p>
<p>"B-birds," Strong answered, as he continued hauling at the tree-top with
hand and paddle. He used language always for the simple purpose of
expressing his thoughts. Soon the elder Migley began to feel the need of
information. He passed his rod to the Emperor.</p>
<p>"Show me how ye do it," said he.</p>
<p>Strong paddled to a large, flat rock which rose, mid-stream, a little
above water. He climbed upon it and sat down lazily.</p>
<p>Nature had taught him, as she teaches all who bear heavy burdens, to
conserve his strength. He had none to waste in the support of dignity.
When he sat down his weight was braced with hand, foot, and elbow so as to
rest his heart and muscles. Now he seemed to anchor himself by throwing
his right knee over his left foot. His garment of cord and muscle lay
loosely on his bones. There was that in the pose of this man to remind one
of an ox lying peacefully in the field. He drew a loop of line off the
reel, and with no motion of arm or body, his wrist bent, the point of the
rod sprang forward, his flies leaped the length of his line and fell
lightly on the river surface. They wavered across the current. He drew
another loop of line. The rod rose and gave its double spring, and his
flies leaped away and fell farther down the current. So his line flickered
back and forth, running out and reaching with every cast until it spanned
near a hundred feet.</p>
<p>Still the Emperor smoked lazily, and, saving that little movement of the
wrist, reposed as motionless and serene as the rock upon which he sat.</p>
<p>Suddenly Strong's figure underwent a remarkable change. He bent forward,
alert as a panther in sight of his prey. His mouth was open, his eyes full
of animation. The supple wrist bent swiftly. The flies sprang up and
flashed backward; the line sang in its flight. Where the squirrel rose a
big trout had sprung above water and come down with a splash. But he had
missed his aim. Again the flies lighted precisely where the trout sprang
and wavered slowly through the bubbles. A breath of silence followed. The
finned arrow burst above water in a veil of mist; down he plunged with a
fierce grab at the tail-fly. The wrist of the fisherman sprang upward. The
barb caught; the line slanted straight as a lance and seemed to strike at
the river-bottom. The rod was bending. The fish had given a quick haul,
and now the line's end came rushing in. The shrewd old trout knew how to
gather slack on a fisherman. Strong rose like a jack-in-the-box. His hand
flashed to the reel. It began to play like the end of a piston. He swung
half around and his rod came up. The fish turned for a mad rush. With
hands upon rod and silk the fisherman held to check him. Strong's line
ripped through the water plane from mid-river to the shadow of the bank.
The strain upon the fish's jaw halted him. He settled and began to jerk on
the line. Strong raised his foot and tapped the butt of his rod. The
report seemed to go down the line as if it had been a telephone message.
It startled the trout, and again he took a long reach of silk off the
reel. Then slowly he went back and forth through an arc of some twenty
feet, and the long line swung like a pendulum. Weakened by his efforts, he
began to lead in. Slowly he came near the rock, and soon the splendid
trout lay gasping from utter weariness an arm's-length from his captor.</p>
<p>As the net approached him he dove again, hauling with fierce energy. The
man was leaning over the edge of the rock, his rod in one hand, his net in
the other. He came near losing his balance in the sudden attack. He
scrambled into position. Again the trout gave up and followed the strain
of the leader. Strong let himself down upon the river-bottom beside the
rock, and stood to his belt in water. The fish retreated again and came
back helpless and was taken.</p>
<p>He filled the net. A great tail-fin waved above its rim. The Emperor
hefted his catch and blew like a buck deer, after his custom in moments of
great stress. Then came a declaration of unusual length.</p>
<p>"Ye could r-reel me in with a c-c-cotton th-thread an' p-pick me up in yer
f-fingers."</p>
<p>It was growing dusk. Strong clambered to the top of the rock. "Pop" Migley
brought the canoe alongside.</p>
<p>The Emperor gave a loud whistle of surprise.</p>
<p>"Dunmore's t-trout!" he said, soberly. He had found a "black gnat"
embedded in the fish's mouth, its snell broken near the loop. He put the
struggling fish back in the net and tied his handkerchief across the top
of it.</p>
<p>The Migleys both agreed that they were ready for supper.</p>
<p>The Emperor got aboard and requested the elder Migley to keep the fish
under water, while he took his paddle and pushed for camp. They put their
trout in a spring at the boat-house.</p>
<p>The sports hurried to camp. Master came down the path and met Strong.</p>
<p>"I've got D-Dunmore's t-trout," said the latter.</p>
<p>"Good!" Master answered; "that will give us an excuse to go and call on
him."</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XIII </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HAT evening, while
the others went out to sit by the camp-fire, Silas Strong put the children
to bed and lay down beside them. They begged him for a story, he had
neither skill nor practice in narration, he had, as the rustic merchant is
wont to say, a desire to please. He knew that he had disappointed the
children and was doing his best to recover their esteem. Possibly he ought
to try and be more like other folks. He rubbed his thin, sandy beard, he
groped among the treasures of his memory.</p>
<p>Infrequently he had gone over them with Sinth or the Lady Ann, but briefly
and with halting words and slow reflection. He had that respect for the
past which is a characteristic of the true historian, but, in his view, it
gave him little to say of his own exploits. He was wont to observe,
ironically, that others knew more of them than he knew himself. Owing, it
may be, to his little infirmity of speech, he had never been misled into
the broad way of prevarication. Brevity had been his refuge and his
strength. He regarded with contempt the boastful narratives of woodsmen.</p>
<p>Now the siren voices of the little folks had made him thoughtful. Had he
nothing to give them but disappointment? He hesitated. Then he fell, as it
were, but, happily, for the sake of those two he had begun to love, and
not through pride. It was a kind of modesty which caused him to reach for
the candle and blow it out. Then, boldly, as it were, he began to sing a
brief account of one of his own adventures. He could sing without
stammering, and therefore he sang an odd and almost tuneless chant. He
accepted such rhyme and rhythm as chanced to drift in upon the monotonous
current of his epic; but he turned not aside for them. He sang glibly,
jumping in and out of that old, melodious trail of "The Son of a
Gamboleer." Strong called this unique creation of his</p>
<h3> "THE STORY OF THE MELLERED BEAR. </h3>
<p class="indent15">
"One day yer Uncle Silas went for to kill a bear,</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' a dog he took an' follered which his name was</p>
<p class="indent30">
little Zeb;</p>
<p class="indent15">
Bym-by we come acrost a track which looked as big</p>
<p class="indent30">
as sin,</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' Zeb he hollered 'twas a bear, which I didn't quite</p>
<p class="indent30">
believe in</p>
<p class="indent15">
Until I got down on my knee, an' then I kind o'</p>
<p class="indent30">
laughed,</p>
<p class="indent15">
For su'thin' cur'us showed me where he'd wrote his</p>
<p class="indent30">
autygraft,</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' which way he was travellin' all in the frosty snow;</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' I follered Zeb, the bear-dog, as fast as I could go,</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' purty soon I see</p>
<p class="indent15">
Where the bear had tore his overcoat upon a hem</p>
<p class="indent30">
lock-tree,</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' left some threads behind him which fell upon his</p>
<p class="indent30">
track,</p>
<p class="indent15">
Which I wouldn't wonder if he done a-scratchin' of</p>
<p class="indent30">
his back,</p>
<p class="indent15">
Which caused me for to grin an' laugh all on ac</p>
<p class="indent30">
count o' my feelin's."</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>Here came a pause, in which the singer sought a moment of relaxation, as
it would seem, in a thoughtful and timely cough.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
"Bym-by I come up kind o' dost an' where that I</p>
<p class="indent30">
could see</p>
<p class="indent15">
Zeb was jumpin' like a rabbit an' a-hollerin' t' me;</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' I could see the ol' bear's home all underneath a</p>
<p class="indent30">
ledge,</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' the track of his big moggasins up to the very edge.</p>
<p class="indent15">
I took an' fetched some pine-knots an' a lot of ol'</p>
<p class="indent30">
dead limbs,</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' built a fire upon his door-step an' let the smoke</p>
<p class="indent30">
blow in;</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' then I took a piece o' rope an' tethered Zeb away</p>
<p class="indent15">
So's that he'd keep his breeches fer to use another</p>
<p class="indent30">
day.</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' purty soon I listened an' I heard the bear</p>
<p class="indent30">
a-coughin',</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' he sneezed an' bellered out as if he guessed he'd</p>
<p class="indent30">
be excused.</p>
<p class="indent15">
All t' once he bust out an' the rifle give a yell,</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' I wouldn't wonder if he thought—"</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>The narrator was halted for half a moment by another frog in his throat—as
he explained. Then he went on:</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
"An' Zeb he tore away an' took an' fastened on the</p>
<p class="indent30">
bear,</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' they rolled down-hill together, an' the critter</p>
<p class="indent30">
ripped the air,</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' I didn't dast t' shoot him for fear o' killin' Zeb,</p>
<p class="indent30">
So I clubbed my rifle on the bear an' mellered up his</p>
<p class="indent15">
head."</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>Moist with perspiration, Silas Strong rose and stood by the bedside and
blew. Fifty miles with a boat on his back could not have taxed him more
severely. He answered a few queries touching the size, fierceness, and
fate of the bear. Then he retreated, whispering as he left the door,
"Strong's ahead."</p>
<p>Zeb lay on the foot of the bed, and Socky, being a little timid in the
dark, coaxed him to lie between them, his paws on the pillow. With their
hands on the back of Zeb, they felt sure no harm could come to them.</p>
<p>"Do you love Uncle Silas?" It was the question of little Sue.</p>
<p>Socky answered, promptly, "Yes; do you?"</p>
<p>"Yes."</p>
<p>"Hunters don't never wear good clothes." So Socky went on, presently, as
if apologizing to his own spirit for the personal appearance of his uncle.
"They git 'em all tore up by the bears an' panthers."</p>
<p>"That's how he got his pants tore," Sue suggested, thinking of his
condition that day they met him on the trail.</p>
<p>"Had a fight with a 'kunk," Socky answered, quickly. He had overheard
something of that adventure at Robin Lake.</p>
<p>They lay thinking a moment. Then up spoke the boy. "I wisht he had a gold
watch."</p>
<p>With Socky the ladder by which a man rose to greatness had many rounds.
The first was great physical strength, the next physical appearance; the
possession of a rifle and the sacred privilege of bathing the same in
bear's-oil was distinctly another; symbols of splendor, such as watches,
finger-rings, and the like, had their places in the ladder, and qualities
of imagination were not wholly disregarded.</p>
<p>Sue tried to think of something good to say—something, possibly,
which would explain her love. It was her first trial at analysis.</p>
<p>"He wouldn't hurt nobody," she suggested.</p>
<p>"He can carry a tree on his back"—so it seemed to Socky.</p>
<p>"He wouldn't let nothin' touch us," said Sue, still working the vein of
kindness which she had discovered.</p>
<p>"He's the most terrible powerful man in the world," Socky averred, and
unconsciously twisted the soft ear of Zeb until the latter gave a little
yelp of complaint.</p>
<p>"He can kill bears an' panthers an' deers an'—an' ketch fish," said
Sue.</p>
<p>"He could swaller a whale," Socky declared, as he thought of the story of
Jonah.</p>
<p>"Aunt Sinthy has got a hole in her shoe." The girl imparted this in a
whisper.</p>
<p>Both felt the back of Zeb and were silent for a little.</p>
<p>"She blubbers!" Socky exclaimed, with a slight touch of contempt in the
way he said it.</p>
<p>"Maybe she got her feet wet and Uncle Silas Spanked her."</p>
<p>"Big folks don't get spanked," the boy assured Sue.</p>
<p>"Do you like her?"</p>
<p>He answered quickly, as if the topic were a bore to him, "Purty well."</p>
<p>Sue had hoped for greater frankness. Her own opinion of her Aunt Cynthia,
while favorable, was unsettled. She thought of a thing in connection with
her aunt which had given her some concern. She had been full of wonder as
to its hidden potentialities.</p>
<p>In a moment Sue broached the subject by saying, "She's got a big mold on
her neck."</p>
<p>"With a long hair on it," Socky added. "Bet you wouldn't dast pull that
hair."</p>
<p>Sue squirmed a little. That single hair had, somehow, reminded her of the
string on a jumping-jack. She reflected a moment, "I put my finger on it,"
said she, boastfully.</p>
<p>"That's nothing," Socky answered. "Uncle Silas let me feel the shot what
he got in his arm. Gee, it was kind o' funny." He squirmed a little and
thoughtfully felt his foot.</p>
<p>Sue recognized the superior attraction of the buried shot and held her
peace a moment. Both had begun to yawn.</p>
<p>"Wisht it was t'-morrow," said Sue.</p>
<p>"Why?"</p>
<p>"'Cause I'm going to see the beautiful lady."</p>
<p>"An' the crow, too," Socky whispered.</p>
<p>They were, indeed, to see her sooner than they knew—in dreamland.</p>
<p>Zeb now retired discreetly to the foot of the bed.</p>
<p>After a little silence Sue put her arms about her brother's neck and
pressed him close.</p>
<p>"Wisht I was in heaven," she said, drowsily, with a little cry of
complaint.</p>
<p>"Why?"</p>
<p>"So I could see my mother."</p>
<p>"She's way up a Trillion miles beyond where the hawks fly," said the boy,
as he gaped wearily.</p>
<p>Thereafter the room was silent, save for the muffled barking of Zeb in his
slumber. He, too, was dreaming, no doubt, of things far away.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XIV </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HEY were a timely
arrival—those new friends who had found Edith Dunmore. She was no
longer satisfied with the narrow world in which her father had imprisoned
her, and had begun to wander alone as if in quest of a better one. That
hour of revelation on the shore of Birch Cove led quickly to others quite
as wonderful.</p>
<p>She had no sooner reached home than she told her grandmother of the young
man and the children who had come with him to the shore of Catamount and
of a strange happiness in her heart. It was then that a sense of duty in
the old Scotchwoman broke away from promises to her son which had long
suppressed it.</p>
<p>As they sat alone, together, the old lady talked to her granddaughter of
the mysteries of life and love and death. Much in this talk the girl had
gathered for herself, by inference, out of books—mostly fairy tales
that her father had brought to her—and out of the evasions which had
greeted her questioning and out of her own heart.</p>
<p>Her queries followed one another fast and were answered freely. She
learned, among other things, a part of the reason for their lonely life—that
her father was not like other men, not even like himself; that their
isolation had been a wicked and foolish error; that men were not, mostly,
children of the devil seeking whom they might destroy, but kindly, giving
and desiring love; that she, Edith Dunmore, had a right to live like the
rest of God's children, and to love and be loved and given in marriage and
to have her part in the world's history.</p>
<p>All this and much good counsel besides the old lady gave to the girl who
sat a long time pondering after her grandmother had left her.</p>
<p>In the miracle of birth and the storied change that follows dissolution
she saw the magic of fairyland. To her Paristan had been much more real
than the republic in which she lived.</p>
<p>She longed for the hour to come when she should again see those wonderful
children and the still more wonderful being who had brought them in his
canoe.</p>
<p>Next morning she set out early in the trail to Catamount with her little
guide and companion. She had named him Roc, after the famous bird of
Oriental tradition. She arrived there long before the hour appointed.
Slowly she wandered to the trail over which Master and the children would
be sure to come. She approached the camp at Lost River and stood peering
through thickets of young fir, She saw the boy and girl at play, and
watched them. Soon Master came out of one of the cabins. Now, somehow, she
felt a greater fear of him than before, yet she longed to look into his
face—to feel the touch of his hand.</p>
<p>The crow had taken his perch in a small tree beside his mistress. He
seemed to be looking thoughtfully at the children, with now and then a
little croak of criticism or of amusement, ending frequently in a sound
like half-suppressed laughter. He raised a foot and slowly scratched his
head, a gaze of meditation deepening in his eyes. Suddenly his interest
seemed to grow keener. He moved a step aside, rose in the air, and
approached the children. Darting to the ground, he picked up a little
silver compass which, one of them had dropped, and quickly returned with
it. The children called to Master, and all three followed the crow. His
mistress, scarcely knowing why, had run up the trail, and Roc pursued her
with foot and wing, croaking urgently, as if his life and spoil depended
on their haste. Reaching a thicket beside the trail, she hid under its
sheltering cover and sat down to rest. The crow, following, scrambled upon
her shoulder and dropped the bit of silver into her lap. She held his beak
to keep him quiet when Master and the children came near, but as the
latter were passing they could hear the smothered laughter of Roc.</p>
<p>In a moment Socky and Sue ran to their new friend, while Master waited
near them. The crow spread his wings and seemed to threaten with a
scolding chatter. The girl threw the bird in the air and took the hands of
the children and drew them to her breast. She held them close and looked
into their faces.</p>
<p>"Dear fairies!" said she, impulsively kissing them.</p>
<p>"Tell us where the cranes go with—with the young fairies," Sue
managed to say, her hands and voice trembling.</p>
<p>Miss Dunmore sat looking down sadly for a little before she answered. Sue,
curiously, felt "the lady's" cheeks that were now rose-red and beautiful.</p>
<p>"I will tell you what my father says," the latter began. "The cranes take
them to Slum-bercity on a great marsh and put them in their nests. The
heads of the young fairies are bald and smooth and the cranes sit on them
as if they were eggs. By-and-by wonderful thoughts and dreams come into
them so that the fairies wake up and begin crying for they are very
hungry. They remember the spring of milk, but they are so young and
helpless they can only reach out their hands and cry for it. Some of the
cranes stand on one leg in the marsh and listen. The moment they hear the
young fairies crying they fly away to find mothers for them. The unhappy
little things are really not fairies any more—they are babies. Some
of the cranes come and dance around the nest to keep them quiet, and the
babies sit up and open their eyes and begin to laugh, it is so very funny.
And that night a big crane sits by the side of each baby and the baby
creeps on his back and rides away to his mother. And he is so weary after
his ride that he sleeps and is scarcely able to move, and when he wakes
and smiles and laughs, he remembers how the cranes danced in the marsh."</p>
<p>Curiously, silently, the children looked into her face, while she, with
wonder equal to their own, put her arms around them.</p>
<p>"My father says that there are no people—that we are really nothing
but young fairies asleep and dreaming up in the tops of the trees, and
that the fairy heaven is not here."</p>
<p>She gazed into the eyes of the boy a moment, all unconscious of his mental
limitations. Then she added, "You're nothing but a big fairy—you're
so very young."</p>
<p>Socky drew away with a look of injury and threw out his chest.</p>
<p>"I'm six years old," he answered, with dignity. "In a little while I'll be
a man."</p>
<p>Miss Dunmore drew them close to her and said, "I wish I could take you
home with me."</p>
<p>"Have you any maple sugar there?" the little girl inquired.</p>
<p>"Yes, and a tame fox and a little fawn."</p>
<p>"But you'ain't got no Uncle Silas," said the boy, boastfully.</p>
<p>"Ner no Aunt Sinth," Sue ventured. Then, with her tiny fingers, she felt
the neck of "the beautiful lady" to see if there were a "mold" on it. She
was thinking of one of the chief attractions of her aunt. In a moment she
added, "Ner no Uncle Robert." They had begun to call him Uncle Robert.</p>
<p>"Is he the man I saw?" the maiden asked.</p>
<p>Both children nodded affirmatively.</p>
<p>"Do you love him?"</p>
<p>"Yes; would you like to take him home with you, too?" Socky asked, with a
look of deep interest. If they were to go he would wish to have his new
uncle with them, and Sue saw the point.</p>
<p>"He can carry you on his back and growl jes' like a bear," she urged. "He
can put his mouth on your cheek and make such a funny noise."</p>
<p>Miss Dunmore looked away, blushing red. It was a curious kind of
love-making. She whispered in the ear of the little girl, "Would you let
me have him?"</p>
<p>Sue looked up into her eyes doubtfully.</p>
<p>"She wants our Uncle Robert," Socky guessed aloud.</p>
<p>"But not to keep?" Sue questioned, as if it were not to be thought of.</p>
<p>The eyes of the children were looking into those of "the beautiful lady."</p>
<p>"I couldn't have him?" the latter asked.</p>
<p>"We'll give you our coon," Sue suggested, by way of compromise.</p>
<p>"I am sure he—your uncle—would not go with me," Miss Dunmore
suggested.</p>
<p>Socky seemed now to think that the time had come for authoritative
information. He broke away and called to his new uncle.</p>
<p>The maiden rose quickly, blushing with surprise. She turned away as Robert
Master came in sight, and stood for half a moment looking down. Then,
stooping, she picked a wild flower and timidly offered it. The act was
full of childish simplicity. It spoke for her as her tongue could not.
Knowledge acquired since she saw him last had possibly increased her
shyness.</p>
<p>"She wants you," said the boy, with vast innocence, while he looked up at
the young man.</p>
<p>"I wish I could believe it were true," said Master, as he came nearer by a
step to the daughter of the woodland.</p>
<p>She turned with a look of fear and said, "I must go," as she ran to the
trail, followed by Roc.</p>
<p>A little distance away she turned, looking back at the young man.
Something in her eyes told of a soul beneath them lovelier than its nobly
fashioned house. Moreover, they proclaimed the secret which she would fain
have kept.</p>
<p>"Shall we shake hands?" he asked.</p>
<p>She took a step towards him and stopped.</p>
<p>"No," she answered.</p>
<p>"I must see you again," said Master, with passionate eagerness, fearing
that she was about to leave.</p>
<p>She looked down but made no answer. The children put their arms about her
knees as if to detain her.</p>
<p>"You will not forget to come Thursday?" he added.</p>
<p>"The beautiful lady" stood looking at him, her left hand upon her chin,
her arms bare to the elbows. A smile, an almost imperceptible nod, and the
eloquence of her eyes were the only answer she gave him, but they were
enough.</p>
<p>"Will you not speak to me?" the young man urged, as he came nearer.</p>
<p>She stood looking, curiously, until he could almost have touched her.
Then, gently, she pushed the children away and fled up the trail, her pet
following. In a moment she had gone out of sight.</p>
<p>She was like the spirit of the woodland—wild, beautiful, silent.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XV </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HERE was a great
marsh around a set-back leading off the still water near Lost River camp.
There the children had seen many cranes, and they did not forget that
certain of them had stood upon one leg. After supper that evening they sat
together whispering awhile and presently stole away. There was a trail for
frog-hunters that led to their destination. They ran, eagerly, and, just
as the sun was going down, stopped on a high bank overlooking the marshes.
It was a broad flat covered with pools and tall grasses and bogs, crowned
with leaves of the sweet-flag and with cattails and pussy-willows. Now it
was still and hazy. The pools were like mirrors with the golden glow of
the sky and soft, dark shadows in them.</p>
<p>Far out on the marsh they discovered a crane strolling leisurely among the
bogs, and began to chatter about him.</p>
<p>They looked and listened until the sun had gone below the tops of the
trees. Then cranes came flying homeward out of the four skies, and, one by
one, lighted on the edge of a bog some two or three hundred feet from the
children. Sue uttered a little cry of joy. The cranes stood motionless
with heads up.</p>
<p>"They're listening," Socky assured his sister.</p>
<p>Bull-frogs had begun croaking and a mud-hen was making a sound like that
of a rusty pump. The children now sat on the side of the bank and leaned
forward straining their eyes and ears.</p>
<p>Soon the far, shrill cry of some little animal rang above the chorus of
the marsh. The children took it to be a baby, and seemed almost to writhe
with suppressed laughter mingled with hopeful and whispered comment. In
his excitement Socky slipped off his perch and came near rolling down the
side of the bank. One of the cranes began to shuffle about, his wings half
open, like an awkward dancer. Soon the whole group of birds seemed to be
imitating him, and each shuffled on his long legs as if trying to be most
ridiculous. The dusk was thickening, and the children could only just
discern them. They sat close together and held each other's hands tightly,
and looked out upon the marsh and were silent with awe and expectation.
Suddenly the cranes scattered into the bushes and the sedge. Socky and Sue
were now watching to see them fly. It was almost dark and a big moon
seemed to be peering through the tops of the trees. Soon the great birds
strode slowly in single file past the wonder-stricken two.</p>
<p>"See the babies! See the babies!" Sue cried out.</p>
<p>They squirmed and shivered with awe, their lips and eyes wide with
amazement. In the dim light they imagined that a baby sat on the back of
each crane. Sue had no sooner cried out than there came a flapping of
wings that seemed to fill the sky. The feathered caravan had taken to the
air and were swinging in a wide circle around the edge of the marsh. They
quickly disappeared in the gloom.</p>
<p>"Gone to find mothers for 'em," said Socky, in a trembling whisper.</p>
<p>The children had suddenly become aware that it was quite dark, but neither
dared speak of it. They still sat looking out upon the marsh and clinging
hand to hand. Soon a procession of grotesque and evil creatures began to
pass them: the great bear of the woods who had swallowed alive all the
little runaways, and who, having made them prisoners, only let them come
out now and then to ride upon his back; the big panther-bird who lured
children from their homes with berries and flowers and nuts and, maybe,
raisins, and who, when they were in some lonely place, dropped stones upon
their heads and slew them; odd, indescribable shapes, some having long,
hairy necks and heads like cocoa-nuts; and, lastly, came that awful horned
creature, with cloven hoofs and the body of a man, who carried a pitchfork
and who, soon or late, flung all the bad children into a lake of fire.
Socky and Sue covered their faces with their hands. Suddenly a prudent
thought entered the mind of the boy.</p>
<p>"I'm going to be good," said he, in a loud but timid voice. "I love God
best of every one." His sister gave a little start.</p>
<p>In half a moment she suggested, her eyes covered with her hands, "You
don't love God better than Uncle Silas?"</p>
<p>Socky hesitated. Prudence and affection struggled for the mastery.</p>
<p>"Yes," he managed to say, although with some difficulty. "Don't you?"</p>
<p>Sue hesitated.</p>
<p>He nudged her and whispered, "Say yes—say it out loud."</p>
<p>The word came from Sue in a low, pathetic wail of fear.</p>
<p>"I ain't never goin' to tell any more lies," the boy asserted, in a firm,
clear voice, "er swear er run away."</p>
<p>They both gave a cry of alarm, for Zeb had sprung upon them and begun to
lick their faces. Their aunt and uncle had missed them and Zeb had led his
master to where they sat.</p>
<p>Strong had heard the children choosing between him and their Creator and
understood. Socky and Sue, after the shock of Zeb's sudden arrival, were
encouraged by his presence and began to take counsel together.</p>
<p>"We better go home," said Socky.</p>
<p>"What if we meet something?"</p>
<p>"Pooh! I'll crook my finger to him an' say, 'Sile Strong is my uncle,'"
Socky answered, confidently. "You'll see him run fast enough."</p>
<p>It was a formula which his uncle had taught him, and he had tried it upon
a deer and a hedgehog with eminent success.</p>
<p>The Emperor had planned to give them a scare by way of punishment, but now
he had no heart for severity. He walked through the bushes whistling. He
said not a word as he knelt before them—indeed, the man dared not
trust himself to speak. With cries of joy they climbed upon his shoulders
and embraced him. Strong rose and slowly carried them through the dark
trail. He could not even answer their questions. He. was thinking of their
faith in him—of their love, the like of which he had-never known or
dreamed of and was not able to understand. Sinth was out with a lantern
when they returned. The children were asleep in his arms.</p>
<p>"Sh-h-h! Don't scold, sister," said he, in a voice so gentle it surprised
himself. They put the children to bed and walked to the cook-tent. Strong
told of all he had heard them say.</p>
<p>"I dunno but you'll have to whip 'em," said Sinth.</p>
<p>Strong was drying the little boots of the boy. He touched them tenderly
with his great hand. He smiled and shook his head and slowly stammered,
"If we're g-goin't' be g-good'nough t' 's-sociate with them we got t'
wh-whip ourselves."</p>
<p>He rose and put a stick of wood on the fire.</p>
<p>"Th-they think I'm m-most as good as God," he added, huskily, and then he
went out-ofdoors.</p>
<p>Before going to bed that night he made this entry in his memorandum-book:</p>
<p><i>"Strong won't do he'll have to be tore down an' built over."</i></p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XVI </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE Migleys had
engaged Strong to take them out of the woods next day. They were going to
the Fourth-of-July celebration at Hillsborough. Master was going also, be
orator of the day. Strong, hearing the talk of the others, had "got to
wishin'," as Sinth put it, and had finally concluded to go on to
Hillsborough and witness the celebration. So Master had sent for his guide
to come and stay at Lost River camp until the return of Silas.</p>
<p>The Emperor was getting ready to go. Some one had told him that a man at
Hillsborough was buying coons and foxes for the zoological gardens in New
York. He considered whether he had better take his young pet coon with
him. In that hour of expanding generosity when he had broken his bank, as
the saying goes, he had forgotten his new responsibilities. There were the
children, and that necessity which often awoke him at night and whispered
of impending evil—he must leave his old home and find a new one
somewhere in the forest. The little people would need boots and dresses,
and why shouldn't they have a rocking-horse or some cheering toy of that
character? Such reflections began to change—to amend, as it were—his
view of money.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Sinth had no respect for coons. Ever since the Emperor had
captured him, much of her ill-nature had been focussed upon the coon.</p>
<p>"W-woods g-goin'," he mused, as he fed the little creature. "W-we got t'
git t-tame."</p>
<p>"You better take him along," said Sinth, as she came out of the cook-tent.
"Jim Warner got ten dollars for a coon down to Canton las' summer."</p>
<p>"C-come on, Dick," said the hunter, with some regret in his tone as he
fastened the coon's cage upon his basket.</p>
<p>Strong looped a cord through the wire and the buckles of both
shoulder-braces. Master had taken the river route, and would drive to
Hillsborough from Tupper's. Strong and the Migleys were going out through
Pitkin. The "sports" had been on their way for more than half an hour.
Strong put his arms in the straps and followed them. He turned in the
trail and called back:</p>
<p>"B-better times!" he shouted. It was a cheerful sentiment which he often
expressed in moments of parting with Sinth.</p>
<p>"Don't believe it," Sinth answered.</p>
<p>"You s-see," he insisted, and then he disappeared in the timber.</p>
<p>As the travellers went on, the Migleys exhibited increasing respect for
the law of gravitation. They gave their coats to the Emperor, who
studiously kept as far ahead or behind them as possible to avoid
conversation. He was "tongue weary," and told them so.</p>
<p>Late in the afternoon they came to a new lumber-camp. "The Warren job" had
pushed its front across the old trail. What desolation had fallen where
Strong passed, two weeks before, in the shadow of the primeval wood! Its
green roof lay in scraggled, withering heaps; the under thickets had been
cut away; the ferns lay flat, blackening on the sunburned soil. An old
skeleton of pine lifted its broken arms high above the scene of
desolation, and one could hear its bones creak and rattle in the breezy
heavens.</p>
<p>Great shafts of spruce and pine were being sawed into even lengths and
hauled to a skidway. Busy men looked small as ants in the edge of the high
forest. Some swayed in pairs, "pulling the briar," as woodsmen say of
those who work with a saw.</p>
<p>Strong and the Migleys halted to watch the downfall of a great pine. Soon
the sawyers put their wedge in the slit and smote upon it. The sheet of
steel hissed back and forth. Then a few blows of the axe. The men gave a
shout of warning and drew aside. The great tree began to creak and
tremble. Slowly it bent and groaned; its long arms seemed to clutch at the
air. Then it pitched headlong, its top whistling, its heavy stem shaking
the ground upon which it fell. A voice of thunder seemed to proclaim its
fate. The axemen lopped off its branches, and soon the long column lay
stark, and the growth of two centuries had come to its end. Strong and his
companions stood a moment longer watching the scene.</p>
<p>"Huh!" the Emperor grunted, with a sorry look as they passed on.</p>
<p>Near sundown they came into the cleared land—the sandy, God-forsaken
barrens of Tifton, robbed of root and branch and soil, of their glory, and
the one crop nature had designed for them. The travellers passed a
deserted cabin on a hot, stony hill. In its door-yard they could see a
plough and an old wagon partly overgrown with weeds. Some one had tried to
live on the spoiled earth and had come to discouragement. Where ten
thousand men could have found healing and refreshment there was not enough
growing to feed a dozen sheep. Here a part of the great inheritance of man
had been forever ruined. Strong spoke of the pity of it.</p>
<p>"Can't be helped," said the elder Migley. "A man has a right to cut and
sell his timber."</p>
<p>Strong made no question of that, claiming only that the cutting should be
"reg'lated," an expression which he rarely took the trouble to explain. It
stood for a meaning well considered—that the forest belonged to the
people, the timber to the owner of the land; that the right of the owner
should be subject to restraint. He should be permitted to cut trees of a
certain size only. So the forest would be made permanent, and the owner
and the generations to follow him would get a crop of timber every eight
or ten years.</p>
<p>The sun was setting when they came into the little forest hamlet. The
Migleys put up at the Pitkin general store, where one might have rude
hospitality as well as merchandise. There Strong left pack and coon behind
the counter and hastened to the home of Annette. The comely young woman
rose from the supper-table and took both his hands in hers.</p>
<p>"Strong's ahead!" he answered, cheerfully, as she greeted him.</p>
<p>In response to her invitation he sat down to eat. Her father lighted his
pipe and left them. Silas told of the swishers and the big trout and the
children.</p>
<p>"M-me an' Sinth is b-bein' cut over," here-marked, with a smile, as he
thought of the children.</p>
<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
<p>"B-bein' cleared an' p-ploughed an' sowed."</p>
<p>She laughed a little as the Emperor unfolded his pleasantry. He thought of
his improved account in the matter of swearing and of the better temper of
Sinth.</p>
<p>"G-gittin' p-proper," he added.</p>
<p>Annette was amused.</p>
<p>"G-got t' leave Lost R-river," he said, presently.</p>
<p>"Got to leave Lost River!" Annette exclaimed.</p>
<p>"Ay-ah," Strong answered. He looked down for a second, then he added,
sorrowfully, "G-goin' to tear down the w-woods."</p>
<p>"It's an outrage. Couldn't you go to the plains?"</p>
<p>"S-sold an' f-fenced."</p>
<p>"How about the Rag Lake country?"</p>
<p>"B-bein' cut."</p>
<p>Annette shook her head ruefully.</p>
<p>"W-woods got t' g-go," said Strong, leaning forward and resting his elbows
on his knees. .</p>
<p>"What'll you do?"</p>
<p>"G-git tame," Strong answered, as he rose and went to the squirrel cage
and began to play with his old pet. The little animal came to his wire
gateway and stood upon the palm of the Emperor's hand.</p>
<p>"T-trespasser!" he remarked, stroking the squirrel. "Th-they'll have me in
a c-cage, too, purty s-soon."</p>
<p>He put the squirrel away and offered his hand to Annette.</p>
<p>"S-some day," he whispered.</p>
<p>"Some day," she answered, with a sigh.</p>
<p>"Y-you're g-goin' to hear me d-do some t-talkin'," he assured her. The
Lady Ann had often mildly complained of his reticence.</p>
<p>They now stood in front of the little veranda. She was looking up at him.</p>
<p>"It'll 'mount to s-suthin', t-too," he went on. It seemed as if he were
making an honest effort to correct the idleness of his tongue. He was
looking down at her and groping in his mind for some other cheerful
sentiment. He seemed to make this happy discovery, and added,
"W-won-derful good t-times comin'."</p>
<p>With a full heart she pressed his great hand in both of hers.</p>
<p>"K-keep ahead," said he, cheerfully, and bade her good-night.</p>
<p>With this he left her and was happy, for the taming of Sinth had seemed to
bring that "some day" of his promise into the near future.</p>
<p>At the Pitkin general store his two companions had retired for the night,
and he joined a group of woodsmen who occupied everything in the place
which had a fairly smooth and accessible top on it. They were all in debt
to the storekeeper and seemed to entertain a regard for him not unmingled
with pity. This latter sentiment was, the historian believes, rather well
founded. They called him "Billy," with the inflection of fondness. Two sat
slouching, apologetically, on the counter. One rested his weight, as
tenderly and considerately as might be, on a cracker-barrel. Another
reposed with a look of greater confidence on the end of a nail-keg. They
were guides, two of whom had come out for provisions; the others, like
Strong, were on their way to Hillsborough.</p>
<p>"Here's the old Emp'ror," said one, as Strong entered and returned their
greetings and sat down astride the beam of a plough.</p>
<p>"I'd like to know what he thinks of it," said a guide from the Jordan Lake
country.</p>
<p>Strong looked up at him without a word.</p>
<p>"A millionaire has bought thirty thousand acres alongside o' my camp," the
guide explained. "He won't let me cross on the old trail. I had to go six
mile out o' my way to git here."</p>
<p>He smote the counter with his fist and coupled the name of the rich man
with vile epithets.</p>
<p>"My father and my grandfather travelled that trail before he was born,"
the angry woodsman declared.</p>
<p>Strong leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and looked at his hands
without speaking. One laughed loudly, another gave out a sympathetic
curse.</p>
<p>"I'll git even with him—you hear me." So the aggrieved party
expressed himself.</p>
<p>"How?" Strong inquired, looking up suddenly.</p>
<p>"I'll git even. I'll send a traveller into that preserve who'll put him
off it." He spoke with a sinister suggestion.</p>
<p>"Huh!" the Emperor grunted. He understood the threat of the other, who
clearly meant to set the woods afire.</p>
<p>"Ain't I right? What d' ye come to, anyway, when ye think it all over?"
The words came hot and fast off the tongue of the com-plainer.</p>
<p>"F-fool," Strong stammered, calmly. There was something in his way of
saying it that made the others laugh.</p>
<p>A faint smile of embarrassment showed in the face of the angry woodsman.</p>
<p>"Me or the millionaire?" he inquired.</p>
<p>"B-both," Strong answered, soberly, as the storm ended in a little gust of
laughter.</p>
<p>Strong had stripped the guide of his anger as deftly as a squirrel could
take the shell off a nut. In the brief silence that followed he thought of
another maxim for his memorandum-book, and soon it was recorded therein as
follows:</p>
<p><i>"Man that makes trouble sure to have most of it."</i></p>
<p>Presently he who sat on the cracker-barrel remarked, "If them air woods
git afire now, they'll burn the stars out o' heaven."</p>
<p>All eyes turned upon the once violent man.</p>
<p>"Of course, I wouldn't fire the woods," he muttered. He was now cool, and
could see the folly and also the peril which lay in his threat. "I never
said I'd set the woods afire, but the ol' trail has been a thoroughfare
for nigh a hunderd year.-I believe I've got as good a right to use it as
he has."</p>
<p>"Th-think so?" the Emperor inquired.</p>
<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
<p>"Then d-do it," Strong answered, dryly. There was much in those three
words and in the look of the speaker. It said, plainly, that the other was
to do what he thought to be right and never what he knew to be wrong.</p>
<p>"Lumbermen are more to blame," said another. "Where they've been nobody
wants to go. They cut everything down t' the size o' yer wrist an' leave
the soil covered with tinder-stacks. They think o' nothin' but the profit.
Case o' fire, woods 'round 'em wouldn't hev a ghost of a show."</p>
<p>"Look at the Weaver tract," said he who sat on the nail-keg. "Four
thousand acres o' dead tops—miles on 'em—an' all as dry as
gunpowder. If you was t' touch a match there ye'd have to run fer yer
life."</p>
<p>"Go like a scairt deer," said he of the cracker-barrel. "'Fore it stopped
I guess ye'd think the world was afire."</p>
<p>"W-woods g-goin'," said the Emperor, sadly.</p>
<p>He thought of the cold springs at which he had refreshed himself in the
heat of the summer day and which were to perish utterly; he thought of the
brooks and rivers, slowing their pace like one stricken with infirmity,
and, by-and-by, lying dead in the sunlight—lying in a chain of slimy
pools across the great valley of the St. Lawrence; he thought of green
meadows which, soon or late, would probably wither into a desert.</p>
<p>"What 'll become of us?" said he on the nail-keg.</p>
<p>"Have t' be sawed an' trimmed an' planed an' matched an' go into town." It
was the voice above the cracker-barrel.</p>
<p>"Not me," said the occupant of the nail-keg. "Too many houses an' folks
an' too much noise. Couldn't never stan' it."</p>
<p>"Village is a cur'ous place," said another, who had never been sober when
he saw it. "Steeples an' buildin's an' folks reel 'round in pairs. Seems
so the sidewalk flowed like a river, an' nothin' stan's still long 'nough
so ye can see how 't looks."</p>
<p>The speaker was interrupted by the proprietor of the Pitkin general store,
who came downstairs and flung himself on the top of the counter.</p>
<p>"Goin't' the Fourth?" said he of the cracker-barrel.</p>
<p>"Might as well—got t' hev a tooth drawed."</p>
<p>"I've got one that's been growlin' purty spiteful," said the nail-kegger.
"Dunno but I might as well go an' hev it tore out."</p>
<p>"I got t' be snaked, too," said the cracker-barrel man.</p>
<p>"Reg'lar tooth-drawin' down thar to-morrer," said a voice from the
counter.</p>
<p>"Beats all how the teeth git t' rairin' up ev'ry circus an' Fourth o'
July," said the nail-kegger. The laughter which now ensued seemed, as it
were, to shake everybody off his perch. The counter and the cracker-barrel
expressed themselves in a creak of relief, and all went abovestairs save
the Emperor. He cut a few boughs for a pillow, spread his blanket under
the pine-trees, flung an end of it over his great body, and "let go," as
he was wont to say. At any time of day or night he had only to lie down
and "let go," and enjoy absolute forgetfulness.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XVII </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>T the break of day
next morning, Strong rose and called his fellow-travellers. Beside the
turnpike he built a fire, over which he began to cook fish and potatoes
and coffee. When the Migleys had come, all sat on a blanket within reach
of their food and helped themselves in a fashion almost as ancient as the
hills. Then Strong gave the coon his share, and washed the dishes and got
his pack ready. It was a tramp of four miles to the station below Pitkin.
They arrived there, however, before the sun was an hour high.</p>
<p>When they were seated in the end of the smoking-car, with coon and pack
beside them, Mr. Migley began to reveal the plans of the great king,
Business. Having increased his territory, he now felt the need of adding
to his power. He must have more legislation, for there were to be ruthless
changes of the map. Those few really free and independent people who dwelt
in and near the Lost River country were to be his subjects and they must
learn to obey. At least they must not oppose him and make trouble. Gently
his envoy began.</p>
<p>"You know," said he, "there's to be a new member of Assembly in our
district."</p>
<p>Strong nodded.</p>
<p>"I want my son to go," the elder Migley went on, as he winked
suggestively. "He's going to make his home in Pitkin, and it's very
necessary to his plans that you people should be with him. He's got the
talent of a statesman. Ask anybody who knows the boy."</p>
<p>He paused a moment. The Emperor made no reply.</p>
<p>"Level-headed and reliable in every spot an' place, an' a good-looker,"
Migley continued, as if he were selling a road-horse, while he nudged the
Emperor. "Look at him. I'd swap faces with that boy any day and give him
ten thousand dollars to boot. Wouldn't you?"</p>
<p>Mr. Migley spoke in dead earnest. He pinched the knee of Strong and waited
for his reply.</p>
<p>"W-wouldn't fit me," the Emperor replied.</p>
<p>"Pop" Migley took the answer as a compliment and gurgled with good
feeling.</p>
<p>"Strong, you're a kind of a boss up here in the hills," said he. "There
isn't a jay in the pine lands that wouldn't walk twenty miles to caucus if
you asked him to."</p>
<p>"Dunno," Strong answered, doubtfully.</p>
<p>"I know what I'm talking about," said the lumberman, with a smile. "I want
the vote o' the town o' Pitkin. If we get that we can give 'em all the
flag."</p>
<p>Strong was not unaccustomed to this kind of appeal. There were not many
voters in his town, but they always followed the Emperor.</p>
<p>"You can get it for us," Mr. Migley insisted.</p>
<p>"N-no."</p>
<p>"Why not?"</p>
<p>"I've promised to help M-Master."</p>
<p>"Oh, well, now, look here—you and I ought to be friends," said
Migley. "We ought to stand by each other. You look out for me and I'll
look out for you."</p>
<p>As he offered his alliance, Migley tenderly pressed the shoulder of Silas
Strong. Then he put his index-finger on that square of latitude and
longitude which indicated the region of his heart, and added,
impressively, "I have the reputation of being true to my friends—ask
anybody."</p>
<p>The hunter sat filling his pipe in silence.</p>
<p>"With what's pledged to us, if we get this town we can win easy."</p>
<p>Strong began to puff at his pipe thoughtfully. Here sat a man who could
make or break him. His face reddened a little. He shook his head.</p>
<p>Mr. Migley had caught the eye of a man he knew—Joe Socket—postmaster
and politician of Moon Lake. He rose, tapped the shoulder of Strong, and
said, "Think it over." Then he hurried down the aisle of the car.</p>
<p>He leaned over and whispered into the ear of Socket, "What kind of a man
is Strong?"</p>
<p>"Square," said the other, promptly. "A little cranky in some ways, but you
can depend upon him. He'll do What he says—the devil couldn't turn
him."</p>
<p>"He says he's pledged to Master—that chap who's come up here with a
bag o' money. Do you think Master has bought him?"</p>
<p>"I don't think so. I suppose he could be bought, but—but I never
knew of his taking money. The boys of the back country swear by the
Emperor; they look up to him. Fact is, Sile Strong is a ———
—— good fellow."</p>
<p>His oath seemed to contradict his affirmation.</p>
<p>"He's like a rock," said Migley. "The glad hand don't make any impression.
What ye going to do with a man who won't drink or talk or swap lies with
ye? I could put the poor devil out of house and home, but he don't seem to
care."</p>
<p>"We'll turn him over to the Congressman," Socket answered. "He'll bring
him into camp. If not we can get along without him."</p>
<p>The fact was the "Emperor of the Woods" was not like any other man they
had to deal with—in history, character, and caliber.</p>
<p>He used his brain for a definite purpose—"to think out thoughts
with," as he was wont to say, and if his heart approved of them they were
right, and he could no more change them than a tree could change its bark
or its foliage.</p>
<p>As yet the arts and allies of the flatterer had no power over him. He was
content and without any false notion of his own importance.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XVIII </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>HAT a fair of
American citizenship was on its way to Hillsborough this morning of the
Fourth of July! They that now crowded the train were like others
travelling on all the main thoroughfares of the county—farmers and
their wives, rustic youths and their sweethearts, mill-hands and
mill-owners, teamsters, sawyers, axemen, guides, and storekeepers. They
were celebrating a day's release from the tyranny of Business, and were
not deeply moved by the tyranny which their grandfathers had suffered.
History, save that of the present hour, did not much concern them.</p>
<p>They were mostly sound-hearted men. There were some who, in answer to the
charge that a local statesman had got riches in the Legislature, were wont
to say, "He'd be a fool if he hadn't." He was "a good fellow," anyhow, and
they loved a good fellow. All the men of wealth and place and power were
in his favor, and had practised upon them the subtle arts of the
friend-maker. They would not have accepted "a bribe"—these good
people now on their way to Hillsborough—but they could get all kinds
of favors from Joe Socket and Pop Migley and Horace Dumay and other
henchmen of the wealthy boss and legislator. They had yielded to the
insidious briberies of friendship—warm greetings and handshakes,
loans, small sinecures, compliments, pledges of undying esteem over
clinking glasses, and similar condescension. They loved the forest and
were sorry to see it go, but many of them got their bread-and-butter by
its downfall—directly or indirectly—and then Socket, Dumay,
and Migley were nothing more or less than lumber, pulp, and water-power
personified. They were like the lords and barons of the olden time—less
arrogant but more powerful. Indeed, Strong was right—the tyrant of
the modern world is that ruthless giant that he called "Business," and his
nobles are coal, iron, cotton, wool, food, power, paper, and lumber. These
people on the edge of the woodland were slaves of power, paper, and
lumber. With able and designing chiefs this great triumvirate gently drove
the good people this way and that, and there was a little touch of irony
in this journey of the latter to celebrate their freedom and independence.</p>
<p>One who knew them could not help feeling that the old martial spirit of
the day was wholly out of harmony with their own. They were a peace-loving
people, purged of their fathers' hatred, and roars of defiance found no
echo in any breast—save those overheated by alcohol.</p>
<p>Some wore flannel shirts and the livery of a woodsman's toil; some, unduly
urged, no doubt, by a wife or sister, had ventured forth in more
conventional attire. They sat, as if posing for a photograph, galled, hot,
gloomy, suspicious, self-suppressed, silent, their necks hooped in linen,
their bodies resisting the tight embrace of new attire. In the crowd were
a number to whom the reaping of the ruined hills, on either side of the
train, had brought wealth and an air of proprietorship. Most of the crowd
were in high spirits. The sounds of loud talk and laughter and the
rankling smoke of cheap cigars filled the air above them. A lank youth
under a dark, broad-brimmed hat, tilted backward, so as neither to conceal
nor disarrange a rare embellishment of curls upon his brow, entered the
car with another like him. His hair had the ginger-brown, ringletudinous
look of spaniel fur. He began to whistle loudly and, as it would seem,
prelusively. In a moment he was in full song on a ballad of the cheap
theatres, with sentiment like his hair—frank, bold, oily, and
outreaching.</p>
<p>As the train stopped at Hillsborough, Strong rose and put on his pack and
left with the crowd, coon in hand. The sidewalks were crowded, and Strong
took the centre of the street. There, at least, was comparative seclusion.</p>
<p>Silas had not travelled a block when, all unexpectedly, he became a centre
of attraction. A group of whining dogs gathered about him, peering
wistfully at the coon. They were shortly reinforced by a number of small
boys, which grew with astonishing rapidity. Cries of curiosity and
derision rose around him. Sportsmen who had visited his camp and who
recognized him shouted their greeting to the "Emperor of the Woods." A
"swisher" of some prominence in the little school of sportsmanship at Lost
River came and dispersed the boys. The Emperor kicked at a dog and ran a
little way in pursuit of him. He came back and set down the coon-cage and
shook hands with his pupil. Immediately a dog, approaching from behind,
sprang at the cage and tipped it over, and leaped upon it and began to
claw. Strong seized and flung the dog away, and as he righted the cage its
door came open and the coon escaped. Dodging his enemy, the little animal
sought refuge in a thicket of people. Being pursued by dogs, and
accustomed also to avoid peril by climbing, he straightway climbed, not a
tree, but a tall sapling of a youth, from which the others broke away in a
panic. They were opposite a little park, and the youth, not daring to lay
hold of the animal, fled among the trees, pursued by Strong and two dogs
and a throng of brave spirits who shouted information as to what he had
best do.</p>
<p>For half a moment the frightened coon clung on a shoulder, his tail in the
air, growling at the dogs. The latter leaped up at him, and he began to
feel for more altitude. The youth, who had some knowledge of the nature of
coons, ran to the nearest tree. Quickly the coon sprang upon it and
scrambled far out of reach. He ran up the smooth shaft of elm and settled
on a swaying bough some forty feet above ground. A crowd of people were
now looking up at him.</p>
<p>"Coon in a cage is worth two in a tree," a man shouted.</p>
<p>Strong sat down beneath the tree and lighted his pipe and "thought out"
another bit of wisdom for his memorandum-book. It was:</p>
<p><i>"Coon on yer shoulder worth less'n what he is anywhere."</i>He sat in
meditation—as if, indeed, he were resting in the wilderness. A
cannon, not a hundred feet away, shook the windows of Hillsborough with a
loud explosion for every star on the flag. A perpetual fusillade of
fire-crackers seemed to suggest the stripes. Accustomed to woodland
silences, the Emperor's feeling was, in a measure, like that of his coon.
The "morning salute" ended presently, and then he uttered an exclamation
which indicated clearly that he had been losing ground in his late
struggle with Satan.</p>
<p>One of the guides with whom he had sat in the store at Pitkin came near.
"Had yer tooth drawed?" was the question he put to the Emperor.</p>
<p>Strong was now looking at the empty cage. "Had my coon d-drawed," he
answered.</p>
<p>"Where is he?"</p>
<p>"Up-s-stairs." Strong pointed in the direction of the coon's refuge.</p>
<p>Silas was now the centre of an admiring company. His former pupil had
brought the president of the corporation of Hillsborough to meet him. The
official invited Strong to participate in the games. The Emperor was
willing to do anything to oblige, and walked with his new acquaintance to
the public square.</p>
<p>A trial at lifting and carrying was the first number on the programme. The
contestants leaned, with hands behind them, while others on a raised
platform began to heap bags of oats upon their backs and shoulders. Loaded
to the limit of their strength, they carried the burden as far as they
were able and flung it down. One after another tried, and the last carried
nine bags a distance of seven feet and was rewarded with many cheers.</p>
<p>It was Strong's turn now. He bent his broad back, and the loaders began to
burden him. At ten they stopped, but Strong called for more. Three others
were heaped upon him, and slowly he began to move away. One could see only
his legs beneath his burden, which towered far above him. Ten feet beyond
the farthest mark he bore the bags and let them down. The people began
cheering, and many came to shake his hand and feel the sinews in his arms
and shoulders. Of the trial at scale-lifting a woodsman who stood near
gave this illuminating description, "When they all got through, Strong put
on two hundred more an' raised his neck an' lifted, an' the bar come up
like a trout after a fly." Silas Strong stood, his coat off, his trousers
tucked in his boots, looking soberly at the people who cheered him. One
eye was wide open, the other partly closed. There were wrinkles above his
wide eye, and his faded felt hat, tilted backward and to one side, left
his face uncovered. He had a new and grateful sense of being "ahead," but
seemed to wonder if so much brute strength were altogether creditable.</p>
<p>Master was to address the people, and Strong was invited to sit behind the
speaker's table with the select of the county. He accompanied the
president of the corporation to the platform in the park, his pack-basket
on his arm. More than a thousand men and women had gathered in front of
them when the chairman introduced the young orator.</p>
<p>The speech delighted Silas Strong, and he summed it up in his old
memorandum-book as follows:</p>
<p><i>"folks cant be no better than the air they brethe "roots of a plant are
in the ground but the roots of a man are in his lungs</i></p>
<p><i>"whair the woods ar plenty the air is strong an folks are stout an
supple like our forefathers when they licked the British them days they
got a powrful crop of folks sometimes fifteen in a famly the powr of the
woods was in em. now folks live under a sky eight feet above their heads
an take their air secont handed an drink at the bar instead of the spring
an eat more than what they earn an travel on wheels an think so much of
their own helth they aint got no time to think of their countrys when a
man's mind is on his stummick it cant be any where else brains warnt made
to digest vittles with old fashioned ways is best which Strong says is so
also that a man had not oughto eat any more than what he's earnt by hard
labor."</i></p>
<p>After the address Strong went home to dinner with Congressman Wilbert, the
leading citizen of Hillsborough. That little town still retained the
democratic spirit of old times. There one had only to be clean and honest
to be respectable, and the mighty often sat at meat with the lowly. Strong
declined the invitation at first, on the plea that he had fried cakes in
his pack-basket, and yielded only after some urging.</p>
<p>The statesman's wife received the hunter cordially and presented him to
her daughter. The girl led Strong aside and began to entertain him. He had
lost his easy, catlike stride, his unconscious control of bone and muscle.
He looked and felt as if he were carrying himself on his own back. He
seemed to be balancing his head carefully, for fear it would fall off, and
had treated his hands like detached sundries in a camp-outfit by stuffing
them into the side pockets of his coat. Gradually he limbered in his chair
and settled down. His confidence grew, and soon he "horsed" one knee upon
the other and flung his hands around it as if to bind an invisible burden
resting on his lap. He carried this objective treatment of his own, person
to such an extreme that he seemed even to be measuring his breath and to
find little opportunity for cerebration. When the young lady addressed him
he often answered with the old formulas of "I tnum!" or "T-y-ty!" They
eased the responsibility of his tongue, and, without seriously committing
him, expressed a fair degree of interest and surprise.</p>
<p>At the table Strong behaved himself with the utmost conservatism. They
treated him very tenderly, and he found relief in the fact that his
embarrassment seemed not to be observed. He thought it the part of
politeness to refuse nearly everything that was offered and to eat in a
gingerly fashion.</p>
<p>The Congressman had often heard of Silas and gave him many compliments,
and finally asked what, in his opinion, should be done to protect the
forest. Briefly Strong gave his views, and the other seemed to agree with
him.</p>
<p>"I'll do what I can for the woods and for you, too," said the statesman.
"You ought to be a warden with a good salary."</p>
<p>These kindly assurances flattered the "Emperor of the Woods." Insidiously
the great world power was making its most potent appeal to him.</p>
<p>"I may ask you for a favor now and then," said Wilbert. "I'd be glad if
you'd do what you could to help Migley. He needs the vote of your town."</p>
<p>Strong knew not what to say. "M-mind's m-made up," he stammered, after a
little pause. When his mind was "made up" he had nothing further to do but
obey its will. The other did not quite comprehend his meaning.</p>
<p>Strong in his embarrassment had put too much tabasco sauce on his meat. He
blew, according to his custom in moments of distress, and took a drink of
water. He looked thoughtfully at the small cylinder of glass. He tried to
read its label.</p>
<p>"Small b-bore," he remarked, presently.</p>
<p>"Sh-shoots w-well," he added, after a moment of reflection.</p>
<p>Strong had begun to think of his coon, now clinging in a tree-top.
Suddenly he had become too proud to try to sell him, but he could not bear
to abandon his old pet. So while the others talked together he began to
contrive against the dogs of Hillsborough. As he was about to leave, he
asked Mrs. Wilbert where he could buy "one o' them l-little r-red guns,"
by which he meant a bottle of tabasco sauce. She immediately sent a
servant to bring one, which the Emperor accepted with her compliments. His
host went with him to a store where Strong invested some of his
prize-money in "C'ris'mus presents"—so he called them—for
Sinth and the "little fawns," filling his pack well above the brim.</p>
<p>Then, forthwith, Strong proceeded to the coon's refuge, in the public
park, where, with the aid of a Roman-candle, as he explained to Sinth in
the privacy of their cook-tent, he made the coon "l-let go all holts." The
animal had been clinging high in the old elm, and, being stunned by his
fall, Strong caught and held him firmly by the nape of the neck while he
covered him with an armor of liquid fire from the tabasco bottle. The fur
of back and neck and shoulders had now the power to inflict misery sharper
than a serpent's tooth.</p>
<p>"D-Dick," he whispered, "Strong is 'shamed o' y-you. He c-can't 'sociate
n-no more with c-coons in this v-village. But he won't let ye git t-tore
up."</p>
<p>Strong carried his coon out of the park and let him down. In Hillsborough
popular enthusiasm had turned from revelry to refreshment. The crowd,
having retired to home and hostelry, had left the streets nearly deserted.</p>
<p>Strong's coon set out in the direction of the river, and soon a bull-dog
laid hold of him. The dog gave the coon a shake, and began, as it were, to
lose confidence. He dropped the hot-furred animal, shook his head, and
tarried the tenth part of a second, as if to make a note of the coon's
odor for future reference, and then ran with all speed to the river. He
heeded not the call of his master or the jeering of a number of small
boys. They were no more to him than the idle wind.</p>
<p>The coon proceeded on his way to the woods. Farther on three other dogs
bounded into trouble, and rushed for water. The coon passed two bridges
and made his way across an open field in the direction of Turner's wood.</p>
<p>Strong, whose hunger had not been satisfied, bought some cake and pie, and
made for open country where he sat down by the road-side. Tree-tops above
him were full of chattering birds, driven out of town probably by its
hideous uproar.</p>
<p>The Emperor, having appeased his hunger, took half an hour for reflection.
Before the end of it came he began for the first time in his life to
suffer the penalty of idleness and high living. Indigestion, the bane of
towns and cities, had taken hold of him. Before leaving he made these
entries in his little book:</p>
<p><i>"July the 4 </i></p>
<p>"This aint no place for Strong</p>
<p>"Man might as well be in Ogdensburg * as have Ogdensburg in him.</p>
<p>"Strong's coon snaked out of his cage contrived to git even also coon made
free and independent."</p>
<p>His revenge was of such lasting effect that, some say, for a long time
thereafter dogs in Hillsborough fled terror-stricken at the sight of a
coon-skin overcoat.</p>
<p>* <i>It should be remembered that with the woods-loving and<br/>
wholly mistaken Emperor, Ogdensburg meant nothing less than<br/>
hell.</i><br/></p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XIX </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>EANWHILE Socky and
Sue, in Sunday costume, had gone out with their aunt for a holiday picnic
in the forest. Sinth had been busy until ten o'clock preparing a sumptuous
dinner of roasted wild fowl and jelly, of frosted cake and sugared berries
and crab-apple tarts. They went to the moss-covered banks of a little
brook over in Peppermint Valley, half a mile or so from the camp. Master's
man carried their dinner and blankets, upon which they could repose
without impairing the splendor of their dress. Sinth had put on her very
best attire—a sacred silk gown and Paisley shawl which had come on a
cheerful Christmas Day from her sister.</p>
<p>"Might as well show 'em to the birds an' squirrels," said she. "There
ain't nobody else t' dress up for 'cept the little fawns."</p>
<p>The man left them, to return later for their camp accessories. Sinth
played "I spy" and "Hide the penny" and other games of her childhood with
Socky and Sue. She had brought some old story-papers with her, and when
the little folks grew weary they sat down beside her on the blankets while
she read a tale. To her all things were "so" which bore the sacred
authority of print, and she read aloud in a slow, precise, and responsible
manner.</p>
<p>It was a thunderous tale she was now reading—a tale of bloody swords
and high-sounding oaths and epithets. Socky began to feel his weapon.
Master had shaped a handle on a piece of lath and presented it for a sword
to the little "Duke of Hillsborough." Since then it had trailed behind the
boy, fastened by a string to his belt. He sat listening with a serious,
thoughtful look upon his face. At the climax of the tale he raised his
weapon. Presently, unable to restrain his heroic impulse, he sprang at
Zeb, sword in hand, and smote him across the ribs, shouting, "Defend
yourself!" Zeb retreated promptly and took refuge in a fallen tree-top,
out of which he peered, his hair rising. Soon he satisfied himself that
the violence of the Duke was not a serious matter. Socky ran upon him,
waving his sword and crying, in a loud voice, "You're a coward, sir!" Zeb
rushed through the ferns, back and forth around the boy, growling and
grimacing as if to show that he could be a swashbuckler himself.</p>
<p>On his merry frolic he ran wide in thickets of young fir. Suddenly he
began barking and failed to return. They called to him, but he only barked
the louder, well out of sight beyond the little trees. Socky went to seek
him, and in a moment the barking ceased, but neither dog nor boy came in
sight of the others. Sinth followed with growing alarm.</p>
<p>Back in a mossy glade, not a hundred feet from where they had been
sitting, she stopped suddenly and grew pale with surprise. There sat a
beautiful maiden looking down at the boy, who lay in her arms. Sue, who
had followed her aunt, now sprang forward with a cry of delight. The
maiden rose, her cheeks crimson with embarrassment.</p>
<p>"Oh, aunt," said the boy, as he clung fondly to the hand of Edith Dunmore,
"this is the beautiful lady."</p>
<p>"What's your name?" Sinth demanded.</p>
<p>"Edith Dunmore." The girl's voice had a note of sadness.</p>
<p>"My land! Do you go wanderin' all over the woods like a bear?" Sinth
inquired.</p>
<p>The maiden turned away and made no answer.</p>
<p>"Land sakes alive! you 'ain't got no business goin' around these woods an'
meetin' strange men."</p>
<p>"Oh, silly bird!" croaked the little crow from a bough near them.</p>
<p>"Mercy!" exclaimed Sinth, as she looked up at the ribboned crow. "It's
enough to make the birds talk."</p>
<p>There were tears in the maiden's eyes, and the children glanced from her
to their aunt, sadly and reprovingly.</p>
<p>Sinth, now full of tender feeling, put her arms around the neck of the
girl in a motherly fashion. "Poor, poor child!" said she, her voice
trembling. "I've laid awake nights thinkin' of you."</p>
<p>Something in the tone and touch of the woman brought the girl closer.
Another great need of her nature was for a moment satisfied. She leaned
her head upon the shoulder of Sinth, and her heart confessed its
loneliness in tears and broken phrases.</p>
<p>"I—I followed you. I couldn't—couldn't help it," said she.</p>
<p>"Poor girl!" Sinth went on, as she patted the head of the maiden. "I've
scolded Mr. Master. He oughter let you alone, 'less he's in love, which I
wouldn't wonder if he was."</p>
<p>"Ah-h-h!" croaked the bird, as if to attract his mistress.</p>
<p>"Sakes alive!" exclaimed Sinth, looking up at the crow with moist eyes.
"That bird is like a human bein'. Hush, child, you mus' come an' help us
celebrate. Come on now; we'll all set down an' have our dinner."</p>
<p>Socky and Sue stood by the knees of the maiden looking up at her.</p>
<p>Gently the woman led her new acquaintance to their little camp, and bade
her sit with the children. Sinth had a happy look in her face while she
hurried about getting dinner ready.</p>
<p>"Jes' straighten the end, please—that's right," said she as Edith
Dunmore put a helping hand on the snowy table-cloth.</p>
<p>Sinth began to spread the dishes, and the maiden furtively embraced Socky
and Sue. "My land! you do like childem—don't ye? So do I. They's
jes' nothin' like 'em in this world."</p>
<p>"Dinner's ready," said Sinth, when all the dainties had been set forth.
"Heavens an' earth! I'm so glad t' see a woman I could lay right down an'
bawl."</p>
<p>"You have made me as happy as a young fawn," said Miss Dunmore. "I am not
afraid of you or the children."</p>
<p>"Are you afraid of <i>him?</i>"</p>
<p>The maiden looked down, blushing, and almost whispered her answer. "Yes; I
am afraid."</p>
<p>"He wouldn't hurt ye—he's jest as gentle as a lamb," said Sinth. She
paused to cut the cake, and added, with a far-away look in her eyes,
"Still an' all, I dunno what I'd do if he was to make love to me."</p>
<p>Sinth ate in silence for a moment and remarked, dreamily, "Men are awful
cur'is critters when they git love in 'em."</p>
<p>For a little, one might have heard only the chatter of the children and
the barking of Zeb. By-and-by the maiden said, "I am sure that Mr. Master
is—is a good man."</p>
<p>"No nicer in the world," Sinth answered. "Pleasant spoke, an' he don't set
around as if he wanted ye t' breathe fer him. He'll be a good provider,
too."</p>
<p>After a few moments the children took their cake and went away to share it
with Zeb and the tame crow.</p>
<p>"Do you—do you think he would care to see me again?" Edith Dunmore
asked, blushing and looking down as she touched a wild rose on her breast.</p>
<p>"'Course he would," Sinth answered, promptly. "Can't sleep nights, an'
looks kind o' sick an' dreamy, like a man with a felon." Sinth looked into
the eyes of the girl and added, soberly, "I guess <i>you're</i> in love
with him fast enough."</p>
<p>"I do not know," said Miss Dunmore, with a sigh. "I—I know that all
the light of the day is in his eyes—that I am lonely when I cannot
find him."</p>
<p>Sinth nodded. "It's love," said she, decisively—"the real, genuwine,
pure quill. Don't ye let him know it."</p>
<p>She sat looking down for a moment with a dreamy look in her eyes. "I know
what 'tis," she went on, sadly. "Had a beau myself once. Went off t' the
war." After a little pause she added, "He never come back—shot dead
in battle." She began to pick up the dishes. Having stowed them in a pail,
she turned and said, in a solemn manner: "He was goin' t' bring me a gold
ring with a shiny purple stone in it. Not that I'd 'a' cared for that if I
could have had him."</p>
<p>That old look of sickliness and resignation returned to the face of Sinth.</p>
<p>"Folks has to give fer their country," she added soon. "My father an' my
gran'father an' my oldest brother an' my true love all died in the wars. I
hope you'll never have to give so much."</p>
<p>A great, earth-quaking roar from far down the valley of Lost River sped
over the hills, and shook the towers of the wilderness and broke the peace
of that remote chamber in which they stood. It was Business breaking
through the side of a mountain to make a trail for the iron horse.</p>
<p>"Blastin'!" Sinth exclaimed.</p>
<p>"It's the king of the world coming through the woods—so my father
tells me," said Miss Dunmore.</p>
<p>Then, as if fearful that he might arrive that day, she rose quickly and
said:</p>
<p>"I—must go home. I must go home."</p>
<p>Sinth kissed her, and the children came and bade her good-bye and stood
calling and waving their hands as Edith Dunmore, with the ribboned crow,
slowly went up the trail to Catamount.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XX </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>N his way home at
night Strong was really nearing the City of Destruction, like that pilgrim
of old renown. Shall we say that Satan had filled the man with his own
greatness the better to work upon him? However that may be, a new peril
had beset the Emperor.</p>
<p>For long he had been conscious only of his faults. Now the thought of his
merits had caused him to forget them. Turning homeward, the world in his
view consisted of two parts—Silas Strong and other people. One
regrets to say it was largely Silas Strong—the great lifter, the
guide and hunter whose fame he had not until then suspected.</p>
<p>Master took the train with him that evening.</p>
<p>This old-fashioned man—Silas Strong—whose mind was, in the
main, like that of his grandfather—like that, indeed, of the end of
the eighteenth century—sat beside one who represented the very
latest ideals of the Anglo-Saxon.</p>
<p>They were both descended from good pioneer ancestry, but the grandfather
of one had moved to Boston, while the grandfather of the other had
remained in the woods. The boulevard and the trail had led to things very
different.</p>
<p>They had sat together only a few moments when the two Migleys entered the
car. These ministers of the great king got to work at once.</p>
<p>"Hello!" said the elder of them, addressing Master. "I congratulate you. I
told my son it was a great speech. Ask him if I didn't."</p>
<p>"I enjoyed your speech," said young Migley. "But there's no use talking to
us about saving the wilderness. If we did as you wish, we'd have nothing
to do but twirl our thumbs."</p>
<p>"On the contrary, you'd have a permanent business, whereas your present
course will soon lead you to the end of it. I would have you cut nothing
below twelve inches at the butt, and get your harvest as often as you can
find it."</p>
<p>"'Twouldn't pay," said "Pop" Migley, with a shake of his head.</p>
<p>"You condemn the plan without trial," Master continued. "Anyhow, if an
owner wants his value at once, let us have a law under which he can
transfer his timber-land to the State on a fair appraisal."</p>
<p>"The State wouldn't pay us half we can make by cutting it."</p>
<p>"Probably not, but you'd have your time and capital for other uses. Then,
too, you should think of the public good. You're rich enough."</p>
<p>"But not fool enough," said young Mr. Migley, in a loud voice.</p>
<p>The train stopped to take water, and those near were now turned to listen.</p>
<p>"I thought you were ambitious to be a public servant," said Master,
calmly.</p>
<p>"But not as a professor of moral philosophy." This declaration of the
young candidate was greeted with laughter.</p>
<p>"And, of course, not as a professor of moral turpitude," said the woods
lover. "The public is not to be wholly forgotten."</p>
<p>"I'm for my part of the public, first, last, and always," young Migley
answered.</p>
<p>It is notable that lawless feeling—especially after it has passed
from sire to son—some day loses the shame which has covered and kept
it from insufferable offence. Two or three citizens who sat near began to
whisper and shake their heads. One of them spoke out loudly and
indignantly; "His part of the public is mostly himself. He is trying to
buy his way into the Assembly, and I hope he'll fail."</p>
<p>There were hot words between the Migleys and their accuser, until the
lumbermen left the car.</p>
<p>Soon Master fell asleep. Strong took out his old memorandum-book and went
over sundry events and reflections.</p>
<p>When Master awoke the Emperor still sat with the worn book in his hands.</p>
<p>"I've been asleep," said the young man. "What have you been doing?"</p>
<p>"Th-thinkin' out a few th-thoughts," Strong answered, as he put the book
in his pocket.</p>
<p>The Emperor began to speak of the Congressman's courtesies in a tone of
self-congratulation.</p>
<p>Master laughed heartily. "It was a pretty little plot," said he. "Those
common fellows couldn't manage you, and they passed you on. I'll bet he
asked you to help Migley."</p>
<p>Strong smiled and nodded.</p>
<p>"You haven't made me any promise, and I want you to feel free to do what
you think best," said the young man.</p>
<p>The train pulled into Bees' Hill in the edge of the wilderness, and they
left it and took quarters at the Rustic Inn.</p>
<p>Bees' Hill was a new lumber settlement where there were two mills, three
inns, a number of stores, and a post-office. The bar-room was crowded with
brawny mill-hands from across the border, in varying stages of
intoxication. The inn itself was full of the reek of cheap tobacco and the
sound of cheaper oaths. The most offensive in the crowd were of the new
generation of back-country Americans. Their boastfulness and profanity
were in full flood. They used the sacred names with a cheerful, glib
familiarity, as if they were only saying "Bill" or "Joe."</p>
<p>The town had begun to ruin the woodsman as well as the woods.</p>
<p>Here were some of the sons of the pioneers—mostly "guides" and
choremen of abundant leisure. Every day they were "dressed up," and sat
about the inn like one who patiently tries his luck at a fishing-hole.
They had discovered themselves and were like a child with its first doll.
They had, as it were, torn themselves apart and put themselves together
again. They had experimented with cologne, hair-oil, poker, colored
neckties, hotel fare, and execrable whiskey. They were in love with
pleasure and had sublime faith in luck. They spent their time looking and
listening and talking and primping and dreaming of sudden wealth and
kitchen-maids.</p>
<p>Strong and Master stood a moment looking at a noisy company of youths at
the bar.</p>
<p>"They speak of the President by his first name, and are rather free with
the Creator," said Master.</p>
<p>"J-jus' little mehoppers," Strong remarked, with a look of pity. In his
speech a conceited fellow, who spoke too frequently of himself, was always
a "mehopper."</p>
<p>"Large heads!" Master exclaimed, as he turned away.</p>
<p>"Like a b-balsam," Strong stammered. "B-big top an' little r-roots."</p>
<p>"And they can't stand against the wind," said Master.</p>
<p>Before he went to bed the Emperor made these entries in his
memorandum-book:</p>
<p><i>"Strong says he had just as soon be seen with a coon as a congressman
also that a fool gits so big in his own eyes he dont never dast quarrell
with himself. Strong got to mehoppin. he has fit and conkered</i></p>
<p><i>"God never intended fer a man to see himself er else hed have set his
eyes difernt."</i></p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XXI </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>N the morning, a
little after sunrise, Strong and Master set out across the State land
stretching from the railroad to Lost River, a distance of some fourteen
miles. Not an hour's walk from the station, at Bees' Hill, they passed
another lumber job, where, on the land of the State, nearly a score of men
were engaged felling the tall pines and hauling them to skid ways. The
Emperor flung off his pack and hurried to the workers.</p>
<p>"Who's j-job?" he inquired.</p>
<p>"Migley's. We're working on a contract for the dead timber."</p>
<p>"Ca-call that dead?" Strong waved his hand in the direction of a number of
trees, newly felled, which had been as healthy as any in the forest.
"Q-quit, er I'll go to-day an' c-com-plain o' ye," he added.</p>
<p>"You can go to ——— if you like," said the foreman,
angrily.</p>
<p>Quicker than the jaws of a trap Strong's hand caught the boss by the back
of his neck and flung him headlong.</p>
<p>The dealer in hasty speech rose and took a step towards the Emperor and
halted.</p>
<p>"B-better think it over," said Strong, coolly.</p>
<p>The boss turned to his men. He shouted at some eight or ten of them who
had come near, "Are you going to stand there and see me treated that way."</p>
<p>"You fight your own battles," said one of them. "For my part, I think the
Emp'ror is right."</p>
<p>"So do I," said another. "I've pulled the brier for you as long as I want
to."</p>
<p>The rest of the "gang" stood still and said nothing.</p>
<p>"I'll go and see Migley about this," declared the foreman, who was walking
hurriedly in the direction of his camp. He turned and shouted to the
toilers, "You fellers can go 'histe the turkey.'"</p>
<p>One who had to pick up his effects and get out was told to "histe the
turkey" there in the woods.</p>
<p>Strong and Master had a few words with the men and resumed their journey
to Lost River.</p>
<p>As they walked on a brush whip hit the Emperor in the face. He stopped and
broke it and flung it down with a word of reproof. He often did that kind
of thing—as if the trees and brushes were alive and on speaking
terms with him. Sometimes he would stop and compliment them for their
beauty.</p>
<p>Soon the young man spoke.</p>
<p>"After all, the law is no better than they who make it," said he.</p>
<p>The Emperor turned as if not sure of his meaning.</p>
<p>"Bribery!" said Master. "Migley got a law passed which provides a fine so
low for cutting State timber that he can pay it and make money."</p>
<p>"B-Business is k-king," said Strong, thoughtfully. He perceived how even
the State itself had become a subject of the great ruler.</p>
<p>"And Satan is behind the throne," Master went on. "Down goes the forest
and the will of the people. I tell you, Strong, the rich thief is a great
peril; so many souls and bodies are mortgaged by his pay-roll and his
favor. Look out for him. He can make you no better than beef or mutton."</p>
<p>They proceeded on their journey in silence, and, when the sun had turned
westward and they sat down to drink and rest on the shore of Lost River,
Strong began to write, slowly and carefully, in his old memorandum-book,
some thoughts intended for his future guidance. And he wrote as follows</p>
<p><i>"July the 5 </i></p>
<p>"Strong says 'Man that advises other folks to go to hell is apt to git
thair first.'</p>
<p>"also that 'a man who loses his temper aint got nothin left but a fool.'
Strong is shamed.</p>
<p>"'Taint nuff to look a gift hoss in the mouth better turn him rong side
out and see how hes lined."</p>
<p>Having "thought out" these thoughts and set them down, the Emperor rose
and put the book in his pocket and hurried up the familiar trail, followed
by his companion. A little farther on they met Socky, Sue, and Sinth.</p>
<p>"Merry C'ris'mus!" the Emperor shouted as he caught sight of them. He put
his great hands upon their backs and drew the boy and girl close against
his knees. "My leetle f-fawns!" he said, with a chuckle of delight, as he
clumsily patted them. His eyes were damp with joy; his hands trembled in
their eagerness to open the pack. He untied the strings and uncovered the
rocking-horse and other trinkets.</p>
<p>"Whoa!" he shouted, as he put the little, dapple-gray, wooden horse on the
smooth trail and set him rocking.</p>
<p>Cries of delight echoed in that green aisle of the woods. Strong put the
children on the back of the wooden horse and gave a brass trumpet to Socky
and buckled a girdle of silver bells around the waist of Sue. Then he put
on his pack, lifted horse and children, and bore them into Lost River
camp. The laughter of the young man joined that of the children.</p>
<p>"Silas Strong!" Sinth exclaimed, as the Emperor unloaded in front of the
cook-tent.</p>
<p>"P-present!" he answered, promptly.</p>
<p>"Can't hear myself think," said she, with a suggestion of the old twang in
her voice.</p>
<p>"N-now, t-try," said Silas Strong, as he gave her a little package.</p>
<p>The expression of her face changed quickly. With slow but eager hands she
undid the package. Her mouth opened with surprise when she discovered a
ring with a shiny, purple stone in it.</p>
<p>"G-gold an' amethys'!" the Emperor exclaimed, calmly and tenderly, his
voice mellowed by affection.</p>
<p>"Gold an' amethyst," she repeated, solemnly.</p>
<p>"Uh-huh!" It was a low, affectionate sound of affirmation from the
Emperor, made with his mouth closed.</p>
<p>Her lips trembled, her face changed color, her eyes filled. It was oddly
pathetic that so vain a trifle should have so delighted her—homely
and simple as she was. Since her girlhood' she had dreamed of a proud but
impossible day that should put upon her finger a gold ring with a shiny,
purple stone in it. Strong knew of her old longing. He knew that she had
never had half a chance in this world of unequal burdens, and he felt for
her.</p>
<p>"I tol' ye," said he, in a voice that trembled a little. "B-better times."</p>
<p>She looked down at the ring, but did not answer.</p>
<p>"That celebrates your engagement to the Magic Word," said Master.</p>
<p>She put it on her finger and gave it a glance of pride. Then she said,
"Thank you, Silas," and repaired to her quarters and sat down and wept.</p>
<p>Her brother shouldered the axe and went to cut some wood for the stove.
She could hear him singing as he walked away slowly:</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
"The green groves are gone from the hills, Maggie,</p>
<p class="indent20">
Where oft we have wandered an' sung,</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' gone are the cool, shady rills, Maggie,</p>
<p class="indent20">
Where you an' I were young."</p>
<p><br/> <br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XII </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE next was one of
the slow-coming days that seem to be delayed by the great burden of their
importance. With eager, impatient curiosity, Master had looked 'orward.
Had he witnessed the first scenes of his own life comedy? If so, what
would the next be?</p>
<p>He rose early and dressed with unusual care, and was delighted to see a
sky full of warm sunlight. The children were awake, and he helped them to
put on their best attire while Sinth was getting breakfast in the
cook-tent. Soon, with Socky and Sue in the little wagon, he was on the
trail to Catamount Pond. Strong was to come later and bring their luncheon
and begin the construction of a camp.</p>
<p>On the way Master gathered wild flowers and adorned the children with gay
colors of the forest floor. They found their canoe at the landing, and got
aboard and pushed across the still water. The sky had never seemed to him
so beautiful and silent. From far up the mountain he could hear the
twittering of a bird—no other sound. The margin of the pond was
white with lilies in full bloom. Their perfume drifted in slow currents of
air. His canoe moved in harmony with the silence. He could hear the
bursting of tiny bubbles beneath his bow and around his paddle.</p>
<p>Soon they came in sight of Birch Cove. There stood the moss-covered rock
at the edge of the pond, but no maiden. Master felt a pang of
disappointment. A fear grew in his heart. Would she not come again? Was it
all a pleasant dream, and was there no such wonderful creature among the
children of men?</p>
<p>He shoved his bow on the little sand beach and helped the children ashore.</p>
<p>In a moment they heard the voice of the crow laughing as if unable longer
to control himself.</p>
<p>"I'm going to find her," said Socky, as he ran up the deer-trail followed
by Sue.</p>
<p>In a moment they gave a cry of delight. Edith Dunmore had stepped from
behind a thicket, and, stooping, had put her arms around the children and
was kissing them. The cunning crow walked hither and thither and picked at
the dead leaves and chattered like a child at play.</p>
<p>"Oh, it has been such a long time!" said "the beautiful lady," looking
fondly into the faces of. the little folk. "Where is he?"</p>
<p>"Over there," said Socky, pointing in the direction of the canoe. "I'll go
and tell him."</p>
<p>"No," the maiden whispered, holding the boy closer.</p>
<p>"He wants to see you," said the boy,</p>
<p>"Me?—he would like to see me?" she asked.</p>
<p>"He wants you to go home with us," the boy went on, as if he were a kind
of Cupid—an ambassador of love between the two. He felt her hair
curiously and with a sober face.</p>
<p>"He has a beautiful watch an' chain," said Socky.</p>
<p>"An' a gol' pencil," said Sue.</p>
<p>"He's rich," the little Cupid urged, in a quaint tone of confidence.</p>
<p>"What makes you think he wants me?" the girl asked.</p>
<p>"He told Uncle Silas—didn't he, Sue?"</p>
<p>The face of Edith Dunmore was now glowing with color. She drew the
children close together in front of her.</p>
<p>"Don't tell him—don't tell him I am here," said she, under her
breath, as she trembled with excitement.</p>
<p>"He wouldn't hurt anybody," Sue volunteered.</p>
<p>The pet crow had wandered in the direction of the canoe. Catching sight of
Master, he ran away cawing.</p>
<p>The young man started slowly up the trail. For a moment the girl hid her
face behind the children. As he came near she rose and timidly gave him
her hand. Quickly she turned away. His hand had been like those of the
children—its touch had stirred new and slumbering depths in her.</p>
<p>"If—if you wish to be alone with the children," he said, "I—I
will go fishing."</p>
<p>For a little she dared not look in his face. But since her talk with Miss
Strong she was determined not to run away again for fear of him. She stood
without speaking, her eyes downcast.</p>
<p>"You do want her—don't you, Uncle Robert?" said the youthful
ambassador.</p>
<p>"You—you mustn't ask me to tell secrets," said the young man, as he
turned away with a little laugh of embarrassment.</p>
<p>"Is your father at home?" he asked.</p>
<p>"He will return Saturday."</p>
<p>"If he were willing, would—would you let me come to see you?"</p>
<p>She hesitated, looking down at the green moss. "I—I think not," said
she.</p>
<p>"You are right—you do not know me. But, somehow, I—I feel as
if I knew you very well."</p>
<p>"Where do you live?"</p>
<p>"At Clear Lake in the summer—in New York City the rest of the year."</p>
<p>"I have never seen a city," said she, turning and looking up at him. "My
father has told me they are full of evil men."</p>
<p>"There are both good and evil."</p>
<p>"Do you live in a palace?"</p>
<p>"It is a very large house, although we do not call it a palace."</p>
<p>"Tell me—please tell me about it."</p>
<p>Then he told her of his home and life and people. She listened
thoughtfully. When he had finished she said, "It must be like that
wonderful land where people go when they die." From far away they could
hear the sound of a steam-whistle. Its echoes were dying in the near
forest.</p>
<p>"It is the whistle," said she, looking away, her eyes wide open. "Every
time I hear it I long to go. Sometimes I think it is calling me."</p>
<p>Neither spoke for a moment.</p>
<p>"It comes from a distant village where there are many people," she added.
"Yesterday I climbed the mountain. Far away I could see the smoke and
great white buildings."</p>
<p>"I go to that village to-morrow," said Master.</p>
<p>She dropped her violets and looked down at them.</p>
<p>"Would you care if you never saw me again?" he asked.</p>
<p>She turned away and made no answer.</p>
<p>In the silence that followed the young man was thinking what he should say
next. She was first to speak, and her voice trembled a little.</p>
<p>"Could I not see the children?"</p>
<p>"If you would go to Lost River camp."</p>
<p>"I cannot," said she, with a touch of despair in her voice. "My father has
told me never to go there."</p>
<p>The young man thought a moment. She turned suddenly and looked up at him.</p>
<p>"I know you are one of the good men," she declared.</p>
<p>"I am at least harmless," he answered, with a smile, "and—and you
will make me happy if you will let me be your friend."</p>
<p>"Tut, <i>tut!</i>" said the little crow as he flew into the tree above her
head.</p>
<p>"I would try to make you happier," the young man urged.</p>
<p>"How?" she asked.</p>
<p>"I could tell you about many wonderful things. You ought not to stay here
in the woods," he went on. "Do you never think of the future?"</p>
<p>She turned with a serious look in her eyes.</p>
<p>He continued: "You <i>cannot</i> always live at Buckhorn. Your father is
growing old."</p>
<p>"And he is well," said she. "My father has always taught me that Death
comes only to those who think of him."</p>
<p>In the distance they could hear the thunder of a falling tree.</p>
<p>"Even the great trees have to bow before him," said the young man.</p>
<p>A moment of silence followed.</p>
<p>"Let me be your friend," he pleaded.</p>
<p>She thought of what her grandmother had lately said to her and looked up
at him sadly and thoughtfully.</p>
<p>"But you—you would make me love you," said she, "and when you were
like the heart in my breast—so I could not live without you—then—then
you would leave me."</p>
<p>"Ah, but you do not know," he answered. "I love you, and, even now, you
are like the heart in my breast—I cannot live without you."</p>
<p>He approached her as he spoke and his voice trembled with emotion. She
rose and ran a short distance up the trail and stopped.</p>
<p>"Will you not stay a little longer?" he pleaded.</p>
<p>She looked back at him with a curious interest and the least touch of fear
in her eyes. She moved her head slowly, negatively, as if to tell him that
she would love to stay but dared not.</p>
<p>"May I see you here to-morrow?" he asked.</p>
<p>She smiled and nodded and waved her hand to him and ran away.</p>
<p>The crow laughed as if her haste were amusing.</p>
<p>Master sat awhile after she had gone. He could not now endure the thought
of leaving. He had planned to go with Strong and visit a number of
woodsmen at their camps, and talk to the mill-hands in a few villages on
the lower river. It was a formality not to be neglected if one would
receive the votes of Pitkin, Till-bury, and Tifton. But suddenly he had
become a candidate for greater happiness, he felt sure, than was to be
found in politics. His election thereto depended largely on the vote of
one charming citizen of a remote corner of Till-bury township. Her favor
had now become more important, in his view, than that of all the voters in
the county. He would delay his canvass over the week's end.</p>
<p>So thinking, Master put off in his canoe with the children, gathering
lilies until he came at last to the landing. There Sinth and the Emperor
had just arrived.</p>
<p>"W-weasels," said Strong, with a little nod in the direction of his
sister, who stood on the shore.</p>
<p>With him, as Master knew, the weasel had come to be a symbol of needless
worry.</p>
<p>"About what?" Master inquired.</p>
<p>"L-little f-fawns."</p>
<p>"Keep thinkin' they're goin' to git lost or drownded," said she, giving
each of the children a sugared cooky.</p>
<p>"Don't worry. I shall always take good care of the children," said Master.</p>
<p>"I know that, but I keep a-thinkin'. Sometimes I wisht there wasn't any
woods. I'm kind o' sick of 'em, anyway."</p>
<p>Those little people with the dress, talk, and manners of the town—with
a subtle power in their companionship, in their very dependence upon her,
which the woman felt but was not able to understand—were surely
leading her out of the woods. They had increased her work; they had
annoyed her with ingenious mischief; they had harassed her with questions,
but they had awakened something in her which had almost perished in years
of disappointment and utter loneliness. At first they had reminded her of
her dead sister, and that, in a measure, had reconciled her to their
coming. Later, the touch of their hands, the call of their voices, had
made their strong appeal to her. Slowly she had begun to feel a mother's
fondness and responsibility and a new interest in the world.</p>
<p>Again sound-waves of the great whistle at Benson Falls swept wearily
through the silence above them.</p>
<p>"Makes me kind o' homesick," said Sinth, as she listened thoughtfully. The
Emperor had begun, just faintly, to entertain a feeling akin to hers.</p>
<p>Master helped her up the hill on her way to camp with the children. He
returned shortly and gave a hand to the building of his little home on the
shore of Catamount. It was to be an open shanty, leaning on the ledge, its
pole roof covered with tar-paper, its floor carpeted with balsam boughs.</p>
<p>"Migleys have gone into c-camp at Nick Pond," said the Emperor. "Tol 'em I
had t' go w-with you t'-morrer."</p>
<p>"I'm sorry that we have to delay our trip a little," said the young man.</p>
<p>Strong laughed.</p>
<p>"Mellered!" said he, merrily. He shook his head as he added, "You ain't
g-givin' her no slack line."</p>
<p>After a little silence the hunter added:</p>
<p>"Don't t-twitch too quick."</p>
<p>It was a phrase gathered from his experience as a fisherman.</p>
<p>The young man blushed but made no answer.</p>
<p>"K-keep cool an' use a l-long line," Strong added.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XXIII </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>EXT morning, an
hour after sunrise, Master set out with the children. He promised Sinth
that he would keep them near him and bring them back before noon, They
shut Zeb in a cabin, and he stood on his hind feet peering out of the
window and barking loudly as they went away. Master brought his blankets,
rifle, books, and cooking outfit, for that day he was to take possession
of the new camp. Strong had gone with the Migleys and their outfit in the
trail to Nick.</p>
<p>It was another hot, still morning, but the eastern shore of Catamount lay
deep under cool shadows when Master dropped his pack at the shanty. A deer
stood knee-deep in the white border of lilies. It looked across the cove
at them, walked slowly along the margin of the shaded water, and
disappeared in the tamaracks. Master and the children crossed to Birch
Cove, hallooed, but received no answer, and sat down upon the high, mossy
bank.</p>
<p>"Maybe she won't come?" Socky suggested.</p>
<p>"She will come soon," said Master.</p>
<p>Sue propped her little doll against a fern leaf and said: "Oh, dear! I
wish she'd never go 'way."</p>
<p>"She's awful good"—that was the opinion of Socky.</p>
<p>"She wouldn't tell no falsehoods," Sue suggested.</p>
<p>"I wish she'd come an' live with us; don't you?" Socky queried, turning to
Master. The little Cupid was searching for another arrow.</p>
<p>"Wouldn't dare say—you little busybody!" the young man replied.
"You'd go and tell on me."</p>
<p>Both looked up at him soberly. Socky was first to speak. "Where'bouts does
'the beautiful lady' live?"</p>
<p>"Way off in the woods."</p>
<p>"At the home of the fairies?"</p>
<p>"No, but on the road to it."</p>
<p>"If she'd come an' live with us, she wouldn't have to fill no wood-box,
would she?" Sue inquired.</p>
<p>"Or pick up chips," Socky put in, brushing one palm across the other with
a look of dread. The children had discussed that problem in bed the night
before. Their aunt had made them fill the wood-box and bring in a little
basket of chips every night and morning. It went well enough for a day or
two, but the task had begun to interrupt other plans.</p>
<p>"Oh no," said Master. "We'll be good to her."</p>
<p>Socky was noting every look and word—nothing escaped him. He felt
grateful to his young lieutenant, and sat for a little time looking
dreamily into the air. Then, with thoughtful eyes, he felt the watch-chain
of the young man.</p>
<p>"You'd let her wear your watch—wouldn't you?"</p>
<p>"Gladly."</p>
<p>"She could look at my aunt's album," Sue suggested, as she thought of the
pleasures of the camp.</p>
<p>Socky looked a bit doubtful.</p>
<p>"She mustn't git no grease on it or she'll git spoke to," Sue went on as
she thought of the perils of the camp.</p>
<p>"Uncle Silas has put the bear's-oil away," said Socky, in a tone of
regret. He thought a moment, and then added, "Ladies don't never git spoke
to."</p>
<p>"You'd carry her on your back—wouldn't you, Uncle Robert?" inquired
little Sue. Both children fixed him with their eyes.</p>
<p>"Oh no—that wouldn't do," said Master.</p>
<p>"Men don't never carry ladies on their backs," Socky wisely assured her.</p>
<p>"Uncle Silas carries 'em," Sue insisted.</p>
<p>"That's only Aunt Sinthy," said the boy, now a little in doubt of his
position.</p>
<p>Just then they heard the crow chattering away up the dusky trail. The
children rose and ran to meet "the beautiful lady," and their voices rang
in the still woods, calling, "Hoo-hoo! hoo-hoo!" Master slowly followed so
as to keep in sight of them. When he saw Edith Dunmore come out of a
thicket suddenly and embrace them, he turned back and stood where he could
just hear the sound of their voices.</p>
<p>She drew them close to her breast a moment, and a low strain of song
sounded within her closed lips—that unconscious, irrepressible song
of the mother at the cradle.</p>
<p>"Dear little brownies! I love you—I love you," she said, presently.
Then she whispered, "Where is he?"</p>
<p>"Over there," the boy answered, pointing with his finger.</p>
<p>"Come, I'll show you," said Sue.</p>
<p>"Fairy queen—I dare not follow you," the girl answered. "I am
afraid."</p>
<p>"He wants you to come and live with us—he does," the boy declared.
"He'll be awful good to you—he said he would."</p>
<p>"Did he say that he liked me very much?" she asked.</p>
<p>"I wouldn't tell," said the boy, with a winsome look as he thought of
Master's reproof.</p>
<p>"You wouldn't tell me?"</p>
<p>"'Cause it's a secret."</p>
<p>"You are like the little god I have read of!" Miss Dunmore exclaimed,
drawing him closer. "Will you never stop wounding me?"</p>
<p>"Please come," said Sue. "You can sleep in our bed an' hear Uncle Silas
sing."</p>
<p>"Where is your mother?"</p>
<p>"Dead," Sue answered, cheerfully.</p>
<p>"'Way up in heaven," said Socky, as he pointed aloft with his finger.</p>
<p>"And your father?"</p>
<p>"Gone away," said the boy. "I give him all my money—more'n a
dollar."</p>
<p>"And you live at Lost River camp?"</p>
<p>Socky nodded.</p>
<p>"Are they good to you?"</p>
<p>"Yes, ma'am."</p>
<p>"I wonder why he doesn't come?" said Miss Dunmore, impatiently.</p>
<p>"'Fraid—maybe," Sue suggested.</p>
<p>"Pooh! he ain't'fraid," Socky declared, as he broke away and ran down the
trail. Miss Dun-more tried to call him back, but he did not hear her.</p>
<p>"'The beautiful lady'! She wants to see you," he said to Master, his eyes
glowing with excitement.</p>
<p>The young man took the boy's hand. They proceeded up the trail in the
direction whence Socky had come.</p>
<p>"You ain't'fraid, are you, Uncle Robert?" the boy asked, eager to clear
his friend of all unjust suspicion.</p>
<p>"Oh no," Master answered, with a nervous laugh.</p>
<p>"He ain't 'fraid," the boy proclaimed as they came into the presence of
Edith Dunmore. "He can kill a bear."</p>
<p>"Afraid only of interrupting your pleasure," said the young man as he
approached her. She retreated a step or two and turned half away. The
children began to gather flowers.</p>
<p>"I tremble when I hear you coming," said she, timidly. "You are so—"
She thought a moment. "Strange," she added, with a smile. She looked up at
him curiously. "So very strange to me, sir."</p>
<p>"You are strange to me also," he answered. "I have seen no one like you,
and I confess to one great fear."</p>
<p>"What fear?"</p>
<p>"That I may not see you again," the young man answered, with a smile.</p>
<p>She stooped to pick a flower. Every movement of her lithe, tall figure,
every glance of her eye seemed to tighten her hold upon him. He stood dumb
in the spell of her beauty, until she added, sorrowfully, "I am afraid of
you, sir—I cannot help it."</p>
<p>"I wish I were less terrible," he answered, with a sigh.</p>
<p>"I will not see you again."</p>
<p>"But—but I love you," he said, simply.</p>
<p>"When I am here I am afraid—when I go away I am sorry." Her voice
trembled as she spoke. "I have no peace any more. I cannot enjoy books or
music. I cannot stay at home. I wander—all day I wander, and the
night is long—and I hear the voices of children—like those I
have heard here—calling me."</p>
<p>There was a note of sympathy in his voice when he answered, "It is the
same with me, only it is your voice that I hear."</p>
<p>She looked up at him, her face full of wonder.</p>
<p>"I think no more of the many things I have to do, but only of one," he
said, with feeling.</p>
<p>Miss Dunmore seemed not to hear him.</p>
<p>"I think only of coming here," he added.</p>
<p>She stepped away timidly, and turned and stood straight as the young
spruce, looking into his eyes.</p>
<p>"I, too, have no more peace," he said, restraining his impulse to go
further.</p>
<p>"I must leave you—I must not speak to you any more," she answered.</p>
<p>"Stay," he pleaded. "I will be silent—I will say not a word unless
you bid me speak—but let me look at you."</p>
<p>She stood a moment as if thinking.</p>
<p>"Do you hear that bird song?" she asked, looking upward.</p>
<p>"Yes, it has a merry sound."</p>
<p>"It is my answer to you," said she.</p>
<p>"Then I am sure you love me."</p>
<p>As he came nearer she retreated a little.</p>
<p>"I give you everything—everything but myself," said she.</p>
<p>"And why not yourself?"</p>
<p>Her voice had a plaintive note in it when she said to him, "There are
those who need me more."</p>
<p>"I offer myself to you and to them also."</p>
<p>She stood with averted eyes. In a moment she said, "Tell me what are we to
do when those we love die?"</p>
<p>"I, too, and all the children of men have that same worry," said he.
"There's an old Eastern maxim, 'Love as many as you can, so that death may
not make you friendless.'"</p>
<p>She walked away slowly. She stopped where the children sat playing and
embraced them.</p>
<p>"Will you not say that you love me?" the young man urged.</p>
<p>The girl went up the gloomy trail with lagging feet as if it were steep
and difficult. That clear-voiced love-call of the children halted her, and
she looked back. Again the bird flung his song upon the silence. The sweet
voice of the maiden rang like a bell in the still forest, as if answering
the bird's message. "I love you—I love you," it said. Then she
turned quickly and ran away.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XXIV </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">E</span>DITH DUNMORE
wandered slowly through deep thickets, and where she could just see the
lighted chasm of Catamount between far tree-tops she lay down to weep and
think and be alone. She was like some wounded creature of the forest who
would hide, even from its own eyes, on the soft, kindly bosom of the great
mother.</p>
<p>She had learned enough to have some understanding of that strange power
which of late had broken every day into seconds. These little fragments of
time had all shades of color, from joy to despair. She lay recalling those
which had been full of revelation. In a strange loneliness she thought of
all Robert Master had said, of far more in that wordless, wonderful
assurance which had passed from his soul to hers. She knew that to be
given in marriage was to leave all for a new love.</p>
<p>She knew better than they suspected—those few dwellers at Buckhorn—how
dear, how indispensable she was to them. She knew how soon that
loneliness, which had often seemed to fill the heavens above her, would
bear them down. Yet she would not hesitate; she would go with him, and for
this she felt a sense of shame.</p>
<p>She lay longer than she knew, looking up at the sky through needled crowns
of pine. That passion which has all the fabled power of Fate was busy with
her.</p>
<p>A band of crows had alighted in a tree above her head and begun cawing.
Roc, who had gone to roost in a small fir, answered them. One dove into
the great, dusky hall of the near woods and made it echo with his cawing.
Roc rose and followed through its green roof into the open sky. The maiden
called to him, but he heeded only the call of his own people, and made his
choice between flying and creeping, between loneliness and joy, between
the paths of men and that appointed for him in the heavens. His had been
like her own decision—so she thought—he had heard the one cry
which he could not resist. Lately she had neglected him. He had missed her
caresses and begun to think of better company, Again and again she called,
but he had gone quickly far out of hearing. She listened, waiting and
looking into the sky, but he came not.</p>
<p>Master had taken the children home and returned to his little' camp on the
pond. She could hear the stroke of his axe; she could hear him singing.
She fancied, also, that she could hear the children call—that little
trumpet tone which had thrilled her when it rang in the woods. She rose
and walked slowly towards the lighted basin below her. She could not bear
to turn away from it. She would go down and look across from the edge of
the thickets. She feared that she had too freely uncovered her feeling for
him.</p>
<p>Soon she turned back, but then she seemed to be treading on her own heart.
She ran towards the place where she had met him. She thought not of the
children now, but only of the young man. She had heard her father say: "A
man throws off his mask when he is alone. If we could see him then we
should know what is in his soul." Could she look into his face while he
knew not of her being near she would know if he loved her. She tried to
enlarge this fancy into a motive. It failed, however, to end her
self-reproaches. Soon, almost in tears, she began to whisper: "I do not
care. I must see him again. I cannot go until I have seen him."</p>
<p>Moose-birds flew in the tops above her, scolding loudly, as if to turn her
back. They annoyed her, and she stopped until they had flown away. She
trembled as she drew near the familiar cove. Stealthily she made her way,
halting where they had talked together. A solemn silence brooded there.
She felt the moss where his feet had stood. He had held this fragrant,
broken lily in his hand. She picked it up and pressed it to her lips. She
slowly crossed the deep, soft mat sloping to the water's edge, and peered
between sprays of tamarack. The shadows had shifted to the farther shore.
A sprinkle of hot light fell upon her shoulders. The disk of the sun was
cut by dead pines on the bald ridge opposite. She heeded not the warning
it gave her, but only looked and listened. She could hear Master over at
the landing, hidden by the point of Birch Cove. He was cutting wood for
the night. Under cover of thickets, she made her way along the edge of the
pond. It was a walk of more than half a mile around the coves.</p>
<p>By-and-by she could hear the tread of Master's feet and the crackle of his
fire. She moved with the stealth of a deer. Soon she could smell the odor
of frying meat and was reminded of her hunger. She passed a spring, above
which a cup hung, and saw the trail leading to his camp. Possibly very
soon he would be going after water. She knelt in a thicket where she could
see him pass, and waited. For a long time she waited.</p>
<p>Suddenly she rose and peered about her. She paled with alarm. It was
growing dusk; she had forgotten that the day would have an end. It was a
journey to Buckhom, and her little guide—where was he? Cautiously
she retraced her steps along the shore. In a moment she' began to weep
silently. When she tried to hurry the rustling of the brush halted her.
Had he heard it? What was that sound far up the ridge before her? She
knelt and listened. It was a man coming in the distance. She could hear
him whistling as he walked. Slowly he approached, passing within a few
feet of her. She had often hidden that way from unexpected travellers in
the forest. She waited a little and hurried on.</p>
<p>The thickets seemed now to hold her back as if to defeat her purpose. She
got clear of them by-and-by and ran up the side of the ridge.</p>
<p>She peered about her, seeking the familiar trail. The dusk had thickened—her
alarm had grown. She stopped a moment to make sure of her way. Again she
hurried on. Soon she entered the little six-mile thoroughfare from
Catamount to Buckhorn. She ran a few rods down the trail and stopped. It
was growing dark; she could scarcely see the ground beneath her; she might
soon lose her way in the forest. She leaned against a tree-trunk and shook
with sobs, thinking of her folly and of her friends at home. Presently she
ran back in the direction of Master's camp. She left the trail and went
slowly down the side of the ridge. She must go and tell him that she had
lost her way and ask for a lantern. She could see the flicker of his fire.
She groped through the bushes to a little cove opposite, where, across
water some twenty rods away, she could see his camp.</p>
<p>In the edge of the dark forest the girl sat gazing off at the firelight.
She was weary and athirst; she was tortured with anxiety, but she could
not summon courage to go. She could see the light flooding between tree
columns, leaping into high tops, gilding the water-ripples. She could see
shadows moving; she could hear voices. Light and shadow seemed to beckon
and the voices to invite her, but she dared not go. She would boldly rise
and feel her way a few paces, only to sit down again. Tales which her
father had told her concerning the wickedness of men flashed out of her
memory.</p>
<p>That light was on the edge of the unknown world—full of mystery and
peril. She could not goad herself nearer.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XXV </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T was Strong who
had passed Edith Dunmore as night was falling over the hollow of
Catamount. He was returning from his day of toil at Nick Pond.</p>
<p>"Just in time," said the young man, who was eating supper at a rude table,
from a pole above which two lighted lanterns hung.</p>
<p>The great body of the Emperor fell heavily on a camp-stool. He blew as he
flung his hat off.</p>
<p>"Hot!" said he, and then with three or four great gulps he poured a dipper
of water down his throat.</p>
<p>Master put a small flask on the table at which they sat.</p>
<p>"Opey-d-dildock?" Strong inquired, softly.</p>
<p>"The same," said Master. "Help yourself."</p>
<p>The Emperor obeyed him without a word.</p>
<p>"How's that?" inquired the young man.</p>
<p>"S-sassy," Strong answered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.</p>
<p>"Fall to," said Master, putting the platter of trout in front of him.</p>
<p>"Here's f-fishin'," said Strong, as he lifted a large trout by the tail.</p>
<p>"Good place to anchor. Anything new?"</p>
<p>"B-bear," Strong stammered, with a little shake of his head.</p>
<p>"Where?"</p>
<p>The Emperor crushed a potato' and filled' his mouth. He chewed
thoughtfully before he answered, "Up t-trail."</p>
<p>"How far?"</p>
<p>Strong pointed with his fork. He stopped chewing and turned and listened
for a breath. "B-bout mile." He sighed and shook his head sorrowfully.</p>
<p>"What's the matter?"</p>
<p>"F-feelin's!" Strong answered, pointing the fork towards his bosom.</p>
<p>"No gun?"</p>
<p>Strong nodded. It was a moment of moral danger. He knew that Satan would
lay hold of his tongue unless it were guarded with great caution. He sat
back and whistled for half a moment.</p>
<p>"S-safe!" he exclaimed, presently, with a sigh, as he went on eating.</p>
<p>"Which way was he travelling?"</p>
<p>"Th-this way—limpin'," said Strong.</p>
<p>"Limping?"</p>
<p>"W-wownded," Strong, added, softly, gently, as if he were still on
dangerous ground.</p>
<p>They finished their meal in silence and drew up to the fire and filled
their pipes.</p>
<p>He rose and lighted his pipe and returned to the table as soon as he had
begun smoking. He took out his worn memorandum-book and thoughtfully wrote
these words:</p>
<p><i>"July the 6 </i></p>
<p>"See a bear—best way to kepe the ten commandments is to kepe yer
mouth shet."</p>
<p>Strong resumed his chair at the camp-fire. Suddenly he raised his hand.
They could hear the cracking of dead brush across the cove.</p>
<p>"S-suthin'," Strong whispered.</p>
<p>Again the sound came to their ears out of the silent forest.</p>
<p>"Hearn it d-dozen times," said the Emperor.</p>
<p>They listened a moment longer. Then Strong rose.</p>
<p>"B-bear!" he whispered. "Light an' rifle."</p>
<p>Master tiptoed to the shanty. He lighted the dark lantern—a relic of
deer-stalking days—with which he had found his way to Catamount the
night before. He adjusted the leathern helmet so its lantern rested 'above
his forehead. He raised his rifle and opened the small box of light. A
beam burst out of it and shot across the darkness and fell on a thicket.
The spire of a little fir, some forty feet away, seemed to be bathed in
sunlight. The beam glowed along the top of his rifle-barrel, and he stood
a moment aiming to see if he could catch the sights.</p>
<p>Strong beckoned to him. The young man came close to the side of the hunter
and suggested, "Maybe it's a deer."</p>
<p>"'T-'tain' no deer," Strong whispered. "S-suthin' dif'er'nt." He listened
again. "It's over on th-that air cove."</p>
<p>He explained briefly that in his opinion the bear, being wounded, had come
down for rest and water. He presented his plan. They would cross the cove
in their canoe. When they were near the sound he would give the canoe a
little shake, whereupon Master should carefully open the slide and throw
its light along the edge of the pond. If he saw the glow of a pair of eyes
he was to aim between, them and fire.</p>
<p>They tiptoed to the landing, lifted their canoe into water, and, without a
sound louder than the rustle of their garments or the fall of a
water-drop, took their places, Master in the bow and Strong in the
paddle-seat behind him. The hunter leaned forward and felt for bottom and
gave her a careful shove. Then, with a little movement of his back, he
tossed his weight against the cedar shell and it moved slowly into the
black hollow of Catamount. The hunter sank his paddle-blade. It pulled in
little, silent, whirling slashes. The canoe sheared off into thick gloom,
cleaving its way with a movement soundless and indistinguishable.</p>
<p>For a few seconds Master felt a weird touch of the soul in him—as
if, indeed, it were being stripped of its body and were parting with the
senses. Then he could scarcely resist the impression that he had risen
above the earth and begun a journey through the black, silent air. So, for
a breath, his consciousness had seemed to stray from its centre; then,
quickly, it came back. He began to know of that which, mercifully, in the
common business of life, is just beyond the reach of sense. He could hear
the muffled rivers of blood in his own body; he felt his heart-beat in the
fibres of the slender craft beneath him, sensitive as a bell; he became
strangely conscious of the great, oxlike body behind him—of moving
muscles in arm and shoulder, of the filling and emptying of its lungs, of
its stealthy, eager attitude.</p>
<p>The night life of the woods was beginning—that of beasts and birds
that see and wander and devour in the darkness.. From far away the faint,
wild cry of one of them wavered through the woods. It was like the yell of
a reveller in the midnight silence of a city.</p>
<p>The sky was overcast. Dimly Master could see the dying flicker of his
firelight on the mist before him. A little current of air, nearly spent,
crept over the pine-tops and they began to whisper. The young man thought
of the big, blue, tender eyes which had looked up at him that day, so full
of childish innocence and yet full of the charm and power of womanhood.</p>
<p>Master turned his head quickly. Near him he had heard the sound of a
deep-drawn, shuddering breath, and then a low moan. He thought with pity
of the poor creature now possibly breathing its last. He was eager to end
its agony. He trembled, waiting for the signal to open his light. The bow
brushed a lily-pad. He could feel the paddle backing with its muffled
stroke. The canoe had stopped.</p>
<p>Again he heard a movement in the brush. It was very near; he could feel
the canoe backing for more distance. Then he felt the signal. That little
shake in the shell of cedar had seemed to go to his very heart. He raised
his hand carefully and opened the lantern-slide. The beam fell upon tall
grass and flashed between little columns of tamarack. At the end of its
misty pathway he could just dimly make out the foliage. He could see
nothing clearly.</p>
<p>Again he felt the signal. He knew that the hunter had seen the game. Now
the light-beam illumined the top of his rifle-barrel.</p>
<p>Suddenly the trained eye of Strong had caught the gleam of eyes—then
the faint outline of lips dumb with terror. He struck with his paddle and
swung his bow.</p>
<p>The hammer fell. A little flame burst out of the rifle-muzzle, and a great
roar shook the silences. A shrill cry rang in its first echo. The canoe
bounded over lily-pads and flung her bow on the bank a foot above water.
Master sprang ashore followed by Strong. They clambered up the bank.</p>
<p>"Strong, I've killed somebody," said the young man, his voice full of the
distress he felt. He swept the shore with his light. It fell on the body
of a young woman lying prone among the brakes. Quickly he knelt beside her
and threw the light upon her face.</p>
<p>"My God! Come here, Strong!" he shouted, hoarsely.</p>
<p>His friend, alarmed by his cry, hurried to him. Master had raised the head
of Miss Dun-more upon his arm and was moaning pitifully. He covered the
beautiful white face with kisses.</p>
<p>Strong, who stood near with the lantern, had begun to stammer in an effort
to express his thoughts.</p>
<p>"K-keep c-cool," he soon succeeded in saying.</p>
<p>"I switched the canoe an' ye n-never t-touched her. She's scairt—th-that's
all."</p>
<p>Edith Dunmore had partly risen and opened her eyes. Master lifted her from
the earth and held her close and kissed her. His joy overcame him so that
the words he tried to utter fell half spoken from his lips. She clung to
him, and their silence and their tears and the touch of their hands were
full of that assurance for which both had longed.</p>
<p>"T-y-ty!" Strong whispered as he held the light upon them.</p>
<p>For a long moment the lovers stood in each other's embrace. . .</p>
<p>"I don't know why I came here," said she, presently, in a troubled voice.</p>
<p>He took her hands in his and raised them to his lips.</p>
<p>"I must go; I must go," she said.</p>
<p>"Come, we will go with you," said the young man.</p>
<p>He put his arm around the waist of the girl. They walked slowly up the
side of the ridge, with Strong beside them, throwing light upon their
path. Master heard from her how it befell that darkness had overtaken her
in the basin of Catamount, and she learned from him why they had come out
in their canoe.</p>
<p>"You will not be afraid of me any more," he said.</p>
<p>She stopped and raised one of his hands and held it against her cheek with
a little moan of fondness. Curiously she felt his face.</p>
<p>"It is so dark—I cannot see you," she whispered.</p>
<p>"I loathe the darkness that hides your beauty from me," said the young
man.</p>
<p>Strong turned his light upon her face. Tears glittered in the lashes of
her eyes and a new peace and trustfulness were upon her countenance.</p>
<p>"We shall see better to-morrow," the young man said.</p>
<p>"My father is coming—he will be angry—he will not let me see
you again—" Her voice trembled with its burden of trouble.</p>
<p>"Leave that to me—no one shall keep us apart," he assured her. "I
will see him tomorrow and tell him all."</p>
<p>They walked awhile in silence. The whistle blew for the night-shift at
Benson Falls. Its epic note bellowed over the plains and up and down the
timbered hills of the Emperor. It seemed to warn the trees of their doom.</p>
<p>She thought then of the great world, and said, "I will go with you."</p>
<p>"And be my wife?"</p>
<p>"Yes. I am no longer afraid."</p>
<p>"We shall go soon," he answered.</p>
<p>A mile or so from the shore of Buckhom they could hear the voice of a
woman calling in the still woods, and they answered. Soon they saw the
light of a lantern approaching in the trail. For a moment Master and the
maiden whispered together.</p>
<p>Soon the old nurse and servant of Edith Dun-more came out of the darkness
trembling with fear and anxiety. Gently the girl patted the bare head of
the woman as she whispered to her. In a moment all resumed their journey.</p>
<p>When they had come to Buckhom and could see the camp-lights, Master
launched a canoe and took the girl and her servant across the pond. He
left them without a word and returned to the other shore. Strong and he
stood for a moment listening. Then they set out for their homes far down
the trail. The Emperor was busy "thinking out thoughts."</p>
<p>"Mountaneyous!" he muttered, "g-great an' p-powerful."</p>
<p>For the second time in his life he felt strongly moved to expression and
seemed to be feeling for adequate words. Master put his arm around the big
hunter and asked him what he meant.</p>
<p>"Oh-h-h! Oh-h-h!" Strong murmured, in a tone of singular tenderness.
"P-purty! purty! w-wonderful purty! She's too g-good fer this w-world. I
jes' f-felt like t-takin' her on my b-back an' makin' r-right across the
s-swamps an' hills fer heaven."</p>
<p>The Emperor wiped his eyes and added:</p>
<p>"You're as handy with a g-gal as I am with a f-fish-rod."</p>
<p>Next day he noted this conclusion in his memorandum-book:</p>
<p><i>"Strong cant wait much longer. He's got to have a guide for the long
trail."</i></p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XXVI </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>EXT day Master
went to Tillbury for his mail, a-walk of some twenty miles. He lingered
for awhile near the shore of Buckhom on his way, but saw nothing of her he
loved.</p>
<p>Two fishermen had arrived at Strong's, and the Emperor had taken them to
spring holes in the lower river.</p>
<p>After supper that evening he built a big fire in front of the main camp,
and sat down beside the fishermen with Socky and Sue in his lap.</p>
<p>Darkness had fallen when Dunmore strode into the firelight.</p>
<p>"Dwellers in the long house," he said, removing his cap, "I am glad to sit
by your council fire."</p>
<p>"Had supper?" Strong inquired.</p>
<p>"No—give me a doughnut and a piece of bread and butter. I'll eat
here by the fire."</p>
<p>He took the children in his arms while Strong went to prepare his
luncheon.</p>
<p>"I love and fear you," said he. "You make me think of things forgotten."</p>
<p>Of late Socky had thought much of the general subject of grandfathers. He
knew that they were highly useful members of society. He had seen them
carry children on their backs and draw them in little wagons. This fact
had caused him to put all able-bodied grandfathers in the high rank of
ponies and billy-goats. His uncles Silas and Robert had been out of camp
so much lately they had been of slight service to him. The thought that a
grandfather would be more reliable, had presented itself, and he had
broached the subject to little Sue. How they were acquired—whether
they were bought or "ketched" or just given away to any who stood in need
of them—neither had a definite notion. On this point the boy went to
his aunt for counsel. She told him, laughingly, that they were "spoke for"
in a sort of proposal like that of marriage. He had begun to think very
favorably of Mr. Dunmore, and timidly put the question:</p>
<p>"Are—are you anybody's gran'pa?"</p>
<p>"No."</p>
<p>"Mebbe you'd be my gran'pa," the boy suggested, soberly. .</p>
<p>"Maybe," said Dunmore, with a smile.</p>
<p>"We could play horse together when Uncle Silas is away," was the further
suggestion of Socky.</p>
<p>"Why not play horse with your sister?"</p>
<p>"She's too little—she can't draw me."</p>
<p>"Gran'pas don't make the best horses," Dunmore objected.</p>
<p>"Yes they do," Socky stoutly affirmed. "May Butler's gran'pa draws her
'round everywhere in a little cart."</p>
<p>"Well, that shows that old men can be good for something," said Dunmore.
"Where's your wagon?"</p>
<p>Socky ran for the creaking treasure.</p>
<p>"Now get in—both of you," said the whitehaired man.</p>
<p>Socky and Sue mounted the wagon. Dunmore took the tongue-peg in both hands
and began to draw them around the fire. Their cries of pleasure seemed to
warm his heart. He quickened his pace, and was soon trotting in a wide
circle while Zeb ran at his side and seemed to urge him on.</p>
<p>When, wearied by his exertion, he sat down to rest, the children stood
close beside him and felt his face with their hands, and gave him the
silent blessing of full confidence.</p>
<p>For Dunmore there was a kind of magic in it all. Somehow it faced him
about and set him thinking of new things. That elemental appeal of the
little folk had been as the sunlight breaking through clouds and falling
on the darkened earth. In his lonely heart spring-time had returned.</p>
<p>The children climbed upon his knees, and he began a curious chant with
closed eyes and trembling voice. The firelight fell upon his face while he
chanted as follows:</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
"I hear the voices of little children ringing like silver</p>
<p class="indent30">
bells,</p>
<p class="indent15">
And the great bells answer them—they that hang</p>
<p class="indent30">
in the high towers—</p>
<p class="indent15">
The dusky, mouldering towers of the old time, of</p>
<p class="indent30">
hope and love and friendship.</p>
<p class="indent15">
They call me in the silence and have put a new</p>
<p class="indent30">
song in my mouth."</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>So he went on singing this rough, unmeasured song of the old time as if
his heart were full and could not hold its peace. He sang of childhood and
youth and of joys half forgotten.</p>
<p>Sinth stood waiting, with the food in her hands, before he finished.</p>
<p>He let the children go and began eating.</p>
<p>"This is good," said he, "and I feel like blessing every one of you.
Sometimes I think God looks out of the eyes of the hungry."</p>
<p>After a moment he added: "Strong, do you remember that song I wrote for
you? It gives the signs of the seasons. I believe we called it 'The Song
of the Venison-Tree.'"</p>
<p>The Emperor looked thoughtfully at the fire and in a moment began to sing.
It is a curious fact that many who stammer can follow the rut of familiar
music without betraying their infirmity. His tongue moved at an easy pace
in the song of</p>
<h3> THE VENISON-TREE </h3>
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<p>As the Emperor ceased, Dunmore turned quickly, his black eyes glowing in
the firelight. Raising his right hand above his head, he chanted these
lines:</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
"The wilderness shall pass away like Babylon of old,</p>
<p class="indent15">
And every tree shall go to build a thing of greater mould;</p>
<p class="indent15">
The chopper he shall fall to earth as fell the mighty tree,</p>
<p class="indent15">
And his timber shall be used to build a nobler man than he."</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>"Wh-what do ye mean by his t-timber?" Strong asked.</p>
<p>"His character," Dunmore answered. "Men are like trees. Some are hickory,
some are oak, some are cedar, some are only basswood. Some are strong,
beautiful, generous; some are small and sickly for want of air and
sunlight; some are as selfish and quarrelsome as a thorn-tree. Every year
we must draw energy out of the great breast of nature and put on a fresh
ring of wood. We must grow or die. You know what comes to the
rotten-hearted?"</p>
<p>"Uh-huh," said the hunter.</p>
<p>"There's good timber enough in you and in that little book of yours,"
Dunmore went on. "If it's only milled with judgment—some of it would
stand planing and polishing—there's enough, my friend, to make a
mansion. Believe me, it will not be lost."</p>
<p>Strong looked very thoughtful. He shook his head. "Ain't nothin' b-but a
woodpecker's drum," he answered. After a moment of silence he asked,
"What'll become o' the country?"</p>
<p>"Without forests it will go the way of Egypt and Asia Minor," said the
white-haired man. "They were thickly wooded in the day of their power. Now
what are they? Desert wastes!" Dunmore rose and filled his lungs, and
added: "As you said to me one day, 'People are no better than the air they
breathe.' There's going to be nothing but cities, and slowly they will
devour our substance. Indigestion, weakness, impotency, degeneration will
follow.</p>
<p>"Strong, I'm already on the downward path. Half a day's walk has undone
me. I'll get to bed and go home in the morning."</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XXVII </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>UNMORE was up at
daybreak. He set out in the dusk and, as the sun rose, entered the hollow
of Catamount. Master met him on the trail.</p>
<p>They greeted each other. Then said the young man, "I have something to say
regarding one very dear to me and to you."</p>
<p>Promptly and almost aggressively the query came, "Regarding whom?"</p>
<p>"Your daughter."</p>
<p>Dunmore took a staggering step and stopped and looked sternly at Master.</p>
<p>"I met her by chance—" the other began to say. Dunmore interrupted
him.</p>
<p>"I will not speak with you of my daughter," he said. He turned away,
frowning, and resumed his journey.</p>
<p>"You are unjust to her and to me," said Master. "You have no right to
imprison the girl."</p>
<p>The white-haired man hurried on his way and made no answer.</p>
<p>Master had seen a strange look come into the eyes of Dunmore. That
trouble, of which he had once heard, might have gone deeper than any one
knew. It might have left him a little out of balance.</p>
<p>Full of alarm, the young lover hastened to Lost River camp. He found his
friend at the spring and told of his ill luck. Without a word Strong
killed the big trout which he had taken that day he fished with the
pouters.</p>
<p>"D-didn't tell him 'bout that t-trout," he said to Master as he wrapped
the fish in ferns and flung him into his pack. "Th-thought I b-better wait
an' s-see."</p>
<p>He asked the young man to "keep cool," and made off in the trail to
Buckhorn.</p>
<p>Always when starting on a journey he reckoned his task and set his pace
accordingly and kept it up hill and down. He was wont to take an easy,
swinging stride even though he was loaded heavily. Woodsmen who followed
him used to say that he could bear "weight an' misery like a bob-sled."
That day he lengthened his usual stride a little and calculated to "fetch
up" with Dunmore about a mile from Buckhorn. The older man had hurried,
however, and was nearing the pond when Strong overtook him.</p>
<p>"What now?" Dunmore inquired.</p>
<p>"B-business," was the cheerful answer of Strong.</p>
<p>"It'll be part of it to paddle me across the pond. I'm tired," said the
other.</p>
<p>They walked in silence to the shore. Strong launched a canoe and held it
for the white-haired man. Without a word he pulled to the camp veranda
where Dunmore's mother and daughter stood waiting. The old gentleman
climbed the steps and greeted the two with great tenderness.</p>
<p>"Snares!" he muttered, as he touched the brow of his daughter. "The devil
is setting snares for my little nun."</p>
<p>Edith and her grandmother went into the house. Dunmore sat down with a
stem, troubled look.</p>
<p>"Got s-suthin' fer you," said Strong as he held up the big fish.
"C'ris'mus p-present!"</p>
<p>Dunmore turned to the hunter, and instantly a smile seemed to brush the
shadows from his wrinkled face.</p>
<p>"It's your t-trout," the Emperor added. "S-see there!"</p>
<p>He opened the jaws of the fish and showed the encysted remnant of a black
gnat.</p>
<p>"Bring him here," Dunmore entreated, with a look of delight.</p>
<p>Strong mounted the steps and put the trout in his hands.</p>
<p>"Sit down and tell me how and where you got him," said Dunmore.</p>
<p>Strong told the story of his capture, and the old gentleman was
transported to that familiar place in the midst of the quick-water. The
Emperor had not finished his account when the other interrupted him.
Dunmore told of days, forever memorable, when he had leaned over the bank
and seen his flies come hurtling up the current; of moments when he had
heard the splash of the big trout and felt his line hauling; of repeated
struggles which had ended in defeat. The white-haired man was in his best
humor. Strong saw his opportunity.</p>
<p>"I w-want a favor," said he.</p>
<p>Dunmore turned with a look of inquiry. The Emperor urged his lazy tongue.</p>
<p>"Master w-wants t' go t' Albany an' f-fight them air cussed ballhooters.
W-wisht you'd g-go out to caucus."</p>
<p>A "ballhooter" was a man who rolled logs, and Strong used the word in a
metaphorical sense.</p>
<p>"I don't vote," said Dunmore, and in half a moment he added just what the
Emperor had hoped for:</p>
<p>"What do you know about him?"</p>
<p>"He's a g-gentleman—an' his f-father's a gentleman."</p>
<p>A moment of silence followed.</p>
<p>"He's the b-best chap that ever c-come to my camp," Strong added.</p>
<p>Dunmore came close to the Emperor and spoke in a low tone.</p>
<p>"Tell him," said he, "that I send apologies for my rudeness—he will
understand you. Tell him to let us alone awhile. I have been foolish, but
I am changing. Tell him if marriage is in his mind I cannot now bear to
think of it. But I will try—"</p>
<p>Dunmore paused, looking down thoughtfully, his hand over his mouth.</p>
<p>"I will try," he repeated, in a whisper, "and, if he will let us alone,
some day I may ask you to bring him here. You tell him to be wise and keep
away."</p>
<p>Strong nodded, with full understanding of all that lay behind the message.</p>
<p>The old lady came out of the door and that ended their interview. She
spoke to Strong with a kindly query as to his sister, and then came a
great surprise for him.</p>
<p>"I wish she would come and visit me," said the old lady. "And I would love
also to see those little children."</p>
<p>Dunmore took the hand of his mother and no word was spoken for half a
moment.</p>
<p>"It's a good idea," he said, thoughtfully. Then, turning to Strong, he
added: "We shall ask them to come soon. I shall want to see those children
again."</p>
<p>In the moment of silence that followed he thought of those little people—of
how they had begun to soften his heart and prepare him for what had come.</p>
<p>The Emperor paddled back to the landing and returned to Lost River camp.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XXVIII </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>ASTER accepted the
counsel of his friend and kept away from Buckhom. He was, at least,
relieved of the dark fears which Dunmore's angry face had imparted to him.
He left camp to look after his canvass and was gone a fortnight. Strong
had promised to let him know if any word came down the trail from their
neighbors. The young man returned to his little shanty at Catamount and
suffered there a sublime sort of loneliness. The silence of Dunmore seemed
to fill the woods. Every day Master went to Birch Cove and wandered
through the deer trails. Every graceful thing in the still woods reminded
him of her beauty and every bird-song had the music of her voice in it. He
began to think of her as the embodied spirit of the woodland. She was like
Strong himself, but Strong was the great pine-tree while she was like the
young, white birches.</p>
<p>One bright morning—it was nearly a month after Strong had returned
from Buckhom—-Sinth put on her best clothes and started for the camp
of Dunmore alone. The Emperor had gone away with some fishermen and Master
with the children.</p>
<p>Sinth had said nothing of her purpose. Her heart was in the cause of the
young people, and she had waited long enough for developments. The
injustice and the folly of Dunmore filled her with indignation. She had
her own private notion of what she was going to say, if necessary, and was
of no mind to "mince matters."</p>
<p>She stood for a few moments at the landing on Buckhom and waved her
handkerchief. The old lady saw her and sent the colored manservant to
fetch her across. Dunmore and his mother welcomed her at the veranda
steps.</p>
<p>"My land! So you're Mis' Dunmore!" said Sinth, coolly, as she took a chair
and glanced about her.</p>
<p>"Yes, and very glad to see you.".</p>
<p>"An' you've stayed fifteen years in this camp?"</p>
<p>The old lady nodded. "It's a long time," said she.</p>
<p>"It's a wonder ye ain't all dead—livin' here on the bank of a pond
like a lot o' mushrats!" Sinth went on. "Cyrus Dunmore, you ought t' be
'shamed o' yerself. Heavens an' earth! I never heard o' nothin' so
unhuman."</p>
<p>A moment of silence followed. Dunmore smiled. He had never been talked to
in that way. The droll frankness of the woman amused him.</p>
<p>"I mean jest what I say an' more too," Sinth went on. "You 'ain't done
right, an' if you can't see it you 'ain't got common-sense. My stars! I
don't care how much trouble you've had. A man that can't take his pack
full o' trouble an' keep agoin' is a purty poor stick. I know what 'tis to
be disapp'inted. Good gracious me! you needn't think you're the only one
that ever got hurt. The Lord has took away ev'rything I loved 'cept one.
He 'ain't left me nothin' but a brother an' a weak back an' lots o' work
t' do, an' a pair o' hands an' feet an' a head like a turnup. He's blessed
you in a thousan' ways. He's gi'n ye health an' strength an' talents an'
a? gal that's more like an angel than a human bein', an' you don't do
nothin' but set aroun' here an' sulk an' write portry!"</p>
<p>Sinth gave her dress a flirt and flung a look of unspeakable contempt at
him. The face of Dunmore grew serious. Her honesty had, somehow, disarmed
the man—it was like the honesty of his own conscience. There had
been a note of strange authority in her voice—like that which had
come to him now and then out of the depths of his own spirit.</p>
<p>"Suppose every one that got a taste o' trouble was t' fly mad like a
little boy an' say he wouldn't play no more," Sinth went on. "My land! we
wouldn't be no better than a lot o' cats an' dogs that's all fit out an'
hid under a barn! Cyrus Dunmore, you act like a little boy. You won't play
yerself an' ye won't let these women play nuther. You're as selfish as a
bear. You 'ain't got no right t' keep 'em here, an' if you don't know it
you better go t' school somewhere. Now there's my mind right out plain an'
square."</p>
<p>She rearranged her Paisley shawl with a little squirm of indignation.</p>
<p>Dunmore paced up and down for half a moment, a troubled look on his face.
He stopped in front of Sinth.</p>
<p>"Boneka, madam," said he, extending his hand.</p>
<p>"I forgive," said Sinth, quickly, "providin' you'll try to do better. It's
nonsense to forgive any one 'less he'll quit makin' it nec'sary."</p>
<p>"I acknowledge here in the presence of my mother," said Dunmore, "that all
you say is quite right. I have been a fool."</p>
<p>Sinth rose and adjusted her shawl as if to warn them that she must go.</p>
<p>"Wal, I'm glad you've come t' yer senses," said she, with a glance at the
man. "'Tain't none o' my business, but I couldn't hold in no longer. I've
fell in love with that girl o' your'n. She's as purty as a yearling doe."</p>
<p>"I don't know what I would have done without her," said the old lady.
"Since she was a little girl she's been eyes and hands and feet for me. I
fear that I'm most to blame for her imprisonment." As she talked the
indignation of Sinth wore away. Soon Dunmore helped her into his canoe and
set her across the pond.</p>
<p>"I'll find out about the young man," said he, as they parted. "He'll hear
from me."</p>
<p>One day soon after that Dunmore began to think of the children. In spite
of himself he longed to see them again. He started for the camp at Lost
River, and planned while there to have a talk with Strong and Master. At
Nick Pond, on his way down, he met the two Migleys.</p>
<p>After his interview with them he decided that he must have more
information regarding the young man before going farther.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XXIX </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>ORE than a month
had passed since the journey of Sinth to Buck-horn; but nothing had come
of it. Silas, tramping with a party of fishermen, had met Dunmore one day,
but the latter had stopped only for a word of greeting.</p>
<p>Master had left his little camp and Strong was to send for him on the
arrival of important news. The candidate had canvassed every mill village
among the foot-hills of the county but had found it up-hill work. Many
voters had lately become bosom friends of Joe Socket, the able postmaster
at Moon Lake. Once Master had wandered into the Emperor's camp with a plan
to invade the stronghold of Dunmore and release the girl if, perchance,
she might desire to be free. Strong had wisely turned the young man's
thought from all violence. He had taken out his old memorandum-book and
pointed to this entry:</p>
<p><i>"Strong says the best thing fer a man to do in hell is kepe cool.
Excitement will increase the heat."</i></p>
<p>So a foolish purpose had ended in a laugh.</p>
<p>Since midsummer some rain had fallen, but not enough to slake the thirst
of the dry earth. Now in the third week of September the tops were ragged
and the forest floor strewn with new leaves and with great rugs of
sunlight. Big, hurtling flakes of red and gold fell slowly and shook out
the odors of that upper, fairy world of which Edith Dunmore had told the
children.</p>
<p>One still, sunlit day of that week the old struggle between Satan and
Silas Strong reached a critical stage. Sinth had gone for a walk with Sue
and Socky, and young Migley, coming down from his camp at Nick, had found
the Emperor alone. He was overhauling a boat in his little workshop. .</p>
<p>"Well, Colonel," said the young lumberman, "we want to know why you're
fighting us."</p>
<p>Strong had lately gone over to the scene of his quarrel on the State land
and plugged some of the pines with dynamite and posted warnings. He had
rightly reckoned that thereafter the thieves would not find it easy to
hire men for that job.</p>
<p>"You're f-fightin' me," said Strong, as he continued his work.</p>
<p>"How's that?"</p>
<p>"C-cause ye ain't honest."</p>
<p>"Look here, Colonel, you'd better fight for us." The young man spoke with
a show of feeling. "We'd like to be friendly with you."</p>
<p>Strong went on with his work, but made no answer.</p>
<p>"We're only taking old trees that are dead or dying over there on the
State land. Some of 'em are stag-headed—full of 'widow-makers,'"
said Thomas Migley.</p>
<p>It should be explained that a big, dead branch was called a "widow-maker"
by the woods folk.</p>
<p>"We shall obey the law and pay a fine for every stump," the young man
continued. "That's square."</p>
<p>"N-no," said the Emperor, firmly. "That l-law was intended to p-protect
the forest."</p>
<p>"You want us to be too ———— honest to live," said
young Migley, with an oath.</p>
<p>"N-no. I'll t-tell ye what's the matter with y-you," said Strong. "Y-you
'ain't got no r-res-pec' fer God, country, man, er f-fish."</p>
<p>"You must agree to stand for us against all comers or get out of here
to-morrow," the young man added.</p>
<p>"Th-that's quick," said Strong, as he laid down his draw-shave and looked
at Thomas Migley.</p>
<p>"You can do as you like," said the latter. "We're willing to let you stay
here as long as you want to."</p>
<p>Strong saw clearly that the words were a bid for his manhood. He weighed
it carefully—this thing they were seeking to purchase—he
thought of his sister and the children, of his talk with Master on the
journey from Bees' Hill. The skin upon his forehead was now gathered into
long, deep furrows. His body trembled a little as he rose and slowly
crossed the floor. There was a kind of gentleness in his hand as he
touched the shoulder of the young man. He spoke almost tenderly one would
have thought who heard him stammer out the one word, "Run." Suddenly his
big hand shut like the jaws of a bear on Migley's arm and then let go.</p>
<p>The young man hesitated and was rudely flung through the open door. He
scrambled to his feet and made for the trail in frantic haste.</p>
<p>"R-run!" the Emperor shouted, in hot pursuit of young Thomas Migley, whose
feet flew with ridiculous animation.</p>
<p>Strong stopped at the edge of the clearing. He leaned against a tree-trunk
and shook his head and stammered half an oath. Soon he hurried into one of
the cabins and sat down. He looked about him—at the fireplace and
the mantel, at the straight, smooth timbers of young spruce, at the floor
of wooden blocks, patiently fitted together, at the rustic chairs and
tables, at the sheathing of riven cedar. He thought of all that these
things had cost him and for a moment his eyes filled.</p>
<p>He went to the cook-tent and found a map and spread it on the table. He
could go over on the State land, pitch a couple of tents and build a
shanty with a paper roof and siding, and make out for the rest of the
summer. There would be two rivers and some rather wet land to cross. For a
few moments he looked thoughtfully at the map. Soon he took out his worn
memorandum-book and wrote as follows:</p>
<p><i>"Sep the 25. Strong has a poor set of feel in's in him Satans ahed but
Strong will flore him."</i></p>
<p>He took his axe and saw and went to a big birch-tree which he had felled
in the edge of the clearing a few days before. He cut a twelve-foot log
out of the trunk and began to hollow it. He stuck his axe when he heard
Sinth and the children coming. He lifted Socky and Sue in his arms and
carried them into camp.</p>
<p>"G-goin' t' m-move," he said to Sinth as he put them down.</p>
<p>"Move!" his sister exclaimed. "They're going to put us out?"</p>
<p>Gently, fearfully, he whispered, "Ay-uh—"</p>
<p>Sinth turned and hurried into the cook-tent. It was curious that she, who
had raised her voice against the camp whenever a new plan had been
proposed, who had seen nothing but folly, one would think, in its erection
or their life in it, should now lean her head upon the table and sob as if
her dearest possession had been taken away. The Emperor followed and sat
down at the table, his faded crown of felt hanging over one ear—a
dejected and sorrowful creature.</p>
<p>"D-don't," he said, tenderly.</p>
<p>The children stood with open mouths peering in at the door. Sinth's
emotion slowly subsided.</p>
<p>"You've worked so, Silas," Sinth moaned, as she sat wiping her eyes.
"You've had to carry ev'rything in here on your back."</p>
<p>After all, it had been a tender thought of him which had inspired all her
scolding and her weeping. He had always known the truth, but he alone of
all the many who had falsely judged her had known it. Strong sat looking
down soberly in the silence that followed. His voice trembled a little
when he spoke.</p>
<p>"G-got 'nother house," said he, calmly. His voice sank to a whisper as he
added, "Couldn't b-bear t' see it t-tore down."</p>
<p>Failing to understand, she looked up at him.</p>
<p>"Myself," he added, as he rose and smote his chest with his heavy right
hand. He explained in a moment—"M-Migley wanted t' b-buy me."</p>
<p>He put his hand on his sister's head and said, "B-better times." After a
little silence he added, "You s-see."</p>
<p>He left her sitting with her head leaning on her hand in deep and
sorrowful meditation. He had built a fire in the stove and got their
supper well under way before she joined him.</p>
<p>While Sinth was making her tearful protest, the children sat on a log
outside the door and were much depressed.</p>
<p>"Somebody's gone and done something to her album," Sue whispered. The
album was, in her view, the storm-centre of the camp.</p>
<p>After Strong had gone to work getting supper ready the two came stealthily
to the knees of their aunt.</p>
<p>"Aunt Sinthy," Socky whispered.</p>
<p>"What?" she asked, turning and beginning to smooth his hair with her hand.</p>
<p>"I'm going to buy you a new album." He spoke in a low, tentative, troubled
tone. The boy's resources would seem to be equal to every need.</p>
<p>Sinth shook with silent laughter. In a moment she kissed the boy and girl
and drew them to her breast with a little moan of fondness. Then she rose
and went to help her brother.</p>
<p>A little before sundown they heard the report of a rifle which had been
fired within a mile of camp. Strong stood listening and could hear distant
voices. He walked down the trail and returned in half an hour.</p>
<p>"It's B-Business," he said to Sinth. "His army is c-comin'."</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XXX </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>TRONG was chopping
and hewing on his birch log until late bedtime. He was like Noah getting
ready for the destruction of the world. Having finished, he took his
lantern off a branch beside him and surveyed a singular device. He called
it a boat-jumper, and, inspired by a thought of the children, whispered to
himself, "Uncle S-Silas is improvin'." It was a mere shell about two
inches thick, flat on the bottom and sheared on one end, canoe-fashion. It
would serve as a jumper—a rough, sledlike conveyance—on the
ground and as a boat on the rivers; it would carry Sinth and the children,
with tents, blankets, provisions, and bedding enough to last until he
could return for more.</p>
<p>He hurried to camp and helped his sister with the packing. When a dozen
great bundles lay on the floor, ready for removal, Sinth went to bed. But
the tireless Emperor had more work to do. He made two seats, with
back-rests upon each, for the boat-jumper and fastened a whiffle-tree to
the bow end of the same. On its stern he put two handles—like those
of a plough—so that he might lay hold of them and steady the jumper
in rough places.</p>
<p>Next morning a little before sunrise he made off on the trail to Pitkin.</p>
<p>At the general store and post-office in that hamlet he received a letter.
It was from the forest, fish, and game commissioner, who thus addressed
him:</p>
<p><i>"Dear Mr. Strong,—I hear that timber thieves and deer-slayers are
operating on State land near Rainbow Lake. I learn also that you are about
to leave your camp at Lost River. If that is true I wish you would accept
an appointment as deputy for that district and go at once and do what you
can to protect the valley of Rainbow. The salary would be five hundred
dollars. A letter just received informs me that 'Red' Macdonald is there
with dogs. If you could deliver him into custody you would be a public
benefactor, but I warn you that he is a desperate man. Please let me hear
from you immediately."</i></p>
<p>This gave Strong a new and grateful sense of being "ahead." Before leaving
the post-office he penned his acceptance of the offer. Then he proceeded
to the home of Annette and found her gone for the day. He sat down at the
dinner-table and wrote these lines with all the deliberation their
significance merited:</p>
<p><i>"Deer lady,—In Ogdensburg an' anxious to move. Patrick can snake
me out. Meet me at Benson Falls Friday if possibul an' youll heare some
talkin' done by yours hopin fer better times, </i></p>
<p>"S. Strong.</p>
<p>"P.S. Strong's ahed."</p>
<p>Meanwhile Sinth was in trouble. Young Mr. Migley had come, with a gang of
sawyers and axemen, to dethrone the Emperor and take possession. He had
his customary get-off-the-earth air about him—an air that often
accompanies the title to vast acreage. He found only Sinth and the
children and summarily ordered them to leave. Then she gave him what she
called "a piece of her mind." It was a good-sized piece, all truth and
just measure.</p>
<p>While the furniture was being thrown out-ofdoors she got ready to go. In
the heart of Sinth indignation had supplanted sorrow. It was in her
countenance and the vigor of her foot-fall and in the way that she filled
and closed and handled her satchel. Some of the brawny woodsmen stood
looking as she and the children came out-of-doors—a solemn-faced
little company. Something from the hearts of the men made Sinth touch her
eyes with her handkerchief. Then a curious thing happened. Some of the
lumber-jacks dropped their saws and axes.</p>
<p>Those people could forgive much in "a good fellow"—they could
forgive almost any infamy, it would seem, but the stony heart. Let one do
a mean thing and rouse their quick sympathies a little and their oaths
were as a deadly, fateful curse upon him. They never forgot the tear of
sympathy or the wrath of resentment.</p>
<p>The sorrow of the weak now seemed to touch the hearts of the strong. The
children, seeing the tears of their aunt as she turned for a last look at
her home, followed slowly with an air of great dejection. Then a strange
pathos rose out of their littleness, and an ancient law seemed to be writ
upon the faces of the men: "Whoso shall offend one of these little ones
which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged
about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."</p>
<p>A murmur of disapproval arose, and suddenly one voice blared a sacred name
coupled and qualified with curious adjectives—jumped up, livin',
sufferin', eternal—as if it would be most explicit.</p>
<p>"Boys," the voice added, "I can't see no woman ner no childern treated
that way."</p>
<p>A man took the satchel out of Sinth's hand.</p>
<p>"You stay here," said he. "We won't stan' fer this."</p>
<p>Another burly woodsman had lifted little Sue in his arms.</p>
<p>"I'm goin' down the trail to wait fer Silas," said Sinth, brokenly.</p>
<p>She put out her hand to take the satchel.</p>
<p>"We'll carry it an' the childern too," said the woodsman, whose voice,
which had been harsh and profane, now had a touch of gentleness. They made
their way down the trail in silence.</p>
<p>"He better try t' be a statesman," said one of the escort. "He ain't fit
t' be a bullcook."</p>
<p>They passed a second gang with horses and a big jumper bearing supplies
for the camp. The Emperor had surrendered; the green hills were taken.
Half a mile or so from the camp Sinth halted.</p>
<p>"I'll wait here, thank ye," said she.</p>
<p>With offers of assistance the men left them and returned.</p>
<p>All through the night Sinth had been thinking of their new trouble and was
in a way prepared for the worst. But now, as she was leaving forever the
old, familiar trees and the still water she sat down for awhile and
covered her face. Already the saws had begun their work. She could hear
them gnawing and hissing and the shouts and axes of the woodsmen. Socky
and Sue came near their aunt and stood looking at her, their cheeks
tear-stained, their sympathy now and then shaking them with
half-suppressed sobs. The reason for their departure and for the coming of
the woodsmen they were not able to understand. Zeb lay lolling on his
stomach, bored, but, like his master, hoping for better times.</p>
<p>"Aunt Sinthy—you 'fraid?" Sue ventured to ask, and her doll hung
limp from her right hand.</p>
<p>Socky felt his sword and looked up into the face of his aunt.</p>
<p>"Where we goin'?" he asked, with another silent sob.</p>
<p>"Pon my soul, I dunno," Sinth answered, wearily.</p>
<p>"Don't you be 'fraid," he said, waving his sword manfully.</p>
<p>Sinth took her knitting out of the satchel and sat down comfortably on a
bed of leaves. Zeb began to growl and run around them in a circle, like
the cheerful jester that he was. It seemed as if he were trying to remind
them that, after all, the situation was not hopeless. He continued his
gyrations until Socky and Sue joined him. Soon the big trees began falling
and their thunder and the hoots of the "briermen" echoed far. The children
came to their aunt.</p>
<p>"What's that?" they asked, with awe in their faces.</p>
<p>"The trees," Sinth answered, solemnly. "They're a-mowin' of 'em down."</p>
<p>In a moment, thinking of the young man who had heartlessly put her out,
she added:</p>
<p>"I guess he'll find he's hurt himself more'n he has us."</p>
<p>"Who?" Socky asked.</p>
<p>"That mehopper."</p>
<p>The children turned with a look of interest.</p>
<p>"What's a mehopper?" Socky asked.</p>
<p>Sinth sat looking thoughtfully at her knitting.</p>
<p>"He steals folks' albums," said Sue, confidently, "an' he can run like a
deer."</p>
<p>"Ain't a bit like a deer," Sinth responded. "He can't go nowhere but
down-hill—that's why ye always find him in low places—an' he's
so 'fraid folks won't see him that he swears an' talks about himself."</p>
<p>Sue looked at her aunt as if she thought her a woman of wonderful parts.</p>
<p>"He better look out for the Sundayman," Sinth continued.</p>
<p>"Who's the Sundayman?" they both asked.</p>
<p>"He's a wonderful hunter an' he ketches all the wicked folks," Sinth
answered. "An' them that swears he makes 'em into mehoppers, an' them that
does cruel things he turns their hearts into stones, an' them that steals
he takes away everything they have, an' if anybody lies he makes a fool of
'em so they b'lieve their own stories, an' he takes an' marks the face of
every one he ketches so if ye look sharp ye can always tell 'em."</p>
<p>In a moment they heard some one coming down the trail. It was young Mr.
Migley who suddenly had found himself in the midst of a small rebellion.
Half his men had threatened to "histe the turkey" unless he brought back
the "woman and the kids." It was not their threat of quitting that worried
him, however—it was a consequence more remote and decisive.</p>
<p>"Miss Strong, I was hot under the collar," he began. "I didn't mean to put
you out. I want you to come back and stay as long as you like. We can
spare you one of the cabins."</p>
<p>"No, sir," Sinth answered, curtly.</p>
<p>"All right," said he, "you're the doctor."</p>
<p>In a moment she asked, "What you goin' t' do with them sick folks that's
camped over at Robin?"</p>
<p>"I won't hurry 'em," said he; "but they'll have t' git out before long."</p>
<p>"It's a shame," Sinth answered. "You oughto hev consumption an' see how
you'd like it."</p>
<p>"There are plenty of hotels east of here."</p>
<p>"But they're poor folks an' can't afford to pay board, even if they'd let
'em in, which they wouldn't."</p>
<p>"I can't help it—we've got to get these logs down to the river
before snow flies—it's business."</p>
<p>With him that brief assertion was the end of many disputes. They were few
that even dared question the authority of the old tyrant whom Silas had
called Business.</p>
<p>The young man began to walk away. Sinth sent a parting shot after him.</p>
<p>"It's business," said she, "to think o' nobody but yerself."</p>
<p>It was long past mid-day when Silas came with the ox. He stood listening,
his hands upon his hips, while Sinth related the story of their leaving
camp and of Migley's effort to bring them back.</p>
<p>"S-Sawed himself off," said Strong, with a smile. "You s-see." The
dethroned Emperor turned, suddenly, and drew a line across the trail with
the butt of his ox-whip.</p>
<p>"All t-toe the s-scratch," he demanded, soberly.</p>
<p>He led Sinth and Sue forward and stopped them with their toes on the line.
He motioned to Socky, who took his place by the others. Zeb sat in front
of them. The boy seemed to wonder what was coming. His fingers were closed
but his thumbs stood up straight according to their habit when the boy's
heart was troubled.</p>
<p>"Th-thumbs down," Strong commanded.</p>
<p>He surveyed his forces with an odd look of solemnity and playfulness.</p>
<p>"S. Strong has been app'inted W-warden o' Rainbow V-valley," said the
exiled Emperor. "F-forward march." His command was followed by a brief
appeal to the ox.</p>
<p>"Purty good luck!" Sinth exclaimed, with a look of satisfaction. "But
they's a lot o' pirates over there—got t' look out fer 'em."</p>
<p>"They'll m-move," said Strong, as if he had no worry about that.</p>
<p>Slowly they went up the trail and soon reentered Lost River camp. The
young lumberman saw them coming and went off into the woods.</p>
<p>Some men, who had been at work near, gathered about the Emperor and
offered to stand by him as long as he wished to remain. Strong shook his
head. "W-we got t' g-go," he stammered. He looked sadly at the fallen
tree-trunks—at the door-yard, now full of brush. "D-don't never
w-want t' s-see this place ag'in," he muttered.</p>
<p>He brought the boat-jumper into camp and loaded it. Then with Sinth on the
bow seat and Socky and Sue behind her they set out, the men cheering as
they moved away.</p>
<p>A clear space at the stern afforded room for the Emperor if he should wish
to get aboard in crossing water and an axe and paddle were stored on
either side of it.</p>
<p>Strong had tacked a notice on one of the trees, and it read as follows:</p>
<h3> S STRONG </h3>
<h3> HAS MOVED TO RAINBOW LAKE </h3>
<p>The camp was now in the shadow of Long Ridge. Sinth and the Emperor were
silent. Bird-songs that rang in the deep, shaded hall of the woods had a
note of farewell in them. The children were laughing and chattering as ox
and boat-jumper entered the unbroken forest. Zeb stood in front of the
children, his forefeet on the gunwale, and seemed to complain of their
progress.</p>
<p>It was, in a way, historic, that journey of the boat-jumper, that parting
of the ancient wood and the last of its children. Their expedition carried
about all that was left of the spirit of the pioneer—his ingenuity,
his dauntless courage, his undying hope of "better times." The hollow log,
with its heart hewn out of it, groaning on its way to the sown land,
suggested the fate of the forest. Now, soon, the Lost River country would
have roads instead of trails, and its emperor would be a common
millionaire. The jumper and the woodsman had had their day.</p>
<p>Slowly they pursued their way, skirting thickets and going around fallen
trees, and stopping often to clear a passage. Strong followed, gripping
the handles that rose well above the stern of his odd craft, and so he
served as a rudder and support. An ox is able to go in soft footing, and
they struck boldly across a broad swamp nearly three miles down the river
shore.</p>
<p>It was near sundown when they camped for the night far down the outlet of
Catamount Pond. Strong put up a small tent and bottomed it with boughs
while Sinth was getting supper ready. Their work done, they sat before the
camp-fire and Sinth told tales of the wilderness. Sile sang again "The
Story of the Mellered Bear," and also an odd bit of nonsense which was, in
part, a relic of old times. The first line of each stanza came out slowly
and solemnly while the second ran as fast as he could move his tongue. In
his old memorandum-book he referred to it as "The Snaik Song," and it ran
as follows:</p>
<p><br/><br/><SPAN name="linkimage-0010" id="linkimage-0010"> </SPAN></p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG src="images/0298.jpg" alt="0298m " width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<h5>
<SPAN href="images/0298.jpg"><ANTIMG src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </SPAN>
</h5>
<p><br/><br/><SPAN name="linkimage-0011" id="linkimage-0011"> </SPAN></p>
<div class="fig"> <ANTIMG src="images/0299.jpg" alt="0299m " width-obs="100%" /><br/></div>
<h5>
<SPAN href="images/0299.jpg"><ANTIMG src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </SPAN>
</h5>
<p>Strong whittled as he sang, and soon presented the girl with a straight
rod of yellow osier upon which he had carved the brief legend, "Su—her
snaik stick." If she held to that, he explained, no snake would be able to
swallow her.</p>
<p>"I want one, too," said Socky.</p>
<p>"You m-mean a bear stick," Strong answered. "Girls have t' l-look out fer
s-snakes an' boys for b-bears."</p>
<p>They were all asleep on their bough beds before eight o'clock.</p>
<p>At that hour which Strong was wont to designate as "jes' daylight" he was
on his feet again. Whether early or late to bed he was always awake before
dawn. Some invisible watcher seemed to warn him of the coming of the
light. He held to one ol the ancient habits of the race, for he began
every day by kneeling to start a fire. He bent his head low and brought
his lips near it as if the flame were a sacred thing and he its
worshipper.</p>
<p>For a time that morning he was careful not to disturb the others. But
having attended to Patrick, he hurried to call the children. He hurried
for fear that Sinth would forestall him. He loved to wake and wait upon
them and hear their chatter. Their confidence in his power over all perils
had become a sweet and sacred sort of flattery in the view of Silas. He
had, too, a curious delight in seeing and feeling their little bodies
while he helped them to dress. Somehow it had all made him think less of
the pleasures of the wild country and more of Lady Ann. That "someday" of
his laconic pledge was drawing nearer and its light was in every hour of
his life. The children were leading him out of the brotherhood of the
forest into that of men.</p>
<p>He lifted the sleeping boy in his arms and gently woke him. Zeb had
followed and put his cold nose on the ear of Sue. Soon the children were
up and the Emperor kneeling before them, while his great hands awkwardly
held a "teenty" pair of stockings.</p>
<p>Sinth awoke and jealousy remarked, "Huh! I should think you was plumb
crazy 'bout them air childern."</p>
<p>Strong smiled and left them to her and began to prepare breakfast.</p>
<p>Soon all were on their way again, heading for the lower valley of Lost
River. They crossed two ridges and entered a wide swamp. There were many
delays, for they encountered fallen trees which had to be cleared away
with axe and lever, while here and there Strong gave the ox a footing of
corduroy. It was a warm day and the children fell asleep after an hour or
so. Sinth, who had been tossed about until speech wearied her tongue and
put it in some peril, sank into sighful resignation.</p>
<p>The jumper had stopped; Strong had gone ahead to look out his way.
Reaching higher ground he saw man tracks and followed them to an old
trail. Soon a piece of white paper pinned to a tree-trunk caught his eye.
He stopped and read this warning:</p>
<p><i>"To Sile Strong</i></p>
<p><i>"You haint goin t' find the Rainbow country helthy place. If you go
thare youll git hung up by the heels. I mean business."</i></p>
<p>The Emperor took off his faded crown. He scratched his head thoughtfully.
That message was probably inspired by some lawless man who had felt the
authority of the woods lover and who wanted no more of it. He had heard
that Migley had four camps on the Middle Branch, between there and
Rainbow, and that they were full of "cutthroats." That was a word that
stood for deer-slayers and all dare-devil men.</p>
<p>Whoever had put this threat in the way of the Emperor had probably heard
of his appointment and was trying to scare him away. The offender might
have been sent by Migley himself.</p>
<p>"W-We'll s-see," Strong muttered, with a stern look, as he returned to the
boat-jumper. Many had threatened him, one time or another, but he never
worried over that kind of thing. To-day, as on many occasions, he kept his
tongue sinless by keeping his mouth shut, and, touching his discovery on
the trail, said only the two words, "W-we'll see," and said them to
himself. He didn't believe in spreading trouble.</p>
<p>Slowly they made their way to a bend in Lost River far from the old camp.
As they halted to seek entrance to the water channel Strong came forward
and poked the children playfully until they opened their eyes. Then he put
a hand on either shoulder of Sinth and gave her a little shake.</p>
<p>"How ye f-feelin'?" he asked.</p>
<p>"Redic'lous," she answered, "settin' here 'n a holler tree jest as if we
was a fam'ly o' raccoons." It was the most impatient remark she had made
in many days.</p>
<p>"B-Better times!" said the Emperor. He smiled and sat down to rest on the
side of the boat-jumper. He turned to the boy and asked, hopefully, "How
'bout yer Uncle S-Silas?"</p>
<p>It had been rough, adventurous riding, but full of delight for the
children. That morning their uncle had loomed into heroic and satisfactory
proportions. Socky had long been thinking of the little silver compass
Master had given him one day and which hung on a ribbon tied about his
neck. He hoped they might be going where there would be other boys and
girls. He had been considering how to give to his uncle's person a touch
of grandeur and impressiveness fitting the story of the "mellered bear"
and his power and skill as a hunter. Soberly he removed the ribbon from
his neck and presented the shiny trinket to his uncle.</p>
<p>"Put that on yer neck," said he, proudly.</p>
<p>"Wh-what?" his uncle stammered.</p>
<p>"C'ris'mus present," said the boy, with a serious look.</p>
<p>The Emperor took off his faded crown. He put the ribbon over his head so
that the compass dangled on his breast.</p>
<p>"There," said Socky, "that looks a little better."</p>
<p>In a moment, with that prudence which always kept the last bridge between
himself and happiness, he added, "You can let me have it nights."</p>
<p>Every night since it fell to his possession he had gone forth into the
land of dreams with that compass held firmly in his right hand.</p>
<p>"Here's twenty-five cents," said Sue, holding out the sacred coin which
her nurse had given her, and which, on her way into the forest, had been
set aside for a sacrifice to the great man of her dreams. At last the two
had accepted him, without reserve, as worthy of all honor. They could
still wish for more in the way of personal grandeur, supplied in part by
the glittering compass, but something in him had satisfied their hearts if
not their eyes. He was again their sublime, their wonderful Emperor.</p>
<p>"You better keep it; you're going to buy an album for Aunt Sinthy," the
boy warned her.</p>
<p>Her little hand closed half-way on the silver; it wavered and fell in her
lap. She seemed to weigh the coin between her thumb and finger. She looked
from the man to the woman. Socky saw her dilemma and felt for her.</p>
<p>"I'll get her an album myself," he proposed. In that world of magic where
he lived nothing could discourage his faith and generosity. Their uncle
lifted them in his arms and held them against his breast without speaking.</p>
<p>"You've squeezed them childern till they're black in the face," said
Sinth, who now stood near him with a look of impatience.</p>
<p>She took them out of his arms and held them closer, if possible, than he
had done.</p>
<p>At the edge of the stream he shouted, "All 'board!" The others took their
seats, and the Emperor sat in the stern with his paddle. Socky faced him
so that he could see the compass. He often asked, proudly, "Which way we
goin'?" and Strong would look at the compass and promptly return the
information, "Sou' by east." The river ran shallow for more than a mile in
the direction of their travel. Patrick hauled them slowly down the edge of
the current. Strong steadied and steered with his paddle as they crept
along, bumping over stones and grinding over gravel until, at a sloping,
sandy beach on the farther shore, they mounted the bank and headed across
Huckleberry Plain.</p>
<p>Noon-time had passed when they left the hot plain. They threaded a narrow
fringe of tamaracks and entered thick woods again. At a noisy little
stream near by they stopped for dinner. Strong caught some trout and built
a fire and fried them, and made coffee. Sinth spread the dishes and
brought sandwiches and cheese and a big, frosted cake and a can of
preserved berries from the boat-jumper. They sat down to the reward of
honest hunger where the pure, cool air and the sylvan scene and the sound
of flowing water were more than meat to them, if that were possible.</p>
<p>Having eaten, they rose and pressed on with a happy sense of refreshment.
A thought of it was to brighten many a less cheerful hour. Half a mile
from their camping-place they found a smooth trail which led across level
country to the Middle Branch. Socky and Sue were again fast asleep on the
bottom of the boat-jumper long before they reached the river. When they
halted near its bank a broad stream of deep, slow water lay before them.
Strong unhitched the ox and led him along shore until he came to rapids
where, half a mile below, the river took its long, rocky slope to lower
country. There he tethered his ox and returned to fetch the others. He
launched his boat-jumper and got aboard and paddled carefully down-stream.</p>
<p>Having doubled a point, they came in sight of a slim boy who stood by the
water's edge aiming an ancient, long-barrelled gun. His head, which rested
against the breech, seemed, as the Emperor reported, "'bout the size of a
pippin."</p>
<p>"E-look out!" Strong shouted, as the boy lowered his gun to regard the
travellers with an expression of deep concern.</p>
<p>"See any mushrats?" the boy asked, eagerly.</p>
<p>"N-no; who're you?"</p>
<p>"Jo Henyon."</p>
<p>Strong had heard of old Henyon, who was known familiarly as "Mushrat
Bill." For years Bill had haunted the Middle Branch.</p>
<p>"Wh-where d' ye live?"</p>
<p>"Yender," said the boy, pointing downstream as he ran ahead of them.</p>
<p>Presently they came to an old cabin near the water's edge with a small
clearing around it. A woman wearing a short skirt and Shaker bonnet stood
on one leg looking down at them. Children were rushing out of the cabin
door.</p>
<p>"My land! where's her other leg?" Sinth mused.</p>
<p>The Emperor looked thoughtfully at the strange woman.</p>
<p>"F-folks are like cranes over in this c-country," Strong answered. "Always
rest on one leg."</p>
<p>He drove his bow on a sloping, sandy beach. The woman hopped into the
cabin door. Her many children hurried to the landing. A man with head and
feet bare followed them. An old undershirt, one suspender, and a tattered
pair of overalls partly covered his body. He walked slowly towards the
shore. He was the famous trapper of the Middle Branch.</p>
<p>"F-fur to Rainbow T-Trail?" Strong inquired of him.</p>
<p>The latter put his hand to his ear and said, "What?" Strong repeated his
query in a much louder voice.</p>
<p>"Fur ain't very thick," the stranger answered.</p>
<p>Strong perceived that the man was very deaf and also that he was devoted
to one idea.</p>
<p>"B-big fam'ly," he shouted, as he began to push off.</p>
<p>The trapper, with his hand to his ear and still looking a bit doubtful,
answered, "Ain't runnin' very big this year."</p>
<p>Thereafter the word "mushrats," in the vocabulary of Strong, stood for
unworthy devotion to a single purpose.</p>
<p>Down-stream a little the ox took his place again at the bow of the
boat-jumper. They struck off into thick woods reaching far and wide on the
acres of Uncle Sam. A mile or so inland they came to Rainbow Trail, and
thereafter followed it. Timber thieves had been cutting big pines and
spruces and had left a slash on either side of the trail.</p>
<p>The travellers dipped down across the edge of a wide valley, and after
climbing again were in the midst of burned ground on the top of a high
ridge. Below them they could see Rainbow Lake and the undulating canopy of
a great, two-storied forest reaching to hazy distances. Mighty towers of
spruce and pine and hemlock rose into the sunlit, upper heavens.</p>
<p>It was growing dusk when, below them and well off the trail, they saw a
column of smoke rising. They halted, and Strong stood gazing. The smoke
grew in volume and he made off down the side of the ridge. He came in
sight of the fire and stopped. Some one had fled through thickets of young
spruce and Zeb was pursuing him.</p>
<p>Strong looked off in the gloomy forest and shouted a fierce oath at its
invisible enemy.</p>
<p>Near him flames were leaping above a fallen top and running in tiny jets
over dry duff like the waste of a fountain. Swiftly Strong cut branches of
green birch and began to lay about him. He stopped the flames and then dug
with his hatchet until he struck sand. He scooped it into his hat and soon
smothered the cinders.</p>
<p>His face had a troubled expression as he returned to the boat-jumper.</p>
<p>"Who you been yellin' at?" Sinth asked.</p>
<p>"C-careless cuss," he answered, evasively.</p>
<p>Socky wore a look of indignation. He glibly repeated the oath which he had
heard his uncle use.</p>
<p>"Hush! The Sundayman'll ketch you," Sinth answered, severely.</p>
<p>Strong gave a whistle of surprise.</p>
<p>"Uncle Silas ain't 'fraid o' no Sundayman," Socky guessed.</p>
<p>"Y-yes I be—could kill me with a s-snap of his finger," Strong
declared.</p>
<p>Socky trembled as he thought of that one inhabitant of the earth who was
greater than his Uncle Silas and said no more.</p>
<p>"S-see here, boy," said Strong, as he put his fingers under Socky's chin
and raised his head' a little, "I w-won't never swear ag'in if y-you
won't."</p>
<p>He held out his great hand and Socky took it.</p>
<p>"Y-you agree?"</p>
<p>Socky nodded with a serious look, and so it happened that Silas became the
master of his own tongue. He had "boiled over" for the last time—so
he thought. The old habit which had grown out of a thousand trials and
difficulties must give way, and henceforth he would be emperor of his own
spirit.</p>
<p>As to the fire and the man who had fled before him, Strong was perplexed,
but kept his own counsel. He knew that the law permitted lumbermen to
enter burned lands on the State preserve and take all timber which fire
had damaged. A fire which might only have scorched the trunks while it
devoured the crowns above them gave a rich harvest to some lucky
lumberman. Having gained access, he stripped the earth, helping himself to
the living as well as the dead trees. <i>Fire, therefore, had become a
source of profit wherein lay the temptation to kindle it.</i></p>
<p>Silas Strong knew that his land of refuge was doomed—that the
forerunner of its desolation was even then hiding somewhere in the near,
dusky woods. He thought of the peril after a dry summer. The mould of the
forest would burn like tinder.</p>
<p>The dethroned Emperor reached the shore of Rainbow, put up a tent, and
helped to get supper ready. After supper he lay down to rest in the
firelight, and told the children about the great bear and the
panther-bird. Sinth, weary after that long day of travel, had gone to
sleep. After an hour or so Strong rose and looked down at her.</p>
<p>"Sh-sh!—don't w-wake her," he warned them. "I'll put ye t' b-bed."</p>
<p>He helped them undress.</p>
<p>"You'll have to hear our prayers," Socky whispered.</p>
<p>Strong nodded. He sat on a box and they knelt between his knees and he put
his hands on their heads and bowed his own.</p>
<p>When they had finished he bent lower and dictated this brief kind of
postscript, "An' keep us from all d-danger this n-night."</p>
<p>They repeated the words with no suspicion of what lay behind them.</p>
<p>Then Socky whispered, "Say something 'bout the Sundayman."</p>
<p>"An' keep the Sundayman away," Strong added.</p>
<p>They repeated the words, and then, as if his heart were still unsatisfied,
Socky added these, "An' please take care o' my Uncle Silas."</p>
<p>The Emperor lay thinking long after his weary companions had gone to
sleep. He thought of that angry outcry and his heart smote him; he thought
of the danger. Perhaps, after all, they would not dare to burn the woods
now. But Strong resolved to keep awake and be ready for trouble if it
came. By-and-by he lighted a lantern and wrote in his old memorandum-book
as follows:</p>
<p><i>"Strong use to say prufanity does more harm when ye keep it in than
when ye let it natcherly drene off but among childem it's as ketchin' as
the measles. Sounds like thunder when it comes out of a boy's mouth an
hits like chain lightnin."</i></p>
<p>Long before midnight rain began to fall. Strong rose and went out under
the trees and lifted his face and hands, in a picturesque and priestlike
attitude, to feel the grateful drops and whispered, "Thank God!" It was a
gentle shower but an hour of it would be enough. He went back to his bed
and lay listening. The faded leaves that still clung in the maple-tops
above them rattled like a thousand tambourines. After an hour of the
grateful downpour Strong's fear abated and he "let go" and sank into deep
slumber.</p>
<p>Almost the last furrow in the old sod of his character had been turned.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XXXI </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE sun rose clear
next morning. Although a long shower of rain had come one could see no
sign of it save in the drifted leaves. The earth had drunk it down quickly
and seemed to be drying with its own heat. Strong felt the soil and the
leaves. He blew and shook his head with surprise.</p>
<p>While the others lay sleeping in their tent, he made a fire and set out in
quest of a spring. Half a mile or so up the lake shore a bear broke out of
a thicket of young firs just ahead of him. Strong was caught again without
his rifle. Satan came as swiftly as the bear had fled, but could not
prevail against him. Strong was delighted with this chance of showing the
strength of his new purpose. In among the fir-trees he found the carcass
of a buck upon which the bear had been feeding.</p>
<p>"P-paunchers!" Strong muttered.</p>
<p>He climbed the side of the ridge and presently struck the trail leading
into camp. Soon he could hear some one coming, and sat on a log and
waited. It was Master, who had gone to Lost River camp and then followed
the trail of the boat-jumper.</p>
<p>"Slept last night in a lean-to over on the Middle Branch," said he. "Been
travelling since an hour before daylight and I'm hungry."</p>
<p>"N-news from the gal?"</p>
<p>"No. Have you?"</p>
<p>Strong shook his head solemnly. "They've t-took the hills, an' I've come
over here t' work fer Uncle S-sam," said he.</p>
<p>"Warden?"</p>
<p>"Uh-huh—been app'inted," Strong answered, with a look of sadness and
satisfaction.</p>
<p>"They're very cunning—Wilbert and the rest of them," Master said.
"They've put a little salve on you and sent you out of the way. You're too
serious-minded for them. That dynamite trick of yours set 'em all
thinking. They won't keep you here long—you're too dead in earnest.
But there's room enough for you over in the Clear Lake country, and when
they get ready to shove you out come and be at home with us."</p>
<p>A moment of silence followed. The simple mind of the woodsman was looking
deep into the darkness that surrounded the throne of the great king.</p>
<p>"You're camp looks as if it had been struck by lightning," Master added.</p>
<p>Strong showed the letter containing his appointment, and told of the
threat to hang him up by the heels.</p>
<p>"The commissioner is on the square—he means well," said Master, "but
they're using him. These lumbermen intend to drive you out of the woods,
and they've got you headed for the clearing. You won't stay here long. In
my opinion they'll burn this valley."</p>
<p>Strong looked into the face of the young man.</p>
<p>"What makes ye think so?" he asked.</p>
<p>"Because they want the timber, and because they've got you here," said
Master. "I heard of your appointment. I heard, too, that Joe Socket and
Pop Migley and Dennis Mulligan thought you were the right man for the
place. I knew there'd be something doing, and I came in here to warn you.
Don't ever trust the benevolence of Satan."</p>
<p>"By—" Strong paused and gave his thigh a slap. "I know w-what
they're up to," he muttered, thoughtfully. "They'll make it too hot f-fer
m-me here."</p>
<p>He told of the fire and the man who fled in the bushes.</p>
<p>"They're going to fire the valley, and don't intend to give you time to
sit down," said Master. "It's a dangerous country just now."</p>
<p>"Have t' take Sinth an' the ch-childem out o' here r-right off," the
hunter answered. "If you'll stay with 'em t'-day, I'll go an' g-git some
duffle an' we'll p-put over the r-ridge with 'em t'-night."</p>
<p>Back at the old camp there were things he needed sorely, and he reckoned
that he could make the round trip with a pack-basket by five in the
afternoon.</p>
<p>"It's still and the leaves are d-damp," Strong mused. "Fire wouldn't run
much t'-day."</p>
<p>"To-morrow I'll get a force of men and we'll surround this valley," said
Master.</p>
<p>They hurried into camp and were greeted with merry cries. Soon they were
sitting on a blanket beside the others, eating in the ancient fashion of
the pioneer.</p>
<p>The young man had brought a letter from Gordon which contained a sum of
money and welcome news. Sinth read the letter aloud.</p>
<p>"'My dear friends,'" she read, "'I had hoped to write you long ago, but I
have been waiting for better news to tell. My struggle is over and I am
now master of myself. I paid to my creditors all the money you gave me.'"</p>
<p>"Did you give him money?" Sinth looked up to inquire.</p>
<p>"Uh-huh," Strong answered.</p>
<p>"How much?"</p>
<p>"All I had."</p>
<p>"You're a fool!" Sinth exclaimed, and went on reading as follows:'</p>
<p>"'Socky had given me his little tin bank. It contained just a dollar and
thirty-two cents. The sacred sum paid my fare to Benson Falls and bought
my dinner. I got a job there in the mill and soon I expect to be its
manager. I'm a new man. If you want a job I can place you here at good
pay. In a week or two I shall—'"</p>
<p>Sinth stopped reading and covered her face with her apron.</p>
<p>"What does it s-say?" Silas inquired, soberly.</p>
<p>She handed the letter to him, and he read the last words: "'I shall come
after the children and will then pay you in full with interest. No, I can
never pay you in full, for there's something better than money that I owe
you.'" Strong's face changed color. He dropped the letter and rose.</p>
<p>"W-well," he stammered.</p>
<p>"He sha'n't have 'em," said Sinth, decisively. "Tut, tut!" Silas answered.</p>
<p>He raised the boy in his arms and kissed him. "W-we're both f-fools," he
said, huskily.</p>
<p>"You ain't exac'ly fools, but yer both childern," said Sinth, wiping her
eyes.</p>
<p>"Well, you know the Bible says we must become as a little child," said
Master. "After all, money is only a measure of value, and one thing it
does with absolute precision—a man's money measures the depth of his
heart."</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XXXII </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>TRONG left camp
with his pack and rifle and two bear-traps. He was nearing the dead buck
when a shot stopped him, and a bullet cut through his left fore-arm. The
deadly missile came no swifter than his understanding of it.</p>
<p>He dropped as if a death-blow had struck him, and, clinging to his rifle,
crept in among the firs. He flung off the straps of his basket. He lay
still a moment and then cautiously got to his knees. Blood was trickling
down his hand, but he gave no heed to it. The ball had come from higher
ground, towards which he had been walking. The man who had tried to kill
him could not have stood more than two hundred feet away. Strong sat,
rifle in hand, peering through the fir branches—alert as a panther
waiting for its prey. Soon he caught a glimpse of his enemy fleeing
between distant tree columns. The sight seemed to fill him with deadly
anger.</p>
<p>He leaped to his feet, seized his pack-basket, and started swiftly in
pursuit of him. He gained the summit of the high ground and saw a broad
slash covered with berry bushes and sloping to the flats around Bushrod
Creek. A trail cut through it from the edge of the woods near him.</p>
<p>He stopped and listened. He could hear the sound of retreating footsteps
and could see briers moving some thirty rods down the slash. His heart had
shaken off its rage. He was now the cunning, stealthy, determined hunter.
He saw a dry, stag-headed pine in the edge of the briers near him and
hurried up its shaft like a bear pressed by the dogs. On a dead limb, some
thirty feet above ground, he halted and looked away. He could see nothing
of his unknown foe.</p>
<p>Slowly Strong descended from the dead tree. He had just begun to feel the
pain of his wound. Blood was dripping fast from it; he looked like a
butcher in the midst of his task. He muttered as he began to roll his
sleeve, "G-guess they do inten't' shove me out o' this c-country."</p>
<p>He blew as he looked at the wound.</p>
<p>"B-Business is p-prosperin'," he went on, as he held one end of a big red
handkerchief between his teeth and wound it above the torn muscles and
firmly knotted the ends.</p>
<p>"W-war!" he muttered, as he went to the near bushes and began to gather
spiders' webs.</p>
<p>It is to be regretted that for a moment he forgot his promise to Socky and
"boiled over" from the heat of his passion.</p>
<p>He sat on the ground and with his knife scraped away the blood clots.</p>
<p>"D-damn soft-nose bullet!" he muttered, with a serious look, smoothing,
down the fibres of torn flesh.</p>
<p>He spread the webs upon his wound, and held them close awhile under his
great palm. Soon he moistened a lot of tobacco and put it on the webs and
held it there. After an hour or so the blood stopped. Then, gradually, he
relieved the tension of his handkerchief, and by-and-by used it for a
bandage on his wound.</p>
<p>He rose and shouldered his pack and began to search for the tracks of his
enemy. He soon discovered those of the bear which had fled before him that
morning.</p>
<p>"S-see here, Strong," he muttered, "th-this won't scurcely do. I arrest
you, S. Strong, Esquire. Y-you're my prisoner. T-tryin' t' kill a man—you
b-bloodthirsty devil! C-come with me. We'll hunt fer b-bears."</p>
<p>The Emperor had often addressed himself with severe and even copious
condemnation, but this was the first time that he had ever taken S. Strong
by the coat-collar and violently faced him about.</p>
<p>He could see clearly where the bear had broken through the wet briers on
his way down to the flat country. It was a moment of peril, and he gave
himself no time for argument. He hurried away in the trail of the bear. It
lay before him, unmistakable as the wake of a boat, and would show where
the animal was wont to cross the water below. He came soon to a great log
lying from shore to shore of that inlet of Rainbow which was called
Bushrod Creek. He could see tracks near the end of the log, and there,
with a spruce pole for a lever, he set his traps in the sand so that, if
the first were not sprung, the second would be sure to take hold. He
covered the great, yawning, seven-toothed jaws of steel and fastened heavy
clogs upon both trap chains. Then he took the piece of bacon from his pack
and hung it on a branch above the traps.</p>
<p>Shrewdly the hunter had made his plan.</p>
<p>That bear would probably return to the dead buck, and the scent of the
bacon would attract him to that particular crossing.</p>
<p>He tore two pages from his memorandum-book, and wrote this warning on
each:</p>
<h3> STOP TRAPS AHED </h3>
<h3> S. STRONG. </h3>
<p>He fastened them to stakes and posted them on two sides of the point of
danger.</p>
<p>It was then past eleven and too late for the long journey to Lost River
camp. He decided to go to Henyon's on the Middle Branch and get the
trapper to come and keep watch while he took Sinth and the children to
Benson Falls.</p>
<p>On his way out of the slash he killed a deer, and dressed and hung him on
a tree. Then he set out for the trail to Henyon's.</p>
<p>He had walked for an hour or so when his pace began to slacken.</p>
<p>"T-y-ty!" he whispered, stopping suddenly. "S. Strong, what's the
m-matter? Yer all of a-tremble."</p>
<p>Strong felt sick and weary, and took off his pack and sat down to rest on
a bed of leaves. Then he discovered that the handkerchief upon his arm was
dripping wet. Again he stopped the blood by cording.</p>
<p>He lay back on the ground suffering with faintness and acute pain. Soon
obeying the instinct of man and beast, which prompts one to hide his
weakness and even his death-throes, he crept behind the top of a fallen
tree.</p>
<p>His heart had been overstrained of late by worry and heavy toil. Now for
the first time he could feel it laboring a little as if it missed the
blood which had been dripping slowly but steadily from his arm. At last a
day was come that had no pleasure in it—a day when the keepers of
the house had begun to tremble.</p>
<p>Soon the warm sunlight fell through forest branches on the great body of
Strong, who had lost command of himself and become the prisoner of sleep.</p>
<p>In the memorandum-book there is an entry without date in a script of
unusual size. Those large letters were made slowly and with a trembling
hand. It was probably written while he sat there in the lonely, autumn
woods before giving up to his weakness. This is the entry:</p>
<p><i>"Theys days when I dont blieve God is over per-ticklar with a man bout
swearin."</i></p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XXXIII </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>OON after
breakfast that morning Master had hitched the ox to the boat-jumper.</p>
<p>"My land! Where ye goin'?" Sinth inquired.</p>
<p>"To-morrow we're going out to Benson Falls with you and the children,"
said Master. "I thought we'd better take the ox and what things you need
to-day as far as Link Harris's. That's about four miles down the Leonard
trail. The ox will have all he can do to-morrow if he starts from
Harris's."</p>
<p>The young man said nothing of another purpose which he had in mind—that
of learning, as soon as possible, the nearest way out of the Rainbow
country.</p>
<p>"What does that mean?" Sinth asked.</p>
<p>"Only this—we may have trouble with these pirates, and we want to
get you out of the way. We'll have to travel, and we can't leave you in
the camp alone. You and the children can ride over, and we'll come back
afoot."</p>
<p>So Sinth packed her satchels and a big camp-bag, and all made the journey
to Harris's where they left the ox and the jumper.</p>
<p>It was near six o'clock when they returned to the little camp at Rainbow.
Strong was not there, and after supper, while the dusk fell, they sat on a
blanket by the fire, and Sinth raked the old scrap-heap of family history
to which a score of ancestors had contributed, each in his time. It was
all a kind of folk-lore—mouldy, rusty, distorted, dreamlike. It told
of bears in the pig-pen, of moose in the door-yard, of panthers glaring
through the windows at night, of Indians surrounding the cabin, and of the
torture by fire and steel.</p>
<p>At bedtime Silas had not arrived. Sinth, however, showed no sign of worry.
He knew the woods so well, and there were bear and fish and sundry
temptations, each greater than his bed.</p>
<p>"Mebbe he's took after a bear," Sinth suggested, while she began to
undress the children.</p>
<p>"You remember we heard him shoot soon after he left here," said Master.
"It may be he wounded a bear and followed him."</p>
<p>"Like as not," she answered.</p>
<p>In a moment she put her hand on Master's arm and whispered to him.</p>
<p>"Say!" said she, "I don't want to make trouble, but if I was you I
wouldn't wait no longer for that old fool."</p>
<p>She stalled the needles into her ball of yarn and rolled up her knitting.
She continued, with a sigh of impatience:</p>
<p>"I'd go over to Buckhom an' git that girl, if I had to bring 'er on my
back."</p>
<p>"That's about what I propose to do," said the young man, with a laugh.</p>
<p>"I'm sick o' this dilly-dally in'," said Sinth, "an' I guess she is, too."</p>
<p>With that she led Socky and Sue into the tent. When the others had gone to
bed Master began to think of the shot which had broken the silence of the
autumn woods that morning. He lighted a lantern and followed as nearly as
he could the direction his friend had taken. By-and-by he stopped and
whistled on his thumb and stood listening. The woods were silent. Soon he
could see where Strong had crossed a little run and roughed the leaves
beyond it. Master followed his tracks and came to the dead deer. He saw
that a bear had found it, and near by there were signs of a struggle and
of fresh blood. Now satisfied that Strong had shot and followed the bear,
he hurried back to camp.</p>
<p>He spread a blanket before the fire and laydown to think and rest in the
silence. Buck-horn was only four miles from the upper end of Rainbow. One
could put his canoe in the Middle Branch and go without a carry to the
outlet of Slender Lake—little more than a great marsh—then up
the still water to a landing within half an hour of Dunmore's. He would
make the journey in a day or two, and, if possible, take the girl out of
the woods.</p>
<p>The night was dark and still. He could hear now and then the fall of a
dead leaf that gave a ghostly whisper as it brushed through high branches
on its way down.</p>
<p>Suddenly another sound caught his ear. He rose and listened. It was a
distant, rhythmic beat of oars on the lake. Who could be crossing at that
hour? He walked to the shore and stood looking off into inky darkness. He
could still hear the sound of oars. Some one was rowing with a swift,
nervous, jumping stroke, and the sound was growing fainter. Somehow it
quickened the pulse of the young, man a little—he wondered why.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XXXIV </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>ASTER returned to
the fire and lay back on his blanket. Little puffs of air had begun to
rattle the dead leaves above him. Soon he could hear a wind coming over
the woodland. It was like the roar of distant sea-billows. Waves of wind
began to whistle in the naked branches overhead. In a moment the main
flood of the gale was roaring through them, and every tree column had
begun to creak and groan. Master rose and looked up at the sky. He could
see a wavering glow through the tree-tops. The odor of smoke was in the
air. He ran to call Miss Strong, and met her coming out of her tent. She
had smelled the smoke and quickly dressed.</p>
<p>"My land, the woods are afire!" she cried.</p>
<p>The sky had brightened as if a great, golden moon were rising.</p>
<p>Sinth ran back into her tent and woke the children. With swift and eager
hands the young man helped her while she put on their clothes. She said
not a word until they were dressed. Then, half blinded by thickening smoke
and groping on her way to the other tent, she said, despairingly, "I
wonder where Silas is?"</p>
<p>A great, feathery cinder fell through the tree-tops.</p>
<p>"Come quick, we must get out of here," Master called, as he lifted the
crying children. "We've no time to lose."</p>
<p>She flung some things in a satchel and tried to follow. In the smoke it
was difficult to breathe and almost impossible to find their way. Master
put down the children and tore some rope from a tent-side and tied it to
the dog's collar. Then he shouted, "Go home, Zeb!" They clung to one
another while the dog led them into the trail. Master had Socky and Sue in
his arms. He hurried up the long slope of Rainbow Ridge, the woman
following.</p>
<p>They could now hear the charge and raven of the flames that were tearing
into a resinous swamp-roof not far away.</p>
<p>"Comin' fast!" Sinth exclaimed. "Can't see or breathe hardly."</p>
<p>"Drop your satchel and cling to my coat-tails," Master answered, stopping
to give her a hold.</p>
<p>A burning rag of rotten timber, flying with the wind, caught in a green
top above them. It broke and fell in flakes of fire. Master flung one off
his coat-sleeve, and, seizing a stalk of witch-hopple, whipped the glow
out of them. On they pressed, mounting slowly into better air. Just ahead
of them they could see the wavering firelight on their trail. On a bare
ledge near the summit they stopped to rest their lungs a moment.</p>
<p>They were now above the swift army of flame and a little off the west
flank of it. They could see into a red, smoky, luminous gulf, leagues long
and wide, beneath the night-shadow. Ten thousand torches of balsam and
spruce and pine and hemlock sent aloft their reeling towers of flame and
flung their light through the long valley. It illumined a black,
wind-driven cloud of smoke waving over the woodland like a dismal flag of
destruction. A great wedge of flame was rending its way northward. Sparks
leaped along the sides of it like fiery dust beneath the feet of the
conqueror. They rose high and drifted over the lake chasm and fell in a
sleet of fire on the lighted waves. The loose and tattered jacket of many
an old stub was tom into glowing rags and scattered by the wind. Some
hurtled off a mile or more from their source, and isolated fountains of
flame were spreading here and there on balsam flats near the lake margin.
Some of the tall firs, when first touched by the cinder-shower, were like
great Christmas-trees hung with tinsel and lighted by many candles.
New-caught flames, bending in the wind, had the look of horses at full
gallop. Ropes and arrows and spears and lances of fire were flying and
curveting over the doomed woods.</p>
<p>The travellers halted only for a moment. They could feel the heat on their
faces. Black smoke had begun to roll over the heights around them.</p>
<p>"It'll go up the valley in an hour an' cut Silas off," Sinth whimpered as
they went on.</p>
<p>"He must have crossed the valley before now," the young man assured her.</p>
<p>The woman ran ahead and called, loudly, "Silas! Silas!" She continued
calling as they hurried on through thickening smoke. They halted for a
word at Leonard's Trail, which left the main thoroughfare to Rainbow, and,
going down the east side of the ridge, fared away some ten miles over hill
and dale to the open country.</p>
<p>It was at right angles with the way of the wind and would soon lead them
out of danger.</p>
<p>"Make for Benson Falls with the childem!" cried Sinth. "I'm goin' after
Silas." She knew that her brother would surely be coming—that,
seeing the fire, he would take any hazard to reach them.</p>
<p>Master knew not what to do. He had begun to worry about the people at
Buckhom, but his work was nearer to his hand. It was there at the fork in
the trail. He sent a loud, far-reaching cry down the wind, but heard no
answer.</p>
<p>"He'll take care of himself—you'd better get away from this valley,"
he called.</p>
<p>An oily top had taken fire below and within a hundred yards of them.</p>
<p>"Go, go quick, an' save them childern!" she urged. Then she ran away from
him.</p>
<p>She hurried along the top of the ridge, calling as she went. A dim, misty
glow filled the cavern of the woods around her. Just ahead drops of fire
seemed to be dripping through the forest roof. It failed to catch. It
would let her go a little farther, and she pressed on. A fold of the great
streamer of smoke was rent away and rolled up the side of the ridge and
covered her. She sank upon her knees, nearly smothered, and put her skirt
over her face. The cloud passed in a moment. Her sleeve caught fire and
she put it out with her hand. She felt her peril more keenly and tried to
run. She heard Zeb sniffing and coughing near. Master had let him go,
thinking that he might help her in some way. She stooped and called to him
and took hold of the dragging rope. The dog pressed on so eagerly that he
carried part of her weight. A broken bough in a tree-top just ahead of her
had caught fire and swung like a big lantern. She had no sooner passed
than she heard the tree burst into flame with a sound like the frying of
fat. She felt her hand stinging her and saw that a little flame was
running up the side of her skirt. She cried, "Mercy!" and knelt and
smothered it with her hands. Gasping for breath, she fell forward, her
face upon the ground.</p>
<p>"Silas Strong," she moaned, "you got to come quick or I won't never see
you again." The dog heard her and licked her face.</p>
<p>Down among the ferns and mosses she found a stratum of clear air, and in a
moment rose and reeled a few steps farther. The flank of the invader had
overrun the heights. Her seeking was near its end. Showers of fire were
falling beyond and beside her. She lay down and covered her face to
protect it from heat and smoke. She rose and staggered on, calling loudly.
Then she heard a bark from Zeb and the familiar halloo of Silas Strong.</p>
<p>Through some subtle but sure intuition the two had known what to expect of
each other and had clung to the trail. She saw him running out of the
smoke-cloud and whipping his arms with his old felt hat. One side of his
beard was burned away. He picked her up as if she had been a child and ran
down the east side of the ridge with her, leaping over logs and crashing
through fallen tops. Beyond the showering sparks he stopped and smothered
a circle of creeping fire on her skirt. Sinth lay in his arms moaning and
sobbing. He shook her and shouted, almost fiercely, "The leetle f-fawns—wh-where
be they?"</p>
<p>"Gone with him on Leonard's Trail," Sinth answered, brokenly.</p>
<p>He entered a swamp in the dim-lighted forest, now running, now striding
slowly through fallen timber and up to his knees in the damp earth. Every
moment the air was growing clearer. He ran over a hard-wood hill and
slackened pace while he made his way half across a wide flat.</p>
<p>When he struck the trail to Benson Falls the fire-glow was fainter. Now
and then a great, rushing billow of light swept over them and vanished. He
stopped and blew and put Sinth on her feet.</p>
<p>"Hard n-night, sis," said he, tenderly.</p>
<p>She stood and made no answer. In a flare of firelight he saw that she was
holding out one of her hands. He struck a match and looked at it and made
a rueful cluck. The fire of the match seemed to frighten her; she
staggered backward and fell with a cry. He caught her up and strode slowly
on. Soon she seemed to recover self-control and lay silent. He was in
great pain; he was reeling under his burden, but he kept on. She put up a
hand and felt his face.</p>
<p>"Why, Silas," she said, in a frightened voice, "you're crying."</p>
<p>It was then that he fell to the ground helpless.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XXXV </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>ERROR had begun to
spread in the wilderness north of Rainbow. The smoky wind, the growing
firelight had roused all the children of the forest. Chattering birds rose
high and took the way of the wind to safety. One could see flying lines of
wild-fowl in the lighted heavens; faintly, as they passed, one could hear
their startled cries. Deer ran aimlessly through the woods like frightened
sheep. From scores of camps on lake and pond and river—from
Buckhorn, from Barsook, from Five Ponds, from Sabattis, from Big and
Little Sandy, from Lost River—people, who had seen the fire coming,
were on their way out of the woods.</p>
<p>Master ran at first down Leonard's Trail with the boy and girl in his
arms. Soon his thoughts halted him. He had withstood the severest trial
that may be set before a man. To be compelled to seek safety with the
children, while a woman took the way of peril before his eyes, had made
him falter a moment.</p>
<p>He hoped that Sinth had left the ridge, now overrun with flames, and fled
down the slope. If so she would be looking for Leonard's Trail. He stopped
every few paces and sent a loud halloo into the woods. Fire was crackling
down the side of the ridge. As he looked back it seemed to him that the
great lake of hell must be flooding into the world.</p>
<p>Soon the trail led him to Sinth, who was on her knees and sobbing beside
her brother.</p>
<p>That wiry little woman had struggled there alone with energy past all
belief. She thought only of the danger and forgot her pain. She had toiled
with the heavy body of her brother, as the ant toils with a burden larger
than itself, dragging it slowly, inch by inch, in the direction of
Harris's. She had moved it a distance of some fifty feet before she heard
the call of Master. Then she fell moaning and clinging to the hands of him
she loved better, far better even, than she had ever permitted herself to
know. It may well be doubted—O you who have probably lost patience
with her long ago!—if anything in human history is more wonderful
than the lonely struggle of hers in that dim, flaring, threatening
hell-glow.</p>
<p>Master quickly knelt by the fallen Emperor. "What's the matter?" he asked.</p>
<p>"He's gi'n out—done fer me until he can't do no more," she wailed.</p>
<p>She put her arms around the great breast of the man and laid her cheek
upon it tenderly. Then her heart, which had always hidden its fondness,
spoke out in a broken cry:</p>
<p>"Silas Strong—speak t' me. I can't—I can't spare ye nohow—I
can't spare ye."</p>
<p>The children knelt by her and called with frightened voices: "Uncle Silas!
Uncle Silas!" Strong began to move. Those beloved voices had seemed to
call him back. He put his hand on the head of Sinth and drew it close to
him.</p>
<p>"B-better times!" he whispered. "B-better times, I tell ye, s-sis!"</p>
<p>He struggled to his knees.</p>
<p>"S-say," he said to Master, "I've been shot. T-tie yer han'kerchief
r-round my arm quick." The young man tied his handkerchief as directed.
Then Strong tried to rise, but his weight bore him down.</p>
<p>"Lie still," said Master. "I can carry you." He took the rope from Zeb's
collar and looped it over the breast of the helpless man and drew its ends
under his arms and knotted them. Then, while Sinth supported her brother,
the young man reached backward over his shoulders and, grasping the rope,
lifted his friend so their backs were against each other, and, leaning
under his burden, struggled on with it, the others following.</p>
<p>It was a toilsome, painful journey to Harris's. But what is impossible
when the strong heart of youth, warmed with dauntless courage, turns to
its task? We that wonder as we look backward may venture to put the query,
but dare not answer it.</p>
<p>Often Master fell to his knees and there steadied himself a moment with
heaving breast, then tightened his thews again and rose and measured the
way with slow, staggering feet.</p>
<p>An hour or so later a clear-voiced call rang through the noisy wind. They
stopped and listened.</p>
<p>"Somebody coming," said Master.</p>
<p>He answered with, a loud halloo as they went on wearily. Soon they saw
some one approaching in the dusky trail.</p>
<p>"Who's there?" the young man asked.</p>
<p>"Edith Dunmore," was the answer that trembled with gladness. "Oh, sir! I
would have gone through the fire."</p>
<p>"I know," said he, "you would have gone through the fire."</p>
<p>"For—for you," she added, brokenly.</p>
<p>Master dared not lay down his burden. He toiled on, his heart so full that
he could not answer. The girl walked beside him for a moment of solemn,
suggestive silence. She could dimly see the prostrate body of Strong on
the back of her lover, and understood. What a singular and noble restraint
was in that meeting!</p>
<p>"I love you—I love you, and I want to help you," she said, as she
walked beside him.</p>
<p>"Help Miss Strong," he answered. "She is badly burned."</p>
<p>Little Sue was overcome with weariness and fear, and could not be
comforted.</p>
<p>The maiden carried her with one arm and with the other supported Sinth.
So, slowly, they made their way over the rough trail.</p>
<p>"How came you here?" Master inquired, presently.</p>
<p>"We saw the fire coming and hurried to Slender Lake, and fled in boats and
came down the river."</p>
<p>When, late in the night, the little band of lovers reeled across the
dimlit clearing, it was in sore distress. Their feet dragged, their hearts
and bodies stooped with heaviness. A company of woods-folk, who stood in
front of Harris's looking off at the fire, ran to meet them. They lifted
the dragging Emperor and helped the young man carry him in-doors. Master
was no sooner relieved of his burden than he fell exhausted on the floor.</p>
<p>Edith Dunmore knelt by him and raised his hands to her lips. She helped
him rise, and then for a moment they stood and trembled in each other's
arms, and were like unto the oak and the vine that clings to it.</p>
<p>Dunmore and his mother stood looking at them. The white-haired man had
taken the children in his arms.</p>
<p>"I thought she went to bed and to sleep long ago," he muttered.</p>
<p>"Without her we should have perished," said the old lady. .</p>
<p>"Yes, and she shall have her way," he answered. "One might as well try to
keep the deer out of the lily-pads." He kissed the boy and girl, and
added, with a sigh, "This world is for the young."</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"> </SPAN></p>
<br/>
<h2> XXXVI </h2>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>LL stood aghast
for a moment in the light of the lamps around the bed of Strong. His
clothes were burned, bloody, and torn—they lay in rags upon him. His
face and hands were swollen; part of his hair and beard had been shorn off
in the storm of fire through which he had fought his way. He spoke not,
but there was the grim record of his fight with the flames—of the
terrible punishment they had put upon him while the sturdy old lover
sought his friends. All hands made haste to do what they could for him and
for the woman he had carried out of the fire of the pit.</p>
<p>He had told Master that Annette was waiting for him at the Falls. The
young man sent Harris to bring her with horse and buckboard.</p>
<p>Strong lay like one dead while they gave him spirits and bathed his face
and hands in oil. Soon he revived a little.</p>
<p>"It's Business," he muttered.</p>
<p>In a moment his thoughts began to wander in a curious delirium filled with
suggestions of the old cheerfulness. He sang, feebly:</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
"The briers are above my head, the brakes above</p>
<p class="indent30">
my knee,</p>
<p class="indent15">
An' the bark is gettin' kind o' blue upon the ven'son-</p>
<p class="indent30">
tree."</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>Rain had begun falling and daylight was on the window-panes.</p>
<p>The dethroned Emperor continued to sing fragments of old songs so familiar
to all who knew him.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
"It was in the summer-time when I sailed, when I</p>
<p class="indent30">
sailed,"</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>he sang. Socky stood by the bed of his uncle with a sad face.</p>
<p>"Th-thumbs down," Strong demanded, faintly. Master went out on the little
veranda and looked down the road. He could hear the voice of his friend
singing:</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p class="indent15">
"The green groves are gone from the hills, Maggie."</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>"It is true," thought the young man as he looked off at the smouldering
woods. "They are gone and so are the green hearts."</p>
<p>Annette came presently and Strong rose on his elbow and looked at her.</p>
<p>"Ann," he called, as she knelt by his bedside. "To-day—to-day! It's
n-no' some day any m-more. It's to-day."</p>
<p>He sank back on his pillow when he saw her tears, and whispered, almost
doubtfully, "Better t-times!"</p>
<p>He leaned forward and put up his hands as if to relieve the pressure of
his pack-straps, and in a moment he had gone out of hearing on a trail
that leads to the "better times" he had hoped for, let us try to believe.</p>
<p>So ends the history of Silas Strong, guide, contriver, lover of the woods
and streams, of honor and good-fellowship. He was never to bow his head
before the dreaded tyrant of this world. We may be glad of that, and
remember gratefully and with renewed thought of our own standing that
Strong was ahead.</p>
<p>A curious procession made its way out of the woods that morning. Socky and
Sue walked ahead. Master and Edith and her father followed. Then came the
boat-jumper with Sinth and all that remained of Silas Strong in it; then
the buckboard that carried Harris and old Mrs. Dunmore and the servants.
Slowly they made their way towards the sown land.</p>
<p>"What ye cryin' fer?" a stranger asked the children as he passed them.</p>
<p>"Our Uncle Silas died," was the all-sufficient reply of Socky.</p>
<p>Soon they could hear the roar of the saws.</p>
<p>"Look!" said Dunmore to his daughter, as they came in sight of the mill
chimney. "There's the edge of the great world."</p>
<p>He looked thoughtfully at the children a moment and added:</p>
<p>"It all reminds me of the words of a mighty teacher, 'A little child shall
lead them.'"</p>
<p>And what of Migley and the rest? Word of his harshness in driving Sinth
and the children out of their home had travelled over the land, and not
all the king's money could have saved him. Master went to the Legislature—where
God prosper him!—and the young lumberman was condemned to obscurity.</p>
<p>Master and Edith live at Clear Lake most of the year, and the cranes have
brought them a young fairy regarded by Socky and Sue, who often visit
there, with deep interest and affection. Sinth will spend the rest of her
days, probably, in the home of Gordon at Benson Falls.</p>
<p>As to Annette, like many daughters of the Puritan, she lives with a
memory, and her hope is still and all in that "some day," gone now into
the land of faith and mystery.</p>
<p>The once beautiful valley of Rainbow was turned into black ruins that
night of the fire. Soon a "game pirate," who had "blabbed" in a spree, was
arrested for the crime of causing it. The authorities promised to let him
go if he would tell the truth. He told how he had been with "Red"
Macdonald that night and saw him fire the woods. They fled to the shore of
Rainbow and crossed in a boat. Near the middle of the lake they broke an
oar, and a mile of green tops had begun to "fry" before they landed. They
ran eastward in a panic. They crossed Bushrod Creek on a big log that
spanned the water. At the farther end of it Macdonald, who was in the
lead, put his foot in one bear-trap and fell into another. His friend
tried to release him, but soon had to give up and run for his life.</p>
<p>He went with an officer and found the heap of bones that lay between two
rusty traps in the desolate valley.</p>
<p>"After all, he got exac'ly what was comin' to him," said he, looking down
at the ghastly thing. "It was him shot the 'Emp'ror o' the Woods.'" Who
was to pay Macdonald for his work? That probably will never be known.</p>
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