Book: The Freebooters of the Wilderness

A >> Agnes C. Laut >> The Freebooters of the Wilderness





An hour from the time Eleanor had left him, the Ranger was on his
horse. He did not go down the Ridge Trail. He followed the National
Forest Trail along the edge of the Ridge away from the Holy Cross Peak,
down the forested back of a long foot-hill sloping and flanking the
Valley almost to Smelter City. Locally, the sloping hill was known as
"a hog's back"; and it was where the hog's back poked its nose into the
Valley far below, that the tangle had occurred between the Forest
Service and the Smelter Ring. Mining was permitted in the National
Forests, of course; but the mining areas must be obtained according to
law, and paid for, and operated individually, not homesteaded by the
"dummies," then turned into a consolidated ring of coal owners. What
made this violation of law more flagrant than usual was the fact that
these homesteaded coal lands lay at an angle of almost ninety degrees
in a sheer wall; and it was an impossibility for any homesteader ever
to have put in residence on them. Homestead entry, term of residence,
proof and title, all exhibited fraud on the face of the records; and
there wasn't a man in the Government Service who did not know that.
What unseen hand had juggled entries, title and proof through? The
homesteaders had sold out long ago for a song, some for as little as
ten dollars a hundred and sixty acres. The Ring had possession; and as
every man in the Land Service knew, the Government had pigeon-holed all
recommendations for legal action to compel restitution. Would the
wheels of justice rest inert? Would the presiding deity of justice be
so blind, if some poor man, a poor man, who was also Uncle Sam, stole a
ton of coal from the Ring operating these mines? Why was it possible
to steal ninety-million dollars' worth of coal from the people, and not
permissible for one of the people to steal one ton of coal from the
Ring? These were the questions Wayland asked himself as he rode down
the hog's back for Smelter City.


The trail down the hog's back sloped gradually and cut fifteen miles
off the distance to Smelter City by the Valley Road. It was "the show"
trail of all the National Forests. When supervisors came to inspect,
or visitors from the East who wanted to give accounts of having roughed
it without losing an hour of sleep or carrying any scars of stump beds,
or when Congressional committees came from Washington for a champagne
junket to report on all they hadn't seen--Wayland always conducted them
down the hog's back trail that ran along the backbone of the Holy Cross
lower slope. He had built the trail, himself; much of it, with his own
hands; cut in the side of the forest mould and rock with an outer log
as guard rail; wide enough for two horses abreast and zig-zagging
enough to break the descent into a gradual drop and afford new vistas
at each turn, of the Valley below, of the Mesas above the Rim Rocks
across, and of the River looping and sweeping down to Smelter City.

He used to dream, as he rode down the bridle path, of the day coming
when all the vast domain of National Forests would be like that trail;
not a stick of underbrush or slash as big as your finger; not a stump
above eighteen inches high; all the scaled logs piled neat as card
board boxes; open park below the resinous cinnamon-smelling lodge-pole
line and englemann spruce, hardly a branch lower on the trees than the
height of a man; and such a rain of tempered light from the clicking
pine needles and whorled spruces as might have come through the rose
window of a cathedral. A "show" picture of a properly conducted
National Forest has gone through all the magazines and newspapers--It
represents the piles of cordwood clean as piles of pencils, the trees
standing park-like with vistas and glades and opens beneath the tall
pinery. Wayland knew in his own heart that his Forest was better than
that "show" picture. No pictures could tell of the pine seedlings
stolen from a squirrel _cache_ scattered on the snows; the delicate
young pinery coming up among a protecting nursery of birch and poplar
and cottonwood. No picture could show "the dead tops" cut out; the
"cheesy" rotten heartwood burning on an altar of sacrifice to the deity
of the forest; the markings on "the dead tops" and ripe trees and trees
with broken top "leaders" for the lumberman to come and harvest. No
picture could give the jolly song of the cross-cut saw, the musical
ripping of the oiled blade through the huge logs, the odor of the
imprisoned sunbeams and flowers from the rain of the yellow saw-dust.
No picture could possibly tell you the life story of yon big tree, the
warrior of the woods who had beaten down all competitors and enemies
and wore his purple cones like the tasseled honor badges of a soldier,
with pendulous moving, plumy arms: yet to the eye of the Forester, the
life history was there, in the fluted grooved columnar bark, in the
knot scars where branches had been discarded to send the main trunk
towering above its fellows for light and air, in the wood rings, where
a branch had broken and fallen away in the struggle. Why, this noble
fellow had been a straggling sapling a thousand years before the birth
of Christ! Before Darius led his conquering hosts from realm to realm,
or ever Caesar knew life, or Christopher Columbus framed mast and spar
to discover America, this sun-crowned monarch had over-topped his
fellows, and met the challenge of the blasts of heaven, and drunk of
the wines of the dews of an immortal youth, and dieted on the ambrosial
ether of gods, and sent his seedling offspring sailing ten thousand
airy seas with the wind for master pilot and never a craft but the
gypsy parachute of a seed with wings shaken out from the cones purpling
to the autumn heat!

Air ships? Had the modern world gone mad over air ships? This fellow
had been sending out whole navies of air ships for thousands of years;
seeding the mighty mountains; fighting all rivals; travelling on the
wings of the wind, and if consumed by fire, then, like the phoenix
springing to new life from the ashes, sending forth fresh armadas from
the pendant purplish cinnamon-scented cones split open by the heat and
so releasing fresh winged seeds!

Wayland used to dream, as he rode down the hog's back trail, of the day
coming when all the National Forests would be a great park, the
people's playground, yielding bigger annual harvest in ripe lumber than
the wheat fields or the corn; yielding income for the State and health
for the Nation. Germany did it. Why couldn't America? Why not,
indeed; except that she had not exterminated her pirates of the public
weal, her freebooters of the wilderness, her slippery fingered
pick-pockets, who shouted "_I am Uncle Sam_," while they picked Uncle
Sam's pockets?

Riding down the hog's back, you first left the larches and the junipers
below the snow line, the junipers beginning to show their berries, the
larches yellowing and shedding their golden shower to the approach of
autumn. Then, a turn of the trail; and you were among the hemlocks,
funereal and sombre in the distance, wonderfully lightened when you
were below them by the sage-green moss and the pale silver blue lining
on the under side of the leaves. Another turn or two, there came the
feathery sugar pine and the Douglas spruce--the monarchs of the
North-Western Forests--plume decked warriors carrying a glint of spears
with the scars of a thousand years and a thousand victories in the
wrinkled bark, with cones like tassels, and whorls like banners. You
could count these whorls, or the scars of the whorls; and you had their
years; and the bluish green shade was restful as the repose of age.
The smell of them, it was like incense; incense to the deity of the
woods; and when the wind blew, every old evergreen harped the age-old
melodies of Pan. And, oh, yes, there were warriors scarred from the
fight, fellows with corky arms and mottled streaks where the lightning
had struck and splintered. Only the cheesy-hearted, the warriors with
maggots and grubs manufacturing punk out of heart-wood, for all the
world like humans infected by evil thoughts, only the hollow hearted
came down to earth with a crash in the fray.

Another turn, you were among the lodge-pole pines and englemann
spruce--pure park, Wayland always thought, the delight of a Forester's
heart; warm human open park places where you kept looking for deer
though you knew there weren't any. In riding down the backbone of the
Ridge, Wayland always planned to camp under the lodge pole pines; it
was so cool, so rain-proof and sun-proof, with an almost certainty of a
mountain stream somewhere near, and if you had eyes to see, a game
trail down to the stream. To-night, he went on down to the _Brule_, a
cross section of the mountain swept by fire years before the Forest
Service had taken hold in the days when millmen had been permitted to
take out windfall and burn free, and all a millman had to do to become
a millionaire in free lumber was set the incendiary fire going to
create windfall. In his own district, Wayland knew two men who had
become rich in that way; but of course, _that_ was long ago. The
Forest men had cleared out the windfall and burn; and now, the deity of
the woods, Nature, was at work! By the moonlight, the Ranger could see
the pale chalky peach-bloom boles of the ghost birches, and the satiny
poplars and cottonwoods, turning gold to the approaching autumn but
going down gay, twinkling, laughing fellows to the year's death,
actually clapping their hands, shaking with glee, sending leaves down
in a rain of gold, which, it is to be hoped, the pixies picked up, the
pixies sailing the air in feather parachutes of flower and cone seed!
Wayland could see these airy ships between him and the silver
moonlight, dropping seeds--seeds--seeds; seeds of fire flower and
golden rod and hoary evergreen; shooting them out in tiny catapults;
sending them up in dandelion fluff and sky rockets; catching and
skimming the wind in airy canoes; tilting the winged sails to a whiff
and sailing, sailing, dropping the seeds of life for a thousand years!
And beneath the birches with the hundred eyes looking out from the
chalky faced bark, and the poplars laughing and shaking with glee, and
the cottonwoods showering down a rain of gold in their death; stood the
little pines seeded by the wind, nursed by the shade of the quick
growing trees. Who would be living and loving and fighting and hating
and winning and losing when these little fellows rose to toss and
flaunt their victory in the face of the sky? Was that the meaning of
life after all, the strength and thew, the valor and might of the fight
up? Then, it was not such a bad way with the Nation. The Nation would
be the better for this fight. Certain, it was, the better side would
win. Would it be the few like the sugar pine towering over its
fellows; or the many like the lodge pole pine and englemann spruce
standing in serried ranks of equal valor and power?

And if you think he could take that ride without wishing to the "nth"
degree that she could be with him to share the joy, then, I assure you,
you don't know to what music those gay, twinkling, trembling gold
leaves above the _Brule_ were beating time all night to the whisper of
the wind and rustle of the pixy parachutes sailing mid-air.




CHAPTER XXV

THE QUESTION IS--WHICH UNCLE SAM?

Before, it had been a race-reverie; a waiting, puzzled and uncertain
for the ways of life. Now, it was the joy of life, the fulfilment for
which life had been created and waited expectant; and whether the ways
were any plainer in the new light, there was no room for wonder in the
fulness of joy. Eleanor was glad the little bundle of tawdry loquacity
toddling between them kept up a constant stream of idle boastings on
the road to the Mission House, about being "waal-thy" and "Faather
shure bein' a gen'leman when they were waal-thy" and "herself as foine
as eny loidy in th' land," and more and more of the same, all the way
down the Ridge Trail; which was not so fatuous as it sounded, when it
voiced the convictions of a great many more people than the little
unwashed garlicky Shanty Town dancer. Eleanor wondered if the same
arguments applied to the culture of horses and pigs and potatoes--size
instead of sort, fulness of stomach not quality of head, area of
possession not area of service.

The garrulous babble continued to the very doors of the Mission School,
and through the formalities of an absurdly formal introduction to Mrs.
Williams, and during the suppertime meal with the little Indian
children in the big dining room. Eleanor noticed how Lizzie's lips
pursed with contempt at the other children and the little stomach poked
out with arrogance and fulness as the boasting waxed.

"That kind is the most hopeless of all," remarked Mrs. Williams in a
low voice, amused at the amazement on the faces of the Indian children.

Yet Eleanor was glad. The babble gave her opportunity for withdrawal
in her own thoughts; and when she came back to the Ranch House with
Matthews, leaving Lizzie still boasting at the School, she hardly
noticed that her father stopped the frontiersman on the threshold, but
she passed out to the steamer chair on her own piazza. What was _It_?
Eleanor could not have answered if she had tried. She only knew that
she had drunk of the fulness of living, and that time could not rob her
of that consciousness. It was there, forever with her, breathing in
every breath, pulsing in the rhythm of her blood, "Closer than hands or
feet," as the Pantheistic poet has sung, immanent, enveloping,
possessory, obsessory, warm, living, a flooding realization of life,
giving tone to every touch of existence, like the strings of the violin
to the bow of the skilled musician. She wanted to sing; the long, low,
jubilant chant of womanhood which no poet has yet sung. By the joy of
it, she knew what the sorrow of it must be. By the purity, she
realized what the poisoning of the fountain springs of life could mean.
By the triumph, she realized what the defeat, the debasement could be.
She thought of love as a fountain spring, a spring into which you could
not both cast defilement and drink of waters undefiled; as an altar
flame fed with incense lighting the darkness; and one could no more
offend love with impurity, than cast the dung heap on the altar flame
and not expect blastment. She wanted to clap her hands as the gay,
twinkling cottonwoods were clapping theirs to the sunset; to dance and
beat gypsy tambourines as the pines were throbbing and harping and
clicking to the age-old melodies of Pan. She wanted--what was it? Had
the Israelitish women of old timed their joy to the rhythm of the
dance; or was it a later strain, the strain from the tribal woman of
the plains who heard a voice in the music of the laughing leaves, and
the throb of the river, and the shout of the sun-glinted cataract, and
the little lispings and whisperings of the waves among the reeds? The
stars came pricking out. Each hung a tiny censer flame to the altar of
night and holiness and mystery. She knew she could never again see the
stars come pricking through the purple dusk without feeling the stab of
joy that had wakened death to life when recognition had struck fire in
consciousness. She knew, then, there was no eternity long enough for
the joy of _It_, nor heaven high enough for the reach of _It_, nor hell
deep enough for the wrong of _It_.


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

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

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

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

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

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

"No, never mind! Keep Calamity by you! Go to bed early, have a good
sleep! 'Night," he said. The mosquito door clicked and he had gone.
A moment later, the yellow buck board had rattled down the River road,
and her father did what he had never done before, he turned and lightly
waved his hat.

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

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

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

"No, when it's that, you'll work for the stars spite o' y'rself! Why,
A contrived the meetin' myself this vera afternoon; wha' d' y' think o'
that for an old fool? A'll be goin' back empty handed, an' all m' own
doin'!"

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

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

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

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

"Copper rivetted," he said.


We call _It_ clairvoyance; and we call _It_ intuition; and we call _It_
instinct; and we might as well call it x, y, z for all these terms
mean. We do not know what they mean. Neither do we know what _It_ is.
We hear _It_ and obey _It_; and _It_ brings blessedness. In the din of
life's insistent noise, we sometimes do not hear _It_. That is, we do
not hear _It_ until afterwards when the curse has come. Then, we
remember that we did hear _It_, though we did not heed it.

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

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

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

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

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

"Why, Calamity, that is perfect nonsense! Moyese won't examine the
mine, at all! This young fellow from Washington is the one to examine
the mine?"

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

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

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

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

Yet why should she feel such alarm? Had he not gone down to the
Desert, and come back, and she had not known fear? Was the fear for
her father? Was it her father's wistful look? What could she do?
Would he wish her to do anything? This, too, was on the Firing Line,
but reason how she would, she could not subdue her fears, nor keep the
tremor from her hands as she ran back to the bed room dimly lighted by
the candle above the desk at the head of the bed.

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

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

"M' man," she whispered, "dey keel heem, dey hang heem! M' babee, dey
take it away, d' pries' he sing--sing an' wave candle an' bury it in
snow. Leetle Ford, d' keel heem! D' punish Indian man, d' hang heem,
m' man! Moyese, he keel leetle Ford: he go free, not'ng hurt heem!"
She burst out laughing, low voiced cunning laughter. "I go see," she
said. "I ride down hog's back t' d' mine! I go see! Messieu
MacDonal'--He help me! I help heem! I go see," and before Eleanor had
grasped the import of the words, the woman had darted out into the
dark; and a moment later, Eleanor heard the basement door clang. There
was the pound-pound of a horse being pulled hither and thither, leaping
to a wild gallop, then the figure of Calamity bare-headed, riding
bareback and astride, cut the moonlight; and the ring of hoof beats
echoed back from the rocks of some one going furious, heedless up the
face of the Ridge towards the hog's back trail.

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


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

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

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

All had gone well, exceedingly well, in the examination of the mine.
It had begun sharp at twelve o'clock when the day shift came out with
their dinner pails. It will be remembered the Ridge sloped down to a
burnt area, known as the _Brule_, overgrown with young poplars and
birches and yet younger pines. The _Brule_ slanted down to a roll of
rock and shingle and gravel above the City known as Coal Hill. It was
on the face of this hill that the mines lay. You could see the black
veins coming out on the face of the cliff; and into the cliff
penetrated two parallel tunnels. Up and down from these tunnels
rattled the trucks on serial tramways to and from the Smelter, weaving
in and out of the tunnel mouths like shuttles, run by gravitation
pressure. If the mines were worthless, or worth only the five, ten,
and three-hundred dollars that the Ring had paid the "dummy"
homesteaders for each quarter section, these shifts of a hundred men at
a time, and trucks and tramways would have offered a puzzle to any one
but the downy-lipped youth, who had come to examine them.

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