[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D. W. ]

PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE

TALES OF THE FAR NORTH

By Gilbert Parker

Volume 3. 

SHON MCGANN'S TOBOGAN RIDEPERE CHAMPAGNETHE SCARLET HUNTERTHE STONE

SHON McGANN'S TOBOGAN RIDE

 "Oh, it's down the long side of Farcalladen Rise, With the knees pressing hard to the saddle, my men; With the sparks from the hoofs giving light to the eyes, And our hearts beating hard as we rode to the glen!

 "And it's back with the ring of the chain and the spur, And it's back with the sun on the hill and the moor, And it's back is the thought sets my pulses astir! But I'll never go back to Farcalladen more. "

Shon McGann was lying on a pile of buffalo robes in a mountain hut, --anAustralian would call it a humpey, --singing thus to himself with his pipebetween his teeth. In the room, besides Shon, were Pretty Pierre, JoGordineer, the Hon. Just Trafford, called by his companions simply "TheHonourable, " and Prince Levis, the owner of the establishment. Not thatMonsieur Levis, the French Canadian, was really a Prince. The name wasgiven to him with a humorous cynicism peculiar to the Rockies. We havelittle to do with Prince Levis here; but since he may appear elsewhere, this explanation is made. 

Jo Gordineer had been telling The Honourable about the ghost of GuidonMountain, and Pretty Pierre was collaborating with their host in thepreparation of what, in the presence of the Law--that is of the North-West Mounted Police--was called ginger-tea, in consideration of theprohibition statute. 

Shon McGann had been left to himself--an unusual thing; for everyone hada shot at Shon when opportunity occurred; and never a bull's-eye couldthey make on him. His wit was like the shield of a certain personage ofmythology. 

He had wandered on from verse to verse of the song with one eye on thecollaborators and an ear open to The Honourable's polite exclamations ofwonder. Jo had, however, come to the end of his weird tale--for weird itcertainly was, told at the foot of Guidon Mountain itself, and in aregion of vast solitudes--the pair of chemists were approaching "thesupreme union of unctuous elements, " as The Honourable put it, and in thesilence that fell for a moment there crept the words of the singer:

 "And it's down the long side of Farcalladen Rise, And it's swift as an arrow and straight as a spear--"

Jo Gordineer interrupted. "Say, Shon, when'll you be through thattobogan ride of yours? Aint there any end to it?"

But Shon was looking with both eyes now at the collaborators, and he sangsoftly on:

 "And it's keen as the frost when the summer-time dies, That we rode to the glen and with never a fear. "

Then he added: "The end's cut off, Joey, me boy; but what's a toboganride, annyway?"

"Listen to that, Pierre. I'll be eternally shivered if he knows what atobogan ride is!"

"Hot shivers it'll be for you, Joey, me boy, and no quinine over the baraither, " said Shon. 

"Tell him what a tobogan ride is, Pierre. "

And Pretty Pierre said: "Eh, well, I will tell you. It is like-no, youhave the word precise, Joseph. Eh? What?"

Pierre then added something in French. Shon did not understand it, buthe saw The Honourable smile, so with a gentle kind of contempt he went onsinging:

 "And it's hey for the hedge, and it's hey for the wall! And it's over the stream with an echoing cry; And there's three fled for ever from old Donegal, And there's two that have shown how bold Irishmen die. "

The Honourable then said, "What is that all about, Shon? I never heardthe song before. "

"No more you did. And I wish I could see the lad that wrote that song, livin' or dead. If one of ye's will tell me about your tobogan rides, I'll unfold about Farcalladen Rise. "

Prince Levis passed the liquor. Pretty Pierre, seated on a candle-box, with a glass in his delicate fingers, said: "Eh, well, the Honourable hasmuch language. He can speak, precise--this would be better with a littlelemon, just a little, --the Honourable, he, perhaps, will tell. Eh?"

Pretty Pierre was showing his white teeth. At this stage in his career, he did not love the Honourable. The Honourable understood that, but hemade clear to Shon's mind what toboganing is. 

And Shon, on his part, with fresh and hearty voice, touched here andthere by a plaintive modulation, told about that ride on FarcalladenRise; a tale of broken laws, and fight and fighting, and death and exile;and never a word of hatred in it all. 

"And the writer of the song, who was he?" asked the Honourable. 

"A gentleman after God's own heart. Heaven rest his soul, if he's dead, which I'm thinkin' is so, and give him the luck of the world if he'slivin', say I. But it's little I know what's come to him. In the heartof Australia I saw him last; and mates we were together after gold. Andlittle gold did we get but what was in the heart of him. And we partedone day, I carryin' the song that he wrote for me of Farcalladen Rise, and the memory of him; and him givin' me the word, 'I'll not forget you, Shon, me boy, whatever comes; remember that. And a short pull of theThree-Star together for the partin' salute, ' says he. And the Three-Starin one sup each we took, as solemn as the Mass, and he went away towardsCloncurry and I to the coast; and that's the last that I saw of him, nowthree years gone. And here I am, and I wish I was with him wherever heis. "

"What was his name"? said the Honourable. 

"Lawless. "

The fingers of the Honourable trembled on his cigar. "Very interesting, Shon, " he said, as he rose, puffing hard till his face was in a cloud ofsmoke. "You had many adventures together, I suppose, " he continued. 

"Adventures we had and sufferin' bewhiles, and fun, too, to the neck andflowin' over. "

"You'll spin us a long yarn about them another night, Shon"? said theHonourable. 

"I'll do it now--a yarn as long as the lies of the Government; and proudof the chance. "

"Not to-night, Shon" (there was a kind of huskiness in the voice of theHonourable); "it's time to turn in. We've a long tramp over the glacierto-morrow, and we must start at sunrise. "

The Honourable was in command of the party, though Jo Gordineer was theguide, and all were, for the moment, miners, making for the little GoshenField over in Pipi Valley. --At least Pretty Pierre said he was a miner. 

No one thought of disputing the authority of the Honourable, and they allrose. 

In a few minutes there was silence in the hut, save for the oracularbreathing of Prince Levis and the sparks from the fire. But theHonourable did not sleep well; he lay and watched the fire through mostof the night. 

The day was clear, glowing, decisive. Not a cloud in the curve of azure, not a shiver of wind down the canon, not a frown in Nature, if we exceptthe lowering shadows from the shoulders of the giants of the range. Crowning the shadows was a splendid helmet of light, rich with the dyesof the morning; the pines were touched with a brilliant if austerewarmth. The pride of lofty lineage and severe isolation was regnant overall. And up through the splendour, and the shadows, and the loneliness, and the austere warmth, must our travellers go. Must go? Scarcely that, but the Honourable had made up his mind to cross the glacier and nonesought to dissuade him from his choice; the more so, because there wassomething of danger in the business. Pretty Pierre had merely shruggedhis shoulders at the suggestion, and had said:

"'Nom de Dieu, ' the higher we go the faster we live, that is something. "

"Sometimes we live ourselves to death too quickly. In my schooldays Iwatched a mouse in a jar of oxygen do that;" said the Honourable. 

"That is the best way to die, " remarked the halfbreed--"much. "

Jo Gordineer had been over the path before. He was confident of the way, and proud of his office of guide. 

"Climb Mont Blanc, if you will, " said the Honourable, "but leave me thesewhite bastions of the Selkirks. "

Even so. They have not seen the snowy hills of God who have yet to lookupon the Rocky Mountains, absolute, stupendous, sublimely grave. 

Jo Gordineer and Pretty Pierre strode on together. They being well awayfrom the other two, the Honourable turned and said to Shon: "What was thename of the man who wrote that song of yours, again, Shon?"

"Lawless. "

"Yes, but his first name?"

"Duke--Duke Lawless. "

There was a pause, in which the other seemed to be intently studying theglacier above them. Then he said: "What was he like?--in appearance, Imean. "

"A trifle more than your six feet, about your colour of hair and eyes, and with a trick of smilin' that would melt the heart of an exciseman, and O'Connell's own at a joke, barrin' a time or two that he got hold ofa pile of papers from the ould country. By the grave of St. Shon! thinhe was as dry of fun as a piece of blotting paper. And he said at last, before he was aisy and free again, 'Shon, ' says he, 'it's better to burnyour ships behind ye, isn't it?'

"And I, havin' thought of a glen in ould Ireland that I'll never seeagain, nor any that's in it, said: 'Not, only burn them to the water'sedge, Duke Lawless, but swear to your own soul that they never lived butin the dreams of the night. '

"'You're right there, Shon, ' says he, and after that no luck was badenough to cloud the gay heart of him, and bad enough it was sometimes. "

"And why do you fear that he is not alive?"

"Because I met an old mate of mine one day on the Frazer, and he saidthat Lawless had never come to Cloncurry; and a hard, hard road it was totravel. "

Jo Gordineer was calling to them, and there the conversation ended. In a few minutes the four stood on the edge of the glacier. Each man hada long hickory stick which served as alpenstock, a bag hung at his side, and tied to his back was his gold-pan, the hollow side in, of course. Shon's was tied a little lower down than the others. 

They passed up this solid river of ice, this giant power at endlessstrife with the high hills, up towards its head. The Honourable was thefirst to reach the point of vantage, and to look down upon the vast andwandering fissures, the frigid bulwarks, the great fortresses of ice, theceaseless snows, the aisles of this mountain sanctuary through whichNature's splendid anthems rolled. Shon was a short distance below, withhis hand over his eyes, sweeping the semi-circle of glory. 

Suddenly there was a sharp cry from Pierre: "Mon Dieu! Look!"

Shon McGann had fallen on a smooth pavement of ice. The gold-pan wasbeneath him, and down the glacier he was whirled-whirled, for Shon hadthrust his heels in the snow and ice, and the gold-pan performed a seriesof circles as it sped down the incline. His fingers clutched the ice andsnow, but they only left a red mark of blood behind. Must he go thewhole course of that frozen slide, plump into the wild depths below?

"'Mon Dieu!--mon Dieu!'" said Pretty Pierre, piteously. The face of theHonourable was set and tense. 

Jo Gordineer's hand clutched his throat as if he choked. Still Shonsped. It was a matter of seconds only. The tragedy crowded to the awfulend. 

But, no. 

There was a tilt in the glacier, and the gold-pan, suddenly swirling, again swung to the outer edge, and shot over. 

As if hurled from a catapult, the Irishman was ejected from the whitemonster's back. He fell on a wide shelf of ice, covered with light snow, through which he was tunnelled, and dropped on another ledge below, nearthe path by which he and his companions had ascended. "Shied from thefinish, by God!" said Jo Gordineer. "'Le pauvre Shon!'" added PrettyPierre. 

The Honourable was making his way down, his brain haunted by the words, "He'll never go back to Farcalladen more. "

But Jo was right. 

For Shon McGann was alive. He lay breathless, helpless, for a moment;then he sat up and scanned his lacerated fingers: he looked up the pathby which he had come; he looked down the path he seemed destined to go;he started to scratch his head, but paused in the act, by reason of hisfingers. 

Then he said: "It's my mother wouldn't know me from a can of cold meatif I hadn't stopped at this station; but wurrawurra, what a car it was tocome in!" He examined his tattered clothes and bare elbows; then heunbuckled the gold-pan, and no easy task was it with his ragged fingers. "'Twas not for deep minin' I brought ye, " he said to the pan, "nor forscrapin' the clothes from me back. "

Just then the Honourable came up. "Shon, my man . . . Alive, thankGod! How is it with you?"

"I'm hardly worth the lookin' at. I wouldn't turn my back to ye for aransom. "

"It's enough that you're here at all. "

"Ah, 'voila!' this Irishman!" said Pretty Pierre, as his light fingerstouched Shon's bruised arm gently. This from Pretty Pierre!

There was that in the voice which went to Shon's heart. Who could haveguessed that this outlaw of the North would ever show a sign of sympathyor friendship for anybody? But it goes to prove that you can never beexact in your estimate of character. Jo Gordineer only said jestingly:"Say, now, what are you doing, Shon, bringing us down here, when we mightbe well into the Valley by this time?"

"That in your face and the hair aff your head, " said Shon; "it's littleyou know a tobogan ride when you see one. I'll take my share of thegrog, by the same token. "

The Honourable uncorked his flask. Shon threw back his head with alaugh. 

 "For it's rest when the gallop is over, me men! And it's here's to the lads that have ridden their last; And it's here's--"

But Shon had fainted with the flask in his hand and this snatch of a songon his lips. 

They reached shelter that night. Had it not been for the accident, theywould have got to their destination in the Valley; but here they weretwelve miles from it. Whether this was fortunate or unfortunate may beseen later. Comfortably bestowed in this mountain tavern, after they hadtoasted and eaten their venison and lit their pipes, they drew about thefire. 

Besides the four, there was a figure that lay sleeping in a corner on apile of pine branches, wrapped in a bearskin robe. Whoever it was sleptsoundly. 

"And what was it like--the gold-pan flyer--the tobogan ride, Shon?"remarked Jo Gordineer. 

"What was it like?--what was it like"? replied Shon. "Sure, I couldn'tsee what it was like for the stars that were hittin' me in the eyes. There wasn't any world at all. I was ridin' on a streak of lightnin', and nivir a rubber for the wheels; and my fingers makin' stripes of bloodon the snow; and now the stars that were hittin' me were white, and thinthey were red, and sometimes blue--"

"The Stars and Stripes, " inconsiderately remarked Jo Gordineer. 

"And there wasn't any beginning to things, nor any end of them; and whinI struck the snow and cut down the core of it like a cat through a glass, I was willin' to say with the Prophet of Ireland--"

"Are you going to pass the liniment, Pretty Pierre?" It was Jo Gordineersaid that. 

What the Prophet of Israel did say--Israel and Ireland were identical toShon--was never told. 

Shon's bubbling sarcasm was full-stopped by the beneficent savour that, rising now from the hands of the four, silenced all irrelevant speech. It was a function of importance. It was not simply necessary to say How!or Here's reformation! or I look towards you! As if by a commoninstinct, the Honourable, Jo Gordineer, and Pretty Pierre, turned towardsShon and lifted their glasses. Jo Gordineer was going to say: "Here's asafe foot in the stirrups to you, " but he changed his mind and drank insilence. 

Shon's eye had been blazing with fun, but it took on, all at once, amisty twinkle. None of them had quite bargained for this. The feelinghad come like a wave of soft lightning, and had passed through them. Didit come from the Irishman himself? Was it his own nature acting throughthose who called him "partner"?

Pretty Pierre got up and kicked savagely at the wood in the bigfireplace. He ostentatiously and needlessly put another log of Norfolk-pine upon the fire. 

The Honourable gaily suggested a song. 

"Sing us 'Avec les Braves Sauvages, ' Pierre, " said Jo Gordineer. 

But Pierre waved his fingers towards Shon: "Shon, his song--he did notfinish--on the glacier. It is good we hear all. 'Hein?'"

And so Shon sang:

 "Oh it's down the long side of Farcalladen Rise. "

The sleeper on the pine branches stirred nervously, as if the song werecoming through a dream to him. At the third verse he started up, and aneager, sun-burned face peered from the half-darkness at the singer. TheHonourable was sitting in the shadow, with his back to the new actor inthe scene. 

 "For it's rest when the gallop is over, my men I And it's here's to the lads that have ridden their last! And it's here's--"

Shon paused. One of those strange lapses of memory came to him whichcome at times to most of us concerning familiar things. He could get nofurther than he did on the mountain side. He passed his hand over hisforehead, stupidly:--"Saints forgive me; but it's gone from me, and sorrathe one can I get it; me that had it by heart, and the lad that wrote itfar away. Death in the world, but I'll try it again!

 "For it's rest when the gallop is over, my men! And it's here's to the lads that have ridden their last! And it's here's--"

Again he paused. 

But from the half-darkness there came a voice, a clear baritone:

 "And here's to the lasses we leave in the glen, With a smile for the future, a sigh for the past. "

At the last words the figure strode down into the firelight. 

"Shon, old friend, don't you know me?"

Shon had started to his feet at the first note of the voice, and stood asif spellbound. 

There was no shaking of hands. Both men held each other hard by theshoulders, and stood so for a moment looking steadily eye to eye. 

Then Shon said: "Duke Lawless, there's parallels of latitude andparallels of longitude, but who knows the tomb of ould Brian Borhoime?"

Which was his way of saying, "How come you here?" Duke Lawless turned tothe others before he replied. His eyes fell on the Honourable. With astart and a step backward, and with a peculiar angry dryness in hisvoice, he said:

"Just Trafford!"

"Yes, " replied the Honourable, smiling, "I have found you. "

"Found me! And why have you sought me? Me, Duke Lawless? I should havethought--"

The Honourable interrupted: "To tell you that you are Sir Duke Lawless. "

"That? You sought me to tell me that?"

"I did. "

"You are sure? And for naught else?"

"As I live, Duke. "

The eyes fixed on the Honourable were searching. Sir Duke hesitated, then held out his hand. In a swift but cordial silence it was taken. Nothing more could be said then. It is only in plays where gentlemenfreely discuss family affairs before a curious public. Pretty Pierre wasbusy with a decoction. Jo Gordineer was his associate. Shon had drawnback, and was apparently examining the indentations on his gold-pan. 

"Shon, old fellow, come here, " said Sir Duke Lawless. 

But Shon had received a shock. "It's little I knew Sir Duke Lawless--"he said. 

"It's little you needed to know then, or need to know now, Shon, myfriend. I'm Duke Lawless to you here and henceforth, as ever I was then, on the wallaby track. "

And Shon believed him. The glasses were ready. 

"I'll give the toast, " said the Honourable with a gentle gravity. "ToShon McGann and his Tobogan Ride!"

"I'll drink to the first half of it with all my heart, " said Sir Duke. "It's all I know about. "

"Amen to that divorce, " rejoined Shon. 

"But were it not for the Tobogan Ride we shouldn't have stopped here, "said the Honourable; "and where would this meeting have been?"

"That alters the case, " Sir Duke remarked. "I take back the 'Amen, '"said Shon. 

II

Whatever claims Shon had upon the companionship of Sir Duke Lawless, he knew there were other claims that were more pressing. After the toastwas finished, with an emphasised assumption of weariness, and a hint of along yarn on the morrow, he picked up his blanket and started for theroom where all were to sleep. The real reason of this early departurewas clear to Pretty Pierre at once, and in due time it dawned upon JoGordineer. 

The two Englishmen, left alone, sat for a few moments silent and smokinghard. Then the Honourable rose, got his knapsack, and took out a smallnumber of papers, which he handed to Sir Duke, saying, "By slow postalservice to Sir Duke Lawless. Residence, somewhere on one of fivecontinents. "

An envelope bearing a woman's writing was the first thing that met SirDuke's eye. He stared, took it out, turned it over, looked curiously atthe Honourable for a moment, and then began to break the seal. 

"Wait, Duke. Do not read that. We have something to say to each otherfirst. "

Sir Duke laid the letter down. "You have some explanation to make, " hesaid. 

"It was so long ago; mightn't it be better to go over the story again?"

"Perhaps. "

"Then it is best you should tell it. I am on my defence, you know. "

Sir Duke leaned back, and a frown gathered on his forehead. Strikinglyout of place on his fresh face it seemed. Looking quickly from the fireto the face of the Honourable and back again earnestly, as if the fullforce of what was required came to him, he said: "We shall get theperspective better if we put the tale in the third person. Duke Lawlesswas the heir to the title and estates of Trafford Court. Next insuccession to him was Just Trafford, his cousin. Lawless had an incomesufficient for a man of moderate tastes. Trafford had not quite that, but he had his profession of the law. At college they had been fastfriends, but afterwards had drifted apart, through no cause savedifference of pursuits and circumstances. Friends they still were andlikely to be so always. One summer, when on a visit to his uncle, Admiral Sir Clavel Lawless, at Trafford Court, where a party of peoplehad been invited for a month, Duke Lawless fell in love with Miss EmilyDorset. She did him the honour to prefer him to any other man--at least, he thought so. Her income, however, was limited like his own. Theengagement was not announced, for Lawless wished to make a home before hetook a wife. He inclined to ranching in Canada, or a planter's life inQueensland. The eight or ten thousand pounds necessary was not, however, easy to get for the start, and he hadn't the least notion of discountingthe future, by asking the admiral's help. Besides, he knew his uncle didnot wish him to marry unless he married a woman plus a fortune. Whilethings were in this uncertain state, Just Trafford arrived on a visit toTrafford Court. The meeting of the old friends was cordial. Immediatelyon Trafford's arrival, however, the current of events changed. Thingsoccurred which brought disaster. It was noticeable that Miss EmilyDorset began to see a deal more of Admiral Lawless and Just Trafford, and a deal less of the younger Lawless. One day Duke Lawless came backto the house unexpectedly, his horse having knocked up on the road. On entering the library he saw what turned the course of his life. "Sir Duke here paused, sighed, shook the ashes out of his pipe with agrave and expressive anxiety which did not properly belong to the action, and remained for a moment, both arms on his knees, silent, and looking atthe fire. Then he continued:

"Just Trafford sat beside Emily Dorset in an attitude of--say, affectionate consideration. She had been weeping, and her whole mannersuggested very touching confidences. They both rose on the entrance ofLawless; but neither tried to say a word. What could they say? Lawlessapologised, took a book from the table which he had not come for, andleft. "

Again Sir Duke paused. 

"The book was an illustrated Much Ado About Nothing, " said theHonourable. 

"A few hours after, Lawless had an interview with Emily Dorset. He demanded, with a good deal of feeling, perhaps, --for he was romanticenough to love the girl, --an explanation. He would have asked it ofTrafford first if he had seen him. She said Lawless should trust her;that she had no explanation at that moment to give. If he waited--butLawless asked her if she cared for him at all, if she wished or intendedto marry him? She replied lightly, 'Perhaps, when you become Sir DukeLawless. ' Then Lawless accused her of heartlessness, and of encouragingboth his uncle and Just Trafford. She amusingly said, 'Perhaps she had, but it really didn't matter, did it?' For reply, Lawless said herinterest in the whole family seemed active and impartial. He bade hernot vex herself at all about him, and not to wait until he became SirDuke Lawless, but to give preference to seniority and begin with thetitle at once; which he has reason since to believe that she did. Whathe said to her he has been sorry for, not because he thinks it wasundeserved, but because he has never been able since to rouse himself toanger on the subject, nor to hate the girl and Just Trafford as he ought. Of the dead he is silent altogether. He never sought an explanation fromJust Trafford, for he left that night for London, and in two days was onhis way to Australia. The day he left, however, he received a note fromhis banker saying that L8000 had been placed to his credit by AdmiralLawless. Feeling the indignity of what he believed was the cause of thegift, Lawless neither acknowledged it nor used it, not any penny of it. Five years have gone since then, and Lawless has wandered over twocontinents, a self-created exile. He has learned much that he didn'tlearn at Oxford; and not the least of all, that the world is not so badas is claimed for it, that it isn't worth while hating and cherishinghate, that evil is half-accidental, half-natural, and that hard work inthe face of nature is the thing to pull a man together and strengthen himfor his place in the universe. Having burned his ships behind him, thatis the way Lawless feels. And the story is told. "

Just Trafford sat looking musingly but imperturbably at Sir Duke for aminute; then he said:

"That is your interpretation of the story, but not the story. Let usturn the medal over now. And, first, let Trafford say that he has thepermission of Emily Dorset--"

Sir Duke interrupted: "Of her who was Emily Dorset. "

"Of Miss Emily Dorset, to tell what she did not tell that day five yearsago. After this other reading of the tale has been rendered, her letterand those documents are there for fuller testimony. Just Trafford's partin the drama begins, of course, with the library scene. Now Duke Lawlesshad never known Trafford's half-brother, Hall Vincent. Hall was born inIndia, and had lived there most of his life. He was in the IndianPolice, and had married a clever, beautiful, but impossible kind of girl, against the wishes of her parents. The marriage was not a very happyone. This was partly owing to the quick Lawless and Trafford blood, partly to the wife's wilfulness. Hall thought that things might gobetter if he came to England to live. On their way from Madras toColombo he had some words with his wife one day about the way shearranged her hair, but nothing serious. This was shortly after tiffin. That evening they entered the harbour at Colombo; and Hall going to hiscabin to seek his wife, could not find her; but in her stead was herhair, arranged carefully in flowing waves on the pillow, where throughthe voyage her head had lain. That she had cut it off and laid it therewas plain; but she could not be found, nor was she ever found. The largeporthole was open; this was the only clue. But we need not go furtherinto that. Hall Vincent came home to England. He told his brother thestory as it has been told to you, and then left for South America, abroken-spirited man. The wife's family came on to England also. Theydid not meet Hall Vincent; but one day Just Trafford met at a countryseat in Devon, for the first time, the wife's sister. She had not knownof the relationship between Hall Vincent and the Traffords; and on amemorable afternoon he told her the full story of the married life andthe final disaster, as Hall had told it to him. "

Sir Duke sprang to his feet. "You mean, Just, that--"

"I mean that Emily Dorset was the sister of Hall Vincent's wife. "

Sir Duke's brown fingers clasped and unclasped nervously. He was aboutto speak, but the Honourable said: "That is only half the story--wait. 

"Emily Dorset would have told Lawless all in due time, but women don'tlike to be bullied ever so little, and that, and the unhappiness of thething, kept her silent in her short interview with Lawless. She couldnot have guessed that Lawless would go as he did. Now, the secret of herdiplomacy with the uncle--diplomacy is the best word to use--was DukeLawless's advancement. She knew how he had set his heart on the ranchingor planting life. She would have married him without a penny, but shefelt his pride in that particular, and respected it. So, like a clevergirl, she determined to make the old chap give Lawless a cheque on hispossible future. Perhaps, as things progressed, the same old chap got anabsurd notion in his head about marrying her to Just Trafford, but thatwas meanwhile all the better for Lawless. The very day that Emily Dorsetand Just Trafford succeeded in melting Admiral Lawless's heart to thetune of eight thousand, was the day that Duke Lawless doubted his friendand challenged the loyalty of the girl he loved. "

Sir Duke's eyes filled. "Great Heaven! Just--" he said. 

"Be quiet for a little. You see she had taken Trafford into her schemeagainst his will, for he was never good at mysteries and theatricals, andhe saw the danger. But the cause was a good one, and he joined the sweetconspiracy, with what result these five years bear witness. AdmiralLawless has been dead a year and a half, his wife a year. For he marriedout of anger with Duke Lawless; but he did not marry Emily Dorset, nordid he beget a child. "

"In Australia I saw a paragraph speaking of a visit made by him and LadyLawless to a hospital, and I thought--"

"You thought he had married Emily Dorset and--well, you had better readthat letter now. "

Sir Duke's face was flushing with remorse and pain. He drew his handquickly across his eyes. "And you've given up London, your profession, everything, just to hunt for me, to tell me this--you who would haveprofited by my eternal absence! What a beast and ass I've been!"

"Not at all; only a bit poetical and hasty, which is not unnatural in theLawless blood. I should have been wild myself, maybe, if I had been inyour position; only I shouldn't have left England, and I should havetaken the papers regularly and have asked the other fellow to explain. The other fellow didn't like the little conspiracy. Women, however, seemto find that kind of thing a moral necessity. By the way, I wish whenyou go back you'd send me out my hunting traps. I've made up my mindto--oh, quite so--read the letter--I forgot!"

Sir Duke opened the letter and read it, putting it away from him now andthen as if it hurt him, and taking it up a moment after to continue thereading. The Honourable watched him. 

At last Sir Duke rose. "Just--"

"Yes? Go on. "

"Do you think she would have me now?"

"Don't know. Your outfit is not so beautiful as it used to be. "

"Don't chaff me. "

"Don't be so funereal, then. "

Under the Honourable's matter of fact air Sir Duke's face began to clear. "Tell me, do you think she still cares for me?"

"Well, I don't know. She's rich now--got the grandmother's stocking. Then there's Pedley, of the Scots Guards; he has been doing loyal servicefor a couple of years. What does the letter say?"

"It only tells the truth, as you have told it to me, but from herstandpoint; not a word that says anything but beautiful reproach andgeneral kindness. That is all. "

"Quite so. You see it was all four years ago, and Pedley--"

But the Honourable paused. He had punished his friend enough. Hestepped forward and laid his hand on Sir Duke's shoulder. "Duke, youwant to pick up the threads where they were dropped. You dropped them. Ask me nothing about the ends that Emily Dorset held. I conspire nomore. But go you and learn your fate. If one remembers, why should theother forget?"

Sir Duke's light heart and eager faith came back with a rush. "I'llstart for England at once. I'll know the worst or the best of it beforethree months are out. " The Honourable's slow placidity turned. 

"Three months. --Yes, you may do it in that time. Better go from Victoriato San Francisco and then overland. You'll not forget about my huntingtraps, and--oh, certainly, Gordineer; come in. "

"Say, " said Gordineer. "I don't want to disturb the meeting, but Shon'sin chancery somehow; breathing like a white pine, and thrashing about!He's red-hot with fever. "

Before he had time to say more, Sir Duke seized the candle and enteredthe room. Shon was moving uneasily and suppressing the groans that shookhim. "Shon, old friend, what is it?"

"It's the pain here, Lawless, " laying his hand on his chest. 

After a moment Sir Duke said, "Pneumonia!"

From that instant thoughts of himself were sunk in the care and thoughtof the man who in the heart of Queensland had been mate and friend andbrother to him. He did not start for England the next day, nor for manya day. 

Pretty Pierre and Jo Gordineer and his party carried Sir Duke's lettersover into the Pipi Valley, from where they could be sent on to the coast. Pierre came back in a few days to see how Shon was, and expressed hisdetermination of staying to help Sir Duke, if need be. 

Shon hovered between life and death. It was not alone the pneumoniathat racked his system so; there was also the shock he had received inhis flight down the glacier. In his delirium he seemed to be alwayswith Lawless:

"'For it's down the long side of Farcalladen Rise'--It's share and shareeven, Lawless, and ye'll ate the rest of it, or I'll lave ye--Did ye sayye'd found water--Lawless--water!--Sure you're drinkin' none yourself--I'll sing it again for you then--'And it's back with the ring of thechain and the spur'--'But burn all your ships behind you'--'I'll never goback to Farcalladen more!'"

Sir Duke's fingers had a trick of kindness, a suggestion of comfort, a sense of healing, that made his simple remedies do more than naturalduty. He was doctor, nurse, --sleepless nurse, --and careful apothecary. And when at last the danger was past and he could relax watching, hewould not go, and he did not go, till they could all travel to the PipiValley. 

In the blue shadows of the firs they stand as we take our leave of oneof them. The Honourable and Sir Duke have had their last words, and SirDuke has said he will remember about the hunting traps. They understandeach other. There is sunshine in the face of all--a kind of Indiansummer sunshine, infused with the sadness of a coming winter; and theirsis the winter of parting. Yet it is all done quietly. 

"We'll meet again, Shon, " said Sir Duke, "and you'll remember yourpromise to write to me. "

"I'll keep my promise, and I hope the news that'll please you best iswhat you'll send us first from England. And if you should go to ouldDonegal--I've no words for me thoughts at all!"

"I know them. Don't try to say them. We've not had the luck together, all kinds and all weathers, for nothing. "

Sir Duke's eyes smiled a good-bye into the smiling eyes of Shon. Theywere much alike, these two, whose stations were so far apart. Yetsomewhere, in generations gone, their ancestors may have toiled, feasted, or governed, in the same social hemisphere; and here in the mountainslife was levelled to one degree again. 

Sir Duke looked round. The pines were crowding up elate and warm towardsthe peaks of the white silence. The river was brawling over a brokenpathway of boulders at their feet; round the edge of a mighty mountaincrept a mule train; a far-off glacier glistened harshly in the lucidmorning, yet not harshly either, but with the rugged form of a vastantiquity, from which these scarred and grimly austere hills had grown. Here Nature was filled with a sense of triumphant mastery--the masteryof ageless experience. And down the great piles there blew a wind ofstirring life, of the composure of great strength, and touched the four, and the man that mounted now was turned to go. A quick good-bye from himto all; a God-speed-you from the Honourable; a wave of the hand betweenthe rider and Shon, and Sir Duke Lawless was gone. 

"You had better cook the last of that bear this morning, Pierre, " saidthe Honourable. And their life went on. 

 . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 

It was eight months after that, sitting in their hut after a day'ssuccessful mining, the Honourable handed Shon a newspaper to read. A paragraph was marked. It concerned the marriage of Miss Emily Dorsetand Sir Duke Lawless. 

And while Shon read, the Honourable called into the tent: "Have you anylemons for the whisky, Pierre?"

A satisfactory reply being returned, the Honourable proceeded: "We'llbegin with the bottle of Pommery, which I've been saving months forthis. "

The royal-flush toast of the evening belonged to Shon. 

"God bless him! To the day when we see him again!"

And all of them saw that day. 

PERE CHAMPAGNE

"Is it that we stand at the top of the hill and the end of the travel hascome, Pierre? Why don't you spake?"

"We stand at the top of the hill, and it is the end. "

"And Lonely Valley is at our feet and Whiteface Mountain beyond?"

"One at our feet, and the other beyond, Shon McGann. "

"It's the sight of my eyes I wish I had in the light of the sun thismornin'. Tell me, what is't you see?"

"I see the trees on the foot-hills, and all the branches shine withfrost. There is a path--so wide!--between two groves of pines. OnWhiteface Mountain lies a glacier-field . . . And all is still. " . . . 

"The voice of you is far-away-like, Pierre--it shivers as a hawk cries. It's the wind, the wind, maybe. "

"There's not a breath of life from hill or valley. "

"But I feel it in my face. "

"It is not the breath of life you feel. "

"Did you not hear voices coming athwart the wind? . . . Can you see thepeople at the mines?"

"I have told you what I see. "

"You told me of the pine-trees, and the glacier, and the snow--"

"And that is all. "

"But in the Valley, in the Valley, where all the miners are?"

"I cannot see them. "

"For love of heaven, don't tell me that the dark is fallin' on your eyestoo. "

"No, Shon, I am not growing blind. "

"Will you not tell me what gives the ache to your words?"

"I see in the Valley--snow . . . Snow. "

"It's a laugh you have at me in your cheek, whin I'd give years of myill-spent life to watch the chimney smoke come curlin' up slow throughthe sharp air in the Valley there below. "

"There is no chimney and there is no smoke in all the Valley. "

"Before God, if you're a man, you'll put your hand on my arm and tell mewhat trouble quakes your speech. "

"Shon McGann, it is for you to make the sign of the Cross . . . There, while I put my hand on your shoulder--so!"

"Your hand is heavy, Pierre. "

"This is the sight of the eyes that see. In the Valley there is snow;in the snow of all that was, there is one poppet-head of the mine thatwas called St. Gabriel . . . Upon the poppet-head there is the figureof a woman. "

"Ah!"

"She does not move--"

"She will never move?"

"She will never move. "

"The breath o' my body hurts me. . . . There is death in the Valley, Pierre?"

"There is death. "

"It was an avalanche--that path between the pines?"

"And a great storm after. "

"Blessed be God that I cannot behold that thing this day! . . . Andthe woman, Pierre, the woman aloft?"

"She went to watch for someone coming, and as she watched, the avalanchecame--and she moves not. "

"Do we know that woman?"

"Who can tell?"

"What was it you whispered soft to yourself, then, Pierre?"

"I whispered no word. "

"There, don't you hear it, soft and sighin'? . . . Nathalie!"

"'Mon Dieu!' It is not of the world. "

"It's facin' the poppet-head where she stands I'd be. "

"Your face is turned towards her. "

"Where is the sun?"

"The sun stands still above her head. "

"With the bitter over, and the avil past, come rest for her and all thatlie there. "

"Eh, 'bien, ' the game is done!"

"If we stay here we shall die also. "

"If we go we die, perhaps. " . . . 

"Don't spake it. We will go, and we will return when the breath ofsummer comes from the South. "

"It shall be so. "

"Hush! Did you not hear--?"

"I did not hear. I only see an eagle, and it flies towards WhitefaceMountain. "

And Shon McGann and Pretty Pierre turned back from the end of theirquest--from a mighty grave behind to a lonely waste before; and thoughone was snow-blind, and the other knew that on him fell the chieferweight of a great misfortune, for he must provide food and fire and be asa mother to his comrade--they had courage; without which, men are as thestanding straw in an unreaped field in winter; but having become like thehooded pine, that keepeth green in frost, and hath the bounding blood inall its icy branches. 

And whence they came and wherefore was as thus:

A French Canadian once lived in Lonely Valley. One day great fortunecame to him, because it was given him to discover the mine St. Gabriel. And he said to the woman who loved him, "I will go with mules and muchgold, that I have hewn and washed and gathered, to a village in the Eastwhere my father and my mother are. They are poor, but I will make themrich; and then I will return to Lonely Valley, and a priest shall comewith me, and we will dwell here at Whiteface Mountain, where men are menand not children. " And the woman blessed him, and prayed for him, andlet him go. 

He travelled far through passes of the mountains, and came at last wherenew cities lay upon the plains, and where men were full of evil and oflust of gold. And he was free of hand and light of heart; and at a placecalled Diamond City false friends came about him, and gave him champagnewine to drink, and struck him down and robbed him, leaving him for dead. 

And he was found, and his wounds were all healed: all save one, and thatwas in the brain. Men called him mad. 

He wandered through the land, preaching to men to drink no wine, and toshun the sight of gold. And they laughed at him, and called him PereChampagne. 

But one day much gold was found at a place called Reef o' Angel; andjointly with the gold came a plague which scars the face and rots thebody; and Indians died by hundreds and white men by scores; and PereChampagne, of all who were not stricken down, feared nothing, and did notflee, but went among the sick and dying, and did those deeds which goldcannot buy, and prayed those prayers which were never sold. And who cancount how high the prayers of the feckless go!

When none was found to bury the dead, he gave them place himself beneaththe prairie earth, --consecrated only by the tears of a fool, --and forextreme unction he had but this: "God be merciful to me, a sinner!"

Now it happily chanced that Pierre and Shon McGann, who travelledwestward, came upon this desperate battle-field, and saw how PereChampagne dared the elements of scourge and death; and they paused andlaboured with him--to save where saving was granted of Heaven, and tobury when the Reaper reaped and would not stay his hand. At last theplague ceased, because winter stretched its wings out swiftly o'er theplains from frigid ranges in the West. And then Pere Champagne fell illagain. 

And this last great sickness cured his madness: and he remembered whencehe had come, and what befell him at Diamond City so many moons ago. Andhe prayed them, when he knew his time was come, that they would go toLonely Valley and tell his story to the woman whom he loved; and say thathe was going to a strange but pleasant Land, and that there he wouldawait her coming. He begged them that they would go at once, that shemight know, and not strain her eyes to blindness, and be sick at heartbecause he came not. And he told them her name, and drew the coverlet upabout his head and seemed to sleep; but he waked between the day anddark, and gently cried: "The snow is heavy on the mountain . . . Andthe Valley is below. . . . 'Gardez, mon Pere!' . . . Ah, Nathalie!"And they buried him between the dark and dawn. 

Though winds were fierce, and travel full of peril, they kept their word, and passed along wide steppes of snow, until they entered passes of themountains, and again into the plains; and at last one 'poudre' day, whenfrost was shaking like shreds of faintest silver through the air, ShonMcGann's sight fled. But he would not turn back--a promise to a dyingman was sacred, and he could follow if he could not lead; and there wasstill some pemmican, and there were martens in the woods, and wanderingdeer that good spirits hunted into the way of the needy; and Pierre'sfinger along the gun was sure. 

Pierre did not tell Shon that for many days they travelled woods where nosunshine entered; where no trail had ever been, nor foot of man had trod:that they had lost their way. Nor did he make his comrade know that onenight he sat and played a game of solitaire to see if they would everreach the place called Lonely Valley. Before the cards were dealt, hemade a sign upon his breast and forehead. Three times he played, andthree times he counted victory; and before three suns had come and gone, they climbed a hill that perched over Lonely Valley. And of what theysaw and their hearts felt we know. 

And when they turned their faces eastward they were as men who go to meeta final and a conquering enemy; but they had kept their honour with theman upon whose grave-tree Shon McGann had carved beneath his name thesewords:

 "A Brother of Aaron. "

Upon a lonely trail they wandered, the spirits of lost travellershungering in their wake--spirits that mumbled in cedar thickets, andwhimpered down the flumes of snow. And Pierre, who knew that evil thingsare exorcised by mighty conjuring, sang loudly, from a throat made thinby forced fasting, a song with which his mother sought to drive away thedevils of dreams that flaunted on his pillow when a child: it was thesong of the Scarlet Hunter. And the charm sufficed; for suddenly of acheerless morning they came upon a trapper's hut in the wilderness, wheretheir sufferings ceased, and the sight of Shon's eyes came back. Whenstrength returned also, they journeyed to an Indian village, where apriest laboured. Him they besought; and when spring came they set forthto Lonely Valley again that the woman and the smothered dead--if it mightchance so--should be put away into peaceful graves. But thither comingthey only saw a grey and churlish river; and the poppet-head of the mineof St. Gabriel, and she who had knelt thereon, were vanished intosolitudes, where only God's cohorts have the rights of burial. . . . 

But the priest prayed humbly for their so swiftly summoned souls. 

THE SCARLET HUNTER

"News out of Egypt!" said the Honourable Just Trafford. "If this istrue, it gives a pretty finish to the season. You think it possible, Pierre? It is every man's talk that there isn't a herd of buffaloes inthe whole country; but this-eh?"

Pierre did not seem disposed to answer. He had been watching a man'sface for some time; but his eyes were now idly following the smoke of hiscigarette as it floated away to the ceiling in fading circles. He seemedto take no interest in Trafford's remarks, nor in the tale that Shangithe Indian had told them; though Shangi and his tale were bothsufficiently uncommon to justify attention. 

Shon McGann was more impressionable. His eyes swam; his feet shiftednervously with enjoyment; he glanced frequently at his gun in the cornerof the hut; he had watched Trafford's face with some anxiety, andaccepted the result of the tale with delight. Now his look was occupiedwith Pierre. 

Pierre was a pretty good authority in all matters concerning the prairiesand the North. He also had an instinct for detecting veracity, havingpractised on both sides of the equation. Trafford became impatient, andat last the half-breed, conscious that he had tried the temper of hischief so far as was safe, lifted his eyes, and, resting them casually onthe Indian, replied: "Yes, I know the place. . . . No, I have notbeen there, but I was told-ah, it was long ago! There is a great valleybetween hills, the Kimash Hills, the hills of the Mighty Men. The woodsare deep and dark; there is but one trail through them, and it is old. On the highest hill is a vast mound. In that mound are the forefathersof a nation that is gone. Yes, as you say, they are dead, and there isnone of them alive in the valley--which is called the White Valley--wherethe buffalo are. The valley is green in summer, and the snow is not deepin winter; the noses of the buffalo can find the tender grass. The Injinspeaks the truth, perhaps. But of the number of buffaloes, one must see. The eye of the red man multiplies. "

Trafford looked at Pierre closely. "You seem to know the place verywell. It is a long way north where--ah yes, you said you had never beenthere; you were told. Who told you?"

The half-breed raised his eyebrows slightly as he replied: "I canremember a long time, and my mother, she spoke much and sang many songsat the campfires. " Then he puffed his cigarette so that the smokeclouded his face for a moment, and went on, --"I think there may bebuffaloes. "

"It's along the barrel of me gun I wish I was lookin' at thim now, " saidMcGann. 

"'Tiens, ' you will go"? inquired Pierre of Trafford. "To have a shot atthe only herd of wild buffaloes on the continent! Of course I'll go. I'd go to the North Pole for that. Sport and novelty I came here to see;buffalo-hunting I did not expect. I'm in luck, that's all. We'll startto-morrow morning, if we can get ready, and Shangi here will lead us; eh, Pierre?"

The half-breed again was not polite. Instead of replying he sang almostbelow his breath the words of a song unfamiliar to his companions, thoughthe Indian's eyes showed a flash of understanding. These were the words:

 "They ride away with a waking wind, away, away! With laughing lip and with jocund mind at break of day. A rattle of hoofs and a snatch of song, they ride, they ride! The plains are wide and the path is long, --so long, so wide!"

Just Trafford appeared ready to deal with this insolence, for the half-breed was after all a servant of his, a paid retainer. He waited, however. Shon saw the difficulty, and at once volunteered a reply. "It's aisy enough to get away in the mornin', but it's a question how farwe'll be able to go with the horses. The year is late; but there's dogsbeyand, I suppose, and bedad, there y' are!"

The Indian spoke slowly: "It is far off. There is no colour yet in theleaf of the larch. The river-hen still swims northward. It is good thatwe go. There is much buffalo in the White Valley. "

Again Trafford looked towards his follower, and again the half-breed, as if he were making an effort to remember, sang abstractedly:

 "They follow, they follow a lonely trail, by day, by night, By distant sun, and by fire-fly pale, and northern light. The ride to the Hills of the Mighty Men, so swift they go! Where buffalo feed in the wilding glen in sun and snow. "

"Pierre, " said Trafford, sharply, "I want an answer to my question. "

"'Mais, pardon, ' I was thinking . . . Well, we can ride until the deepsnows come, then we can walk; and Shangi, he can get the dogs, maybe, oneteam of dogs. "

"But, " was the reply, "one team of dogs will not be enough. We'll bringmeat and hides, you know, as well as pemmican. We won't cache anycarcases up there. What would be the use? We shall have to be back inthe Pipi Valley by the spring-time. "

"Well, " said the half-breed with a cold decision, "one team of dogs willbe enough; and we will not cache, and we shall be back in the Pipi Valleybefore the spring, perhaps. " But this last word was spoken under hisbreath. 

And now the Indian spoke, with his deep voice and dignified manner:"Brothers, it is as I have said, the trail is lonely and the woods aredeep and dark. Since the time when the world was young, no white manhath been there save one, and behold sickness fell on him; the grave ishis end. It is a pleasant land, for the gods have blessed it to theIndian forever. No heathen shall possess it. But you shall see theWhite Valley and the buffalo. Shangi will lead, because you have beenmerciful to him, and have given him to sleep in your wigwam, and to eatof your wild meat. There are dogs in the forest. I have spoken. "

Trafford was impressed, and annoyed too. He thought too much sentimentwas being squandered on a very practical and sportive thing. He dislikedfunctions; speech-making was to him a matter for prayer and fasting. TheIndian's address was therefore more or less gratuitous, and he hastenedto remark: "Thank you, Shangi; that's very good, and you've put itpoetically. You've turned a shooting-excursion into a mediaeval romance. But we'll get down to business now, if you please, and make the romance afact, beautiful enough to send to the 'Times' or the New York 'Call'. Let's see, how would they put it in the Call?--'Extraordinary Discovery--Herd of buffaloes found in the far North by an Englishman and hisFranco-Irish Party--Sport for the gods--Exodus of 'brules' to WhiteValley!'--and so on, screeching to the end. "

Shon laughed heartily. "The fun of the world is in the thing, " he said;"and a day it would be for a notch on a stick and a rasp of gin in thethroat. And if I get the sight of me eye on a buffalo-ruck, it's down onme knees I'll go, and not for prayin' aither. Here's both hands up for astart in the mornin'!"

Long before noon next day they were well on their way. Trafford couldnot understand why Pierre was so reserved, and, when speaking, soironical. It was noticeable that the half-breed watched the Indianclosely, that he always rode behind him, that he never drank out of thesame cup. The leader set this down to the natural uncertainty ofPierre's disposition. He had grown to like Pierre, as the latter hadcome in course to respect him. Each was a man of value after his kind. Each also had recognised in the other qualities of force and knowledgehaving their generation in experiences which had become individuality, subterranean and acute, under a cold surface. It was the mutualrecognition of these equivalents that led the two men to mutual trust, only occasionally disturbed, as has been shown; though one was regardedas the most fastidious man of his set in London, the fairest-minded offriends, the most comfortable of companions; while the other was anoutlaw, a half-heathen, a lover of but one thing in this world, thejoyous god of Chance. Pierre was essentially a gamester. He would haveextracted satisfaction out of a death-sentence which was contingent onthe trumping of an ace. His only honour was the honour of the game. 

Now, with all the swelling prairie sloping to the clear horizon, and thebreath of a large life in their nostrils, these two men were caught upsuddenly, as it were, by the throbbing soul of the North, so that thesubterranean life in them awoke and startled them. Trafford conceivedthat tobacco was the charm with which to exorcise the spirits of thepast. Pierre let the game of sensations go on, knowing that they paythemselves out in time. His scheme was the wiser. The other found thatfast riding and smoking were not sufficient. He became surrounded by theghosts of yesterdays; and at length he gave up striving with them, andlet them storm upon him, until a line of pain cut deeply across hisforehead, and bitterly and unconsciously he cried aloud, --"Hester, ah, Hester!"

But having spoken, the spell was broken, and he was aware of the beat ofhoofs beside him, and Shangi the Indian looking at him with a half smile. Something in the look thrilled him; it was fantastic, masterful. Hewondered that he had not noticed this singular influence before. Afterall, he was only a savage with cleaner buckskin than his race usuallywore. Yet that glow, that power in the face--was he Piegan, Blackfoot, Cree, Blood? Whatever he was, this man had heard the words which brokeso painfully from him. 

He saw the Indian frame her name upon his lips, and then came the words, "Hester--Hester Orval!"

He turned sternly, and said, "Who are you? What do you know of HesterOrval?"

The Indian shook his head gravely, and replied, "You spoke her name, mybrother. "

"I spoke one word of her name. You have spoken two. "

"One does not know what one speaks. There are words which are as sounds, and words which are as feelings. Those come to the brain through theear; these to the soul through sign, which is more than sound. TheIndian hath knowledge, even as the white man; and because his heart isopen, the trees whisper to him; he reads the language of the grass andthe wind, and is taught by the song of the bird, the screech of the hawk, the bark of the fox. And so he comes to know the heart of the man whohath sickness, and calls upon someone, even though it be a weak woman, to cure his sickness; who is bowed low as beside a grave, and would standupright. Are not my words wise? As the thoughts of a child that dreams, as the face of the blind, the eye of the beast, or the anxious hand ofthe poor, are they not simple, and to be understood?"

Just Trafford made no reply. But behind, Pierre was singing in theplaintive measure of a chant:

 "A hunter rideth the herd abreast, The Scarlet Hunter from out of the West, Whose arrows with points of flame are drest, Who loveth the beast of the field the best, The child and the young bird out of the nest, They ride to the hunt no more, no more!"

They travelled beyond all bounds of civilisation; beyond the northernmostIndian villages, until the features of the landscape became more ruggedand solemn, and at last they paused at a place which the Indian calledMisty Mountain, and where, disappearing for an hour, he returned with ateam of Eskimo dogs, keen, quick-tempered, and enduring. They had allnow recovered from the disturbing sentiments of the first portion of thejourney; life was at full tide; the spirit of the hunter was on them. 

At length one night they camped in a vast pine grove wrapped in coverletsof snow and silent as death. Here again Pierre became moody and alertand took no part in the careless chat at the camp-fire led by ShonMcGann. The man brooded and looked mysterious. Mystery was not pleasingto Trafford. He had his own secrets, but in the ordinary affairs of lifehe preferred simplicity. In one of the silences that fell between Shon'sattempts to give hilarity to the occasion, there came a rumbling far-offsound, a sound that increased in volume till the earth beneath themresponded gently to the vibration. Trafford looked up inquiringly atPierre, and then at the Indian, who, after a moment, said slowly: "Aboveus are the hills of the Mighty Men, beneath us is the White Valley. Itis the tramp of buffalo that we hear. A storm is coming, and they go toshelter in the mountains. "

The information had come somewhat suddenly, and McGann was the first torecover from the pleasant shock: "It's divil a wink of sleep I'll getthis night, with the thought of them below there ripe for slaughter, andthe tumble of fight in their beards. "

Pierre, with a meaning glance from his half-closed eyes, added: "But itis the old saying of the prairies that you do not shout dinner till youhave your knife in the loaf. Your knife is not yet in the loaf, ShonMcGann. "

The boom of the trampling ceased, and now there was a stirring in thesnow-clad tree tops, and a sound as if all the birds of the North wereflying overhead. The weather began to moan and the boles of the pines toquake. And then there came war, --a trouble out of the north, a wave ofthe breath of God to show inconsequent man that he who seeks to live byslaughter hath slaughter for his master. 

They hung over the fire while the forest cracked round them, and theflame smarted with the flying snow. And now the trees, as if theelements were closing in on them, began to break close by, and onelurched forward towards them. Trafford, to avoid its stroke, steppedquickly aside right into the line of another which he did not see. Pierre sprang forward and swung him clear, but was himself strucksenseless by an outreaching branch. 

As if satisfied with this achievement, the storm began to subside. WhenPierre recovered consciousness Trafford clasped his hand and said, --"You've a sharp eye, a quick thought, and a deft arm, comrade. "

"Ah, it was in the game. It is good play to assist your partner, " thehalf-breed replied sententiously. Through all, the Indian had remainedstoical. But McGann, who swore by Trafford--as he had once sworn byanother of the Trafford race--had his heart on his lips, and said:

 "There's a swate little cherub that sits up aloft, Who cares for the soul of poor Jack!"

It was long after midnight ere they settled down again, with the wreck ofthe forest round them. Only the Indian slept; the others were alert andrestless. They were up at daybreak, and on their way before sunrise, filled with desire for prey. They had not travelled far before theyemerged upon a plateau. Around them were the hills of the Mighty Men--austere, majestic; at their feet was a vast valley on which the lightnewly-fallen snow had not hidden all the grass. Lonely and lofty, it wasa world waiting chastely to be peopled! And now it was peopled, forthere came from a cleft of the hills an army of buffaloes lounging slowlydown the waste, with tossing manes and hoofs stirring the snow into afeathery scud. 

The eyes of Trafford and McGann swam; Pierre's face was troubled, andstrangely enough he made the sign of the cross. 

At that instant Trafford saw smoke issuing from a spot on the mountainopposite. He turned to the Indian: "Someone lives there"? he said. 

"It is the home of the dead, but life is also there. "

"White man, or Indian?"

But no reply came. The Indian pointed instead to the buffalo rumblingdown the valley. Trafford forgot the smoke, forgot everything exceptthat splendid quarry. Shon was excited. "Sarpints alive, " he said, "look at the troops of thim! Is it standin' here we are with our tonguesin our cheeks, whin there's bastes to be killed, and mate to be got, andthe call to war on the ground below! Clap spurs with your heels, sez I, and down the side of the turf together and give 'em the teeth of ourguns!" The Irishman dashed down the slope. In an instant, all followed, or at least Trafford thought all followed, swinging their guns acrosstheir saddles to be ready for this excellent foray. But while Pierrerode hard, it was at first without the fret of battle in him, and hesmiled strangely, for he knew that the Indian had disappeared as theyrode down the slope, though how and why he could not tell. There ranthrough his head tales chanted at camp-fires when he was not yet instature so high as the loins that bore him. They rode hard, and yet theycame no nearer to that flying herd straining on with white streamingbreath and the surf of snow rising to their quarters. Mile upon mile, and yet they could not ride these monsters down!

Now Pierre was leading. There was a kind of fury in his face, and heseemed at last to gain on them. But as the herd veered close to a wallof stalwart pines, a horseman issued from the trees and joined thecattle. The horseman was in scarlet from head to foot; and with hiscoming the herd went faster, and ever faster, until they vanished intothe mountain-side; and they who pursued drew in their trembling horsesand stared at each other with wonder in their faces. 

"In God's name what does it mean"? Trafford cried. 

"Is it a trick of the eye or the hand of the devil"? added Shon. 

"In the name of God we shall know perhaps. If it is the hand of thedevil it is not good for us, " remarked Pierre. 

"Who was the man in scarlet who came from the woods"? asked Trafford ofthe half-breed. 

"'Voila, ' it is strange! There is an old story among the Indians! Mymother told many tales of the place and sang of it, as I sang to you. The legend was this:--In the hills of the North which no white man, norno Injin of this time hath seen, the forefathers of the red men sleep;but some day they will wake again and go forth and possess all the land;and the buffalo are for them when that time shall come, that they mayhave the fruits of the chase, and that it be as it was of old, when thecattle were as clouds on the horizon. And it was ordained that one ofthese mighty men who had never been vanquished in fight, nor done an evilthing, and was the greatest of all the chiefs, should live and not die, but be as a sentinel, as a lion watching, and preserve the White Valleyin peace until his brethren waked and came into their own again. And himthey called the Scarlet Hunter; and to this hour the red men pray to himwhen they lose their way upon the plains, or Death draws aside thecurtains of the wigwam to call them forth. "

"Repeat the verses you sang, Pierre, " said Trafford. The half-breed didso. When he came to the words, "Who loveth the beast of the field thebest, " the Englishman looked round. "Where is Shangi"? he asked. McGann shook his head in astonishment and negation. Pierre explained:"On the mountain-side where we ride down he is not seen--he vanish . . . 'mon Dieu, ' look!"

On the slope of the mountain stood the Scarlet Hunter with drawn bow. From it an arrow flew over their heads with a sorrowful twang, and fellwhere the smoke rose among the pines; then the mystic figure disappeared. 

McGann shuddered, and drew himself together. "It is the place ofspirits, " he said; "and it's little I like it, God knows; but I'll followthat Scarlet Hunter, or red devil, or whatever he is, till I drop, if theHonourable gives the word. For flesh and blood I'm not afraid of; andthe other we come to, whether we will or not, one day. "

But Trafford said: "No, we'll let it stand where it is for the present. Something has played our eyes false, or we're brought here to do workdifferent from buffalo-hunting. Where that arrow fell among the smokewe must go first. Then, as I read the riddle, we travel back the way wecame. There are points in connection with the Pipi Valley superior tothe hills of the Mighty Men. "

They rode away across the glade, and through a grove of pines upon ahill, till they stood before a log but with parchment windows. 

Trafford knocked, but there was no response. He opened the door andentered. He saw a figure rise painfully from a couch in a corner, --thefigure of a woman young and beautiful, but wan and worn. She seemeddazed and inert with suffering, and spoke mournfully: "It is too late. Not you, nor any of your race, nor anything on earth can save him. He isdead--dead now. "

At the first sound of her voice Trafford started. He drew near to her, as pale as she was, and wonder and pity were in his face. "Hester, " hesaid, "Hester Orval!"

She stared at him like one that had been awakened from an evil dream, then tottered towards him with the cry, --"Just, Just, have you come tosave me? O Just!" His distress was sad to see, for it was held in deeprepression, but he said calmly and with protecting gentleness: "Yes, Ihave come to save you. Hester, how is it you are here in this strangeplace--you?"

She sobbed so that at first she could not answer; but at last she cried:"O Just, he is dead . . . In there, in there! . . . Last night, itwas last night; and he prayed that I might go with him. But I could notdie unforgiven, and I was right, for you have come out of the world tohelp me, and to save me. "

"Yes, to help you and to save you, --if I can, " he added in a whisper tohimself, for he was full of foreboding. He was of the earth, earthy, andthings that had chanced to him this day were beyond the natural andhealthy movements of his mind. He had gone forth to slay, and had beenfoiled by shadows; he had come with a tragic, if beautiful, memoryhaunting him, and that memory had clothed itself in flesh and stoodbefore him, pitiful, solitary, --a woman. He had scorned all legend andsuperstition, and here both were made manifest to him. He had thought ofthis woman as one who was of this world no more, and here she mournedbefore him and bade him go and look upon her dead, upon the man who hadwronged him, into whom, as he once declared, the soul of a cur hadentered, --and now what could he say? He had carried in his heart theinfinite something that is to men the utmost fulness of life, which, losing, they must carry lead upon their shoulders where they thought thegods had given pinions. 

McGann and Pierre were nervous. This conjunction of unusual things waseasier to the intelligences of the dead than the quick. The outer airwas perhaps less charged with the unnatural, and with a glance towardsthe room where death was quartered, they left the hut. 

Trafford was alone with the woman through whom his life had been turnedawry. He looked at her searchingly; and as he looked the mere man in himasserted itself for a moment. She was dressed in coarse garments; itstruck him that her grief had a touch of commonness about it; there wassomething imperfect in the dramatic setting. His recent experiences hadhad a kind of grandeur about them; it was not thus that he had rememberedher in the hour when he had called upon her in the plains, and the Indianhad heard his cry. He felt, and was ashamed in feeling, that there wasa grim humour in the situation. The fantastic, the melodramatic, theemotional, were huddled here in too marked a prominence; it all seemed, for an instant, like the tale of a woman's first novel. But immediatelyagain there was roused in him the latent force of loyalty to himself andtherefore to her; the story of her past, so far as he knew it, flashedbefore him, and his eyes grew hot. 

He remembered the time he had last seen her in an English country-houseamong a gay party in which royalty smiled, and the subject was contentbeneath the smile. But there was one rebellious subject, and her namewas Hester Orval. She was a wilful girl who had lived life selfishlywithin the lines of that decorous yet pleasant convention to which shewas born. She was beautiful, --she knew that, and royalty had graciouslyadmitted it. She was warm-thoughted, and possessed the fatal strain ofthe artistic temperament. She was not sure that she had a heart; andmany others, not of her sex, after varying and enthusiastic study of thematter, were not more confident than she. But it had come at last thatshe had listened with pensive pleasure to Trafford's tale of love; andbecause to be worshipped by a man high in all men's, and in most women's, esteem, ministered delicately to her sweet egotism, and because she wasproud of him, she gave him her hand in promise, and her cheek inprivilege, but denied him--though he knew this not--her heart and theservice of her life. But he was content to wait patiently for thatservice, and he wholly trusted her, for there was in him some fine spiritof the antique world. 

There had come to Falkenstowe, this country-house and her father's home, a man who bore a knightly name, but who had no knightly heart; and hetold Ulysses' tales, and covered a hazardous and cloudy past with thatfascinating colour which makes evil appear to be good, so that he rousedin her the pulse of art, which she believed was soul and life, and herallegiance swerved. And when her mother pleaded with her, and when herfather said stern things, and even royalty, with uncommon use, rebukedher gently, her heart grew hard; and almost on the eve of her wedding-dayshe fled with her lover, and married him, and together they sailed awayover the seas. 

The world was shocked and clamorous for a matter of nine days, and thenit forgot this foolish and awkward circumstance; but Just Trafford neverforgot it. He remembered all vividly until the hour, a year later, whenLondon journals announced that Hester Orval and her husband had gone downwith a vessel wrecked upon the Alaskan and Canadian coast. And there newregret began, and his knowledge of her ended. 

But she and her husband had not been drowned; with a sailor they hadreached the shore in safety. They had travelled inland from the coastthrough the great mountains by unknown paths, and as they travelled, thesailor died; and they came at last through innumerable hardships to theKimash Hills, the hills of the Mighty Men, and there they stayed. It wasnot an evil land; it had neither deadly cold in winter nor wanton heat insummer. But they never saw a human face, and everything was lonely andspectral. For a time they strove to go eastwards or southwards but themountains were impassable, and in the north and west there was no hope. Though the buffalo swept by them in the valley they could not slay them, and they lived on forest fruits until in time the man sickened. Thewoman nursed him faithfully, but still he failed; and when she could goforth no more for food, some unseen dweller of the woods brought buffalomeat, and prairie fowl, and water from the spring, and laid them besideher door. 

She had seen the mounds upon the hill, the wide couches of the sleepers, and she remembered the things done in the days when God seemed nearer tothe sons of men than now; and she said that a spirit had done this thing, and trembled and was thankful. But the man weakened and knew that heshould die, and one night when the pain was sharp upon him he prayedbitterly that he might pass, or that help might come to snatch him fromthe grave. And as they sobbed together, a form entered at the door, --a form clothed in scarlet, --and he bade them tell the tale of their livesas they would some time tell it unto heaven. And when the tale was toldhe said that succour should come to them from the south by the hand ofthe Scarlet Hunter, that the nation sleeping there should no more bedisturbed by their moaning. And then he had gone forth, and with hisgoing there was a storm such as that in which the man had died, the stormthat had assailed the hunters in the forest yesterday. 

This was the second part of Hester Orval's life as she told it to JustTrafford. And he, looking into her eyes, knew that she had suffered, andthat she had sounded her husband's unworthiness. Then he turned from herand went into the room where the dead man lay. And there all hardnesspassed from him, and he understood that in the great going forth manreckons to the full with the deeds done in that brief pilgrimage calledlife; and that in the bitter journey which this one took across the dreadspaces between Here and There, he had repented of his sins, because they, and they only, went with him in mocking company; the good having gonefirst to plead where evil is a debtor and hath a prison. And the womancame and stood beside Trafford, and whispered, "At first--and at thelast--he was kind. "

But he urged her gently from the room: "Go away, " he said; "go away. Wecannot judge him. Leave me alone with him. "

They buried him upon the hill-side, far from the mounds where the MightyMen waited for their summons to go forth and be the lords of the Northagain. At night they buried him when the moon was at its full; and hehad the fragrant pines for his bed, and the warm darkness to cover him;and though he is to those others resting there a heathen and an alien, it may be that he sleeps peacefully. 

When Trafford questioned Hester Orval more deeply of her life there, theunearthly look quickened in her eyes, and she said: "Oh, nothing, nothingis real here, but suffering; perhaps it is all a dream, but it haschanged me, changed me. To hear the tread of the flying herds, to see nobeing save him, the Scarlet Hunter, to hear the voices calling in thenight! . . . Hush! There, do you not hear them? It is midnight--listen!"

He listened, and Pierre and Shon McGann looked at each otherapprehensively, while Shon's fingers felt hurriedly along the beads of arosary which he did not hold. Yes, they heard it, a deep sonorous sound:"Is the daybreak come?" "It is still the night, " came the reply as ofone clear voice. And then there floated through the hills more softly:"We sleep--we sleep!" And the sounds echoed through the valley--"Sleep--sleep!"

Yet though these things were full of awe, the spirit of the place heldthem there, and the fever of the hunter descended on them hotly. In themorning they went forth, and rode into the White Valley where the buffalowere feeding, and sought to steal upon them; but the shots from theirguns only awoke the hills, and none were slain. And though they rodeswiftly, the wide surf of snow was ever between them and the chase, andtheir striving availed nothing. Day after day they followed that flyingcolumn, and night after night they heard the sleepers call from thehills. The desire of the thing wasted them, and they forgot to eat andceased to talk among themselves. But one day Shon McGann, muttering avesas he rode, gained on the cattle, until once again the Scarlet Huntercame forth from a cleft of the mountains, and drove the herd forward withswifter feet. But the Irishman had learned the power in this thing, andhad taught Trafford, who knew not those availing prayers, and with thesesacred conjurations on their lips they gained on the cattle length bylength, though the Scarlet Hunter rode abreast of the thundering horde. Within easy range, Trafford swung his gun shoulder-wards to fire, but atthat instant a cloud of snow rose up between him and his quarry so thatthey all were blinded. And when they came into the clear sun again thebuffalo were gone; but flaming arrows from some unseen hunter's bow camesinging over their heads towards the south; and they obeyed the sign, and went back to where Hester wore her life out with anxiety for them, because she knew the hopelessness of their quest. Women are nearer tothe heart of things. And now she begged Trafford to go southwards beforewinter froze the plains impassably, and the snow made tombs of thevalleys. Thereupon he gave the word to go, and said that he had donewrong--for now the spell was falling from him. 

But she, seeing his regret, said: "Ah, Just, it could not have beendifferent. The passion of it was on you as it was on us, as if to teachus that hunger for happiness is robbery, and that the covetous desire ofman is not the will of the gods. The herds are for the Mighty Men whenthey awake, not for the stranger and the Philistine. "

"You have grown wise, Hester, " he replied. 

"No, I am sick in brain and body; but it may be that in such sicknessthere is wisdom. "

"Ah, " he said, "it has turned my head, I think. Once I laughed at allsuch fanciful things as these. This Scarlet Hunter, how many times haveyou seen him?"

"But once. "

"What were his looks?"

"A face pale and strong, with noble eyes; and in his voice there wassomething strange. "

Trafford thought of Shangi, the Indian, --where had he gone? He haddisappeared as suddenly as he had come to their camp in the South. 

As they sat silent in the growing night, the door opened and the ScarletHunter stood before them. "There is food, " he said, "on the threshold--food for those who go upon a far journey to the South in the morning. Unhappy are they who seek for gold at the rainbow's foot, who chase thefire-fly in the night, who follow the herds in the White Valley. Wiseare they who anger not the gods, and who fly before the rising storm. There is a path from the valley for the strangers, the path by which theycame; and when the sun stares forth again upon the world, the way shallbe open, and there shall be safety for you until your travel ends in thequick world whither you go. You were foolish; now you are wise. It istime to depart; seek not to return, that we may have peace and yousafety. When the world cometh to her spring again we shall meet. " Thenhe turned and was gone, with Trafford's voice ringing after him, --"Shangi! Shangi!"

They ran out swiftly, but he had vanished. In the valley where themoonlight fell in icy coldness a herd of cattle was moving, and theirbreath rose like the spray from sea-beaten rocks, and the sound of theirbreathing was borne upwards to the watchers. 

At daybreak they rode down into the valley. All was still. Not a traceof life remained; not a hoofmark in the snow, nor a bruised blade ofgrass. And when they climbed to the plateau and looked back, it seemedto Trafford and his companions, as it seemed in after years, that thisthing had been all a fantasy. But Hester's face was beside them, and ittold of strange and unsubstantial things. The shadows of the middleworld were upon her. And yet again when they turned at the last therewas no token. It was a northern valley, with sun and snow, and cold blueshadows, and the high hills, --that was all. 

Then Hester said: "O Just, I do not know if this is life or death--andyet it must be death, for after death there is forgiveness to those whorepent, and your face is forgiving and kind. "

And he--for he saw that she needed much human help and comfort--gentlylaid his hand on hers and replied: "Hester, this is life, a new life forboth of us. Whatever has been was a dream; whatever is now"--and hefolded her hand in his--"is real; and there is no such thing asforgiveness to be spoken of between us. There shall be happinessfor us yet, please God!"

"I want to go to Falkenstowe. Will--will my mother forgive me?"

"Mothers always forgive, Hester, else half the world had slain itself inshame. "

And then she smiled for the first time since he had seen her. This wasin the shadows of the scented pines; and a new life breathed upon her, as it breathed upon them all, and they knew that the fever of the WhiteValley had passed away from them forever. 

After many hardships they came in safety to the regions of the southcountry again; and the tale they told, though doubted by the race ofpale-faces, was believed by the heathen; because there was none amongthem but, as he cradled at his mother's breasts, and from his youth up, had heard the legend of the Scarlet Hunter. 

For the romance of that journey, it concerned only the man and woman towhom it was as wine and meat to the starving. Is not love more thanlegend, and a human heart than all the beasts of the field or any joy ofslaughter?

THE STONE

The Stone hung on a jutting crag of Purple Hill. On one side of it, farbeneath, lay the village, huddled together as if, through being closecompacted, its handful of humanity should not be a mere dust in thebalance beside Nature's portentousness. Yet if one stood beside TheStone, and looked down, the flimsy wooden huts looked like a barrier atthe end of a great flume. For the hill hollowed and narrowed from TheStone to the village, as if giants had made this concave path bytrundling boulders to that point like a funnel where the miners' housesnow formed a cul-de-sac. On the other side of the crag was a valleyalso; but it was lonely and untenanted; and at one flank of The Stonewere serried legions of trees. 

The Stone was a mighty and wonderful thing. Looked at from the villagedirect, it had nothing but the sky for a background. At times, also, itappeared to rest on nothing; and many declared that they could see cleanbetween it and the oval floor of the crag on which it rested. That wasgenerally in the evening, when the sun was setting behind it. Then thelight coiled round its base, between it and its pedestal, thus making itappear to hover above the hill-point, or, planet-like, to be justsettling on it. At other times, when the light was perfectly clear andnot too strong, and the village side of the crag was brighter than theother, more accurate relations of The Stone to its pedestal could bediscovered. Then one would say that it balanced on a tiny base, a toe ofgranite. But if one looked long, especially in the summer, when the airthrobbed, it evidently rocked upon that toe; if steadily, and very long, he grew tremulous, perhaps afraid. Once, a woman who was about to becomea mother went mad, because she thought The Stone would hurtle down thehill at her great moment and destroy her and her child. Indians wouldnot live either on the village side of The Stone or in the valley beyond. They had a legend that, some day, one, whom they called The Man WhoSleeps, would rise from his hidden couch in the mountains, and, beingangry that any dared to cumber his playground, would hurl The Stone uponthem that dwelt at Purple Hill. But white men pay little heed to Indianlegends. At one time or another every person who had come to the villagevisited The Stone. Colossal as it was, the real base on which its weightrested was actually very small: the view from the village had not beenall deceitful. It is possible, indeed, that at one time it had reallyrocked, and that the rocking had worn for it a shallow cup, or socket, inwhich it poised. The first man who came to Purple Valley prospecting hadoften stopped his work and looked at The Stone in a half-fear that itwould spring upon him unawares. And yet he had as often laughed athimself for doing so, since, as he said, it must have been there hundredsof thousands of years. Strangers, when they came to the village, went tosleep somewhat timidly the first night of their stay, and notinfrequently left their beds to go and look at The Stone, as it hungthere ominously in the light of the moon; or listened towards it if itwas dark. When the moon rose late, and The Stone chanced to be directlyin front of it, a black sphere seemed to be rolling into the light toblot it out. 

But none who lived in the village looked upon The Stone in quite the samefashion as did that first man who had come to the valley. He had seen itthrough three changing seasons, with no human being near him, and onlyoccasionally a shy, wandering elk, or a cloud of wild ducks whirring downthe pass, to share his companionship with it. Once he had waked in theearly morning, and, possessed of a strange feeling, had gone out to looka The Stone. There, perched upon it, was an eagle; and though he said tohimself that an eagle's weight was to The Stone as a feather upon theworld, he kept his face turned towards it all day; for all day the eaglestayed. He was a man of great stature and immense strength. The thewsof his limbs stood out like soft unbreakable steel. Yet, as if to castderision on his strength and great proportions, God or Fate turned hisbread to ashes, gave failure into his hands where he hugely grasped atfortune, and hung him about with misery. He discovered gold, but othersgathered it. It was his daughter that went mad, and gave birth to a deadchild in fearsome thought of The Stone. Once, when he had gone over thehills to another mining field, and had been prevented from coming back byunexpected and heavy snows, his wife was taken ill, and died alone ofstarvation, because none in the village remembered of her and her needs. Again, one wild night, long after, his only son was taken from his bedand lynched for a crime that was none of his, as was discovered by hismurderers next day. Then they killed horribly the real criminal, andoffered the father such satisfaction as they could. They said that anyone of them was ready there to be killed by him; and they threw a weaponat his feet. At this he stood looking upon them for a moment, his greatbreast heaving, and his eyes glowering; but presently he reached out hisarms, and taking two of them by the throat, brought their heads togetherheavily, breaking their skulls; and, with a cry in his throat like awounded animal, left them, and entered the village no more. But itbecame known that he had built a rude but on Purple Hill, and that he hadbeen seen standing beside The Stone or sitting among the boulders belowit, with his face bent upon the village. Those who had come near to himsaid that he had greatly changed; that his hair and beard had grown longand strong, and, in effect, that he looked like some rugged fragment ofan antique world. 

The time came when they associated The Man with The Stone: they grew tospeak of him simply as The Man. There was something natural and apt inthe association. Then they avoided these two singular dwellers on theheight. What had happened to The Man when he lived in the village becamealmost as great a legend as the Indian fable concerning The Stone. Inthe minds of the people one seemed as old as the other. Women who knewthe awful disasters which had befallen The Man brooded at times mosttimidly, regarding him as they did at first--and even still--The Stone. Women who carried life unborn about with them had a strange dread of bothThe Stone and The Man. Time passed on, and the feeling grew that TheMan's grief must be a terrible thing, since he lived alone with The Stoneand God. But this did not prevent the men of the village from digginggold, drinking liquor, and doing many kinds of evil. One day, again, they did an unjust and cruel thing. They took Pierre, the gambler, whomthey had at first sought to vanquish at his own art, and, possessedsuddenly of the high duty of citizenship, carried him to the edge of ahill and dropped him over, thinking thereby to give him a quick death, while the vultures would provide him a tomb. But Pierre was not killed, though to his grave--unprepared as yet--he would bear an arm which shouldnever be lifted higher than his shoulder. When he waked from thecrashing gloom which succeeded the fall, he was in the presence of abeing whose appearance was awesome and massive--an outlawed god: whosehair and beard were white, whose eye was piercing, absorbing, painful, in the long perspective of its woe. This being sat with his great handclasped to the side of his head. The beginning of his look was thevillage, and--though the vision seemed infinite--the village was the endof it too. Pierre, looking through the doorway beside which he lay, drewin his breath sharply, for it seemed at first as if The Man was anunnatural fancy, and not a thing. Behind The Man was The Stone, whichwas not more motionless nor more full of age than this its comrade. Indeed, The Stone seemed more a thing of life as it poised above thehill: The Man was sculptured rock. His white hair was chiselled on hisbroad brow, his face was a solemn pathos petrified, his lips were curledwith an iron contempt, an incalculable anger. 

The sun went down, and darkness gathered about The Man. Pierre reachedout his hand, and drank the water and ate the coarse bread that had beenput near him. He guessed that trees or protruding ledges had broken hisfall, and that he had been rescued and brought here. As he lay thinking, The Man entered the doorway, stooping much to do so. With flints helighted a wick which hung from a wooden bowl of bear's oil; thenkneeling, held it above his head, and looked at Pierre. And Pierre, whohad never feared anyone, shrank from the look in The Man's eyes. Butwhen the other saw that Pierre was awake, a distant kindness came uponhis face, and he nodded gravely; but he did not speak. Presently a greattremor as of pain shook all his limbs, and he set the candle on theground, and with his stalwart hands arranged afresh the bandages aboutPierre's injured arm and leg. Pierre spoke at last. 

"You are The Man"? he said. The other bowed his head. 

"You saved me from those devils in the valley?" A look of impregnablehardness came into The Man's face, but he pressed Pierre's hand foranswer; and though the pressure was meant to be gentle, Pierre wincedpainfully. The candle spluttered, and the hut filled with a sicklysmoke. The Man brought some bear skins and covered the sufferer, for, the season being autumn, the night was cold. Pierre, who had thus spenthis first sane and conscious hour in many days, fell asleep. What timeit was when he waked he was not sure, but it was to hear a metallicclick-click come to him through the clear air of night. It was apleasant noise as of steel and rock: the work of some lonely stone-cutterof the hills. The sound reached him with strange, increasingdistinctness. Was this Titan that had saved him sculpturing some figurefrom the metal hill? Click-click! it vibrated as regularly as the keenpulse of a watch. He lay and wondered for a long time, but fell asleepagain; and the steely iteration went on in his dreams. 

In the morning The Man came to him, and cared for his hurts, and gave himfood; but still would speak no word. He was gone nearly all day in thehills; yet when evening came he sought the place where Pierre had seenhim the night before, and the same weird scene was re-enacted. And againin the night the clicking sound went on; and every night it was renewed. Pierre grew stronger, and could, with difficulty, stand upon his feet. One night he crept out, and made his way softly, slowly towards thesound. He saw The Man kneeling beside The Stone, he saw a hammer riseand fall upon a chisel; and the chisel was at the base of The Stone. Thehammer rose and fell with perfect but dreadful precision. Pierre turnedand looked towards the village below, whose lights were burning like abunch of fire-flies in the gloom. Again he looked at The Stone and TheMan. 

Then the thing came to him sharply. The Man was chiselling away thesocket of The Stone, bringing it to that point of balance where the touchof a finger, the wing of a bird, or the whistle of a north-west wind, would send it down upon the offending and unsuspecting village. 

The thought held him paralysed. The Man had nursed his revenge long pastthe thought of its probability by the people beneath. He had at firstsat and watched the village, hated, and mused dreadfully upon the thinghe had determined to do. Then he had worked a little, afterwards more, and now, lastly, since he had seen what they had done to Pierre, with thehot but firm eagerness of an avenging giant. Pierre had done some saddeeds in his time, and had tasted some sweet revenges, but nothing liketo this had ever entered his brain. In that village were men who--asthey thought--had cast him to a death fit only for a coward or a cur. Well, here was the most exquisite retaliation. Though his hand shouldnot be in the thing, he could still be the cynical and approvingspectator. 

But yet: had all those people hovering about those lights below done harmto him? He thought there were a few--and they were women--who would nothave followed his tumbril to his death with cries of execration. Therest would have done so, --most of them did so, not because he was acriminal, but because he was a victim, and because human nature as it isthirsts inordinately at times for blood and sacrifice--a living strain ofthe old barbaric instinct. He remembered that most of these people wereconcerned in having injured The Man. The few good women there had vilehusbands; the few pardonable men had hateful wives: the village of PurpleHill was an ill affair. 

He thought: now doubtfully, now savagely, now with irony. 

The hammer and steel clicked on. 

He looked at the lights of the village again. Suddenly there cameto his mind the words of a great man who sought to save a city manifoldcenturies ago. He was not sure that he wished to save this village; butthere was a grim, almost grotesque, fitness in the thing that he nowintended. He spoke out clearly through the night:

"'Oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once:Peradventure ten righteous shall be found there. '"

The hammer stopped. There was a silence, in which the pines sighedlightly. Then, as if speaking was a labour, The Man replied in a deep, harsh voice:

"I will not spare it for ten's sake. "

Again there was a silence, in which Pierre felt his maimed body bendbeneath him; but presently the voice said, --"Now!"

At this the moon swung from behind a cloud. The Man stood behind TheStone. His arm was raised to it. There was a moment's pause--it seemedlike years to Pierre; a wind came softly crying out of the west, the moonhurried into the dark, and then a monster sprang from its pedestal uponPurple Hill, and, with a sound of thunder and an awful speed, raced uponthe village below. The boulders of the hillside crumbled after it. 

And Pierre saw the lights go out. 

The moon shone out again for an instant, and Pierre saw that The Manstood where The Stone had been; but when he reached the place The Man wasgone. Forever!

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

At first--and at the last--he was kindCourage; without which, men are as the standing strawEvil is half-accidental, half-naturalFascinating colour which makes evil appear to be goodHad the luck together, all kinds and all weathersHunger for happiness is robberyIf one remembers, why should the other forgetInstinct for detecting veracity, having practised on both sidesMothers always forgiveThe higher we go the faster we liveThe Injin speaks the truth, perhaps--eye of red man multipiesThe world is not so bad as is claimed for itWhatever has been was a dream; whatever is now is realYou do not shout dinner till you have your knife in the loaf