Kitabı oku: «The Lucky Piece: A Tale of the North Woods», sayfa 5
CHAPTER VII
THE PATH THAT LEADS BACK TO BOYHOOD
The sun was not yet above the hills when Frank Weatherby left the Lodge next morning. He halted for a moment to procure some convenient receptacle and was supplied with a trout basket which, slung across his shoulder, gave him quite the old feeling of preparation for a day's sport, instead of merely an early trip up McIntyre. Robin Farnham was already up and away with his party, but another guide loitered about the cabin and showed a disposition to be friendly.
"Better wait till after breakfast," he said. "It don't take long to run up McIntyre and back. You'll have plenty of time."
"But it looks clear up there, now. It may be foggy, later on. Besides, I've just bribed the cook to give me a bite, so I'm not afraid of getting hungry."
The guide brought out a crumpled, rusty-looking fly-hook and a little roll of line.
"Take these," he urged. "You'll cross a brook or two where there's some trout. Mebbe you can get a few while you're resting. I'd lend you a rod if we had one here, but you can cut a switch that will do. The fish are mostly pretty small."
The sight of the gayly colored flies, the line and the feeling of the basket at his side was a combination not to be resisted. The years seemed to roll backward, and Frank felt the old eager longing to be following the tumbling, swirling water – to feel the sudden tug at the end of a drifting line.
It was a rare morning. The abundant forest was rich with every shade of green and bright with dew. Below, where the path lay, it was still dim and silent, but the earliest touch of sunrise had set the tree-tops aglow and started a bird concert in the high branches.
The McIntyre trail was not a hard one to follow. Neither was it steep for a considerable distance, and Frank strode along rapidly and without fatigue. In spite of his uneasiness of spirit the night before, he had slept the sleep of youth and health, and the smell of the morning woods, the feel of the basket at his side, the following of this fascinating trail brought him nearer to boyhood with every forward step. He would go directly to the top of the mountain, he thought, find the curious flower or fungus which Robin had seen, and on his return trip would stop at the brooks and perhaps bring home a basket of trout; after which he would find Constance and lay the whole at her feet as a proof that he was not altogether indifferent to her wishes. Also, it might be, as a token that he had renewed his old ambition to be something more than a mere lover of ease and pleasure and a dreamer of dreams.
The suspicions stirred by Edith Morrison the night before had grown dim – indeed had almost vanished in the clear glow of morning. Constance might wish to punish him – that was quite likely – though it was highly improbable that she should have selected this method. In fact, it was quite certain that any possibility of causing heartache, especially where Edith Morrison was concerned, would have been most repugnant to a girl of the character and ideals of Constance Deane. She admired Robin and found pleasure in his company. That she made no concealment of these things was the best evidence that there was nothing to be concealed. That unconsciously she and Robin were learning to care for each other, he thought most unlikely. He remembered Constance as she had seemed during the days of their meeting at Lenox, when she had learned to know, and he believed to care for him. It had never been like that. It would not be like that, now, with another. There would be no other. He would be more as she would have him – more like Robin Farnham. Why, he was beginning this very moment. Those years of idleness had dropped away. He had regarded himself as beyond the time of beginning! What nonsense! At twenty-four – full of health and the joy of living – swinging up a mountain trail to win a flower for the girl he loved, with a cavalcade of old hopes and dreams and ambitions once more riding through his heart. To-day was life. Yesterday was already with the vanished ages. Then for a moment he recalled the sorrow of Edith Morrison and resolved within him to see her immediately upon his return, to prove to her how groundless and unjust had been her conclusions. She was hardly to blame. She was only a mountain girl and did not understand. It was absurd that he, who knew so much of the world and of human nature, should have allowed himself even for a moment to be influenced by the primitive notions of this girl of the hills.
The trail grew steeper now. The young man found himself breathing a trifle quicker as he pushed upward. Sometimes he seized a limb to aid him in swinging up a rocky steep – again he parted dewy bushes that locked their branches across the way. Presently there was a sound of water falling over stones, and a moment later he had reached a brook that hurried down the mountain side, leaping and laughing as it ran. There was a narrow place and a log where the trail crossed, with a little fall and a deep pool just below it. Frank did not mean to stop for trout now, but it occurred to him to try this brook, that he might judge which was the better to fish on his return. He looked about until he found a long, slim shoot of some tough wood, and this he cut for a rod. Then he put on a bit of the line – a longer piece would not do in this little stream – and at the end he strung a short leader and two flies. It was queer, but he found his fingers trembling just a little with eagerness as he adjusted those flies; and when he held the rig at arm's length and gave it a little twitch in the old way it was not so bad, after all, he thought. As he stealthily gained the exact position where he could drop the lure on the eddy below the fall and poised the slender rod for the cast, the only earthly thing that seemed important was the placing of those two tiny bits of gimp and feathers just on that spot where the water swirled under the edge of the black overhanging rock. Gently, now – so. A quick flash, a swish, a sharp thrilling tug, an instinctive movement of the wrist, and something was leaping and glancing on the pebbles below – something dark and golden and gayly red-spotted – something which no man who has ever trailed a brook can see without a quickening heart – a speckled trout! Certainly it was but a boy who leaped down and disentangled the captured fish and held it joyously for a moment, admiring its markings and its size before dropping it into the basket at his side.
"Pretty good for such a little brook," he said aloud. "I wonder if there are many like that."
He made another cast, but without result.
"I've frightened them," he thought. "I came lumbering down like a duffer. Besides, they can see me, here."
He turned and followed the stream with his eye. It seemed a succession of falls and fascinating pools, and the pools grew even larger and more enticing. He could not resist trying just once more, and when another goodly trout was in his creel and then another, all else in life became hazy in the joy of following that stream from fall to fall and from pool to pool – of dropping those gay little flies just in the particular spot which would bring that flash and swish, that delightful tug, and the gayly speckled capture that came glancing to his feet. Why not do his fishing now, in these morning hours when the time was right? Later, the sport might be poor, or none at all. At this rate he could soon fill his creel and then make his way up the mountain. He halted a moment to line the basket with damp moss and water grasses to keep his catch fresh. Then he put aside every other purpose for the business of the moment, creeping around bushes, or leaping from stone to stone – sometimes slipping to his knees in the icy water, caring not for discomfort or bruises – heedless of everything except the zeal of pursuit and the zest of capture – the glory of the bright singing water, spilling from pool to pool – the filtering sunlight – the quiring birds – the resinous smell of the forest – all the things which lure the feet of young men over the paths trod by their fathers in the long-forgotten days.
The stream widened. The pools grew deeper and the trout larger as he descended. Soon he decided to keep only the larger fish. All others he tossed back as soon as taken. Then there came a break ahead and presently the brook pitched over a higher fall than any he had passed, into a larger stream – almost a river. A great regret came upon the young man as he viewed this fine water that rushed and swirled among a thousand bowlders, ideal stepping stones with ideal pools below. Oh, now, for a rod and reel, with a length of line to cast far ahead into those splendid pools!
The configuration of the land caused this larger stream to pursue a course around, rather than down the mountain side, and Frank decided that he could follow it for a distance, and then, with the aid of his compass, strike straight for the mountain top without making his way back up stream.
But first he must alter his tackle. He looked about and presently cut a much longer and stronger rod and lengthened his line accordingly. Then he made his way among the bowlders and began to whip the larger pools. Cast after cast resulted in no return. He began to wonder, after all, if it would not be a mistake to fish this larger and less fruitful stream. But suddenly there came a great gleam of light where his flies fell, and though the fish failed to strike, Frank's heart gave a leap, for he knew now that in this water – though they would be fewer in number – there were trout which were well worth while. He cast again over the dark, foamy pool, and this time the flash was followed by such a tug as at first made him fear that his primitive tackle might not hold. Oh, then he longed for a reel and a net. This was a fish that could not be lightly lifted out, but must be worked to a landing place and dragged ashore. Holding the line taut, he looked for such a spot, and selecting the shallow edge of a flat stone, drew his prize nearer and nearer – drawing in the rod itself, hand over hand, and finally the line until the struggling, leaping capture was in his hands. This was something like! This was sport, indeed! There was no thought now of turning back. To carry home even a few fish, taken with such a tackle, would redeem him for many shortcomings in Constance's eyes. He was sorry now that he had kept any of the smaller fry.
He followed down the stream, stepping from bowlder to bowlder, casting as he went. Here and there trout rose, but they were old and wary and hesitated to strike. He got another at length, somewhat smaller than the first, and lost still another which he thought was larger than either. Then for a considerable distance he whipped the most attractive water without reward, changing his flies at length, but to no purpose.
"It must be getting late," he reflected aloud, and for the first time thought of looking at his watch. He was horrified to find that it was nearly eleven o'clock, by which time he had expected to have reached the top of McIntyre and to have been well on his way back to the Lodge. He must start at once, for the climb would be long and rough here, out of the regular trail.
Yet he paused to make one more cast, over a black pool where there was a fallen log, and bubbles floating on the surface. His arm had grown tired swinging the heavy green rod and his aim was poor. The flies struck a little twig and hung there, dangling in the air. A twitch and they were free and had dropped to the surface of the water. Yet barely to reach it. For in that instant a wave rolled up and divided – a great black-and-gold shape made a porpoise leap into the air. The lower fly disappeared, and an instant later Frank was gripping the tough green rod with both hands, while the water and trees and sky blended and swam before him in the intensity of the struggle to hold and to keep holding that black-and-gold monster at the other end of the tackle – to keep him from getting back under that log – from twisting the line around a limb – in a word, to prevent him from regaining freedom. It would be lunacy to drag this fish ashore by force. The line or the fly would certainly give way, even if the rod would stand. Indeed, when he tried to work his capture a little nearer, it held so like a rock that he believed for a moment the line was already fast. But then came a sudden rush to the right and another stand, and to the left – with a plunge for depth – and with each of these rushes Frank's heart stood still, for he felt that against the power of this monster his tackle could not hold. Every nerve and fiber in his body seemed to concentrate on the slow-moving point of dark line where the tense strand touched the water. A little this way or that it swung – perhaps yielded a trifle or drew down a bit as the great fish in its battle for life gave an inch only to begin a still fiercer struggle in this final tug of war. To all else the young man was oblivious. A bird dropped down on a branch and shouted at him – he did not hear it. A cloud swept over the sun – he did not see it. Life, death, eternity mattered nothing. Only that moving point of line mattered – only the thought that the powerful, unconquered shape below might presently go free.
And then – inch by inch it seemed – the steady wrist and the crude tackle began to gain advantage, the monster of black and gold was forced to yield. Scarcely breathing, Frank watched the point of the line, inch by inch, draw nearer to a little pebbly shore that ran down, where, if anywhere, he could land his prey. Once, indeed, the great fellow came to the surface, then, seeing his captor, made a fierce dive and plunged into a wild struggle, during which hope almost died. Another dragging toward the shore, another struggle and yet another, each becoming weaker and less enduring, until lo, there on the pebbles, gasping and striking with his splendid tail, lay the conquered king of fish. It required but an instant for the captor to pounce upon him and to secure him with a piece of line through his gills, and this he replaced with a double willow branch which he could tie together and to the basket, for this fish was altogether too large to go inside. Exhausted and weak from the struggle, Frank sat down to contemplate his capture and to regain strength before starting up the mountain. Five pounds, certainly, this fish weighed, he thought, and he tenderly regarded the fly that had lured it to the death, and carefully wound up the cheap bit of line that had held true. No such fish had been brought to the Lodge, and then, boy that he was, he thought how proud he should be of his triumph, and with what awe Constance would regard his skill in its capture. And in that moment it was somehow borne in upon him that with this battle and this victory there had come in truth the awakening – that the indolent, luxury-loving man had become as a sleep-walker of yesterday who would never cross the threshold of to-day.
A drop of water on his hand aroused him. The sun had disappeared – the sky was overcast – there was rain in the air. He must hurry, he thought, and get up the mountain and away, before the storm. He could not see the peak, for here the trees were tall and thick, but he knew his direction by the compass and by the slope of the land. From the end of his late rod he cut a walking stick and set out as rapidly as he could make his way through brush and vines, up the mountain-side.
But it was toilsome work. The mountain became steeper, the growth thicker, his load of fish weighed him down. He was almost tempted to retrace his way up the river and brook to the trail, but was loath to consume such an amount of time when it seemed possible to reach the peak by a direct course. Then it became darker in the woods, and the bushes seemed damp with moisture. He wondered if he was entering a fog that had gathered on the mountain top, and, once there, if he could find what he sought. Only the big fish, swinging at his side and dragging in the leaves as he crept through underbrush, gave him comfort in what was rapidly becoming an unpleasant and difficult undertaking. Presently he was reduced to climbing hand over hand, clinging to bushes and bracing his feet as best he might. All at once, he was face to face with a cliff which rose sheer for sixty feet or more and which it seemed impossible to ascend. He followed it for a distance and came at last to where a heavy vine dropped from above, and this made a sort of ladder, by which, after a great deal of clinging and scrambling, he managed to reach the upper level, where he dropped down to catch breath, only to find, when he came to look for his big fish, that somehow in the upward struggle it had broken loose from the basket and was gone. It was most disheartening.
"If I were not a man I would cry," he said, wearily – then peering over the cliff he was overjoyed to see the lost fish hanging not far below, suspended by the willow loop he had made.
So then he climbed down carefully and secured it, and struggled back again, this time almost faint with weariness, but happy in regaining his treasure. And now he realized that a fog was indeed upon the mountain. At the foot of the cliff and farther down the air seemed clear enough, but above him objects only a few feet distant were lost in a white mist, while here and there a drop as of rain struck in the leaves. It would not do to waste time. A storm might be gathering, and a tempest, or even a chill rain on the top of McIntyre was something to be avoided. He rose, and climbing, stooping, crawling, struggled toward the mountain-top. The timber became smaller, the tangle closer, the white mist thickened. Often he paused from sheer exhaustion. Once he thought he heard some one call. But listening there came only silence, and staggering to his feet he struggled on.
CHAPTER VIII
WHAT CAME OUT OF THE MIST
It was several hours after Frank Weatherby had set out on the McIntyre trail – when the sun had risen to a point where it came mottling through the tree-tops and dried the vines and bushes along the fragrant, yielding path below – that a girl came following in the way which led up the mountain top. She wore a stout outing costume – short skirt and blouse, heavy boots, and an old felt school hat pinned firmly to luxuriant dark hair. On her arm she carried the basket of many wanderings, and her step was that of health and strength and purpose. One watching Constance Deane unawares – noting her carriage and sureness of foot, the easy grace with which she overcame the various obstructions in her path – might have said that she belonged by right to these woods, was a part of them, and one might have added that she was a perfect flowering of this splendid forest.
On the evening before, she had inquired of Robin the precise entrance to the McIntyre trail, and with his general directions she had no hesitation now in setting out on her own account to make the climb which would bring her to the coveted specimens at the mountain top. She would secure them with the aid of no one and so give Frank an exhibition of her independence, and perhaps impress him a little with his own lack of ambition and energy. She had avoided the Lodge, making her way around the lake to the trail, and had left no definite word at home as to her destination, for it was quite certain that Mrs. Deane would worry if it became known that Constance had set off up the mountain alone. Yet she felt thoroughly equal to the undertaking. In her basket she carried some sandwiches, and she had no doubt of being able to return to the Lodge during the afternoon, where she had a certain half-formed idea of finding Frank disconsolately waiting – a rather comforting – even if pathetic – picture of humiliation.
Constance did not linger at the trout-brook which had enticed Frank from the narrow upward path, save to dip up a cold drink with the little cup she carried, and to rest up a moment and watch the leaping water as it foamed and sang down the natural stairway which led from one mystery in the dark vistas above to another mystery and wider vistas below – somehow, at last, to reach that deeper and vaster and more impenetrable mystery – the sea. She recalled some old German lines beginning, "Du Bachlein, silberhell und klar," and then she remembered having once recited them to Frank, and how he had repeated them in an English translation:
"Thou brooklet, silver-bright and clear —
Forever passing – always here —
Upon thy brink I sit, and think
Whence comest thou? Whence goest thou?"
He had not confessed it, but she suspected the translation to be his own, and it had exasperated her that one who could do a thing well and with such facility should set so little store by his gift, when another, with a heart hunger for achievement, should have been left so unfavored of the gods.
She walked rather more slowly when she had passed the brook – musing upon these things. Then presently the path became precipitous and narrow, and led through thick bushes, and over or under difficult obstructions. Constance drew on a thick pair of gloves to grapple with rough limbs and sharp points of rock. Here and there were fairly level stretches and easy going, but for the most part it was up and up – steeper and steeper – over stones and logs, through heavy bushes and vines that matted across the trail, so that one must stoop down and burrow like a rabbit not to miss the way.
Miss Deane began to realize presently that the McIntyre trail was somewhat less easy than she had anticipated.
"If Robin calls this an easy trail, I should like to know what he means by a hard one," she commented aloud, as she made her way through a great tumble of logs only to find that the narrow path disappeared into a clump of bushes beyond and apparently brought up plump against a plunging waterfall on the other side. "One would have to be a perfect salmon to scale that!"
But arriving at the foot of the fall, she found that the trail merely crossed the pool below and was clearly marked beyond. This was the brook which Frank had not reached. It was no great distance from the summit.
But now the climb became steeper than ever – a hand over hand affair, with scratched face and torn dress and frequent pauses for breath. There was no longer any tall timber, but only masses of dwarfed and twisted little oak trees – a few feet high, though gnarled and gray with age, and loaded with acorns. Constance knew these for the scrub-oak, that degenerate but persistent little scion of a noble race, that pushes its miniature forests to the very edge and into the last crevice of the barren mountain top. Soon this diminutive wilderness began to separate into segments and the trail reached a comparative level. Then suddenly it became solid rock, with only here and there a clump of the stunted oak, or a bit of grass. The girl realized that she must be on the summit and would presently reach the peak, where, from a crevice, grew the object of her adventure. She paused a moment for breath, and to straighten her disheveled hair. Also she turned for a look at the view which she thought must lie behind her. But she gave a little cry of disappointment. A white wraith of mist, like the very ghost of a cloud, was creeping silently along the mountain side and veiled the vision of the wide lands below. Where she stood the air was still clear, but she imagined the cloud was creeping nearer and would presently envelop the mountain-top. She would hurry to the peak and try to get a view from the other side, which after all was considered the best outlook.
The trail now led over solid granite and could be followed only by little cairns or heaps of stone, placed at some distance apart, but in the clear air easily seen from one to the other. She moved rapidly, for the way was no longer steep, and ere long the tripod which marked the highest point, and near which Robin had seen the strange waxen flower, was outlined against the sky. A moment later when she looked it seemed to her less clear. The air, too, had a chill damp feeling. She turned quickly to look behind her, and uttered a little cry of surprise that was almost terror. The cloud ghost was upon her – she was already enveloped in its trailing cerements. Behind, all was white, and when she turned again the tripod too had well-nigh disappeared. As if about to lose the object of her quest, she started to run, and when an instant later the beacon was lost in a thick fold of white she again opened her lips in a wild despairing cry. Yet she did not stop, but raced on, forgetting even the little guiding cairns which pointed the way. It would have made no difference had she remembered them, for the cloud became so dense that she could not have seen one from the other. How close it shut her in, this wall of white, as impalpable and as opaque as the smoke of burning grass!
It seemed a long way to the tripod. It must have been farther than she had thought. Suddenly she realized that the granite no longer rose a little before her, but seemed to drop away. She had missed the tripod, then, and was descending on the other side. Turning, she retraced her steps, more slowly now, trying to keep the upward slope before her. But soon she realized that in this thick and mystifying whiteness she could not be certain of the level – that by thinking so she could make the granite seem to slope a little up or down, and in the same manner, now, she could set the tripod in any direction from her at will. Confused, half terrified at the thought, she stood perfectly still, trying to think. The tripod, she knew, could not be more than a few yards distant, but surrounded by these enchanted walls which ever receded, yet always closed about her she must only wander helplessly and find it by mere chance. And suppose she found it, and suppose she secured the object of her search, how, in this blind spot, would she find her way back to the trail? She recalled now what Robin had said of keeping the trail in the fog. Her heart became cold – numb. The chill mist had crept into her very veins. She was lost – lost as men have been lost in the snow – to die almost within their own door-yards. If this dread cloud would only pass, all would be well, but she remembered, too, hopelessly enough, that she had told no one of her venture, that no one would know where to seek her.
And now the sun, also, must be obscured, for the world was darkening. An air that pierced her very marrow blew across the mountain and a drop of rain struck her cheek. Oh, it would be wretched without shelter to face a storm in that bleak spot. She must at least try – she must make every effort to find the trail. She set out in what she believed to be a wide circuit of the peak, and was suddenly rejoiced to come upon one of the little piles of stones which she thought must be one of the cairns, leading to the trail. But which way must she look for the next? She strained her eyes through the milky gloom, but could distinguish nothing beyond a few yards of granite at her feet. It did not avail her to remain by the cairn, yet she dreaded to leave a spot which was at least a point in the human path. She did so, at last, only to wander down into an unmarked waste, to be brought all at once against a segment of the scrub-oak forest and to find before her a sort of opening which she thought might be the trail. Eagerly in the gathering gloom she examined the face of the granite for some trace of human foot and imagined she could make out a mark here and there as of boot nails. Then she came to a bit of grass that seemed trampled down. Her heart leaped. Oh, this must be the trail, after all!
She hastened forward, half running in her eagerness. Branches slapped and tore at her garments – long, tenuous filaments, wet and web-like, drew across her face. Twice she fell and bruised herself cruelly. And when she rose the second time, her heart stopped with fear, for she lay just on the edge of a ghastly precipice – the bottom of which was lost in mist and shadows. It had only been a false trail, after all. Weak and trembling she made her way back to the open summit, fearing even that she might miss this now and so be without the last hope of finding the way, or of being found at last herself.
Back on the solid granite once more, she made a feeble effort to find one of the cairns, or the tripod, anything that had known the human touch. But now into her confused senses came the recollection that many parties climbed McIntyre, and she thought that one such might have chosen to-day and be somewhere within call. She stood still to listen for possible voices, but there was no sound, and the bitter air across the summit made her shrink and tremble. Then she uttered a loud, long, "Hoo-oo-woo-o!" a call she had learned of mountaineers as a child. She listened breathlessly for an answer. It was no use. Yet she would call again – at least it was an effort – a last hope.
"Hoo-oo-woo-oo!" and again "Hoo-oo-woo-oo!" And then her very pulses ceased, for somewhere, far away it seemed, from behind that wall of white her ear caught an answering cry. Once more she called – this time wildly, with every bit of power she could summon. Once more came the answering "Hoo-oo-woo-oo!" and now it seemed much nearer.
She started to run in the direction of the voice, stopping every few steps to call, and to hear the reassuring reply. She was at the brushy edge of the summit when through the mist came the words – it was a man's voice, and it made her heart leap —
"Stay where you are! Don't move – I will come to you!"
She stood still, for in that voice there was a commanding tone which she was only too eager to obey. She called again and again, but she waited, and all at once, right in front of her it seemed, the voice said:
"Well, Conny, it's a good thing I found you. If you had played around here much longer you might have got wet."
