SKETCHES IN DUNELAND

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE VOICES OF THE DUNES
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ETCHING
A PRACTICAL TREATISE
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THE DUNE COUNTRY
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The Ancient

Sketches in
DUNELAND
by
EARL H. REED
Author of
“The Voices of the Dunes”
“Etching: A Practical Treatise”
“The Dune Country”
Illustrated by the Author
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
MCMXVIII

COPYRIGHT, 1918
BY JOHN LANE COMPANY
THE·PLIMPTON·PRESS
NORWOOD·MASS·U·S·A

To
THE MEMORY OF
C. C. R.

INTRODUCTION

In the dune region that extends along the wild coasts of Lake Michigan, and in the back country contiguous to it, is a land of allurement.

The strange human characters, whose little drift-wood shanties are scattered along the shore, and among the sandhills, and whose isolated retreats are further inland, are difficult to become acquainted with, except in a most casual way. They look upon the chance wayfarer with suspicion and disfavor.

Readers of “The Dune Country” will remember “Old Sipes,” “Happy Cal,” and “Catfish John,” the old derelicts living along the beach, further accounts of whose “doin’s” are in the following pages. As portraits of these worthies have already appeared, they are omitted in this volume. New characters are introduced, who, it is hoped, will be, as cordially welcomed.

The region is of important historical interest. Narratives of early exploration, and primitive Indian lore associated with it, have filled many pages of American history. The Pottowattomies have gone, but the romance of the vanished race still lingers among the silent hills. While many poetic legends, of unknown antiquity, have survived the red men, the Indian stories in these pages are entirely fanciful, except as to environment.

The nature loving public will be fortunate if the organized efforts succeed, which are being made to preserve the country of the dunes as a national park. In compliance with a resolution of the Senate, the Department of the Interior, through the able assistant to the Secretary, Mr. Stephen T. Mather, has recently made an exhaustive report on the subject, which is most favorable to the project. Momentous events have, for the time being, eclipsed minor considerations, and this, as well as many other measures for the public good, must wait until the shadow of the Hun has passed.

It is only within the past few years that the picturesque quality of the region has become known to lovers of American landscape, who are now lured by its varied attractions.

The country is of immeasurable value to botanists, ornithologists, and investigators in other fields of natural science.

The Audubon societies are taking a deep interest in its preservation. Those of us for whom it is not necessary to slaughter songsters for the decoration of our hats, and who believe that nature’s beautiful feathered messengers should not be made to bleed and suffer for thoughtless vanity, can sympathize with any movement that will contribute to their welfare. As a refuge for migratory birds, the proposed preserve would be invaluable. It is within the Mississippi valley flight zone, and during the periods of migration the bird life in the dune country is abundant, but unfortunately finds little protection among the wooded hills.

The wild flowers also suffer from vandal hands. Many armfuls of them are ruthlessly picked and carried away, preventing further propagation. A human being is only partially emancipated from barbarism, who cannot look upon a beautiful thing without wanting to pick it or kill it. Primitive savagery would not be attracted by beauty at all. Partial development of the love of beauty suggests its selfish acquirement, while further enlightenment teaches us to cherish and preserve it. The destruction of the wild flowers, and the use of bird plumage for personal adornment, is modified barbarism. We cannot be fully civilized until we are able to love these beautiful things in their natural habitats, without temptation to injure them.

To the botanist, the country is a treasure house. Almost, if not all, of the flora indigenous to the temperate zone, is found within its borders.

The flowers have a kingdom in the dunes. From the secluded nooks and fertile crevices, from among the shadows of the trees, and along the margins of the marshes and little pools, their silent songs of color go out over the landscapes. In no form is beauty so completely expressed, and in no form is it so accessible to us.

The sketches in this volume are culled from the experiences and reflections of many happy days that were spent in this mystic land. In such a retreat we may find refuge from the town, from the nerve-racking noise and stifling smoke, and from the artificialities and the social illusions that becloud our daily lives.

E. H. R.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

I
THE DREAM JEWEL

I
THE DREAM JEWEL

The tribe of the sturgeon was speeding southward over the rock-strewn floors of the inland sea. In the van of the swimming host its leader bore a wondrous stone. From it multicolored beams flashed out through the dim waters and into unsounded depths. Shapes, still and ghostly, with waving fins and solemn orbs, stared at the passing glow and vanished. Phantom-like forms faded quickly into dark recesses, and frightened schools of small fish fled away over pale sandy expanses. Clouds of fluttering gulls and terns followed the strange light that gleamed below the waves. Migrating birds, high in the night skies, wheeled with plaintive calls, for this new radiance was not of the world of wings and fins.

The wonder stone was being carried out of the Northland. For ages untold it had reposed in the heart of a stupendous glacier, that crept over the region of the great lakes from the roof of the world—from that vast frozen sea of desolation that is ghastly white and endless—under the corona of the Northern Lights.

From a cavern deep in ice, its prismatic rays had illumined the crystal labyrinths during the slow progress of the monster of the north, grinding and scarring the earth in its path of devastation.

The radiance from the stone was ineffable. Such color may have swept into the heavens on the world’s first morning, when the Spirit moved over the face of the waters, or have trembled in the halo at the Creation, when cosmos was evolved out of elemental fires.

It glowed in the awful stillness of its prison, untouched by the primeval storms that raged before the mammoths trod the earth, and before men of the stone age had learned the use of fire.

Many centuries after the greater part of the gigantic ice sheet had yielded to balmy airs, its frowning ramparts lingered along the wild shores of the north. The white silence was broken by reverberations from crumbling masses that crashed down the steeps into the billows that broke against the barrier. In one of the pieces the stone was borne away. The luminous lump drifted with the winds. It was nuzzled by curious rovers of the blue waters that rubbed gently along its sides and basked in the refulgence. With the final dissolution of the fragment, the stone was released.

In quest of new feeding grounds, the sturgeon had explored these frigid depths, and, after privation and fruitless wanderings, had gathered for the long retreat to a warmer clime. Their leader beheld the blazing gem falling, like a meteor, before him. With fateful instinct he seized it and moved grimly on. The gray horde saw the light from afar and streamed after it, as warriors might have followed the banner of a hero.

Through many miles of dark solitudes the bearer of the stone led his adventurous array. Swiftly moving fins took the sturgeon to waters where nature had been more merciful.

The roaring surf lines of the southern shore washed vast flat stretches of sand that were bleak and sterile, for no living green relieved the monotonous wilds.

A few Indians had been driven by warfare into this dreary land. Their wigwams were scattered along the coast, where they eked out a precarious existence from the spoil of the waters.

When the sturgeon came their lives were quickened with new energy. With their bark canoes and stone spears they found many victims among the tired fish. A wrinkled prophet, who had communed with the gods of his people, in a dream, had foretold the sending of a luminous stone, by a sturgeon, that would mark the beginning of an era of prosperity and happiness for his tribe. There was rejoicing when the lustre was seen among the waves. In the belief that the promised gift of the manitous had come, and the prophecy was fulfilled, the big fish was pursued with eagerness and finally captured. The long-awaited prize was carried in triumph to the lodge of the chief. The red men gathered in solemn council, and honors were heaped upon the aged seer whose vision had become true. After long deliberation, Flying Fawn, the loveliest maiden of the tribe, was appointed keeper of the stone. The lithe and beautiful barbarian child of nature clasped it to her budding breast, and departed into the wastes. With an invocation to her gods for its protection, she hid their precious gift far beyond the reach of prying eyes.

The winds carried myriads of flying grains to the chosen spot. They came in thin veils and little spirals over the barrens, and gathered, with many sweeps and swirls, into the mound that rose over the resting place of the stone. The army of the silent sands had become its guardian, for nevermore was its hiding place known.

The winds and the years sculptured the shifting masses into strange and bewildering forms. Trees, grasses, and flowers grew, and the hilltops were crowned with perennial garlands. The green sanctuaries were filled with melody. The forests teemed with game and the red men were in a land of plenty.

The Country of the Dunes had come into being. Somewhere deep in its bosom shines the Dream Jewel. Like “The Great Carbuncle,” its fervid splendor beams from a fount unknown. Its iridescence flashes from the distant dunes at sunset. It is in the twilight afterglows, on the sapphire waters of the lake on summer days, and in the fairylands that are pictured in the pools. It glorifies dull winter landscapes with skies of infinite hues, and glances from twisted trunks of ancient pines on hills that defy the storms. It pulsates in star reflections that haunt the margins of wet sands, and where crescent moons touch the waves that toss on night horizons. Its tinge is in the tender leaves and petals of the springtime, and in the flush of autumn’s robes. We see its elusive tints through vistas in the dusk, and in the purple mystery that fills the shadowy places, for the Dream Jewel is Beauty, and they who know not its holy light must walk in darkness.

II
A ROMANCE OF MT. TOM

“MT. TOM” (From the Author’s Etching)

II
A ROMANCE OF MT. TOM

Before strangers came into the land, bringing with them a prosaic nomenclature, there was no Mt. Tom. When the early white explorers crossed the southern end of Lake Michigan in their frail canoes, they saw, from far out on the water, dim irregular filaments of yellow that stretched along the horizon. There was a bold accent in the far-flung line of distant coast, an ancient landmark of a primitive race. The noble promontory that lifted its royal brow from among the contours of the sand hills—the monarch of the range—was called Wud-ju-na-gow, or Sand Mountain, by the red men.

Its top was the highest point along the great sweep of shore that bordered the country of the dunes. In past centuries its sand had been slowly piled by the shifting winds. Eventually the sand grasses rooted themselves, and, in succeeding years, the trees grew. Wud-ju-na-gow became a “fixed dune,” no longer subject to the caprices of the winds.

The slopes were robed with vegetation. Stately pines, spruces, and cedars flourished among the dense forest growth that reached almost to the summit. Here the trees were smaller, and bare patches of yellow were visible against the sky-line, from which wispy wreaths of sand would spiral up in the air currents on windy days.

In the autumn the groups of green conifers made dark accents in the expanse of red and gold that draped Wud-ju-na-gow’s massive form. Flowers grew lavishly along the steep slopes. The wild life sought refuge in the impassable thickets and tall timber. Hawks and eagles soared above the woods with watchful eyes and dropped down into them for furtive prey. Hordes of noisy crows circled over the tree-tops and around the wind-swept summit. Wolves and other marauders crept stealthily through the undergrowth at night. Startled deer leaped from quiet hiding places and fled from suspicious sounds and odors. Partridges thrived in the patches of brush and tangled grape-vines, in spite of many enemies. Beady eyes peered out from under fallen trunks. The hunters and the hunted followed their destinies among the shadows.

A Pottawattomie village had flourished for many years on a low ridge back of the hills, near Wud-ju-na-gow. Just below the village a small creek, fed by springs, wound through the open woods and reached the lake through a deep ravine. The high hills protected the lodges from the north winds and violent storms from the lake. About sixty bark wigwams were strung along the ridge.

The young men hunted through the hills and usually had no difficulty in keeping the village supplied with meat. They carried their birch-bark canoes through the ravine to the lake and varied the food supplies with sturgeon and other fish. In times of plenty the game and fish not needed for immediate use were smoked and stored for winter consumption. Small patches of corn were scattered through the fertile open spaces away from the creek. The women gossiped over their domestic concerns, the men loitered along the hillside, and the little community lived in peace, with no troubles but those that nature has laid upon all her children. In their uncivilized state they were spared the miseries of temperament, and the refined tortures, as well as the joys, of more highly developed mentality. Their primitive needs were provided for. Food was abundant and the red men were contented—if there be real contentment in the world.

After a long period of prosperity there came a summer of drought. Pitiless heat and breathless skies shrivelled the leaves, dried up the streams and ponds, and brought suffering to the live things. In the autumn the parched land had yielded up its vibrant life. Instead of the mellow golds and crimsons, there were grays and neutral browns. The voices of the forest were hushed. The fall flowers did not come. The willows and tall grasses drooped in sorrow, for a blight had come upon the land. Day after day the blood-red sun went below the sharp rim of the horizon without promise to the faded hills.

Smoke appeared far in the southwest and a black pall crept into the sky overhead. Before many hours there was a vague unrest in the woods. There were strange noises among the withered trees and dried marshes. The wild life was fleeing eastward. At night a baleful glare tinged the crests of the dunes and reflected from swiftly moving wings above them.

With the coming of the wind stifling smoke crept through the woods. Soon the crackling lines of flame came, writhing and roaring through the dry timber. There were muffled cries from tiny furred fugitives in the matted grasses in the low places. Noble landscapes were being scourged by demons. Nature’s cool cloisters and her dream cathedrals were on fire.

There is a heart-felt grief that comes with the burning of the trees. The sacrilege of their destruction touches us more deeply if we have lived among them, and learned that with them have been builded the real kingdoms of the earth. In them we may find reflection of all human emotion, and for the subtly attuned soul, they have emotion of their own.

The terrified dwellers along the creek fled to the beach, and, with awe-stricken faces watched the march of the flames through the country. They saw the flashes from the cedars, pines, and spruces shoot high into clouds of smoke and flying sparks, and heard the crackling of countless trunks and branches that quivered in torment on the blazing hills.

By some fortuitous chance—perhaps a temporary veering of the air currents—the ravine, through which the little creek found its way, was spared. A portion of the timber on the slopes of Wud-ju-na-gow was also untouched, but everywhere else was desolation. The blackened and smouldering expanse carried dismay into the hearts of the horror-stricken groups huddled near the mouth of the stream. Most of their primitive belongings had been rescued, but their future looked as dark as the grim landscapes around them.

It was late in the season. The fishing in the lake had been unusually poor, and there was no living thing among the forest ruins that could be used for food. The stores that had been saved would last but a short time and there was an appalling fear of famine.

Many anxious hours were spent in deliberation. Believing that Omnipotent wrath had destroyed everything except the sands and the waters of the lake, the bewildered Indians saw no ray of hope. The calamity had fallen with crushing force. The vengeance of evil gods was upon them. Their few frail canoes could not carry all of them on the lake. The range of smoking hills that swept away along the curving beach-lines seemed to offer no path of refuge.

Young Wa-be-no-je had listened intently to all of the discussions, and had pondered deeply over the desperate straits of his people. He bore the Indian name of the white marsh hawk. He was nearly nineteen. His proud father, a shrewd old hunter and trapper, had taught him the craft and lore of the woods. He sat near little Taheta, the playmate of his childhood. With ripening years love had come into their lives. Before the great fire they had begun to talk of a wigwam of their own, but now that dark hours had come they knew that they would have to wait.

Wa-be-no-je rose from a log on which they had been sitting, near a group of the older men, stepped forward and volunteered to follow the fire and find the game. With care the scant supply of food would be sufficient to support his companions for two moons. If he did not return by the end of that time they would understand that his quest had failed.

A few simple preparations were made for his journey. With forebodings in her heart, with love light shining through her tears, little Taheta saw him depart into the charred wastes on his errand of salvation. No mailed knight ever rode out upon the path to glory with brighter eyes upon him than those that glowed under the long lashes of the Pottawattomie maiden, as she gazed longingly after him from the edge of the ravine. She watched his lithe, sinewy figure as he bravely strode away and faded into the distance. She went back in sorrow and began with the others to endure patiently the long wait and suspense which they knew was inevitable before the hunter’s return.

It was agreed that every night at sundown a fire should be built on the lofty top of Wud-ju-na-gow, and kept burning until dawn, during Wa-be-no-je’s absence. If he was where he could see this light, he would know that his people were still in the ravine, and in the darkness it would take the place of burned landmarks to guide him on his return journey. Ten members of the little band, including Taheta, were to perform this duty, and each night one of them climbed the zigzag trail to the sandy top, kindled the beacon fire, watched and replenished it until sunrise, and returned.

From miles away the young hunter could see the tiny light against the sky. When its glow was very bright he knew that one he loved was near it. He tramped on through the ashes and débris for many days. At night he climbed to some high spot and slept. One afternoon he reached a sandy stretch where the trees were scattered and there were few grasses. The wind had evidently lulled when the fire reached this area for the burnt places ended. He began to find the game trails leading from them, which he followed for several days. The signs became fresher, and one morning his eyes were gladdened by the sight of deer and buffalo peacefully grazing beyond a small river that he had never seen before.

Fearing that the animals might move on and be beyond reach before he could return and obtain help, he decided to kill as many as possible and preserve and hide the meat. Its transportation would then be a comparatively simple matter, and he was sure that he could secure enough for the winter’s supply.

He set cautiously to work. The noiseless arrows brought down one of the buffalo and a deer the first day. He killed no more until this meat was cut into little strips, strung on many switches, smoked over fires of dried leaves and dead wood, and thoroughly dried in the sun. He enlarged a small cave under some rocks by digging away the sand. He made a floor of dead leaves inside on which to pile his stores, and carefully walled up the opening with stones to protect the precious contents from the wolves and other prowlers. The game was gradually moving away, but before it disappeared the cave was well filled and there was more than enough to last his people for a year.

The long dry period was now broken by a heavy rain storm which lasted for several days. The arid earth drank of the falling waters; the blackness and ruin upon the land were washed as with tears of atonement. The streams again flowed and the pools and marshes that give life and joy to the wild things were filled.

When the skies cleared Wa-be-no-je piled more rocks over the entrance to the cave and started homeward with a light heart. Weary miles were traversed before he could see the faint light on the horizon against the sky at night. During two nights he heard wolves howling in the distance, and the next night they were much closer. They gradually closed in toward him and he knew that danger had come. He had but two good arrows. The others were lost or broken. He came to a small stream and waded it for a mile or so to throw his hungry followers off his trail, but they soon found it again. Yellow eyeballs reflected his firelight while he slept. Once he loosed one of the precious arrows to save his life. The pack immediately fell upon their wounded comrade and devoured him. Their hunger was only partially appeased and they kept close to Wa-be-no-je until the following evening. He knew that unless he could find some means of shaking them off he would never see Taheta or his people again. He decided to attempt to pick his way through the end of a wide marsh, believing that his pursuers would not follow him into the water. If he could get safely across, he would be able to elude them.

The swamp was full of quaking bogs, and near the middle the water was quite deep. His progress was impeded by the soft mud and decayed vegetation on the bottom, and the further he went the chances became more desperate. One foot sank suddenly in the soft ooze and then the other. He could neither retreat nor go ahead. He had reached a mass of quicksand, and with every attempt to extricate himself he sank a little lower. He clutched the ends of a few sodden grasses and held them for some time, but the stagnant murky waters slowly closed over him and he was gone.

The baffled wolves howled along the margins of the marsh for a while but soon disappeared, like all enemies whose quarry has met finality. The little fire on the horizon flared up brightly, as though fresh sticks had been piled upon it, and gleamed through the darkness brighter than ever before. It faded away in the gray of the morning and its watcher followed the steep trail down the side of Wud-ju-na-gow to rest.

Wa-be-no-je’s silent departure from the world left hardly a ripple in the marsh. It is human to cherish the hope, or fondly believe, that some store of gold, or grandeur of achievement—some sculptured monument, or service to mankind—will stand at our place of exit and be eloquent while the ages last, but the Waters of Oblivion hide well their secrets. Beneath them are neither pride nor vanity. The primordial slime from which we came reclaims without pomp or jewelled vesture, and if there be a Great Beyond, poor Wa-be-no-je may reach it from the quicksand as safely as he who becomes dust within marble walls.

The early snows came and the nightly fires on Wud-ju-na-gow still glowed. Only one guardian sat beside them, for Wa-be-no-je’s people now believed that he would never return. Hope still abided in Taheta’s loyal heart, and night after night she climbed the shelving steeps and built her fire. One cold, stormy night she sat huddled in her blanket and listened to the north wind. The snow swirled around her and toward morning the light was gone. The next day they found the rigid little form in the blanket and buried it below the ashes of her fire.

Today the Fireweed, that ever haunts the burnt places, lifts its slender stalk above the spot, and it may be that the soul of faithful Taheta lurks among the tender pink blossoms—a halo that may be seen from the dark waters of the distant marsh.

III
THE HERON’S POOL

THE HERON’S POOL (From the Author’s Etching)

III
THE HERON’S POOL

The pool was far back from the big marshes through which the lazy current of the river wound. It was in one of those secluded nooks that the seeping water finds for itself when it would hide in secret retreats and form a little world of its own. It was bordered by slushy grasses and small willows; its waters spread silently among the bulrushes, lily pads and thick brush tangles. A few ghostly sycamores and poplars protruded above the undergrowth, and the intricate network of wild grape-vines concealed broken stumps that were mantled with moss. The placid pool was seldom ruffled, for the dense vegetation protected it from the winds. Wandering clouds were mirrored in its limpid depths. Water-snakes made silvery trails across it. Sinister shadows of hawks’ wings sometimes swept by, and often the splash of a frog sent little rings out over the surface. Opalescent dragon-flies hovered among the weeds and small turtles basked in the sun-light along the margins.

The Voices of the Little Things were in this abode of tranquillity—the gentle sounds that fill nature’s sanctuaries with soft music. There were contented songs of feathered visitors, distant cries of crows beyond the tree-tops, faint echoes of a cardinal, rejoicing in the deep woods, and the drowsy hum of insects—the myriad little tribes that sing in the unseen aisles of the grasses.

One spring a gray old heron winged his way slowly over the pool, and, after a few uncertain turns over the trees, wearily settled among the rushes. After stalking about in the labyrinth of weeds along the shallow edges for some time, he took his station on a dead branch that protruded from the water near the shore, and solemnly contemplated his surroundings.

His plumage was tattered, and he bore the record of the years he had spent on the marshy wastes along the river. His eye had lost its lustre, and the delicate blue that had adorned the wings of his youth had faded to a pale ashen gray. The tired pinions were slightly frayed—the wings hung rather loosely in repose, and the lanky legs carried scars and crusty gray scales that told of vicissitudes in the battle for existence. He looked long and curiously at a round white object on the bottom near his low perch. The round object had a history, but its story did not come within the sphere of the heron’s interests, and he returned to his meditations on the gnarled limb. He may have dreamed of far-off shores and happy homes in distant tree-tops. A memory of a mate that flew devotedly by his side, but could not go all the way, may have abided with him. The peace of windless waters brooded in this quiet haven. It was a refuge from the storms and antagonisms of the outer world, its store of food was abundant, and in it he was content to pass his remaining days.

When night came his still figure melted into the darkness. A fallen luna moth, whose wet wings might faintly reflect the starlight, would sometimes tempt him, and he would listen languidly to the lonely cries of an owl that lived in one of the sycamores. The periodic visits of coons and foxes, that prowled stealthily in the deep shadows, and craftily searched the wet grasses for small prey, did not disturb him. They well knew the power of the gray old warrior’s cruel bill. All his dangerous enemies were far away. The will-o’-the-wisps that spookily and fitfully hovered along the tops of the rushes, and the erratic flights of the fire-flies, did not mar his serenity. He was spending his old age in comfort and repose.

There is a certain air, or quality, about certain spots which is indefinable. An elusive and intangible impression, an idea, or a story, may become inseparably associated with a particular place. With a recurrence of the thought, or the memory of the story there always comes the involuntary mental picture of the physical environment with which it is interwoven. This association of thought and place is in most cases entirely individual, and is often a subtle sub-consciousness—more of a relationship of the soul, than the mind, to such an environment. Something in or near some particular spot that imparts a peculiar and distinctive character to it, or inspires some dominant thought or emotion, constitutes the “genius” of that place. The Genius of the Place may be a legend, an unwritten romance, a memory of some event, an imaginary apparition, an unaccountable sound, the presence of certain flowers or odors, a deformed tree, a strange inhabitant, or any thought or thing that would always bring it to the mind.

When the heron came to the pool the Genius of the Place was old Topago, a chief of the Pottawattomies. A great many years ago he lived in a little hut, rudely built of logs and elm bark, on an open space a few hundred feet from the pool. The fortunes of his tribe had steadily declined, and their sun was setting. After the coming of the white man, war and sickness had decimated his people. The wild game began to disappear and hunger stalked among the little villages. The old chief brooded constantly over the sorrows of his race. As the years rolled on his melancholy deepened. He sought isolation in the deep woods and built his lonely dwelling near the pool to pass his last years in solitude. His was the anguish of heart that comes when hope has fled. Occasionally one of the few faithful followers who were left would come to the little cabin and leave supplies of corn and dried meat, but beyond this he had no visitors. His contact with his tribe had ceased.

One stormy night, when the north wind howled around the frail abode, and the spirits of the cold were sighing in the trunks of the big trees, the aged Indian sat over his small fire and held his medicine bag in his shrivelled hands. Its potent charm had carried him safely through many perils, and he now asked of it the redemption of his people. That night the wind ceased and he felt the presence of his good manitous in the darkness. They told him that the magic of his medicine was still strong. If he would watch the reflections in the pool, there would sometime appear among them the form of a crescent moon that would foretell a great change in the fortunes of his race, but he must see the reflection with his own eyes.

In the spring, as soon as the ice had melted, he began his nightly vigils at the foot of an ancient pine that overhung the water. Through weary years he gazed with dimmed eyes upon the infinite and inscrutable lights that gleamed and trembled in the pool. Many times he saw the new moon shine in the twilights of the west, and saw the old crescent near the horizon before the dawn, but no crescent was ever reflected from the zenith into the still depths below. Only the larger moons rode into the night skies above him. His aching heart fought with despair and distrust of his tribal gods. The wrinkles deepened on his wan face. The cold nights of spring and fall bent the decrepit figure and whitened the withered locks. Time dealt harshly with the faithful watcher, nobly guarding his sacred trust.

One spring a few tattered shreds of a blanket clung to the rough roots. Heavy snow masses around the pine had slipped into the pool sometime during the winter, and carried with them a helpless burden. The melting ice had let it into the sombre depths below. The birds sang as before, the leaves came and went, and Mother Nature continued her eternal rhythm.

During a March gale the ancient pine tottered and fell across the open water. In the grim procession of the years it became sodden and gradually settled into the oozy bottom. Only the gnarled and decayed branch—the perch of the old heron—remained above the surface.

One night in early fall, when there was a tinge of frost in the air, and the messages of the dying year were fluttering down to the water from the overhanging trees, the full moon shone resplendent directly above the pool. The old heron turned his tapering head up toward it for a moment, plumed his straggling feathers for a while, nonchalantly gazed at the white skull that caught the moon’s light below the water near his perch, and relapsed into immobility. A rim of darkness crept over the edge of the moon, and the earth’s shadow began to steal slowly across the silver disk. The soft beams that glowed on the trees and grasses became dimmed and they retreated into the shadows. The darkened orb was almost eclipsed. Only a portion of it was left, but far down in the chill mystery of the depths of the pool, among countless stars, was reflected a crescent moon.

The magic of Topago’s medicine was still potent. The hour for the redemption of the red man had come, but he was no more. The mantle of the Genius of the Place had fallen upon the old heron. He was the keeper of the secret of his pool.

IV
THE STORY OF THE STREAM

“Omemee”

IV
THE STORY OF THE STREAM

The bistre-colored waters of French Creek seep sluggishly out of the ancient peat beds far away in the country back of the dunes. Countless tiny rivulets of transparent golden brown creep through the low land among the underbrush and mingle with the gentle current that whispers in the deep grasses, ripples against decayed branches and fallen trunks, hides under masses of gnarled roots and projecting banks, and enters the long sinuous ravine that winds through the woods and sand-hills. The ravine ends abruptly at the broad shore of the lake. The stream spreads out over the beach and tints the incoming surf with wondrous hues.

In the daytime occasional gleams of light from the gliding water can be seen through the small openings in the labyrinths of undergrowth and between the tall tree trunks that crowd the shadowy defile. At night there are tremulous reflections of the moon among the thick foliage. Strange ghostly beams touch the boles of the solemn pines and sycamores and filter into the sombre recesses.

The dramas of human life leave romance behind them. Its halo hovers over these darkened woods, for it was here that the beautiful Indian girl, Omemee, was brought by her dusky Pottawattomie lover, in the moon of falling leaves, and it was here that the threads of their fate were woven nearly a hundred years ago.

Red Owl first saw her among the wild blackberry bushes near the village of her people. She had responded to his entreaties with shy glances, and after many visits and much negotiation, her father, a wrinkled old chief, had consented to their union. Omemee’s savage charms had brought many suitors to her father’s wigwam. Her graceful willowy figure, long raven hair, musical voice, dark luminous eyes and gentle ways had made her a favorite of her village. She was called the dove in the language of her tribe. There was sorrow when she went away.

Red Owl’s prowess as a hunter, his skill in the rude athletic sports of the village, displayed on his frequent visits during the wooing, had won the admiration of the old warrior. Among the many bundles of valuable pelts that were borne along the Great Sauk Trail to the traders’ posts, the largest were usually those of Red Owl. The fire-water of the white man did not lure him to disaster as it did many of his red brothers. He always transacted his business quickly and returned from the posts with the ammunition, traps and other supplies for which he had exchanged his furs.

For a year he quietly accumulated a secret hoard of selected skins, which he laid before the door of the fond father as the marriage offering. The lovers disappeared on the trail that was to lead them to their home. For five days they travelled through the dunes and primeval forests. They came down the trail that crossed French Creek, climbed out of the ravine, and entered the village of Red Owl’s people. The wigwams were scattered along the stretch of higher ground among the trees. Omemee was cordially welcomed and soon grew accustomed to her new environment.

For many years the young men of the tribe had trapped muskrats, beaver and mink along the creek and in the swamps beyond its headwaters. Small furred animals were abundant for many miles around, and, during the fur season, the trappers were dispersed over a wide extent of territory.

When “Peg Leg” Carr came into the dune country the only human trails he found were those of the red men. He came alone and built a cabin on the creek not far from the Indian Village. Peg Leg may have still cherished a secret longing for human society which he was not willing to admit, even to himself. He had abandoned his last habitat for the ostensible reason that “thar was too many people ’round.” He came from about a hundred miles back on the Sauk Trail. After a family disagreement he had left his wife and two sons to their own devices in the wilderness, and was not heard of for nearly ten years. He suddenly appeared one morning, stumping along the trail, with his left knee fitted to the top of a hickory support. The lower part of the leg was gone, and he explained its absence by declaring that it had been “bit off.” The time-worn pleasantry seemed to amuse him, and no amount of coaxing would elicit further details. There was a deep ugly scar in the left side of his neck. His vocal chords had been injured and he could talk only in hoarse whispers. He said that his throat had been “gouged out.” Somebody or something had nearly wrecked Peg Leg physically, but the story, whatever it was, remained locked in his bosom. He admitted that he had “been to sea,” but beyond that no facts were obtainable.

After a brief sojourn at his old home he shouldered his pack and started west. When he arrived at French Creek he spent several days in looking the country over before deciding on the location of his cabin. He was a good-natured old fellow and the Indians did not particularly resent his intrusion, even when he began to set a line of traps along the creek. The small animals were so numerous that one trapper more or less made little difference, and he got on very well with his red neighbors. They rather pitied his infirmities and were disposed to make allowances. He was over seventy and apparently harmless.

When the old man had accumulated a small stock of pelts it was his custom to carry them to a trading post located about forty miles back on the trail and exchange them for supplies for his simple housekeeping and other necessities. These trips often consumed ten days, as his loads were heavy and he was compelled to travel slowly. On his return, when he came to the rude log bridge over which the trail crossed the creek in the ravine, he would sometimes wearily lay his pack down and pound on the timbers with his hickory stump as a signal to those above. He was unable to reach them with his impaired voice. Somebody in the wigwams usually heard him and came down to help the exhausted old trapper carry his burden up the steep incline. After resting awhile he would trudge on to his cabin.

A few years after the advent of Peg Leg a troop of soldiers arrived and built a fort. For strategic reasons the commander of the government post at Detroit decided to keep a small garrison at the end of the lake. A spot was cleared on the bluff and two small brass cannon were mounted in the block-house inside the log stockade. The tops of the surrounding trees were cut away so that the guns would command the trail from where it entered the north side of the ravine to the point at which it disappeared around a low hill south of the fort.

The French Creek Trail was a branch of the Great Sauk Trail, which was the main thoroughfare from the Detroit post to the mouth of Chicago river. It was joined near the headwaters of the St. Joseph and Kankakee rivers, in what is now northeastern Indiana, by another trail that followed the north banks of the Kankakee from the Illinois country. The sinuous routes had been used from time immemorable. They were the established highways of the red men and the arteries of their simple commerce. Thousands of moccasined feet traversed them on peaceful errands, and grim war parties sometimes moved swiftly along the numberless forest paths that connected with the main trails. There was a net-work of these all through the Indian country. Trees twisted and bent in a peculiar way, which we now often see in the woods, were landmarks left by the makers of various small trails that were travelled infrequently.

Soon after the fort was built at French Creek, Pierre Chenault came and established a trading post near the village. He was followed by a number of settlers who built log houses along the edge of the bluff. The red man’s fatherland was invaded. The civilization of the white man—or the lack of it—had come, with its attending evils of strong waters and organized rapacity. The waves of an alien race, with strange tongues and new weapons of steel, had broken over him. His means of subsistence dwindled. His heritage was passing to the sway of the despoiler.

The Indians loitered around Pierre Chenault’s trading post, bartered their few valuables for fire-water, and neglected the pursuits that had made them happy and prosperous. Chenault was a half-breed. His father belonged to that hardy race of French-Canadian voyageurs who had broken the paths of the wilderness in the north country, and penetrated the fastnesses of the territory of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. His mother was an Ojibwa on the south shore of Lake Superior. He was about forty, with a lean and hardened frame. His straight black hair was beginning to be streaked with gray, and fell to his shoulders. Piercing eyes looked out from under the heavy brows with an expression of low cunning, and his face carried the stamp of villainy. He was a mongrel, and in his case the mixture was a failure. He inherited the evil traits of both races and none of the virtues of either.

The creek was now practically abandoned as a trapping ground by the Indians. With the exception of Red Owl and Peg Leg, who divided the few miles of the stream, the trappers had sought other regions that were less disturbed. The dwellers in the wigwams contemplated a general removal to a more congenial habitat. Their neighbors were getting too numerous for comfort, and their ways of life were meeting with too much interference. They did not object to Peg Leg, but he was all of their white brothers that they felt they needed.

As the fur grew scarcer Red Owl rather resented the rivalry of the old man’s interests, and occasionally appropriated an otter or mink, when he passed Peg Leg’s traps, and had found nothing in his own. He probably lulled his conscience with the idea that the animals naturally belonged to the Indians, and that Peg Leg’s privileges were a form of charity that need not be extended to the point of his own self-denial.

Many times the half-breed had looked longingly on the quiet-eyed Omemee when she came to his post. He coveted Red Owl’s savage jewel. Wickedness fermented in his depraved mind, but he was too wise to make advances. He knew of Red Owl’s surreptitious visits to Peg Leg’s traps and laid his plans with far-seeing craft. One still February morning he saw him go into the ravine and start up the creek on the ice. He seized his rifle and crept through the thick timber and undergrowth, away from the creek, paralleling the course taken by the unsuspecting Indian. After going a mile or so Red Owl stopped near the projecting roots of a large elm. One of Peg Leg’s traps was there and his rival was soon engaged in killing and extracting a mink from the steel jaws of the trap. The half-breed stole up to within a hundred yards. A report rang in the crisp air and a bullet crashed into the back of the Indian’s head. The murderer left no trail near the frozen creek. He made a wide detour, returned to his post, after hiding his rifle in the snow, and awaited results.

A couple of hours later Peg Leg hobbled along the white water course to inspect his traps. He followed Red Owl’s trail and came upon the still form lying in the blood-stained snow on the ice. He speculated for some time over the mystery and went to the settlement to report what he had found.

The broken-hearted Omemee went with those who departed for the scene of the tragedy. No trail was visible except those of Red Owl and Peg Leg. The old man’s tracks were easily recognized. His denial of any guilty knowledge of the killing was met by silence and dark looks. Circumstantial evidence was against him. The motive was obvious and the story was on the snow. The partial justice of the retribution that had mysteriously fallen upon the thief did not lessen the innocent old trapper’s sorrow and fear, for he knew that justice, age, or infirmity would be no bar to Indian revenge. He would never have killed Red Owl for interfering with his traps. A high wind and a snow storm came up in the afternoon that effectually baffled any further investigation. The despondent old man kept the seclusion of his cabin and brooded over his trouble for several weeks.

Red Owl was laid away after the customs of his people. Omemee departed into the wilderness to mourn for her dead. After many days she returned with the light in her eyes that gleams from those of the she-panther when her young have been killed before her—a light that an enemy sees but once.

In the spring Peg Leg left with his pack of winter pelts. He had once been cheated by Chenault and preferred to do his trading where he had gone before the half-breed came. His journey consumed nearly two weeks. One evening at dusk he laboriously picked his way down the steep path into the ravine, laid his load of supplies on the rude bridge, and then signalled for help by pounding the bridge timbers with his hickory stump. He was worn out and could not carry his burden up the steep incline alone.

Like a snake from its covert, a beautiful wild thing darted from the deep shadows of the pines. The moccasined feet made no sound on the logs. There was a gleam of steel, a lightning-like movement, and Omemee glided on out of the ravine into the gathering gloom. The silence was broken by a heavy splash below the side of the bridge, and when they found poor old Peg Leg the hilt of a knife protruded from between his shoulders.

There was a hidden observer of the tragedy. Pierre Chenault had watched long and anxiously for the stroke of Omemee’s revenge. The white man’s law now gave him a coveted advantage. He broke cover and pursued the fast retreating figure. He would offer to conduct her to a place of safety, protect her and declare his love.

Omemee ran with the speed of a deer in the direction of the home of her childhood. She fled out over the dunes to the shore of the lake. For miles along the wild wave-washed coast the two dim figures sped in the darkness. Omemee finally dropped from exhaustion. The half-breed carried her in his arms to the foot of the bluff where he built a small fire behind a mass of drift-wood, and sat beside her until the gray of the morning came over the sand-hills. They were now about twelve miles from the settlement. They walked along the beach together for several hours and turned into the dunes.

After the April rains tender leaves unfolded in the trees around the bark wigwam where Omemee was born. The old chief had died two years before, but a faint wreath of smoke ascended softly to the overhanging branches. Fastened above the door was a grisly and uncanny thing that moved fitfully to and fro when the winds blew from the lake. It was the scalp of Pierre Chenault.

With the failure to obtain a government appropriation for a harbor at City West, the name of the new settlement, the embryo town vanished utterly and became a dream of the past. Its ambitions and crushed hopes are entombed in obscure history. No vestiges of its buildings remain. There are traces of a crude mill race near the place where the now obliterated trail crossed the creek. Around the site of the old fort the trees, whose tops were cut away to clear the range for the six-pounders, have covered their wounds with new limbs that have grown from the mutilated trunks.

Near the roots of a gnarled oak at a bend in the stream Peg Leg’s dust has mingled with the black loam, where his spirit may be lulled by the passing waters. When we seem to hear the tapping of the woodpecker on a hidden hollow tree in the depths of the dark ravine, it may be the echoes through the mists of the years of the strokes of the poor old trapper on the timbers of the bridge.

The red man has gone. The currents of human passion that rose and fell along the banks of the little stream have passed into silence. The bistre-colored waters still flow out on the wide expanse of sand and spread their web of romance in the moon-light.

V
THE MOON IN THE MARSH

THE MOON IN THE MARSH (From the Author’s Etching)

V
THE MOON IN THE MARSH

There is a hazy mist on the horizon where the red rim of the October sun left the sky-line. The twilight of Indian Summer is stealing over the marsh. There is a hush of vibrant voices and a muffled movement of tiny life in the darkened places. Sorrow rests upon the world, for the time of the requiem of the leaves has come. The red arrows are abroad; a flush of crimson is creeping through the forest. An elusive fragrance of fruition is in the air, and a drowsy languor droops the stems and branches.

Royal robes rustle faintly on the hills and in the shadows of the woods. From among the living trees a mighty presence has vanished. A queen who came in green has departed as a nun in gray, and the color fairies have entered the bereaved realm with offerings of red and gold.

A vague unrest troubles the trembling aspens and the little sassafras trees that flock like timid children beyond the sturdy sycamores. The gnarled oaks mutely await the winds of winter on their castanets of cold dead leaves—music of our Mother Earth to which we all must listen until our slumber hour comes.

Through darkening masses of tangled thickets, and over bogs concealed by matted grasses, some soggy and decayed logs, covered with moss and slime, lead out over the wet margin of the tarn to the edge of the clear water. A startled bittern rises clumsily out of the rushes. A pair of wild ducks tower out and glide away over the tree-tops. There are stifled rustlings in the ferns and sedges, and little wings are fluttering furtively among unseen branches. There is a soft splash near the edge of the woods. From out the shadow the curling wake of a muskrat stretches across an open space. A mottled water-snake drops stealthily into a wet labyrinth—the muffled movements cease—and muted echoes of vesper choirs sweeten the solitude that broods over the tarn.

After a period of silence another whir of pinions overhead heralds the return of the ducks. They circle swiftly and invisibly in the deep shadows—their silhouettes dart across the sky openings, and, with a loud swish, they strike the water and settle comfortably for the night behind some weedy bogs close to the opposite shore.

In the gathering gloom tiny beams creep into the depths of the water. One by one the starry host begins to twinkle in the inverted canopy of the heavens. The full-orbed silver moon rides into the sky through the delicate lacery of the trees with a flood of soft light. Another disk sinks majestically into the abyss.

The asterisms of the astronomer are in the firmament above, rolling in mighty cycles to the ordered destinies of the spheres, but the stars of Arcady are in the quiet pools, the placid bosoms of gently flowing rivers, and far out in seas that are beyond our ken. They sparkle in the smooth curves of heavy swells on distant deeps, and shine far below coral worlds in ocean depths. These stars are measureless. They gleam in awful profundities and illumine a world of dreams. We may look down to them from the windows of a fair castle in which a noble spirit dwells, but beyond its walls we may not go. There are travellers in that dimly lighted vault, for dark wings blur the points of pallid radiance in swift and silent flight. Eternity is not there, for its constellations will tremble and vanish with a passing zephyr on the surface of the pool.

A white web of mist gathers on the water. A phosphorescent trunk in the distance glows with ghostly light. The fluffy movement of the wings of a small owl is visible against a patch of sky, and a moment later the dusky form whisks by in the gloom. Agile bats wheel and plunge noiselessly in pursuit of invisible prey. A few bulrushes in a near-by clump are slightly disturbed. The night life has begun to move in the slough, for it is nature’s law that it must kill to live.

The veil of mist thickens—the stars in the depths disappear—the moon’s reflection becomes a nebula of pale effulgence, and is finally lost in vaporous obscurity. Like the soft fabric of forgetfulness that time weaves over sorrow, the mist envelopes the tarn. Like wraiths of dead years, filmy wreaths trail tenderly and delicately through the solemn woods. The purple darkness has become gray. A clammy wetness clings to the tall grasses. Beads of crystal on their bending points mirror feeble beams of light, and the heaviness of humidity is upon the boughs and fallen leaves.

The moods of Nature are manifold in expression and power. In her infinite alchemy she reflects a different ray into every facet of the human soul. She echoes its exaltation, has sweet unguents for its weariness, and leads it upon lofty paths of promise when hope has died. The music of her strings brings forth hidden melodies, and it is with her that we must go if we would reach the heights.

The dark morass becomes a dreamland. Through it stately legions go. Ethereal aisles wind through the trees. Cloudy walls rise along its borders, and beyond them are kingdoms in elf-land where fancy may spin fabrics of gossamer and build mansions remote from earthly being.

There is a life of the soul as well as of the body. We may ponder as to its immortality, but undeniably it is in the present, if not in a state to come. Hope grasps at a shadowy vision of the future that dissolves at our touch. Reason gives only the substance of the present, elusive though it be. We live in a world of illusion, where seeming realities may be but phantoms. We wander in a maze of speculative thought. The paths are intricate and only lead to narrow cells. The Forest Gods that dwell in the high and hidden places speak a language that is without words. The fallen leaf is as eloquent as established dogma or voice of hoary seer. In our own hearts must we find our shrines, for the obscurity beyond the borderland of philosophy is as deep as the mould below the leaves. The multitudes that have come upon the earth and vanished have left no clue.

The key lies at the bottom of the tarn, and the story is in the marsh.

VI
HOLY ZEKE

“Holy Zeke”

VI
HOLY ZEKE

“And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth.”—Ezekiel 7:9

After an industrious day with my sketch book among the dunes, I walked over to the lake shore and looked up the beach toward Sipes’s shanty. In the gathering twilight a faint gleam came through the small window. Not having seen my old friend for nearly a year, I decided to pay him a visit. My acquaintance with him had brought me many happy hours as I listened to his reminiscences, some of which are recorded in former stories.

He had been a salt water sailor, and, with his shipmate Bill Saunders, had met with many thrilling adventures. He had finally drifted to the sand-hills, where he had found a quiet refuge after a stormy life. Fishing and hunting small game yielded him a scanty but comparatively happy livelihood. He was a queer, bewhiskered little man, somewhere in the seventies, with many idiosyncrasies, a fund of unconscious humor, much profanity, a great deal of homely philosophy, and with many ideas that were peculiarly his own.

He wore what he called a “hatch” over the place which his right eye formerly occupied, and explained the absence of the eye by telling me that it had been blown out in a gale somewhere off the coast of Japan. He said that “it was glass anyway” and he “never thought much of it.” Saunders figured more or less in all of his stories of the sea.

On approaching the nondescript driftwood structure, I heard a stentorian voice, the tones of which the little shanty was too frail to confine, and which seemed to be pitched for the solemn pines that fringed the brink of the dark ravine beyond.

“Now all ye hell-destined sinners that are in this holy edifice, listen to me! Ye who are steeped in sin shall frizzle in the fires o’ damnation. The seethin’ cauldrons yawn. Ye have deserved the fiery pit an’ yer already sentenced to it. Hell is gaping fer this whole outfit. The flames gather an’ flash. The fury o’ the wrath to come is almost ’ere. Yer souls are damned an’ you may all be in hell ’fore tomorrer mornin’. The red clouds o’ comin’ vengeance are over yer miserable heads. You’ll be enveloped in fiery floods fer all eternity—fer millions of ages will ye sizzle. Ye hang by a slender thread. The flames may singe it any minute an’ in ye go. Ye have reason to wonder that yer not already in hell! Yer accursed bodies shall be laid on live coals, an’ with red-hot pitch-forks shall ye be sorted into writhin’ piles an’ hurled into bottomless pits of endless torment. I’m the scourge o’ the Almighty. I’m Ezekiel-seven-nine. This is yer last chance to quit, an’ you’ve got to git in line, an’ do it quick if ye want to keep from bein’ soused in torrents o’ burnin’ brimstone, an’ have melted metal poured into yer blasphemous throats!”

At this point the door partially opened and a furtive figure slipped out. “Let all them that has hard hearts an’ soft heads git out!” roared the voice. The figure moved swiftly toward me and I recognized Sipes.

“Gosh! Is that you? You keep away from that place,” he sputtered, as he came up.

“What seems to be the trouble?” I asked.

“It’s Holy Zeke an’ he’s cussin’ the bunch. It looks like we’d all have a gloomy finish. He was up ’ere this mornin’ an’ ast me if ’e could ’ave a reevival in my place tonight. He’s ’ad pretty much ev’rythin’ else that was loose ’round ’ere, an’ like a damn fool I told ’im O. K., an’ this is wot I git. I thought it was sump’n else. You c’n go an’ listen to ’is roar if you want to, but I got some business to ’tend to ’bout ten miles from ’ere, an’ I wont be back ’till tomorrer, an’ w’en I come back it’ll be by water. I’m goin’ to lay fer that ol’ skeet with my scatter gun, an’ he’ll think he’s got hot cinders under ’is skin w’en I git to ’im. I’ll give ’im all the hell I can without murderin’ ’im.” Sipes then disappeared into the gloom, muttering to himself.

His “scatter gun” was a sinister weapon. It had once been a smooth-bore army musket. The barrel had been sawed off to within a foot of the breach. It was kept loaded with about six ounces of black powder, and, wadded on top of this, was a handful of pellets which the old man had made of flour dough, mixed with red pepper, and hardened in the sun. He claimed that, at three rods, such a charge would go just under the skin. “It wouldn’t kill nothin’, but it ’ud be hot stuff.”

I sat on a pile of driftwood for some time and waited for the turmoil in the shanty to subside. Finally the door opened and four more figures emerged. I was glad to recognize my old friend “Happy Cal,” whom I had not seen since his mysterious departure from the sand-hills several years ago, after his dispute with Sipes over some tangled set-lines. Evidently the two old derelicts had amicably adjusted their differences, and Cal had rejoined the widely scattered colony. Another old acquaintance, “Catfish John,” was also in the party. After greetings were exchanged, John introduced me to a short stocky man with gray whiskers.

“Shake hands with Bill Saunders,” said he.

This I did with pleasure, as Sipes’s yarns of the many exploits of this supposedly mythical individual invested him with much interest.

“This ’ere’s Ezekiel-seven-nine,” continued John, indicating the remaining member of the quartette.

I offered “Ezekiel-seven-nine” my hand, but it was ignored. He looked at me sternly. “Yer smokin’ a vile an’ filthy weed,” said he. “It defiles yer soul an’ yer body. It’s an abomination in the sight o’ the Lord. Yer unclean to my touch.” With that he turned away.

I glanced at his hands and if anything could be “unclean” to them its condition must be quite serious. I quite agreed with him, but from a different standpoint, that the cigar was “an abomination,” and, after a few more doubtful whiffs, I threw it away, as I had been tempted to do several times after lighting it. Its purchase had proved an error of judgment.

Zeke’s impressions of me were evidently not very favorable. He walked away a short distance and stopped. In the dim light I could see that he was regarding us with disapproval. He took no part in the conversation. He finally seated himself on the sand and gazed moodily toward the lake for some time, probably reflecting upon the unutterable depravity of his present associates, and calculating their proximity to eternal fire.

“Holy Zeke,” as Sipes had called him, was about six feet two. His clothes indicated that they had been worn uninterruptedly for a long time. The mass of bushy red whiskers would have offered a tempting refuge for wild mice, and from under his shaggy brows the piercing eyes glowed with fanatic light.

Calvinism had placed its dark and heavy seal upon his soul, and the image of an angry and pitiless Creator enthralled his mind—a God who paves infernal regions with tender infants who neglect theology, who marks the fall of a sparrow, but sends war, pestilence and famine to annihilate the meek and pure in heart.

The wonderful drama of the creation, and the beautiful story of Omnipotent love carried no message for him. Lakes of brimstone and fire awaited all of earth’s blindly groping children who failed to find the creed of the self-elect. Notwithstanding the fact that the national governing board of an orthodox church, with plenary powers, convened a few years ago, officially abolished infant damnation, and exonerated and redeemed all infants, who up to that time had been subjected to the fury of Divine wrath, Zeke’s doctrine was unaltered. It glowed with undiminished fervor. He was a restless exponent of a vicious and cruel man-made dogma, which was as evil as the punishments it prescribed, and as futile as the rewards it promised.

To me Holy Zeke was an incarnation. His eyes and whiskers bespoke the flames of his theology, and his personality was suggestive of its place in modern thought. His battered plug hat was also Calvinistic. It looked like hades. It was indescribable. One edge of the rim had been scorched, and a rent in the side of the crown suggested the possibility of the escape of volcanic thought in that direction. Like his theology, he had picturesque quality.

If he had been a Mohammedan, his eyes would have had the same gleam, and he would have called the faithful to prayer from a minaret with the same fierce fervor as that with which he conjured up the eternal fires in Sipes’s shanty. Had not Calvinism obsessed him, his type of mind might have made him a murderous criminal and outlaw, who, with submarines and poison gas, would deny mercy to mankind, for there was no quality of mercy in those cruel orbs. They were the baleful eyes of the jungle, that coldly regard the chances of the kill. In Holy Zeke’s case the kill was the forcible snatching of the quarry from hell, not that he desired its salvation, but was anxious to deprive the devil of it. He had no idea of pointing a way to righteousness. There was no spiritual interest in the individual to be rescued. He was the devil’s implacable enemy, and it was purely a matter of successful attack upon the property of his foe. Predestination or preordination did not bother him. He made no distinctions. There was no escape for any human being whose belief differed from his; even the slightest variation from his infallible creed meant the bottomless pit.

Zeke had one redeeming quality. He was not a mercenary. No board of trustees paid him the wages of hypocrisy. He did not arch his brows and fingers and deliver carefully prepared eloquent addresses to the Creator, designed more for the ears of his listeners than for the throne above. He did not beseech the Almighty for private favors, or for money to pay a church debt. He regarded himself as a messenger of wrath, and considered that he was authorized to go forth and smite and curse anything and everything within his radius of action. This radius was restricted to the old derelicts who lived in the little driftwood shanties along the beach and among the sand-hills. There were but few of them, but the limited scope of Zeke’s labors enabled him to concentrate his power instead of diffusing and losing it in larger fields.

Zeke soon left our little party and followed a path up into the ravine. After his departure we built a fire of driftwood, sat around it on the sand, and discussed the “scourge.”

“I hate to see anythin’ that looks like a fire, after wot we’ve been up ag’inst tonight,” remarked Cal, as he threw on some more sticks, “but as ’e ain’t ’ere to chuck us in, I guess we’ll be safe if we don’t put on too much wood. Where d’ye s’pose ’e gits all that dope? I had a Bible once’t, but I didn’t see nothin’ like that in it. There was a place in it where some fellers got throwed in a fiery furnace an’ nothin’ happened to ’em at all, an’ there was another place where it said that the wicked ’ud have their part in hell fire, but I didn’t read all o’ the book an’ mebbe there’s a lot o’ hot stuff in it I missed. W’en did you fust see that ol’ cuss, John?”

Catfish John contemplated the fire for a while, shifted his quid of “natural leaf,” and relighted his pipe. He always said that he “couldn’t git no enjoyment out o’ tobacco without usin’ it both ways.”

“He come ’long by my place one day ’bout three years ago,” said the old man. “It was Sunday an’ ’e stopped an’ read some verses out of ’is Bible while I was workin’ on my boat. He said the Lord rested on the seventh day, an’ I’d go to hell if I didn’t stop work on the Sabbath. I told ’im that my boat would go to hell if I didn’t fix it, an’ they wasn’t no other day to do it. Then ’e gave me wot ’e called ‘tracks’ fer me to read an’ went on. The Almighty’s got some funny fellers workin’ fer ’im. This one’s got hell on the brain an’ ’e ought to stay out in the lake where it’s cool. Ev’ry little while ’e comes ’round an’ talks ’bout loaves an’ fishes, an’ sometimes I give ’im a fish, w’en I have a lot of ’em. He does the loaf part ’imself, fer sometimes ’e sticks ’round fer an hour or two. Then ’e tells me some more ’bout hell an’ goes off some’r’s, prob’ly to cook ’is fish.”

“Sipes must ’a’ come back. Let’s go over there,” suggested Saunders, as he called our attention to the glimmer of a light in the shanty.

As we approached the place the light was extinguished, and a voice called out, “Who’s there?”

After the identity of the party had been established, and the assurance given that Holy Zeke was not in it, the light reappeared and we were hospitably received.

“Wot did you fellers do with that hell-fire cuss?” demanded Sipes when we were all seated in the shanty. “Look wot’s ’ere!” and he picked up a small, greasy hymn book which the orator had forgotten in the excitement. Sipes handed me the book. I opened it at random and read:

“Not all the blood of beasts, on Jewish altars slain,
Can give the guilty conscience peace, or wash away the stain.”

“Gimme that!” yelled Sipes, and I heard the little volume strike the sand somewhere out in the dark near the water. “Wot d’ye s’pose I got this place fer if it ain’t to have peace an’ quiet ’ere, an’ wot’s this red-headed devil comin’ ’round ’ere fer an’ fussin’ me all up tell’n’ me where I’m goin’ w’en I die, w’en I don’t give a whoop where I go when I die. That feller’s bunk an’ don’t you fergit it, an’ ’e’s worse’n that, fer look ’ere wot I found in that basket where I had about two pounds o’ salt pork!”

He produced a piece of soiled and crumpled paper, on which were scrawled the following quotations: “Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcass shall ye not touch. They are unclean to you” (Leviticus 11:8). “Curséd shall be thy basket and thy store” (Deuteronomy 28:17).

“It’s all right fer ’im to cuss my basket if ’e wants to, but I ain’t got no store. I’ll bet ’e frisked that hunk o’ pork an’ chucked in them texts ’fore you fellers got ’ere an’ I got in off’n the lake. It was in ’is big coat pocket all the time he was makin’ that hot spiel, an’ that’s w’y ’e didn’t ’ave no room fer ’is hymn book. He’s swiped my food an’ I can’t fry them texts, an’ you fellers are all in on it fer I was goin’ to cook the pork an’ we’d all have sump’n to eat. He cert’nly spread hell ’round ’ere thick tonight. Some day he’ll be yellin’ fer ice all right. Who are them Leviticus an’ Deuteronomy fellers anyhow? They ain’t no friends o’ mine!

“I’m weary o’ that name o’ Zekiel-seven-nine he’s carryin’ ’round. ’E ought to have an eight spot in it, an’ with a six an’ a ten ’e’d ’ave a straight an’ it ’ud take a flush er a full house to beat ’im. I bet ’e’s a poker sharp, an’ ’e’s hidin’ from sump’n over ’ere, an’ ’e ain’t the fust one that’s done it. I seen ’im stewed once’t an’ ’e had a lovely still. He’d oozed in the juice over to the county seat an’ come over ’ere an’ felt bad about it in my shanty. He come up to the window w’en I was fixin’ my pipe an yelled, ‘Bow ye not down ’afore idols!’ I went out an’ hustled ’im in out o’ the wet. It was rainin’ pretty bad an’ ’e was soaked, but ’e said ’e didn’t care so long’s none of it didn’t git in ’is stummick. I dassent light a match near ’is breath.

“I had ’im ’ere two days, an’ ’e said he’d took sump’n by mistake, an’ ’e had. I had to keep givin’ ’im more air all the time. He drunk enough water the next mornin’ to put out a big fire an’ I guess ’e had one in ’im all right. After that ’e ast me if I had any whiskey, an’ w’en I told ’im I didn’t, ’e said ’e was glad of it, fer it was devil’s lure. He’d ’a’ stowed it if he’d got to it. I did ’ave a little an’ I guess now’s a good time to git it out, an’ I hope I don’t find no texts stuck in the jug. We all need bracin’ up, so ’ere goes! That feller’s a blankety-blankety-blank—blank-blank, an’ besides that ’e’s got other faults!”

It seems a pity to have to expurgate Sipes’s original and ornate profanity from his discourses, but common decency requires it. The old man left the shanty with a lantern and shovel. A few minutes later we saw his light at the edge of the lake where he was washing the sand from the outside of his jug. Evidently it had been buried treasure.

“I’ve et an’ drunk so much sand since I been livin’ ’ere on this beach that my throat’s all wore out an’ full o’ little holes, an’ I ain’t goin’ to swaller no more’n I c’n help after this,” he remarked, as he came in and hung the lantern on its hook in the ceiling; “now you fellers drink hearty.”

At this juncture a wailing sepulchral voice, loud and deep, came out of the darkness in the distance.

“Beware! Beware! Beware! In the earth have ye found damnation!”

“There ’e is!” yelled Sipes, as he leaped across the floor for his scatter-gun. He ran out with it and was gone for some time. He returned with an expression of disgust on his weather-beaten face. “I’ll wing that cuss some night ’fore the snow falls,” he remarked, as he resumed his seat. “We’d better soak up all this booze tonight fer it won’t be safe in any o’ the ground ’round ’ere any more. Gosh! but this is a fine country to live in!”

The party broke up quite late. Happy Cal had imbibed rather freely. Catfish John had been more temperate, and thought he had “better go ’long with Cal,” and it seemed better that he should. As they went away I could hear Cal entertaining John with snatches of some old air about “wine, women, an’ song.” They stopped a while at the margin of the lake, where the wet sand made the walking better, and Cal affectionately assured John of his eternal devotion. They then disappeared.

I bade Sipes and his old shipmate good-night, and left them alone with the demon in the jug. There was very little chance of any of it ever falling into the hands of “the scourge,” who was evidently lurking in the vicinity.

The glory of the full moon over the lake caused Sipes to remark that “ev’rythin’s full tonight,” as he followed me out to bid me another good-by. After I left I could hear noisy vocalism in the shanty. The words, which were sung over and over, were:

“Comrades, comrades, ever since we was boys,—
Sharing each other’s sorrows, sharing each other’s joys.”

After each repetition there would be boisterous, rhythmic pounding of heavy boots on the wooden floor.

While the song was in many keys, and was technically open to much criticism, it was evidently sincere. The old shipmates were happy, and, after all, besides happiness, how much is there in the world really worth striving for?

I walked along the beach for a couple of miles to my temporary quarters in the dunes, and the stirring events of the evening furnished much food for reflection. I was interested in the advent of Bill Saunders, concerning whom I had heard so much from Sipes. Bill was a good deal of a mystery. He had “showed up” a few days before in response to a letter which Sipes told me he had “put in pustoffice fer ’im.” He may at some time have lived on the “unknown island in the South Pacific” that Sipes told me about, where he and Bill had been wrecked, and Bill had “married into the royal family several times,” but evidently he had deserted his black and tan household. For at least two years he had been living over on the river. Sipes explained that he stayed there “so as to be unbeknown.” For some reason which I did not learn, he and Sipes considered it advisable for him to “keep dark” for a while. The trouble, whatever it was, had evidently blown over, and Bill had returned to the sand-hills.

There was a rudely painted sign on the shanty a few days later, which read:

$IPE$ & $AUNDER$—FRE$H FI$H

“It might ’a’ been Saunders & Sipes,” said the old man to me, confidentially, “but I think Sipes & Saunders sounds more dignified like, don’t you? We got ‘fresh fish’ on the sign so’s people won’t git ’em mixed up with the kind o’ fish John peddles. Them fish are fresh w’en John gits ’em ’ere, but after ’e’s ’ad ’em ’round a while there’s invisible bein’s gits into ’em out o’ the air, an’ you c’n smell ’em a mile. W’en they git to be candydates fer ’is smoke-house their ol’ friends wouldn’t know ’em, an’ I put them up an’ down lines in them S’s in them names so’s to make the sign look like cash money.”

Several days later I discovered that my tent had been visited during my absence. Outside, pinned to the flap, was a piece of paper on which was written:

“All ye who smoke or chew the filthy weed shall be damned.”

“The breath of hell, an angry breath,
Supplies and fans the fire,
When smokers taste the second death
And shriek and howl, but can’t expire.”

Inside, on the cot, were several tracts containing extracts from sermons on hell by an old ranter of early New England days, setting forth the practical impossibility of anybody ever escaping it.

I examined the literature with interest and amusement. Some of the more virulent paragraphs were marked for my benefit.

I looked out over the landscape, with its glorious autumn coloring, to the expanse of turquoise waters beyond, and wondered if, above the fleecy clouds and the infinite blue of the heavens, there was an Omnipotent monstrosity Who gloried in the torture of what He created, and brought forth life that He might wreak vengeance upon it. Ignorance, fear, and superstition have led men into strange paths. It may be that our philosophy will finally lead us back to the beginning, and teach us that we are humble, wondering children who do not understand, and that there is a border land beyond which we may not go.

I met the firm of Sipes & Saunders on the beach one morning, on their way to Catfish John’s place, which was about four miles from their shanty. John’s abode was on a low bluff, and on the beach near it, about a hundred feet from the lake, was the little structure in which he smoked what Sipes called “them much-deceased fish” which he had failed to sell. His peddling trips were made through the back country with a queer little wagon and a rheumatic horse, that bore the name of “Napoleon” with his other troubles. Some of the fish were from his own nets, but most of his supplies were obtained from Sipes on a consignment basis.

At the earnest solicitation of the old mariners, I turned back and went with them to call on John. Sipes said that I “had better come along fer there’s goin’ to be sump’n doin’.”

We found the old man out on the sand repairing his gill-nets.

“Wot ’ave I done that I should be descended on like this?” he asked jocularly, as we came up. “You fellers must be lookin’ fer trouble, fer Zeke’s comin’ ’ere this mornin’ fer a fish that I told ’im ’e could ’ave if I got any.

“I figgered it all out,” said Sipes, “cause Bill heard you tell ’im you was goin’ to lift the nets Sunday, an’ I seen you out’n the lake with the spotter, an’ as Bill an’ me’s got some business with Zeke, we thought we’d drop ’round.”

Sipes’s “spotter” was an old spy glass, which he declared “had been on salt water.” Through a small hole in the side of his shanty he could sweep the curving shore for several miles with the rickety instrument.

I walked over to the smoke-house with the party and inspected it with much interest. The smoke supply came from a dilapidated old stove on the sand from which a rusty pipe entered the side of the structure. The smoke escaped slowly through various cracks in the roof, which provided a light draft for the fire.

“That smoke gits a lot of experience in this place ’fore it goes out through them cracks,” remarked Sipes, as he opened the door and peered inside. “I don’t blame it fer leavin’. Can ye lock this door tight, John?”

I curiously awaited further developments.

It was not long before we saw Zeke plodding toward us on the sand.

“Now don’t you fellers say nothin’. You jest set ’round careless like, an’ let me do the talkin’,” cautioned Sipes, as he filled his pipe. With an expressive closing of his single eye, he turned to me confidentially and said with a chuckle, “We’re goin’ to fumigate Zeke.”

There was a look of quiet determination in his face, and guile in his smile as he contemplated the approaching visitor.

“Hello, Zeke!” he called out, as soon as that frowsy individual was within hailing distance, “wot’s the news from hell this fine mornin’?”

We smiled at Sipes’s sally. Zeke looked at us solemnly, and in deep impressive tones replied: “Verily, them that laughs at sin, laughs w’en their Maker frowns, laughs with the sword o’ vengeance over their heads.”

“Oh, come on, Zeke, cut that out,” said Sipes, “an’ let’s go in an’ see the big sturgeon wot John got this mornin’. It’s ’ere in the smoke-house.” Sipes led the way to the door and opened it. Zeke peeked in cautiously.

“It’s over in that big box with them other fish near the wall,” said Sipes. Zeke stepped inside. Sipes instantly closed the door and sprung the padlock that secured it. He then ran around to the stove and lighted the fuel with which it was stuffed.

An angry roar came from the interior, as we departed. After we reached the damp sand on the shore, Sipes joyfully exclaimed, “Verily we’ll now ’ave to git a new scourge, fer this one’s up ag’inst damnation!”

While John had passively acquiesced in the proceedings, I knew that he did not intend to allow Sipes’s escapade to go too far, so I did not worry about Zeke.

As we walked down the shore, Sipes and Bill turned frequently to look at the softly ascending wreaths from the roof with much glee.

“That coop’s never ’ad nothin’ wuss in it than it’s got now,” declared Sipes. “That ol’ bunch o’ whiskers ’as got wot’s comin’ to ’im this time, an’ I wish I’d stuck John’s rubber boots in that stove, but, honest, I fergot it.”

We had gone quite a distance when I turned and discerned a retreating form far beyond the smoke-house close to the bluff. One side of the structure was wrecked, and it was evident that the “scourge” had broken through and escaped. I said nothing, as I did not want to mar the pleasure of the old shipmates. To them it was “the end of a perfect day.”

A little further on I left them and turned into the dunes. As they waved farewell, Sipes called out cheerily, “You c’n travel anywheres ’round ’ere now without git’n’ burnt!”

Later, from far away over the sands, I could faintly hear:

“Shipmates, shipmates, ever since we was boys—
Sharing each other’s sorrows, sharing each other’s joys!”

One night I encased myself in storm-defying raiment and went down to the shore to contemplate a drama that was being enacted in the skies.

Swiftly moving battalions of stygian clouds were illuminated by almost continuous flashes of lightning. Heavy peals of thunder rolled through the convoluted masses, and reverberated along the horizon. The wind-driven rain came in thin sheets that mingled with the flying spray from the waves that swept the beach. The sublimity of the storm was soul stirring and inspiring. I plodded for half a mile or so along the surf-washed sand to the foot of a bluff on which were a few old pines, to see the effect of the gnarled branches against the lightning-charged clouds.

A brilliant flash revealed a silhouetted figure with gesticulating arms. It was Holy Zeke. His battered plug was jammed down over the back of his head, and his long coat tails were flapping in the gale. The apparition was grotesque and startling, but seemed naturally to take its place in the wild pageant of the elements. It added a note of human interest that seemed strangely harmonious.

I did not wish to intrude on him, or allow him to interfere with my enjoyment of the storm, but passed near enough to hear his resonant voice above the roar of the wind.

He was in his element. He had sought a height from which he could behold the scourging of the earth, and pour forth imprecations on imaginary multitudes of heretics and unbelievers. With fanatic fervor he was calling down curses upon a world of hopeless sin. Hatred of human kind was exhaled from his poisoned soul amid the fury of the storm.

To his disordered imagination, any unusual manifestation of nature’s forces was an expression of Divine wrath. Condemnation was now coming out of the black vault above him, and the vengeance of an incensed Diety was being heralded from on high. Unregenerate sinners and rejectors of Zeke’s creed were in the hands of an angry God. The scroll of earth’s infamy was being unrolled out of the clouds. “The seventh vial” was being poured out, and the hour of final damnation was at hand.

In the armor of his infallible orthodoxy, like Ajax, he stood unafraid before the lurid shafts. Serene in his exclusive holiness he was immune from the fiery pit and the shambles of the damned, and gloried in the coming destruction of all those unblessed with his faultless dogma.

The storm was increasing in violence, and I had started to return. After going some distance I turned for a final view of Zeke, and it was unexpectedly dramatic.

There was a sudden dazzling glare, and a deafening crash. A tall tree, not far from where he stood, was shattered into fragments. The shock was terrific. He was gone when a succeeding flash lighted the scene. Fearing that the old man might have met fatality, or at least have been badly injured, I hurried back and climbed the steep path that led to the top of the promontory from the ravine beyond it. Careful search, with the aid of an electric pocket light and the lightning flashes, failed to reveal any traces of the old fanatic, and it was safe to assume that he had retreated in good order from surroundings that he had reluctantly decided were untenable.

The bolt that struck the tree was charged with an obvious moral that was probably lost on the fugitive.

The old shipmates were much interested when they heard the tale of the night’s adventure.

“That ol’ cuss’ll git his, sometime, good an’ plenty,” observed Sipes. “Sump’n took a pot shot at Zeke an’ made a bad score. It would ’a’ helped some if the lightnin’ ’ad only got that ol’ hat o’ his. Prob’ly it’s been hit before. Zeke ’ad better look out. He’s been talkin’ too much ’bout them things. It’s too bad fer a nice tree like that to git all busted up. No feller with a two-gallon hat an’ red whiskers ever oughta buzz ’round in a thunder storm.”

John was quite philosophical about Zeke.

“He ought to learn to stay in w’en it’s wet. His kind o’ relig’n don’t mix with water, an’ some night ’e’ll go out in a storm like that an’ ’e won’t come back. He was ’round ’ere this mornin’ tell’n me ’bout the signs o’ the times an’ heav’nly fires.

“Them ol’ fellers hadn’t ought to fuss so much ’bout ’im. They come up ’ere the day after they smoked ’im, an’ fixed my smoke-house all up fer me. They said thar was too many cracks ’round in it, an’ the boards ’round the sides was all too thin. They got some heavy boards an’ big nails an’ they done a good job. They said they’d fixed it so it ’ud hold a grizzly b’ar if I wanted to keep one, an’ I was glad they come up.

“When Zeke broke through ’e didn’t fergit ’is fish. He took the biggest one thar was in the box. When ’e went off ’e was yell’n sump’n ’bout them that stoned an’ mocked the prophets, an’ sump’n ’bout a feller named Elijah, that was goin’ up in a big wind in a chair o’ fire, but I didn’t hear all of it, fer ’e was excited. Zeke’s a poor ol’ feller. It’s all right fer ’em to cuss ’im, fer ’e gives it to ’em pretty hard w’en ’e gits down thar, but that don’t do no harm. They ain’t no nearer hell than they’d be without Zeke tell’n ’em ’bout it all the time. He’s part o’ the people what’s ’round us, an’ we ought to git ’long with ’im. I’ll alw’ys give ’im a fish when ’e’s hungry, even if ’e does think I’m goin’ to hell.”

VII
THE LOVE AFFAIR OF HAPPY CAL AND ELVIREY SMETTERS

Mrs Elvirey Smetters

VII
THE LOVE AFFAIR OF HAPPY CAL AND ELVIREY SMETTERS

“Happy Cal” had been a member of the widely scattered colony of derelicts along the wild coast for many years; in fact, he was its beginning, for when he came through the sand-hills and gathered the driftwood to build his humble dwelling, there were no human neighbors.

The circling gulls, the crows, and the big blue herons that stalked along the wave-washed beach looked curiously at the intruder into their solitudes. The blue-jays scolded boisterously, and many pairs of concealed eyes peered at him slyly from tangled masses of tree roots that lay denuded upon the slopes of the wind-swept dunes.

Nature’s slow and orderly processes of generation and decay were now to be disturbed by a new element, for man, who changes, destroys, and makes ugly the fair world he looks upon, had entered these sanctuaries. The furred and feathered things instinctively resented the advent of the despoiler. They heard strange noises as rusty nails were pounded, and odd pieces of gray, smooth wood were fashioned into the queer-looking structure that obtruded itself among the undulations of the sand.

Happy Cal was human wreckage. He had been thrown upon this desolate shore by the cruel forces of a social system which he was unable to combat. They had cast him aside and he had sought isolation. As he expressed it, “there was too much goin’ on.”

Cal’s stories of his early life, and his final escape from a heartless world, incited derisive comment from his friend Sipes.

On still, cool days the smoke ascended softly from Cal’s shanty, and my sketching was often neglected for an hour or two with its interesting occupant.

He sometimes prowled around through the country back of the dunes at night, and the necessaries for his rude housekeeping were collected gradually. His age was difficult to guess; perhaps he looked older than he was. His lustreless eyes, weather-beaten face, grizzled unkempt beard, and rough hands, carried the story of a struggle on the raw edges of life.

While he said that he had “been up ag’inst it,” he seemed now comparatively contented. His interests were few, but they filled his days, and, as he expressed it, he “didn’t need nothin’ to think about nights.” Sipes claimed, however, that “Cal done all ’s thinkin’ at night, if ’e done any, fer ’e don’t never do none in the daytime.”

Sipes and Cal met occasionally. With the exception of a few serious misunderstandings, which were always eventually patched up, they got along very well with each other. Sipes’s attitude, while generally friendly, was not very charitable. He was disposed to comment caustically upon the many flaws he found in Cal, who, he believed, was destined for a hot hereafter. It is only fair to Cal to say that Sipes did not know of anybody in the dune country who would not have a hot hereafter, except his friend “Catfish John,” and his old shipmate, Bill Saunders, who lived with him, and with whom, in early life, he had sailed many stormy seas. He transacted his fish business with John, and was very fond of him. He once remarked that, “Old John don’t never wash, an’ ’e smells pretty fishy, but you bet ’e treats me all right, an’ wot’s the difference? I c’n always stay to wind’ard if I want to.”

Mrs. Elvirey Smetters lived over in the back country, on the road that led from the sleepy village to the marshy strip, and through it over into the dunes, where it was finally lost in the sand. It was a township line road and was seldom used for traffic. Travellers on it usually walked. The house, which had once been painted white, with green blinds, was rather shabby. Two tall evergreens stood in the front yard. In the carefully kept flower-beds along the fence the geraniums, cockscombs, marigolds, and verbenas bloomed gorgeously. They were constantly refreshed from the wooden pump near the back door. A smooth path led from the front gate, flanked with a luxurious growth of myrtle.

I pulled the brown bell handle one morning with a view of buying one of the young ducks which were waddling and quacking about the yard. I was going over to visit my old friend Sipes and intended it as a present for his Sunday dinner.

Mrs. Smetters, whom I had often met, opened the door. She wiped her face with her apron, and was profuse with her apologies for the appearance of everything. She explained at length the various causes that had brought about the disorderly conditions, which I must know would be different if so and so, and so and so, and so and so.

She was tall, muscular, of many angles, red-headed, and freckled. The pupils of the piercing eyes behind the brass-rimmed spectacles had a reddish tinge, and her square, protruding chin suggested anything but domestic docility. It was such a chin that took Napoleon over the Alps, and Cæsar into Gaul.

She had buried three husbands. They were resting, as Sipes said, “fer the fust time in their lives,” in the church-yard beyond the village, where flowers from the little garden were often laid upon the mounds.

A village gossip had said that Mrs. Smetters would sometimes return to the mounds, after she had left them, and transfer a bunch of geraniums from one to another, and once, she had cleaned off two of them and piled all of the offerings over the one near the tree. Sometimes the others would have all of the geraniums. The gossips could see these things, but they could not look into the secret chambers of Elvirey Smetters’s heart.

On the walls of such chambers are recorded something that is never told. Thoughtful deeds, tender looks of sympathy and understanding, and years devoted, leave their traces there. With a thread of gossamer, memory leads us gently to them, and out into the world again, where we carry flowers to silent places. The strongest sometimes become the weakest, but who knows if such weakness is not the strength of the mighty?

Time had softened the sorrows of Elvirey Smetters. Little wrinkles were beginning to tell the story of her passing years, for she was nearly sixty, and a sense of life’s futility was creeping over her. She felt the need of new environment and new sensations.

“Now before you begin talkin’ about any duck you want to buy,” said Mrs. Smetters, after the object of the visit was explained, “I want to know if you’ve seen anythin’ o’ Cal. I ain’t seen ’im fer a month, an’ if you run across ’im, I want you to tell ’im I’m sick, an’ ’e better come an’ see how I am. I’ll make you a present o’ that duck if you’ll just walk in on ’im an’ tell ’im sump’n that don’t look like it come from me, that’ll make ’im come over ’ere. You needn’t let on that I want to see ’im, but you fix it somehow so’s ’e’ll come.”

I solemnly promised to do this, but insisted upon settling for the duck, which was soon dressed and wrapped in an old copy of The Weekly Clarion, which was published at the county seat.

“Now you be careful an’ not let ’im know I said a word about ’im,” was her parting injunction at the gate, “but you git ’im ’ere, an’ don’t say nothin’ to Sipes either!”

She was assured that great care would be exercised.

During the walk through the dunes I mused upon the wiles of Mrs. Smetters’s sex, and reflected upon the futility of any attempt to escape them, when they are practiced by an adept upon an average man. It is a world-old story—as old as the Garden of Eden. The lure of the feminine rules the earth, and it is a part of the scheme of things that it should be so. The female of all breathing creatures controls the wooing—from the lady-bug to Elvirey Smetters. However masculine vanity may seek to disguise it, the wooer is as clay in the hands of the potter. The meditations of some of the world’s greatest men have been devoted to the complexities of female human nature, and during these meditations they have often married.

Along toward noon the duck was turned over to Sipes in front of his shanty. He was greatly pleased. It varied the monotony of small gifts of tobacco and cigars which usually reciprocated his many hospitalities.

“Elvirey’s got a lot o’ them birds,” he remarked, “an’ I was goin’ over some night to persuade one of ’em to come to my shanty. If she wasn’t a woman, they’d all been gone long ago. I hear ’em spatterin’ in the ditch ev’ry time I go by, an’ I often think, s’posen them lily-white ducks b’longed to some o’ them fellers that set ’round the village store, wot would I do?”

I inquired if he had seen anything of Cal lately.

“Cal’s snoopin’ ’round ’is coop right now. You c’n see ’im with the spotter,” said the old man, as he brought out his rickety old brass spy-glass. Through it I could just make out a figure moving about on the sand near the distant shanty.

I left the old mariner, intending to come out of the dunes near Cal’s place sometime during the afternoon, being really anxious to accommodate Mrs. Smetters.

In the course of time I reached Cal’s shanty and found him sharpening a knife near the door. We shook hands and, after discussing various matters of mutual interest, I mentioned the call on Mrs. Smetters for the purpose of buying a duck for Sipes.

“W’y didn’t you git me a duck too if you was git’n one fer him?” he asked rather peevishly. He was placated with a cigar and the explanation that I had not expected to see him on this trip. He betrayed no curiosity at the mention of Mrs. Smetters. I tried again, and told him that I had had a long talk with her and she did not look as though she was very well; she appeared sad, and seemed ill. At this he began to show interest.

“Wot d’ye s’pose is the matter with ’er? W’y don’t she eat some catnip if she’s sick?”

I replied that probably she found it rather lonely since her last husband died.

“Say, d’ye know wot I think I’ll do? I’ll go over there tomorrer an’ take ’er some fresh fish, an’ mebbe she’ll gimme a duck. I ain’t seen ’er fer a long time.”

Having approved of his suggestion, and realizing that the mission had been accomplished, I departed after we had talked of other things for a while. Visits to Cal were always enjoyable, although his reminiscences were to be accepted with a grain of salt. His logic, morals, and language were bad, but his narratives had the charm of originality, and he never failed to be entertaining. Naturally, I was curious as to the outcome of the projected call on Mrs. Smetters, but not being concerned in further developments, I dismissed it from my mind. Interest was quickly revived on meeting Sipes a month later.

“Say, wot d’ye think’s happened?” exclaimed the old man. “Elvirey’s snared Cal good an’ plenty. That ol’ cuss has been up to see ’er a dozen times in the last two weeks. Bill an’ me’s been watchin’ ’em with the spotter from up yonder in them trees on top o’ that big dune where we c’n see ’er house. Say, you’d laugh yerself sick. Gener’ly ’e sneaks ’round an’ goes along the edge o’ the marsh over back o’ here, so’s ’e won’t ’ave to go by our place. Last night ’e come by with a collar on. His whiskers was combed an’ so was ’is hair. He was all lit up an’ reminded Bill an’ me o’ that hiker we found walkin’ on the beach once’t that we piloted off a couple o’ miles to show ’im where we told ’im ’e could cetch some mock-turtles. Bill’s up there with the spotter watchin’ now. We call that place the masthead.”

Far away I could see the glint of the spy-glass, and could dimly make out the figure of the lone sentinel in his eyry upon the height. He was ensconced in a mass of gnarled and tangled roots which the wind-blown sand had left bare on the distant hilltop.