Cover

THE CASSOWARY

"I HAVE BEEN NARROW," SAID THE MINISTER

THE CASSOWARY

What Chanced in the Cleft Mountains

BY STANLEY WATERLOO

Author of "The Story of Ab,"
"The Seekers,"
"The Wolf's Long Howl,"
"The Story of a Strange Career,"
Etc., Etc.

PUBLISHERS

MONARCH BOOK COMPANY

CHICAGO

COPYRIGHT 1906 BY
MONARCH BOOK COMPANY
CHICAGO

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE CASSOWARY

CHAPTER I

WHAT CHANCED IN THE CLEFT MOUNTAINS

The blizzard snorted and raged at midnight up the narrow pass west of Pike's Peak, at the bottom of which lay the railroad track, and with this tumult of the elements the snow was falling in masses which were caught up and tossed about in the gale until the air was but a white, swirling, yeasty mass through which nothing could be seen a yard away. The canyon was filling rapidly and the awful storm showed no sign of abatement. The passage was not of the narrowest at the place to which this description refers. The railroad builders had done good work in what had been little more than a gorge. They had blasted and carried away after the manner of man who, if resolute enough, must find the way. He may sweat for it; he may freeze for it, but he attains his end, as he did in forcing a passage through the vainglorious labyrinths of the Rockies. So, he had made a road between the towering heights of the Cleft Mountains. He had done well, but he had left a way so indefensible that indecent Nature, seeking reprisals, might do almost anything there in winter. Just now, with the accompanying war-whoop of the roaring blast, she was building up an enormous buttress across the King's Highway. The canyon was filled to the depth of many feet, and the buttress was growing higher every moment.

And, plunging forward from the West toward this buttress of snow, now came tearing ahead boisterously the trans-continental train from San Francisco. Its crew had hoped to get through the pass while yet the thing was possible. On it came at full speed, the big train, with all its great weight and tremendous force of impact, and plunged, like a bull with lowered horns, into the uplifting mountain of snow. It tore its way forward, resistlessly at first, then more slowly, and slower still, until, at last, it stopped quiveringly. But it was not beaten yet. Back it went hundreds of yards and hurled itself a second time into the growing drift. It made a slight advance, and that was all. Again and again it charged, but it was useless. Nature had won! Paralyzed and inefficient, the train lay still.

Then to the wild clamor of the storm was added another note. The whistle screamed like a woman. Why it should be sounded at all none but the engineer could tell—perhaps it was the instinct of a railroad man to sound the whistle anywhere in an emergency. Speaking the voice of the train, its cry seemed to be, at first, one of alarm and protest, then, as the hand on the throttle wavered, one of pleading, until, finally, beaten and discouraged, it sank sobbingly into silence, awaiting that first aid for the wounded in the case of railroad trains—the telegraph.

Upon the trains which must adventure the passes of the Rocky Mountains in winter are carried all the means for wire-tapping, that communication may be had with the outside world on any occasion of disaster at a distance from a station, the climbing spikes, the cutters, tweezers and leather gloves, and all the kit of a professional line repairer. Ordinarily, too, some one of the train crew, or a professional telegrapher, in times of special apprehension is prepared to do the work of the emergency. This particular train had all the necessary kit, but, to the alarm of the conductor and engineer and all the train crew, it was discovered, after they had met in hurried consultation, that while they had the means, they lacked the man. What was to be done? They must reach the outside world somehow; they must reach Belden, whence must come the relief train headed by the huge snow-plow which would eventually release them. The conductor was a man of action: "It may be," he said, "it may be that there is some one on the train who can do the job. It's a mighty doubtful thing, but I'll find out."

He was a big, red-faced, heavy-moustached man, with a big voice, and he started promptly on his way, bellowing through each car:

"Is there anybody here who can cut in on a wire, and telegraph? Is there anybody here who can cut in on a wire, and telegraph?"

The strident call aroused everybody as he passed along, but response was lacking. He became discouraged. As he reached the drawing-room car he was tempted to abandon the idea. He hesitated, unwilling to disturb the sleepers in—or rather the occupants of the berths, for the general tumult outside had awakened them—but pulled himself together and kept on. He entered the car roaringly as he had the others:

"Is there anybody here who can cut in on a wire, and telegraph? Is there anybody here who can cut in on a wire, and telegraph?"

The curtains of one of the berths were drawn apart, and a head appeared, the head of a man of about forty years of age with clean-cut features, distinctly those of a gentleman. There was force in the aquiline nose and the strong jaw, but the voice was gentle enough when he spoke:

"I might do it, possibly. What's the matter? Stalled?"

The conductor was astounded. The drawing-room car was the last place from which he had expected or hoped assistance, but he answered promptly:

"Yes, sir," he said, "we are in a bad way, half buried in a snow mountain. We've got to reach Belden by wire, but we've no one to make the connection and send the message. If you can help us it will be a great thing. I hate to ask you. It's going to be an awful job."

"Have you got the tools?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I'll try it."

John Stafford dressed hurriedly. He emerged, a straight, broad-shouldered man, possessed apparently of exceptional strength and vigor, qualities soon to be tested to the utmost. He went forward with the conductor to the car at the front, in which the trainmen were assembled. He equipped himself for the work, then, lamp in hand, he stepped out upon the platform and looked about him. He could see nothing.

He was enclosed between walls of white, the substance of which was revolving, curling and twisting uncannily. What seemed almost the impenetrable was beside him. All vision was cut off. There was but the mystery of the filled canyon. And he must venture out into that sinister, invisible space, find a telegraph pole and climb it and cut the wire and talk with Belden! The thing was appalling.

But a resolute and courageous man was John Stafford, civil engineer, and he had been building railroads in Siberia. He gave swift directions to the trainmen:

"Get together and light all the lamps you have and bring them here," he ordered; "set some of them in this window and hang some of them against it. I want the brightest beacon I can have. Keep the glass of the window clean and clear, inside and outside." Then, with a coil of wire about him, and lamp in hand, he stepped out into that wicked vastness.

He plunged into snow up to his neck. He realized now more than ever what was the task he had undertaken. He stamped to clear as well as he could a little space about him and took his bearings. Practical railroad man, he had reasoned out his course. He had with him a pocket compass and upon this alone he relied. He knew the distance from the track to the telegraph line and knew that by going just so many yards north and then going directly east or west he would reach a pole. But the distance he could only estimate, and who could accomplish that feat with any degree of accuracy under such conditions?

Then began a fight which must remain a desperate memory with the man forever.

Straight north he began his way, plowing, digging, almost burrowing. It was fearful work, body-distressing, soul-trying. To acquire an added yard in his progress was a task. Cold as it was, he was perspiring violently in no time. The snow had begun to pack, and in the slight depressions, where it was deepest, he had even to heave his chest against it to force his way. His feet became clogged and heavy. But he floundered on. He became angry over it all. He would not be beaten! At last, as he estimated, he reached a point which must lie somewhere in the line between poles, but he was not sure. He could not judge of distance, in such a struggle. He lay down in the snow and drew long breaths and rested until the cold, checking the welling perspiration, warned him that, if he would live, he must work again.

Straight east by the compass he started, and there was renewed the same fierce, exhausting struggle, but this time maintained much longer. He kept it up until he knew he must have compassed more than half the distance—all that was required—between two poles, but he could not find one. The situation was becoming desperate. The lamp gave light for only a yard ahead, no more, because of the wall of falling snow. Back and forth he went, almost exhausted now, his heart thumping, his breath exhausted. And then, just as he was about to lie down again to a rest which would have been more than dangerous, he stumbled upon a telegraph pole. It was but fortune.

Stafford's strength returned with the finding of the pole. He would at least accomplish what he sought to do! He rested long against the pole and then began the ascent. Everything was easy now. The work in hand was nothing compared with the battle in the drift. He cut in on the wire, made the connection, talked with Belden and got assurance of instant gathering of every force at command there for the rescue. The relief train would start at once. There is sympathy and understanding and swift aid where they have learned to know the perils of the passes.

Stafford came down the pole at ease. Everything was all right now. All he had to do was to go back to the train and rest. He would follow his back track. He looked for it, but there was no back track! The densely falling snow had obliterated it completely. He fell back upon the compass again, and all the desperate work was but repeated. He was becoming faint and thoroughly exhausted now. He looked for the beacon light in the window but he might as well have tried to look through a stone wall. He feared his case was hopeless, but he did not flinch nor lose his courage. He sat down in the snow, unable for the moment to go further, and shouted with all the force of which his strained lungs were capable, but, at first, with no result. At last he thought he heard an answering call, and later he was assured of it. That revived him. He got upon his feet again and stumbled forward, following the direction of the sound. Two forms appeared beside him suddenly. They were those of the conductor and engineer. He was taken by each arm, and, staggering between the two, was lifted into the car. He was approaching a state of entire collapse, but brandy stimulated him into ability to tell of what he had accomplished. The trainmen were more than grateful. They removed his outer clothing, and, half-carrying him to his berth, left him there enveloped in a warm blanket. He was oblivious to all things in a moment, sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion.

CHAPTER II

A MAN

Weary of fighting off thoughts, tired with the insistent intrusions of memory, John Stafford, who had awakened refreshed and himself again, leaned back in his seat and gave himself up to the bitter-sweet of the home-coming after long absence. Landing from the steamer in San Francisco, Stafford had still felt himself to be in a strange country, though the people proclaimed themselves Americans of the Americans in every look and turn and voice. But the blue sky and the blue bay, the mountains and the outdoor life of the people, gave Stafford still the feeling that he was yet in a foreign land, as he had been for five years or more.

He had not counted the time from the first six weeks after his departure from America.

Across mountains, deserts, prairies, plains and rolling hills with peopled cities in their sheltering folds, Stafford held his way toward the East. He hardly knew his destination. To New York, or to stop to the central whirlpool of life in America where goes most of what is from the West toward the outer edges of the roaring market place of the Indian name, built where the sluggish river flows, juggled by the hand of man out of the great inland Sea of Michigan into the Mississippi Valley, where it originally belonged. To one of the two cities he was indifferently bound.

Now, with eyes closed, and lips firmly and perhaps grimly set, Stafford looked the past in the face, and speculated as to the future. To him it was all undetermined. He could give it no continuous thought, for the past kept haunting him, as it had, more and more, with every mile on the way from the Pacific Coast.

His had been one of the tragedies of life and love. A strong man, upright, conscientious, brilliant and familiar with social risks, he had yet fallen in love with a married woman, the wife of a brute, an animal unsuited to her in every way, but still the wife.

It had been a love as wonderful as it was blameless. The two had met, and had involuntarily, by the mere force of a natural gravitation, been drawn toward each other, and, since they fitted, the inevitable had taken place. The very fibres of their souls had intertwined. It was the story, old as time, of love barred by the law which men have made for good, a story the material for which exists in all lands and among all races, in all climates and under all conditions, whether it be where gather the softest of the lazy mists which float beneath the palms of the Equator or as near the North Pole as the musk ox browses. The woman unrighteously married and the man unmarried—or the reverse—will come together. Like wire of gold through armorer's bronze, a perfect cloisonné, will come, sometimes, the close relationship. And, where is the fault of loving involuntarily, helplessly, but sinning not at all? Nature is God's and has her paths, and Love is but the index finger of the two.

But John Stafford and Mary Eversham were not of the sort to violate the conscience by yielding to fond desire. The right was first with this splendid man and woman. One sweet privilege they allowed themselves, that of a full confession to each other of all that was in their hearts, and then they separated, he to seek in Russia such forgetfulness as strenuous work might bring, she to bear patiently the weight of a barren life. Now he had fought his fight in the frigid Northern Orient, and had returned, a winning American, but objectless and restless.

The man musing there gloomily at last aroused himself: "I'll think no more," he muttered; "I'll exhibit a little common sense;" and he devoted his attention to what was going on about him.

The storm had passed. As morning neared, it lessened somewhat in its force, and when daylight came, opaque and dim, it ended suddenly. The blizzard groaned and then dropped into nothingness.

It was a curious and impressive sight which was afforded those on the train as they streamed out and massed themselves upon the platforms—for those in the sleepers dressed hurriedly and came out only a little later than the occupants of the other cars, who had slight dressing to do—and it was a sight in no degree encouraging. About them was but an endless reach of dead, unenlivened dreary white, the dull white of a tombstone, and they knew that they were the helpless prisoners of this solitude. They were appalled. It affected them all, though differently, according to their character.

Food for days they had, certainly, and heat for the present. This was on the credit side. On the other side were a variety of threatening possibilities. Weak people have died in snowbound trains. Should they be imprisoned for long there would be no heat, and the cold in the mountains is something that seeks the very marrow. Such cold they might have to endure. Some one spoke shudderingly of a singular death caused by this bitter enemy in a train stalled years before not far from the place where they were now almost entombed, for the canyons in the rear were filled by this time and by no possibility could the train be moved in one direction or another. The story was that of the death of a wonderful little personage who, though nearly thirty years of age, was only thirty inches in height, most famous of dwarfs, the Mexican woman, Lucia Zerete. Wrap her warmly as they would, they could not save her. The frost permeated her slight body and she died upon the unheated train. The allusion brought a shudder. That awful frost in the air seeks all humanity within its limits, and then, for the more fragile, the world may no longer be going round.

The sky lightened gradually, and toward noon the clouds broke so that the sun shone for a brief space, but there came no real brightness. The sun did his best, but it was little. He was trying to send his rays to the depths of the canyon, but was not succeeding very well. He is admirable at straight work, this luminary who gives us heat and light and life—but when it comes to giving quality to rays which have to be again reflected, he is only moderately efficient. The sides of the canyon laughed at him. "You may lighten and heat our enclosed depths somewhat," they said, "but you cannot give to the canyon the real sunshine. You may be lord of our solar system, but we upheaving rocks of this particular region of this particular planet can temper your force beyond all reason!"

Incidents enough were occurring in Stafford's car. The porter, apparently a white man, and a blonde, was just ushering in a forlorn company of wayside travelers, and gave them seats in the vacant places, of which there were not a few, for travel was light on the line, these short February days of the year when the "Great Storm" burst, not here alone, but, later, upon the Atlantic States, and played with men and all their work for a day and a night, giving to the human pigmy a terrifying lesson of his own insignificance when the forces of Nature take hold in earnest to shake and tumble into fragments the cherished works of her ordinarily spoiled darling, Man.

"This car has the best accommodations, and so they are bringing the way passengers in here," the Porter explained, as he strove to make comfortable a tearful woman, whose whole being seemed to be absorbed in the effort to make the world know that she had left her two children alone at home, while she made the five-mile journey by rail to the nearest town, and back, to buy some family stores, the nature, price and quantity of which she was by no means loth to describe in detail.

"I meant to take the 'commodation," she repeated to whomsoever listened to her, "but the 'commodation didn't come, and they put me on the express, and I thought it was fine to ride on the through passenger, that never stops at our station, but I've got enough of the express, stuck all this time in the snow, and there are my poor children locked up at home."

The men fidgeted in their seats, and the women, one or two of them, went to the wayside passenger and gave her the aid, comfort and support of listening to her, as the one form of consolation possible. By no means alone was the woman in her murmurings. There were others quite as querulous and restless, particularly one man, a stormy mountain character, who was a storekeeper in the town where the complaining woman lived, and who announced that he must get home somehow and at once. The day passed miserably. The prisoners had not yet settled down into a patient acquiescence with what was.

CHAPTER III

JOHN LIPSKY'S SIGN

After supper, Stafford, feeling clamorously the need of a cigar, strolled back into the smoking compartment. It was already well filled, among the occupants being a Colonel Livingstone, a genial character with whom Stafford had already become acquainted. He was greeted warmly and seated himself to engage idly in the desultory conversation which was going on.

"I wonder what breed of Indians once inhabited this region?" queried one of the smokers. "They must have had poor picking."

"I don't know," said the colonel, "Apaches, I imagine."

A drawling voice broke in, the owner of which was a young man, a person of such self-confidence, nerve and general up-to-dateness, that Stafford whimsically christened him "The Gallus Youth."

"I know an Indian story which is true," said the Gallus Youth. "Do you want me to tell it?"

There was a general assent, the smokers subsided comfortably in their seats, and from clouds of smoke the voice proceeded, the whole group listening, or at least, if not listening, keeping silence:

JOHN LIPSKY'S SIGN

Probably nothing more strange and puzzling has ever happened, either in a great city or in the country, than what is to be told of here, and which relates to both.

When John Lipsky bought the small barber shop on South Clark street it occurred to him that he might increase his receipts a trifle by putting in a modest show-case containing cigars and cigarettes and tobacco; for Lipsky, while a man with no vices, has a large family to support and is compelled not only to economize but to devise all means for adding to the defenses against the wolf at the door. When he bought the barber shop, which contained only two chairs, he was forced to make the investment on credit, as was also the case with the cigar and tobacco outfit. He was forced also to make certain repairs inside the shop, and found himself then without money and with a business not yet established, while the little Lipskys kept on eating and wearing out clothes. He could not afford a barber's pole, though the stripes painted on the door jamb had practically disappeared under the influence of wind and weather, and, at the same time, put out a sign to make it known to passers-by that he had cigars for sale. He might afford one of the signs, but, assuredly, not both. Then to thrifty John Lipsky came a sudden inspiration. Why not combine the signs in one?

And here comes in what seems a key and yet may not be a key to happenings too remarkable for belief.

Oswald Shornstein is a sculptor working in a great establishment on the West Side. His specialty in the sculptor's art is the making of wooden Indians. Shornstein's vacation last summer was spent in Wisconsin, where he spent much of his idling time in the vicinity of an Indian settlement near Green Bay. He formed the acquaintance of a prominent member of the dwindling tribe, a tough old hunter known as Keeshamok—which, translated, means "Bounding Bear"—and they were often together, fishing and smoking and loafing throughout the pleasant summer days. When Shornstein returned to town he entertained a feeling of decided friendship for the lazy but interesting Winnebago.

The sculptor's vacation had done him good, and he plunged with vigor into his work again, the more so because the supply of wooden Indians at the time was hardly equal to the demand, and within a week he had produced a masterpiece.

Shornstein had genius, but, in this case, genius had an inspiration. Ordinarily Shornstein made just an Indian, but now it was different. It was a particular Indian which came forth from the wood in response to his practised handiwork. Fresh in the mind of the artist were the face and figure of the swarthy Keeshamok, and, almost unconsciously, he reproduced them. The work was done. There upon his pedestal stood Keeshamok of the Winnebagos!

Meanwhile what of Lipsky? He had resolved to advertise shop and cigars at one fell swoop; he would buy a wooden Indian and have him painted gloriously in colored spiral stripes from head to heel! He carried out his idea promptly and fate ordained it that the wooden Indian bought by Lipsky was the image of the Winnebago, Keeshamok. It was painted according to the barber's wildest design, and never was seen such a sign before! Holy Moses! It would have scared a wolverine! Lipsky had been wiser than he knew. From failure he had plucked success. The terrifying sign brought curious customers in scores; cigars sold rapidly and the business of the barber shop required at once another chair.

Meanwhile had come November and hunting was good in the Wisconsin woods. The Indians were alert. Keeshamok and a companion one day killed a deer and dragged it to the nearest village, where they made a sale. They staggered forth at dusk each whooping gutturally but joyously, and each carrying a mighty jug. They took the forest path for camp and pursued it weavingly but far, until, at last, Keeshamok, somewhat the drunker, proposed a camp upon the spot and consumption of firewater all through the deepening night. His companion refused and left him to his own devices.

Obtruding almost into the roadway projected the end of a mighty hollow log lying beneath a mountain of smaller logs and brush, and to Keeshamok came, as he stood there undecided, a novel vision of beatitude. There were warmth and shelter. He would creep into the log, and there, with his jug to comfort him, pass such a night as Indian never passed before! He acted on the glorious impulse.

He crawled far in and stretched himself out upon the soft, dry flakes of rotten wood and took deep draughts of whisky and defied the outside world! It was a solitary but a grand debauch. The hours passed and the Indian became almost torpid. He slept a little. The cold intensified and he awoke and drank again, but was still cold. He comprehended but dimly, yet another idea came to him. He would build a little fire and that would warm him! He scraped together a mound of the dry debris beyond him, and, after many efforts, got a match alight and applied it to the heap, which blazed at once. It warmed him. He took another drink and lay down again and slept.

There appeared next morning beside the wood road a vast gray patch of surface upon which could be seen no object larger than a hand. The ashes of the great hollow tree and of the dead trees upon it were sifting through the forest with every wind, and with them were blown the ashes of the Indian Keeshamok. He had no body!

That night something happened in South Clark Street in Chicago, something so inexplicable and startling as to pass beyond the realm of credibility. At precisely midnight, the striped Indian in front of Lipsky's barber-shop stepped from his pedestal and fled northward, without a sound. So silent and so swift his flight that those whom he met or passed felt, rather than saw, a flitting thing. The city was left behind and still northward across the frozen fields and through the woods he went. The medicine moccasins of Hiawatha never carried one more wondrously. The farms and forests of far Wisconsin were reached at last and faded by, and at last before the runner's eyes appeared the cabins of his kinsmen. What life came to him now! He bounded upward in exaltation! He burst in among the clustered habitations with the wild piercing whoop of the returning warrior!

"Owannox! wah quah-quah! Kinniwa! Wow, wow, wanny-wanny-Yook! Ek-ek! Laroo!"

Cabin doors burst open, dogs rushed forth, men and squaws dashed out and all was wild commotion. The voice of Keeshamok had been recognized on the instant. He leaped in among his people joyfully.

Then arose such yells and shrieks as made the very woodland quiver! There was a rush for cabins whose doors were closed and barred within a minute's space. The very dogs, yelping with every leap, fled to the forest. Even they were appalled and recognized but as a spectre the missing Keeshamok. Within the Indian village all was frightful silence.

With bowed head stood the striped wooden Indian in the midst of the cabins. Then he turned his face toward the south and the silent run began again. In the morning he stood once more upon his pedestal in front of Lipsky's barber shop.

How can it be accounted for? What psychologist or scientist can explain it? The spirit of Keeshamok lacks, of course, the usual form in which to reappear and do any haunting anywhere, for good or evil, since his body was consumed entirely. Does it seek the marvelous imitation made by Shornstein as the only substitute? Who, indeed, shall say? There are many things unknown to us.

And still, each night, the striped Indian runs his futile race and makes his sad return.

CHAPTER IV

A SPECIAL PROVIDENCE

Daybreak of the second day of imprisonment brought no renewal of the storm, though the sun was hidden and the clouds were dark and lowering. But the morning was to have its tragedy.

The storekeeper who had got on at the station five miles back seemed half demented. He had chafed and grumbled loudly from the first, asserting that his business would be ruined without his immediate presence and attention, and heaping imprecations upon the weather and the railroad company alike. Patience or philosophy seemed entirely lacking in his character. All through the first day of detention he had paced restlessly back and forth throughout the train, a walking expletive, and now he had become furious.

"I must get home," he shouted; "I live only five miles down the track and I'm going to walk it. I know these blizzards, and I'm bigger than any of 'em! I can make it!" and he would have leaped from the train at once had not strong hands restrained him. He went forward mutteringly.

The stillness of all the world about had something to it sinister and threatening. It was like the silence of a graveyard. "I'd rather have that storm howling again, and howling worse than ever," said one of the passengers, "than endure this ghastly quiet. It's altogether too quiet. Something is going to happen!"

He was right. Something was going to happen. The dark clouds were sinking nearer and nearer to the earth, and at last there came a sound, the faintest of sighs, of the coming wind. It deepened steadily until it became more than a sigh; it was a moan. It increased in volume. The moan became a shriek, the shriek a mighty roar, and the blizzard, with its snowfall, was raging about the pass again.

The passengers crowded together at the windows and a few of the more hardy even ventured out upon the platforms to enjoy, or to become apprehensive over, the mighty spectacle.

They were thus engaged when there came rushing excitedly into the car the pert youth who had told the remarkable Indian story the night before.

"The Storekeeper!" he exclaimed. "The Storekeeper is missing! He must have left the train!"

"THE STOREKEEPER!" HE EXCLAIMED

There was aroused a sudden and alarmed interest, followed by a hurrying of men to the different platforms, but there was nothing to be seen. The man must have slipped from the train, unobserved, before the recurrence of the storm and made the desperate attempt to reach his home by the exercise of sheer bulldog tenacity and brute force, in struggling through the enormous drifts. Stafford, accompanied by two of the trainmen, made a brief but arduous and difficult search for some distance, but found slight trace of the missing passenger. Close beside the train they discovered where he had leaped off and staggered uncertainly forward, but beyond that there was no sign. The snow had already hidden the reckless being's trail.

There was a sequel, long in coming. Late in the following spring, when the looming drifts of the pass had melted, the mortal part of the Storekeeper was found some distance from the track, where he had stumbled blindly in his wanderings. But of his fate there could, of course, at this time, be no certain knowledge. There was even a chance, some thought, that he might accomplish the seemingly impossible. The men muttered to each other, and that was all. Why the Storekeeper, apparently one possessed of shrewdness at least, should have taken such awful risk no one could say—but it made swift tragedy.

Communication had been maintained with Belden. A path to the telegraph pole utilized by Stafford on the night of the stoppage had been laboriously dug by the trainmen and Stafford had again made the connection and learned the condition of affairs with the rescuing party already started. The report was not altogether encouraging. The vast fall of snow in the canyon, drifted, in some places, higher than the top of the smokestack of the locomotive—for this was the greatest blockade in the history of the road—had proved more than baffling, even with the snow-plow. Scores of men were at work ahead of it with shovels, in the work of bringing the clearance within the range of its capability. The relief train was yet many miles from the one entirely helpless. Still the snow would not be so deep at points ahead, where the canyon widened, and the belief of the rescuers was that the half-entombed would be reached at some hour of the fourth day of their detention. The news was not received with any degree of exultation.

It was at this crisis that Moses appeared to lead those in the Cassowary and their visitors out of the gloom oppressing them.

When men and women of intelligence and brightness and modern perception are cast together in an emergency, there ever appears among them some one who brings the group close together. He may not be the greatest of the group, but he has some dominant instinct in him involving a regard for the comfort of others. Such a man was Colonel Livingston.

The Colonel was a man of thought, and he wanted his own sort of people around him. He had raised a regiment once, when fierce things were going on in the "60's," and he knew how to gather men. He had ranged through the train, like some good-naturedly overbearing Lord High Commissioner selecting those whose appearance most appealed to him and, because of his keen acumen and genial approachment, had captured easily and brought into the Cassowary those whom he thought would swing best into being a healthful and merry part of the fraction of humanity enduring temporary distress. He had an idea.

The occupants of the Cassowary included a number of the more than ordinarily intelligent and cultivated—as would naturally be the case in such a car and on such an extended trip—and all had, by this time, become more or less acquainted, though all had not, like the Colonel, acquired the fancy of addressing others by the title of their occupation. It was to such a group as this that the Colonel, standing at one end of the car, addressed himself:

"I'm afraid that we are flunking a little. I know—I feel it in my bones—that we are going to escape from this cold dilemma without any serious consequence, but we shall not be a credit to ourselves if we falter in the interval. Let us avoid depression. Let us enliven the situation as much as possible. To such end I have a suggestion to make in this connection which, I hope, may be well received. Last night I was much interested in a story told by the buoyant and blithesome young gentleman occupying the end seat on the left side there"—and he indicated the "Gallus Youth"—"and it has come to my mind since that we may greatly relieve the monotony of our case by doing what we do in the smoking compartment, that is, by telling stories. If you consent, I will modestly offer myself as a sort of master of ceremonies. Does the idea meet with any degree of approval?"

There was no dissent, but, instead, a hearty agreement to the proposition, the Colonel's cheery manner having its effect on everybody. For a time, though, the story-telling did not begin.

There was need, certainly, for any and all suggestions as to means for ameliorating in any degree a situation the grimness of which was beginning to force itself upon even the most optimistic of the company. The wind, even when it lowered its tone for a moment, growled ominously.

"It is awful," moaned the woman with the baby. "I wonder how God can let such things happen. I wonder if praying would help?"

Then followed—it could hardly be otherwise with such a company—reverent but earnest discussion of the question of whether or not Providence ever really intervened in special cases, as a result of special supplication. Varying opinions were expressed, the majority, even the most seemingly devout, inclining to the belief that the answer to the question was beyond the knowledge accorded to humanity. It was the Colonel's opportunity. He appealed to the Minister, who had listened to the discussion with a thoughtful smile upon his kindly face, but who had not given an opinion.

"Do you believe in special providences, sir?" he asked. "Can you relate a single instance in your experience, or one of which you have heard, from a reliable source, where there has been the manifestation of what we call 'a special providence,' in direct answer to prayer?"

"I cannot answer your question," was the Minister's reply. "I cannot answer the first part of the query, because I am undecided, and I cannot answer the second because the same reasoning would, in a way, apply, since I am not entirely assured of certain earthly facts. But," and there was a twinkle in the reverend gentleman's eyes, "I heard a curious story once, for the exact truth of which I will by no means vouch, which I will tell in the narrator's own words, and which, supposing it to be true, might be looked upon as either for or against the doctrine of

A SPECIAL PROVIDENCE

Just who are the "salt of the earth" is a disputable question. The title belongs traditionally to a group of that splendid race—the Jews. But it is claimed, also, and on seemingly excellent grounds, by other groups, including a large number of the people of Iowa. Appearances are in their favor, for Iowa was settled by a fine lot of men and women, and their children have not deteriorated.

They were excellent pioneers who came to cross the great river and make a new State, to cut away the forest where it was too dense, to plant trees where the prairie-planted farm-houses and barns needed shelter from wintry blasts, to import cattle, and horses, and sheep, and hogs with blood in them, and to repeat the old exploit of the dominating race in making, somewhere, the desert blossom as the rose. About what is Maxonville alighted one of the groups of men and women, settling down like wild geese upon an area of fertile and well-watered land. Maxonville was not much in evidence when they came, these strong men and women, for only "Old Man" Maxon was living at the forks where the big creek found the little river; but they all settled about, and there were built new homes close to Maxon's, and there came, as the years passed, a church, and a schoolhouse, and a grocery and dry goods store, and, in time, the prosperous town. The farmers round about prospered, for they had thrift and intelligence and something of the old Covenanters' spirit.

The church Maxonville built, offhand and ready for all its uses before they had a preacher, was a pride to the sturdy men and believing women, and when the preacher came to them from the East they were more satisfied than ever.

There may be something in lonely farm work making one a grim adherent of straight creed. Down behind horses and plow all day long, with only the great blue sky of God above, and only a view of the same sky meeting a green horizon far away and all around; inclosed in this great vault of blue and green, and left alone with one's thoughts, it may be that the eternal problem becomes more earnestly considered, more a part of all the thought and life of a human being than it is to the man of the city, who has his attention distracted every moment from the great, overwhelming presence and pressure. Such effects crystallize. The people of Maxonville and its vicinity were sternly devout—that is, most of them—and their new minister was a fit exponent of their creed.

The minister was tall, dark-haired, clean-shaven, and with brown eyes which were keen, chiefly, in looking into himself. He had a stern, well-defined mission in religious teaching—as earnest as Ignatius Loyola, stubborn as Oliver Cromwell. He had been through college, and then through one of the strictest of theological schools. He was fit to preach, he felt, as far as mere acquirement of having learned the ways of other preachers; but he knew that the ideas of the world were changing, and that if the world were changing God must be doing it, and so he was at times perplexed. But he came to his little land of prairie flowers, and steer-raising, and honest obstinacy, a fit man for the place. And they said they had a preacher!

It is doubtful if any village of three hundred people in the United States, from Montpelier to San Diego, from Portland to St. John, has not one pretty girl or more. Maxonville had a number of pretty girls, and one of them was more than pretty; she was beautiful.

Deacon Conant was the leading man of the church of the new town. He was a man who had succeeded, because of brains and energy, in managing his two or three farms, but he does not figure in this account save that he was the father of Jane Conant. His blood had gone into her, and it was pretty good blood, too. The preacher had fallen in love with her and she with him. Preachers and girls would not be good for much if they did not do that sort of thing occasionally.

Here was an ideal relation of things, or what should have been an ideal one. What could have been finer than that there should have come into a growing town in a growing region a stalwart, almost fanatical builder-up of faith, who should find a fitting partner in the daughter of the chief man of the locality, and that from the union so buttressed all around should come great results? There was but one obstacle in the way of this perfect combination, and the obstacle was in the woman. It is astonishing how women will nibble at apples and learn things, from Eve down! This particular young woman had graduated from one of the most cleverly conducted of Eastern colleges for girls, and she had views. Not only did she have views, but she had views in the face of her religious teacher, of the man whom she respected for his earnestness and loved for himself. They were intensely happy for a while after their engagement—as becomes strong souls getting close together in such relationship—but with nearer relationship came necessarily more vehement and unguarded interchange of thought, and—sad the day!—they differed seriously, upon a matter of belief.

A part of the belief of John Elwell, the preacher, was an implicit confidence in the manifestation at times of what we call a "special providence." One of the ideas of the young woman, deeply religious though she was, was an utter disbelief in this same thing—that is, a disbelief that God sometimes makes an exception, and, instead of working through the laws of the Nature which He has instituted, produces a direct result having the quality of what we are accustomed to call a miracle.

The two discussed the matter together very often after they came close together, as lovers may. The first time they debated there came a little wedge between them as thin as tissue paper abraded to an end. Next time the wedge grew larger, and where it ended there was a cleft reaching down to anywhere. The third time there was a split broad and well defined, and the engagement was broken.

"My dear, I do believe in special providences; I do believe that earnest prayer will bring results in certain cases, justifiable in themselves."

"I do not."

"Why?"

"Because I believe that the whole thing—and I am only a girl talking, I don't know what you call it—is just a belief and taken on trust. What would you think of going down to the mill there and praying the miller to make one bag of flour coarse in the midst of all his business? The miller is giving us bread for our physical life, and he knows best how to do it, at least as compared with the rest of us. I know that this is all a poor simile, a poor comparison, but I can't help it."

Now, even an earnest preacher is human, and a great many girls—though the healthy among us call them angels—are human. The engagement between the two was at this juncture broken off so squarely that the ends weren't even ragged, though there was left a possible sequence, not altogether black as midnight—a vague hope in the heart of each that the future might have something to it. This brought a few words more before they parted.

Said the girl: "Show me a case of special providence and I will believe with you. It must be—it cannot possibly be otherwise—than that there should in some way, somehow, come an opportunity for showing that you are right and I wrong."

The pale-faced man's eyes were burning as he looked at her.

"The day will come!" he said.

Time passed and the two worked together in social and church relations, but there was no more talk of marriage. It was one day in mid-July, a year after the conversation just described, when John Elwell was talking earnestly from his pulpit, and Jane Conant was one of the congregation.

The preacher talked well that day—there is no denying it. He talked in a simple, straightforward but wonderfully eloquent way of how the quality of one's relation to others in this world must make easy or uneasy the path toward what is the better habitation after death. He told of the duties of the successful to the unsuccessful, of the strong to the weak; and he told too, of how, even in this world, each man's mind is accuser or justifier, and how, even in this world, come rewards and punishments, and how to him with faith enough should come immediate returns. With glowing face he even went aside a little to speak of those who talk too much of Nature and the Universe, and who believe that a general scheme is as true and strong and believable as one more definite—"'He noteth the sparrow's fall,'" he said.

It was sultry within the church, and all seemed lifeless, though hearts were beating rapidly under the preacher's eloquence. There seemed no oxygen in the air; all was oppressive. There was no sound as the speaker closed a long and telling sentence, save the slight "swish" as a locust alighted on the sill of an open window. There was sound enough a moment later.

Through the open doorway leaped a young man who shouted but one word:

"Cyclone!"

At the exclamation breaking in thus on the religious stillness perhaps one-fourth of the congregation started to their feet and rushed into the open air, but the three-fourths remained in their seats as if paralyzed. The preacher paused, looked about, and then with almost shining face spoke solemnly:

"My friends, we are threatened with one of the visitations which God sometimes decrees, but which, it is my earnest belief, cannot harm those who believe in Him rightly and appeal to Him most trustingly. Let us pray that the cyclone will avoid this church."

They knelt together, preacher and congregation, and strong and trustful and appealing was the pastor's prayer. His clear voice did not falter in the eloquent appeal, and those who knelt felt confidence and a glorified pride in the attitude taken in an awful hour. Men came rushing to the doorway crying aloud upon all within to make the attempt at escape to a safer place, but there was no response, no sound save that of the preacher's uplifted voice. There was a roar and rumble in the far southwest and a half darkness was approaching. As the sound outside increased, the voice of the preacher became less audible, but the spellbound and trusting congregation did not move. Among the women was still Jane Conant.

The rumble became a roar, the roar an ear-splitting, paralyzing blast, and then—chaos! In blackness, with its steeple, its roof, its whole upper part torn away and leaving but an uncovered brick rectangle, ten or fifteen feet in height, remained what was of the church in Maxonville. With the blackness came a torrent; the interior of the rectangle became a flooded space, within which area men and women waded, and floundered and shouted, and shrieked, and felt for each other, and feared, almost, that the world was ended. Then gradually, the flood ceased, and daylight came again, and the drenched creatures within what was left of the church—by what seemed a miracle there had been none injured—emerged upon the greenery about. Among them was the preacher. He spoke to no one. He had worn a straw hat when he came to the church, and had found it somehow. It had been wetted and crushed, and now hung down on each side of his head grotesquely. He was a sodden, queer creature who looked neither to the right nor to the left. But there was thought in him still. He lifted his face to Heaven, and thanked God that all had been preserved, but said no other word. He walked drippingly along the sidewalk and then turned down a lane which led into the country.

Barely one-fourth of a mile—estimated conventionally as the crow flies—from the town of Maxonville was the farm of John Dent. It was not a large farm; it was, in fact, but a quarter of a quarter-section, which means forty acres; but acres have nothing to do with ideas. John Dent, though he had only a little farm, worked hard and lived reasonably well, and had a standing, and knew the preacher well, and debated one important question with him frequently. It was this same question of special providence, and the attitude of John Dent was, though in a man's way, identical with that of Jane Conant, the preacher's lost sweetheart. The preacher wondered at this sometimes. He wondered how it was that this gifted girl and this obstinate, deep-thinking farmer should so chance to decide alike. Of course all this was before the cyclone.

Down at the bottom of his heart John Dent was a little sentimental. His father and mother had come to the small farm before him. They were dead now, as well as certain sisters and brothers, and they were buried in a little private graveyard on the farm, around which the beeches grew thickly and from which the ground sloped gently into a laughing creek. There was not much surplus left at the end of each year of the product of John Dent's farming, and the surplus had more channels for immediate and demanding distribution than it could supply, still John Dent thought that some day he would put up a neat little brick monument in that graveyard—a somewhat unusual form of monument—but that was Dent's idea. He was going to have a pyramidical thing about fifty feet high. The spire of the church at Maxonville was of brick, hollow of course, welded solidly in its weather-hardened cement, as if it were a monolith of stone.

The cyclone had passed. A preacher had gone down a lane thinking the thoughts which come to a clean Christian man in a surprising and dispiriting emergency. A fair young woman had gone home crying over what was where her heart was, and Mr. John Dent had seen a cyclone come and miss his place by about forty rods, and had also seen an out-flinging and eccentric wing of that same cyclone deposit, just in the proper place in the burying-ground of his family, a perfect pyramid monument, such as he had been dreaming of for the last quarter of a century. It was all queer and out of the common, and was hard to explain; it is not attempted here, for this is only the story of what happened within an hour or two on a certain afternoon in Iowa.

This is going back to the preacher. He walked fast and he walked far, and found himself deep in the country. He was at least honest in all he thought; he was a good man, yet he was troubled to the depths of his being. "I have prayed to God," he said to himself, "and He has refused me. The cyclone didn't turn away from the church! Is the woman I love right, and am I wrong? Is there a broader and greater scheme of being wherein I should be a trusting and unquestioning instrument rather than one who demands as a special suppliant? I will see Jane," he said in his great strait. "I feel that she may aid me."

He met the woman that night; he went to her house and found her there, and found, too, that as she was, being a dear woman, she had just then but vague views either on special providences or anything else in particular, all being absorbed in anxiety as to his own health and welfare. She was but a loving, frightened creature, harried over what might have happened to the man who through all the months of silence and separation had been all there was in the world to her. He had come half intending to admit himself all in error, but soon all had been lost in the mere performance of a man and a woman blending. And the evening passed. Then when the next day came, the two, now understanding, walked out into the country.

It was in that wonderful hour of the summer sunset, when all the world is filled with light and the heavens are tinted with opalescent colors from an unseen source, and some vagrant vesper sparrow is still singing, that John Elwell and Jane Conant stood in John Dent's little family graveyard, looking soberly at the transplanted church steeple. It stood there, its base ranged plumb east and west, north and south, as if calculated with all the niceties of the Ancient Order; at its foot the quiet grass-grown graves, while all around stretched clover meadows and the cornfields.

"I feel like borrowing a phrase from the Mohammedans," said the minister, "or just the beginning of one, then saying no more: 'God is great!'"

The girl's summer bonnet hung back over her shoulders, its pink strings loosely tied under her chin. She looked comprehendingly at the minister, but she said nothing.

"I have been narrow," continued the minister, "but God is great."

Coming across the clover field they saw John Dent, and the two went to the white picket fence around the graveyard, which he had built and cared for, and stood at its little gate to meet him.

"Mr. Dent," said the minister, when he had shaken the farmer's hand, and as they all turned to look at the steeple top, "I have had a lesson, and I must acknowledge that it was needed. Our vision is limited, and we often know not even how to pray! I am content to leave all to God, nor to wrestle for His special interposition in my behalf. The doctrine of special providences is presuming—of the earth, earthy. I see that now."

"Well, I don't know," said John Dent; "I didn't exactly pray for it, but I've always wanted a monument to my folks here. Sometimes I thought it was vain and worldly minded in me, but I couldn't give it up. I wanted that monument just about as high as the end of the steeple stands, just about that shape, too, more than anything in this world. I couldn't see my way clear to getting it. I couldn't afford to build one—and here it is! I don't know as I quite agree with you now parson, concerning special providences!"

It was just before the conclusion of the Minister's story that a lady entered quietly from the next sleeping car and was welcomed to the coterie by two or three of the ladies, who had, evidently, met her. Stafford looked in her direction and their eyes met. Then, all the world changed!

They knew each other on the instant, but beyond the slightest of inclinations of their heads, there was no sign of recognition. There was no smile. There was but an almost startled look which changed into one of comprehension and then of the ready trust which was of the past. What message that lingering mutual glance conveyed neither could have told entirely—it was doubtful, hopeful, appealing, understanding.

As the minister ceased talking, and comment began, Stafford rose and made his way toward the new arrival. He had but neared her when Mrs. Livingston took him by the arm:

"Have you met Mrs. Eversham yet, Mr. Stafford?"

They clasped hands, and his head swam, it seemed to him: "I did not know that you were on the train," he said.

"I have been slightly ill," she answered gently, "and have been confined to my stateroom most of the time since leaving San Francisco, but I am well again. It is good to be out."

Then their attention was demanded by others and they were separated. But, what a flavor to the world now!

CHAPTER V

THE FAR AWAY LADY

They called her the "Far Away Lady"—those on the train who had already met her. Just why the name was bestowed by some one with imagination and aptness of expression or why it had been so readily adopted by the others, perhaps none could have clearly told, but it had its fitness. There was a certain soft dignity and reserve of manner and a "far away" look in the eyes of this stately, but certainly loveable human being. She possessed the subtle distinction there is to women of a certain sort, impressing those about her in spite of themselves, as years before, she had impressed John Stafford. As has been told he knew her on the moment, yet in their words was nothing, and, even as they met, they had not looked into each other's eyes unless, it may be, with a hungering furtiveness and a dizziness at the marvel of the meeting.

It is hard to describe the Far Away Lady. Her face was exquisite in its pure womanliness, but in its expression was something which told of a life unfilled. It was not a protest; it was too good for that, but it seemed to suggest with this woman a bewildered resignation. The face was one which, in other times, might, before the end, have been turned toward and found the cloister. Yet there was all of modern living and appreciative conception in it. A smile came to the lips at certain incidents of the story-telling, and interest showed in the soft eyes at the relation of some striking episode. There was intelligence as there was sad sweetness in every feature of the lovely face. Yet there remained always in the look that quality, not of listlessness, but of abstraction. It was a face as fascinating as it was appealing.

In her own stateroom the Far Away Lady sat at her window, but seeing no whirling snow, hearing not the plaint of the dying wind. She was detained in no cold and rugged canyon. Her thoughts were far away.

About her was no scene of pallid desolation. She looked instead, upon the blue waters of a great calm lake, the wavelets of which splashed at her feet, while about her all was sunshine. Seated beside her on the rustic bench was a man, one strong, tender and trustworthy, and they were about to part, as they thought, forever. Very sad was the man, almost a weakling for the moment, though talking lightly in an effort to distract her mind from what was near, blundering and only nurturing their mutual sorrow, by indulging in foolish fancies of what might have been.

He was smiling by force of will as he looked across the waters toward the invisible other shore and dreaming aloud:

"We would build a house upon some high wooded out-jutting point upon the other side," he said, "a house, it might be, most unpretentious, as near the southern end of the lake as practicable, so that we would be conveniently near the city. It might be of almost any material and be a sort of bungalow or even only what they call a 'shack,' but comfort would be in and all about it and happiness within its walls. It would face the lake with an outlook on all its moods, its bright placidity or its rage in storms, and there would be white sails and the passing steamers and all that pertains to those who go down to the sea in ships. And the sun would make yellow bars on the blue in the morning and in the evening we would see it go down into the water red and 'big as a barn,' and there would be a crimson pathway from us to it, and when the summer darkness came, we should sit happily together, listening to the voices of the night, the katydids and the whippoorwills and all the other things. Then we would be waked in the morning by the sunlight again and the songs of all the wild birds instead of by the whistles and the noisy chattering of city sparrows.

"And the house would have a big front room with a mighty fireplace in the winter, and the windows would be made wide and high so that ever in the daytime there would be light—more light—and there would be lamps a-plenty to make it light when the dark changed into blackness. And about the sides of all this big room there would be cases with many books and in the center of a great table, with all the magazines and everything of passing interest. There would be chairs, cosy, indolent chairs, to dream in, and light ones and business-like ones, and a great couch with many cushions.

"Outside you should have your garden, the flowers you love so, and in the wood there would be a fountain, fed from the lake by a windmill, where the birds could drink and bathe and quarrel and mate, and where we could watch and study them. You would become as wise as Linnæus and I as Burroughs.

"And there will be dogs,"—unconsciously he changed the tense—"What is home without a dog! and about the Shack we shall have no limitations. We'll have as many as we want; there'll be an Irish setter, soft-eyed and chestnut-coated, the perfect gentleman among dogs; there'll be a bull terrier, bright and loving; there'll be a collie, wisest and most observing, and, possibly, a toy dog, for your plaything at times, when you are tired of me. And, finally, there will be a bulldog, a creature of such aspect as to give a ghost or burglar spasms, a monster in appearance, though kind at heart, a thing so hideous as to have a baneful beauty, with massive bow legs, wide apart, bloodshot and leering eyes and a countenance generally like that of a huge fanged toad. And all of these too shall be dogs of lineage, Hapsburgs among dogs, and I will give each of them to you when a puppy, so that you may rear them yourself and they will become your adoring vassals and protectors. Eh, but you will be well guarded, and I shall feel more at ease when I am away from you, riding over to town for the mail or to get a lemon or two.

"And what friends we will have, not the casual, conventional, flitting friends alone, such as some might be content with, but those closest to us because of that which cannot be defined but which exists, and, besides them, perhaps less close but hardly less companionable, others of tastes and inclinations like our own, and who will riot or rest as suits them in the atmosphere about us. They will be the brothers and sisters of the time, and there will be doings both whimsical and wise. There will be a rendezvous for those who know—our author friends, our artist friends—what a lot of them are ours!—and our musical friends, to give an added and different flavor. What a piano you'll have! I'll get the one used by David and Miriam and Orpheus and Apollo and St. Cecelia and Liszt and Mrs. Zeisler—if I can. Never mind the anachronisms and solecisms—and we'll let them 'sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea,' or rather o'er Lake Michigan, or engage in any other fantasies appropriate to Arcady—land fifty dollars an acre—and, at times, we will, no doubt, be unentitled to call our souls our own.

"And—so well do I know you—there will be often there some of those whose lines are not cast in the pleasant places and to whom such freedom from care, and such taste of home and real companionship about them will be like an outing in the outskirts, at least, of Paradise. And we'll try to deserve the Shack! Yes, we'll deserve it all the time—when buds are bursting, when the green leaves hide the oriole in the maple, when the maple's leaves are red, and when there are no leaves, and the fireplace is doing its winter's roaring. What a home it will be! Ah, my girl, we'll"—but the sorrowful jesting failed him, and he said no more. Then came the parting.

And now the dreaming woman's thoughts reverted to the present. She could see the snow and hear the wind and realize existent things. How strange it was! Years had passed and he and she were together again, he drifting from another hemisphere, sterner faced, perhaps, but still the same, and she, changed too, she thought, but doubtless to less advantage. She felt rebellious. The world was lost. To him and her could never come in life the close comradeship which is the crown of things, the right to share good and ill alike, and meet the future, shoulder to shoulder, laughingly in the enduring love which can become so sublimely a part of two souls that it is a part of immortality.

And in the next car Stafford, too, was sitting alone and thoughts very like those of the woman were in his mind. But he was far less patient. His bonds were chafing him.

CHAPTER VI

THE LIFE LINE

There were smiles before comment began, as the minister finished his odd story, which, as everybody seemed to feel, was told rather to distract attention from the outlook in the present strait than as having any serious application to the theme under discussion, and, for a time, there was a departure from the subject. The wind still howled outside, but the cold did not increase perceptibly. A more cheerful feeling had obtained and the situation was now looked upon by most of the prisoners as but one of the extraordinary incidents of Rocky Mountain travel.

The one woman had retired to her own car and Stafford, after a season of wild imagining, had returned to earth again. He sat looking upon the scene with a degree of interest.

Experienced and toughened man of the world as he chanced to be, he was not lacking in keen sympathies, and he wondered, as he studied the faces about him, how the test would be endured should the car be no longer heated and the supply of food become exhausted before aid could reach them? He had been snowbound before, and he knew the more than uncomfortable possibilities of the case. There might be a more continued fall of snow than any one anticipated. The howl of the wind had subsided a little and was no longer so menacing in tone, but rather whistled and muttered, as it tossed the masses of snow about. It seemed to Stafford as indicating no increased fierceness of the storm but, instead, more snow. The man who has experienced much of climes and seasons learns to recognize a prophecy in the voice of the wind and to set his house in order accordingly. In this case, Stafford had much rather have heard the wind still giving utterance to its wolf's howls. Howls and bluster were nothing, but an addition to the difficulties of the relief train was what was most to fear. So Stafford did not like the wind's more whimpering tones. The other passengers, with the exception of a grizzled miner, and perhaps, a few others who had long known the Storm King personally, appeared delighted at any abatement of the turmoil outside. To them, lack of noise was proof of lack of peril.

It was the Colonel, that fine combination of Colonel Newcombe, Mr. Macawber and an up-to-date retired American army officer, who gave direction to the course of events again, as the discussion went on idly. He broke in:

"What the minister told us regarding what was or was not a special providence relieved us, certainly, for it gave us a conundrum, and conundrums distract the mind, but we must keep the distraction up. Have there been no other providential dispensations?" He turned to the miner, whom he chanced to know well:

"Here, Jim, you who have been so long in the mountains, ought to be able to tell us of escapes which seemed purely providential. Don't you know of any such affair?"

The miner, who was diffident, and who, furthermore, spoke in mountain phrase and with a queer stutter, tried to say that he really did know of one such case, and the Colonel forced him to tell the story. Translated into English—for it was with difficulty that the miner was understood, and the Colonel, who was familiar with the account, gave most of it—this is the story of what happened to a man and wife, not altogether tenderfeet, in the hills, and what was accomplished by

THE LIFE LINE

Robert Felton was in luck when he met an Eastern girl in Salt Lake City. He was from Chicago and she from Boston. An inveterate sportsman was Felton and each autumn when he came out to visit a mine in which he was interested the trip terminated with a hunting expedition which extended sometimes to the very edge of the time of storms and snow. Once or twice he and his companions had been nearly caught snowbound in the mountains and he had acquired experience, not perhaps sufficient.

He met a tall bronze-haired, gray-eyed Catherine Murdoch who was on a visit from the East—and that settled it. He fell in love a thousand feet and wooed with all the vigor and persistency he might have exhibited after elk or bear. It didn't take long. The splendid advance of the tempestuous hunter-miner, business man, as cultivated as she too, somehow fascinated the frigid beauty and she yielded in almost no time. They met in June, were married in September and spent the winter and spring and summer in Chicago. Then, with approaching autumn, came again upon Felton the mountain fever, and he proposed the usual Western trip. He was in love as deeply as ever and he was a considerate man.

"We'll go to Salt Lake City," he said, "and I'll attend to my business—it's all in town there—and then, dear, you'll let me make a hunting trip, won't you, while you stay in the city and have a good time with Mary." Mary was Mrs. Felton's cousin.

"Where do you hunt, Bob?" inquired Mrs. Felton.

"Oh, generally away up a canyon which forks from one where a couple of my friends have a mine. I've had a sort of shack built away up on the side of this branch canyon, which is about five miles across country from the mine, and, every fall, they send over a stock of provisions—canned goods and flour, and sugar and tea and coffee—and come over themselves when they can and hunt and fish with me. It will be a little late this year."

"What sort of a place is this shack of yours?"

"It's fine. There are a cook stove and table and three chairs and a bed. There's a window, too, and there's a lithograph of Li Hung Chang tacked up on the wall. It's just voluptuous—makes you think of the Taj Mahal on the outside and the boudoir of a Sultan's favorite in the inside. It's a dream."

"Bob, I'm not going to stay in Salt Lake City. I'm going hunting with you."

"What?"

The tone of the lady became just a shade pleading:

"Why not, Bob?"

"Madam, you're an honor to my home but in a shack in the mountains you would be like La Cigale. Out of your fitting clime and place and your own sweet season, you would perish as do the summer insects. So go the ephemera. Why, dear, up in the shack there, it's only hunting, and fishing, and climbing or falling and washing tin dishes and eating and sleeping as sleep the dead and then doing the same things over again. You're no jewel for such a setting."

The charming lady hesitated for a moment and then spoke very thoughtfully and earnestly though, it must be admitted, with a certain degree of cooingness.

"Bob, I'm afraid I've been negligent, perhaps criminally secretive—but I have failed to make clear to you one side of my character. I wish you to understand, sir, that I have been in the Adirondacks, season after season, that I can swim like a duck, that I can cast a fly and that I can shoot tolerably well. Furthermore I can cook almost anything in a tin dish. Am I not going with you, Bob?"

There was some astonishment and a whoop, certain excusable demonstrations and, two weeks later, his business concluded in Salt Lake City, Felton and his wife were up in the cabin in the mountain and the nickel had been fairly dropped in the Western slot.

It is wonderful when a man is afield with a man companion who understands both him and the woods. It is more wonderful still when the companion is a woman and the creature closest to him and understands all things, as well. His old friends of the mining camp—came over and hunted with him as usual and that fair veneered barbarian cooked famously for them, like a laughing, chaffing squaw and added two more to her list of her fervent admirers. Never were such happy days for Felton as when he fished or hunted with his wife. Woman who well knew the mountains, wise as well as beautiful woman, she had provided herself with a suit for the time's exigency. Thick woolen was it, ending in knickerbockers and stout shoes. There was a skirt which, by unclasping its belt, could be taken on or off in an instant. She proved sturdy and there is no occasion for the telling of the fishing and hunting records of the two. They were most content and they lingered in the mountains.

One day—it was late for autumn—in the foothills—Jim Trumbull, one of Felton's two mining friends over on a visit said abruptly:

"Felton, it's time to leave. We're all ready to skip."

"I think so too," said Felton. "Those first little snows seem ominous. I think we'll get it early in the season. I intend to leave to-morrow night. The burros are all ready."

But the next day Felton and his wife found tracks and hunting and a good day of it, and so night found them still in the cabin. At eight o'clock in the evening Felton went out and looked about. There was a great ring around the moon, and the stars had a dim look, not like their usual story. "It looks like the sky over Chicago," Felton muttered. He slept uneasily and was awake at daylight looking anxiously from the cabin door. The earth had changed. The universe was white. The earth was white and the air was white. He leaped back into the cabin. Breakfast over, the man who had forced himself to eat, said:

"Get a day's food, Kate, and get on your hunting dress, with thick garments under it, as quickly as you can."

She did as he told her and he made swiftly a back load of the provisions and her skirt and two great blankets. Well knew he that they must reach Parson's Camp or be lost.

They plunged into the whiteness. They must cross the billowy tongue of high land up and down lying between the two forks of the great canyon. Across this mesa ran a rude trail which none knew better than did Felton, but to feel and keep it with this white shroud of snow upon the ground and in the air was a feat almost impossible. They plunged ahead into the white depths, for the wind had made the snow deep in the opening, and this depth, while it retarded their progress, was after all a godsend. It aided Felton in keeping the trail. What need to tell of the details of that awful day? Darkness was falling when Felton carried an exhausted and senseless woman into Parson's Camp. There was no one there. Felton struck a match and found a half-burned candle. He gave his wife whiskey and water and, later, food, and she was soon herself, for the trouble was but exhaustion. Then Felton sat down upon a chair and figured the thing out aloud.

"THEY PLUNGED INTO THE WHITENESS"

"They thought we'd gone and so did not pay any attention to us. They had sense enough to skip in time."

His wife was up and beside him now.

"What of it?" she said, "we have shelter and warmth, and when it stops snowing perhaps we can dig out"—seeing his face, she added—"anyway we'll be rescued, somehow." Her husband laughed, agreeingly.

"Of course," he said, "we're all right." Then he began looking around for food.

He found in one corner a bushel of potatoes and hanging beside a bunk of shelves where the cook had kept his dishes, there was a good part of a dried deer's ham. Standing on a chair he peered over the top of the shelves. There was nothing there.

"We shall have to live on dried venison and potatoes," he said. "They seem to have left most of their stuff on top here," and the lady was content.

"We'll have venison in all sorts of ways," she commented. "Here's some salt," and she held up a little bag she had found on the floor.

They supped on what they had brought and slept in the bunk which with its belongings, had been abandoned by one of Felton's friends. There passed a couple of blithesome days—to the woman—while Felton, brave liar, smiled and made fires, and puns and love, and was sick at heart and full of an inflammatory vocabulary in his inmost being. The miners had probably not yet half way floundered through the snow lying between them and a more or less green old valley. Without aid from the outside Felton knew that he and his wife must die.

The snow fell quietly, steadily, remorselessly. When the two should be missed on the arrival of the miners at the settlement, it was more than likely that the mountains would be inaccessible until spring.

Felton found an axe and kept himself from desperation by digging out certain trees in a wind blown clear space one side of the cabin. The small trees he converted into firewood, passing the sticks through the window to Kate, who delightedly piled the fuel up in great stacks by the chimney. It was not very cold, and they congratulated themselves upon their store of wood, which was carefully husbanded, for future contingencies.

On the fourth day it ceased snowing and they could see the world. It was all white. The snow was about five feet on a level around the house. The canyon down which the home trail ran was evenly filled with feathery powdered snow. It grew colder. Felton at last told the truth to Catherine.

"Dear, I have been lying to you frightfully. There has been no food on the top of the big shelf. We have enough to live on for four or five days, at the utmost. Then we must starve. We are supposed by our friends to be safe, and we cannot reach the outside world. It would take weeks for the most determined men to reach us—from Sharon even, the nearest settlement."

Any man should be satisfied with what this woman did then. She said: "Dear, the only reproach I have is that you did not tell me the true situation at first. Then we could have suffered together, and that would have been better. As it is I think I realize all the situation now. We are together and we have been very happy anyhow."

This altogether illogical conclusion of her words somehow strengthened Felton wonderfully. He began fumbling round the room. Courage filled his heart, without reason, he felt, but with courage regained he was not inclined to quibble as to its source.

"I don't know," he said, "somehow, my girl, you've given me hope. I'll bet the good God will help us."

"Course He will," responded this dignified, blessed young matron born and bred in Boston.

"Come," said Catherine, rousing herself from the thoughtful mood which had gripped her, after the first excitement of Felton's revelation was over. "We haven't half explored this place. Who knows but there's a barrel of flour stowed away in some dark corner."

"Behind this door—for example," said Felton, entering into his wife's mood, and glad for any little diversion to check thought and imagination.

There had been standing against the wall in one dark corner of the room an old door, evidently brought in from some outhouse for the repairing of its hinges. It had not been disturbed since the new occupancy of the place. Felton grasped the pineplanks in both hands and set them to one side. There semi-gleaming in the candlelight hung revealed one of the two business ends of the common place and eminently valuable telephone of North America.

Felton gasped and then sat down backwards on the floor. "Holy smoke," was all he said.

Catherine came running to the half dazed man but for a little time he said nothing. He was thinking. He remembered suddenly that there was a telephone between the mine and the nearest town in the valley, that to which the miners had fled. Of course the line was deep beneath the snow, part of the way, but it might be working. He looked at his wife in a dazed way, clambered to his feet and took hold of the receiver.

"Don't be disappointed," said Catherine, "if it doesn't work. We shall be saved somehow."

"Hello!" shouted Felton, into the familiar, waiting 'phone.

The dazed wife stood by in the silence which ensued, saying nothing.

Moment after moment passed and there came no answer. Still the man stood there repeating at intervals of four or five minutes the hopeless word, the call "Hello". Suddenly he upreared himself, laughed somewhat wildly, and applied his lips to the transmitter.

"Hello! Who is this?" came the query from Sharon.

"I am Robert Felton. Tell Jim Worthy or George Long that we are snowed in at Parsons, without provisions for more than a few days, and tell them to come in a hurry—the trail is from five to twenty feet deep in snow."

"Who do you mean by we—all of the Parson's crowd?"

Then another question was put.

"My wife is with me—we are alone—the Parson's outfit left the night the storm began."

"All right. Keep a stiff upper lip. There'll be help coming," called the operator, and the bell rung ending the conversation.

Felton could not speak. He sat dumbly waiting, while Catherine chattered to him of commonplace things to win him back to his ordinary frame of mind.

Soon the telephone bell rang again, and this time friendly, well known voices gave messages of hope and good cheer. It was rumored that the men from Parson's camp were on the way—but so far they had not arrived. Men and horses amply supplied with tools, with provisions, with everything needful, would leave the valley at once for the work of rescue.

"But how long can you hold out?" at last broke in one of the heartsome, friendly voices.

"It may take us ten or even twenty days to shovel through to you—can you stand such a siege?"

"We'll do our best," returned Felton, over the wire, "but the truth is, we are pretty short of food, so take no chances."

They were already living on carefully measured out rations and Felton resolved to reduce his own portion below the meagre amount he had already given himself.

"Keep up heart, we'll help you—Good-bye!" So ended this talk with Worthy and Long.

The days dragged. The wood chopping, the fire keeping, the story telling, to beguile the weary hours, went on. Once or twice a day came a message of good hope from Sharon. The rescuers were off, and in the shortest time possible would reach the beleagured couple.

One morning there came a sharp, insistent ringing of the bell which opened the door of the world to these two who were making their one daily meal from scraps of dried meat, and almost the very last of the treasured rations were in their hands at the moment.

"Hello!" called Felton at the 'phone in a moment.

"Hello! That you Felton?"

"Yes. This isn't Tom, is it?"

"Yes—of course, Tom, just in from Parson's—been hearing about you. We left in a hurry—mighty lucky or you wouldn't have had the telephone connected and ready for business."

It was one of the men from Parson's camp.

"They've reached Sharon!" said Felton to Catherine.

"Say!" came Tom's voice over the wire, "You've found the stores, haven't you?"

"What stores?" replied Felton—"We found a little dried venison, and some potatoes in the cupboard, but they are all gone."

"Darn a tenderfoot anyway!" shouted Tom—then recollecting himself he went on. "Take up a board there over by the table. Where do you expect to find provisions if not in the cellar?" Then he muttered to himself. "They're in luck. It's just a providence! We thought of packing that grub down with us."

Down went the hand of Felton, and away he sprung to the square pine table near the door. Taking up a loose board he gazed exantantly into what Tom called the cellar, a square hole under the floor, filled with boxes and kegs and tin cans of meat and vegetables and biscuits.

"Catherine!" he called, but Catherine was already there, kneeling by him, her arms around his neck. She was crying, the brave girl, and Felton was conscious of a sneaking desire to follow her example.

"But won't we feast?" at last Catherine spoke. And then she ran to the telephone to send her own special message to Tom, and to the whole Parsons outfit, and it is certain that there never went over the wires a more grateful and gracious thankfulness than was expressed by Catherine and Felton upon this occasion.

And so, with renewed life, the two awaited events, and one day, toward noon, they heard through the stillness a faint sound, a sort of metallic clink, and a little later they were sure of the welcome ring of men's voices. Felton fired off the loaded rifle which hung over the cabin door at Parson's and soon came an answering volley of pistol shots and a faintly heard muffled "hurrah."

Felton seized his own snow shovel, and began madly working through the drifts in front of the door. His efforts looked puny in the waste of snow, but it was a relief to his nerves to be active, and soon Catherine joined him, laughing and royally flourishing the Parsons broom.

It was two hours before the rescuing army of miners and cowboys reached the little lane which Felton and Catherine had cut out and swept for them—scarce ten yards it reached from the doorway. And then, well, then it was but a few days back to the world—that world which had been saved to Felton and his wife by the life line, the wire stretched across and through the snow between mountains and men.

CHAPTER VII

A TOAD AND A SONG

There had been a period of aimless talk in the rear car after the Miner had concluded, but this resolved itself finally into a lively discussion regarding the probable quality of the hidden country round about. Some declared that there existed only the abomination of desolation while others spoke of the amazing wealth concealed beneath the surface of the earth and asserted that neither the Land of Ophir nor Pennsylvania could endure comparison with the region in which they were now marooned.

"Is this place in the midst of the ore-producing or the coal region?" some one asked, "or is it in neither? How about it, Mr. Miner?"

"I don't know," responded the Miner, "I only know that if it's coal, it's better than metal. When you find coal, you've got something. When you find silver or gold, you don't know how hard it may be to extract it from its rock or how soon the find will peter out. Even bonanzas peter out. When you find gold or silver, you're just flirtin'. When you strike a coal bed you've got married."

There was a laugh at the Miner's simile and then a reflection from another seeker after information, Mrs. Livingston this time.

"I wonder which is the older, the ore or the coal? It would be interesting to know."

"I imagine, madam," said the Professor, as he was only known, "that the ore deposits, formed by volcanic upheavals, far antedate those of coal, originating from vegetable deposits, great forests, fern-like forests it may be, which had their being long after earth had become productive. Besides, as I understand, a toad has been taken from a coal mine and the toad, thus discovered, belongs to a modern order of batrachians."

"Was the toad alive?" was asked.

"So I understand," said the Professor. "It was in a comatose condition but revived when brought into the air and light."

There was much comment among the party and then an idea came suddenly to the Young Lady, who was by no means lacking in sentiment or fancy. "I wonder," she mused, "what that toad was thinking of during all the centuries of his dark imprisonment? Mr. Poet," she broke out, "You are to retire to the end of the car and, for one hour, at least, no word may you utter. I will find you paper and pencil now, and you may not speak again until you have written a poem telling of the sensations of that toad when he was restored to light and air again."

The Poet was gallant. "One cannot do well always under duress," was his response, "but one should certainly make an effort, under the circumstances. I'll do my best, at least."

And so, amid the laughter of the passengers, he was hustled off to a corner and left to his fancies and his struggle. The conversation went on and the sufferer in the corner was almost forgotten save, of course, by the Young Lady. It was a little after the hour's end, when he emerged, exhibiting a rather graceful diffidence. And this is what he read:

THE TOAD FROM THE MINES

I am a toad,
Squat and grimy and rough and brown,
I come from a queer abode,
From down, down, down,
Where, for centuries, no light
Had fallen on my sight,
Until, with sudden shock,
Parted the rock,
Yielded the stony clamps
And blazed in my dim eyes the miners' lamps!
What view is now unfurled!
It is another world
From that I left
Centuries ago, to which they've brought me
Since the black rock was cleft
Where thus they caught me.
Centuries ago, one day,
I was upon a river bank, at play.
Nature was very fair;
I fed on buzzing insects of the air,
Beneath tall palms that grew beside the stream
In which huge monsters bathed. It did not seem
A world like this at all. It was more grand.
The mighty waters washed a teeming land
And life was great and fervid. Suddenly
Upheaved the land, upheaved the awful sea;
The earth was riven; toppling forests bent,
To sink and disappear in that vast rent!
Down, down, down.
The landscape plunged from light and life away
And now again, to me alone, 'tis day.
How odd it all appears!
Encysted in the rock ten thousand years,
I am a stranger here; I cannot praise
Those who released me; mine are not your ways.
In this new life I have no enterprise;
The sunshine in my eyes
But gives me pain.
Put me in some niche of the rock again,
It is the only fit abode
For me—a prehistoric toad.

There was a buzz of applause as the Poet concluded. Then up rose Colonel Livingston.

"The Toad's experience has made me sentimental and dreamy of mood. Personally, I'd like to have my savage breast soothed by some music. Has anybody a piano? No? Well, we can get along without one. Will not some one sing? Who can sing? Mr. Stranger,"—and he addressed himself to a recent and as yet unrecognized addition to the party—"you seem to enter into the spirit of the occasion and to enjoy our fancies indulged here in this, our preposterously direful strait. Will you sing for us?"

Sheet Music