Chapter IX: Getting the Author’s Mood (8)

One of the most beautiful and exhilarating storms I ever enjoyed in the Sierra occurred in December, 1874, when I happened to be exploring one of the tributary valleys of the Yuba River. The sky and the ground and the trees had been thoroughly rain-washed and were dry again. The day was intensely pure, one of those incomparable bits of California winter, warm and balmy and full of white sparkling sunshine, redolent of all the purest influences of the spring, and at the same time enlivened with one of the most bracing wind-storms conceivable. Instead of camping out, as I usually do, I then chanced to be stopping at the house of a friend. But when the storm began to sound, I lost no time in pushing out into the woods to enjoy it. For on such occasions Nature has always something rare to show us, and the danger to life and limb is hardly greater than one would experience crouching deprecatingly beneath a roof.

It was still early morning when I found myself fairly adrift. Delicious sunshine came pouring over the hills, lighting the tops of the pines, and setting free a stream of summery fragrance that contrasted strangely with the wild tones of the storm. The air was mottled with pine-tassels and bright green plumes that went flashing past in the sunlight like birds pursued. But there was not the slightest dustiness, nothing less pure than leaves, and ripe pollen, and flecks of withered bracken and moss. I heard trees falling for hours at the rate of one every two or three minutes; some uprooted, partly on account of the loose, water-soaked condition of the ground; others broken straight across, where some weakness caused by fire had determined the spot. The gestures of the various trees made a delightful study. Young Sugar Pines, light and feathery as squirrel-tails, were bowing almost to the ground; while the grand old patriarchs, whose massive boles had been tried in a hundred storms, waved solemnly above them, their long, arching branches streaming fluently in the gale, and every needle thrilling and ringing and shedding off keen lances of light like a diamond. The Douglas Spruces, with long sprays drawn out in level tresses and needles massed in a gray, shimmering glow, presented a most striking appearance as they stood in bold relief along the hill-tops. The Madroños in the dells, with their red bark and large, glossy leaves tilted every way, reflected the sunshine in throbbing spangles like those one so often sees on the rippled surface of a glacier lake. But the Silver Pines were now the most impressively beautiful of all. Colossal spires 200 feet in height waved like supple goldenrods chanting and bowing low as if in worship, while the whole mass of their long, tremulous foliage was kindled into one continuous blaze of white sun-fire. The force of the gale was such that the most steadfast monarch of them all rocked down to its roots with a motion plainly perceptible when one leaned against it. Nature was holding high festival, and every fiber of the most rigid giants thrilled with glad excitement.

I drifted on through the midst of this passionate music and motion, across many a glen, from ridge to ridge; often halting in the lee of a rock for shelter, or to gaze and listen. Even when the grand anthem had swelled to its highest pitch I could distinctly hear the varying tones of individual trees,—Spruce, and Fir, and Pine, and leafless Oak,—and even the infinitely gentle rustle of the withered grasses at my feet. Each was expressing itself in its own way,—singing its own song, and making its own peculiar gestures,—manifesting a richness of variety to be found in no other forest I have yet seen....

Toward midday, after a long, tingling scramble through copses of hazel and ceanothus, I gained the summit of the highest ridge in the neighborhood; and then it occurred to me that it would be a fine thing to climb one of the trees to obtain a wider outlook and get my ear close to the Eolian music of its topmost needles. But under the circumstances the choice of a tree was a serious matter. One whose instep was not very strong, seemed in danger of being blown down, or of being struck by others in case they should fall; another was branchless to a considerable height above the ground, and at the same time too large to be grasped with arms and legs in climbing; while others were not favorably situated for clear views. After cautiously casting about, I made choice of the tallest of a group of Douglas Spruces that were growing close together like a tuft of grass; no one of which seemed likely to fall unless all the rest fell with it. Though comparatively young, they were about 100 feet high, and their lithe, brushy tops were rocking and swirling in wild ecstasy. Being accustomed to climb trees in botanical studies, I experienced no difficulty in reaching the top of this one, and never before did I enjoy so noble an exhilaration of motion. The slender tops fairly flapped and swished in the passionate torrent, bending and swirling backward and forward, round and round, tracing indescribable combinations of vertical and horizontal curves, while I clung with muscles firmly braced, like a bobolink on a reed.

In its widest sweeps my tree-top described an arc of twenty to thirty degrees, but I felt sure of its elastic temper, having seen others of the same species still more severely tried—bent almost to the ground indeed, in heavy snows—without breaking a fiber. I was therefore safe, and free to take the wind into my pulses and enjoy the excited forest from my superb outlook. The view from here must be extremely beautiful in any weather. Now my eye roved over the piny hills and dales as over fields of waving grain, and felt the light running in ripples and broad, swelling undulations across the valleys from ridge to ridge, as the shining foliage was stirred by corresponding waves of air. Oftentimes these waves of reflected light would break up suddenly into a kind of beaten foam, and again, after chasing one another in regular order, they would seem to bend forward in concentric curves, and disappear on some hillside, like sea-waves on a shelving shore. The quantity of light reflected from the bent needles was so great as to make whole groves appear as if covered with snow, while the black shadows beneath the trees greatly enhanced the effect of the silvery splendor.... The sounds of the storm corresponded gloriously with this wild exuberance of light and motion. The profound bass of the naked branches and poles booming like waterfalls; the quick, tense vibrations of the pine-needles, now rising to a shrill, whistling hiss, now falling to a silky murmur; the rustling of laurel groves in the dells, and the keen, metallic click of leaf on leaf—all this was heard in easy analysis when the attention was calmly bent.

I kept my lofty perch for hours, frequently closing my eyes to enjoy the music by itself, or to feast quietly on the delicious fragrance that was streaming past. The fragrance of the woods was less marked than that produced during warm rain, when so many balsamic buds and leaves are steeped like tea; but, from the chafing of resiny branches against each other, and the incessant attrition of myriads of needles, the gale was spiced to a very tonic degree. And besides the fragrance from these local sources there were traces of scents brought from afar. For this wind came first from the sea, rubbing against its fresh, briny waves, then distilled through the redwoods, threading rich ferny gulches, and spreading itself in broad, undulating currents over many a flower-enameled ridge of the Coast Mountains, then across the golden plains, up the purple foothills, and into these piny woods with the varied incense gathered by the way.

When the storm began to abate, I dismounted and sauntered down through the calming woods. The storm-tones died away, and, turning toward the east, I beheld the countless hosts of the forests hushed and tranquil, towering above one another on the slopes of the hills like a devout audience. The setting sun filled them with amber light, and seemed to say, while they listened, “My peace I give unto you.”

As I gazed on the impressive scene, all the so-called ruin of the storm was forgotten, and never before did these noble woods appear so fresh, so joyous, so immortal.—From “The Mountains of California.” Copyright by _The Century Company_, New York, and used by their kind permission.

AN UNEXPECTED ADVENTURE

BY JOHN MUIR

A wild scene, but not a safe one, is made by the moon as it appears through the edge of the Yosemite Fall when one is behind it. Once, after enjoying the night-song of the waters and watching the formation of the colored bow as the moon came round the domes and sent her beams into the wild uproar, I ventured out on the narrow bench that extends back of the fall from Fern Ledge and began to admire the dim-veiled grandeur of the view. I could see the fine, gauzy threads of the fall’s filmy border by having the light in front; and wishing to look at the moon through the meshes of some of the denser portions of the fall, I ventured to creep further behind it while it was gently wind-swayed, without taking sufficient thought about the consequences of its swaying back to its natural position after the wind-pressure should be removed. The effect was enchanting: fine, savage music sounding above, beneath, around me; while the moon, apparently in the very midst of the rushing waters, seemed to be struggling to keep her place, on account of the ever-varying form and density of the water-masses through which she was seen, now darkly veiled or eclipsed by a rush of thick-headed comets, now flashing out through openings between their tails. I was in fairyland between the dark wall and the wild throng of illumined waters, but suffered sudden disenchantment; for, like the witch-scene in Alloway Kirk, “in an instant all was dark.” Down came a dash of spent comets, thin and harmless-looking in the distance, but they felt desperately solid and stony when they struck my shoulders, like a mixture of choking spray and gravel and big hailstones. Instinctively dropping on my knees, I gripped an angle of the rock, curled up like a young fern frond with my face pressed against my breast, and in this attitude submitted as best I could to my thundering bath. The heavier masses seemed to strike like cobblestones, and there was a confused noise of many waters about my ears—hissing, gurgling, clashing sounds that were not heard as music. The situation was quickly realized. How fast one’s thoughts burn in such times of stress! I was weighing chances of escape. Would the column be swayed a few inches away from the wall, or would it come yet closer? The fall was in flood and not so lightly would its ponderous mass be swayed. My fate seemed to depend on a breath of the “idle wind.” It was moved gently forward, the pounding ceased, and I was once more visited by glimpses of the moon. But fearing I might be caught at a disadvantage in making too hasty a retreat, I moved only a few feet along the bench to where a block of ice lay. I wedged myself between the ice and the wall, and lay face downwards, until the steadiness of the light gave encouragement to rise and get away. Somewhat nerve-shaken, drenched, and benumbed, I made out to build a fire, warmed myself, ran home, reached my cabin before daylight, got an hour or two of sleep, and awoke sound and comfortable, better, not worse, for my hard midnight bath.—From “The Yosemite.” Copyright by _The Century Co._, New York, and used by their kind permission.

THE TORTURE OF THE STRAIT-JACKET

BY JACK LONDON

Have you ever seen canvas tarpaulins or rubber blankets with brass eyelets set in along the edges? Then imagine a piece of stout canvas, some four and one-half feet in length, with large and heavy brass eyelets running down both edges. The width of this canvas is never the full girth of the human body it is to surround. The width is also irregular—broadest at the shoulders, next broadest at the hips, and narrowest at the waist.

The jacket is spread on the floor. The man who is to be punished, or who is to be tortured for confession, is told to lie face-downward on the flat canvas. If he refuses, he is man-handled. After that he lays himself down with a will, which is the will of the hang-dogs, which is your will, dear citizen, who feeds and fees the hang-dogs for doing this thing for you.

The man lies face-downward. The edges of the jacket are brought as nearly together as possible along the center of the man’s back. Then a rope, on the principle of a shoe-lace, is run through the eyelets, and on the principle of shoe-lacing the man is laced in the canvas. Only he is laced more severely than any person ever laces his shoe. They call it “cinching” in prison lingo. On occasion, when the guards are cruel and vindictive or when the command has come down from above, in order to insure the severity of the lacing the guards press with their feet into the man’s back as they draw the lacing tight.

Have you ever laced your shoe too tightly, and, after half an hour experienced that excruciating pain across the instep of the obstructed circulation? And do you remember that after a few minutes of such pain you simply could not walk another step and had to untie the shoe-lace and ease the pressure? Very well. Then try to imagine your whole body so laced, only much more tightly, and that the squeeze, instead of being merely on the instep of one foot, is on your entire trunk, compressing to the seeming of death your heart, your lungs, and all the rest of your vital and essential organs.

I remember the first time they gave me the jacket down in the dungeons. It was at the beginning of my incorrigibility, shortly after my entrance to prison, when I was weaving my loom-task of a hundred yards a day in the jute mill and finishing two hours ahead of the average day. Yes, and my jute-sacking was far above the average demanded. I was sent to the jacket that first time, according to the prison books, because of “skips” and “breaks” in the cloth, in short, because my work was defective. Of course this was ridiculous. In truth, I was sent to the jacket because I, a new convict, a master of efficiency, a trained expert in the elimination of waste motion, had elected to tell the stupid head-weaver a few things he did not know about his business. And the head-weaver, with Captain Jamie present, had me called to the table where atrocious weaving, such as could never have gone through my loom, was exhibited against me. Three times was I thus called to the table. The third calling meant punishment according to the loom-room rules. My punishment was twenty-four hours in the jacket.

They took me down into the dungeon. I was ordered to lie face-downward on the canvas spread flat upon the floor. I refused. One of the guards, Morrison, gulleted me with his thumbs. Mobins, the dungeon trusty, a convict himself, struck me repeatedly with his fists. In the end I lay down as directed. And, because of the struggle I had vexed them with, they laced me extra tight. Then they rolled me over like a log upon my back.

It did not seem so bad at first. When they closed my door, with a clang and clash of levered boltage, and left me in the utter dark, it was eleven o’clock in the morning. For a few minutes I was aware merely of an uncomfortable constriction which I fondly believed would ease as I grew accustomed to it. On the contrary, my heart began to thump and my lungs seemed unable to draw sufficient air for my blood. This sense of suffocation was terrorizing, and every thump of the heart threatened to burst my already bursting lungs.

After what seemed hours, and after what, out of my countless succeeding experiences in that jacket I can now fairly conclude to have been not more than half an hour, I began to cry out, to yell, to scream, to howl, in a very madness of dying. The trouble was the pain that had arisen in my heart. It was a sharp, definite pain, similar to that of pleurisy, except that it stabbed hotly through the heart itself.

To die is not a difficult thing, but to die in such slow and horrible fashion was maddening. Like a trapped beast of the wild, I experienced ecstasies of fear, and yelled and howled until I realized that such vocal exercise merely stabbed my heart more hotly and at the same time consumed much of the little air in my lungs.

I gave over and lay quiet for a long time—an eternity it seemed then though now I am confident that it could have been no longer than a quarter of an hour. I grew dizzy with semi-asphyxiation, and my heart thumped until it seemed surely it would burst the canvas that bound me. Again I lost control of myself and set up a mad howling for help.

In the midst of this I heard a voice from the next dungeon.

“Shut up,” it shouted, though only faintly it percolated to me. “Shut up. You make me tired.”

“I’m dying,” I cried out.

“Pound your ear and forget it,” was the reply.

“But I am dying,” I insisted.

“Then why worry?” came the voice. “You’ll be dead pretty quick an’ out of it. Go ahead and croak, but don’t make so much noise about it. You’re interruptin’ my beauty sleep.”

So angered was I by this callous indifference, that I recovered self-control and was guilty of no more than smothered groans.—From “The Star Rover.” Copyrighted by _The Macmillan Co._, New York, and used with their kind permission.

A SON OF COPPER SIN

BY HERMAN WHITAKER

Within his bull’s-hide tepee, old Iz-le-roy lay and fed his little fire, stick by stick. He was sick, very sick—sick with the sickness which is made up of equal parts of hunger, old age, fever and despair. Just one week before his tribe had headed up for Winnipegoos, where the whitefish may be had for the taking and the moose winter in their yards. But a sick man may not travel the long trail, so Iz-le-roy had remained at White Man’s Lake. And Batiste, his son, stayed also. Not that it was expected of him, for, according to forest law, the man who cannot hunt had better die; but Batiste had talked with the gentle priest of Ellice, and had chosen to depart from the custom of his fathers.

And things had gone badly, very badly, since the tribe had marched. North, south, east and west, the round of the plains, and through the leafless woods, the boy had hunted without as much as a jack-rabbit falling to his gun. For two days no food had passed their lips, and now he was gone forth to do that which Iz-le-roy had almost rather die than have him do—ask aid of the settlers.

“Yea, my son,” the old warrior had faltered, “these be they that stole the prairies of our fathers. Yet it may be that Big Laugh, best of an evil brood, will give us of his store of flour and bacon.”

So, after placing a plentiful stock of wood close to the old man’s hand, Batiste had closed the tepee flap and laced it. At the end of an hour’s fast walking, during which the northern sky grew dark with the threat of still more cruel weather, he sighted through the drift a spurting column of smoke.

The smoke marked the cabin of John Sterling, and also his present occupation. Within, John sat and fired the stove, while Avis, his daughter, set out the breakfast dishes, and his wife turned the sizzling bacon in the pan.

“I declare,” exclaimed the woman, pausing, knife in hand, “if that bread ain’t froze solid!”

“Cold last night,” commented Sterling. “Put it in the oven, Mary.”

As she stooped to obey, the door quietly opened and Batiste slipped in. His moose moccasins made no noise, and he was standing close beside her when she straightened. She jumped and gasped:

“Lor’ ’a’ mercy! How you do scare one! Why don’t you knock?”

Batiste stared. It was the custom of his tribe thus to enter a house, a custom established before jails were built or locks invented. His eye therefore roamed questioningly from one to another until Sterling asked:

“What d’ye want, young fellow?”

Batiste pointed to the frying pan. “Bakin!” he muttered. “The bakin of Big Laugh, I want. Iz-le-roy sick, plenty sick. Him want flour, him want ba-kin.”

The thought of his father’s need flashed into his mind, and realizing the impossibility of expressing himself in English, he broke into a voluble stream of Cree, punctuating its rolling gutturals with energetic signs. While he was speaking, Avis ceased rattling her dishes.

“He looks awfully hungry, dad,” she whispered, as Batiste finished.

Now, though Sterling was a large-souled, generous man, and jovial—as evidenced by his name of Big Laugh—it happened that, during the past summer, a roving band of Sioux had camped hard by and begged him out of patience. That morning, too, the threatening weather had spoiled an intended trip to Russel and touched his temper—of which he had a goodly share.

“Can’t help it, girl,” he snapped. “If we feed every hungry Injun that comes along, we’ll soon be out of house and home. Can’t do anything for you, boy.”

“Him want ba-kin,” Batiste said.

“Well, you can just want.”

“Iz-le-roy sick, him want ba-kin,” the boy pleaded.

His persistence irritated Sterling, and, crowding down the better feeling which spoke for the lad, he sprang up, threw wide the door, and shouted:

“Get, you son of copper sin! Get, now! Quick!”

“Father!” pleaded the girl.

But he took no heed, and held wide the door.

Into Batiste’s face flashed surprise, anger and resentment. Surprise, because he had not believed all the things Iz-le-roy had told him of the white men, but had preferred to think them all like Father Francis. But now? His father was right. They were all cold and merciless, their hearts hard as their steel ax-heads, their tongues sharp as the cutting edge. With head held high he marched through the door, away from the hot stove, the steaming coffee, and the delicious smell of frying bacon, out into the cold storm.

“Oh, father!” remonstrated his wife, as Sterling closed the door.

“Look here, Mary,” he answered testily, “we fed a whole tribe last summer, didn’t we?”

“But this lad don’t belong to them,” she pleaded.

“All the worse,” he rejoined. “Do an Injun a good turn an’ he never forgets. Give him his breakfast, an’ he totes his tribe along to dinner.”

“Well,” sighed the good woman, “I’m real sorry.”

For a few moments both were silent. And presently, as the man’s kindly nature began to triumph over his irritation, he hitched uneasily in his chair. Already he felt ashamed. Casting a sheepish glance at his wife, he rose, walked to the door, and looked out. But a wall of whirling white blocked his vision. Batiste was gone beyond recall.

“Where’s Avis?” he asked, returning to the stove.

“A-vis!” called her mother.

But there was no answer. For a moment man and wife stared each other in the eye; then, moved by a common impulse, they walked into the kitchen. There, on the table, lay the half of a fresh-cut side of bacon; the bread-box was open and a crusty loaf missing; the girl’s shawl was gone from its peg and her overshoes from their corner.

“Good God!” gasped the settler. “The child’s gone after him!”

They knew the risk. All the morning the storm had been brewing, and now it thundered by, a veritable blizzard. The blizzard! King of storms! It compels the settler to string a wire from house to stables, it sets men to circling in the snow, it catches little children coming home from school and buries them in its monstrous drifts.

Without another word Sterling wound a scarf about his neck, grabbed his badger mitts, and rushed outside.

When Avis softly closed the kitchen door she could just see Batiste rounding a bluff that lay a furlong west of her father’s stables. She started after him; but by the time she had covered half the distance a sea of white swept in between and blotted him from view.

She struggled on, and on, and still on, until, in spite of the seventy degrees of frost, the perspiration burst from every pore and the scud melted on her glowing face. This was well enough—so long as she kept moving; but when the time came that she must stop, she would freeze all the quicker for her present warmth.

This, being born and bred of the prairie, Avis knew, and the knowledge kept her toiling, toiling on, until her tired legs and leaden feet compelled a pause in the shelter of a bluff. She was hungry, too. All this time she carried the bread and meat, and now, unconscious of a pair of slant eyes which glared from a willow thicket, she broke the loaf and began to eat. While she ate, the green lights in the eyes flared brighter, a long red tongue licked the drool from grinning jaws, and forth from his covert stole a lank, gray wolf.

Avis uttered a startled cry. This was no coyote, to be chased with a stick, but a wolf of timber stock, a great beast, heavy, prick-eared, strong as a mastiff. His nose puckered in a wicked snarl as he slunk in half-circles across her front. He was undecided. So, while he circled, trying to make up his mind, drawing a little nearer at every turn, Avis fell back—back towards the bluff, keeping her white face always to the creeping beast.

It was a small bluff, lacking a tree large enough to climb, but sufficient for her purpose. On its edge she paused, threw the bacon to the wolf, and then ran desperately. Once clear of the scrub, she ran on, plunging through drifts, stumbling, falling, to rise again and push her flight. Of direction she took no heed; her only thought was to place distance between herself and the red-mouthed brute. But when, weary and breathless, she paused for rest, out of the drab drift stole the lank, gray shadow.

The brute crouched a few yards away, licking his sinful lips, winking his devil eyes. She still had the loaf. As she threw it, the wolf sprang and snapped it in mid-air. Then she ran, and ran, and ran, as the tired doe runs from the hounds. For what seemed to her an interminable time, though it was less than five minutes, she held on; then stopped, spent, unable to take another step. Looking back, she saw nothing of the wolf; but just when she began to move slowly forward, thinking he had given up the chase, a gray shape loomed right ahead.

Uttering a bitter cry, she turned once more, tottered a few steps, and fainted.

As, wildly calling his daughter’s name, Sterling rushed by his stables, the wind smote him with tremendous power. Like a living thing it buffeted him about the ears, tore at his breath, poured over him an avalanche of snow. Still he pressed on and gained the bluff which Avis missed.

As he paused to draw a free breath, his eye picked out a fresh-made track. Full of a sudden hope, he shouted. A voice answered, and as he rushed eagerly forward a dark figure came through the drift to meet him. It was Batiste.

“What do you want?” he asked.

Sterling was cruelly disappointed, but he answered quickly: “You see my girl? Yes, my girl,” he repeated, noting the lad’s look of wonder. “Young white squaw, you see um?”

“Mooniah papoose?” queried Batiste.

“Yes, yes! She follow you. Want give you bread, want give you bacon. All gone, all lost!” Sterling finished with a despairing gesture.

“Squaw marche to me? Ba-kin for me?” questioned Batiste.

“Yes, yes!” cried Sterling, in a flurry of impatience.

“I find um,” he said, softly.

Briefly Batiste laid down his plan, eking out his scanty English with vivid signs. In snow, the white man rolls along like a clumsy buffalo, planting his feet far out to the right and left. And because his right leg steps a little further than the left, he always, when lost, travels in a circle. Wherefore Batiste indicated that they should move along parallel lines, just shouting distance apart, so as to cover the largest possible ground.

“Young squaw marche slow. She there!” He pointed north and east with a gesture. “Yes, there!”

Batiste paused until Sterling got his distance; then, keeping the wind slanting to his left cheek, he moved off north and east. Ever and anon he stopped to give forth a piercing yell. If Sterling answered, he moved on; if not—as happened twice—he traveled in his direction until they were once more in touch. And so, shouting and yelling, they bore off north and east for a long half-hour.

After that, Batiste began to throw his cries both east and west, for he judged that they must be closing on the girl. And suddenly, from the north, came a weird, tremulous answer. He started, and throwing up his head, emitted the wolf’s long howl. Leaning forward, he waited—his very soul in his ears—until, shrill yet deep-chested and quivering with ferocity, came back the answering howl.

No coyote gave forth that cry, and Batiste knew it.

“Timber wolf!” he muttered.

Turning due north, he gave the settler a warning yell, then sped like a hunted deer in the direction of the cry. He ran with the long, lithe lope which tires down even the swift elk, and in five minutes covered nearly a mile. Once more he gave forth the wolf howl. An answer came close by, but as he sprang forward it ended with a frightened yelp. Through a break in the drift he spied a moving figure; then a swirl swept in and blotted it from view.

But he had seen the girl. A dozen leaps and he was close upon her. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, she screamed and plunged headlong.

When consciousness returned, Avis was lying on her own bed. Her mother bent over her; Sterling stood near by. All around were the familiar things of life, but her mind still retained a vivid picture of her flight, and she sprang up screaming:

“The wolf; oh, the wolf!”

“Hush, dearie,” her mother soothed. “It wasn’t a wolf, but just the Cree boy.”

Batiste had told how she screamed at the sight of his gray, snow-covered blanket, and the cry had carried even to her father. But when she recovered sufficiently to tell her story, the father shuddered and the mother exclaimed:

“John, we owe that boy more than we can ever pay!”

“We do!” he fervently agreed.

Just then the latch of the other door clicked, and a cold blast streamed into the bedroom. Jumping up, the mother cried:

“Run, John; he’s going!”

“Here, young fellow!” shouted the settler.

Batiste paused in the doorway, his hand on the latch, his slight body silhouetted against the white of the storm.

“Where you going, boy?”

“To Iz-le-roy,” he answered. “Him sick. Bezhou!”

Sterling strode forward and caught him by the shoulder. “No, you don’t,” he said, “not that way.” Then, turning, he called into the bedroom: “Here, mother! Get out all your wraps while I hitch the ponies. And fix up our best bed for a sick man.”—From “The Probationer,” copyright and used by the kind permission of author and publishers, _Harper & Brothers_, New York.

SOMBRE[7]

BY WILLIAM WETMORE STORY

Long golden beams from the setting sun swept over the plains of Andalusia, and fell upon the Geralda tower of the great cathedral of Sevilla, many miles in the distance. In their path they illumined a stretch of vast pastures enclosed by whitened stone walls, and dotted with magnificent cattle. In a far corner of one of the enclosures the figure of a young girl passed through an arched stone gateway. As she paused to look upon the scattered groups of grazing beasts, the level rays played in lights and shadows upon the waving masses of dark chestnut hair, richly health-tinted young face, creamy neck, and large, lustrous eyes now painfully dry, as if tears were exhausted. She gazed from group to group, calling eagerly, “Sombre! Sombre!”

A pair of long, gleaming horns rose abruptly amid the browsing herd, and a magnificent bull came towards her at a brisk trot. The sunbeams glinted upon his dark coat as it swelled and sank under the play of powerful muscles. His neck and shoulders were leonine in massive strength, the legs and hind-quarters as sleek and symmetrical as those of a race-horse, but his ferociousness was held in check by that devoted love dumb animals express for those who love them.

In a moment the young girl’s white arms were thrown around the animal’s dusky neck, and her cheek was lain against the silken skin. “Oh, Sombre!” she murmured, “do you know what they are going to do with you? Papa wants to send you to the Plaza de Toros! I have begged him in vain to spare you. Does he think after Anita has brought you from a tiny calf to be such a beautiful, dear toro that she can give you to the cruel matador to be tortured, made crazy and killed?”

She was sobbing bitterly, and the devoted beast was striving vainly to turn his head far enough to lick the fair neck bending down upon his. Presently the sobbing ceased, and she stroked the strong shoulders with her small hand.

“Never fear, Sombre, if they take you to Sevilla Anita will find a way to save you! Now, say good night.”

Sombre thrust out his huge tongue and licked the little hand and arms. Then she bent forward and kissed him on the frowning, furry forehead and departed.

Anita’s path homeward lay through another field where a herd of cattle were being driven. A young herdsman, riding a strong horse at a brisk canter, saw the young girl enter from the adjoining pasture. With joyful exclamation in English he rode towards her calling, “Anita, have you seen the posters?”

Waiting until he reached her side, with bated breath she asked, “Is—is Sombre advertised?”

“Yes, on the outer gateway. But here, I have a poster in my pocket.”

_Plaza de Toros de Sevilla
May 17.
Anniversary of the King’s Birthday,
Six Bulls to be killed,
The two magnificent brother bulls
Sol and Sombre,
and others very ferocious,
against
The intrepid Matadores,
Lariato, the American, and
Amador, of Sevilla._

“It is cruel of them, cruel! (Reading) ‘Lariato, the American.’ Why, that is yourself! You will spare him! You will spare my Sombre!”

“They do not permit me to fight Don Alonzo’s bulls, for I raise them and they would not fight me. Amador will fight Sombre.”

“No, no! You must fight Sombre. That wicked Amador will kill him!”

“But so would I, Anita, or be killed by him!”

Anita was silent for a time; suddenly she exclaimed: “Orlando, do you love me well enough to put faith in a promise which will seem impossible of fulfillment?”

“God knows I do!”

“Then listen; if Sombre goes to the Plaza de Toros, you must fight him and spare him even though they hiss and jeer at you.”

“Death is easier. Perhaps the managers will let me fight him, for you have raised him, and I can tell them that I have scarcely seen him. I will fight him, Anita, and for your sake I will let him kill me!”

“No, no, Orlando, for this is my promise, even in the last extremity Sombre shall not harm you!”

“And then, Anita!”

“Then I will leave my father’s house and go with you. We will buy Sombre and go to those plains in your country you love so to tell about. You will become a ranch hero, and Sombre shall be the patriarch of our herd!”

“I have tried that once and failed!”

“Ah, but you had neither Sombre nor Anita then!” And waving him a kiss she ran off across the field.

On the 17th of May, in the Plaza de Toros, there was a murmur from thousands of throats like the magnified hum of bees. Amador of Sevilla had killed several bulls and now there was a short intermission. In a stall of the lowest tier sat Anita alone. Presently a band of music began a stately march, and under a high stone archway a long procession advanced. First, gaudily caparisoned picadors on blindfolded studs, two by two, separated and came to a halt, facing the center, with long lances abreast. Then red-coated toreadors carrying long barbs, with brilliant streamers of ribbon, grouped themselves near the heavy closed doors of the bull-pen; finally, the capeadors in yellow satin, carrying flaming red capes on their arms, filed around like the mounted picadors and stood between their studs.

The music ceased, the murmur of voices died away, and the gates of the bull-pen were thrown open. At a quick trot, a great black bull dashed in, receiving in his shoulders as he passed the toreador’s two short barbs. Anita gripped her chair and gasped, “Sombre!”

Coming from a darkened pen, Sombre had trotted eagerly forward, expecting to find himself once more in his loved pastures, but he paused, bewildered in the glare of light. Hither and thither he turned in nervous abruptness, his head raised high, his tail slowly lashing his flanks. Then he lowered his grand head and sniffed the earth, and then he smelled fresh, warm blood, the blood of his own kind. With gathering rage he lowered his keen horns close to the ground and gave a deep, hoarse bellow of defiance, flinging clod after clod with his forefeet high above his back. Then there flaunted toward him a red object at which he charged, but it swept aside, and a new sting of pain was felt in his neck, and warm blood was trickling over his glossy skin. Again and again he charged, but each time the red thing vanished and there was more pain, more torturing barbs that maddened him.

Presently a horseman advanced with lowered spear. Surely horse and rider could not vanish. Ah, no! Sombre found that it was not intended that they should. Rushing upon them he struck them with such a blow that they were forced backwards twenty feet and both gave a scream of pain. The picador was dragged away with a broken leg, and the horse lay lifeless, for Sombre’s horn had pierced its heart. Instantly a great cry went up from that crater of humanity, “Bravo! Bravo, Toro! Bravo, Sombre!”

More than once he earned that grand applause, then his tormentors disappeared and through one of the archways advanced a young man tall and athletic. On his left arm hung a scarlet mantle, and in his right hand he carried a long, keen sword. Passing under the archway, the matador swept his sword in military salute, then with lowered point he stepped into the arena and faced his antagonist. Upon all fell an awful silence, for Lariato and Sombre were met in a struggle to the death!

For a time the combatants stood motionless, eyeing each other intently. Then came stealthy movements, hither and thither, then thundering, desperate charges, and graceful, hair-breadth escapes. At last in one great charge, Sombre’s horn tore the mantle from Lariato’s arm and carrying it half around the ring, as a flaming banner, the bull ground and trampled it in the dust. A slight hissing was heard in the audience which turned to thundering applause when Lariato contemptuously refused a new mantle! The audience became breathless, the man alone was now the mad beast’s target!

Sombre, dripping with blood and perspiration, his flanks swelling and falling in his great gasps for breath, his eyes half blinded by the dust and glare of the arena, gave the matador one brief glance, then with head low down, charged upon him. Lariato’s long keen blade was lowered confidently to its death-dealing slant.

Just as the murderous sword-point seemed about to sink through the bull’s shoulders, into his very heart, a despairing woman’s cry reached the matador’s ears. Then a mighty hiss, interspersed with hoots and jeers, went up from the exasperated spectators, for the bull thundered on, with the sword scarcely penetrating the tough muscles, standing upright between his shoulders, while Lariato stood disarmed.

Coming to a standstill far beyond his antagonist, Sombre shook his huge neck and the sword spun high into the air and fell toward the center of the ring. Lariato took several steps toward it, but tottered and fell upon the ground in a swoon, for he had been severely bruised.

With an exultant roar, the bull rushed back to complete his victory; the hissing and the hooting was hushed, and groans of horror filled the air. Suddenly, just as the animal had gained full headway in his murderous charge, a slight, white figure glided into the ring, and a clear voice cried “Sombre!”

At the sound of that voice, the charging beast came strainingly to a halt, threw up his head, and gazed eagerly about, then turned and rushed toward the girl! Capeadors hurried forward flaunting their red capes, but she waved them back.

“Go back! You shall torment him no more, my poor, tortured, wounded Sombre!”

In a moment the great beast was beside her, licking her dress and arms and hands. As she deftly extricated the barbs from his neck and shoulders, the thousands of throats around them shrieked out a vast pandemonium of bravos. Blood was covering her hands and staining her dress, but Anita was blind to it. Meanwhile Lariato had struggled to his feet and hurried towards her. “God bless you,” he was saying, but she pushed past him with a glad smile, saying, “Wait, I have something to say to them!”

Standing in the middle of the ring, Anita waited for silence. Delaying until not a sound was heard, she said in a clear voice that reached every ear:

“Jeer not at Lariato; he spared my pet, my Sombre, because he loved me.”

No matador ever gained such applause as followed. Bouquets, sombreros, scarfs, and full purses showered into the ring, and as that strange group stood facing the ovation, “Bravo, Lariato, Bravo, la Señorita de Toros, Bravo, Sombre!” rang out and reëchoed over the distant housetops.

A COMBAT IN THE ARENA

BY GEORGE CROLY

A portal of the arena opened, and the combatant, with a mantle thrown over his face and figure, was led into the surroundery. The lion roared and ramped against the bars of his den at the sight. The guard put a sword and buckler into the hands of the Christian, and he was left alone. He drew the mantle from his face, and bent a slow and firm look around the amphitheater. His fine countenance and lofty bearing raised a universal shout of admiration. He might have stood for an Apollo encountering the Python. His eyes at last turned on mine. Could I believe my senses? Constantius was before me.

All my rancour vanished. An hour past, I could have struck the betrayer of the heart—I could have called on the severest vengeance of man and heaven to smite the destroyer of my child. But to see him hopelessly doomed, the man whom I had honored for his noble qualities, whom I had even loved, whose crime was, at the worst, but the crime of giving way to the strongest temptation that can bewilder the heart of man; to see the noble creature flung to the savage beast, dying in tortures, torn piecemeal before my eyes, and his misery wrought by me, I would have supplicated earth and heaven to save him. But my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth. My limbs refused to stir. I would have thrown myself at the feet of Nero; but I sat like a man of stone—pale—paralyzed—the beating of my pulse stopped—my eyes alone alive.

The gate of the den was thrown back, and the lion rushed in with a roar and a bound that bore him half across the arena. I saw the sword glitter in the air; when it waved again, it was covered with blood. A howl told that the blow had been driven home. The lion, one of the largest of Numidia, and made furious by thirst and hunger, an animal of prodigious power, crouched for an instant, as if to make sure of his prey, crept a few paces onward, and sprang at the victim’s throat. He was met by a second wound, but his impulse was irresistible. A cry of natural horror rang round the amphitheater. The struggle was now for an instant, life or death. They rolled over each other; the lion, reared upon his hind feet with gnashing teeth and distended talons, plunged on the man; again they rose together. Anxiety was now at its wildest height. The sword now swung round the Christian’s head in bloody circles. They fell again, covered with blood and dust. The hand of Constantius had grasped the lion’s mane, and the furious bounds of the monster could not lose his hold; but his strength was evidently giving way—he still struck his terrible blows, but each was weaker than the one before; till, collecting his whole force for a last effort, he darted one mighty blow into the lion’s throat and sank. The savage beast yelled, and spouting out blood, fled howling around the arena. But the hand still grasped the mane, and the conqueror was dragged whirling through the dust at his heels. A universal outcry now arose to save him, if he were not already dead. But the lion, though bleeding from every vein, was still too terrible, and all shrank from the hazard. At last, the grasp gave way, and the body lay motionless on the ground.

What happened for some moments after, I know not. There was a struggle at the portal; a female forced her way through the guards, rushed in alone, and flung herself upon the victim. The sight of a new prey roused the lion; he tore the ground with his talons; he lashed his streaming sides with his tail; he lifted up his mane and bared his fangs. But his approaching was no longer with a bound; he dreaded the sword, and came sniffing the blood on the sand, and stealing round the body in circuits still diminishing.

The confusion in the vast assemblage was now extreme. Voices innumerable called for aid. Women screamed and fainted, men burst into indignant clamors at this prolonged cruelty. Even the hard hearts of the populace, accustomed as they were to the sacrifice of life, were roused to honest curses. The guards grasped their arms, and waited but for a sign from the emperor. But Nero gave no sign.

I looked upon the woman’s face; it was Salome! I sprang upon my feet. I called on her name; called on her, by every feeling of nature, to fly from that place of death, to come to my arms, to think of the agonies of all that loved her.

She had raised the head of Constantius on her knee, and was wiping the pale visage with her hair. At the sound of my voice, she looked up, and, calmly casting back the locks from her forehead, fixed her eyes upon me. She still knelt; one hand supported the head—with the other she pointed to it as her only answer. I again adjured her. There was the silence of death among the thousands around me. A fire dashed into her eye—her cheek burned—she waved her hand with an air of superb sorrow.

“I am come to die,” she uttered, in a lofty tone. “This bleeding body was my husband—I have no father. The world contains to me but this clay in my arms. Yet,” and she kissed the ashy lips before her, “yet, my Constantius, it was to save that father that your generous heart defied the peril of this hour. It was to redeem him from the hand of evil that you abandoned your quiet home!—Yes, cruel father, here lies the noble being that threw open your dungeon, that led you safe through the conflagration, that, to the last moment of his liberty, only sought how he might preserve and protect you.” Tears at length fell in floods from her eyes. “But,” said she, in tones of wild power, “he was betrayed, and may the Power whose thunders avenge the cause of his people, pour down just retribution upon the head that dared—”

I heard my own condemnation about to be pronounced by the lips of my own child. Wound up to the last degree of suffering, I tore my hair, leaped upon the bars before me, and plunged into the arena by her side. The height stunned me; I tottered a few paces and fell. The lion gave a roar and sprang upon me. I lay helpless under him, I heard the gnashing of his white fangs above me.

An exulting shout arose. I saw him reel as if struck—gore filled his jaws. Another mighty blow was driven to his heart. He sprang high in the air with a howl. He dropped; he was dead. The amphitheater thundered with acclamations.

With Salome clinging to my bosom, Constantius raised me from the ground—the roar of the lion had roused him from his swoon, and two blows saved me. The falchion had broken in the heart of the monster.

The whole multitude stood up, supplicating for our lives in the name of filial piety and heroism. Nero, devil as he was, dared not resist the strength of popular feeling. He waved a signal to the guards; the portal was opened, and my children, sustaining my feeble steps, showered with garlands and ornaments from innumerable hands, slowly led me from the arena.

KAWEAH’S RUN

BY CLARENCE KING

As I walked over to see Kaweah at the corral, I glanced down the river, and saw, perhaps a quarter of a mile below, two horsemen ride down our bank, spur their horses into the stream, swim to the other side, and struggle up a steep bank, disappearing among bunches of cottonwood trees near the river.

They were Spaniards—the same who had swum King’s River the afternoon before, and, as it flashed on me finally, the two whom I had studied so attentively at Visalia. Then I at once saw their purpose was to waylay me, and made up my mind to give them a lively run.

I decided to strike across, and jumping into the saddle threw Kaweah into a sharp trot.

I glanced at my girth and then at the bright copper upon my pistol, and settled myself firmly.

By this time I had regained the road, which lay before me traced over the blank, objectless plain in vanishing perspective. Fifteen miles lay between me and a station; Kaweah and pistol were my only defense, yet at that moment I felt a thrill of pleasure, a wild moment of inspiration, almost worth the danger to experience.

I glanced over my shoulder and found that the Spaniards were crowding their horses to their fullest speed; their hoofs, rattling on the dry plain, were accompanied by inarticulate noises, like the cries of bloodhounds. Kaweah comprehended the situation. I could feel his grand legs gather under me, and the iron muscles contract with excitement; he tugged at the bit, shook his bridle-chains, and flung himself impatiently into the air.

It flashed upon me that perhaps they had confederates concealed in some ditch far in advance of me, and that the plan was to crowd me through at fullest speed, giving up the chase to new men and fresh horses; and I resolved to save Kaweah to the utmost, and only allow him a speed which should keep me out of gunshot. So I held him firmly, and reserved my spur for the last emergency. Still we fairly flew over the plain, and I said to myself, as the clatter of hoofs and din of my pursuers rang in my ears now and then, as the freshening breeze hurried it forward, that, if those brutes got me, there was nothing in blood and brains; for Kaweah was a prince beside their mustangs, and I ought to be worth two villains.