A Daughter of the Middle Border Part 8

Our plan had been to pack through to Teslin Lake, build a raft there and float down the Hotalinqua into the Yukon and so on to Dawson City, but at Glenora I found a letter from my mother waiting for me, a pitiful plea for me to "hurry back," and as we were belated a month or more, and as winter comes early in those lat.i.tudes, I decided to turn over the entire outfit to Babc.o.c.k and start homeward by way of Fort Wrangell.

"I can't afford to spend the winter on the Yukon," I said to Burton. "My mother is not well and is asking for me. I will keep Ladrone--I am going to take him home with me--but the remainder of the outfit is yours. If you decide to go on to Teslin--which I advise against--you will need a thousand pounds of food and this I will purchase for you.--It is hard to quit the trail. I feel as if running a pack-train were the main business of my life and that I am deserting my job in going out, but that is what I must do."

The last Hudson Bay trading steamer was due at about this time and I decided to take pa.s.sage to Fort Wrangell with Ladrone, who was almost as fat and handsome as ever. Two weeks of delicious gra.s.s had done wonders for him. I knew that every horse driven through to Teslin Lake would be turned out to freeze and starve at the end of the trail, and I could not think of abandoning my brave pony to such a fate. He had borne me over mud, rocks and streams. He had starved and shivered for me, and now he was to travel with me back to a more amiable climate at least. "I could never look my readers in the face if I left him up here," I explained to my partners who knew that I intended to make a book of my experiences.

It was a sad moment for my partner as for me when I led my horse down to the steamer. Ladrone seemed to realize that he was leaving his comrades of the trail for he called to them anxiously, again and again. He had led them for the last time. When the cry "HYak KILpy" came next day he would not be there!

Having seen him safely stowed below deck I returned to the trail for a final word with Burton.

There he stood, on the dock, brown with camp-fire smoke, worn and weather beaten, his tireless hands folded behind his back, a remote, dreaming, melancholy look in his fearless eyes. His limp sombrero rested grotesquely awry upon his s.h.a.ggy head, his trousers bulged awkwardly at the knees--but he was a warrior! Thin and worn and lame he was about to set forth single-handedly on a journey whose circuit would carry him far within the Arctic Circle.

The boat began to move. "Good luck, Old Man," I called.

"Good Luck!" he huskily responded. "My love to the folks."

I never saw him again.

I went to Wrangell, and while camped there waiting for a boat to take me back to the States I heard of a "strike" at Atlin, somewhere back of Skaguay. I decided to join this rush, and so, leaving my horse to pasture in the lush gra.s.s of the hill-side, I took steamer for the north. Again I outfitted, this time at Skaguay. I crossed the famous White Pa.s.s. I reached Atlin City. I took a claim.

A month later I returned to Wrangell, picked up Ladrone, shipped with him to Seattle and so ceased to be a goldseeker.

In Seattle my wonder and affection for Ladrone increased. He had never seen a big town before, or heard a street car, or met a switching engine, and yet he followed me through the city like a trustworthy dog, his nose pressed against my shoulder as if he knew I would protect him.

At the door of the freight car which I had chartered, he hesitated, but only for an instant. At the word of command he walked the narrow plank into the dark interior and there I left him with food and water, billed for St. Paul where I expected to meet him and transfer him to a car for West Salem. It all seemed very foolish to some people and my only explanation was suggested by a brake-man who said, "He's a runnin'

horse, ain't he?"

"Yes, he's valuable. Take good care of him. He is Arabian."

CHAPTER SIX

The Return of the Artist

After an absence of five months I returned to La Crosse just in time to eat Old Settlers Dinner with my mother at the County Fair, quite as I used to do in the "early days" of Iowa. It was the customary annual round-up of the pioneers, a time of haunting, sweetly-sad recollections, and all the speeches were filled with allusions to the days when deer on the hills and grouse in the meadows gave zest to life upon the farms.

How peaceful, how secure, how abundant my native valley appeared to me, after those gloomy toilsome months in the cold, green forests of British Columbia--and how incredible my story must have seemed to my mother as I told her of my journey eastward by boat and train, bringing my saddle horse across four thousand miles of wood and wave, in order that he might spend his final years with me in the oat-filled, sheltered valley of Neshonoc. "His courage and faithfulness made it impossible for me to leave him up there," I explained.

He had arrived on the train which preceded me, and was still in the car.

At the urgent request of my Uncle Frank I unloaded him, saddled him, and rode him down to the fair-ground, wearing my travel-scarred sombrero, my faded trailer's suit and my leggings, a mild exhibition of vanity which I trust the reader will overlook, for in doing this I not only gave keen joy to my relatives, but furnished another "Feature" to the show.

My friend, Samuel McKee, the Presbyterian minister in the village, being from Kentucky, came nearer to understanding the value of my horse than any other spectator. "I don't wonder you brought him back," he said, after careful study. "He is a beauty. There's a strain of Arabian in him."

My mother's joy over my safe return was quite as wordless as her sorrow at our parting (in April) had been. To have me close beside her, to lay her hand upon my arm, filled her with inexpressible content. She could not imagine the hundredth part of the hardships I had endured, and I made no special effort to enlighten her--I merely said, "You needn't worry, mother, one such experience is enough. I shall never leave you for so many months again," and I meant it.

With a shy smile and a hesitant voice, she reverted to a subject which was of increasing interest to her. "What about my new daughter? When am I to see her? I hope now you'll begin to think of a wife. First thing you know you'll be too old."

My reply was vaguely jocular. "Be patient a little while longer. I shall seriously set to work and see what I can find for you by way of a daughter-in-law."

"Choose a nice one," she persisted. "One that will like the old house--and me. Don't get one who will be too stylish to live here with us."

In this enterprise I was not as confident as I appeared, for the problem was not simple. "The girl who can consent to be my wife must needs have a generous heart and a broad mind, to understand (and share) the humble conditions of my life, and to tolerate the simple, old-fashioned notions of my people. It will not be easy," I acknowledged. "I can not afford to make a mistake--one that will bring grief and not happiness to the homestead and its mistress."

However, I decided to let that worry stand over. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," was a saying which my father often repeated--and yet I was nearing the dead line! I was thirty-eight.

That first night of my return to the valley was of such rich and tender beauty that all the suffering, the hardships of my exploration were forgotten. The moon was at its full, and while the crickets and the katydids sang in unison, the hills dreamed in the misty distance like vast, peaceful, patient, crouching animals. The wheat and corn burdened the warm wind with messages of safely-garnered harvests, and my mind, reacting to the serenity, the peace, the opulence of it all, was at rest. The dark swamps of the Bulkley, the poisonous plants of the Skeena, the endless ice-cold marshes of the high country, the stinging insects of the tundra, and the hurtling clouds of the White Pa.s.s, all seemed events of another and more austere planet.

On the day following the fair, just as I was stripping my coat and rolling my sleeves to help my father fence in a pasture for Ladrone, a neighbor came along bringing a package from the post office. It was a book, a copy of my _Life of Grant_, the first I had seen; and, as I opened it I laughed, for I bore little resemblance to a cloistered historian at the moment. My face was the color of a worn saddle; my fingers resembled hooks of bronze, and my feet carried huge, hob-nail shoes. "What would Dr. Brander Matthews, Colonel Church and Howells, who had warmly commended the book, think of me at this moment?" I asked myself.

Father was interested, of course, but he was not one to permit a literary interest to interfere with a very important job. "Bring that spade," commanded he, and putting my history on top of a post, I set to work, digging another hole, rejoicing in my strength, for at that time I weighed one hundred and eighty pounds, all bone and muscle. So much the trail had done for me.

I had broadened my palms to the cinch and the axe--I had laid my breast to the rain.

Nothing physical appalled me, and no labor really wearied me.

Oh, the wealth of that day's sunlight, the opulence of those nearby fields--the beauty of those warmly-misted hills! In the evening, as I mounted Ladrone and rode him down the lane, I had no desire to share Burton's perilous journey down the Hotalinqua.

As my mother's excitement over my return pa.s.sed away, her condition was disturbing to me. She was walking less and less and I began at once to consider a course of treatment which might help her. At my aunt's suggestion I wrote to a physician in Madison whose sanitarium she had found helpful, and as my brother chanced to be playing in Milwaukee, I induced mother to go with me to visit him. She consented quite readily for she was eager to see him in a real theater and a real play.

We took lodging in one of the leading hotels, which seemed very splendid to her and that night she saw Franklin on the stage as one of "the three Dromios" in a farce called "Incog," a piece which made her laugh till she was almost breathless.

Next day we took her shopping. That is to say she went along with us a helpless victim, while we purchased for her a hat and cloak, at an expense which seemed to her almost criminal. They were in truth very plain garments, and comparatively inexpensive, but her tender heart overflowed with pride of her sons and a guilty joy in their extravagance. Many times afterward I experienced, as I do at this moment, a sharp pang of regret that I did not insist on a better cloak, a more beautiful hat. I only hope she understood!

In this way, or some other way, I bribed her to go with me to Madison, to the Sanitarium. "You must not run home," I said to her. "Make a fair trial of the Inst.i.tution."

To this she uttered no reply and as she did not appear homesick or depressed, I prepared to leave, with a feeling that she was in good hands, and that her health would be greatly benefited by the regimen. "I must go to the city and look up that new daughter," I said to her in excuse for deserting her, and this made her entirely willing to let me go.

Chicago brilliantly illuminated, was filled with the spirit of the Peace Jubilee, as I entered it. State Street, grandly impressive under the sweep of a raw east wind, was gay with banners and sparkling with looping thousands of electric lights, but I hurried at once to my study on Elm Street. In half an hour I was deep in my correspondence. The Telegraph Trail was a million miles away, New York and its publishers claimed my full attention once again.

At two o'clock next day I entered Taft's studio, where I received many cordial congratulations on my return. "I can't understand why you went,"

Lorado said, and when, at the close of the afternoon, Browne, his brother-in-law, invited me to dinner, saying, "You'll find Miss Zulime Taft there," I accepted. Although in some doubt about Miss Taft's desire to meet me, I was curious to know what four years of Paris had done for her.

Browne explained that she was going to take up some sort of work in Chicago. "She's had enough of the Old World for the present."

As he let us into the hall of his West Side apartment, I caught a momentary glimpse of a young woman seated in the living room, busily sewing. She rose calmly, though a little surprised at our invasion, and with her rising, spools of thread and bits of cloth fell away from her with comic effect, although her expression remained loftily serene.

"h.e.l.lo, sister Zuhl," called Browne. "Here is an old-time friend of yours."

As she greeted me with entire self-possession I hardly recognized her relationship to the pale, self-possessed art-student, with whom I had held unprofitable argument some four years before. She was much more mature and in better health than when I last saw her. She carried herself with dignity, and her gown, graceful of line and rich in color, fitted her beautifully.

With no allusion to our former differences she was kind enough to say that she had been a delighted reader of my stories in the magazines, and that she approved of America. "I've come back to stay," she said, and we all applauded her statement.

As the evening deepened I perceived that her long stay in England and in France had done a great deal for Zulime Taft. She was not only well informed in art matters, she conversed easily and tactfully, and her accent was refined without being affected. As we settled into our seats around the dinner table, I was glad to find her opposite me.