The New Boy at Hilltop, and Other Stories Part 24

For an instant Roy gazed. Then, heart in mouth, he swung Scamp on his haunches and tore madly back the way he had come. He knew on the instant what had happened. There had been a cloud-burst on the mesa or among the foothills, and all the little gullies had emptied their water into the mouth of the arroyo. He knew also that if the flood caught him there between those prisonlike walls he would be drowned like a rat. The nearest place of refuge was a mile and a half away!

After the first moment of wild terror he grew calm. On his courage and coolness rested his chance for life. He crouched far over the saddle horn and lashed Scamp with the dripping quirt. Urging was unnecessary, for it seemed the horse knew that Death was rushing along behind them. He raced as Roy had never seen him run before. The walls rushed by, dim and misty. In a minute Boy gathered courage to glance back over his shoulder. His heart sank--only a yard or two behind them rushed the foam-topped wave. Here and there the sides of the arroyo melted in the flood and toppled downward, yards at a time, sending the yellow water high in air, but making no sound above its roaring. Behind the first wave, perhaps a half hundred feet to the rear, came a second, showing no froth on its crest, but higher and mightier. And farther back the arroyo seemed filled almost to the tops of the banks with the rushing waters. Roy used the quirt ruthlessly, searching the banks as they sped by in the forlorn hope of finding some place that would offer a means of egress, yet knowing well as he did so that the nearest way out was still a full mile distant.

He wondered what death by drowning was like. Somewhere he had read that it was painless and quick; but that was in a story. Then he wondered what his mother would do without him to fetch the water from the cistern back of the kitchen, and feed the chickens and look after the hives. He wondered, too, if they would ever find his body--and Scamp's! The thought that poor, gallant old Scamp must die too struck him as the hardest thing of all. He loved Scamp as he loved none else save father and mother; they had had their little disagreements, when Scamp refused to come to the halter in the corral and had to be roped, but they always made up, with petting and sugar beets from Roy and remorseful whinnies and lipping of the boy's cheek from Scamp. And now Scamp must be drowned!

It was difficult going now, for the turbid stream reached above the horse's knees; but the animal was mad with fright, and he plunged desperately onward. Roy looked up toward the gray skies, through a world of gleaming rain, and said both the prayers he knew. After that he felt better, somehow, and when the second wave caught them, almost bearing Scamp from his st.u.r.dy feet, he looked calmly about him, searching the uncertain shadows which he knew were the walls of the chasm. He had made up his mind to give Scamp a chance for life. He tossed aside his quirt, patted the wet neck of the plunging animal and whispered a choking "Good-by." Then, as the flood swept the horse from his feet and swung him sideways against one wall, Roy kicked his feet from the stirrups and sprang blindly toward the bank, clutching in s.p.a.ce.

He struck against the soggy earth and, still clutching with his hands, sank downward inch by inch, his crooked fingers bringing the moist clay with them and his feet finding no lodgment. The water swept him outward then, tearing at his writhing legs. Just as his last clutch failed him his other hand encountered something that was not bare, crumbling earth, and held it desperately. The flood buffeted him and tossed the lower half of his body to and fro like a straw. The muddy water splashed into his face, blinding, choking him. But the object within his grasp remained firm. For a moment he swung there, gasping, with closed eyes. Then he blinked the water from his lids and looked. His left hand was clutching the thick tap root of a greasewood. In an instant he seized it with his other hand as well, and looked about him. Scamp was no longer in sight. The water was rising rapidly. The noise was terrific. All about him the walls, undermined by the flood, were slipping down in wet, crumbling ma.s.ses. He wondered if the root would hold him, and prayed that it might. Then the water came up to his breast, and he knew that if he were to save himself he must manage somehow to crawl upward. Perhaps--perhaps he might even climb quite out of the chasm! If only the earth and the root would hold!

Taking a deep breath he clutched the tap root a foot higher and tried his weight upon it. It held like a rope. He pulled himself a foot higher from the waters. Once more, and then he found that he had command of his legs and could dig his feet into the unstable clay. Then, inch by inch, scarce daring to hope, he pulled himself up, up until he was free of the flood and between him and the ground above only a scant yard remained. Below him the rushing torrents roared, as though angry at his escape, and tossed horrid yellow spray upon him.

Once more he took fresh grip of the slippery root, watching anxiously the low bush at the edge of the bank. Each moment he thought to see it give toward him and send him tossing back into the water. But still it held. At last, hours and hours it seemed since he had first begun his journey, his hand clutched the edge of the bank, but the earth came away in wet handfuls at every clutch. At length his fingers encountered a sprawling root or branch, he knew not which, just beyond his sight; and, digging his toes into the wall in a final despairing effort, he scrambled over the brink and rolled fainting to the rain-soaked ground.

How long he lay there he never knew. But presently a tremor of the earth roused him. Stumbling to his feet, he rushed away from the arroyo just as the bank, for yards behind him, disappeared. After that he struggled onward through the driving rain until he sank exhausted to the ground, burying his head in his arms.

They found him there, hours afterwards, fast asleep, his wet clothes steaming in the hot afternoon sunlight. They put him into the wagon of the nearest rancher and jolted him home, his head in his father's lap and the great horse blankets thrown over him, making him dream that he was a loaf of bread in his mother's oven.

"When Scamp came in, wet and almost dead, we feared you were gone." They were sitting about the supper table. Roy had told his story to a wondering audience, and now, with his plate well filled with mother's best watermelon preserve and citron cake, he was supremely contented, if somewhat tired and sobered. His father continued, his rugged face working as he recalled the anxiety of the day: "I can't see how that broncho ever got out of there alive; can you, boys? And to think," he added wonderingly, "that it was the root of a pesky greasewood bush that saved your life! Boy, I don't reckon I'll ever have the heart again to grub one of 'em up!"

A COLLEGE SANTA CLAUSE

Satherwaite, '02, threw his overcoat across the broad mahogany table, regardless of the silver and cut-gla.s.s furnishings, shook the melting snowflakes from his cap and tossed it atop the coat, half kicked, half shoved a big leathern armchair up to the wide fireplace, dropped himself into it, and stared moodily at the flames.

Satherwaite was troubled. In fact, he a.s.sured himself, drawing his handsome features into a generous scowl, that he was, on this Christmas eve, the most depressed and bored person in the length and breadth of New England.

Satherwaite was not used to being depressed, and boredom was a state usually far remote from his experience; consequently, he took it worse.

With something between a groan and a growl, he drew a crumpled telegram from his pocket. The telegram was at the bottom of it all. He read it again:

E. SATHERWAITE,

Randolph Hall, Cambridge.

Advise your not coming. Aunt Louise very ill.

Merry Christmas.

PHIL.

"' Merry Christmas!'" growled Satherwaite, throwing the offending sheet of buff paper into the flames. "Looks like it, doesn't it? Confound Phil's Aunt Louise, anyway! What business has she getting sick at Christmas time?

Not, of course, that I wish the old lady any harm, but it--it--well, it's wretched luck."

When at college, Phil was the occupant of the bedroom that lay in darkness beyond the half-opened door to the right. He lived, when at home, in a big, rambling house in the Berkshires, a house from the windows of which one could see into three states and overlook a wonderful expanse of wooded hill and sloping meadow; a house which held, besides Phil, and Phil's father and mother and Aunt Louise and a younger brother, Phil's sister. Satherwaite growled again, more savagely, at the thought of Phil's sister; not, be it understood, at that extremely attractive young lady, but at the fate which was keeping her from his sight.

Satherwaite had promised his roommate to spend Christmas with him, thereby bringing upon himself pained remonstrances from his own family, remonstrances which, Satherwaite acknowledged, were quite justifiable. His bags stood beside the door. He had spent the early afternoon very pleasurably in packing them, carefully weighing the respective merits of a primrose waistcoat and a blue-flannel one, as weapons wherewith to impress the heart of Phil's sister. And now--!

He kicked forth his feet, and brought bra.s.s tongs and shovel clattering on the hearth. It relieved his exasperation.

The fatal telegram had reached him at five o'clock, as he was on the point of donning his coat. From five to six, he had remained in a torpor of disappointment, continually wondering whether Phil's sister would care. At six, his own boarding house being closed for the recess, he had trudged through the snow to a restaurant in the square, and had dined miserably on lukewarm turkey and lumpy mashed potatoes. And now it was nearly eight, and he did not even care to smoke. His one chance of reaching his own home that night had pa.s.sed, and there was nothing for it but to get through the interminable evening somehow, and catch an early train in the morning. The theaters in town offered no attraction. As for his club, he had stopped in on his way from dinner, and had fussed with an evening paper, until the untenanted expanse of darkly furnished apartments and the unaccustomed stillness had driven him forth again.

He drew his long legs under him, and arose, crossing the room and drawing aside the deep-toned hangings before the window. It was still snowing.

Across the avenue, a flood of mellow light from a butcher's shop was thrown out over the snowy sidewalk. Its windows were garlanded with Christmas greens and hung with pathetic looking turkeys and geese. Belated shoppers pa.s.sed out, their arms piled high with bundles. A car swept by, its drone m.u.f.fled by the snow. The spirit of Christmas was in the very air.

Satherwaite's depression increased and, of a sudden, inaction became intolerable. He would go and see somebody, anybody, and make them talk to him; but, when he had his coat in his hands, he realized that even this comfort was denied him. He had friends in town, nice folk who would be glad to see him any other time, but into whose family gatherings he could no more force himself to-night than he could steal. As for the men he knew in college, they had all gone to their homes or to those of somebody else.

Staring disconsolately about the study, it suddenly struck him that the room looked disgustingly slovenly and unkempt. Phil was such an untidy beggar! He would fix things up a bit. If he did it carefully and methodically, no doubt he could consume a good hour and a half that way. It would then be half past nine. Possibly, if he tried hard, he could use up another hour bathing and getting ready for bed.

As a first step, he removed his coat from the table, and laid it carefully across the foot of the leather couch. Then he placed his damp cap on one end of the mantel. The next object to meet his gaze was a well-worn notebook. It was not his own, and it did not look like Phil's. The mystery was solved when he opened it and read, "H.G. Doyle--College House," on the fly leaf. He remembered then. He had borrowed it from Doyle almost a week before, at a lecture. He had copied some of the notes, and had forgotten to return the book. It was very careless of him; he would return it as soon as--Then he recollected having seen Doyle at noon that day, coming from one of the cheaper boarding houses. It was probable that Doyle was spending recess at college. Just the thing--he would call on Doyle!

It was not until he was halfway downstairs that he remembered the book. He went back for it, two steps at a time. Out in the street, with the fluffy flakes against his face, he felt better. After all, there was no use in getting grouchy over his disappointment; Phil would keep; and so would Phil's sister, at least until Easter; or, better yet, he would get Phil to take him home with him over Sunday some time. He was pa.s.sing the shops now, and stopped before a jeweler's window, his eye caught by a rather jolly-looking paper knife in gun metal. He had made his purchases for Christmas and had already dispatched them, but the paper knife looked attractive and, if there was no one to give it to, he could keep it himself. So he pa.s.sed into the shop, and purchased it.

"Put it into a box, will you?" he requested. "I may want to send it away."

Out on the avenue again, his thoughts reverted to his prospective host. The visit had elements of humor. He had known Doyle at preparatory school, and since then, at college, had maintained the acquaintance in a casual way. He liked Doyle, always had, just as any man must like an honest, earnest, gentlemanly fellow, whether their paths run parallel or cross only at rare intervals. He and Doyle were not at all in the same coterie, Satherwaite's friends were the richest, and sometimes the laziest, men in college; Doyle's were--well, presumably men who, like himself, had only enough money to sc.r.a.pe through from September to June, who studied hard for degrees, whose viewpoint of university life must, of necessity, be widely separated from Satherwaite's. As for visiting Doyle, Satherwaite could not remember ever having been in his room but once, and that was long ago, in their Freshman year.

Satherwaite had to climb two flights of steep and very narrow stairs, and when he stood at Doyle's door, he thought he must have made a mistake. From within came the sounds of very unstudious revelry, laughter, a s.n.a.t.c.h of song, voices raised in good-natured argument. Satherwaite referred again to the fly leaf of the notebook; there was no error. He knocked and, in obedience to a cheery "Come in!" entered.

He found himself in a small study, shabbily furnished, but cheerful and homelike by reason of the leaping flames in the grate and the blue haze of tobacco smoke that almost hid its farther wall. About the room sat six men, their pipes held questioningly away from their mouths and their eyes fixed wonderingly, half resentfully, upon the intruder. But what caught and held Satherwaite's gaze was a tiny Christmas tree, scarcely three feet high, which adorned the center of the desk. Its branches held toy candles, as yet unlighted, and were festooned with strings of crimson cranberries and colored popcorn, while here and there a small package dangled amidst the greenery.

"How are you, Satherwaite?"

Doyle, tall, lank and near-sighted, arose and moved forward, with outstretched hand. He was plainly embarra.s.sed, as was every other occupant of the study, Satherwaite included. The laughter and talk had subsided.

Doyle's guests politely removed their gaze from the newcomer, and returned their pipes to their lips. But the newcomer was intruding, and knew it, and he was consequently embarra.s.sed. Embarra.s.sment, like boredom, was a novel sensation to him, and he speedily decided that he did not fancy it. He held out Doyle's book.

"I brought this back, old man. I don't know how I came to forget it. I'm awfully sorry, you know; it was so very decent of you to lend it to me.

Awfully sorry, really."

Doyle murmured that it didn't matter, not a particle; and wouldn't Satherwaite sit down?

No, Satherwaite couldn't stop. He heard the youth in the faded cricket-blazer tell the man next to him, in a stage aside, that this was "Satherwaite, '02, an awful swell, you know." Satherwaite again declared that he could not remain.

Doyle said he was sorry; they were just having a little--a sort of a Christmas-eve party, you know. He blushed while he explained, and wondered whether Satherwaite thought them a lot of idiots, or simply a parcel of sentimental kids. Probably Satherwaite knew some of the fellows? he went on.

Satherwaite studied the a.s.semblage, and replied that he thought not, though he remembered having seen several of them at lectures and things. Doyle made no move toward introducing his friends to Satherwaite, and, to relieve the momentary silence that followed, observed that he supposed it was getting colder. Satherwaite replied, absently, that he hadn't noticed, but that it was still snowing. The youth in the cricket-blazer fidgeted in his chair. Satherwaite was thinking.

Of course, he was not wanted there; he realized that. Yet, he was of half a mind to stay. The thought of his empty room dismayed him. The cheer and comfort before him appealed to him forcibly. And, more than all, he was possessed of a desire to vindicate himself to this circle of narrow-minded critics. Great Scott! just because he had some money and went with some other fellows who also had money, he was to be promptly labeled "sn.o.b," and treated with polite tolerance only. By Jove, he would stay, if only to punish them for their narrowness!

"You're sure I shan't be intruding, Doyle?" he asked.

Doyle gasped in amazement. Satherwaite removed his coat. A shiver of consternation pa.s.sed through the room. Then the host found his tongue.

"Glad to have you. Nothing much doing. Few friends, Quiet evening. Let me take your coat."

Introductions followed. The man in the cricket-blazer turned out to be Doak, '03, the man who had won the Jonas Greeve scholarship; a small youth with eaglelike countenance was Somers, he who had debated so brilliantly against Princeton; a much-bewhiskered man was Ailworth, of the Law School; Kranch and Smith, both members of Satherwaite's cla.s.s, completed the party.

Satherwaite shook hands with those within reach, and looked for a chair.

Instantly everyone was on his feet; there was a confused chorus of "Take this, won't you?" Satherwaite accepted a straight-backed chair with part of its cane seat missing, after a decent amount of protest; then a heavy, discouraging silence fell. Satherwaite looked around the circle. Everyone save Ailworth and Doyle was staring blankly at the fire. Ailworth dropped his eyes gravely; Doyle broke out explosively with:

"Do you smoke, Satherwaite?"