The Shagganappi Part 21

In the grey dawn of the next morning Maurice was astir, his horses were being well fed, his mail bags packed securely, his gun looked over sharply. Then came the savory smells of bacon and toast for breakfast, the hurried good-byes, the long, persistent whistle for Royal, the deer hound, his constant chum in all things, then the whizzing crack of the young driver's "blacksnake" whip, a bunching together of the four horses' st.u.r.dy little hoofs, a spring forward, and the "mountain mail"

was away--away up the yawning canyon, where the peaks lifted on every side, where the black forests crowded out the glorious sunrise, away up the wild gorge, where human foot rarely fell and only the wild things prowled from starlight to daylight the long years through; where the trail wound up and up the steeps, losing itself in the clouds which hung like great festoons of cobwebs half-high against the snow line. In all that vast world Maurice drove on utterly alone, save for the pleasant companionship of his four galloping horses and the cheering presence of Royal, who panted at the rear wheels of the mail coach, and wagged his tail in a frenzy of delight whenever his human friend spoke to him.

The climb was so precipitous that it was hours before he could reach the summit, and he was yet some miles from being half way when his well-trained eye caught indications of coming disaster. A thousand trivial things announced that a mountain storm was brewing; the clouds trailed themselves into long, leaden ribbons, then swirled in circles like whirlpools. The huge Douglas firs began to murmur, then whisper, then growl. The sky grew thick and reddish, the gleaming, snow-clad peaks disappeared.

Maurice took in the situation at once. With the instinct of a veteran mail carrier, his first care was to roll his mail bags in a rubber sheet, while the registered sack, doubly protected, he never allowed for a moment to leave its station beneath his knees under the seat. These simple precautions were barely completed before the storm was upon him. A blinding flash set his horses on edge, their sensitive nerves quivering in every flank. Maurice gathered the lines firmly, seized his "blacksnake," and, with a low whistle, urged his animals, that bounded forward, snorting with fear as a crack of thunder followed, booming down the gorges with deafening echoes. In another moment the whole forest seemed alive. The giant pines whipped and swayed together, their supple tips bending and beaten with the fury of the tempest. Above the wild voices of the hurricane came the frequent crash of falling timber; but, through it all, the boy drove on without thought of himself or of shelter, and through it all the splendid animals kept the trail, responding as only the horse can respond to the touch of a guiding rein or the sound of the mountaineer's whistle. But the end came for Maurice, when, upon rounding an abrupt steep, his four animals reared in terror, then seemed to crouch back upon their haunches. The rude log bridge they should have dashed across was gone--in its place gaped a huge fissure, its throat choked with wreckage of trestle and planking.

The unexpected halt nearly pitched Maurice from the wagon, but he steadied first his nerve, then his hands, then his eyes. Why had the bridge gone down, was his first thought. The storm was of far too brief duration to have done the mischief. Then those keen young eyes of his saw beyond the tempest and the ruined bridge. They saw about the useless supports and wooden props fresh chips from a recent axe. In a second his brain grasped the fact that the bridge had been cut away on purpose. His thoughts flew forward--for what purpose was it destroyed? Like a dream seemed to come the captain's voice in his ears: "Better take a gun with you, boy, and keep a sharp lookout for that registered stuff--mind!" And he heard himself reply, "I'll land the mail at the mines all right."

"And I'll do it, too!" he said, aloud. Then, above the hoa.r.s.e voices of the storm, he heard a low, long, penetrating whistle. Quick as a flash the boy realized his position. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the registered mail bag from between his knees. "Royal! Royal! Good dog!" he called, softly, and the poor, wet, storm-beaten creature came instantly, reaching pathetically toward his young master, his forefeet pawing the wagon wheels, his fine, keen nose sniffing at the mail sack outheld by Maurice.

"Royal, you must watch!" said the boy. "Watch, Royal, watch!" Then, with a strengthy fling of his arm, he hurled the precious bag of registered mail over the rim of the precipice, far down into the canyon, two hundred feet below. For an instant the dog stood rigid. Then, like the needle to the north, he turned, held his sensitive head high in the air for a moment, sniffed audibly and was gone. Then again came that low, long whistle. The horses' ears went erect, and Maurice sat silent, grasping the reins and peering ahead through the now lessening rain.

But, with all his young courage, his heart weakened when a voice spoke directly behind him. It said:

"Who are you?"

He turned and faced three men, and, looking directly into the eyes of the roughest-seeming one of the trio, he replied, quietly:

"I think you know who I am."

"Humph! Cool, I must say!" answered the first speaker. "Well, perhaps we can warm you up a bit; but maybe you can save us some trouble by telling us where old Delorme is."

"At home," said Maurice.

"And you've brought the mall in place of Delorme, I suppose? Well, so much the better for us. I'll trouble you to hand me out that bag of registered stuff."

The man ceased speaking, his hand on the rim of the front wheel.

"I have no registered stuff," the boy answered, truthfully. "Just six common mail bags. Do you wish them? As I am only one boy against three men, I suppose there is not much use resisting." Maurice's lip curled in a half sneer, and his eyes never left the big bully's face.

"A lie won't work this time, young fellow!" the man threatened. "Boys, go through that wagon! go over every inch of it now; you'll find the stuff all right."

The other two men emptied the entire load into the trail, then turned and stared at their leader.

"This is a bluff! Rip open those bags!" he growled. And the next moment the contents of the six bags were sprawling in the mud. They contained nothing but ordinary letters and newspapers.

"Sold!" blurted out the man. "We might have known that any yarn 'Sat.u.r.day Jim' told us would be a lie. He couldn't give a man a straight tip to save his life! Come on, boys! There's nothing doing this trip!"

And, swinging about, he turned up an unbroken trail that opened on some hidden pa.s.s to the "front." His two pals followed at his heels, muttering sullenly over their ill success.

"No," said Maurice to himself. "You're quite right, gentlemen! There's nothing doing this trip!" But, aloud, he only spoke gently to his wearied horses as he unhitched and secured them to the rear of the wagon, gathered the scattered mail, and then scanned the sky narrowly.

The storm was over, but the firs still thrashed their tops in the wind, the clouds still trailed and circled about the mountain summit. For a full hour Maurice sat quietly and thought things. What was to be done?

The bridge was gone, the registered mail at the bottom of the canyon, and the day growing shorter every moment. Only one course lay before him. (He would not consider, even for a second, that any way lay open to him behind.) He must get that mail to the mines, or he could never look his father in the face again. He walked cautiously to the brink of the precipice and looked over. It was very steep. Nothing was visible but broken rock, boulders and bracken. No sign of either Royal or the mail bag; but he knew that somewhere, far below, the dog was keeping watch; that his four wise, steady feet had unerringly taken him where his animal instinct had dictated; and Maurice argued that, where his four feet could go, his two could follow. He must recover the bag, select his fleetest horse, and ride bareback on to the mines.

The descent was a long, rough, dangerous business, but Maurice had learned many a climbing trick from the habits of the mountain goat, and at last he stood at the canyon's bottom, a tired, lonely but courageous bit of boyhood, ready to suffer and dare anything so long as he could prove himself worthy of the trust that his father had placed in his strong young hands.

He stood for a moment, awed by the wonder of the granite walls that rose like a vast fortress, towering above him, silent and motionless. Then he gave one clear whistle, then listened. Almost within stone's throw came the response the half-sad, wholly eager whine of a dog. Maurice was beside him in a twinkling, patting and hugging the beautiful animal, who lay, with shining eyes and wagging tail, his forepaws resting on the coa.r.s.e canvas which bore, woven redly into its warp and woof, the two words: "Canada Mail."

What a meeting it was! Boy and dog, each with a worthy trust, worthily kept. But it was one, two, three hours before Maurice, footsore, exhausted, and with bleeding fingers, followed by Royal, panting and thirsty, regained the trail where the horses stood, ready for the onward gallop, three of them failing to understand why they were to be left in the lonely forest, while the fourth was quickly bridled, packed with the mail sacks and Maurice, and told to "be careful now!" as he picked his way down and around the bridgeless gorge and "hit the trail" on the opposite side.

It was very late that night when the men at the mines heard the even gallop of an approaching horse. Many of the miners had gone to bed grumbling and threatening when no mail had arrived and no wages were paid. The manager and his a.s.sistants were still up, however, perplexed and worried that, for the first time, old Maurice Delorme had failed to reach the camp with the company's money bags. But up the rough makeshift of a road came those galloping hoofs, halting before the primitive post office, while the crowd gathered and welcomed a strange trio. The manager himself lifted poor, stiff, tired "Little" Maurice from the back of an equally stiff, tired mountain pony, while a hot, hungry hound whined about, trying to tell the whole story in his wonderful dog fashion; but, when they did hear the real story from Maurice, there was a momentary silence, then a rough old miner fairly shouted, "Well, by the Great Horn Spoon, he's old Maurice Delorme's son all right!" Then came--cheers!

The Whistling Swans

For several evenings early in October the North Street boys had been gathering at Benson's to try and organize a club, but the difficulty seemed to be to decide upon what kind of a club would be most interesting. The ball season would soon be over, the long winter would soon be on them, and things wore a pretty flat outlook, unless they could arrange some interesting diversion for that string of dull days, only broken by Christmas holidays. The West Ward fellows had a Checker Club, the Third Form fellows had a Puzzle Club, the Collegiates had a Canadian Literature Club; even the Mill boys down on the Flats had a Captain Kidd Club, proving themselves at times bandits quite worthy the club's name. Only the North Street boys seemed "out of it," but from the way they talked and shouted and wrangled at these preliminary meetings it looked as if they certainly intended to "come in" out of their isolation. But there had been five meetings without any decision having been arrived at. Every boy of the ten present seemed to want a different sort of club. The things that were suggested would have amazed the members of the various other clubs could they have heard them.

Then, one night when the din and confusion were at fever heat, the door suddenly opened and in walked Benson's father.

"Why, what's all this babel?" he exclaimed, as silence fell on the crowd and the boys got to their feet meekly to greet him with polite "good-evenings." "I never heard such a parrot-and-monkey, Kilkenny-cat outfit in all my life! What's up, fellows?"

Benson's father was generally acknowledged to be a "comedian." No one ever saw him in a temper, or heard him speak a sharp word. He had a droll, woebegone face that never smiled, but a face everybody--from the mayor to the poorest mill hand--loved and respected. How often Benson had come in from school, ill-tempered and sour-visaged at something that had gone wrong in the cla.s.s-room, only to have that droll face of his father's and some equally droll remark upset all his dignity and indignation into laughter and consequent good nature.

"One at a time, boys, just one at a time, or I shall have bustificated eardrums! What is it all about?"

Then they told him, but, it must be confessed, not one at a time.

"A club, eh?" he questioned, straddling a chair and leaning his arms on the back. "What kind of a club, pleasure club, improvement club, sporting club, what?"

"That's the trouble; we can't hit on it!" they chorused.

For a moment he sat silent, his round, childish eyes surveying the world that hung on his very first words.

"I saw a queer thing as I came up the street to-night", he began, seemingly having forgotten the subject in hand. "A dray-horse was standing before the mill gates, and frisking about its heels was a dandy little c.o.c.ker spaniel, prettiest little dog you ever saw. The horse got tired leaning on one leg, I guess, for he shifted his position, and, in bringing down his left hind leg, he just pinned the little c.o.c.ker's foot to the ground with his big hoof. c.o.c.ker yelled. Worst row I ever heard--until I came into this room. But what do you suppose Mr. Horse did? Just lifted gently his left fore-hoof, but the squealing did not stop. Then he lifted his right fore-hoof; still the squealing went on.

'Thinks I,' said the horse to himself, 'it must be my right hind-hoof,'

so he lifted that. 'No, sir,' he told himself; 'sure, it's my left-hinder'; and lifting that, he released the poor dog, who dashed around to the horse's head, leaping up to his nose, and saying, 'Thank you!' over and over.* And the big, clumsy dray-horse just drew his long face a little longer, and said: 'Never mind, old chap! I didn't mean to hurt you; I'm sorry.' Then came the drayman out of the mill--a nice, considerate, heart-warm, intelligent human being. Oh, yes! we humans know so much more than animals, don't we, fellows? And because the big, patient, kindly dray-horse had, in its restlessness, moved twenty feet from the spot the driver left him at, that creature that is supposed to have known better, just took his whip and licked and lashed that glorious animal, yelling in a frenzy of temper, 'I'll teach you to move, when I leave you! You--' Well, boys, you nor I don't care to hear all he did say."

[*Fact observed by the writer's brother.]

"The brute!" "The big human hulk!" "The sneak!" "And he called himself a man!" were some of the phrases growled out by the indignant boys.

"Yes, a man," continued Benson's father, "_so_ much better than the dray-horse, that knew enough to lift his feet until he lifted the right one. I believe if that horse had the feet of a centipede, he would have gone on lifting them until the dog was released. I tell you, boys, if I could get anyone to help me, I'd start an Animal Rescue Club, to--"

But the good gentleman never finished that sentence. The boys were on top of him, round him, under him, clamoring and shouting for him to organize their club for them, to help them study the habits and ways and "thoughts" of animals, to prevent abuse and cruelty towards them.

They voted him in as honorary president, and went home that night the happiest-hearted lot of boys in the country. Just before they dispersed, however, a shy little chap named Jimmy Duffy, who had not much opportunity to speak amid the noise of stronger voices, said:

"But, Mr. Benson, you _do_ think the dray-horse thought and reasoned, don't you?"

"Surely he did, boy! And he spoke, too, in his own simple horse-language, though we cannot understand his tongue; but we should,"

answered Benson's father.

It was not very long before the "Animal Rescue Club" of North Street became known far and wide, and its influence began to be felt in all quarters. The unfeeling drayman whose act of cruelty first gave rise to the organization was watched, then reported to police headquarters, from where he received a sound lecture because of various other ill-treatments of his horse, and after a time he began to see his own unkindness through the same spectacles as the "Animal Rescuers" viewed it, and within two months he became a considerate, gentle driver.

"If the club never does another thing but reform that one man, and make him kinder to that big, good-hearted horse of his, it has been organized for some purpose," commented Mr. Benson, one evening, when he "dropped in" to one of the meetings. "Keep it up, fellows. Our little four-footed animals serve us well, and deserve consideration in return." And the boys worked hard and faithfully to follow his advice. Homeless cats, stray, mangy dogs, ill-fed horses, neglected cows, street sparrows, pigeons, bluejays, were watched and protected and relieved of their sufferings all that winter through. Finally Benson's father arranged his evenings so that he could spend an hour with the club at each meeting, which time he devoted to "lecturing" on the habits and haunts of animals and birds. Those lectures were the delight of all, for this happy-hearted, boyish man would, in some marvellous fashion, discover all the humorous habits and comical dispositions and actions of every living thing. The little wiry-haired Irish terrier was a comedian, he declared. The bull-moose was a tragedian, the black bear cub was a clown, the lynx a villain, and the migrating birds a sweet, invisible chorus. Then to each and all he would attach some fascinating story, explaining why they resembled these characters. Often the entire club would be roaring with laughter over animal antics and bird capers, then the young faces would be very serious the next minute over some pathetic, heartbreaking tale of hunted deer-mothers trying to protect their pretty fawns, or some father fox lying dead because a swift bullet had caught him as he raided the poultry yard in the endeavor to seize food for the pretty litter of sharp-nosed little cubs, curled up with their mother in a distant cave.

So the boys listened and learned and laughed, and, as spring crept up the calendar, their only regret at the return of the ball season was that the club meetings would be over until next autumn.