Told In The Hills Part 24

"But ye can go all the way, instead o' but a part, an' then no be out o'

your road either," he said, with eagerness that showed how loath he was to part from his young companions. "Ye know," he added, turning to Rachel, "it is but three miles by the cross-cut to Genesee's, while by the valley ye would cover eight on the way. Now, the path o'er the hills is no fit for the feet o' a horse, except it be at the best o' seasons; but this is an ower good one, with neither the rain nor the ice; an' if ye will risk it--"

Of course they would risk it; and with a draught apiece from an odorous, dark-brown jug, and the gift of a flask that found its way to Stuart's pocket, they started.

They needed that swallow of brandy as a brace against the cold wind of the hills. It hustled through the pines like winged fiends let loose from the north. Dried berries from the bushes and cones from the trees were sent pattering to sleep for the winter, and the sighs through the green roofing, and the moans from twisted limbs, told of the hardihood needed for life up there. The idea impressed Stuart so much that he gave voice to it, and was laughed at grimly by the old mountaineer.

"Oh, well, it just takes man to be man, an' that's all when all's said,"

he answered "To be sure, there be times when one canna stir for the snow wreaths, but that's to be allowed for; an' then ye may ha' took note that my cabin is in shelter o' all but the south wind, an' that's a great matter. Men who live in the mountain maun get used to its frolics; but it's an ugly bit," he acknowledged, as they stopped to rest and look up over the seemingly pathless way they had come; "but I've been thankful for it many's the time, when, unlooked for, Genesee and Mowitza would show their faces at my door, an' she got so she could make that climb in the dark--think o' that! Ah, but she was the wise one!"

Stuart glanced at Rachel, who was more likely than himself to understand what was meant by the "wise one;" but he did not again venture a question. Mowitza was another squaw, he supposed, and one of the companions of the man Genesee. And the other one they had pa.s.sed in the morning?--her name also was connected with the scout whom the white girl seemed to champion or condemn as the fancy pleased her. And Stuart, as a stranger to the social system of the wilderness, had his curiosity widely awakened. A good deal of it was directed to Rachel herself.

Hearing MacDougall speak of the man to her, he could understand that she had no lack of knowledge in that direction--and the direction was one of which the right sort of a girl was supposed to be ignorant; or, if not ignorant, at least to conceal her wisdom in the wise way of her sisters.

This one did nothing of the sort; and the series of new impressions received made him observe the girl with a scrutiny not so admiring as he had always, until now, given her. He was irritated with himself that it was so, yet his ideas of what a woman should be were getting some hard knocks at her hands.

Suddenly the glisten of the little lake came to them through the gray trunks of the trees, and a little later they had descended the series of small circular ridges that terraced the cove from the timber to the waters, that was really not much more than an immense spring that happened to bubble up where there was a little depression to spread itself in and show to advantage.

"But a mill would be turned easily by that same bit o' water," observed MacDougall; "an' there's where Genesee showed the level head in locating his claim where he did."

"It looks like wasted power, placed up here," observed Stuart, "for it seems about the last place in Christendom for a mill."

"Well, so it may look to many a pair o' eyes," returned the old man, with a wink and a shrug that was indescribable, but suggested a vast deal of unuttered knowledge; "but the lad who set store by it because o'

the water-power was a long ways from a fool, I can tell ye."

Again Stuart found himself trying to count the spokes of some shadowy wheels within wheels that had a trick of eluding him; and he felt irritatingly confident that the girl looking at him with quizzical, non-committal eyes could have enlightened him much as to the absent ruler of this domain, who, according to her own words, was utterly degraded, yet had a trick of keeping his personality such a living thing after a year's absence.

The cabin was cold with the chill dreariness of any house that is left long without the warmth of an embodied human soul. Only the wandering, homeless spirits of the air had pa.s.sed in and out, in and out of its c.h.i.n.ks, sighing through them for months, until, on entrance, one felt an intuitive, sympathetic shiver for their loneliness.

A fire was soon crackling on the hearth; but the red gleams did not dance so merrily on the rafters as they had the first time she had been warmed at the fire-place--the daylight was too merciless a rival. It penetrated the corners and showed up the rude bunk and some mining implements; from a rafter hung a roll of skins done up in bands of some pliable withes.

Evidently Genesee's injunction had been obeyed, for even the pottery, and reed baskets, and bowls still shone from the box of shelves.

"It's a mystery to me those things are not stolen by the Indians,"

observed Stuart, noticing the lack of any fastening on the door, except a bar on the inside.

"There's no much danger o' that," said the old man grimly, "unless it be by a Siwash who knows naught o' the country. The Kootenai people would do no ill to Genesee, nor would any Injun when he lives in the Tamahnous ground."

"What territory is that?"

"Just the territory o' witchcraft--no less. The old mine and the spring, with the circle o' steps down to it, they let well alone, I can tell ye; and as for stealin', they'd no take the worth o' a tenpenny nail from between the two hills that face each other, an' the rocks o' them 'gives queer echoes that they canna explain. Oh, yes, they have their witches, an' their warlocks, an' enchanted places, an' will no go against their belief, either."

"But," said Rachel, with a slight hesitation, "Talapa was not afraid to live here."

"An' did ye not know, then, that she was not o' Kootenai stock?" asked the old man. "Well, she was not a bit o' it; Genesee bought her of a beast of a Blackfoot."

"Bought her?" asked Stuart, and even Rachel opened her eyes in attention--perhaps, after all, not knowing so much as the younger man had angrily given her credit for.

"Just that; an' dear she would ha' been at most any price. But she was a braw thing to look at, an' young enough to be sorry o'er. An' so when he come across her takin' a beating like a mule he could na stand it; an'

the only way he could be sure o' putting an end to it was by maken' a bargain; an' that's just what he did, an' a'most afore he had time to take thought, the girl was his, an' he had to tek her with him. Well,"

and the old man laughed comically at the remembrance, "you should ha'

seen him at the comin' home!--tried to get her off his hands by leavin'

her an' a quitclaim at my cabin; but I'd have none o' that--no half-breed woman could stay under a roof o' mine; an' the finish o' it was he hed to bring her here to keep house for him, an' a rueful commencement it was. Then it was but a short while 'til he got hurt one day in the tunnel, an' took a deal o' care before he was on his feet again. Well, ye know womankind make natural nurses, an' by the time she had him on the right trail again he had got o' the mind that Talapa was a necessity o' the cabin; an' so ye may know she stayed."

"In what tunnel was he injured?" asked Stuart.

"Why, just--"

"There's your horse ranging calmly up toward the timber," observed Rachel, turning from the window to Stuart. "Do you want to walk to the ranch?"

"Well, not to-day;" and a moment later he was out of the door and running across the terraced meadow.

"Don't tell him too much about the tunnel," suggested the girl, when she and the old man were alone.

"Why, la.s.s,"--he began; but she cut him short brusquely, keeping her eye on the form on the hill-side.

"Oh, he may be all right; but it isn't like you, Davy MacDougall, to tell all you know to strangers, even if they do happen to have Scotch names--you clannish old goose!"

"But the lad's all right."

"May be he is; but you've told him enough of the hills now to send him away thinking we are all a rather mixed and objectionable lot. Oh, yes, he does too!" as Davy tried to remonstrate. "I don't care how much you tell him about the Indians; but that tunnel may have something in it that Genesee wouldn't want Eastern speculators spying into while he's away--do you see?"

Evidently he did, and the view was not one flattering to his judgment, for, in order to see more clearly, he took off his fur cap, scratched his head, and then replacing the covering with a great deal of energy, he burst out:

"Well, d.a.m.n a fool, say I."

Rachel paid not the slightest attention to this profane plea.

"I suppose he's all right," she continued; "only when somebody's interest is at stake, especially a friend's, we oughtn't to take things for granted, and keeping quiet hurts no one, unless it be a stranger's curiosity."

The old man looked at her sharply. "Ye dinna like him, then?"

She hesitated, her eyes on the tall form leading back the horse. Just then there seemed a strange likeness to Mowitza and Genesee in their manner, for the beast was tossing its head impatiently, and he was laughing, evidently teasing it with the fact of its capture.

"Yes, I do like him," she said at last; "there is much about him to like. But we must not give away other people's affairs because of that."

"Right you are, my la.s.s," answered Davy; "an' it's rare good sense ye show in remindin' me o' the same. It escapes me many's the time that he's a bit of a stranger when all's said; an' do ye know, e'en at the first he had no the ways of a stranger to me. I used to fancy that something in his build, or it may ha' been but the voice, was like to--"

"You are either too old or not old enough to have fancies, Davy MacDougall," interrupted the girl briskly, as Stuart re-entered. "Well, is it time to be moving?"

He looked at his watch.

"Almost; but come to the fire and get well warmed before we start. I believe it grows colder; here, take this seat."

"Well, I will not," she answered, looking about her; "don't let your gallantry interfere with your comfort, for I've a chair of my own when I visit this witchy quarter of the earth--yes, there it is."

And from the corner by the bunk she drew forward the identical chair on which she had sat through the night at her only other visit. But from her speech Stuart inferred that this time was but one of the many.

"What are you going to do here, Davy MacDougall?" she asked, drawing her chair close beside him and glancing comprehensively about the cabin; "weather-board it up for winter?"

"Naw, scarcely that," he answered good-humoredly; "but just to gather up the blankets or skins or aught that the weather or the rats would lay hold of, and carry them across the hills to my own camp till the spring comes; mayhaps he may come with it."