Told In The Hills Part 7

"No, Miss, silver; and it's there. I've got tired more than once and given it the klatawa (the go-by); but I'd always come back, and I reckon I always will until I strike it."

"And then?"

"Well, I haven't got that far yet."

And thus any curiosity about the man's life or future was generally silenced. He had told her many things of the past; his life in the mines of Colorado and Idaho, with now and then the diversion of a government scout's work along the border. All of that he would speak of without reserve, but of the actual present or of the future he would say nothing.

"I have read somewhere in a book of a man without a past," remarked the girl to Mrs. Hardy; "but our guide seems a man utterly without a future."

"Perhaps he does not like to think of it here alone," suggested Tillie thoughtfully; "he must be very lonely sometimes. Just see how he loves that horse!"

"Not a horse, Tillie--a klootchman kiuatan," corrected the student of Chinook; "If you are going to live out here, you must learn the language of the hills."

"You are likely to know it first;" and then, after a little, she added: "But noticing that man's love for his Mowitza, I have often thought how kind he would be to a wife. I think he has a naturally affectionate nature, though he does swear--I heard him; and to grow old and wild here among the Indians and squaw men seems too bad. He is intelligent--a man who might accomplish a great deal yet. You know he is comparatively young--thirty-five, I heard Hen say."

"Yes," said Mrs. Houghton sarcastically; "a good age at which to adopt a child. You had better take him back as one of the fixtures on the ranch, Tillie; of course he may need some training in the little courtesies of life, but no doubt Rachel would postpone her return East and offer her services as tutor;" and with this statement Mistress Houghton showed her disgust of the entire subject.

"She is 'riled,'" said the girl, looking quizzically after the plump retreating form.

"Why, what in the world--"

"Nothing in the world, Tillie, and that's what's the matter with Clara.

Her ideas of the world are, and always will be, bounded by the rules and regulations of Willow Centre, Kentucky. Of course it isn't to be found on a map of the United States, but it's a big place to Clara; and she doesn't approve of Mr. Genesee because he lives outside its knowledge.

She intimated yesterday that he might be a horse-thief for any actual acquaintance we had with his resources or manner of living."

"Ridiculous!" laughed Tillie. "That man!"

The girl slipped her arm around the little wife's waist and gave her a hug like a young bear. She had been in a way lectured and snubbed by that man, but she bore no malice.

The end of their cultus corrie was reached as they went into camp for a two-days' stay, on the shoulder of a mountain from which one could look over into the Idaho hills, north into British Columbia, and through the fair Kootenai valleys to the east, where the home-ranch lay.

Houghton and Hardy each had killed enough big game to become inoculated with the taste for wild life, and the ladies were delighted with the idea of having the spoils of the hunt for the adornment of their homes; and altogether the trip was voted a big success.

Is there anything more appetizing, after a long ride through the mountains, than to rest under the cedars at sunset and hear the sizzle of broiled meat on the red coals, and have the aroma of coffee borne to you on the breeze that would lull you to sleep if you were not so hungry?

"I could have eaten five meals during every twenty-four hours since we started," acknowledged Rachel, as she watched with flattering attention the crisping slices of venison that were acc.u.mulating on a platter by the fire.

And she looked as if both the appet.i.te and the wild living had agreed with her. Clara complained that Rachel really seemed to pride herself on the amount of tan she had been able to gather from the wind and the sun, while Hardy decided that only her light hair would keep her from being taken for an Indian.

But for all the looks that were gaining a tinge of wildness, and the appet.i.tes that would persist in growing ravenous, it was none the less a jolly, pleasant circle that gathered about the evening meal, sometimes eaten on a large flat stone, if any were handy, and again on the gra.s.s, where the knives and small articles of table-ware would lose themselves in the tall spears; but, whatever was used as a table, the meal in the evening was the domestic event of the day. At midday there was often but a hasty lunch; breakfast was simply a preparation for travel; but in the evening all were prepared for rest and the enjoyment of either eatables or society. And until the darkness fell there was the review of the day's hunt by the men--Hardy and Houghton vying with each other in their recitals--or, as Ivans expressed it, "swappin' lies"--around the fire.

Sometimes there would be singing, and blended with the notes of night-birds in the forest would sound the call of human throats echoing upward in old hymns that all had known sometime, in the East. And again Tillie would sing them a ballad or a love-song in a sweet, fresh voice; or, with Clara, Hardy, and Houghton, a quartette would add volume to some favorite, their scout a silent listener. Rachel never sang with the rest; she preferred whistling, herself. And many a time when out of sight of her on the trail, she was located by that boyish habit she had of echoing the songs of many of the birds that were new to her, learning their notes, and imitating them so well as to bring many a decoyed answer from the woods.

Between herself and the guide there was no more their former comaraderie. They had never regained their old easy, friendly manner.

Still, she asked him that night at "last camp" of the music of the Indians. Had they any? Could he sing? Had there ever been any of their music published? etc.

And he told them of the airs that were more like chants, like the echoes of whispering or moaning forests, set to human words; of the dusky throats that, without training, yet sang together with never a discord; of the love-songs that had in them the minor cadences of sadness. Only their war-songs seemed to carry brightness, and they only when echoes of victory.

In the low, glowing light of the fire, when the group around it faded in the darkness, he seemed to forget his many listeners, and talked on as if to only one. To the rest it was as if they had met a stranger there that evening for the first time, and found him entertaining. Even Mrs.

Houghton dropped her slightly supercilious manner toward him, a change to which he was as indifferent as to her coolness. It may have been Tillie's home-songs in the evening that unlocked his lips; or it may have been the realization that the pleasure-trip was ended--that in a short time he would know these people no more, who had brought him home-memories in their talk of home-lives. It may have been a dash of recklessness that urged him to enjoy it for a little only--this a.s.sociation that suggested so much to which he had long been a stranger.

Whatever the impulse was, it showed a side of his nature that only Rachel had gained any knowledge of through those first bright, eager days of their cultus corrie.

At Tillie's request he repeated some remembered fragments of Indian songs that had been translated into the Red's language, and of which he gave them the English version or meaning as well as he could. A couple of them he knew entire, and to Tillie's delight he hummed the plaintive airs until she caught the notes. And even after the rest had quietly withdrawn and rolled themselves in blankets for the night's rest, Hardy and his wife and Genesee still sat there with old legends of Tsiatko, the demon of the night, for company, and with strange songs in which the music would yet sound familiar to any ears used to the shrilling of the winds through the timber, or the m.u.f.fled moans of the wood-dove.

And in the sweet dusk of the night, Rachel, the first to leave the fire, lay among the odorous, spicy branches of the cedar and watched the picture of the group about the fire. All was in darkness, save when a bit of reflected red would outline form or feature, and they looked rather uncanny in the red-and-black coloring. An Indian council or the grouping of witches and warlocks it might have been, had one judged the scene only from sight. But the voices of the final three, dropped low though they were for the sake of the supposed sleepers, yet had a tone of pleasant converse that belied their impish appearance.

Those voices came to Rachel dreamily, merging their music with the drowsy odors of a spruce pillow. And through them all she heard Tillie and Genesee singing a song of some unlettered Indian poet:

"Lemolo mika tsolo siah polaklie, Towagh tsee chil-chil siah saghallie.

Mika na chakko?--me sika chil-chil, Opitsah! mika winapia, Tsolo--tsolo!"

"Wild do I wander, far in the darkness, Shines bright a sweet star far up above.

Will you not come to me? you are the star, Sweetheart! I wait, Lost!--in the dark!"

And the white girl's mouth curled dubiously in that smile that always vanquished the tender curves of her lips, and then dropped asleep whispering the refrain, "Tsolo--tsolo!"

CHAPTER VI.

TSOLO--TSOLO!

The retracing of steps, either figuratively or literally, is always provocative of thought to the individual who walks again over the old paths; the waning of a moon never finds the same state of feelings in the heart that had throbbed through it under the gold sickle. Back over how many a road do we walk with a sigh, remembering the laughter that had once echoed along it! Something has been gained, something has been lost, since; and a human sigh is as likely to be called forth by one cause as the other.

Miss Rachel Hardy, who usually laughed at sighs of sentiment, did not indulge in them as one by one the landmarks of the past three weeks rose in sight. But different natures find different vents for feeling, and she may have got rid of hers by the long gallops she took alone over the now known trail, priding herself on her ability to find her way miles ahead of the slower-moving party; and resting herself and horse in some remembered retreat, would await their coming.

Through these solitary rides she began to understand the fascination such a free, untrammeled existence would have for a man. One must feel a very Adam in the midst of this virginity of soil and life of the hills.

She had not Tillie's domestic ideas of life, else the thought of an Eve might also have occurred to her. But though she wasted no breath in sighs over the retraced cultus corrie, neither did she in the mockery that had tantalized Clara in the beginning. That lady did not find her self-imposed duty of chaperon nearly so arduous as at first, since, from the time the other ladies awakened to the fact that their guide had a good baritone voice and could be interesting, the girl forgot her role of champion, also her study of mongrel languages; for she dropped that ready use of Chinook of which she had been proud, especially in her conversation with him, and only used it if chance threw her in the way of Indians hunting or gathering olallie (berries) in the hills.

Genesee never noticed by word or action the changed manner that dropped him out of her knowledge. Once or twice, in crossing a bit of country that was in any way dangerous to a stranger, he had said no one must leave the party or go out of hearing distance; and though the order was a general one, they all knew he meant Rachel, and the ladies wondered a little if that generally headstrong damsel would heed it, or if she would want willfully to take the bit in her teeth and go as she pleased--a habit of hers; but she did not; she rode demurely with the rest, showing the respect of a soldier to the orders of a commander.

Along the last bit of bad country he spoke to her of the enforced care through the jungle of underbrush, where the chetwoot (black bear) was likely to be met and prove a dangerous enemy, at places where the trail led along the edge of ravines, and where a fright to a horse was a risky thing.

"It's hard on you, Miss, to be kept back here with the rest of us," he said, half apologetically; "you're too used to riding free for this to be any pleasure, but--"

"Don't distress yourself about me," she answered easily, but without looking at him. "I have felt a little lazy to-day, so has Betty, and have been satisfied to loaf; but now we are at the edge of this bad strip, and just down over this bend ahead is a long stretch of level, and I think--yes, I am quite sure--I am ready now for a run."

And without waiting to hear either a.s.sent or dissent to her intention, she touched Betty with the whip, and Mowitza and her master were left behind, much to Mowitza's dissatisfaction. She gave one plunge ahead as if to follow, but Genesee's hand on the bridle had a quick, cruel grip for a moment, and in slow silence they made their way down the timbered slope to the lower levels. The girl, free from companionship save her own thoughts, galloped through the odorous, shadowy table-lands, catching here and there a glimpse of glistening water in a river ahead, as it trailed its length far below the plateaus, and shone like linked diamonds away toward the east.

She remembered the river; it was a branch of the Kootenai. To be near it meant but a short journey home; two days more, perhaps, and then--well, their outing would be over. She would go back East, and say good-bye to Betty; and then she began to think of that man who belonged to these hills and who never need leave them--never need go a mile without his horse, if he did not choose; and she envied him as she could not have thought it possible to do six months before--to envy a man such a primitive existence, such simple possessions! But most human wants are so much a matter of a.s.sociation, and Rachel Hardy, though all unconscious of it, was most impressionable to surroundings. Back of her coolness and carelessness was a sensitive temperament in which the pulses were never stilled. It thrilled her with quick sympathies for which she was vexed with herself, and which she hid as well as she could. She had more than likely never tried to a.n.a.lyze her emotions; they were seldom satisfactory enough for her to grant them so much patience; but had she done so, she would have found her desires molded as much by a.s.sociation and sentiment as most other human nature of her age.

Once or twice she looked back as she left the timber, but could see nothing of the others, and Betty seemed to scent the trail home, and long for the ranch and the white-coated flocks of the pastures, for she struck out over the table-lands, where her hoofs fell so softly in the gra.s.s that the wild things of the ground-homes and the birds that rest on the warm earth scampered and flew from under the enemy's feet that were shod with iron. A small herd of elk with uncouth heads and monstrous antlers were startled from the shelter of a knoll around which she cantered; for a moment the natives and the stranger gazed at each other with equal interest, and then a great buck plunged away over the rolling land to the south, and the others followed as if they had been given a word of command.

The girl watched them out of sight, finding them, like the most of Montana natives, strange and interesting--not only the natives, but the very atmosphere of existence, with its tinges of wildness and coloring of the earth; even the rising and setting of the sun had a distinct character of its own, in the rarefied air of this land that seemed so far off from all else in the world. For in the valley of the Kootenai, where the light breaks over the mountains of the east and vanishes again over the mountains of the west, it is hard at times to realize that its glory is for any land but the mellow, sun-kissed "park" whose only gates open to the south.

The late afternoon was coming on; only an hour or so of sun, and then the long flush twilight.

Remembering the camping-spot they were making for, she gave Betty rein, thinking to reach it and have a fire built on their arrival, and her hard ride gave her a longing for the sight of the pack-mules with the eatables.