CHAPTER VTHE FAR AWAY LADYThey called her the "Far Away Lady"—those on the train who had already met her. Just why the name was bestowed by some one with imagination and aptness of expression or why it had been so readily adopted by the others, perhaps none could have clearly told, but it had its fitness. There was a certain soft dignity and reserve of manner and a "far away" look in the eyes of this stately, but certainly loveable human being. She possessed the subtle distinction there is to women of a certain sort, impressing those about her in spite of themselves, as years before, she had impressed John Stafford. As has been told he knew her on the moment, yet in their words was nothing, and, even as they met, they had not looked into each other's eyes unless, it may be, with a hungering furtiveness and a dizziness at the marvel of the meeting.It is hard to describe the Far Away Lady. Her face was exquisite in its pure womanliness,but in its expression was something which told of a life unfilled. It was not a protest; it was too good for that, but it seemed to suggest with this woman a bewildered resignation. The face was one which, in other times, might, before the end, have been turned toward and found the cloister. Yet there was all of modern living and appreciative conception in it. A smile came to the lips at certain incidents of the story-telling, and interest showed in the soft eyes at the relation of some striking episode. There was intelligence as there was sad sweetness in every feature of the lovely face. Yet there remained always in the look that quality, not of listlessness, but of abstraction. It was a face as fascinating as it was appealing.In her own stateroom the Far Away Lady sat at her window, but seeing no whirling snow, hearing not the plaint of the dying wind. She was detained in no cold and rugged canyon. Her thoughts were far away.About her was no scene of pallid desolation. She looked instead, upon the blue waters of a great calm lake, the wavelets of which splashed at her feet, while about her all was sunshine. Seated beside her on the rustic bench was a man, one strong, tender and trustworthy, andthey were about to part, as they thought, forever. Very sad was the man, almost a weakling for the moment, though talking lightly in an effort to distract her mind from what was near, blundering and only nurturing their mutual sorrow, by indulging in foolish fancies of what might have been.He was smiling by force of will as he looked across the waters toward the invisible other shore and dreaming aloud:"We would build a house upon some high wooded out-jutting point upon the other side," he said, "a house, it might be, most unpretentious, as near the southern end of the lake as practicable, so that we would be conveniently near the city. It might be of almost any material and be a sort of bungalow or even only what they call a 'shack,' but comfort would be in and all about it and happiness within its walls. It would face the lake with an outlook on all its moods, its bright placidity or its rage in storms, and there would be white sails and the passing steamers and all that pertains to those who go down to the sea in ships. And the sun would make yellow bars on the blue in the morning and in the evening we would see it go down into the water red and 'big as a barn,' and therewould be a crimson pathway from us to it, and when the summer darkness came, we should sit happily together, listening to the voices of the night, the katydids and the whippoorwills and all the other things. Then we would be waked in the morning by the sunlight again and the songs of all the wild birds instead of by the whistles and the noisy chattering of city sparrows."And the house would have a big front room with a mighty fireplace in the winter, and the windows would be made wide and high so that ever in the daytime there would be light—more light—and there would be lamps a-plenty to make it light when the dark changed into blackness. And about the sides of all this big room there would be cases with many books and in the center of a great table, with all the magazines and everything of passing interest. There would be chairs, cosy, indolent chairs, to dream in, and light ones and business-like ones, and a great couch with many cushions."Outside you should have your garden, the flowers you love so, and in the wood there would be a fountain, fed from the lake by a windmill, where the birds could drink and bathe and quarrel and mate, and where wecould watch and study them. You would become as wise as Linnæus and I as Burroughs."And there will be dogs,"—unconsciously he changed the tense—"What is home without a dog! and about the Shack we shall have no limitations. We'll have as many as we want; there'll be an Irish setter, soft-eyed and chestnut-coated, the perfect gentleman among dogs; there'll be a bull terrier, bright and loving; there'll be a collie, wisest and most observing, and, possibly, a toy dog, for your plaything at times, when you are tired of me. And, finally, there will be a bulldog, a creature of such aspect as to give a ghost or burglar spasms, a monster in appearance, though kind at heart, a thing so hideous as to have a baneful beauty, with massive bow legs, wide apart, bloodshot and leering eyes and a countenance generally like that of a huge fanged toad. And all of these too shall be dogs of lineage, Hapsburgs among dogs, and I will give each of them to you when a puppy, so that you may rear them yourself and they will become your adoring vassals and protectors. Eh, but you will be well guarded, and I shall feel more at ease when I am away from you, riding over to town for the mail or to get a lemon or two."And what friends we will have, not the casual, conventional, flitting friends alone, such as some might be content with, but those closest to us because of that which cannot be defined but which exists, and, besides them, perhaps less close but hardly less companionable, others of tastes and inclinations like our own, and who will riot or rest as suits them in the atmosphere about us. They will be the brothers and sisters of the time, and there will be doings both whimsical and wise. There will be a rendezvous for those who know—our author friends, our artist friends—what a lot of them are ours!—and our musical friends, to give an added and different flavor. What a piano you'll have! I'll get the one used by David and Miriam and Orpheus and Apollo and St. Cecelia and Liszt and Mrs. Zeisler—if I can. Never mind the anachronisms and solecisms—and we'll let them 'sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea,' or rather o'er Lake Michigan, or engage in any other fantasies appropriate to Arcady—land fifty dollars an acre—and, at times, we will, no doubt, be unentitled to call our souls our own."And—so well do I know you—there will be often there some of those whose lines are notcast in the pleasant places and to whom such freedom from care, and such taste of home and real companionship about them will be like an outing in the outskirts, at least, of Paradise. And we'll try to deserve the Shack! Yes, we'll deserve it all the time—when buds are bursting, when the green leaves hide the oriole in the maple, when the maple's leaves are red, and when there are no leaves, and the fireplace is doing its winter's roaring. What a home it will be! Ah, my girl, we'll"—but the sorrowful jesting failed him, and he said no more. Then came the parting.And now the dreaming woman's thoughts reverted to the present. She could see the snow and hear the wind and realize existent things. How strange it was! Years had passed and he and she were together again, he drifting from another hemisphere, sterner faced, perhaps, but still the same, and she, changed too, she thought, but doubtless to less advantage. She felt rebellious. The world was lost. To him and her could never come in life the close comradeship which is the crown of things, the right to share good and ill alike, and meet the future, shoulder to shoulder, laughingly in the enduringlove which can become so sublimely a part of two souls that it is a part of immortality.And in the next car Stafford, too, was sitting alone and thoughts very like those of the woman were in his mind. But he was far less patient. His bonds were chafing him.CHAPTER VITHE LIFE LINEThere were smiles before comment began, as the minister finished his odd story, which, as everybody seemed to feel, was told rather to distract attention from the outlook in the present strait than as having any serious application to the theme under discussion, and, for a time, there was a departure from the subject. The wind still howled outside, but the cold did not increase perceptibly. A more cheerful feeling had obtained and the situation was now looked upon by most of the prisoners as but one of the extraordinary incidents of Rocky Mountain travel.The one woman had retired to her own car and Stafford, after a season of wild imagining, had returned to earth again. He sat looking upon the scene with a degree of interest.Experienced and toughened man of the world as he chanced to be, he was not lacking in keen sympathies, and he wondered, as he studied the faces about him, how the test would beendured should the car be no longer heated and the supply of food become exhausted before aid could reach them? He had been snowbound before, and he knew the more than uncomfortable possibilities of the case. There might be a more continued fall of snow than any one anticipated. The howl of the wind had subsided a little and was no longer so menacing in tone, but rather whistled and muttered, as it tossed the masses of snow about. It seemed to Stafford as indicating no increased fierceness of the storm but, instead, more snow. The man who has experienced much of climes and seasons learns to recognize a prophecy in the voice of the wind and to set his house in order accordingly. In this case, Stafford had much rather have heard the wind still giving utterance to its wolf's howls. Howls and bluster were nothing, but an addition to the difficulties of the relief train was what was most to fear. So Stafford did not like the wind's more whimpering tones. The other passengers, with the exception of a grizzled miner, and perhaps, a few others who had long known the Storm King personally, appeared delighted at any abatement of the turmoiloutside. To them, lack of noise was proof of lack of peril.It was the Colonel, that fine combination of Colonel Newcombe, Mr. Macawber and an up-to-date retired American army officer, who gave direction to the course of events again, as the discussion went on idly. He broke in:"What the minister told us regarding what was or was not a special providence relieved us, certainly, for it gave us a conundrum, and conundrums distract the mind, but we must keep the distraction up. Have there been no other providential dispensations?" He turned to the miner, whom he chanced to know well:"Here, Jim, you who have been so long in the mountains, ought to be able to tell us of escapes which seemed purely providential. Don't you know of any such affair?"The miner, who was diffident, and who, furthermore, spoke in mountain phrase and with a queer stutter, tried to say that he really did know of one such case, and the Colonel forced him to tell the story. Translated into English—for it was with difficulty that the miner was understood, and the Colonel, who was familiar with the account, gave most of it—this is the story of what happened to a man andwife, not altogether tenderfeet, in the hills, and what was accomplished byTHE LIFE LINERobert Felton was in luck when he met an Eastern girl in Salt Lake City. He was from Chicago and she from Boston. An inveterate sportsman was Felton and each autumn when he came out to visit a mine in which he was interested the trip terminated with a hunting expedition which extended sometimes to the very edge of the time of storms and snow. Once or twice he and his companions had been nearly caught snowbound in the mountains and he had acquired experience, not perhaps sufficient.He met a tall bronze-haired, gray-eyed Catherine Murdoch who was on a visit from the East—and that settled it. He fell in love a thousand feet and wooed with all the vigor and persistency he might have exhibited after elk or bear. It didn't take long. The splendid advance of the tempestuous hunter-miner, business man, as cultivated as she too, somehow fascinated the frigid beauty and she yielded in almost no time. They met in June, were married in September and spent the winter andspring and summer in Chicago. Then, with approaching autumn, came again upon Felton the mountain fever, and he proposed the usual Western trip. He was in love as deeply as ever and he was a considerate man."We'll go to Salt Lake City," he said, "and I'll attend to my business—it's all in town there—and then, dear, you'll let me make a hunting trip, won't you, while you stay in the city and have a good time with Mary." Mary was Mrs. Felton's cousin."Where do you hunt, Bob?" inquired Mrs. Felton."Oh, generally away up a canyon which forks from one where a couple of my friends have a mine. I've had a sort of shack built away up on the side of this branch canyon, which is about five miles across country from the mine, and, every fall, they send over a stock of provisions—canned goods and flour, and sugar and tea and coffee—and come over themselves when they can and hunt and fish with me. It will be a little late this year.""What sort of a place is this shack of yours?""It's fine. There are a cook stove and table and three chairs and a bed. There's a window, too, and there's a lithograph of Li Hung Changtacked up on the wall. It's just voluptuous—makes you think of the Taj Mahal on the outside and the boudoir of a Sultan's favorite in the inside. It's a dream.""Bob, I'm not going to stay in Salt Lake City. I'm going hunting with you.""What?"The tone of the lady became just a shade pleading:"Why not, Bob?""Madam, you're an honor to my home but in a shack in the mountains you would be like La Cigale. Out of your fitting clime and place and your own sweet season, you would perish as do the summer insects. So go the ephemera. Why, dear, up in the shack there, it's only hunting, and fishing, and climbing or falling and washing tin dishes and eating and sleeping as sleep the dead and then doing the same things over again. You're no jewel for such a setting."The charming lady hesitated for a moment and then spoke very thoughtfully and earnestly though, it must be admitted, with a certain degree of cooingness."Bob, I'm afraid I've been negligent, perhaps criminally secretive—but I have failed to make clear to you one side of my character. I wishyou to understand, sir, that I have been in the Adirondacks, season after season, that I can swim like a duck, that I can cast a fly and that I can shoot tolerably well. Furthermore I can cook almost anything in a tin dish. Am I not going with you, Bob?"There was some astonishment and a whoop, certain excusable demonstrations and, two weeks later, his business concluded in Salt Lake City, Felton and his wife were up in the cabin in the mountain and the nickel had been fairly dropped in the Western slot.It is wonderful when a man is afield with a man companion who understands both him and the woods. It is more wonderful still when the companion is a woman and the creature closest to him and understands all things, as well. His old friends of the mining camp—came over and hunted with him as usual and that fair veneered barbarian cooked famously for them, like a laughing, chaffing squaw and added two more to her list of her fervent admirers. Never were such happy days for Felton as when he fished or hunted with his wife. Woman who well knew the mountains, wise as well as beautiful woman, she had provided herself with a suit for the time's exigency. Thick woolen was it, endingin knickerbockers and stout shoes. There was a skirt which, by unclasping its belt, could be taken on or off in an instant. She proved sturdy and there is no occasion for the telling of the fishing and hunting records of the two. They were most content and they lingered in the mountains.One day—it was late for autumn—in the foothills—Jim Trumbull, one of Felton's two mining friends over on a visit said abruptly:"Felton, it's time to leave. We're all ready to skip.""I think so too," said Felton. "Those first little snows seem ominous. I think we'll get it early in the season. I intend to leave to-morrow night. The burros are all ready."But the next day Felton and his wife found tracks and hunting and a good day of it, and so night found them still in the cabin. At eight o'clock in the evening Felton went out and looked about. There was a great ring around the moon, and the stars had a dim look, not like their usual story. "It looks like the sky over Chicago," Felton muttered. He slept uneasily and was awake at daylight looking anxiously from the cabin door. The earth had changed. The universe was white. Theearth was white and the air was white. He leaped back into the cabin. Breakfast over, the man who had forced himself to eat, said:"Get a day's food, Kate, and get on your hunting dress, with thick garments under it, as quickly as you can."She did as he told her and he made swiftly a back load of the provisions and her skirt and two great blankets. Well knew he that they must reach Parson's Camp or be lost.They plunged into the whiteness. They must cross the billowy tongue of high land up and down lying between the two forks of the great canyon. Across this mesa ran a rude trail which none knew better than did Felton, but to feel and keep it with this white shroud of snow upon the ground and in the air was a feat almost impossible. They plunged ahead into the white depths, for the wind had made the snow deep in the opening, and this depth, while it retarded their progress, was after all a godsend. It aided Felton in keeping the trail. What need to tell of the details of that awful day? Darkness was falling when Felton carried an exhausted and senseless woman into Parson's Camp. There was no one there. Felton struck a match and found ahalf-burned candle. He gave his wife whiskey and water and, later, food, and she was soon herself, for the trouble was but exhaustion. Then Felton sat down upon a chair and figured the thing out aloud."THEY PLUNGED INTO THE WHITENESS""THEY PLUNGED INTO THE WHITENESS""They thought we'd gone and so did not pay any attention to us. They had sense enough to skip in time."His wife was up and beside him now."What of it?" she said, "we have shelter and warmth, and when it stops snowing perhaps we can dig out"—seeing his face, she added—"anyway we'll be rescued, somehow." Her husband laughed, agreeingly."Of course," he said, "we're all right." Then he began looking around for food.He found in one corner a bushel of potatoes and hanging beside a bunk of shelves where the cook had kept his dishes, there was a good part of a dried deer's ham. Standing on a chair he peered over the top of the shelves. There was nothing there."We shall have to live on dried venison and potatoes," he said. "They seem to have left most of their stuff on top here," and the lady was content."We'll have venison in all sorts of ways,"she commented. "Here's some salt," and she held up a little bag she had found on the floor.They supped on what they had brought and slept in the bunk which with its belongings, had been abandoned by one of Felton's friends. There passed a couple of blithesome days—to the woman—while Felton, brave liar, smiled and made fires, and puns and love, and was sick at heart and full of an inflammatory vocabulary in his inmost being. The miners had probably not yet half way floundered through the snow lying between them and a more or less green old valley. Without aid from the outside Felton knew that he and his wife must die.The snow fell quietly, steadily, remorselessly. When the two should be missed on the arrival of the miners at the settlement, it was more than likely that the mountains would be inaccessible until spring.Felton found an axe and kept himself from desperation by digging out certain trees in a wind blown clear space one side of the cabin. The small trees he converted into firewood, passing the sticks through the window to Kate, who delightedly piled the fuel up in great stacks by the chimney. It was not very cold, and they congratulated themselves upon their store ofwood, which was carefully husbanded, for future contingencies.On the fourth day it ceased snowing and they could see the world. It was all white. The snow was about five feet on a level around the house. The canyon down which the home trail ran was evenly filled with feathery powdered snow. It grew colder. Felton at last told the truth to Catherine."Dear, I have been lying to you frightfully. There has been no food on the top of the big shelf. We have enough to live on for four or five days, at the utmost. Then we must starve. We are supposed by our friends to be safe, and we cannot reach the outside world. It would take weeks for the most determined men to reach us—from Sharon even, the nearest settlement."Any man should be satisfied with what this woman did then. She said: "Dear, the only reproach I have is that you did not tell me the true situation at first. Then we could have suffered together, and that would have been better. As it is I think I realize all the situation now. We are together and we have been very happy anyhow."This altogether illogical conclusion of herwords somehow strengthened Felton wonderfully. He began fumbling round the room. Courage filled his heart, without reason, he felt, but with courage regained he was not inclined to quibble as to its source."I don't know," he said, "somehow, my girl, you've given me hope. I'll bet the good God will help us.""Course He will," responded this dignified, blessed young matron born and bred in Boston."Come," said Catherine, rousing herself from the thoughtful mood which had gripped her, after the first excitement of Felton's revelation was over. "We haven't half explored this place. Who knows but there's a barrel of flour stowed away in some dark corner.""Behind this door—for example," said Felton, entering into his wife's mood, and glad for any little diversion to check thought and imagination.There had been standing against the wall in one dark corner of the room an old door, evidently brought in from some outhouse for the repairing of its hinges. It had not been disturbed since the new occupancy of the place. Felton grasped the pineplanks in both hands and set them to one side. There semi-gleamingin the candlelight hung revealed one of the two business ends of the common place and eminently valuable telephone of North America.Felton gasped and then sat down backwards on the floor. "Holy smoke," was all he said.Catherine came running to the half dazed man but for a little time he said nothing. He was thinking. He remembered suddenly that there was a telephone between the mine and the nearest town in the valley, that to which the miners had fled. Of course the line was deep beneath the snow, part of the way, but it might be working. He looked at his wife in a dazed way, clambered to his feet and took hold of the receiver."Don't be disappointed," said Catherine, "if it doesn't work. We shall be saved somehow.""Hello!" shouted Felton, into the familiar, waiting 'phone.The dazed wife stood by in the silence which ensued, saying nothing.Moment after moment passed and there came no answer. Still the man stood there repeating at intervals of four or five minutes the hopeless word, the call "Hello". Suddenly he upreared himself, laughed somewhat wildly, and applied his lips to the transmitter."Hello! Who is this?" came the query from Sharon."I am Robert Felton. Tell Jim Worthy or George Long that we are snowed in at Parsons, without provisions for more than a few days, and tell them to come in a hurry—the trail is from five to twenty feet deep in snow.""Who do you mean by we—all of the Parson's crowd?"Then another question was put."My wife is with me—we are alone—the Parson's outfit left the night the storm began.""All right. Keep a stiff upper lip. There'll be help coming," called the operator, and the bell rung ending the conversation.Felton could not speak. He sat dumbly waiting, while Catherine chattered to him of commonplace things to win him back to his ordinary frame of mind.Soon the telephone bell rang again, and this time friendly, well known voices gave messages of hope and good cheer. It was rumored that the men from Parson's camp were on the way—but so far they had not arrived. Men and horses amply supplied with tools, with provisions, with everything needful,would leave the valley at once for the work of rescue."But how long can you hold out?" at last broke in one of the heartsome, friendly voices."It may take us ten or even twenty days to shovel through to you—can you stand such a siege?""We'll do our best," returned Felton, over the wire, "but the truth is, we are pretty short of food, so take no chances."They were already living on carefully measured out rations and Felton resolved to reduce his own portion below the meagre amount he had already given himself."Keep up heart, we'll help you—Good-bye!" So ended this talk with Worthy and Long.The days dragged. The wood chopping, the fire keeping, the story telling, to beguile the weary hours, went on. Once or twice a day came a message of good hope from Sharon. The rescuers were off, and in the shortest time possible would reach the beleagured couple.One morning there came a sharp, insistent ringing of the bell which opened the door of the world to these two who were making their one daily meal from scraps of dried meat, andalmost the very last of the treasured rations were in their hands at the moment."Hello!" called Felton at the 'phone in a moment."Hello! That you Felton?""Yes. This isn't Tom, is it?""Yes—of course, Tom, just in from Parson's—been hearing about you. We left in a hurry—mighty lucky or you wouldn't have had the telephone connected and ready for business."It was one of the men from Parson's camp."They've reached Sharon!" said Felton to Catherine."Say!" came Tom's voice over the wire, "You've found the stores, haven't you?""What stores?" replied Felton—"We found a little dried venison, and some potatoes in the cupboard, but they are all gone.""Darn a tenderfoot anyway!" shouted Tom—then recollecting himself he went on. "Take up a board there over by the table. Where do you expect to find provisions if not in the cellar?" Then he muttered to himself. "They're in luck. It's just a providence! We thought of packing that grub down with us."Down went the hand of Felton, and away he sprung to the square pine table near the door.Taking up a loose board he gazed exantantly into what Tom called the cellar, a square hole under the floor, filled with boxes and kegs and tin cans of meat and vegetables and biscuits."Catherine!" he called, but Catherine was already there, kneeling by him, her arms around his neck. She was crying, the brave girl, and Felton was conscious of a sneaking desire to follow her example."But won't we feast?" at last Catherine spoke. And then she ran to the telephone to send her own special message to Tom, and to the whole Parsons outfit, and it is certain that there never went over the wires a more grateful and gracious thankfulness than was expressed by Catherine and Felton upon this occasion.And so, with renewed life, the two awaited events, and one day, toward noon, they heard through the stillness a faint sound, a sort of metallic clink, and a little later they were sure of the welcome ring of men's voices. Felton fired off the loaded rifle which hung over the cabin door at Parson's and soon came an answering volley of pistol shots and a faintly heard muffled "hurrah."Felton seized his own snow shovel, and began madly working through the drifts in front ofthe door. His efforts looked puny in the waste of snow, but it was a relief to his nerves to be active, and soon Catherine joined him, laughing and royally flourishing the Parsons broom.It was two hours before the rescuing army of miners and cowboys reached the little lane which Felton and Catherine had cut out and swept for them—scarce ten yards it reached from the doorway. And then, well, then it was but a few days back to the world—that world which had been saved to Felton and his wife by the life line, the wire stretched across and through the snow between mountains and men.CHAPTER VIIA TOAD AND A SONGThere had been a period of aimless talk in the rear car after the Miner had concluded, but this resolved itself finally into a lively discussion regarding the probable quality of the hidden country round about. Some declared that there existed only the abomination of desolation while others spoke of the amazing wealth concealed beneath the surface of the earth and asserted that neither the Land of Ophir nor Pennsylvania could endure comparison with the region in which they were now marooned."Is this place in the midst of the ore-producing or the coal region?" some one asked, "or is it in neither? How about it, Mr. Miner?""I don't know," responded the Miner, "I only know that if it's coal, it's better than metal. When you find coal, you've got something. When you find silver or gold, you don't know how hard it may be to extract it from its rock or how soon the find will peter out. Evenbonanzas peter out. When you find gold or silver, you're just flirtin'. When you strike a coal bed you've got married."There was a laugh at the Miner's simile and then a reflection from another seeker after information, Mrs. Livingston this time."I wonder which is the older, the ore or the coal? It would be interesting to know.""I imagine, madam," said the Professor, as he was only known, "that the ore deposits, formed by volcanic upheavals, far antedate those of coal, originating from vegetable deposits, great forests, fern-like forests it may be, which had their being long after earth had become productive. Besides, as I understand, a toad has been taken from a coal mine and the toad, thus discovered, belongs to a modern order of batrachians.""Was the toad alive?" was asked."So I understand," said the Professor. "It was in a comatose condition but revived when brought into the air and light."There was much comment among the party and then an idea came suddenly to the Young Lady, who was by no means lacking in sentiment or fancy. "I wonder," she mused, "what that toad was thinking of during all the centuriesof his dark imprisonment? Mr. Poet," she broke out, "You are to retire to the end of the car and, for one hour, at least, no word may you utter. I will find you paper and pencil now, and you may not speak again until you have written a poem telling of the sensations of that toad when he was restored to light and air again."The Poet was gallant. "One cannot do well always under duress," was his response, "but one should certainly make an effort, under the circumstances. I'll do my best, at least."And so, amid the laughter of the passengers, he was hustled off to a corner and left to his fancies and his struggle. The conversation went on and the sufferer in the corner was almost forgotten save, of course, by the Young Lady. It was a little after the hour's end, when he emerged, exhibiting a rather graceful diffidence. And this is what he read:THE TOAD FROM THE MINESI am a toad,Squat and grimy and rough and brown,I come from a queer abode,From down, down, down,Where, for centuries, no lightHad fallen on my sight,Until, with sudden shock,Parted the rock,Yielded the stony clampsAnd blazed in my dim eyes the miners' lamps!What view is now unfurled!It is another worldFrom that I leftCenturies ago, to which they've brought meSince the black rock was cleftWhere thus they caught me.Centuries ago, one day,I was upon a river bank, at play.Nature was very fair;I fed on buzzing insects of the air,Beneath tall palms that grew beside the streamIn which huge monsters bathed. It did not seemA world like this at all. It was more grand.The mighty waters washed a teeming landAnd life was great and fervid. SuddenlyUpheaved the land, upheaved the awful sea;The earth was riven; toppling forests bent,To sink and disappear in that vast rent!Down, down, down.The landscape plunged from light and life awayAnd now again, to me alone, 'tis day.How odd it all appears!Encysted in the rock ten thousand years,I am a stranger here; I cannot praiseThose who released me; mine are not your ways.In this new life I have no enterprise;The sunshine in my eyesBut gives me pain.Put me in some niche of the rock again,It is the only fit abodeFor me—a prehistoric toad.There was a buzz of applause as the Poet concluded. Then up rose Colonel Livingston."The Toad's experience has made me sentimental and dreamy of mood. Personally, I'dlike to have my savage breast soothed by some music. Has anybody a piano? No? Well, we can get along without one. Will not some one sing? Who can sing? Mr. Stranger,"—and he addressed himself to a recent and as yet unrecognized addition to the party—"you seem to enter into the spirit of the occasion and to enjoy our fancies indulged here in this, our preposterously direful strait. Will you sing for us?"Sheet MusicSheet Music1. We are the Dreamers of Dreams,We're the creators of fancies; ...We are whatever it seems, ...The owners of reason that dances.We are the Dreamers of Dreams.2. We tread the paths that are vagrant,And we do the deeds that are flagrant, ...But ever, without any goad, ...We find our way back to the road.We are the Dreamers of Dreams.3. For we are the Dreamers of Dreams, etc.And to the amazement of all, the Stranger did not hesitate a moment. "Certainly," said he. "I believe in fancies." And this is what he sang:THE DREAMERS OF DREAMSWe are the Dreamers of Dreams;We are the creatures of fancies;We are—whatever it seems,—The owners of reason that dances,We are the Dreamers of Dreams.We tread in the paths that are vagrant,And we do the deeds that are flagrant;But ever without any goad,We find our way back to the road.For we are the Dreamers of Dreams;We are the creatures of fancies;We are—whatever it seems,—The owners of reason that dances,We are the Dreamers of Dreams.CHAPTER VIIIALAN MACGREGOR'S BROWN LEGOne whose presence aided in promoting a healthful mental atmosphere among those so constrained to be together was a lady perhaps thirty years of age who bore herself with the air of a school-teacher, but decidedly with the manner of one whom her pupils would more love than fear. She laughingly alluded to herself as the Teacher and, by common consent, this had become her designation. It was she, most well-informed and reflective of ladies, who, after the applause following the Stranger's song had barely died away, advanced a proposition involving immediately and deeply a tanned, good-looking man who, as was known, had been engaged in the work of collecting rare orchids in South America."I have read somewhere," said she, "that people adrift for days at sea, and parched and half-crazed with thirst, either relieve or, possibly, aggravate their sufferings—I do not know how that may be—by all sorts of queer debateas to whether ice-water is good for the health or not, whether iced-claret is better than plain lemonade, in short in a discussion as to the relative merits of all sorts of cooling drinks. And I have read too, that people starving, like some of the Arctic explorers, conduct themselves in almost the same way, imagining all sorts of magnificent repasts, each telling of some meal where his choice among foods was the principal dish or describing what he would first order should he ever reach civilization again."Now," she continued, "it seems to me," and she drew her cloak about her more closely and with a shudder, "it seems to me that it would be a great relief and comfort if some one were to tell a story of a tropic region, a place where snow and ice are all unknown. I think we would enjoy it. I know I should myself. Mr. Explorer," and she turned to that gentleman, "you have certainly at some time wandered about in the vicinity of the Equator, cannot you tell us a story, the scene of which is laid in a region where it is always decently warm?" And she shuddered again and cuddled down more closely in her seat.The Explorer answered readily: "I've beenin the vicinity of the Equator a great many times, but I do not remember any experience which would furnish material for a story." He hesitated a moment, "Ah, yes, I do, it's a very curious story, too. I think we may call itALAN MACGREGOR'S BROWN LEGAlan MacGregor was with us in South America. He was with us, but not of us. He had money enough, and had come along just because I wanted him to, and he wanted to see what the tropics were like. We were a semi-scientific group, looking for orchids and caoutchouc and various other things which could be transported down the Amazon and turned into good dollars at any port on the Atlantic coast.MacGregor was practically an outsider, but was generally regarded as one of us. I think the only possible distinction which existed between him and any other man of the group was, that he was desperately in love with a young Scottish woman of Chicago, of whose intense clannishness and patriotism he was everlastingly boasting and laughing the while. In fact, he became almost something of a bore to us, with his dreaming and his tale-telling of this Miss Agnes Cameron, who, he declaredwas the most earnest Highlander on the face of the earth. She knew every clan and the coloring of any crisscross of tartan ever worn under snowflake or under sunshine. He was most desperately in love, and what he seemed greatly to admire in his sweetheart was her pure Scottish patriotism. She thought of, and he quoted, only "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," or "Up with the bonnets of Bonny Dundee," or any other thing of that sort relating to the exploits of the Highlanders of modernly classic times.Well, MacGregor and I did a good deal of exploring and a good deal of shooting, and enjoyed ourselves together. It is not necessary in this account to mention the exact locality, because, to tell the truth, I could not remember it distinctly myself. We were camped in the corner of a little affluent of the Amazon, some hundreds of miles up from the delta. It was a pleasant enough region, barring the fact that it was frightfully hot and that there seemed to be more jaguars and alligators and anacondas to the square mile than were really necessary. Of course, tastes differ as to the number of jaguars and alligators and anacondas there should be to this mentioned area,but the consensus of opinion in our little party was that, in that latitude and altitude, the average had been a little overrun. Not only were they numerous—the animals thus indicated—but they seemed to be, in every instance, healthy and unnecessarily enterprising.Lots of things happened, but the thing which has always remained best fixed in my memory was the affair of MacGregor's brown leg. We had been out shooting parrots together that very afternoon, and I remember that he drove me nearly mad by his repetition of how good a Scotchwoman his "lassie" was, and how she boasted of the fact that she was a direct descendant of the reckless old riever, who, herding back into the Highlands stolen cattle from the Lowlands, and stopping for a few hours about midnight to let kine and clansmen rest, suddenly discovered that his son, his eldest son, the pride of clan and family, had so degenerated that, lying barelegged in the snow, he had rolled up a snowball for a pillow, and was there sleeping most luxuriously when his father found him. The old laird promptly kicked that snowball into the ewigkeit, and wanted to know how far his family had become degenerate and degraded! Well, Miss Agnes Cameron boasted of this oldlaird as her great, great, and so on, ancestor. This will give some idea of the extent of her native pride in bare legs and Scottish blood.It was, perhaps, four o'clock one afternoon when we were in camp in an open glade in the very midst of the forest, that the whole company scattered itself of its own impulse. I wanted to study the habits of a small animal, a specimen of which I had seen among some rocks a mile away—a sort of little armadillo. My scientific associate wanted to try for a jaguar, the growls of which our attendants had heard in the forest, a mile or so in the other direction. The natives whom we had employed as guides and servants were themselves anxious to engage in a little expedition of their own. They had seen a fruit of which they are fond—they are always gorging when they have opportunity, these almost savage natives—and they wanted to go out and gather a great quantity of it while the opportunity offered. Alan alone remained inactive. He had worked hard the day before, had done a lot of shooting, and had need of rest, and now, as he declared, he wanted to slip away and sleep all the afternoon. Sometimes Alan drank a little. I believe he had a flask with him that day. At any rate, we all departedand left him lying stretched out upon the ground beneath a giant tree, which kept him shaded as if beneath an umbrella, fifty feet, at least, in its diameter.That is all there was to the situation. We drifted away into the forest in our several directions, and left Alan lying there sleeping like a lump, for, poor fellow, he needed rest. "It would take a good deal to disturb that man," laughed one of the party as we departed. Now, as to what followed, I can tell you only of what I did not see, but what, as was made apparent later, was the absolute fact.We were camped close beside a great creek which reached the affluent of the Amazon, and along these creeks, as along the river proper, were gigantic serpents. The anaconda is as much at home on land as in water. Those big constrictors of the southern part of this great hemisphere are dreadful. They prey upon the deer and upon a thousand other things. They are a terror everywhere, and, though we did not know it at the time, there was concealed in that tree beneath which poor Alan was lying, a very healthy specimen of this powerful reptile. That was what we concluded afterward, although the great snake may not have beenthere when we left, and may have come afterward. Anyway, what happened must have been just this: The great serpent saw the sleeping man, and looked upon him as his prey. He saw what was his food breathing stertorously, and he dropped from the tree or came up from the river beside him. He began to swallow the man.
THE FAR AWAY LADY
They called her the "Far Away Lady"—those on the train who had already met her. Just why the name was bestowed by some one with imagination and aptness of expression or why it had been so readily adopted by the others, perhaps none could have clearly told, but it had its fitness. There was a certain soft dignity and reserve of manner and a "far away" look in the eyes of this stately, but certainly loveable human being. She possessed the subtle distinction there is to women of a certain sort, impressing those about her in spite of themselves, as years before, she had impressed John Stafford. As has been told he knew her on the moment, yet in their words was nothing, and, even as they met, they had not looked into each other's eyes unless, it may be, with a hungering furtiveness and a dizziness at the marvel of the meeting.
It is hard to describe the Far Away Lady. Her face was exquisite in its pure womanliness,but in its expression was something which told of a life unfilled. It was not a protest; it was too good for that, but it seemed to suggest with this woman a bewildered resignation. The face was one which, in other times, might, before the end, have been turned toward and found the cloister. Yet there was all of modern living and appreciative conception in it. A smile came to the lips at certain incidents of the story-telling, and interest showed in the soft eyes at the relation of some striking episode. There was intelligence as there was sad sweetness in every feature of the lovely face. Yet there remained always in the look that quality, not of listlessness, but of abstraction. It was a face as fascinating as it was appealing.
In her own stateroom the Far Away Lady sat at her window, but seeing no whirling snow, hearing not the plaint of the dying wind. She was detained in no cold and rugged canyon. Her thoughts were far away.
About her was no scene of pallid desolation. She looked instead, upon the blue waters of a great calm lake, the wavelets of which splashed at her feet, while about her all was sunshine. Seated beside her on the rustic bench was a man, one strong, tender and trustworthy, andthey were about to part, as they thought, forever. Very sad was the man, almost a weakling for the moment, though talking lightly in an effort to distract her mind from what was near, blundering and only nurturing their mutual sorrow, by indulging in foolish fancies of what might have been.
He was smiling by force of will as he looked across the waters toward the invisible other shore and dreaming aloud:
"We would build a house upon some high wooded out-jutting point upon the other side," he said, "a house, it might be, most unpretentious, as near the southern end of the lake as practicable, so that we would be conveniently near the city. It might be of almost any material and be a sort of bungalow or even only what they call a 'shack,' but comfort would be in and all about it and happiness within its walls. It would face the lake with an outlook on all its moods, its bright placidity or its rage in storms, and there would be white sails and the passing steamers and all that pertains to those who go down to the sea in ships. And the sun would make yellow bars on the blue in the morning and in the evening we would see it go down into the water red and 'big as a barn,' and therewould be a crimson pathway from us to it, and when the summer darkness came, we should sit happily together, listening to the voices of the night, the katydids and the whippoorwills and all the other things. Then we would be waked in the morning by the sunlight again and the songs of all the wild birds instead of by the whistles and the noisy chattering of city sparrows.
"And the house would have a big front room with a mighty fireplace in the winter, and the windows would be made wide and high so that ever in the daytime there would be light—more light—and there would be lamps a-plenty to make it light when the dark changed into blackness. And about the sides of all this big room there would be cases with many books and in the center of a great table, with all the magazines and everything of passing interest. There would be chairs, cosy, indolent chairs, to dream in, and light ones and business-like ones, and a great couch with many cushions.
"Outside you should have your garden, the flowers you love so, and in the wood there would be a fountain, fed from the lake by a windmill, where the birds could drink and bathe and quarrel and mate, and where wecould watch and study them. You would become as wise as Linnæus and I as Burroughs.
"And there will be dogs,"—unconsciously he changed the tense—"What is home without a dog! and about the Shack we shall have no limitations. We'll have as many as we want; there'll be an Irish setter, soft-eyed and chestnut-coated, the perfect gentleman among dogs; there'll be a bull terrier, bright and loving; there'll be a collie, wisest and most observing, and, possibly, a toy dog, for your plaything at times, when you are tired of me. And, finally, there will be a bulldog, a creature of such aspect as to give a ghost or burglar spasms, a monster in appearance, though kind at heart, a thing so hideous as to have a baneful beauty, with massive bow legs, wide apart, bloodshot and leering eyes and a countenance generally like that of a huge fanged toad. And all of these too shall be dogs of lineage, Hapsburgs among dogs, and I will give each of them to you when a puppy, so that you may rear them yourself and they will become your adoring vassals and protectors. Eh, but you will be well guarded, and I shall feel more at ease when I am away from you, riding over to town for the mail or to get a lemon or two.
"And what friends we will have, not the casual, conventional, flitting friends alone, such as some might be content with, but those closest to us because of that which cannot be defined but which exists, and, besides them, perhaps less close but hardly less companionable, others of tastes and inclinations like our own, and who will riot or rest as suits them in the atmosphere about us. They will be the brothers and sisters of the time, and there will be doings both whimsical and wise. There will be a rendezvous for those who know—our author friends, our artist friends—what a lot of them are ours!—and our musical friends, to give an added and different flavor. What a piano you'll have! I'll get the one used by David and Miriam and Orpheus and Apollo and St. Cecelia and Liszt and Mrs. Zeisler—if I can. Never mind the anachronisms and solecisms—and we'll let them 'sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea,' or rather o'er Lake Michigan, or engage in any other fantasies appropriate to Arcady—land fifty dollars an acre—and, at times, we will, no doubt, be unentitled to call our souls our own.
"And—so well do I know you—there will be often there some of those whose lines are notcast in the pleasant places and to whom such freedom from care, and such taste of home and real companionship about them will be like an outing in the outskirts, at least, of Paradise. And we'll try to deserve the Shack! Yes, we'll deserve it all the time—when buds are bursting, when the green leaves hide the oriole in the maple, when the maple's leaves are red, and when there are no leaves, and the fireplace is doing its winter's roaring. What a home it will be! Ah, my girl, we'll"—but the sorrowful jesting failed him, and he said no more. Then came the parting.
And now the dreaming woman's thoughts reverted to the present. She could see the snow and hear the wind and realize existent things. How strange it was! Years had passed and he and she were together again, he drifting from another hemisphere, sterner faced, perhaps, but still the same, and she, changed too, she thought, but doubtless to less advantage. She felt rebellious. The world was lost. To him and her could never come in life the close comradeship which is the crown of things, the right to share good and ill alike, and meet the future, shoulder to shoulder, laughingly in the enduringlove which can become so sublimely a part of two souls that it is a part of immortality.
And in the next car Stafford, too, was sitting alone and thoughts very like those of the woman were in his mind. But he was far less patient. His bonds were chafing him.
THE LIFE LINE
There were smiles before comment began, as the minister finished his odd story, which, as everybody seemed to feel, was told rather to distract attention from the outlook in the present strait than as having any serious application to the theme under discussion, and, for a time, there was a departure from the subject. The wind still howled outside, but the cold did not increase perceptibly. A more cheerful feeling had obtained and the situation was now looked upon by most of the prisoners as but one of the extraordinary incidents of Rocky Mountain travel.
The one woman had retired to her own car and Stafford, after a season of wild imagining, had returned to earth again. He sat looking upon the scene with a degree of interest.
Experienced and toughened man of the world as he chanced to be, he was not lacking in keen sympathies, and he wondered, as he studied the faces about him, how the test would beendured should the car be no longer heated and the supply of food become exhausted before aid could reach them? He had been snowbound before, and he knew the more than uncomfortable possibilities of the case. There might be a more continued fall of snow than any one anticipated. The howl of the wind had subsided a little and was no longer so menacing in tone, but rather whistled and muttered, as it tossed the masses of snow about. It seemed to Stafford as indicating no increased fierceness of the storm but, instead, more snow. The man who has experienced much of climes and seasons learns to recognize a prophecy in the voice of the wind and to set his house in order accordingly. In this case, Stafford had much rather have heard the wind still giving utterance to its wolf's howls. Howls and bluster were nothing, but an addition to the difficulties of the relief train was what was most to fear. So Stafford did not like the wind's more whimpering tones. The other passengers, with the exception of a grizzled miner, and perhaps, a few others who had long known the Storm King personally, appeared delighted at any abatement of the turmoiloutside. To them, lack of noise was proof of lack of peril.
It was the Colonel, that fine combination of Colonel Newcombe, Mr. Macawber and an up-to-date retired American army officer, who gave direction to the course of events again, as the discussion went on idly. He broke in:
"What the minister told us regarding what was or was not a special providence relieved us, certainly, for it gave us a conundrum, and conundrums distract the mind, but we must keep the distraction up. Have there been no other providential dispensations?" He turned to the miner, whom he chanced to know well:
"Here, Jim, you who have been so long in the mountains, ought to be able to tell us of escapes which seemed purely providential. Don't you know of any such affair?"
The miner, who was diffident, and who, furthermore, spoke in mountain phrase and with a queer stutter, tried to say that he really did know of one such case, and the Colonel forced him to tell the story. Translated into English—for it was with difficulty that the miner was understood, and the Colonel, who was familiar with the account, gave most of it—this is the story of what happened to a man andwife, not altogether tenderfeet, in the hills, and what was accomplished by
THE LIFE LINE
Robert Felton was in luck when he met an Eastern girl in Salt Lake City. He was from Chicago and she from Boston. An inveterate sportsman was Felton and each autumn when he came out to visit a mine in which he was interested the trip terminated with a hunting expedition which extended sometimes to the very edge of the time of storms and snow. Once or twice he and his companions had been nearly caught snowbound in the mountains and he had acquired experience, not perhaps sufficient.
He met a tall bronze-haired, gray-eyed Catherine Murdoch who was on a visit from the East—and that settled it. He fell in love a thousand feet and wooed with all the vigor and persistency he might have exhibited after elk or bear. It didn't take long. The splendid advance of the tempestuous hunter-miner, business man, as cultivated as she too, somehow fascinated the frigid beauty and she yielded in almost no time. They met in June, were married in September and spent the winter andspring and summer in Chicago. Then, with approaching autumn, came again upon Felton the mountain fever, and he proposed the usual Western trip. He was in love as deeply as ever and he was a considerate man.
"We'll go to Salt Lake City," he said, "and I'll attend to my business—it's all in town there—and then, dear, you'll let me make a hunting trip, won't you, while you stay in the city and have a good time with Mary." Mary was Mrs. Felton's cousin.
"Where do you hunt, Bob?" inquired Mrs. Felton.
"Oh, generally away up a canyon which forks from one where a couple of my friends have a mine. I've had a sort of shack built away up on the side of this branch canyon, which is about five miles across country from the mine, and, every fall, they send over a stock of provisions—canned goods and flour, and sugar and tea and coffee—and come over themselves when they can and hunt and fish with me. It will be a little late this year."
"What sort of a place is this shack of yours?"
"It's fine. There are a cook stove and table and three chairs and a bed. There's a window, too, and there's a lithograph of Li Hung Changtacked up on the wall. It's just voluptuous—makes you think of the Taj Mahal on the outside and the boudoir of a Sultan's favorite in the inside. It's a dream."
"Bob, I'm not going to stay in Salt Lake City. I'm going hunting with you."
"What?"
The tone of the lady became just a shade pleading:
"Why not, Bob?"
"Madam, you're an honor to my home but in a shack in the mountains you would be like La Cigale. Out of your fitting clime and place and your own sweet season, you would perish as do the summer insects. So go the ephemera. Why, dear, up in the shack there, it's only hunting, and fishing, and climbing or falling and washing tin dishes and eating and sleeping as sleep the dead and then doing the same things over again. You're no jewel for such a setting."
The charming lady hesitated for a moment and then spoke very thoughtfully and earnestly though, it must be admitted, with a certain degree of cooingness.
"Bob, I'm afraid I've been negligent, perhaps criminally secretive—but I have failed to make clear to you one side of my character. I wishyou to understand, sir, that I have been in the Adirondacks, season after season, that I can swim like a duck, that I can cast a fly and that I can shoot tolerably well. Furthermore I can cook almost anything in a tin dish. Am I not going with you, Bob?"
There was some astonishment and a whoop, certain excusable demonstrations and, two weeks later, his business concluded in Salt Lake City, Felton and his wife were up in the cabin in the mountain and the nickel had been fairly dropped in the Western slot.
It is wonderful when a man is afield with a man companion who understands both him and the woods. It is more wonderful still when the companion is a woman and the creature closest to him and understands all things, as well. His old friends of the mining camp—came over and hunted with him as usual and that fair veneered barbarian cooked famously for them, like a laughing, chaffing squaw and added two more to her list of her fervent admirers. Never were such happy days for Felton as when he fished or hunted with his wife. Woman who well knew the mountains, wise as well as beautiful woman, she had provided herself with a suit for the time's exigency. Thick woolen was it, endingin knickerbockers and stout shoes. There was a skirt which, by unclasping its belt, could be taken on or off in an instant. She proved sturdy and there is no occasion for the telling of the fishing and hunting records of the two. They were most content and they lingered in the mountains.
One day—it was late for autumn—in the foothills—Jim Trumbull, one of Felton's two mining friends over on a visit said abruptly:
"Felton, it's time to leave. We're all ready to skip."
"I think so too," said Felton. "Those first little snows seem ominous. I think we'll get it early in the season. I intend to leave to-morrow night. The burros are all ready."
But the next day Felton and his wife found tracks and hunting and a good day of it, and so night found them still in the cabin. At eight o'clock in the evening Felton went out and looked about. There was a great ring around the moon, and the stars had a dim look, not like their usual story. "It looks like the sky over Chicago," Felton muttered. He slept uneasily and was awake at daylight looking anxiously from the cabin door. The earth had changed. The universe was white. Theearth was white and the air was white. He leaped back into the cabin. Breakfast over, the man who had forced himself to eat, said:
"Get a day's food, Kate, and get on your hunting dress, with thick garments under it, as quickly as you can."
She did as he told her and he made swiftly a back load of the provisions and her skirt and two great blankets. Well knew he that they must reach Parson's Camp or be lost.
They plunged into the whiteness. They must cross the billowy tongue of high land up and down lying between the two forks of the great canyon. Across this mesa ran a rude trail which none knew better than did Felton, but to feel and keep it with this white shroud of snow upon the ground and in the air was a feat almost impossible. They plunged ahead into the white depths, for the wind had made the snow deep in the opening, and this depth, while it retarded their progress, was after all a godsend. It aided Felton in keeping the trail. What need to tell of the details of that awful day? Darkness was falling when Felton carried an exhausted and senseless woman into Parson's Camp. There was no one there. Felton struck a match and found ahalf-burned candle. He gave his wife whiskey and water and, later, food, and she was soon herself, for the trouble was but exhaustion. Then Felton sat down upon a chair and figured the thing out aloud.
"THEY PLUNGED INTO THE WHITENESS"
"THEY PLUNGED INTO THE WHITENESS"
"They thought we'd gone and so did not pay any attention to us. They had sense enough to skip in time."
His wife was up and beside him now.
"What of it?" she said, "we have shelter and warmth, and when it stops snowing perhaps we can dig out"—seeing his face, she added—"anyway we'll be rescued, somehow." Her husband laughed, agreeingly.
"Of course," he said, "we're all right." Then he began looking around for food.
He found in one corner a bushel of potatoes and hanging beside a bunk of shelves where the cook had kept his dishes, there was a good part of a dried deer's ham. Standing on a chair he peered over the top of the shelves. There was nothing there.
"We shall have to live on dried venison and potatoes," he said. "They seem to have left most of their stuff on top here," and the lady was content.
"We'll have venison in all sorts of ways,"she commented. "Here's some salt," and she held up a little bag she had found on the floor.
They supped on what they had brought and slept in the bunk which with its belongings, had been abandoned by one of Felton's friends. There passed a couple of blithesome days—to the woman—while Felton, brave liar, smiled and made fires, and puns and love, and was sick at heart and full of an inflammatory vocabulary in his inmost being. The miners had probably not yet half way floundered through the snow lying between them and a more or less green old valley. Without aid from the outside Felton knew that he and his wife must die.
The snow fell quietly, steadily, remorselessly. When the two should be missed on the arrival of the miners at the settlement, it was more than likely that the mountains would be inaccessible until spring.
Felton found an axe and kept himself from desperation by digging out certain trees in a wind blown clear space one side of the cabin. The small trees he converted into firewood, passing the sticks through the window to Kate, who delightedly piled the fuel up in great stacks by the chimney. It was not very cold, and they congratulated themselves upon their store ofwood, which was carefully husbanded, for future contingencies.
On the fourth day it ceased snowing and they could see the world. It was all white. The snow was about five feet on a level around the house. The canyon down which the home trail ran was evenly filled with feathery powdered snow. It grew colder. Felton at last told the truth to Catherine.
"Dear, I have been lying to you frightfully. There has been no food on the top of the big shelf. We have enough to live on for four or five days, at the utmost. Then we must starve. We are supposed by our friends to be safe, and we cannot reach the outside world. It would take weeks for the most determined men to reach us—from Sharon even, the nearest settlement."
Any man should be satisfied with what this woman did then. She said: "Dear, the only reproach I have is that you did not tell me the true situation at first. Then we could have suffered together, and that would have been better. As it is I think I realize all the situation now. We are together and we have been very happy anyhow."
This altogether illogical conclusion of herwords somehow strengthened Felton wonderfully. He began fumbling round the room. Courage filled his heart, without reason, he felt, but with courage regained he was not inclined to quibble as to its source.
"I don't know," he said, "somehow, my girl, you've given me hope. I'll bet the good God will help us."
"Course He will," responded this dignified, blessed young matron born and bred in Boston.
"Come," said Catherine, rousing herself from the thoughtful mood which had gripped her, after the first excitement of Felton's revelation was over. "We haven't half explored this place. Who knows but there's a barrel of flour stowed away in some dark corner."
"Behind this door—for example," said Felton, entering into his wife's mood, and glad for any little diversion to check thought and imagination.
There had been standing against the wall in one dark corner of the room an old door, evidently brought in from some outhouse for the repairing of its hinges. It had not been disturbed since the new occupancy of the place. Felton grasped the pineplanks in both hands and set them to one side. There semi-gleamingin the candlelight hung revealed one of the two business ends of the common place and eminently valuable telephone of North America.
Felton gasped and then sat down backwards on the floor. "Holy smoke," was all he said.
Catherine came running to the half dazed man but for a little time he said nothing. He was thinking. He remembered suddenly that there was a telephone between the mine and the nearest town in the valley, that to which the miners had fled. Of course the line was deep beneath the snow, part of the way, but it might be working. He looked at his wife in a dazed way, clambered to his feet and took hold of the receiver.
"Don't be disappointed," said Catherine, "if it doesn't work. We shall be saved somehow."
"Hello!" shouted Felton, into the familiar, waiting 'phone.
The dazed wife stood by in the silence which ensued, saying nothing.
Moment after moment passed and there came no answer. Still the man stood there repeating at intervals of four or five minutes the hopeless word, the call "Hello". Suddenly he upreared himself, laughed somewhat wildly, and applied his lips to the transmitter.
"Hello! Who is this?" came the query from Sharon.
"I am Robert Felton. Tell Jim Worthy or George Long that we are snowed in at Parsons, without provisions for more than a few days, and tell them to come in a hurry—the trail is from five to twenty feet deep in snow."
"Who do you mean by we—all of the Parson's crowd?"
Then another question was put.
"My wife is with me—we are alone—the Parson's outfit left the night the storm began."
"All right. Keep a stiff upper lip. There'll be help coming," called the operator, and the bell rung ending the conversation.
Felton could not speak. He sat dumbly waiting, while Catherine chattered to him of commonplace things to win him back to his ordinary frame of mind.
Soon the telephone bell rang again, and this time friendly, well known voices gave messages of hope and good cheer. It was rumored that the men from Parson's camp were on the way—but so far they had not arrived. Men and horses amply supplied with tools, with provisions, with everything needful,would leave the valley at once for the work of rescue.
"But how long can you hold out?" at last broke in one of the heartsome, friendly voices.
"It may take us ten or even twenty days to shovel through to you—can you stand such a siege?"
"We'll do our best," returned Felton, over the wire, "but the truth is, we are pretty short of food, so take no chances."
They were already living on carefully measured out rations and Felton resolved to reduce his own portion below the meagre amount he had already given himself.
"Keep up heart, we'll help you—Good-bye!" So ended this talk with Worthy and Long.
The days dragged. The wood chopping, the fire keeping, the story telling, to beguile the weary hours, went on. Once or twice a day came a message of good hope from Sharon. The rescuers were off, and in the shortest time possible would reach the beleagured couple.
One morning there came a sharp, insistent ringing of the bell which opened the door of the world to these two who were making their one daily meal from scraps of dried meat, andalmost the very last of the treasured rations were in their hands at the moment.
"Hello!" called Felton at the 'phone in a moment.
"Hello! That you Felton?"
"Yes. This isn't Tom, is it?"
"Yes—of course, Tom, just in from Parson's—been hearing about you. We left in a hurry—mighty lucky or you wouldn't have had the telephone connected and ready for business."
It was one of the men from Parson's camp.
"They've reached Sharon!" said Felton to Catherine.
"Say!" came Tom's voice over the wire, "You've found the stores, haven't you?"
"What stores?" replied Felton—"We found a little dried venison, and some potatoes in the cupboard, but they are all gone."
"Darn a tenderfoot anyway!" shouted Tom—then recollecting himself he went on. "Take up a board there over by the table. Where do you expect to find provisions if not in the cellar?" Then he muttered to himself. "They're in luck. It's just a providence! We thought of packing that grub down with us."
Down went the hand of Felton, and away he sprung to the square pine table near the door.Taking up a loose board he gazed exantantly into what Tom called the cellar, a square hole under the floor, filled with boxes and kegs and tin cans of meat and vegetables and biscuits.
"Catherine!" he called, but Catherine was already there, kneeling by him, her arms around his neck. She was crying, the brave girl, and Felton was conscious of a sneaking desire to follow her example.
"But won't we feast?" at last Catherine spoke. And then she ran to the telephone to send her own special message to Tom, and to the whole Parsons outfit, and it is certain that there never went over the wires a more grateful and gracious thankfulness than was expressed by Catherine and Felton upon this occasion.
And so, with renewed life, the two awaited events, and one day, toward noon, they heard through the stillness a faint sound, a sort of metallic clink, and a little later they were sure of the welcome ring of men's voices. Felton fired off the loaded rifle which hung over the cabin door at Parson's and soon came an answering volley of pistol shots and a faintly heard muffled "hurrah."
Felton seized his own snow shovel, and began madly working through the drifts in front ofthe door. His efforts looked puny in the waste of snow, but it was a relief to his nerves to be active, and soon Catherine joined him, laughing and royally flourishing the Parsons broom.
It was two hours before the rescuing army of miners and cowboys reached the little lane which Felton and Catherine had cut out and swept for them—scarce ten yards it reached from the doorway. And then, well, then it was but a few days back to the world—that world which had been saved to Felton and his wife by the life line, the wire stretched across and through the snow between mountains and men.
A TOAD AND A SONG
There had been a period of aimless talk in the rear car after the Miner had concluded, but this resolved itself finally into a lively discussion regarding the probable quality of the hidden country round about. Some declared that there existed only the abomination of desolation while others spoke of the amazing wealth concealed beneath the surface of the earth and asserted that neither the Land of Ophir nor Pennsylvania could endure comparison with the region in which they were now marooned.
"Is this place in the midst of the ore-producing or the coal region?" some one asked, "or is it in neither? How about it, Mr. Miner?"
"I don't know," responded the Miner, "I only know that if it's coal, it's better than metal. When you find coal, you've got something. When you find silver or gold, you don't know how hard it may be to extract it from its rock or how soon the find will peter out. Evenbonanzas peter out. When you find gold or silver, you're just flirtin'. When you strike a coal bed you've got married."
There was a laugh at the Miner's simile and then a reflection from another seeker after information, Mrs. Livingston this time.
"I wonder which is the older, the ore or the coal? It would be interesting to know."
"I imagine, madam," said the Professor, as he was only known, "that the ore deposits, formed by volcanic upheavals, far antedate those of coal, originating from vegetable deposits, great forests, fern-like forests it may be, which had their being long after earth had become productive. Besides, as I understand, a toad has been taken from a coal mine and the toad, thus discovered, belongs to a modern order of batrachians."
"Was the toad alive?" was asked.
"So I understand," said the Professor. "It was in a comatose condition but revived when brought into the air and light."
There was much comment among the party and then an idea came suddenly to the Young Lady, who was by no means lacking in sentiment or fancy. "I wonder," she mused, "what that toad was thinking of during all the centuriesof his dark imprisonment? Mr. Poet," she broke out, "You are to retire to the end of the car and, for one hour, at least, no word may you utter. I will find you paper and pencil now, and you may not speak again until you have written a poem telling of the sensations of that toad when he was restored to light and air again."
The Poet was gallant. "One cannot do well always under duress," was his response, "but one should certainly make an effort, under the circumstances. I'll do my best, at least."
And so, amid the laughter of the passengers, he was hustled off to a corner and left to his fancies and his struggle. The conversation went on and the sufferer in the corner was almost forgotten save, of course, by the Young Lady. It was a little after the hour's end, when he emerged, exhibiting a rather graceful diffidence. And this is what he read:
THE TOAD FROM THE MINES
I am a toad,Squat and grimy and rough and brown,I come from a queer abode,From down, down, down,Where, for centuries, no lightHad fallen on my sight,Until, with sudden shock,Parted the rock,Yielded the stony clampsAnd blazed in my dim eyes the miners' lamps!What view is now unfurled!It is another worldFrom that I leftCenturies ago, to which they've brought meSince the black rock was cleftWhere thus they caught me.Centuries ago, one day,I was upon a river bank, at play.Nature was very fair;I fed on buzzing insects of the air,Beneath tall palms that grew beside the streamIn which huge monsters bathed. It did not seemA world like this at all. It was more grand.The mighty waters washed a teeming landAnd life was great and fervid. SuddenlyUpheaved the land, upheaved the awful sea;The earth was riven; toppling forests bent,To sink and disappear in that vast rent!Down, down, down.The landscape plunged from light and life awayAnd now again, to me alone, 'tis day.How odd it all appears!Encysted in the rock ten thousand years,I am a stranger here; I cannot praiseThose who released me; mine are not your ways.In this new life I have no enterprise;The sunshine in my eyesBut gives me pain.Put me in some niche of the rock again,It is the only fit abodeFor me—a prehistoric toad.
I am a toad,Squat and grimy and rough and brown,I come from a queer abode,From down, down, down,Where, for centuries, no lightHad fallen on my sight,Until, with sudden shock,Parted the rock,Yielded the stony clampsAnd blazed in my dim eyes the miners' lamps!What view is now unfurled!It is another worldFrom that I leftCenturies ago, to which they've brought meSince the black rock was cleftWhere thus they caught me.Centuries ago, one day,I was upon a river bank, at play.Nature was very fair;I fed on buzzing insects of the air,Beneath tall palms that grew beside the streamIn which huge monsters bathed. It did not seemA world like this at all. It was more grand.The mighty waters washed a teeming landAnd life was great and fervid. SuddenlyUpheaved the land, upheaved the awful sea;The earth was riven; toppling forests bent,To sink and disappear in that vast rent!Down, down, down.The landscape plunged from light and life awayAnd now again, to me alone, 'tis day.How odd it all appears!Encysted in the rock ten thousand years,I am a stranger here; I cannot praiseThose who released me; mine are not your ways.In this new life I have no enterprise;The sunshine in my eyesBut gives me pain.Put me in some niche of the rock again,It is the only fit abodeFor me—a prehistoric toad.
There was a buzz of applause as the Poet concluded. Then up rose Colonel Livingston.
"The Toad's experience has made me sentimental and dreamy of mood. Personally, I'dlike to have my savage breast soothed by some music. Has anybody a piano? No? Well, we can get along without one. Will not some one sing? Who can sing? Mr. Stranger,"—and he addressed himself to a recent and as yet unrecognized addition to the party—"you seem to enter into the spirit of the occasion and to enjoy our fancies indulged here in this, our preposterously direful strait. Will you sing for us?"
Sheet Music
Sheet Music
1. We are the Dreamers of Dreams,We're the creators of fancies; ...We are whatever it seems, ...The owners of reason that dances.We are the Dreamers of Dreams.2. We tread the paths that are vagrant,And we do the deeds that are flagrant, ...But ever, without any goad, ...We find our way back to the road.We are the Dreamers of Dreams.3. For we are the Dreamers of Dreams, etc.
And to the amazement of all, the Stranger did not hesitate a moment. "Certainly," said he. "I believe in fancies." And this is what he sang:
THE DREAMERS OF DREAMS
We are the Dreamers of Dreams;We are the creatures of fancies;We are—whatever it seems,—The owners of reason that dances,We are the Dreamers of Dreams.We tread in the paths that are vagrant,And we do the deeds that are flagrant;But ever without any goad,We find our way back to the road.For we are the Dreamers of Dreams;We are the creatures of fancies;We are—whatever it seems,—The owners of reason that dances,We are the Dreamers of Dreams.
We are the Dreamers of Dreams;We are the creatures of fancies;We are—whatever it seems,—The owners of reason that dances,We are the Dreamers of Dreams.
We tread in the paths that are vagrant,And we do the deeds that are flagrant;But ever without any goad,We find our way back to the road.
For we are the Dreamers of Dreams;We are the creatures of fancies;We are—whatever it seems,—The owners of reason that dances,We are the Dreamers of Dreams.
ALAN MACGREGOR'S BROWN LEG
One whose presence aided in promoting a healthful mental atmosphere among those so constrained to be together was a lady perhaps thirty years of age who bore herself with the air of a school-teacher, but decidedly with the manner of one whom her pupils would more love than fear. She laughingly alluded to herself as the Teacher and, by common consent, this had become her designation. It was she, most well-informed and reflective of ladies, who, after the applause following the Stranger's song had barely died away, advanced a proposition involving immediately and deeply a tanned, good-looking man who, as was known, had been engaged in the work of collecting rare orchids in South America.
"I have read somewhere," said she, "that people adrift for days at sea, and parched and half-crazed with thirst, either relieve or, possibly, aggravate their sufferings—I do not know how that may be—by all sorts of queer debateas to whether ice-water is good for the health or not, whether iced-claret is better than plain lemonade, in short in a discussion as to the relative merits of all sorts of cooling drinks. And I have read too, that people starving, like some of the Arctic explorers, conduct themselves in almost the same way, imagining all sorts of magnificent repasts, each telling of some meal where his choice among foods was the principal dish or describing what he would first order should he ever reach civilization again.
"Now," she continued, "it seems to me," and she drew her cloak about her more closely and with a shudder, "it seems to me that it would be a great relief and comfort if some one were to tell a story of a tropic region, a place where snow and ice are all unknown. I think we would enjoy it. I know I should myself. Mr. Explorer," and she turned to that gentleman, "you have certainly at some time wandered about in the vicinity of the Equator, cannot you tell us a story, the scene of which is laid in a region where it is always decently warm?" And she shuddered again and cuddled down more closely in her seat.
The Explorer answered readily: "I've beenin the vicinity of the Equator a great many times, but I do not remember any experience which would furnish material for a story." He hesitated a moment, "Ah, yes, I do, it's a very curious story, too. I think we may call it
ALAN MACGREGOR'S BROWN LEG
Alan MacGregor was with us in South America. He was with us, but not of us. He had money enough, and had come along just because I wanted him to, and he wanted to see what the tropics were like. We were a semi-scientific group, looking for orchids and caoutchouc and various other things which could be transported down the Amazon and turned into good dollars at any port on the Atlantic coast.
MacGregor was practically an outsider, but was generally regarded as one of us. I think the only possible distinction which existed between him and any other man of the group was, that he was desperately in love with a young Scottish woman of Chicago, of whose intense clannishness and patriotism he was everlastingly boasting and laughing the while. In fact, he became almost something of a bore to us, with his dreaming and his tale-telling of this Miss Agnes Cameron, who, he declaredwas the most earnest Highlander on the face of the earth. She knew every clan and the coloring of any crisscross of tartan ever worn under snowflake or under sunshine. He was most desperately in love, and what he seemed greatly to admire in his sweetheart was her pure Scottish patriotism. She thought of, and he quoted, only "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," or "Up with the bonnets of Bonny Dundee," or any other thing of that sort relating to the exploits of the Highlanders of modernly classic times.
Well, MacGregor and I did a good deal of exploring and a good deal of shooting, and enjoyed ourselves together. It is not necessary in this account to mention the exact locality, because, to tell the truth, I could not remember it distinctly myself. We were camped in the corner of a little affluent of the Amazon, some hundreds of miles up from the delta. It was a pleasant enough region, barring the fact that it was frightfully hot and that there seemed to be more jaguars and alligators and anacondas to the square mile than were really necessary. Of course, tastes differ as to the number of jaguars and alligators and anacondas there should be to this mentioned area,but the consensus of opinion in our little party was that, in that latitude and altitude, the average had been a little overrun. Not only were they numerous—the animals thus indicated—but they seemed to be, in every instance, healthy and unnecessarily enterprising.
Lots of things happened, but the thing which has always remained best fixed in my memory was the affair of MacGregor's brown leg. We had been out shooting parrots together that very afternoon, and I remember that he drove me nearly mad by his repetition of how good a Scotchwoman his "lassie" was, and how she boasted of the fact that she was a direct descendant of the reckless old riever, who, herding back into the Highlands stolen cattle from the Lowlands, and stopping for a few hours about midnight to let kine and clansmen rest, suddenly discovered that his son, his eldest son, the pride of clan and family, had so degenerated that, lying barelegged in the snow, he had rolled up a snowball for a pillow, and was there sleeping most luxuriously when his father found him. The old laird promptly kicked that snowball into the ewigkeit, and wanted to know how far his family had become degenerate and degraded! Well, Miss Agnes Cameron boasted of this oldlaird as her great, great, and so on, ancestor. This will give some idea of the extent of her native pride in bare legs and Scottish blood.
It was, perhaps, four o'clock one afternoon when we were in camp in an open glade in the very midst of the forest, that the whole company scattered itself of its own impulse. I wanted to study the habits of a small animal, a specimen of which I had seen among some rocks a mile away—a sort of little armadillo. My scientific associate wanted to try for a jaguar, the growls of which our attendants had heard in the forest, a mile or so in the other direction. The natives whom we had employed as guides and servants were themselves anxious to engage in a little expedition of their own. They had seen a fruit of which they are fond—they are always gorging when they have opportunity, these almost savage natives—and they wanted to go out and gather a great quantity of it while the opportunity offered. Alan alone remained inactive. He had worked hard the day before, had done a lot of shooting, and had need of rest, and now, as he declared, he wanted to slip away and sleep all the afternoon. Sometimes Alan drank a little. I believe he had a flask with him that day. At any rate, we all departedand left him lying stretched out upon the ground beneath a giant tree, which kept him shaded as if beneath an umbrella, fifty feet, at least, in its diameter.
That is all there was to the situation. We drifted away into the forest in our several directions, and left Alan lying there sleeping like a lump, for, poor fellow, he needed rest. "It would take a good deal to disturb that man," laughed one of the party as we departed. Now, as to what followed, I can tell you only of what I did not see, but what, as was made apparent later, was the absolute fact.
We were camped close beside a great creek which reached the affluent of the Amazon, and along these creeks, as along the river proper, were gigantic serpents. The anaconda is as much at home on land as in water. Those big constrictors of the southern part of this great hemisphere are dreadful. They prey upon the deer and upon a thousand other things. They are a terror everywhere, and, though we did not know it at the time, there was concealed in that tree beneath which poor Alan was lying, a very healthy specimen of this powerful reptile. That was what we concluded afterward, although the great snake may not have beenthere when we left, and may have come afterward. Anyway, what happened must have been just this: The great serpent saw the sleeping man, and looked upon him as his prey. He saw what was his food breathing stertorously, and he dropped from the tree or came up from the river beside him. He began to swallow the man.