"Well, Bess, old girl, we're off now for the jolliest time out!" cried Job as he vaulted into the saddle one June day, bound for the Yosemite Valley, that wonderful spot of which Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote on the old hotel register: "The only place I ever saw that came up to the brag."
Job had left the Yellow Jacket forever. The years were beginning to tell on the strong man of Pine Tree Mountain and Job was needed at home. So he had come. Standing one night on Lookout Point, watching the setting sun gild the far-off crown of El Capitan, he had resolved that before its glow once more set on the monarch's brow, he would mount Bess and be off to see again the sights on which old El Capitan had looked down for innumerable centuries. Perhaps the knowledge that Jane was there camping with her invalid father, who fancied that a summer in the valley would make his life easier, had something to do with the decision.
It was on one of those beautiful mornings in the California mountains which come so often and yet are always a rare, glad surprise, that Job, mounted on Bess, went singing down through the pasture gate, down past the charred ruins of the mill, past the familiar entrance to Dean's Lane, on toward the Frost Creek road and Wawona. It was a very familiar road. He stopped so long to chat with Aunty Perkins, halted Bess so long under the big live-oak at the Frost Creek school, and, leaning on her neck, gazed wistfully at the scenes of many a boyhood prank, that it was late in the afternoon when he passed the spot fragrant with memories of "Aunt Eliza" and "Mary Jane," galloped down the long hill, raced the coach and six just in from Raymond with a lot of tourists up to the Wawona Hotel, sprang off Bess, turned her over to a hostler and went into the office to register for the night.
That load of tourists furnished ample amusement for Job all that summer evening. He had read of such people, but this was the first time he had ever met them. There was the fat man, jovial and happy, always cracking a joke, who shook the dust off what had been that morning, before he began a ride of more than forty miles by stage, a respectable coat, and laughed merrily till it nearly choked him. There was the tall dude, with wilted high collar and monocle on his right eye, drawling about this "Bloomin' dirty country, don'cher know." Striding up and down the veranda with a regular tread that shook the long porch, with clerical coat buttoned up to the throat, and high silk hat which was not made for stage travel, was Bishop Bowne. His temper seemed unruffled by the vexations of the day as he remarked, "Magnificent scenery. Makes me think of Lake Como, only lacks the lake. Regular amphitheater of mountains. Reminds one of the Psalmist's description of Jerusalem." Darting here and there, trying to get snap-shots, were two "kodak fiends," two city girls who pointed the thing at you, bungled over it, reset it, pressed the button, and giggled as they flew off. They fairly bubbled over with delight as they saw Job, and debated how much to offer to get him to sit for a scene of rustic simplicity out by the toll-gate.
But Job was too busy to notice. He was being systematically interviewed by the fat, fussy woman in black who was asking him, "S'pose you've seen Pike's Peak, the Garden of the Gods, and Colorado Springs? Great place; we spent a whole half day there. No? Been to Monterey, of course, round the drive? We did it! Foggy, couldn't see a blessed thing; but it's fine; had to do it. What! never been there? Too bad, young man. Oh, there's nothing like doing the world. I've seen Paris, Rome, the Alps, Egypt. Oh, my! I couldn't tell how much! Sarah Bell, she knows; she's got it down in her note-book. Dear me! I must go and see what time we can start back forthis place over there—what do you call it? Some Cemet'ry?"
"Yosemite," suggested Job.
"Oh, yes, Yosemitry. We ought to go right back to-morrow. We've got to do Alaska in this trip, or we'll never hear the end of it when we get back East. Nothing like doing the world, young man," said she, as she adjusted her bonnet and eye-glasses and hurried off to the office, where he heard her an hour later lamenting, "Sarah Bell, we have got to stay a whole precious day in that Cemet'ry before we can go back!"
It was late when the babble of voices died away, the stars kept watch through the tall pines of Wawona, and Job fell asleep to the piping of the frogs in the pond back of the hotel and the pawing of horses in the long barn across the square.
Yosemite Valley from Inspiration PointYosemite Valley from Inspiration Point
"Inspiration Point!" called out the driver, as Job pulled up Bess the next day alongside the stage as it stood on the summit of that spot where the road from Wawona, which for miles has climbed up through the forest past Chinquapin and many a stage station, climbs still higher through the rare air of seven thousand feet, and then hurries down through the leaves of the trees, turns a bend and emerges in full view of the grand Yosemite.
There it lay in all its grandeur—the unroofed temple of God, Nature's great cathedral. Three thousand feet down, level as the floor, sunk beneath the surrounding mountains which stretched away to right and left in a gigantic mass, it lay clothed in a carpet of green grass and trees so far below that they seem to merge into one. Cut by a silvery stream that winds lazily amid the Edenic beauty, as if loath to be away, the valley a mile wide stretches back for nearly six miles, and then is lost to view as it wanders around the jutting peaks of the Three Sisters and climbs on for five more miles to the falls of the Merced, as they come tumbling down from the region of perpetual snow to that of perpetual beauty.
To the left is old El Capitan, three thousand feet high, and with width equal to height and depth to width—a mountain of solid rock. Well did the Bishop lift his hat, and, standing in silent awe, at last say, "The judgment throne of God." Far beyond it the silvery line of the Yosemite Creek reached the straight edge of the cliff and shot down twenty-six hundred feet. To the right, Bridal Veil Falls, a tiny brooklet it seemed in the distance, winding down a mountain meadow, looking frightened a moment at the edge of the cliff, leaping over into spray, caught up and transfigured bythe afternoon sun, as it fell on the rocks hundreds of feet below. Beyond it, Cathedral Rocks, the Three Sisters and a mass of jutting summits stretching ever on till they were lost to view. Beyond and between them all, between and back, El Capitan and the Sentinel Peak, looming up, as the Bishop said, like "the sounding-board of the ages." From far away rose the Half Dome, at whose feet the famous little lake mirrors again and again the morning sun as it drives away the shadows of night from this home of the sublime.
Job instinctively bared his head and found himself repeating, "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth, from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God."
Just then the silence was broken by the voices in the stage. "Ain't it pretty?" said the giggler. "Well, now, is that the Cemet'ry? Do tell! Driver, you're sure we can go back to-day? We've seen it now!" said the fussy woman. The practical man was asking the driver for minute statistics and copying them down in his book, the dude was yawning and hoping there would be a dance at the hotel, while the Bishop got out and, walking away from the rest, stood and looked and looked and looked, till Job heard him intoning in a voice in keeping with the grandeur of the scene, "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth."
Job stayed behind as the stage rattled down the side of the mountain, tethered Bess by a big cedar, lay in a grassy nook and looked down, down, where the Merced abutted the base of El Capitan and tumbled down the narrow cañon that leads from the valley far below to the plains. All the reverence of his soul, all that was noble and lofty in him, rose as he gazed upon the scene. The littlenesses, the meannesses of the world, were left far behind. Like Moses of old, he was in the cleft of the mountains and the glory of Jehovah lay stretched out before him.
It was toward sunset when he reached the floor of the valley and walked Bess across the three bridges that span the branches of the Bridal Veil Creek, saw the bow of promise in the misty spray that seemed to ever hang in mid-air against the cliffs, galloped down the Long Meadow, past the Valley Chapel, and pulled up at the Sentinel House for the night.
That night the silver gleam of the Yosemite itself looked in at his window, as the new moon shone on its waters falling from the endless heights above, and the ripple of those waters soothed him to sleep as they rolled past his door, under the bridge and away down the valley.
In a most romantic little spot just across the bridge near the Falls of the Yosemite, and where the icy creek hides itself in bushes and reappears under the bridge, stood an abandoned Indian wick-i-up, half hid among the saplings. Here, throwing flap-jacks into the air with a toss over a crackling camp-fire, singing merrily, Job found Jane the next morning as he was roaming the valley in the early hours on Bess' back. It was a genuine surprise. She was not expecting him, even if she had dreamed of him all night. Her first impulse was to express with childish glee her real delight, but her very joy made her reserved. She restrained herself lest she should display her real feelings. She was glad to see him, of course; her father was better, and was off getting wood for the fire. Were the folks all well? Had he seen Dan lately? (Which question cut Job deeper that he liked to acknowledge.) Would she go up to Mirror Lake after breakfast? he asked. Certainly, if father did not need her.
So a little later, leaving Bess neighing behind in the camp, up the long, dusty road Jane and Job rambled on, past the pasture and the Royal Arches, on along the river bank, and, turning away to the left, climbed on the rise of ground into that nook where the South Dome seems almost tomeet the Half Dome, and stood by the glassy waters of Mirror Lake. In that early hour before the ripples had stirred the surface, this lakelet at the foot of the Half Dome was worthy of all its romantic fame. Nine times that morning Job and Jane saw the sun rise over the rounded peak of the Half Dome, as they followed slowly the shores of the lake from sun-kissed beach to shadow. Jane went into ecstasies. Was it not beautiful! What a picture! The clear-cut rocky mountain, its low edges fringed with trees, its top so bare, the blue sky and passing clouds, that bright spot which rose so quickly far back of the topmost turn of the Dome, all mirrored at their feet.
Job's esthetic nature was stirred to its depths, and he echoed Jane's adjectives. Before they reached camp she had yielded to his appeal for another walk to-morrow, perhaps to Glacier Point and home by moonlight.
That night Job took his blankets from the hotel and stole over back of the Reeds' camp, just beyond the Indian's "cache" on the gentle slope of the open valley where the great wall of Eagle Peak rises four thousand feet. Among a lot of boulders which look for all the world like tents in the twilight, there, between two great pines, he lay down to watch the moonlight fade from Glacier Point yonder across the valley, and fell asleep at last to dream of the Berkshire Hills, the winding Connecticut, and the scenes of childhood days.
It must have been three o'clock—it was dark, very dark, though the stars were shining brightly—when something awoke him. He roused to find himself striking his nose on either side in a strange manner. Fully awake, he discovered the cause. Two tribes of ants living on opposite pine trees had completed a real estate bargain that night and had decided to change homes. By some chance they found his face in their pathway, but, perfectly fearless of the giant sleeping there, had kept on their journey, passing each other on the bridge of his nose. As he woke, the tramp of myriad feet crossed that feature, the procession for the right marching over between his eyes; the procession for the left, over the point. Silently, boldly, the mighty host climbed his cheeks, surmounted the pass, and hurried down, till, with many a desperate slap, Job at last sprang up, thoroughly awake. Ants, ants, ants—millions of them! Ants in his shoes, ants running off with his hat, ants in his pockets. It was an hour before the giant had conquered the dwarfs and Job was asleep again, well out of the way of any tree.
Mirror Lake, Yosemite.Mirror Lake, Yosemite.
The sun was shining in his eyes, the Indian's little black cur had come up and was barking at him from a respectful distance, and from behind a tree Job heard a girl's merry laugh, when he awoke the next morning.
Mountains, mountains, mountains! Piled up like Titanic boulders, snow-capped and ice-bound, tumbling down from the far-off glassy sides of Mt. Lyell and Mt. Dana to the edge of that stupendous chasm. Gleaming glaciers, great ice rivers, eternal snow drifts, dark, bare, rugged peaks for a background. For a foreground, all the beauty of the valley far below you, three thousand feet or more, as, holding your breath, you gaze straight down the dizzy height from the projecting table rock. El Capitan on the left, the Yosemite Falls dancing down in three great leaps opposite; the Half Dome and Cloud's Rest off to the right, Vernal and Nevada Falls pouring their torrent over the cliffs at your side, the Hetchy-Hetchy Valley, the rolling plateau that stretches back to the perpetual snow and rising peaks behind you. All language falters here. Tongue can never describe, only the soul feels, the awfulness, the vastness, the sublimity, the stupendousness, the wild grandeur of the scene. Such is Glacier Point.
Here, speechless, overawed, and with the loftiest emotions sweeping over their souls, Job Malden and Jane Reed stood alone amid a silence broken only by the sighing of the trees back of them.
It was toward sunset of a June afternoon. For hours they had been climbing up the long, steep, winding trail that picks its way along the side of the cliff from back of the Valley Chapel toward Sentinel Peak, over the jutting point, and over the cliff's edge to this wonderful spot. Weary and foot-sore, they had reached it, only to have all thought of self overwhelmed and forgotten in that vision of visions which burst upon their eyes and souls. How long they stood there in utter silence they knew not. Time was lost in eternity. At last the tears began to trickle down Jane's cheeks and she sobbed, "It is grand, it is too grand! I have seen God! I cannot look any more!" while Job stood entranced, forgetful of Jane, forgetful of self, utterly absorbed in the consciousness of infinite power. Then he began to repeat in a solemn voice that favorite Psalm of his: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth."
The saucy call of a squirrel in a tall pine near, the chill of the evening air coming down from the ice-fields, brought them at last to a consciousness of themselves. Withdrawing to a sheltered nook away from the dizzy cliff, and so hid among the trees that all view was shut off except that scene of dazzling beauty, the glitter of the setting sun on the distant Lyell glacier, Job and Jane sat down for the first real heart-to-heart talk they had ever known in their lives. They talked of the years gone by; of the outward story that the world may read, of the inner story that only the heart knows. Their theme was Christ, their mutual Friend, who had been the cheer and strength of all those years. Memory came and turned the pages of a lifetime that night. Jane talked of childhood days, of her mother's grave and Blackberry Valley, and of the old camp-meeting in Pete Wilkins' barn on that never-to-be-forgotten Saturday night, when, lonely and heart-broken, she had knelt on the hard floor at the bench and whispered, "Just as I am, without one plea." Then her face brightened as she looked up and said, "Oh, Job, He came, and I was so happy! And, somehow, home has not been so lonely since then, and—I don't know; it may seem strange to you, Job—Jesus is just as real to me as you are. He is with me all the time; and, whenI am tired, he says, 'Come unto me, and I will give you rest'; when father is so cross, and the tears just will come, he whispers, 'Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. My peace I give unto you.' And he does. It comes so sweetly, and I feel so still, so rested! I know he is right beside me. Isn't it grand, Job, to feel we are His and He will always love us, and that He is so near us? It seems as if I heard His step now and He was standing by us. I know He is. I like that hymn we sang Communion Sunday—'Fade, fade, each earthly joy, Jesus is mine.'"
A moment they sat in silence, while the sun transformed the far-off glacier into a lake of glory, and then sank behind El Capitan for the night. Then Job spoke. A long while he talked. The memories of childhood; the sweet face that grew strangely white in the city of the plains and left him; the early days at Pine Tree Ranch; the steps of a downward life; that grand old camp-meeting and what it did for him—of these he spoke, and yet did not cease. The years of youth and young manhood, the bitter persecutions and temptations, the triumphs through the personal presence and help of the Master, were his theme. For the first time a human friend learned the real story of that awful night in the second tunnel and the long, long day in the lonely Gulch. The young man grew excited and stood up as he paid loving tribute to the reality of religion in his life and the tender, most divine friendship of Jesus Christ. Then he hesitated; but only for a moment. He told her of his sins; of those days of doubt when he yielded to the tempter's power and how near he came to losing his soul. He could not finish it, but strode off alone. At last he came, and, sitting down, said:
"Jane, all I am I owe to Jesus Christ. The story of his love, and what he has been to me, is more wonderful than any story of fiction. 'More wonderful it seems than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams.'"
View from Glacier Point.View from Glacier Point.
The twilight was deepening, the great mountains were fading away in the distance, the evening star was just peering over the horizon as, standing together by the iron rail that protects Table Rock—standing, as it seemed, in the choir loft of the eternities, they sang together—Job in his rich tenor, Jane in her sweet soprano:
"All hail the power of Jesus' name,Let angels prostrate fall.Bring forth the royal diadem,And crown him Lord of all."
"All hail the power of Jesus' name,Let angels prostrate fall.Bring forth the royal diadem,And crown him Lord of all."
As the moonlight stole down from the mountain summits to the edge of the furthercliff and then plunged down to light the valley, Job and Jane still sat and talked. Was it strange that somehow the hidden love of long years would out that night, and, talking of life's holiest experiences and secret longings and loftiest dreams, somehow, before they knew it, they talked of love? Secrets locked in the heart's deepest chambers found voice that night. The unuttered longings of the years found language. Not as children prattle of sudden impulses, not as Job had blushed and simpered once; but with the consciousness of manhood and womanhood, and divinity within, they talked of how their lives had grown together till, in all that is holy and best, they were already one.
At last they started down the trail. It was late. The moon had crossed the sky dome of the valley and was hastening toward Eagle Peak. A peace and silence that could be felt filled the world, and found a deep response in their souls. They were going down from the Mount of Transfiguration, one with God, one with each other. Love, pure and holy, was master of their lives. A joy unspeakable filled their hearts. The culmination of the years had come. With the forests and mountains for witness, under the evening sky, with innumerable worlds looking down, with the presence of Infinite Power all about them, Jane Reed and Job Malden had, once for all, plighted their love to God and each other.
It was just four days later, the day before the Fourth, that Job, mounted on Bess, rode up to Camp Comfort, as Jane called the little spot where she kept house in the open air for her father, listening to the roar of the Yosemite Falls back of her, and prepared their humble meals over the camp-fire. Job was going home; the old man would expect him on the Fourth, and that keen sense of duty which was ever stronger than his longing to linger near Jane, impelled him to go. He had come to say good-by. Old Tom Reed, sick and selfish, had been blind to the new light in Jane's eyes and did not know the secret which the birds and trees and sky had learned and seemed never to cease whispering about to Jane. He did not like Job. That pride of poverty which hates success put a gulf between him and this noble young fellow, who looked so manly as he rode up on Bess. Tom Reed liked Dan and thought, of course, that matters were settled between him and his black-eyed daughter. He felt to-day like telling this young aristocrat from the Pine Tree Ranch that it would be agreeable to both himself and Jane if he would seek other company. Only physical weakness kept him from following as Jane walked away by Job's side patting Bess' neck. She would see him to the end of the valley, she said; she did not mind the walk. Well, if she would—and what did Job want better than that?—she must mount Bess and let him walk. How pretty she looked on Bess' black back, with her shining hair and flashing eyes and ruddy cheeks! Never had she looked handsomer to Job. Close at her side he kept as Bess slowly walked down across the river bridge, past the Sentinel House, and on close to the Bridal Veil Falls.
As the rainbow in the spray, with its iridescent colors, laughed at them through the trees, Job thought of the gala day coming, when he should claim this noble girl for his bride, and an honest pride filled his heart. At the foot of Inspiration Point they tarried for a full hour, it was so hard to say good-by. How he hated to take Bess from her! At last a sudden thought came to him. She should keep Bess in the valley till the autumn days came and Jane could return home. He would go back over the Merced Cañon trail, only twenty-six miles to his home; he had often wanted to try it and cross the river on Ward's cable. He couldnot go that way on horseback, and he would leave Bess. He would like to think of Jane and her as together. The girl protested, but she felt a secret joy. It would be next to having him. So she did not dismount, but through her tears saw Job vanish down the cañon, along the Rapids, towards the old, almost forgotten trail that leads for twenty miles by the river's roaring torrent, to where the South Fork joins the North Fork.
A sudden impulse seized her. She turned Bess' head toward the toll road and began to climb the steep three miles to Inspiration Point. Then she hunted for the Cliff Trail that leads away from the road out along the great left precipice of the cañon. She knew there must be some opening in the forest over there. She remembered it from the valley below, the day she had gone down by the Rapids. She would find it and catch one last glimpse of Job on the trail. She would wave to him, and perhaps he would see her. She had Bess, and it would not take long to return; father would not miss her.
Just as she turned into the trail a campers' wagon climbed the hill back of her and passed on over the road, but she did not notice it, she was so absorbed in her own thoughts. She must hurry. Would Job see her? Anyway she would surely see him—she would dismount and creep out to where nothing could hide her view.
Far below Job was already on his march homeward. With a swinging gait, and a determined will that said he must do it, though all the love in his heart said no, Job started off through the trees and on down the cañon trail. His eyes were misty and a lump was in his throat, as he caught one last glimpse of Jane. On he hurried. He was off now, and the sooner he got home the better. By rapid walking and some hard climbing he would reach Indian Bill's old cabin, ten miles down the river, by night.
He had just resolved on this, leaped over a creek stealing down far behind El Capitan, got full in sight of the roaring rapids, when he heard a step behind him and looked up to see Indian Bill himself coming. The old trapper was a well-known character in the mountains. His great brown feet looking out beneath torn blue overalls, his dark-skinned chest wrapped in a blanket of many colors, his long straight hair falling from beneath a well-worn sombrero, formed a familiar sight all over those mountains. Those feet had tramped every mountain pass and rugged trail and had climbed every lofty peak for a hundred miles about the Yosemite.
His approach was a glad surprise to Job. He could wish no better companion over that lonely trail which led along the precipitous sides of the cañon, with straight walls towering above it and steep descents reaching below to the Merced's angry waters, which dash for twenty miles over gigantic boulders with a fury unrivaled by Niagara itself.
Soon Indian Bill was driving away Job's gloom as, in his queer dialect, he told one of his trapper stories while the two swung on at regular gait, close upon each other's heels. Over the steep grades, through the deep, shaded ravines, and along the bare cliffs on that narrow trail, they went. They had gone a mile down the stream, when Job noticed something moving, high on the opposite cliff. He called his companion's attention to it, and the keen-eyed Indian said it was a horseman mounted on a black steed. Job thought of Jane, but at once said to himself that it could not be she—she was back at Camp Comfort by this time. A little later, Bill said the horse was now riderless and standing by a tree, and that a bit of something white was moving on the face of the cliff.
Just then they heard a terrible roar, and both forgot all else in the queer sensation that seized them. All the world seemed to sway before Job's eyes. The mountains below, where the river bends, seemed a thing of life. His feet slipped on the narrow edgeof a steep cliff he was crossing, the gravel beneath gave way, and Job found himself lying at the foot of a steep incline, while a whole fusillade of stones was flying past him. A moment, and it was over, and the Indian said:
"Ugh! Heap big earthquake! Great Spirit mad! Come."
But Job could not easily come. His foot was doubled up under him and sharp pains were darting through it. Indian Bill sprang to his assistance, fairly carried him up the steep side of the precipice, from whence, fortunately for him, he had fallen on soft earth, and put him on his feet on the trail. Oh, that long walk over the jutting points, down among the boulders, and up again on places of the trail that seemed suspended between earth and sky! Every step brought a groan to Job's lips. He grew feverish and thirsty. Bill parted a bunch of almost tropical ferns which grew against the rocks, and led Job in to a place where, through the stone roof of a dark cañon, the ice-cold water trickled down drop by drop. It was well toward dusk when Job dropped exhausted on the trail, and the hardy Indian slung him over his shoulder, bore him up a narrow cañon that entered the main gorge on the right, and laid him down on his own blankets in the little wick-i-up made of twisted limbs and twigs that he called home. Soon the crackling fire warmed the water, the sprained foot was bandaged, and Job was asleep.
It was a strange scene on which Job opened his eyes the next morning. He was lying on a bed of cedar boughs, wrapped in an old gray blanket, and with one of many colors under him. A roof of gray and green was over him, the forest's foliage woven into a tent. Through the parted branches he could see the brown-skinned Indian bending over a ruddy fire from whence the savory odor of frying trout stole in. Through an avenue of green down the narrow cañon, he could see the morning sun shining on the waters of the Merced which tumbled over the great rocks. He tried to rise, but a sharp pain shot through his foot. Far away he heard the call of a bird, and out by the fire the weird strains of a monotonous folk-song rose in the air. Job closed his eyes and sent up a morning prayer. In it he tried to pray for Jane, but somehow could not. She was safe, he knew; probably at the fire, too, in the beautiful valley from whence those rushing waters came.
The trout breakfast was over—Bill knew where to get the beauties, and, after he had got them, knew how to cook them—when Job learned from the old trapper that he was to be his guest for a week; that not before then would he be able to continue the journey home, and that Bill would do his best to care for him till the sprained foot was well again. At first he rebelled. He must get home, he said; Andrew Malden was expecting him. But the Indian only grunted and sat in silence, as Job tried to walk and fell back upon the blankets with the realization that Bill was right.
All day the Indian pottered about in silence, fixing his traps and guns, and weaving a pair of moccasins for winter's use, while Job lay half asleep, half awake, living over again the glories of the week just closing. Toward evening the old Indian came in and sat by his guest and began to talk. Far into the night hours, while the camp-fire flashed and crackled without, he kept up his stories, till Job, intensely interested, forgot his pains and his dreams. In quaint English, shorn of all unnecessary words, Bill talked on.
First he told bear stories, finishing each thrilling passage with a significant "Ugh!" The one that roused Job most and held him transfixed was of once when he suddenly met, coming out of the forest, a giant grizzly, which rose on his monster hind feet and advanced for the death embrace. "Me fire gun heap quick, kill him all dead, he fall, hit Bill, arm all torn, blood come, me sick. Ugh!" And turning back his blanket, heshowed Job the scars from the grizzly's dying blow.
Then he told tales of adventure. Of scaling the Half Dome by means of the iron pegs some daring climber had left there, and how finally, reaching the summit and lying flat, he peered over and saw himself mirrored in the lake below. He told of a wild ride down the icy slope of the Lyell Glacier; of a night, storm-bound, in the Hetchy-Hetchy, where he slept under the shelter of a limb drooping beneath the snow, with a group of frightened mountain birds for bedfellows. He told of beautiful parks far amid the solitude of the high Sierras, great mountain meadows where shy deer grazed, of crystal lakes that lay embowered in many a hidden mountain spot, of Mount Ritter's grandeur and the dizzy heights of Mount Whitney, till Job's head reeled, and he fell asleep that night dreaming of standing on the jagged, topmost summit of a lofty peak, with all the mountains going round and round below him, till he grew dizzy and fell and fell—and found himself wide awake, listening to the hoot of a distant owl and the breathing of his tawny host stretched out under the sky by the dying embers of the camp-fire.
During the next two days Job was much alone. Bill came and went on many a secret, stealthy errand to where he knew the largest, most toothsome mountain trout had their home. Busy with his own thoughts, Job lay and dreamed the long hours away.
"Make Bill feel bad. Want hear it? Ugh! Me tell it; me there. No brave; little boy. Bad day, bad day!"
It was the fourth day and Job was trying to persuade Bill to tell him about the dreadful massacre of the Yosemite in the years gone by. The fitful firelight played about the solemn face which showed never a quiver as that night Bill told the story which made Job's blood run cold.
Sentinel Rock.Sentinel Rock.
It was in the long-gone years when the miners first came into the mountains. Living quietly in the beautiful valley to which they had given their name, his tribe dwelt. Wild children of nature, they had for many a century had the freedom of those hills. Far and wide on many a hunting expedition they had roamed, and none had said nay. But the pale-face, the greedy pale-face, came and stole the forests and creeksyonder. Twice, enraged at their depredations, the Indians had sallied forth from their homes and rent the hills about Gold City with their war-cries, then retreated to the mountain fastnesses of which the pale-face knew nothing. Once more they had gone on the war-path, and started back, to find the whites at their heels. To the very edge of the cliffs they had been followed, and their refuge was no longer a secret—the world had heard the story of the giant's chasm in the Sierras.
When they had gone up on the great meadows back of Yosemite Falls and El Capitan to live, there came a great temptation. The Mono Lake Indians, far over the pass, had stolen a lot of fine horses from the miners of Nevada. They hated the Mono Lake Indians. They watched their chance, and, while they were off on a great hunting trip, the Yosemites stole over the crest of the Sierras and brought a hundred head of horses back with them. Then the aged Indian went on without a tremor. He told how, one summer day, he was playing with the other boys around a great tree, when he heard the wild war-whoop of the Monos; he saw them coming in their war-paint, mounted on mad, rushing horses; heard the whirr of arrows about him; ran and hid in a cleft of the great rocky cliff, out of sight but not of seeing; saw his mother scalped and thrust back into the burning tepee and his father pushed headlong over the cliff; heard the death-cries of the Yosemites; saw the meadow bathed in blood; saw the end of the Yosemites; and crept down with a few survivors late that night to the valley and escaped to the whites. "'Bloody meadow,' white man call it. Him good name. Wish Mono come now—I kill! I kill!" and, with dramatic gesture that almost startled Job, the old man waved his arms and was silent.
Somehow after that the conversation drifted to religion. Bill talked of the Great Spirit, Job talked of God. The old story of the Incarnation—how this Great One came down to live among men and love us all—Job told as best he could, till the hard heart of the child of nature was touched, and he wanted to know if Job thought He loved poor Indian Bill. It was very late, when Job came back to the awful massacre, and tried to show Bill that the manly thing was not to cry, "I kill, I kill," but "I forgive."
The old man listened in silence. He walked out under the stars, then came back and sat down by Job's side and said, "Bill heap bad. Bill hate Mono Indian." Again and again he paced back and forth.
Job was almost asleep, weary with watching the heart-struggles of the wronged old man, when at last he came and said, "Boy, ask Great Spirit forgive Bill. Bill forgive Mono Indian." And there, at midnight, the love that transfigured Hebrew Peter, German Luther, English Wesley, that had changed Job Malden, transformed Indian Bill.
It was fully two weeks after the old trapper had borne him into his humble tent that one afternoon Job walked off, strong and brave, to finish his journey home. Bill saw him down to the river, where you swing across on a board hung on a cable, helped pull the return ropes that carry the novel car across, shouted as Job clambered up the other bank, "Bill heap glad! Love Mono! Love Job! Good-by!" and was off out of sight through the woods as swift and lithe as a deer, bound on another of his hunting trips far back of El Capitan.
Job saw him vanish; and, turning with a light heart and a merry song, climbed the ridge that separates the North Fork from the South Fork, fairly ran down past the old tunnels of the Cove Mine, skipped over the iron bridge, and began the steady climb of six miles home.
It was evening and Tony was carrying the milk from the barn to the milk-house, when Job tripped down the trail from Lookout Point, and Shot and Carlo ran barking to meet him. A sort of momentary consciousness that Bess was not there came to him, then something that sounded like her neigh reached his ears. A shout to Tony—who in his surprise dropped the milk pail and vanished—a bound, and Job was on the veranda. He pushed open the door, and stood face to face with Andrew Malden.
The old man's face was white and deeply furrowed. He looked ten years older than when Job had seen him last, and the young man felt a sharp pang of remorse to think he had left him. Then he remembered Jane and knew he would not have missed the trip for all the world.
At sight of him Andrew Malden's face grew still whiter, he started back as if shot, and fell in a faint on the couch. Job was appalled and greatly mystified, as he dashed water into the wrinkled, haggard face.
At last the old man's eyes opened and he whispered hoarsely, "Oh, Job! Job! how could you? Once I could have believed it, but I cannot now! Oh, Job, tell me! tell me all! I'll stand by you, though you did it—you're my boy still! Oh, Job, it is awful, awful! But I knew you would come! Oh, Job! oh, Job!" he moaned.
Did what? "Awful"? "Come"? Of course he had come. It was an accident, Job explained; he did not mean to stay away.
"An accident? Oh, yes, I told them so, Job; but they won't believe it. They are coming to take my boy and—oh, I can't stand it! I won't stand it!" and Andrew Malden tottered to and fro across the room.
Was the old man insane? Had something dreadful happened? Job stood, his face growing paler, his heart sinking with an undefined fear. Then he caught the words, "Jane—dead—you!"—words that made every nerve quiver, and tortured him till he sank on his knees and begged to know the worst.
Oh, the awful story! It burned into the depths of his soul. Now it seemed like a dream, now dreadful reality. Jane was dead. Somebody had found her lifeless and still on the rocks below the cliff just around from Inspiration Point, and Bess had come home riderless. All the country was wild with excitement. Everybody was searching for him. He had done it, they said. Tom Reed had seen him go away with her, and knew there was a quarrel on hand. Dan was telling that Jane had promised to marry him, and that Job had followed her to the valley to make her break the engagement or kill her. All the evidence was against Job. They had buried her from the old church, buried her in the cemetery on the hill, outside of whose gate his father lay. Yes, Jane was dead!
Job listened and listened—all else fell unheeded on his ear. Jane was dead, his Jane, and lay beneath the pines far down the Gold City road! It was all he heard—it was all he knew. He did not stop to explain; he heard Bess neigh again, and rushed out into the shadowy night, and mounted her with only a bridle. He heeded not the old man's cries. His brain was on fire, his soul in agony. Only one thing he knew—Jane was dead and he must go to her; go as fast as Bess could fly down that road which many a dark night she had traveled.
Men standing on the steps of the Miners' Home that evening said a dark ghost went by like a flash—it was too swift for a flesh-and-blood horse and rider—and they crept in by the bar and drank to quiet their fears.
He found it at last. The fresh earth, the uplifted pine cross with the one word "Jane" on it, told the story. He left Bess to roam among the white stones and the grass, flung himself across that mound, half hid by withered flowers, and lay as if dead—dead as she who slept beneath. At lastthe sobs came; the tears mingled with the flowers; the heart of manhood was bleeding. Jane was dead! How had it happened? Who had done this awful thing? God or man, it mattered little to him. The dreadful fact that burned itself deeper and deeper into his soul was—Jane was dead!
Oh, that awful night! The stars forgot to shine; the trees moaned over his head; the lightnings played on yonder mountains. The thunders rolled, and he heeded them not; the rain-drops pattered now and then on the branches above, but he never knew it.
Gethsemane! Once it had seemed a strange, far-away place where the heart broke and the cup was drunk to its bitter dregs. Job had wondered what it meant. He knew now. It was here on the slopes of the Sierras. These pines were the gnarled olive trees, this was the garden of grief. Gethsemane—it had come into the life of Job Malden.
At length the first great storm of grief had spent itself, and he sat alone in the silence broken only by the far-off mutter of thunder; sat alone with his dead and his thoughts. Again, as on far Glacier Point, memory came and turned the pages of a lifetime. He was back in the old boyhood days, laughing at her dusty, tanned feet—he would kneel to kiss them now, if he could; again he was climbing Sugar Pine trail with her; he was following her and Dan out on that bitter winter night, maddened with jealousy and drink. Still the pages turned. He was kneeling by her side at the Communion table, and a voice said, "As oft as ye drink of this cup"—he was drinking of it now—the cup the Master drank in the garden's gloom. Then the sobs overcame him. Again he was still. The storm had spent its fury, the moon was struggling through the rifted clouds. He remembered Glacier Point and that immortal night, and he felt as if she was here and God was here, and he knelt and prayed, "Thy will, not mine, be done," and the angels of peace and rest came and ministered unto him.
From sheer exhaustion he finally slept. It was but the passing of a moment, and he was awake again. There in the moonlight he read, "Jane." Could he bear it? He could see her now saying good-by. Oh, it was forever, forever! Then, like a flash it came—forever? No; only a little span of life, and, at the gates of pearl, he would see her waiting to welcome him. She was there now, up where the stars were shining and the moon had parted the clouds. Her frail body was here perhaps—but Jane, his Jane, who that night at Glacier Point had said she loved him—she was there. He would be brave; he would be true to God; he would lean on the Master's arm. Jesus was left—he was with him here in the lonely graveyard, and Jane was his still for all eternity.
The young man looked up from the dark earth to the clear sky, and prayed a prayer of hope and trust and submission. Near the hour of dawn he walked out to the gate where Bess stood waiting. He mounted her—dear Bess! who alone knew the story of the awful tragedy. He patted her neck; he whispered his sorrow in her ear. And then a strange, wild thought came to him. He would not go back—he would go away to the great, outside world, never to see the mountains again. How could he ever climb Sugar Pine Hill, or go past the old school-house, or enter the old church? He would go where no gleam from sun-kissed El Capitan could reach his eye, where no associations that would remind of a life forever past could haunt his soul.
Then he remembered something—it seemed like a nightmare. They had said he did it—how, when, why, he knew not. If he went away they would think he was afraid to face them, they would believe him guilty, and the old man would be broken-hearted. Job had forgotten him—he had forgotten all but his awful sorrow. What of it? Go anyway, his heart said. Go away from this world that has been full of trial after trial for you. No matter what menthink. God knows—God can take care of the old man.
There on Bess' back Job sat, while the bitter conflict within went on.
It was over at last. He turned Bess' steps toward Pine Mountain and home. He would face it all—the world's scorn, the old scenes which seemed each one to pierce anew his heart. He had been down to Gethsemane; he would climb Calvary.
"I tell you he'll come! Don't say that about my boy! It was an accident—he said so—I heard him! He can explain it all. He saw it! He'll come!" were the words Job heard Andrew Malden saying as he rode up to Pine Tree Ranch in the dim light of early morning. The sheriff and his deputy had come for Job; and, maddened to find him gone, were cursing the old man and the one they sought.
Andrew Malden, quivering with excitement, tortured by a thousand fears, wondering if he would come, was defending as best he could the young man whom he loved, in this awful hour, more than ever before.
Job was close beside them before they saw him. Hitching Bess, he walked up to the door, saluted the sheriff, and calmly asked:
"Were you looking for me?"
The sight of that pale, manly face for a moment stilled the bluster of the rough officer of the law, and he almost apologized as he told Job he was under the painful necessity of taking him to the county jail to answer to the charge of homicide—the murder of a girl named Jane Reed. Job winced under the sting of the words. For a moment he felt like striking the man a blow for mentioning that sacred name; then he bit his lip, sent up a silent prayer, and said:
"Very well, sir; I will mount my horse and follow you. I know the way well."
In a flash the burly sheriff whipped the hand-cuffs upon his wrists, and said:
"Ride! Well, I guess not! You'll play none of your games on me! You will ride between me and my deputy, Mr. Dean!" And then Job discovered for the first time that Marshall Dean was eying him with a malicious grin of satisfaction.
In a moment, seated in the buckboard between the two men, with only time for a good-by to Bess, a shake of the old man's hand, and never a moment to explain that the accident he had mentioned had befallen himself, not Jane, Job Malden rode down over the Pine Tree road, handcuffed, on his way to the county jail at Gold City.
Past the Miners' Home and the Palace Hotel they drove at last. Bitter faces glared into the prisoner's, friends of other days met him with silence, and here and there a voice cried, "Lynch him!" Up past the old church where he and Jane had gone and come together; up to the door of the quaint white court house with square tower and green blinds they drove, and Job passed through the rear door, and into the narrow, dark dungeon, with only, high up, a little iron-barred window to let in light and air—a prisoner of Grizzly county, to answer for the killing of Jane Reed.
Only when he heard the sound of the bolt in the door, heard the crowd outside cheering the sheriff for his bravery in capturing the outlaw, and, seated on the narrow cot, looked around the cheerless cell with no other furniture, did a sense of what it all meant rush over him. Then the hot tears came, his head sank between his hands, and he felt that he had taken the first step up Calvary. Like a far-off murmur there came to him the words he had said in his heart on that long-ago Communion Sunday: