Plet: A Christmas Tale of the Wasatch, III

PLET: A CHRISTMAS TALE OF THE WASATCH.* BY ALFRED LAMBOURNE, AUTHOR OF HOLLY AND EASTER LILLJES, "PICTURES OF AN INLAND SEA," ETC. PART THREE. I. CHRISTMAS EVE AGAIN. The huge hollow where stood our cabin had once been, so my observations told me, the head of an ancient glacier. Its track I had traced below the lake by the grooved and polished surface of the granite ledges. No doubt its icy masses had plowed out the steep and narrow canon, and the thick causeway of boulders and debris, about midway in the canon's length, was where its ice-caves and bristling front had last rested in later years as it retreated to its upper lair. Now the hollow is often the scene of tremendous snowslides. Sometimes falling simultaneously from its three sides, they beat with irresistible force the lake waters into a cloud of mist, or sweep them forth in a body out of their deep bed, to pass in floods down the slopes, hissing toward the distant camp. Jo and I had seen them fall thus on one occasion, and it was a majes- tic sight. We had thought more than once that, perhaps, our cabin was not in a very safe place—that we may have tempted Providence somewhat. But as our cabin stood on a low ridge, or rather a rock mound, the slides had always heretofore gone on either side of it. A few more months, however, and then, we thought, we would no longer expose ourselves to the danger.

• Copyright by Alfred Lambourne.

188 IMPROVEMENT ERA. Procrastination; that is the miner's bane. Putting off; facing a danger too long; delay in all save in hearkening to the voice of the siren Fortune that leads them on. The golden autumnal days were suddenly ended. With shrilly notes November's wind piped loud, rushing through the mountain hollows and heaping up the fallen leaves into mounds of crimson, gold and russet, or driving them fiercely onward into the pale, swollen torrents. Cold, drenching rains descended in the canon below us; but, under the billowy folds of leaden-hued clouds, the mountain tops around our dwelling grew white apace. Day after day, night after night, the snow was wafted down. Swirled by the furious wind from exposed heights into the ravines below, or drifted in vast combs along the winding crests; piled up until the overladen mountains could bear no more, and, poised above us, the avalanche made ready for its awful plunge. We were seated in our cheerless cabin, listening to the blast as it whistled, shrieked and roared. We were prisoners both, by reason of the raging storm. We had been prisoners thus for days, and still the snow was heavily falling, and still the winds were hurling it against the walls of our cabin. We could not have opened the door. Of all nights in the year, it was a strange one—strange for the event which was to happen. It was the Christmas Eve again. Just a twelvemonth since, Jo had rescued Plet and her father from a dreadful fate. Jo was seated by the fire with his feet up on the stove top. By the dim light of our miner's lantern, which hung from a beam over the table between us, he was trying to read; or, at least, he appeared to be so doing. I had taken a seat at the foot of my bunk—it was along the east side of the wall, at the north half of it; Jo's bunk was opposite; the stove was at the south end. I was getting noddy, and Jo was silent, not seeming in a mood for talk, and the hour was late. Suddenly he spoke: "Jim, you should have let me go. I

PLET: A CHRISTMAS TALE OF THE WASATCH. 189 could have made the camp all right. It seems as though I would stifle here!" He meant down to Plet's. In the morning, he had prepared to start, but I held him back. It would be madness to let him go, with the storm raging like that, and the snow drifting as it was. Why, it would have been sending him forth to his death. I dared not try the slopes in such weather; why should I let one whom I loved so well? We had talked of it during the day—the saving of Plet and her father—but not much, for Jo could do nothing but fret. Why hadn't he started, he said, in spite of me, to the camp. Row sincerely I did afterward wish he had done so! He might, as he said, have reached it all right, and then—why, I should have been free from responsibility. This is a strange world, is it not? And strange things happen in it. How often the course of a life is changed by a single mo- ment—the balance turned by a grain of sand. We do this trifle or that, go here or there, speak or are silent, and the thing is done. We make or mar a life. What had I done for Jo? I was pondering over it, but was almost asleep, leaning against the wall, when he spoke again. He had not paid much attention to his book, to judge from his words. There was a gap, too, in his thoughts from those he had spoken before. I was surprised at their tenor. "I ought to be happy now, don't you think so, Jim?" That was the question he asked me. Then, without waiting for an answer, he went on: "It will be so different—to have wealth at one's command, to make those happy whom we love. How I do wish she was alive to share my good fortune, that she might have lived to know something better than those days of want, those days of poverty which we shared together in the big city! It was cruel, cruel that she suffered so. I could now look forward to the cup of my happiness being full if, instead of the memory of her pale, worn face, she could be with us. Oh, what a pleasure, could I but make her cheek as rosy again, and her eyes as bright as I first remember them!"

L90 1MPR0VEMENT ERA. I knew what he meant. It was of his sister he was speaking. She had died a few years before; a couple before I had met him, and then he had started West. He always spoke of her, I noticed, when he felt depressed in his spirits. "She was older than I, Jim," he continued, in the same sad vein, "and had to work for us both, when I was nothing but an urchin. You have heard what needlework is to the girls who have to work for the sweaters—a living death. It killed her with con- sumption. At least that did, combined with the sorrow of being left an orphan with me to take care of, alone in the great, heed- less city." I said a few words in reply, though he scarcely noticed them, and then he went on with his spoken musings: "My mother. I can scarcely recall her face; her hair was black, like sister's—my yellow curls came from father. Yet, though mother's face is so vague in my memory now, it seems that I see her dark, sad eyes looking into my face tonight." Jo, in spite of his happy prospects, was in low spirits, indeed; but then he had been sorely disappointed that day. He was still sitting there by the stove when I turned into my bunk; the same when I dropped off to sleep. II. DISASTER. Crash! crash!! crash!!! a roar in my ears like that of an in- furiated lion. Deafening sounds—crackings, snappings, grindings, hissings of sliding snow. Sudden and bitter cold rushing upon me; utter confusion; a bewildering sense of catastrophe—what did it mean? I had sprung up in bed—was sitting there half-stunned. The lamp was still burning, but I could see nothing. Its feeble rays were powerless to dispel the surrounding gloom. I felt the snow drifting in upon my face and my hands. I called out to Jo, but no answer came. Something terrible must have happened. The sudden noises ended: all grew still. There was a pause even in the blowing of the wind. I seemed in a tomb, so silent it

PLET: A CHRISTMAS TALE OF THE WASATCH. 191 was; only I could feel yet the snow drifting in upon my face and my hands. What was it? Where was Jo? I stupidly asked the question. Then I could see dimly Jo's bunk; it was unoccupied. I could see the utensils that hung over it, too, but the stove was gone. What meant that white vacancy at the south end of the room, or rather, where the south end of the room had been? I stared at it dreamily, and then could see the white snow outside. It was from there that the flakes had come that drifted on my face and my hands. Then suddenly I was wide awake; my thoughts were as clear as crystal; every sense was on the alert. A slide! a slide! Our cabin had been struck by a slide! A slide; yes, a slide, and the cabin was cut in halves. Not a thing moved at my end of the room, but the other—where was it? It was gone. Jo had been whirled away with it; carried beyond the ledges, perhaps, hundreds of feet below. I was out of bed in an instant. But what could I do? How should I act? Jo must surely be dead; or dead ere my feet could reach him. I put on my clothes as rapidly as possible, and then stood there, numb with despair. Then I went outside. Before me was a scene of desolation wonderful to behold, mystic in the faint, pale light of the moon hanging low, ghost-like, in the western sky. The slides—there had been two—had met near our cabin. One, with superior momentum, had driven the other from its course. That was why we had been struck. The snow ceased falling; the clouds rolled away, white as the snow itself. I could see plainly the tracks of the slide—black furrows down the mountain-side. Where they had joined, too, (tons of rock were piled up there) and down the slopes, also, I could distinguish the mighty pathway. I prepared to descend. Luckily my snowshoes were safe (poor Jo's were beside mine). I put them on and fastened the lantern to my belt. Then I took a guiding pole in my hand; distressed as I was, it was yet necessary that I be systematic in my preparations. For all the skill I have acquired in mountaineering was needed that night.

192 1MPR0 VEMENT ERA. And well for me, too, that I knew every foot of the place, or I should never have reajhed the spot where, at last, I found Jo. The snow had drifted wildly, never had I seen its like before. In some places the rocks were laid bare; at others, the snow was piled high in huge mounds. At some places, hard-packed and firm to my tread; at others, all loose and feathery. I could see the place where the slide had stopped—a small, level space, fretted, I knew, with jutting rocks. If Jo had been borne against one of these, then his fate was only too certain. Oh, what I suffered! I shall never be able to tell you! I was frantic with apprehension! I pushed down the slope, not knowing where to pause. He might lie on the surface, be crushed by a boulder, or sunk in a cross ravine. Oh, I knew not where to search. Yet I dreaded each moment to see him. Every object in the light of the low, yellow moon threw weird shadows. A rock top, any dark object, made me start with dismay. What was that, sticking up through the snow? A fragment of our cabin; something clinging to it, too—Jo's great coat (it had hung on the back of his chair as he sat before the fire). My heart gave a furious thump, for perhaps he was lying close by. Was he where I could reach him? That was the question. Was he yet alive, or dead? m . III. DOWN THE SLOPES. He was past all help—quite dead. I soon knew that. Not a flutter at his heart; not the faintest breathing, though it was slightly warm there yet. But I knew that he was dead. I had reached him too late. I was dazed with grief; wild with agony. I called out his name in despair. My voice was harsh, strange and unnatural, soon lost amid the wreaths of snow. Then I fell down and groveled in the snow beside him; wept such bitter tears as, since childhood, had not fallen from my eyes.

PLET: A CHRISTMAS TALE OF THE WASATCH. 193 Would I go mad? I was trembling in the bitter cold like one that is struck with palsy. Jo, my Jo, the brave lad I had labored with, side by side, all those trying days; Jo, generous, honest Jo; Jo with his sunny eyes and yellow hair; why, if he were dead, then I wanted to die, too. How could I live without him? In that awful hour, I learned what the lad had become to me. It was close by the piece of wood, not ten yards away, that I found him. One hand was thrust up through the snow, as if ap- pealing for help. I had all but trodden upon it. It was rigidly clasped, the finger nails buried in the palm, as I have seen on the hands of others killed by the snow. Oh, it was gruesome—that sight! I stood aghast! For all my sixty years -there was scarcely a gray hair on my head before that; afterward, these white ones came thick and fast. What had I better do? I mean after the first transports of my grief had passed, when I had dug Jo out and knew that he was dead; when my bitter tears availed not; no, nor my labors (hope- less, I knew) to bring him back to life. I could not take his body up to the wreck of our cabin; 'twas useless even if I could do go. I mus!"; take him down to the camp. There was a sled at the cabin, if the snow had not carried it away. I must get it. Often we had used that sled, heavily laden, Jo and I, pulling together up the weary slopes. Now it must bear a different burden. Jo's body must be placed upon it, and so taken down. One of the keenest pangs that I felt was when I turned to go, and left him there alone, lying so rigid and still. The mystery of it all—the inscrutability of life, fate, death, was borne in upon me then. I cut pine branches, laid them upon the sled and made a thick, soft couch for poor Jo's body; then I placed him upon it; then I covered him over with blankets—those under which he had slept and dreamed so often of Plet; then I bound all tightly with cords, and then—I was ready to start. Down, down, down. Down in the light of dawn, among the hillocks of snow; over the drifts; across the streams on bridges of ice. Down the long, steep slopes, over the trail we knew so well; and at last, I reached the houses.

194 IMPROVEMENT ERA. Then came my task of tasks. 0 God! how could I do it! How could I bear the tidings to Plet! IV. BY THE GRAVESIDE. I cannot tell all the misery, all the woe that followed. And why try to recall them, those hours between the noon-day on which I pulled the body of Jo into the camp, and that on which we laid him to rest; put him away in the desolate spot that was used as the camp burial ground? More or less, my life has been a failure. I have passed through trials—trials that have left their heart-wounds. But of them all, that was the hardest. It is the blackest spot in my memory. It was the father who told her—how, I don't know. To tell him was all I could do. He reeled like a drunken man when I told him the sad story; and what must it have been to her? Nor did I go to the house. I dreaded to look upon her. I who had been the bearer of evil tidings. Not till later did I go, when all was ready, and we took Jo's body there. Deep lay the snow on the lonesome flat, and softly the big flakes came down. Willing hands had cut a path to the spot, and along it we went, moving slow in long procession. Plet's father had tried to dissuade her from entering the burial ground; but she would follow poor Jo. She clung to her father's arm speechless and tearless. No* a heart but melted in sorrow at the painful sight. The coffin was lowered. A few words were read by one most worthy among us. The clods fell, and the end was reached. Then we led her away, still silent and tearless. All who had followed the coffin hungered in their hearts to do something for her—something to assuage her grief. But Plet's sorrow was such that all were abashed before her. V. PLET'S SORROW. And after that, it all seems vague, mixed up in my mind. I seem to see Plet, all drooping and wan, fading away like a cut

PLET: A CHRISTMAS TALE OF THE WASATCH. 195 flower left in the hot, summer sunshine. Plet, who had been the merriest creature, thinking only of the passing hour or brightly of the future, changed into a pale, shrinking girl whose only wish seemed now that she be left to her grief and her memories. I was oppressed by the thought that her grief must change or her heart must break. But that is wrong; her heart was broken already. Her father would have taken her away from the camp—away from its sorrowful suggestions. But she clung to the place; begged to remain. It seemed she could not go and leave that unexpected grave, so lonely under its covering of snow. Oh, how different is the woman from the man! Man, in his strength, lets the past go its way, though with it goes forever a part of his life. Woman—tender, clinging and loving woman— cherishes, clasps to the last, whatever remains of the broken dream. So that grave held Plet; bound her as with an invisible chain. Then came a summer day, and Plet and her father coming up to the old hollow. What madness possessed him to let her come? He should not have allowed her to see it again. The same beauti- ful wild flowers grew by the lake, and among the rocks as when she had stood there with Jo. Can the eyes speak farewell? If they can, then those of Plet were saying farewell that day. She had come to be once more, and for the last time, at the place where love had first entered her heart. Then came again the little burial ground at the mountain's foot, with the snow softly falling, and the earth covered deep with its fleecy folds, and once more an open grave—a grave for Plet. For she had made her father pledge his word that it should be so—that in the end she should lie beside her lover. And he, who had always granted her every wish, how could he deny her that one? Christmas Eve! Christmas Eve—fraught with dire import- ance. It seemed to choke me. And yet I could not help repeating it over and over. Christmas Eve, and Jo and I toiling to dig out the snowslide's vict;ms! Christmas Eve, and Jo himself swept to bis death! And Christmas Eve again, and Plet breathing her last! Why was the time so fateful? I struggled with the problem, but no answer came. And life seemed all blackness, and but a mask

196 1MPR0VEMEN1 ERA. for death, when I felt that I should hear their voices never again. VI. WEDDING BELLS. Stuff and nonsense! Never again? Never again? What! hear the voices of Jo and Plet never again? Then whose voice was that, clear and full, joyous and ringing, just as of old ? Whose voice, indeed, if not Jo's? Jo's voice, telling me that it was the morn; that the storm had passed, the sun shining brightly, and asking if ever I meant to get up? So they were not true, those terrible things—those awful hours on the mountain side? Those graves in the desolate burial ground? There had been no slide? Our cabin had not been wrecked? Jo was not dead? Plet was alive? It was all a mis- take then—a dream? Thank Heaven, it was so! Thank Heaven that heaped-up snow had not overwhelmed us! Thank Heaven again, it was but Jo's mournful talk, and my own apprehensions, as I fell off to sleep, that had made me a silly old dreamer! It was a very different trip, indeed, we had down the slopes from that awful one of my dream. How the snow glittered in the morning sunlight, and how our snowshoes sent the diamond spray flying from our heels, as we sped down the steep. We startled the white mountain hare, when it cowered beneath some sheltering bank, and sent it scurrying across the snow. You would never have thought I was sixty then. Jo's fiery young blood seemed to have gotten into my veins, and merrily I kept up the race. Oh, what joy to see them together again! together in their youth, their strength and their grace! To see Plet's sweet face, and hear again the music of her soft, loving voice! To know that instead of the grave and the shroud, it was to be the bridal robe and the wedding feast! And a feast it was when it came. The camp had never seen its like. All in the place wished joy and happiness to the newly wedded pair. Every one wanted a peep at the bride. And well they might. Was there ever a bride more lovely than Plet? Who

PLET: A CHRISTMAS TALE OF THE WASATCH. 197 could blame Jo for that proud look on his face? Not I, nor you, my dear friend. After all, a bachelor's life is but a poor affair. I will not bother you with the details of our claim. I have told you that partly already. You know why I am here, and what the Company expects from the mine. In a few days, I shall see Jo and Plet again, on their return from Europe. They will settle down in their pretty house in that western valley. But I—well, I think I too shall go back to the mountains. They are like strong magnets to draw one to them, as all who have lived among the mountains know. And, to be honest, too, I feel a symptom of the miner's fever. Strange how it will satch hold on a man again and ag un. Shall I go to the Wasatch? Of course. And up to our home, too. I guess it is sadly changed, though. When the precious metal is found, havoc is played on the old hills. In the mining camp, each blast that I hear will seem but the echoes of those others—those which, in lieu of wedding bells, re- sounded across the snow-clad hills when Jo and Plet were mairied that happy Christmas time. [the end.]