--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Lyman, Albert R. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 16 number: 3 published: 1913-01 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Lyman, Albert R., "Voice of the Intangible VI," *Improvement Era* 16, no. 3 (January 1913): 216–224.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1603unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1603unse start_page: 216 end_page: 224 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1913-01) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1603unse publication_year: 1913 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1913, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Voice of the Intangible VI A Cliff House on the Colorado, WesternSan Juan County. Chapter VI — The Great Intangible Soorowits came back, after a long time, but to Ben he spoke neither good nor bad. He saw the boy, of course he viewed him ; from the corner of his evil eye, and followed him with that outward apathy, behind which a Pahute likes to hide his sinister intentions. Yet Soorowits had other troubles, —troubles which have broken the ardor of braver men and greater philosophers than he. The truce with Nariant had been arranged, and it provided that Soorowits should pay Nariant twelve saddle horses, and marry Nariant's maiden sister whom no dusky brave would consent to wed. The cayuse-clause of the truce had given the old horse-thief no annoyance whatever, but the maiden sister became a blight to his cantankerous spirit. At first sight of her Ben decided she was not Toorah's sister at all, but a child stolen from some distant tribe. Her face was an absolute night-mare. Any kind of a swelling would have improved it, though no swelling could have concealed her biting, wire-plier jaws, nor the stilted cheek bones, against which her slant eyes leaned. No amount of hair would have disguised the shape of her harrow-tooth head no amount of padding and dress ; would have changed her big-jointed, board-like form. She had no eye-brows, no eye-winkers, and a measely dearth of scraggy, straight locks hanging in all directions from her spiky cranium. Her eye would frighten a cat from under a granary, and the sight of her finger-nails would send a cold chill of terror straight to a man's socks. VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE. 217 For some mysterious reason Soorowits ascribed the cause of this misfortune to Ben, and he blamed him the more because the other two boys were gone one to Ore- : gon, and the other to the Great Be- yond. Young Rojer could not fail to know of this rancid sentiment in the Pahute's mind, but as he grew taller , , and braver, he cared for it less and less. Still the wide mouth and thin lips were held firmly and sullenly closed,and the black shifting eyes seemed to feed on a promise of re- venge, "sometime." Where Soorowits lived, no one saw him go. He appeared when he guarded He appeared when he pleased, pleased, like a spirit, and he like a spirit" his retreat with the craftiness and stealth of a lynx. Not that he was hunted, or an exile, but the shadow of an evil spectre, stalking across the horizon of his superstitious mind, had poisoned the light and cheer and love that lurked in his wild nature. And she came always with him. She followed him with her snaky person she followed him with her winkerless eyes she ; was ; and her venom at whatever always there to snarl and snap, spit he ventured to do. She ordered him about with an authority he meekly never dared to question, and he whimpered and grunted into obsequious under his breath, like a dog that had been licked approval of all his master's wishes. Buhhre was evidently deeply impressed with the danger of he followed smilingly at a distance— always any familiarity, for at a distance, and always smiling not honorable peon to a free : man, but thrice slave to a cat-scaring woman. Still he carried the same pleased look you have seen in your dog's face, when he wags his tail in pleased recognition of your consent to let him in camp. follow, after you have commanded him to stay Toorah's funeral- In the three years following the affair at cave, Ben kept a fearful eye on the lonely monuments at Pagahnt. year, he On each of the three or four trips the outfit made in a felt sure on more than fancied he saw those idols move, and he 218 IMPROVEMENT ERA one occasion that they concealed men. From the "Egyptian Idols," in the Slick-Rock part of the range, to the monuments guarding Castle Hill, he found many of their kind, and each new discovery marked an exciting moment with him. Many a time he made sure that Soorowits sat spying him from some heated hill-top, or crept down from behind some stony screen to take up the trail newly made in the sand. Yet in those years the idols stood the same, never having come to life, nor sheltered life so far as anyone knew. That Soorowits skulked among the surrounding hills many times when the Rojer outfit camped at Pagahrit, is not to be doubted, though his face, or form, or track, was never identified by any of them. In those years Ben formed the habit, when at home, of attending Sunday services in the log meetinghouse of the frontier town and from that rude pulpit he heard no words more animat- ; ing than those of the man whose solicitous face had been sanctified to his boyish mind, in many a blistered solitude since the unhappy affairwith Soorowits. Young Rojer knew his father had fixed opinions of manhood and conduct, but the majesty of those ideas found no suitable place for adequate expression in the broil and uproar of the round-up. It remained for the quiet and inspiration of this log house to call them forth ; and to introduce to Ben the great soul whom camp-life had never quite revealed. It remained for this humble place of worship to explain to the boy the set policies of the man, — policies which could not be explained at the times of heated action when they became the shaping factors. To the cayuse-loving, dog-devoted mind of young Rojer, "preachin' " was slow torture he twisted his way into some escape ; from everything which savored too strongly of "preachin'." Still he found interest in his father's words, because of his great interest in the man; and his interest, clinched on one side by the perilsand hardships of the range, and on the other side by the sweet influence of the old log meetinghouse, grew to be an inseparable bond of love unalloyed.. Fred Rojer had not forgotten 1 his boyhood, nor the source and nature of its charm. He knew how to put those charms in the songs he sang and the stories he told he led Ben easily and ; pleasantly into the ways his experience had found to be good. Many a doctrine, dull and dry in the mouths of other men, was ; VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE. 219 seasoned with boyish fancies for Ben, and he drank them down with a relish. This wholesome essence of boyhood in the father, 'became an active lodestone to the son. The son followed him, he clung to him, he took him for the great ideal of manhood. The boyish element in Fred Rojer was not given to thrusting the way of real boys, nor to crowding them out from his itself in son's company. He knew that every generation of youngsters, however far removed from each other in point of time and distance, have some feelings in common. In their hearts is a magic something drawing them together. A boy's love for boys and boyish ways and things is handed down from Adam. This boyish love led Jimmy from door to door looking for Ben a year and a half after the race which made them brothers it throbbed in the brown hand that gripped a sack of pinenuts, a present for his pale kinsman and this same warm love took pride ; in presenting the shy Navajo youth to Fred Rojer. Also it was the living boy in the bearded man that took the brown hand, and spoke gently in a foreign tongue and we may not doubt that the ; emotions of his own childhood, inspired the good will with which Fred Rojer gave Ben the price of a present for his dusky "brother," and released him from work to romp as the occasion demanded. Late one fall when the weather was cold, and the San Juan had ice along its banks, Ben and his father camped late one evening at Rincon. They were dead tired, having tried by hard riding to reach home that day. Also they were ravenously hungry and faint for want of food, a pack having turned, early in the trip, and scattered their provisions along in the dust. For days they had been on scant rations, and had now made camp only for the sake of the horses, having but a can of baking powders, and two tablespoons of rice in their panniers. "Son, this experience is unpleasant now, but it is a good experience to have had," said the father, cheerfully placing the rice on the fire to boil. At that moment Bowse growled under his breath, and Jimmy came up into the fire-light. He waited a second to make sure of the two faces, before throwing a fat quarter of mutton down on If anything had been lacking to make Fred Rojer the canvas. feel the fatherly part to the brotherly friendship between the two 220 IMPROVEMENT ERA boys,it was lacking no longer. Starving and hunger and cold, had cut off all possible objections to a supper of straight meat. Bowse gnawed the bones, while Jimmy assured himself that Ben's father had dignity to satisfy the "big captains" of the reservation. After the feast the Navajo boy, confirmed in the instinct that had led him to visit the glimmer he had seen from his "hogon" door, stepped boldly back into the icy stream, and waded off in the darkness towards the opposite bank. "He's a mighty fine young fellow, if he is an Indian," said Fred Rojer, as they turned back to the fire. At another time, when December winds moaned over the San NAVAJOS READY TO LEAVE A TRADING POST Juan cliffs, and the range lay bare and chilly for miles on each side of the river when lean, starving cayuses looked in vain for ; grass on the sand-hills, and hungry flocks of sheep and goats nibbled the twigs of limbs chopped from the trees, Jimmy came a-foot from his herd to town and sought for Ben. A "medicine dance" was to come off at a point up the river and the shepherd had resolved to attend; he had hired another boy to watch his sheep, and had come to borrow young Rojer's horse, for the place of the dance was eighty miles away. His folks had mocked at his faith in riding a white man's horse, when horse-flesh was at such VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE. 221 a premium and all the friends he met in his ten miles walk, ; if they knew his intentions, told him he went on a fool's errand. All the same he rode Flossy out of town, and Ben watched them go nipping down the road as far as the turn. Somehow the sight made young Rojer's heart to leap with pride and pleasure — a pride that did not fade though the village murmured: "That fool Rojer kid let a Navajo take his pacing mare off into the reservation." But the mare came back O. K., and a friendship grew apace, punctuated on both sides with gifts and tokens. In those years Ben went to the district school, that is, in the winter months ; and, whatever the merit of teacher and books, the time served admirably for thoughts of Pagahrit, Soorowits, and the pacing mare to crystallize in his boyish mind. With his brief term half finished he longed for spring to come, and fairly ached to leave the hum and confinement of the close, stuffy schoolhouse. He hungered for the voice of the hills, and the heat-legions that danced on the bald rock-knolls of Pagahrit. Old Bowse endured all the hardships of those years, and he loved Ben the more for every crisis they met together. The old dog tried to build up a friendship with the ponies young Rojer rode, but after suffering a fierce kick from Flossy, and a vicious bite from an evil-eyed, yellow hyena, which Ben tried to reform and transform into a second Stripes, the old wag-tail left the pasture and gave his whole devoted heart to his youthful lord. Young Rojer looked for and expected the shaggy old worshiper, just as he expected his own shadow, or the echo of his voice in the cliffs. Many a time in the wild places of the hunt, or on the lonely hills of the day-herd, Ben looked down into those great loving dog-eyes, and gave vent to the thoughts of joy or grief that cried within him for expression. At such times the intelligent black head was turned slightly over to one side,— one ear was of raised in a half-cock sort of way to complete the expression interest, and if a more positive declaration of his hearty agreement with the boy's words were needed, he wagged his tail, or jumped up and licked the hand gesticulating above him. If Ben felt inclined to frolic or scuffle, Bowse was crouched tumble,— snapping in sham in a second, ready for the leap and the ; 222 IMPROVEMENT ERA savagery at the boyish hands and feet, on his falling playfully back, kicking and squirming like the chivalrous tomboy that he was. And all the time his great dog-mouth hung wide open, as if he laughed and continued to laugh while the fun lasted. Young Rojer believed the old dog could understand English, if the grammar wasn't too dainty, and when he looked down at those worshiping dog-eyes till he could no longer refrain, he would swing out of the saddle for a romp in the sand. "Oh you're a trashy old beggar," Ben would say, as he hugged the shaggy neck, and Bowse always wagged his tail and enjoyed the compliment immensely. Often in the evening when the camp-fire smouldered low, when the men had gone through their conversational string of talk — and reached that quiet interval before bed-time, after Josh had — found inspiration to sing the only song he knew, Ben would look into the dying embers and, half sleeping and half awake, seem to hear a something call to him from the great wild solitude hidden in thedarkness all around. Sometimes as Bowse lay with his head on his crossed feet looking into those same embers, he would suddenly seem to hear, probably the same thing his master heard but the dog knew no better than to look around, and sometimes he growled under his breath. This something called again and again from the cliffs and forests, till Ben grew to expect it and wonder what it could be, though he never ventured to talk about it with anyone but Bowse. It was no doubt the same still whisperings of the vast wilderness that had given him such a dreadful scare the time he rode old Buck, but now, strange to say, that silent voice had no sound of terror at all. Often when the fire had all died away, when Bowse lay asleep and the camp snored around him, Ben still looked at the stars or listened to the low-sighing wind ; for somewhere in the sky above, or in the hills, or among the trees, this something by its very silence spoke joy to the youthful cow-boy. Like a strain of music, the exact meaning of this something was not clear, but like the tone of pleading, or sorrow, or joy in that strain, this intangible something expressed a positive sentiment. Young Rojer listened to that sentiment, and began to seek it as the juicy nectar of a pleasant situation. —a VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE 223 Then he discovered that in the gray dawn of morning, this intangible something was as rich as at any other time. It seemed to get into the fresh morning air and the first burst of the wild bird's song ; it rode on the scent of the flowers that blew in from the hills ; it sparkled in the dew on the grass. Later on he found the whole twenty-four hours, in every part of the range, to be as friendly as the starry night had been, and he listened like a babe to its mother's voice. Ofttimes a strange charm looked out from the distant haze, and across the hot desert a pleasing something sped to him what ; could it be ? this sweet voice of the wilderness, this grand mystery of silence and solitude. Also in his cave he heard a voice, or was — it the wind? No difference, it sounded like a voice, a strong voice, a manly voice, and its echoes did not fade from his recollection. Sometimes he fancied a seraph choir chanting in the air, sometimes a lovely mother singing to her babe, and the sweet tones floated away on the wild stillness. At other times the Navajo shepherd might be exalted above his flock, and trans- formed to a great majestic man. More often, however, the sound, or vision, or sentiment, was like music: not to be described,— thing unknown to those who do not feel it for themselves. It thoughts than beckoned Ben upward it inspired him ; with nobler It bore him had ever come from the glories of the round-up. away into a world of fancy, leaving his weary, thirsty self, to struggle with a heavy task until he should return. When Widder's curses, or Jud's bustling motion jarred him he would back from these reveries to the world of real things, clothes, take stock of his look at his soiled hands and tattered himself his disappointment. "I'm a thirst and misery and sigh to "and maybe never long way from it yet," he would think, I'll reach it." Still he listened. Whether at Pagahrit or in the forest of the he listened to the great Ridge, on day-herd or resting at Peavine, Intangible, the something he first feared and then loved. (to be continued) Milton's Country— and Gray's An Autumn Reverie BY FLORENCE L. JONES — Far from the madding crowd just out of London, the - valley town lies like a nest amidst sweeping uplands. In the peaceful haze an hour before twilight, the view is one of the most picturesque throughout agricultural England. The harvested oats and barley, bound in sheaves. The fields of still standing wheat, a-ripple like a saffron lake when a zephyr passes over them. The sloping pasture lands, wherein are ruddy patches contributed by quietly grazing cattle. The thick belt of trees beyond. Over it all the slowly-fading pageant of the sunset. In the purpureal light that succeeds, while the evening star brightens, the amber strands of glowing sky, the verdant pasture lands, the number of MILTON S COTTAGE, CIIALFONT, ST. GILES