--- 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: 10 published: 1913-08 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Lyman, Albert R., "Voice of the Intangible: Chapter XII—With Nerve and Tissue," *Improvement Era* 16, no. 10 (August 1913): 1011–1020.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera16010unse 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: improvementera16010unse start_page: 1011 end_page: 1020 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1913-08) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera16010unse 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: Chapter XII—With Nerve and Tissue THE CORRAL BARS Voice of the Intangible BY ALBERT R. LYMAN Chapter XII — With Nerve and Tissue One year after the starvation trip, the Rojer outfit crossed Castle Hill with a big string of fat horses, and passed over the sand-hills, through the waving grass and flowers towards the lake. A good year had followed the dry season. The round-up bade fair to be peaceful and prosperous, and really it was both till after the first day's ride at Pagahrit. Even then, Ben saw no real hostilities, but when Widder came to camp in the afternoon, he bore, on his bald head, the same fresh marks and brands that had figured so wholesomely on the homeward drive a year and a half before. He hastened to explain that old Pancho had stumbled down a bank into some rocks and brush ; but Jud, who had been with him all day, took no notice of the report, and plainly Fred Rojer didn't believe a word of it. In the evening Ben heard his father and Hiles talking at the corral : "I sure hate it," affirmed the latter, "I guess I'm too quick. but when I ketch a man right in the act, I can't keep my hands off of 'im." "Violence is generally bad," observed the other. "I know it,"- put in Jud remorsefully, "I'm ashamed of them marks on 'im, but — " Eaves-dropping never had charms for Ben, and walking 1012 IMPROVEMENT ER \ straight ahead, he lost track of the conversation in the middle of J ud's sentence. Next morning Widdcr asked that everything bearing his brand should be brought to the pasture, and later in the day, when the two rode alone, Fred Rojer explained to Ben, that Josh intended to take his cattle away from the Pagahrit to stay. The father made no comment whatever, and the news struck Ben as being "mighty welcome." Later on, however, when he thought it over alone in his cave, he surprised himself with a genuine sense i >f regret that their companion of all these years should go away forever. Widdcr was so stupid and so unfortunate ; he would make enemies wherever he went ; they would disfigure his face, and rejoice at his afflictions, and no friend would he win among them because, poor fellow, he had no winning ways. Josh found no heart on that trip to voice his only song, nor did he ever sing it again in Ben's hearing. He sat quietly by the fire, his scarred face and head presenting a beaten and humbled appearance; and young Rojer, while he watched, forgot old Bowse and the mavericks, the blue mule and the last mess of rice, and felt only pity from day to day for the silent, crestfallen, fleshladen man, whose cattle came in with each day's gather to return no more to the sand-hills. On this round-up, as on others at Pagahrit, the increasing number of cattle in the pasture, made it a poor place for the horses, and it became necessary to let them graze below camp on the wire-grass by the lake-shore. This arrangement was never without risk in the spring of the year, for the old ponies might at any time depart without warning, for the grass at Peavine Spring. To forestall this possible calamity, an "emergency horse" was kept always above the fence, or tied to a tree in camp. One afternoon with the branding finished, and the cattle seeking shade and food among the black-willows of the pasture, all hands made for camp and the pot of beef that had hung over a slow fire since breakfast. Flossy was to be emergency horse till morning, and when the others drew their laragos and turned loose, Ben threw the pacing mare's reins over a limb, took the meat from the fire, brought out the bread and the spoons, and after placing a half-sack of oats conveniently in the shade for his father's chair, sank cross-legged beside the frugal spread with his back against a tree. The bay mare pawed the earth and whinnied, and wormed and twisted like a captive lizard, — for some of the horses could be seen by the lake below, and she fairly itched to join them. When the four beef-eaters had laid the foundation of a square meal, a gust of wind fluttered a newspaper out of the panniers, and carried it directly under Flossy's fidgety nose. That settled VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE. 1013 it. She wanted no better excuse to snap the reins and "burn the earth" down the canyon. The outfit, spoon in hand, watched the cloud of dust rise up behind her, till Hiles sprang breathless to his feet : "We're a-foot, by gum!" he snorted. No two ways about it — every horse had disappeared, and a mountain of dust drifted out over the lake. Widcler sat nonplussed, as if suddenly aware of his helpless burden of flesh ; and he of the buckskin shirt hesitated, for once, in sharp uncertainty. By some mysterious instinct, all eyes turned to Ben — he was slender, and nimble, and quick — it was just a mile over the cut-off, and no one could cover that mile so quickly as he. Excitement reigned. Every one of those horses longed for the mountain, and would stop short of nothing below the tall timber, sixty-five miles away. Young Rojer turned to his father with quick inquiry. "Yes, you better go," decided Fred Rojer, "you're more likely than any of us to make it." Leaving the words unfinished on the bearded lips, Ben snatched a bridle and clambered up the smooth rock, clinging with his hands to keep from slipping back. From the top of the rock he took a lively trot for the little pass, through which the horses would find exit from the gulch. After all, how long that mile, — how heavy the sand, — how hot the sun. When he staggered breathless and hot into the pass, behold the trail ploughed and scarred with violent hoof-marks. "By George ! they're gone," he gasped, "but maybe they'll stop to graze on the sand grass." A change of grass is quite sure to possess momentary change for horses, even in the spring-time. He labored on through the soft sand and over the solid rock, — looking anxiously ahead from every hill-top, — noting the fresh appearance of the tracks, and feeling sure those brutes would stop to eat, and give him a fighting chance. And all the time he got farther and farther out into the burning desert, — the silent, blistered desert of the Pagahrit. His lungs smarted and burned. His clothes hung heavy with perspiration, and his feet felt half cooked in his boots by the hot sand. By four o'clock he had walked and run a big seven miles, and that foundation of a dinner had melted away under the strain Faint and trembling he reached the top of a rock-knoll, and half fell to a sitting posture. The damp of despair began to rise in his throbbing soul, when the whole bunch of horses moved slowly out of a sand-hollow, scarcely half a mile ahead. That sight lent strength to his weary limbs, — strength for at least one more good run. Beginning with a feeble trot, he chose his course behind a little hill. His high-heefed boots sank into the sand, and hindered his flight like a clog. Worse still, a blister 1014 IMPROVEMENT ERA developed on one foot, and a fever of thirst began to burn in his palate. No difference, a hundred yards would find him in front of those run-aways, at least he thought so, and puffed and panted towards the coveted goal, while the joy of anticipated victory, hung like the apples of Tantalus above him. From the place of elevation he had toiled so tenaciously to reach, he saw the horses disappear over a ridge a mile to the east. Flossy seemed to have the saddle dangling under her body ; her effort to roll had probably resulted in another stampede. Muttering dejectedly to himself, Ben wiped his face with a great red handkerchief, and dropped himself in a heap. The hills by the lake were now enveloped in the haze of distance. A vast wilderness looked up from all around, a wilderness whose wide stretch of sand and rock could never be appreciated by a man on a good horse. In fact, Ben himself had ridden like an Arab over them but twodays before, and been impressed with nothing but the interest of the chase. How different now ! The heat-legions danced their exultation on the gray rock-knolls and sand-hills, for the racing, thoughtless horseman dragged himself up and down their heated slopes, painfully respectful of every foot in their magnificent size. Young Rojer looked back again: it was a long way to the lake, and farther still to any other water. Then he thought of the herd in the pasture where the feed grew shorter every day; of the worth of that herd, and the irreparable loss which must follow their being left for the summer on the already overstocked range. He thought of his father's poverty and debts, and then of the eight long miles advantage which made the task his own by virtue of all sound reason. But his aching limbs and blistered feet — was he in spite of them "more likely than any one else to make the riffle?" "Go on, son," a familiar voice seemed to say, "I've always believed you would be a man, and what's a man but a boy with grit to do manly things? If you come back it will be failure and loss ; if you go on it will be doing your best, and real men can do no more." Somewhere in young Rojer's weary soul these words found eirs, or at least something similar enough to register the thought, though the desert was still — painfully still; the hush of a dry solitude mocked at the toil of living things. Ben recalled again the kind image of the bearded face, and half sobbing with love and pain, limped down the east slope of the hill and took up the trail again. He would run no more. His steps should be taken carefully and wisely, and his failing power reserved for a mighty task. On he plodded" step after step with torturing regularity, till he reached the slope of Castle Hill, with the glory of a desert sun- VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE. 1015 set blazing up behind him. Never since he first crossed that hill on the stripe-legged pony had the trail been so full of crooks and turns and steep pitches between the hill-base and the summit. On the very top, as if to mark the fifteenth milestone, or declare a rest, the saddle, scarred and torn, stretched its bedraggled cinches and laragos across the hoof-marked trail. Young Rojer glanced anxiously down the slope towards Castle Wash, but a flame of torture in his boots claimed some sort of attention before another step. Sinking on the saddle, he raised one foot to the opposite knee, took the offending foot-gear by the heel and the toe and tried to remove it. It had laid hold of his very nerves, and refused to slip a sixteenth of an inch; moreover, it bit with new vengeance for being disturbed. He tried the other boot with the same result. His feet seemed to be literally boiled free of all skin below the ankles. He looked forlornly from one to the other, and held them from the ground to soothe his lip-quivering torment. With two minutes' rest he became a cripple ; crippled and helpless and tortured with thirst. His shrunken, gluey tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth, and his throat felt dry and parched like a chico spot in an alkali field. It was not a step less than seven miles to Green-water, and the horses had no doubt passed there hours ago. Possibly they strung down over. Clay Hill even down — possibly — possibly. Ben saw his own withered corpse beside the trail in the desert beyond the hill, for he had fallen asleeo, or, had he begun to go mad with thirst ? Whatever it was, it jarred him back to rational thought and rekindled the fire in his boots. He became aware that he grew more stiff and helpless and sore every minute. What would Jud do if he were here? He would grit his teeth and make the foot of the hill even though he had to roll all the way. Young Rojer started resolutely up, and fell back with a groan. Then he glared desperately into the dusk around, plunged a hand in his pocket, took out his knife, and cut both boots from the top to the toe, going carefully and slow, however, along the side of his foot. From the uppers of those boots, he improvised a pair of rude moccasins, bound them on over his socks, which seemed to be mixed up with and grown into the outer rind of his foot, and limped on down the hill to Castle Wash. On and on up that dry water-way, he trudged alone in the darkness, hearing no sound but the painful foot-falls of his moccasined feet, or the dismal echoing wail of a coyote. Sometimes he wondered if he had gone mad, and half dreaming as he walked, it became difficult to straighten out the story of the stampede, and the apples of Tantalus which had hung above 1016 IMPROVEMENT ERA him ever since. Sometimes he fancied his father or Jud walked beside him, and every so often he found it necessary to count himself, to be sure the chase went forward still in good order. A part of that killing distance between the hill and Greenwater, he must have covered unconsciously, for he recollects only half of it now. He recalls that once in the darkness he stumbled and fell to his knees, and before trying to rise he prayed aloud for success, and promised to go as long as he could crawl if that would bring it to him. He remembers first seeing the little pond in the star-light, — how he half crept to its shore and saw his reON THE SAND HILLS OF SAN JUAN "Less ambitious than a Mexican's burro." flection like a wild man looking up from the green bottom. He remembers how he drank a few careful swallows, and dragged himself away, and how he lay there half dreaming and more dead than alive, listening to the low thump, thump of his breast ; a motion accompanied by dull throbbing pain in his shapeless moccasins. That throbbing sound, coming home with a blow from each beat to his weary senses, seemed some way to conspire with the still voices of the night, and say to his sleepy ears : "One chance, East Fork, East Fork, East Fork, one chance, East Fork," as if someone stood over him saying it, and beating time with the dry stalk of a yucca. It would be difficult to distinguish between "one chance," and ordinary night-mare, only that the former admitted of no real sleep, and when it had given Ben Rojer sufficient time to take a good drink without danger of sickness or harm, it spurred him on above Green-water towards the mouth of East Fork. VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE. 1017 His stiff boot-soles had fended his feet from sharp stones as far as Castle Hill, but since then every blister had been broken, and the cutis had been cut and bruised like a Pahute cayuse's back, after a special ride for a medicine-man. Upper Castle Gulch is called East Fork, and its lower half, Castle Wash. The name Castle, came from an old ruined castle in a cave above Green-water. The trail to Clay Hill follows a sidecanyon, which opens into Castle Gulch at right angles, and in such a way as to be often missed by man and beast, even though they know the country; and no trail leads up over the walls of East Fork. Ben knew that ; he had seen cattle and horses a dozen times go into the head-narrows of that fork, and think themselves on the way to Elk Mountain. That fact had been poured like seasoning into his night-mare philosophy, and stimulated him to make the mouth of the fork before indulging in sleep. Sometime, indefinitely before morning, he staggered into the opening of Clay Hill canyon, and dropped himself in a heap on the sand. He would seize the chance if one were left, or die in despair if it weren't, for he felt himself near the end of his strength, like the fleeing fawn ready to die in its tracks. He fell asleep. Bridle in hand he lost account of all things, even the moccasins glued by his blood to his feet, nor knew again that the world moved, or that time and space were defined, till the trample of hoofs startled him afresh with pain and consciousness. The sun had risen above the cliffs, the horses had come down from East Fork and were shying around him on the trot. When he scrambled up, it frightened them and they went the faster, while he, more on his hands than his feet, tried in desperation to cut off the last four. He called, "Whoa boy, whoa," and pleaded as with tears to induce them to stop, but frightened half into a fit by his stooping, crawling position, they climbed frantically among the big rocks of the side-hill to avoid him. Flossy and Pancho and Peshont flew past, in eager pursuit of those already ahead, and old Bill came up determined to follow. In this stage of excitement, with the prospect of Bill or nothing, young Rojer forgot his pain and ran with all possible speed. He ran in vain. The old gray, in his fright, leaped a rock and made good his escape. Ben dropped on the sand with a tear of pain, and a muttered curse of bitter disappointment. Let us forgive that curse, and whatever he may have added to it when he saw the blood oozing from a fold in his moccasin, and felt himself grow sick with despair. Then the whinney of a horse broke on his ears, like the song of an angel; for old Buck, sleepy with age and always lazy and 1018 IMPROVEMENT ERA stiff, had fallen behind in East Fork, and came now on a pegging jog, calling lonesomely for his fellow-deserters. "Well bless your ugly old picture," coughed Ben, and resolved to stand straight up and capture the old pack-horse, though it should cut his moccasined feet to the very bone. But Buck surrendered with churn-headed meekness, the bridle went on, and young Rojer followed it. Oh the glorious feel of a strong horse's muscular back, though he be less dashing than a civilized cow, and less ambitious than a Mexican's burro. Of course, Buck could trot, and did trot at times, and oh ! those times ; the ups and downs of his gait were as regular and smooth as the stakes in a bull-fence. But he headed the whole bunch before they started down Clay Hill trail, and carried Ben triumphantly behind them down Castle Gulch, and up to the saddle on Castle Hill. That piece of bedraggled furniture came too late to prevent more blisters on horse and rider, but it was a huge element of comfort, despite Ben's agony of soles while putting it on. At the foot of the hill he found the saddle-blankets, and at the same time discovered his father waiting alone on a rock beside the trail. Young Rojer looked at that dear, familiar form, considered the hot sun beating down upon him, and the anxiety of soul he must have suffered during the night ; and then he looked at the shapeless, leathern bandages concealing his own lacerated feet, took stock of his faint, hungry, aching, self, so near ready to collapse with exhaustion, and felt at the fountain-head of tears, deep in his soul, a sweet tremor of love and joy and exultation. When Ben rode up, Fred Rojer slid down from his rock, looked at the moccasined feet, and the sanded stains of dry blood upon them, noted the sleepless eyes and the pinched face with its story of terrible effort, and took one of Ben's hands in both of his own. I may not write here for the amusement of strangers the sacred communion of those two souls, for their spirits were moved with feeling even to tears, and "thought leaped out to wed with thought, ere thought could wed itself with speech." Fred Rojer's warm, fatherly love, felt the keen pangs of hunger and thirst that preyed on his son, and he knew without words how those feet would hurt if touched to the ground. Putting his arms around the youthful frame, he lifted him from the saddle to a shelf-like seat on the rock. "You're the same little boy I used to carry," he said, tenderly, regardless of the brawn and tan and growth of intervening years, "I loved you then as a special, sacred trust, and I hoped you would become a man worth while ; and now I love you more because you do manly things. We're a long way from the busy places of men, son, this is a howling wilderness,—but right here we're meeting the great test of our immortal VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE. 1019 manhood. The way you've brought these horses back, is worth more to me than all the steers I've driven over Castle Hill." Then he brought a canteen of water and a lunch-sack from under a shady ledge of the rock, and listened to the whole story while Ben ate and drank. "How is it you walked these fourteen miles ?" asked Ben, when they had discussed the stampede and recapture. "Jud ought to've made this walk." "He wanted to come, but I felt more like walking than waiting;— I was anxious to know about you." At two o'clock, when Ben and his father brought the horses into camp, Jud's crow-feet stretched half way back to his ears. "Yu jest kep' a hangin' an' a rattlin'," he began in hearty, firmjawed compliment, "I knew yu had the sand." Josh came up and offered his huge hand, an action as awkward as it was unusual. "You're allright, Ben," he added in a subdued voice, and his battered face referred in some strange way, to the boy's kindly service of that rainy night on the Elk. At least young Rojer took it that way, and felt that Josh was a better man ; and why should he not be better, since his head had been fixed four times? — twice by Jud, once by Montana, and once by a surgeon in Durango. Four days later, when the herd strung out from the lake towards Castle Hill, Ben found himself but little the worse for having "hoofed it" to Castle Gulch. Of course he had no boots, — no foot-gear but those bandage-like moccasins. Towards the end of the drive, when Josh cut his cattle out of the bunch, preparatory to following another trail to a new range, he shook hands with Fred Rojer and Ben, and more remarkable still, with Jud. But the two men were not friends, — the bull-terrier eyes glared their dislike at the crow-feet ; and the crow-feet showed a firm-jawed willingness to let the matter stand as it looked. The one said, "Adios," the other, "Be goo tu yerself." "I hope you're not leaving with hard feelings towards any of us," remarked Fred Rojer. "Don't you feel hard towards me ?" asked Widder. "Not at all." For a few seconds the black eyes looked down in confusion. "I'm glad tu hear it," he stammered, at length, and reined Pancho into the trail that led forever from Pagahrit. "Don't you pity him, Pa?" asked Ben as soon as the two were alone. "Yes, son, I've always pitied him, and now I pity him more than ever." "Don't you think he'll straighten up and be a better man after this?" 1020 IMPROVEMENT ERA "He may try, but it's a hard matter for a man of his age to straighten out the kind of a life he has lived." "Why wouldn't he say he had no hard feelings?" "Here's a principle I want you to remember always," said Fred Rojer. "The man who injures another, can't feel just right till that injury is corrected. Josh's feelings are touched a little, but he isn't converted, and after he's been away from us a while, he'll be as rank as ever. But son, I've never injured him, and I cherish no ill-will at all. I've been tied up with him a long, long time, and been robbed and tormented till I thought I'd burst with anger, but I've endured it thus far, and if the Lord is willing to call it enough, and let him go his way in peace, I'll offer no objections." [to be continued] God's Purposes The tiniest flower within the glen, Though trembling in the summer air, Plays its own part in God's great plan, And blooms to make the world more fair. The rippling brooklet sings its way Adown the hill across the lea, To find the more majestic stream, And swell the ocean's symphony. The sweeping plain, the mighty hills, The rolling landscape, verdure clad, The woodlands outlined 'gainst the sky, Were formed to make His children glad, And turn them from the sinful road, Where many human wrecks are found, To walk the path of noble deeds Where love and joy and peace abound. Ruth M. Fox.