Voice of the Intangible, XXI

Voice of the Intangible I5Y ALBERT R. LYMAN Chapter XXI — Taking a Header Soorowits and his venomous gang smothered every sound, or echo, which might betray the direction of their flight. The wind wiped their tracks from the trails, and their sore-backed cayuses and boisterous papooses disappeared from the sand-hills. Nothing but the undying voice of the Intangible said anything to Ben about the wild region where they concealed their camp. Still burdened with his weapons, young Rojer went late in the fall to move some stock-horses from the mountain, to the winter, range. In spite of his love for company at all times, the need of which he had felt especially keen since Soorowits appeared in the distance, he went alone ; that is, he had no company besides the horses and the devoted dog, Mike. Nor did he expect to see anyone on the mountain, for the J B outfit and the Wooden-shoe cow-punchers had drifted to the lower country two weeks before. He had no thought of meeting friend or foe, though he clung to his guns in spite of their offensiveness. Those guns never ceased to be an annoyance while he carried them ; from Mike's trustful dog-face and Snip's intelligent horseeye, from the fall-wind and the silence as he rode along, came the question again and again, "Which would be worse, to kill, or be killed?" The cold autumn winds moaned in the tall pines, and now and then a solitary blue- jay called from among the leafless oaks and quakingasps, as Snip and Flossy bore their master and his packs along the mountain-trail towards Peavine Spring. Sometimes a crow cawed solemnly from the top of a dead pine, or a squirrel hurried across the trail and scampered boisterously over the dry leaves. Ben's hearing and eye-sight waxed keen as he followed the wobbling course of that trail. Here he halted to listen for a sound which seemed to come on the wind ; here he leaned forward in the saddle to scrutinize a horse-track in the dust. Once he bowed forward a short half-minute, reining Snip to a full stop ; a large shod-horse track crossed the trail at right angles, apparently on a brisk lope. Who could it be? The J B and the Wooden-shoe outfits were both below. Young Rojer frowned his discomfort at the mystery. At all events. Soorowits would be riding no such horse,

VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE 213 unless, indeed, he had stolen it for the express purpose of making tracks which would not betray him. The Intangible ^aid and sung many things through the medium of that fall wind, and punctuated its words with the squirrels and the cows and the bluejays, yet it made no mention of the old Pahute, or of danger of any kind. Peace seemed to reign under the leafless oaks and aspens ; peace seemed to hover over the tangled growth of maple and woodbine in the canyons below. Still, when the two horses had drunk at Peavine Springs, Ben turned them doubtfully down along the hill to the left, and stopped in a little flat concealed from ajl sides by the trees. Here, near a decaying log, he made camp, and short-hobbled the horses in the little patch of grass. Here he reposed in his blanket bed PEAVIXE CORRAL when darkness enveloped the great mountain, and from out the solitude all around or from the stars above, came the voice of a lullaby which soothed him to peaceful sleep. The cold, hard form of his revolver made a slight raise under one end of his pillow, and beyond it Mike lay with his nose on his crossed feet, the image of brute fidelity. On the morrow Ben saw the mysterious track again, but never a man or a human sound in all the wild region from which he drove his stock-horses to Peavine Corral. He would give ten dollars to know who rode that horse, for somehow the fearful elements of his mind disregarded the whispering assurance of peace, and made him uneasy because of those tracks in the dust. Young Rojer's fire blazed up again in his secluded grove in the evening, and again to his lonely bed he repaired as the light

214 [MPR( IVEMENT ERA of that fire died oul in the darkness of night. He loved the wind and the pines, — he loved the naked oaks and the white aspens, whose kind presence he fell like friends all around. He loved the greal invisible something which brooded peacefully over his bed, and whispered softly in his ear. He held communion with that Something, — he told it without winds how he gloried in his sweet rest in the bosom of nature ; he thanked it from the depths of his sincerity for its assurance of safety from any lurking foe. "Oh Voice of Solitude!" he whispered, "Dear Voice of Solitude, how you terrified me as I rode old Buck at Little Afrountain! You were too strange and vast for my childish mind, but now I have grown to know you as the greatest and dearest force in desert or mountain." If he slept, his soul still heard, and he talked in his dreams with the gracious Intangible which hovered around and above him. Snip and Flossy seemed to hear it, too, for they staid faith full v near where he could hear them crop the grass, and grind it in their great jaws. Then another sound mingled uncertainly with the voice of die wind: it was foot-steps — they were firm, — they rattled the dry leaves, — they came nearer! No mistake, — Mike heard it, too, and raised his ear in sharp canine vigilance. But Mike never barked in the night-time. — old Spy or someone else had taught him to refrain from any such thing. Ben clutched the stock or his revolver under his pillow and listened — it was the tread of hoofs — the faint rattle of a saddle. He sat up in bed holding the weapon ready for use. "Oh kid !" someone called in subdued tone. "Hello, who is it?" "It's jest me," still in a low voice, "don't git scart," and Montana's southern accent proclaimed his identity. The form of a large man and horse merged out of the brush, and the rider dismounted and sat on one heel by the bed. "By — ■ — ! I'm glad to sec yu. kid, T've been most dead tu see Si imcbody." "How tlie dickens did von know I was here?" enquired Ben, having covered himself and his gun. "I trailed yu 'ere today, an' when I saw Flossv and knew it wus you. T wus goin' tu wait," and a trace of the old horror came back. " \ little while ago they got tired and rode off, an' I had tu hide out. Yu sec. kid. they're after me. Thev been a watchin' this ramp all afternoon and evenin' tu see if I wouldn't come back. A little while ago they got tired and rode off, an' 1 sneaked in yere." "That's mighty funny. I haven't seen a track today but yours. You ^ure somebodv's here?"

VOICE OF THE INTANGIBLE 215 "Sure as you're a foot high. I recon I ort tu know, dodgin' around ycre three days. Yu ain't seen no tracks, caaze they don't ride in a trail. I ain't follered a trail nuther fer three days. Yu see, kid, I went down with the J B fellers, but these varmints sneaked around there and had me sorto rounded up when I bolted fer yere. Now they got me very nigh hemmed up again. I'm scart tu move, — I don't know how many there is of 'em, — I believe they're on ever' trail an' pass, an' they're jist a closin' gradgely in on me." He started up at some fancied sound or motion, and buttoned his coat closer around him, taking pains to leave his six-shooter still uncovered. "I recon somethin'll happen before long," he pursued, "this DEAD PINES OF THE BURNT TIMBER REGIONS business is gettin' perty old. Yu don't know how it is with me, kid, — tu hide yere alone night after night is strictly hell. It's lots better when I kin talk tu somebody; that's why I sneaked in yere an' woke yu up in the middle of the night. Of course, kid," and he hesitated and looked fearfully around, "yer Pap trained you to bleeve in a God, an' justice, an' punishment an' all that sort o' thing. I don't know nothin' about that, — I wish I did. But I do know thit somethin' follers me like a curse, an' when it ketches me alone at night, it very nigh drives me crazy. In the day-light yu might think I'm brave, but in the dark I'm more scart'n a woman. Sometimes I wisht they'd kill me in the daytime when I ain't scart, but I keep on livin' an' meetin' the awful things at night." He poured it all into Ben's ears in a stream which invited no

216 IMPROVEMENT KRA interruption, and he started and hesitated and elntehed at his revolver, as if apprehensive of the very trees. "I used tu read about men thit shed blood an' didn't care, but le'me tell yu, kid, it ain't so, — they do care a mighty lot sooner or later. 1 like the hills an' hawses, like ol' Deut yere, but this spillin' of rnnn's blood spoils it all. I used tu git off in trees like tliese, an ! M.ippy as a bird, but I can't never do it again. Oli this idea o. s..lin' an' glorin' in it, is just the dream of men thit don't know. ' Montana choked up and paused. Ben knew that no more desperate man had ever hidden in San Juan county, and he listened quietly, lest by speaking he would seem to use the darkness to disclose what this same man in the day-light would not want him to know. Besides, he had a dread of certain murderous details which seemed eager to salute his ears, — awful particulars from which the mind recoils. ''I know I wouldn't talk this way tomorrow," the Southerner continued, "but it's all the same — I done it. I can't fergit, an' I've got tu tell it if it's told all over the country. Yu see, kid, T wus in Texas — " he sprang to his feet and listened. "By ! they're comin' straight clown the hill!" He swung nimbly and quietly into the saddle, and rode away into the haunted night. Young Rojer rose again to a sitting posture, his ear turned searchingly among the whisperings of the mountain. Old Deut's foot falls became quick and violent, and died away in the distance. No one came down the hill ; possibly they turned to pursue the beating hoofs in another direction. Nestling again in his blankets, Ben mused, "By night an atheist half believes in God." Then, seeking for that which "is only sweet when we fondly listen, and only fair when we fondly gaze," he found himself still in tune, and fell asleep harking to the great kind lullaby. At sun-rise, Young Rojer drove his stock-horses and his packs down the trail towards Dwarf Spring, and followed on into the cedars on the east slope of the mountain. The quiet of autumn still prevailed, — the straggling squirrels and crows and bluejays seemed to be all that waited for the snow to fall. Down through the forest of cedars, over the rocks and off into the Butler Wash trotted the stock-horses, leaving a long cloud of dust behind. At noon they halted on a sand-hill to graze, while their driver ate lunch ; and behold, behind them another dust, small but dense, coming straight towards them. In ten minutes that dust grew to such proportions, that Deut could be recognized toiling desperately and pantingly in the front of it, and upon his back Montana in a perfect frenzy of excitement. "Trade hawses with me, kid, fer 's sake!" called the

VOICK OF THE INTANGIBLE 217 Southerner, as soon as he came within hearing, "Deut's flunked, an' the whole outfit's comin' full tilt down the trail." It was a request, as cow-boys make requests, but the element of stern command lurked somewhere behind it. Deut puffed feverishly, and white lather covered his exhausted frame from ears to hoofs. Ben looked regretfully from Snip's sleek coat to the unrelenting face of the Southerner, and knew he must obey, — Snip's tomboy tricks and loving ways notwithstanding. The two saddles were peeled from the horses' backs in short order, but not too quick for Ben to notice how the big blonde had fallen away in flesh, — how a far-way look had crept into his eye, and how his face and form spoke loudly of neglect. When the great bony, frame swung onto Snip, he suddenly turned as for something forgotten: "Great ! kid, what yu loaded up with them guns for?" he asked in amazement, "you been raisin' hell somewhere, too? I don't like the looks of them a bit, kid." Not waiting for an answer, he touched Snip with the rowels, and made another long trail of dust which reached on and on towards Arizona, till it became lost on the hills of the lower Butler. But no outfit came "full tilt" or any other way from behind. Young Rojer looked expectantly during the three hours while he still followed down the wash. He put the pack on a range mare, and rode Flossy, leaving Deut to jog wearily along with the band ; and while he looked at the dry lather and dust on that big, brown horse, he recalled all he had seen of Montana up to the moment when he disappeared with Snip, — and words often quoted by Fred Rojer came back again: "The way of the transgressor is hard." (to be continued) Captivity I crept from out the dull years' prisoning to seek, where blossoms hung, Once more the gay adventure of the spring with those who yet were young. Along the meadow-path I stole my way, careless again, and free; My heart in tune with each brave linnet's lay, each blackbird's melody. My children came to find me, saying low, "You must not linger here Without strong arms to lean on, lest you grow too weary, mother dear." Sudden my joy fell from me, and I went— with old eyes dim with tears — Back ot the hearth, where I must rest content amid the caging years. — Harper's Weekly.