 | CHAPTER XXI.
LUGGERNEL SPRINGS. John Brent |  |
21. CHAPTER XXI.
LUGGERNEL SPRINGS.
“I am shot,” gasped Brent, and sank down
fainting.
Which first? the lady, or my friend, slain perhaps
for her sake?
“Her! see to her!” he moaned.
I unbound her from the saddle. I could not
utter a word for pity. She essayed to speak;
but her lips only moved. She could not change
her look. So many hours hardening herself to
repel, she could not soften yet, even to accept
my offices with a smile of gratitude. She was
cruelly cramped by her lashings to the rough
pack-saddle, rudely cushioned with blankets. But
the horror had not maddened her; the torture
had not broken her; the dread of worse had
not slain her. She was still unblenching and
indomitable. And still she seemed to rule her
fate with quiet, steady eyes, — gray eyes with
violet lights.
I carried her a few steps to the side of a jubilant
there to Nature, kindliest leech.
Then I took a cup of that brilliant water to
my friend, my brother.
“I can die now,” he said feebly.
“There is no death in you. You have won
the right to live. Keep a brave heart. Drink!”
And in that exquisite spot, that fair glade of
the sparkling fountains, I gave the noble fellow
long draughts of sweet refreshment. The rescued
lady trailed herself across the grass and
knelt beside us. My horse, still heaving with
his honorable gallop, drooped his head over the
group. A picture to be remembered!
Who says that knighthood is no more? Who
says the days of chivalry are past? Who says
it, is a losel.
Brent was roughly, but not dangerously, shot
along the arm. The bullet had ploughed an ugly
path along the muscles of the fore-arm and upper-arm,
and was lodged in the shoulder. A bad
wound; but no bones broken. If he could but
have rest and peace and surgery! But if not,
after the fever of our day, after the wearing
anguish of our doubtful gallop; if not? —
Ellen Clitheroe revived in a moment, when
she saw another needed her care. Woman's
gentle duty of nurse found her ready for its
offices. My blundering good-will gave place willingly
her own weariness, while she was magnetizing
away the pangs of the wounded man by her
delicate touch.
He looked at me, and smiled with total content.
“My father?” asked the lady, faintly, as if she
dreaded the answer.
“Safe!” said I. “Free from the Mormons.
He is waiting for you with a friend.”
Her tears began to flow. She was busy bandaging
the wound. All was silent about us, except
the pleasant gurgle of the fountains, when
we heard a shot up the defile.
The sharp sound of a pistol-shot came leaping
down the narrow chasm, flying before the pursuit
of its own thundering echoes. Those grand
old walls of the Alley, facing each other there
for the shade and sunshine of long, peaceful
æons, gilded by the glow of countless summers,
splashed with the gray of antique lichens on their
purple fronts, draped for unnumbered Octobers
with the scarlet wreaths of frost-ripened trailers,
— those solemn walls standing there in old
silence, unbroken save by the uproar of winter
floods, or by the humming flight of summer
winds, or the louder march of tempests crowding
on, — those silent walls, written close with the
record of God's handiwork in the long cycles of
creation, lifted up their indignant voices when
warfare of man with man, and, roaring after,
they hurled that murderous noise forth from
their presence. The quick report sprang out
from the chasm into the quiet glade, where the
lady knelt, busy with offices of mercy, and there
it lost its vengeful tone, and was blended with
the rumble of the mingled rivulets of the springs.
The thundering echoes paused within, slowly
proclaiming quiet up from crag to crag, until
one after another they whispered themselves to
silence. No sound remained, save the rumble
of the stream, as it flowed away down the opening
valley into the haze, violet under gold, of
that warm October sunset.
I sprang up when I heard the shot, and stood
on the alert. There were two up the Alley;
which, after the shot, was living, and which
dead?
Not many moments had passed, when I heard
hoofs coming, and Armstrong rode into view.
The gaunt white horse galloped with the long,
careless fling I had noticed all day. He moved
machine-like, as if without choice or volition of
his own, a horse commissioned to carry a Fate.
Larrap's stolen horse trotted along by his old
master.
Armstrong glanced at Murker's body lying
there, a battered mass.
“Both!” he whispered. “The other was
sent right into my hands to be put to death.
I knew all the time it would be sent to me to
do killing. He was spurring up the Alley on
my own horse. He snapped at me. My pistol
did not know how to snap. See here!”
And he showed me, hanging from his saddle-horn,
that loathliest of all objects a man's eyes
ever lighted upon, a fresh scalp. It sickened
me.
“Shame!” said I. “Do you call yourself a
man, to bring such a thing into a lady's presence?”
“It was rather mean to take the fellow's
hair,” says Armstrong. “I don't believe brother
Bill would have did it. But I felt orful ugly,
when I saw that fat, low-lived devil, and thought
of my brother, a big, hul-hearted man as never
gave a bad word to nobody, and never held on
to a dollar or a slug when ayry man wanted it
more 'n him. Come, I 'll throw the nasty thing
away, if you say so.”
“Help me drag off this corpse, and we 'll bury
man and scalp together,” I said.
We buried him at the gate of the Alley, under
a great cairn of stones.
“God forgive them both,” said I, as I flung
the last stone, “that they were brutes, and not
men.”
“Brutes they was, stranger,” says Armstrong;
“but these things is ordered somehow. I allow
your pardener and you is glad to get that
gal out of a Mormon camp, ef it did cost him a
horse and both on you an all day's tremble.
Men don't ride so hard, and look so wolfish, as
you two men have did, onless their heart is into
it.”
“It is, indeed, strange,” said I, rather thinking
aloud than addressing my companion, “that
this brute force should have achieved for us by
outrage what love failed in. Fate seems to have
played Brute against Brute, that Love might
step between and claim the victory. The lady
is safe; but the lover may have won her life and
lost his own.”
“Look here, stranger,” says Armstrong, “part
of this is yourn,” pointing to the money-belt,
which, with the dead man's knife and pistol, he
had taken from the corpse. “Halves of this
and the other fellow's plunder belongs to your
party.”
I suppose I looked disgusted; yet I have seen
gentle ladies wearing boastfully brooches that
their favorite heroes had taken from Christian
men dead on the field at Inkermann, and shawls
of the loot of Delhi cover many shoulders that
would shudder over a dead worm.
“I 'm not squimmidge,” said Armstrong.
belts. I 'll count that out, and then, ef you wont
take your part, I 'll pass it over to the gal's father.
I allowed from signs ther was, that that
thar boss Mormon had about tuk the old man's
pile. Most likely these shiners they won last
night is some of the very sufferins Sizzum got
from him. It 's right he should hev 'em back.”
I acknowledged the justice of this restitution.
“Now,” said Armstrong again, “you want
to stay by your friend and the gal, so I 'll take
one of the pack mules and fetch your two saddles
along before dark lights down. It was too
bad to lose that iron gray; but there 's more 'n
two horses into the hide of that black of yourn.
He was the best man of the lot for the goin', the
savin', and the killin'. Stranger, I 've ben byin'
and sellin' and breedin' kettrypids ever since
I was raised myself; but I allow I never seed
a HORSE till I seed him lunge off with you two
on his back.”
Armstrong rode up the Alley again. Another
man he was since his commission of vengeance
had been accomplished. In those lawless wilds,
vendetta takes the place of justice, becomes justice
indeed. Armstrong, now that his stern duty
was done, was again the kindly, simple fellow
nature made him, the type of a class between
pioneer and settler, and a strong, brave, effective
the sturdy habits of this class, that made our
Washington the manly chief he was.
I returned to my friends by the Springs.
Emerging from the austere grandeur of the
Alley, dim with the shadows of twilight, the
scene without was doubly sweet and almost domestic.
The springs, four or five in number,
and one carrying with it a thread of hot steam,
sprang vigorously out along the bold edges of the
cliffs. All the ground was verdure, — green, tender,
and brilliant, a feast to the eyes after long
staring over sere deserts. The wild creatures that
came there every day for refreshment, and perhaps
for intoxication in the aerated tipple of the
Champagne Spring, kept the grass grazed short
as the turf of a park. Two great spruce-trees,
each with one foot under the rocks, and one
edging fountainward, stood, pillar under pyramid.
Some wreaths of drooping creepers, floating
from the crags, had caught and clung, and
so gone winding among the dark foliage of the
twin trees; and now their leaves, ripened by
autumn, shook amid the dusky green like an
alighting of orioles. Except for the spruces
posted against the cliffs, the grassy area of an
acre about the springs was clear of other growth
than grass. Below, the rivulet disappeared in
a green thicket, and farther down were large
presence of a drooping elm, as much unlooked
for here as the sweet, delicate woman
whom strange chances had brought to dignify
and grace the spot. This stranger elm filled my
heart with infinite tender memories of home, and
of those early boyish days when Brent and I
lay under the Berkeley College elms, or strayed
beneath the elm-built arches up and down the
avenues of that fair city clustered round the
College. In those bright days, before sorrow
came to him, or to me my harsh necessity, we
two in brotherhood had trained each other to
high thoughts of courtesy and love, — a dreamed-of
love for large heroic souls of women, when
our time of full-completed worthiness should
come. And his time had come. And yet it
might be that the wounded knight would never
know his lady, as much loving as beloved; it
might be that he would never find a sweeter
soothing in her touch, than the mere touch of
gratitude and common charity; it might be that
he would fever away his beautiful life with the
fever of his wound, and never feel the holy
quiet of a lover's joy when the full bliss of love
returned is his.
I gave a few moments to the horses and mules.
They were still to be unsaddled. Healthy Fulano
had found his own way to water, and now
outlet of the Champagne Spring, tickling his nose
with the bubbles of gas as they sped by. Sup,
Fulano! This spot was worth the gallop to see.
Sup, Fulano, the brave, and may no stain of this
day's righteous death-doing rest upon your guiltless
life!
Brent was lying under the spruces, drowsing
with fatigue, reaction, and loss of blood. Miss
Clitheroe sat by watching him. These fine beings
have an exquisitely tenacious vitality. The
happiness of release had suddenly kindled all
her life again. As she rose to meet me, there
was light in her eyes and color in her cheeks.
Her whole soul leaped up and spoke its large
gratitude in a smile.
“My dear friend,” she said; and then, with
sudden tearfulness, “God be thanked for your
heroism!”
“God be thanked!” I repeated. “We have
been strangely selected and sent, — you from
England, my friend and I, and my horse, the
hero of the day, from the Pacific, — to interfere
here in each other's lives.”
“It would seem romance, but for the sharp
terror of this day, coming after the long agony
of my journey with my poor, errant father.”
“A sharp terror, indeed!”
“But only terror!” and a glow of maidenly
moment of rough usage, when I slipped away
my gag and screamed as they carried me off,
those men were considerate to me. They never
halted except to dig a well in the sand of a river-bed.
I learned from their talk that they had
made an attempt to steal your horses in the
night, and, failing, dreaded lest you, and especially
Mr. Brent, would follow them close. So
they rode hard. They supposed that, when I was
found missing, whoever went in pursuit, and you
they always feared, would lose time along the
emigrant road, searching eastward.”
“We might have done so; but we had ourselves
ridden off that way in despair of aiding
you,” — and I gave her a sketch of the events
of the morning.
“It was the hope of succor from you that sustained
me. After what your friend said to me
last evening, I knew he could not abandon me,
if he had power to act.” And she looked very
tenderly at the sleeper, — a look to repay him
for a thousand wounds.
“Did you find my glove?” she asked.
“He has it. That token assured us. Ah!
you should have seen that dear wounded boy,
our leader, when he knew we were not astray.”
I continued my story of our pursuit, — the
lulling beat of the stream undertoning my words
wild burst of Fulano, and told how his heroic
charge had fulfilled his faithful ardor of the day,
she sprang up, thrilled out of all weariness, and
ran to the noble fellow, where he was taking his
dainty banquet by the brookside.
She flung her arms around his neck and rested
her head upon his shoulder. Locks of her black
hair, escaping into curls, mingled with his mane.
Presently Miss Clitheroe seemed to feel a
maidenly consciousness that her caresses of the
horse might remind the horse's master that he
was not unworthy of a like reward. She returned
to my friend. He was stirring a little in
pain. She busied herself about him tenderly,
and yet with a certain distance of manner, building
a wall of delicate decorum between him and
herself. Indeed, from the beginning of our acquaintance
yesterday, and now in this meeting
of to-day, she had drawn apart from Brent, and
frankly approached me. Her fine instinct knew
the brother from the lover.
Armstrong presently rode out again.
When he saw his brother's sorrel horse feeding
with the others, he wept like a child.
We two, the lady and I, were greatly touched.
“I 've got a daughter myself, to home to the
Umpqua,” said Armstrong, turning to Miss Clitheroe;
“jest about your settin' up, and jest
her name.”
“Ellen is my name.”
“That 's pretty” (pooty he pronounced it).
“Well, I 'll stand father to you, just as ef you
was my own gal. I know what a gal in trouble
wants more 'n young fellows can.”
Ellen Clitheroe gave her hand to Armstrong
in frank acceptance of his offer. He became the
paternal element in our party, — he protecting
her and she humanizing him.
We lighted our camp-fire and supped heartily.
Except for Brent's uneasy stir and unwilling
moans, we might have forgotten the deadly business
of that day.
We made the wounded man comfortable as
might be with blankets, under the sheltering
spruces. After all, if he must be hurt, he could
not have fallen upon a better hospital than the
pure open air of this beautiful shelter; and surely
nowhere was a gentler nurse than his.
Armstrong and I built the lady a bower, a little
lodge of bushes from the thicket.
Then he and I kept watch and watch beneath
the starlight.
Sleeping or waking, our souls and our bodies
thanked God for this peace of a peaceful night,
after the terror and tramp and battle of that
trembling day.
| CHAPTER XXI.
LUGGERNEL SPRINGS. John Brent | |