University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.
TURN TO THE RIGHT AS THE LAW DIRECTS.

ANOTHER danger lies in getting too low
down on the hillside to the sea. On that
side, where only grass has grown and
pine-quills fallen without any undergrowth to hold
them there, and contribute its own decaying and cast-off
clothes to the soil, the ground is often broken,
and, unlike the north side of the hills, shows here and
there steep bluffs and impassable, basaltic blocks, or
slides of slate or shale on which it would be madness
to venture.

The only safe thing to do is to find the summit,
and keep along the backbone of the mountain, and
thus escape the chaparral nets of the north and the
precipices of the south.

Great skill consists in being able to reach the
summit successfully, and still greater in keeping
along the backbone when it is once reached, and not
follow off on one of the spurs that often shoot up
higher than the back of the main ridge. There are

many trails here, made by game going to and fro in
the warm summer days, or in crossing the ridges in
their semi-annual migrations down to the rivers and
back again to the mountains.

The temptations to take one of these trails and
abandon the proper one, which is often dim and
sometimes wholly indistinct, are many. It takes the
shrewdest mountaineer to keep even so much as
for one day's journey along the backbone without
once being led aside down the spurs into the nets
of chaparral, or above the impassable crags and
precipices. Of course, when you can retrace your
steps it is a matter of no great moment; you will only
lose your time. But with us there was no going back.

When we had reached the second bench we turned
to look. Soon the heads of the men were seen to
shoot above the rim of the bench below; perhaps less
than a mile away. No doubt they caught sight of us
now, for the hand of the officer lifted, pointed in this
direction, and he settled his spurs in his sinch, and
led his men in pursuit.

Deliberately the Prince dismounted, set his saddle
well forward, and drew the sinch tight as possible.

We all did the same; mounted then, and followed
little Klamat, who had by this time set both arms
free from the odious red shirt which was now belted
about the waist, up the hill as fast as we could
follow.

We reached the summit of the ridge. Scintillations
from the flashing snows of Mount Shasta
shimmered through the trees, and a breath of air
came across from the Klamat lakes and the Modoc
land beyond, as if to welcome us from the dark, deep
canon with its leaden fringe, and lining of dark and
eternal green.

The Doctor pushed his hat back from his brow
and faintly smiled. He was about to kiss his hand
to the splendid and majestic mountain showing in
bars and sections through the trees, but looked
around, caught the eye of Klamat, and his hand fell
timidly to his side.

As for Paquita, she leaped from her pony and put
out her arms. Her face was radiant with delight.
Beautiful with divine beauty, she arched her hand
above her brow, looked long and earnestly at the
mountain, and then, in a wild and unaccountable sort
of ecstasy, turned suddenly, threw her arms about
her pony's neck, embraced him passionately and
kissed his tawny nose.

We had been buried in that canon for so long.
We were like men who had issued from a dungeon.
As for myself, I was much as usual; I clasped
and twisted my hands together as I let my reins fall
on my horse's neck, and said nothing.

Our animals were mute now, too; no mule of the
party could have been induced to bray. They were

tired, dripping with sweat, and held their brown
noses low and close to the ground, without attempting
to touch the weeds or grasses.

Klamat threw up his hand. The men had appeared
on the bench below. We had evidently gained on
them considerably, for here we had ten minutes' rest
before they broke over the mountain bench beneath.
This was encouraging. No doubt a saddle had
slipped off back over a mule's rump in some steep
place they had just mounted, and thus caused the
delay, for they had neglected to sinch their saddles in
their great haste.

They dismounted now, and settled their saddles.
We tightened our saddles also. This was the summit,
and now came the demand for skill.

When the officer threw his leg over the macheers
of his saddle below, Klamat set forward. His skill
was as wonderful as his endurance. Being now on
the summit, he could travel without halting to
breathe; this, of course would be required if he hoped
to keep ahead. And even then, where would it all
end? It is most likely no one had thought of that.
For my part, I kept watching the sun and wishing
for night.

This is an instinctive desire of all things rational
or irrational, I think, that are compelled to fly—

It was hardly possible to keep ahead of our

pursuers all day, well mounted as they were, and
one of our party on foot, yet that seemed to be the
only hope. There yet was an alternative, if the worst
came to the worst. We could ambush and shoot
them down. I saw that Klamat kept an eye constantly
on his rifle when not foxing the trail and
eyeing the pursuers.

The Prince was well armed. He carried his
double-barrelled piece before him in the saddle-bow.
The rest of us were not defenceless. The deed was
more than possible.

These men wanted the Doctor: him only, so far as
we knew. The Doctor was accused of murder.
The officer, no doubt, had due process, and the legal
authority to take him. To the Prince he was nothing
much. He was no equal in physical or mental
capacity. He was failing in health and in strength,
and could surely be of no future possible use to us.
Why should the Prince take life, or even imperil ours
for his sake?

The answer, no doubt, would be very unsatisfactory
to the civilized world, but it was enough for
the Prince. The man needed his help. The man
was almost helpless. This, perhaps, was the first
and strongest reason for his course. There is a
great deal in this chivalrous disposition to shield the
weak.

When woman arises and asserts herself, as the

sharp-tongued, thin-lipped puritaness proposes, and
is no longer dependent, man's arm will no longer be
reached as a shield, but as a sword.

Whenever woman succeeds in making herself a
soldier she must fight. The beasts of the field will
fight to the death for the young while they are helpless;
but when they grow strong and swift the beasts
of the field will run away and leave them to their
fate, or even fight against them when they are
strong, as bravely as they did for them when they
were weak.

At the bottom of all other reasons for taking care
of this man, who seemed to become every day less
capable of taking care of himself, was a little poetical
fact not forgotten. This man furnished bread when
we were hungry—when the snow was deep, when the
earth lay in a lock-jaw, as it were, and could not open
her mouth to us.

Now and then Klamat would turn his eyes over
his shoulder, toss his head, and urge on. The eagle-feathers
in his black hair, as if glad to get back again
in the winds of Shasta, floated and flew back at us,
and we followed as if we followed a banner. A black
banner, this we followed, made of the feathers of a
fierce and bloody bird. Where would it lead us?
No buccaneers of the sea were freer, wilder, braver
at heart than we. Where would it lead us?

One thing was fearfully against us. The recent

rains had made the ground soft and spongy. The
four horses made a trail that could be followed on
the run. Even where the pine-quills lay thickest,
the ground would be broken here and there so as to
leave little doubt or difficulty to our pursuers.

Had it been a dry autumn the ground would have
been hard as an adobe, and we might have dodged
to one side almost anywhere, and, providing our
mules did not smell and hail the passing party,
escaped with impunity. As it was, nothing seemed
left but to persist in flight to the uttermost. And
this we did.

We did not taste food. We had not tasted water
since sunrise, and it was now far in the afternoon.
The Doctor began to sit with an unsteady motion in
his saddle. The mules were beginning to bray; this
time from distress, and not excess of spirits. The
Prince's mule had his tongue hanging out between
his teeth, and, what was worse, his ears began to flop
to and fro as if they had wilted in the sun. Some
mules put their tongues out through their teeth and
go very well for days after; but when a mule lets his
ears swing, he has lost his ambition, and is not to be
depended on much longer.

A good mountain mule should not tire short of a
week, but there is human nature wherever there is a
bargain to be made, and there are mule jockeys as
well as horse jockeys even in the mountains; and

you cannot pick up good mules when you like, either
for love or money. The men who followed had, no
doubt, a tried and trusty stock. Things began to
look critical.

The only thing that seemed unaffected was Klamat.
Two or three times through the day he had stood
his rifle against a pine, drew his belt a knot or two
tighter, fastened his moccasin-strings over, and then
dashed ahead without a word. Our banner of eagle
feathers still floated defiantly, and promised to lead
even further than we could follow. Closer and
closer came the pursuers. We could see them
striking their steel spurs in their sinches as if
they would lift their tired mules along with their
heels.

Once they were almost within hail; but a saddle
slipped, and they lost at least ten minutes with a
fractious mule, that for a time concluded not to be
sinched again till it had taken rest.

The sugar-pines dropped their rich and delicate
nuts as we rode by, from pyramid cones as long as
your arm, and little foxy-looking pine squirrels with
pink eyes, stopped from their work of hoarding them
for winter, to look or chatter at us as we hurried
breathless and wearily past.

Mount Shasta still flashed down upon us through
the dark rich boughs of fir and pine, but did not
thrill us now.

When the body is tired, the mind is tired too.
You get surfeited with grandeur at such a time. No
doubt the presence tames you somewhat, tones
down the rugged points in you that would like to
find expression; that would find expression in fretful
words but for this greatness which shows you how
small you are; but you are subdued rather than
elevated.

Suddenly Klamat led off to the right as if forsaking
the main summit for a spur. This seemed a bad sign.
The Prince said nothing. At any other time I dare
say he would have protested.

We had no time to dispute now; besides, almost
any change from this toilsome and eternal run was a
relief. What made things seem worse, however, this
boy seemed to be leading us back again to The Forks.
We were edging around at right angles with our pursuers.
They could cut across if we kept on, and
head us off. We were making more than a crescent;
the boy was leading us right back to the men we
wished to escape.

Soon he went out on a point and stopped. He
beckoned us to ride up. We did so. It seemed less
than half a mile to a point we had passed less than
an hour since, and, as far as we could see, there
was only a slight depression between. The officer
and his party soon came in sight. As they did so
he raised his arm. We were not unobserved.

Klamat sat down to rest, and made signs that we
should dismount. I looked at the Prince to see
what he would do. He swung himself to the ground,
looking tired and impatient, and we all did the same.
The Doctor could not keep his feet, but lay down,
helpless, on the brown bed of quills from the sugar-pines
that clustered around and crowned the point
where we had stopped to rest.

The officer and his men looked to their catenas;
each drew out a pistol, revolved the cylinder, settled
the powder back in the tubes by striking the ivory
handles gently on the saddle pommels, saw that each
nipple still held its cap, and then spurred their
mules down the hillside as if to cross the depression
that lay between, and head us off at once. They
were almost within hail, and I thought I could hear
the clean sharp click of the steel bells on their Spanish
spurs as they descended and disappeared among the
tree-tops as if going down into a sea.

Klamat had learned some comic things in camp,
even though he had not learned, or pretended he
had not learned, to talk. When the men had disappeared
among the branches of the trees, he turned
to the Prince and gravely lifted his thumb to his
nose, elevated his fingers in the air, and wriggled
them in the direction of the place where the officer
was seen to descend.

Every moment I expected to see the muzzles of

those pistols thrust up through the pines as the
three men turned the brow of the hill. They did
not appear, however, and as we arose to adjust our
saddles after some time, I stepped to the rim of the
hill and looked over to the north side. The hill was
steep and rugged, with a ledge, and lined with chapparral.
A white-tailed rabbit came through, sat down,
and looked back into the canon. Some quails started
and flew to one side, but that was all I saw or heard.

The Doctor had to be assisted to his saddle. He
was pale, and his lips were parched and swollen.
Slowly now Klamat walked ahead; he, too, was tired.
We had rested too long, perhaps. You cannot get
an Indian to sit down when on a long and severe
journey, unless compelled to, to rest others. The
cold and damp creeps into the joints, and you get
stiff and tenfold more tired than before. Great as
the temptation is to rest, you should first finish your
race, the whole day's journey, before you let your
nerves relax.

Slowly as we moved, however, our pursuers did
not reappear. We were still on the ridge, in spite
of the sharp and eccentric turn it had taken around
the head of the river.

As the sun went down, broad, blood-red banners
ran up to the top of Shasta, and streamed
away to the south in hues of gold; streamed and
streamed as if to embrace the universe in one great

union beneath one banner. Then the night came down
as suddenly on the world as the swoop of an eagle.

The Doctor, who had all the afternoon kept an
uncertain seat, now leaned over on his mule's mane,
and had fallen, but for the Prince who was riding at
his side.

Klamat came back and set his rifle against a pine.
We laid the feeble man on the bed of quills, loosened
the sinches as the mules and ponies let their noses
droop almost to the ground, and prepared to spend
the night. This was imperative. It was impossible to
go farther. That would have been the death of the
man we wished to save.

A severe ride in the mountains at any time is a
task. Your neck is wrenched, and your limbs are
weary as you leap this log or tumble and stumble
your tired animal over this pile of rocks or through
that sink of mud, until you are tired enough by night;
but when you ride an awkward and untrained mule,
when you have not sat a horse for a year, and have
an old saddle that fits you like an umbrella or a
barrel, you get tired, stiff-limbed, and used up in a
way that is indescribable. As for poor Paquita she
was literally crucified, but went about picking up
quills for beds for all, and never once murmured.

The Doctor was very ill. Klamat went down the
hill-side and found some water to wet his lips, but
this did not revive him. It was a cold evening. The

autumn wind came pitching down from the Shasta,
sharp and sudden. The old Frost King, who had
been driven to the mountain-top in the early summer,
was descending now by degrees to reclaim his
original kingdom.

We unpacked the little mule and spread a bed for
the suffering man, but still he shivered and shook,
and we could not get him warm. We, too, were
suffering from the cold. We could hardly move
when we had rested a moment and let the cold
drive back the perspiration, and drive the chill to
the marrow.

“A fire,” said the Prince.

Klamat protested against it. The sick man grew
worse. Something warm would restore him.

We must have a fire. Paquita gathered up some
pine knots from the hill side. A match was struck
in the quills. The mules started, lifted their noses,
but hardly moved as the fire sprung up like a giant
full-grown, and reached for the cones of the sugar-pines
overhead. There was comfort and companionship
in the fire. We could see each other now,—
our little colony of pilgrims. We looked at each
other and were revived.

We had a little coffee-pot, black and battered it
is true, but the water boiled just the same, and as
soon as if it had been silver.

This revived the Doctor. Hunger had much to

do with his faintness. He now sat up and talked, in
his low quiet way, looking into the fire and brushing
the little mites of dust and pine-quills from his shirt,
as if still to retain his great respectability of dress;
and by the time we all had finished our coffee, he was
almost as cheerful as we had ever seen him before.

The moon came out clear and cold, and we spread
our damp and dusty blankets on the quills between
the pines, with the snowy front of the Shasta lifting,
lifting like a bank of clouds away to the left, and the
heads of many mining streams dipping away in so
many wild and dubious directions that no one but
our little leader, perhaps, could have found the way to
the settlements without the gravest embarrassment.

Klamat had gone down the hill for water, this
time leaving his rifle leaned against a pine, though
not without casting a glance back over his shoulder
as if to say, “Look sharp! but I will be back at
once.” We all were still warming ourselves by the
fire, I think, though there are some sudden things
you cannot just recall.

A wave of fate strikes you so strong sometimes,
that you are swallowed up. Head and ears you go
under it and you see nothing, you remember nothing.
It seems to take your breath.

Click! click! click! a tired mule started, snuffed,
and then dropped his head, for it was over in an
instant.

“Hands up, gentlemen! hands up! Don't trouble
yourselves to move! There, that will do! You are
the one we want. Pass in your checks!”

The Doctor hid his face in his hands, and let them
take his arms without a word.

The fire had done the mischief. Klamat did not
come back; at least, he did not let it be known if he
did. Paquita opened her large eyes very wide,
pushed back her hair, and rested her hands in her
lap as she sat looking at the three strange men in
elegant top boots and broad-brimmed hats.

“A pretty man you are, Mr. Prince, to run with
this fellow,” said the officer, “to give me this race.
For a coon skin I would take you in charge too.”

Here he arose, went over, and looked at the animals
in the firelight, as if looking for some cause to lay
hands on the Prince, took general charge of the camp
as if it were his own, lit his pipe, had one of the men
make coffee, and seemed quite at home.

If the Prince uttered a word all this time I do not
remember it.

“Where's your other Ingin, Prince?” said the
officer, looking about and seeing but the four saddles.
“Put him in the bush, or left him in the camp?
Rather a good-looking piece you got here now, ain't
she?” He pointed his pipe-stem at Paquita.

For the first time the Prince showed colour.

The officer and his men, toward midnight, spread

their blankets on the other side of the fire. They
were scarce of blankets, and the night was cold.

This may be the reason they all spread down
together. But there is nothing that will excuse
such a stupid thing in the mountains. Sleep apart.
Wide apart, rods apart: never two together, unless
you wish to make a broad target of yourselves
where the muzzle of one gun can do the work of
many.

Before lying down the men did what they could
for their tired beasts; and then the officer came up
to the Doctor, who still gazed and gazed into the
fire, and, drawing something from his pockets that
clinked like chains, said—

“Your hands!”

“He is ill,” said the Prince, “very ill. I will answer
for him. Iron me if you like; but that man is a nervous,
sensitive man that cannot bear to be chained.”

The officer laughed a little and, without answering,
took the Doctor's unresisting hands and linked them
together with a snap that made on shudder; then
laid him back in his blankets. He looked to his
pistol, and saying—

“Don't move! Don't you attempt to move!”
walked over to the other side of the pine-knot fire,
and, pistol in hand, lay down by his companions,
looking all the time across the fire at his prisoner.

The Prince arose, went and gathered up pine-knots

by the light of the moon, and laid them on the fire.
Paquita looked inquiringly at him, and then went
and did the same. When the fire loomed up, he
lifted the blankets from the Doctor's feet, drew off
his boots, and let the warm, cheerful fire fall on the
wretched man.

The officer lay like a fox watching every move and
motion, with his head on his saddle, and his nose
just above the blankets. His pistol hand was at his
side clutching the revolver. The other men were
equally wide awake and watchful at his side.

“Lie down, Paquita,” said the Prince, “lie down
and rest with your moccasins to the fire; you have
had a hard and bitter day of it. I will keep the
fire.”

The child obeyed. He waved his hand at me to
do the same, and I was soon sound asleep.

The last I saw of the Prince before falling asleep—
he was resting on his side with his hand on his head,
and elbow on his blankets. In the mountains, when
you spread your blankets, you put your arms—rifle
or pistols—in between the blankets as carefully as
if they were children. This is done, in the first
place, to keep them dry, and, in the second place, to
have them ready for use. They are laid close to
your side. The heat of your body keeps out the
damp.

I awoke soon. I was too bruised, and sore, and

sick in mind and body, to sleep. There is a doleful,
dreary bird that calls in this country in the night, in
the most mournful tone you can imagine. It is a
sort of white-headed owl; not large, but with a very
hoarse and coarse note. One of these birds was
calling at intervals down the gorge to the right, and
another answered on the other side so faintly I could
just hear it. An answer would come just as regularly
as this one called, and that would sound even more
doleful and dreary still, because so far and indistinct.
The moon hung cold and crooked overhead, and fell
in flakes through the trees like snow.

The Doctor put out his two hands, pushed back
the blanket, and raised his head. He looked to the
left in the gorge as if he contemplated a spring in
that direction. I think that, at last, he had summoned
up courage to make a desperate effort to escape.

He drew up his legs slowly, as if gathering his
muscles for a leap. My heart stood still. All seemed
clear. I could see the nerves of his face quiver in
the moon.

He turned his head to the officer, not six feet away
across the fire, and looked squarely into the ugly,
sullen muzzles of three lifted pistols.

The Doctor sank back with a groan. His face was
now white as the moon that shone down upon it
through the quills above his head.

The officer and his men exchanged glances, and

lay down without a word. The Prince was possibly
asleep. Still, ever and again, the doleful bird kept
calling, and the woful answer came back like an
echo of sorrow across the great black canon below.

The moon kept settling and settling to the west
among the yellow stars, as broad and spangled as
California lilies, and the morning was not far away.

Again the Doctor drew in his naked feet. I could
see the muscles gather and contract, and I knew he
was again preparing for a spring. All was still. He
raised his head, and three pistol muzzles raised and
met the man half way. He crept back far down in
the blankets, hid his head in the folds, and shuddered
and shivered as with an ague.

Dawn was descending and settling around the head
of Shasta in a splendour and a glory that words
will never touch.

There are some things that are so far beyond the
reach of words that it seems like desecration to
attempt description. It was not the red of Pekin,
not the purple of Tyre or the yellow of the Barbary
coast; but merge all these, mixed and made mellow
in a far and tender light—snow and sun, and sun
and snow—and stars, and blue and purple skies all
blended, all these in a splendid, confused, and indescribable
glory, suffusing the hoary summit, centering
there, gathering there, resting a moment—then radiating,
going on to the sea, to broad and burning plains

of the south, to the boundless forests of fir in the north,
even to the mining camps of Cariboo, and you have
a sunrise on the summit of Shasta.

The Prince lifted his head, rested on his elbow,
rubbed his eyes as if he had surely slept, and then
slowly and stiffly arose. The fire was low, almost
out. He turned to gather pine-knots, laid them on
the fire, and turned away as if to gather more. The
Doctor seemed to sleep. The officer and his men
were resting too. Perhaps they slept also.

“Click! click!”

I sprang to my feet.

“Don't trouble yourselves to move, gentlemen!
Remain just where you are, gentlemen, just where
you are!”

It was the Prince who spoke this time. He had
approached the three heads from behind, and had
the double-barrelled gun with its double handful of
buck-shot levelled, as he spoke, against the tops of
their heads as they lay there on their backs.

Approach a man lying down as if you meant to
tread upon his scalp and pin him to the earth, and he
is the most helpless of mortals. He cannot see you,
he cannot turn around, he can do nothing. Here lay
those men; they could see nothing but the black
ugly muzzles of the double barrels. Their pistols
were in their hands; they were plucky fellows, but
they could not draw; they were as likely to shoot
each other as an enemy or any one.

This coming upon a man when he is lying down on
his back may not be the manliest way in the world,
but it is the safest, certainly; and when the game is
three to one, you have to take all the per-cent. you
can, or, in mountain phrase, “just pass in your
checks.”

“Don't trouble yourselves to move, gentlemen;
don't trouble to rise!”

The Prince said this with a mockery and irony in
his tone that was bitter beyond expression; as if
all the poison and the venom of the cruel words and
cruel treatment of the Doctor the night before had
been rankling in his heart till it was ready to burst
out of itself, and he now hissed it out between his
teeth.

There was something in his words that told the
three men that he would rather like it if they would
only “trouble to move,” move the least bit in the
world. As if he would be particularly glad if even
one of them would lift a finger, and give him even
the least shadow of an excuse to blow them to the
moon. They therefore “did not trouble to move.”

Klamat came out here from the dark with the
dawn. He approached the men like a shadow thrown
by a pine from the far light, pulled down the blankets,
and took the three pistols from their unresisting
hands.

“You may sit up now,” said the Prince, taking a

[ILLUSTRATION]

THE TABLES TURNED.

[Description: 645EAF. Illustration page. A man aims a shotgun at three men who are sleeping in their blankets near a campfire. Another man behind the man with the shotgun looks at the man with the shotgun.]

seat across the fire by the side of the Doctor. “You
may sit up now. You are my prisoners, but I will
not handcuff you. I will give you back your arms
if you obey me, and you shall return to your town.”

“I will not ask you not to mention this little affair,”
said the Prince—raising the double barrels, as one of
the men seemed to be gathering his legs under him—
I will not ask you not to mention this little affair.
That is safe enough. You gents will be the last men
on earth to mention it. But I give you my word
that it shall never be mentioned by us, never, so long
as you do not attempt to molest this man. Make
the least attempt against him, or any one here, and
you shall be made the laughing-stock of your town.”

The men looked at each other with hope. They
had expected to die on the spot.

“It's your pot, Prince, take it down. You hold
the papers, called us on a dead hand, you did, but this
was no bluff of mine. The only mislead made was
not to chain you down too, like a dog, as you deserve
to be.”

The Prince coloured. “If you had not chained
this man,” he said at last, quietly, “perhaps you
could have taken him with you. The only mistake
you made was to chain any man at all. Chain a man
that could not stand on his feet! You deserve to
be shot; and if you repeat yourself, I will let Klamat
scalp you where you sit.”

The Indian arose with his hand on his knife.
There was a fierce satisfaction in his face. He had
suffered too much through the night, through the
winter, through the year, to feel like trifling now.
The Indian boy had no other idea than the death of
the men. He certainly looked blank amazement
when, an hour later, the Prince, after discharging
their arms, and emptying their catenas of ammunition,
returned them all again, and turned their faces
to the city, civilly, almost politely.

The men rode sadly and silently away through the
trees, now and then looking back over their shoulders.
The man-hunt was over.