Told in the Hills: A Novel

by Marah Ellis Ryan

  CHAPTER IX.

  "RASHELL OF LAMONTI."

  The echoes are no longer silent in Tamahnous Peak. The witchcraft ofsilver has killed the old superstition. The "something" in Genesee'spocket had been a specimen that warranted investigation. The lost tribehad left enough ore there through the darkness of generations to makemining a thing profitable. Above those terraces of unknown origin thereis a dwelling-house now, built of that same bewitched stone in which theechoes sleep; and often there is gathered under its roof a strangehousehold.

  The words of Genesee, "Be good to my Kootenais!" have so far beenremembered by the girl who during the last year of his life filled histhoughts so greatly. His friends are her friends, and medley as the lotwould appear to others, they are welcome to her. They have helped hersolve the problem of what use she could make of her life. Her relativeshave given up in despair trying to alter her unheard-of manner ofliving. The idea is prevalent among them that Rachel's mind, on somesubjects, is really queer--she was always so erratic! They speak to herof the loneliness of those heights, and she laughs at them. She is neverlonely. She had his word that he would not go far. With her lives oldDavy MacDougall, who helps her much in the mining matters, and Kalitanis never far off. He is her shadow now, as he once was Genesee's. Indianwomen do the work of her home. A school is there for any who care tolearn, and in the lodges of the Kootenais she is never forgotten.

  It seemed strange that he who had so few friends in his life should winher so many by his death. The Indians speak of him now with a sort ofawe, as their white brother whose counsels were so wise, whose couragewas so great; he who forced from the spirits the secret of the lostmine. He has drifted into tradition as some wonderful creature who wasamong them for a while, disappearing at times, but always coming back ata time of their need.

  To Rachel they turn as to something which they must guard--for he saidso. She is to them always "Rashell of Lamonti"--of the mountains.

  From the East and South come friends sometimes--letters and faces ofpeople who knew him; Miss Fred, and her husband, and the Major, who is astanch friend and admirer of the eccentric girl who was once a rebel inhis camp; and in reminiscences the roughness of his Kootenai chief ofscouts is swathed in the gray veil of the past--only thelightning-flashes of courage are photographed in the veteran's memory.

  The Stuart and his wife and boy come there sometimes in the summer; andthe girl and little Jack, who are very fond of each other, ride over theplaces where the other Jack Stuart rode--nameless for so long.

  As for Prince Charlie, his natural affection for children amounts toadoration of the boy. Rachel wonders sometimes if the ideal his remorsehad fostered for so long was filled at last by the girl whom he had lefta delicately tinted apple-blossom and found a delicate type of theinvalid, whose ill-health never exceeds fashionable indisposition. Ifnot, no word or sign from him shows it. The pretty, ideal phases ofdomestic love and life that he used to write of, are not so ready to hispen as they once were through his dreams and remorse. Much changed forhim are those northern hills, but they still have a fascination for himand he writes of them a good deal.

  "It is the witchcraft of the place, or else it is you, Rachel," he said,once. "Both help me. When life grows old and stale in civilization, Icome up here and straightway am young again. I can understand now howyou helped Jack."

  His wife--a pretty little woman with a gently appealing air--neverreally understands Rachel, though she and Tillie are great friends; but,despite Tillie's praise, Annie never can discover what there is in thegirl for "Charlie and all the other men to like so much--and even poor,dear Jack, who must have been in love with her to leave her a silvermine." To Annie she seems rather clever, but with so little affection!and not even sympathetic, as most girls are. She heard of Rachel's pluckand bravery; but that is so near to boldness!--as heroes are toadventurers; and Annie is a very prim little woman herself. She quotes"my husband" a good deal, and rates his work with the first writers ofthe age.

  The work has grown earnest; the lessons of Rachel's prophecy have creptinto it. He has in so many ways justified them--achieved more than hehoped; but he never will write anything more fascinating than thechangeless youth in his own eyes, or the serious tenderness of his ownmouth when he smiles.

  "Prince Charlie is a rare, fine lad," old Davy remarked at the end of anautumn, as he and Rachel watched their visitors out of sight down thevalley; "a man fine enough to be brother to Genesee, an' I ne'er waswearied o' him till I hearkened to that timorous fine lady o' hislilting him into the chorus o' every song she sung. By her tellin' she'sthe first o' the wives that's ever had a husband."

  "But she is not a fine lady at all," contradicted Rachel; "and she's avery affectionate, very good little woman. You are set against herbecause of that story of long ago--and that is hardly fair, DavyMacDougall."

  "Well, then, I am not, lass. It's little call I have to judge children,but I own I'm ower cranky when I think o' the waste o' a man's life fora bit pigeon like that--an' a man like my lad was! The prize was no'worth the candle that give light to it. A man's life is a big thing tothrow away, lass, an' I see nothing in that bit o' daintiness to warrantit. To me it's a woeful waste."

  The girl walked on beside him through the fresh, sweet air of themorning that was filled with crisp kisses--the kisses that warn the wildthings of the Frost-King's coming. She was separated so slightly fromthe wild things herself that she was growing to understand them in a newspirit--through a sympathy touched less by curiosity than of old. Shethought of that man, who slept across on Scot's Mountian, in sight ofTamahnous Peak; how he had understood them!--not through the head, butthe heart. Through some reflected light of feeling she had lived thoselast days of his life at a height above her former level. She had seenin the social outlaw who loved her a soul that, woman-like, she placedabove where she knelt. Perhaps it had been the uncivilized heroism,perhaps the unselfish, deliberate sacrifice, appealing to ahero-worshiper. Something finer in nature than she had ever been touchedby in a more civilized life had come to her through him in those lastdays--not through the man as men knew him, and not through the love hehad borne her--but through the spirit she thought she saw there.

  It may have been in part an illusion--women have so many--but it wasstrong in her. It raised up her life to touch the thing she had placedon the heights, and something of the elation that had come to himthrough that last sacrifice filled her, and forbade her return into thenarrowed valleys of existence.

  His wasted life! It had been given at last to the wild places he loved.It had left its mark on the humanity of them, and the mark had not beena mean one. The girl, thinking of what it had done for her, wonderedoften if the other lives of the valley that winter could live on withoutcarrying indelible coloring from grateful, remorseful emotions bornthere. She did not realize how transient emotions are in some people;and then she had grown to idealize him so greatly. She fancied herselfsurely one of many, while really she was one alone.

  "Yes, lass--a woeful waste," repeated the old man; and her thoughtswandered back to their starting-place.

  "No!" she answered with the sturdy certainty of faith. "The prodigalitythere was not wastefulness, and was not without a method--not a methodof his own, but that something beyond us we call God or Fate. The liveshe lived or died for may seem of mighty little consequence individually,but what is, is more than likely to be right, Davy MacDougall, even ifwe can't see it from our point of view." Then, after a little, sheadded, "He is not the first lion that has died to feed dogs--there wasthat man of Nazareth."

  Davy MacDougall stopped, looking at her with fond, aged eyes that shoneperplexedly from under his shaggy brows.

  "You're a rare, strange lass, Rachel Hardy," he said at last, "an' longas I've known ye, I'm not ower certain that I know ye at all. The ladused to be a bit like that at times, but when I see ye last at thenight, I'm ne'er right certain what I'll find ye in the mornin'."

  "You'll never find me far from that, at any rate
," and she motioned upthe "Hill of the Witches," and on a sunny level a little above themMowitza and Kalitan were waiting.

  "Then, lass, ye'll ne'er tak' leave o' the Kootenai hills?"

  "I think not. I should smother now in the life those people are goingto," and she nodded after the departing guests who were going back tothe world. Then her eyes turned from the mists of the valleys to thewhispering peace of cedars that guard Scot's Mountain.

  "No, Davy, I'll never leave the hills."

  KLOSHE KAH-KWA.