The Eagles Heart

by Garland, Hamlin

  It was a long ride, and as he rode the dawn came over the plains, swift, silent, majestic with color. His blood warmed in his limbs and his head lifted. He was at home in the wild once more, all ties were cut between him and the East. Mary was not for him. Maud had grown indifferent, Jack would never come West, and Mr. and Mrs. Burns were merely cheery memories. There was nothing now to look backward upon—nothing to check his career as hunter and explorer. All that he had done up to this moment was but careful preparation for great journeys. He resolved to fling himself into unknown trails—to know the mountains as no other man knew them.

  Again he rode down into the valley of the Arickaree, and as the boys came rolling out with cordial shouts of welcome, his eyes smarted a little. He slipped from his horse and shook hands all around, and ended by snatching Pink and pressing her soft cheek against his lips—something he had never done before.

  They bustled to get his breakfast, while Reynolds took care of Kintuck. Cora, blushing prettily as she set the table for him, said: "We're mighty glad to see you back, Mose. Daddy said you'd never turn up again, but I held out you would."

  "Oh, I couldn't stay away from Kintuck and little Pink," he replied.

  "How'd they feed ye back there?" inquired Mrs. Reynolds.

  "Oh, fair to middlin'—but, of course, they couldn't cook like Ma Reynolds."

  "Oh, you go hark!" cried Mrs. Reynolds, vastly delighted. "They've got so much more to do with."

  It was good to sit there in the familiar kitchen and watch these simple, hearty women working with joy to feed him. His heart was very tender, and he answered most of their questions with unusual spirit, fending off, however, any reference to old sweethearts. His talk was all of absorbing interest to the women. They were hungry to know how people were living and dressing back there. It was so sweet and fine to be able to return to the East—and Mrs. Reynolds hoped to do so before she died. Cora drew from Mose the information that the lawns were beautifully green in Marmion, and that all kinds of flowers were in blossom, and that the birds were singing in the maples. Even his meagre descriptions brought back to the girl the green freshness of June.

  "Oh, I'm so tired of these bare hills," she said wistfully. "I wish I could go East again, back to our old home in Missouri."

  "I wish now I'd stayed here and sent you," said Mose.

  She turned in surprise. "Why so, Mose?"

  "Because I had so little fun out of it, while to you it would have been a picnic."

  "You're mighty good, Mose," was all she said in reply, but her eyes lingered upon his face, which seemed handsomer than ever before, for it was softened by his love, his good friends, and the cheerful home.

  In the days that followed Cora took on new youth and beauty. Her head lifted, and the swell of her bosom had more of pride and grace than ever before in her life. She no longer shrank from the gaze of men, even of strangers, for Mose seemed her lover and protector. Before his visit to the East she had doubted, but now she let her starved heart feed on dreams of him.

  Mose had little time to give to her, for (at his own request) Reynolds was making the highest use of his power. "I want to earn every cent I can for the next three months," Mose explained, and he often did double duty. He was very expert now with the rope and could throw and tie a steer with the best of the men. His muscles seemed never to tire nor his nerves to fail him. Rain, all-night rides, sleeping on the ground beneath frosty blankets, nothing seemed to trouble him. He was never cheery, but he was never sullen.

  One day in November he rode up to the home ranch leading a mule with a pack saddle fully rigged.

  "What are you doing with that mule?" asked Reynolds as he came out of the house, followed by Pink.

  "I'm going to pack him."

  "Pack him? What do you mean?"

  "I'm going to hit 'the long trail.'"

  Cora came hurrying forward. "Good evening, Mose."

  "Good evening, Cory. How's my little Pink?"

  "What did you say about hittin' the trail, Mose?"

  "Now I reckon you'll give an account of yourself," said Reynolds with a wink.

  Mose was anxious to avoid an emotional moment; he cautiously replied: "Oh, I'm off on a little hunting excursion; don't get excited about it. I'm hungry as a coyote; can I eat?"

  Cora was silenced but not convinced, and after supper, when the old people withdrew from the kitchen, she returned to the subject again.

  "How long are you going to be gone this time?"

  Mose saw the storm coming, but would not lie to avoid it.

  "I don't know; mebbe all winter."

  She dropped into a chair facing him, white and still. When she spoke her voice was a wail. "O Mose! I can't live here all winter without you."

  "Oh, yes, you can; you've got Pink and the old folks."

  "But I want you! I'll die here without you, Mose. I can't endure it."

  His face darkened. "You'd better forget me; I'm a hoodoo, Cory; nobody is ever in luck when I'm around. I make everybody miserable."

  "I was never really happy till you come," she softly replied.

  "There are a lot of better men than I am jest a-hone'in to marry you," he interrupted her to say.

  "I don't want them—I don't want anybody but you, and now you go off and leave me——"

  The situation was beyond any subtlety of the man, and he sat in silence while she wept. When he could command himself he said:

  "I'm mighty sorry, Cory, but I reckon the best way out of it is to just take myself off in the hills where I can't interfere with any one's fun but my own. Seems to me I'm fated to make trouble all along the line, and I'm going to pull out where there's nobody but wolves and grizzlies, and fight it out with them."

  She was filled with a new terror: "What do you mean? I don't believe you intend to come back at all!" She looked at him piteously, the tears on her cheeks.

  "Oh, yes, I'll round the circle some time."

  She flung herself down on the chair arm and sobbed unrestrainedly. "Don't go—please!"

  Mose felt a sudden touch of the same disgust which came upon him in the presence of his father's enforcing affection. He arose. "Now, Cory, see here; don't you waste any time on me. I'm no good under the sun. I like you and I like Pinkie, but I don't want you to cry over me. I ain't worth it. Now that's the God's truth. I'm a black hoodoo, and you'll never prosper till I skip; I'm not fit to marry any woman."

  Singularly enough, this gave the girl almost instant comfort, and she lifted her head and dried her eyes, and before he left she smiled a little, though her face was haggard and tear stained.

  Mose was up early and had his packs ready and Kintuck saddled when Mrs. Reynolds called him to breakfast. Cora's pale face and piteous eyes moved him more deeply than her sobbing the night before, but there was a certain inexorable fixedness in his resolution, and he did not falter. At bottom the deciding cause was Mary. She had passed out of his life, but no other woman could take her place—therefore he was ready to cut loose from all things feminine.

  "Well, Mose, I'm sorry to see you go, I certainly am so," said Reynolds. "But, you ah you' own master. All I can say is, this old ranch is open to you, and shall be so long as we stay hyer—though I am mighty uncertain how long we shall be able to hold out agin this new land-boom. You had better not stay away too long, or you may miss us. I reckon we ah all to be driven to the mountains very soon."

  "I may be back in the spring. I'm likely to need money, and be obliged to come back to you for a job."

  On this tiny crumb of comfort Cora's hungry heart seized greedily. The little pink-cheeked one helped out the sad meal. She knew nothing of the long trail upon which her hero was about to set foot, and took possession of the conversation by telling of a little antelope which one of the cowboys had brought her.

  The mule was packed and Mose was about to say good-by. The sun was still low in the eastern sky. Frost was on the grass, but the air was crisp and pleasant. All the family stood beside him as he pac
ked his outfit on the mule and threw over it the diamond hitch. As he straightened up he turned to the waiting ones and said: "Do you see that gap in the range?"

  They all looked where he pointed. Down in the West, but lighted into unearthly splendor by the morning light, arose the great range of snowy peaks. In the midst of this impassable wall a purple notch could be seen.

  "Ever sence I've been here," said Mose, with singular emotion, "I've looked away at that range and I've been waiting my chance to see what that cañon is like. There runs my trail—good-by."

  He shook hands hastily with Cora, heartily with Mrs. Reynolds, and kissed Pink, who said: "Bring me a little bear or a fox."

  "All right, honey, you shall have a grizzly."

  He swung into the saddle. "Here I hit the trail for yon blue notch and the land where the sun goes down. So long."

  "Take care o' yourself, boy."

  "Come back soon," called Cora, and covered her face with her shawl in a world-old gesture of grief.

  In the days that followed she thought of him as she saw him last, a minute fleck on the plain. She thought of him when the rains fell, and prayed that he might not fall ill of fever or be whelmed by a stream. He seemed so little and weak when measured against that mighty and merciless wall of snow. Then when the cold white storms came and the plain was hid in the fury of wind and sleet, she shuddered and thought of him camped beside a rock, cold and hungry. She thought of him lying with a broken leg, helpless, while his faithful beasts pawed the ground and whinnied their distress. She spoke of these things once or twice, but her father merely smiled.

  "Mose can take care of himself, daughter, don't you worry."

  Months passed before they had a letter from him, and when it came it bore the postmark of Durango.

  "DEAR FRIENDS: I should a-written before, but the fact is I hate to write and then I've been on the move all the time. I struck through the gap and angled down to Taos, a Pueblo Indian town, where I stayed for a while—then went on down the Valley to Sante Fee. Then I hunted up Delmar. He was glad to see me, but he looks old. He had a hell of a time after I left. It wasn't the way the papers had it—but he won out all right. He sold his sheep and quit. He said he got tired of shooting men. I stayed with him—he's got a nice family—two girls—and then I struck out into the Pueblo country. These little brown chaps interest me but they're a different breed o' cats from the Ogallalahs. Everybody talks about the Snake Dance at Moki, so I'm angling out that way. I'm going to do a little cow punchin' for a man in Apache County and go on to the Dance. I'm going through the Navajoe reservation. I stand in with them. They've heard of me some way—through the Utes I reckon."

  The accounts of the Snake Dance contained mention of "Black Mose," who kept a band of toughs from interfering with the dance. His wonderful marksmanship was spoken of. He did not write till he reached Flagstaff. His letter was very brief. "I'm going into the Grand Cañon for a few days, then I go to work on a ranch south of here for the winter. In the spring I'm going over the range into California."

  When they heard of him next he was deputy marshal of a mining town, and the Denver papers contained long despatches about his work in clearing the town of desperadoes. After that they lost track of him altogether—but Cora never gave him up. "He'll round the big circle one o' these days—and when he does he'll find us all waiting, won't he, pet?" and she drew little Pink close to her hungry heart.

  * * *

  PART III

  CHAPTER XV

  THE EAGLE COMPLETES HIS CIRCLE

  All days were Sunday in the great mining camp of Wagon Wheel, so far as legal enactment ran, but on Saturday night, in following ancient habit, the men came out of their prospect holes on the high, grassy hills, or threw down the pick in their "overland tunnels," or deep shafts and rabbitlike burrows, and came to camp to buy provisions, to get their mail, and to look upon, if not to share, the vice and tumult of the town.

  The streets were filled from curb to curb with thousands of men in mud-stained coats and stout-laced boots. They stood in the gutters and in the middle of the street to talk (in subdued voices) of their claims. There was little noise. The slowly-moving streams of shoppers or amusement seekers gave out no sudden shouting. A deep murmur filled the air, but no angry curse was heard, no whooping. In a land where the revolver is readier than the fist men are wary of quarrel, careful of abuse, and studiously regardful of others.

  There were those who sought vice, and it was easily found. The saloons were packed with thirsty souls, and from every third door issued the click of dice and whiz of whirling balls in games of chance.

  Every hotel barroom swarmed with persuasive salesmen bearing lumps of ore with which to entice unwary capital. All the talk was of "pay-streaks," "leads," "float," "whins," and "up-raises," while in the midst of it, battling to save souls, the zealous Salvation Army band paraded to and fro with frenzied beating of drums. Around and through all this, listening with confused ears, gazing with wide, solemn eyes, were hundreds of young men from the middle East, farmers' sons, cowboys, mountaineers, and miners. To them it was an awesome city, this lurid camp, a wonder and an allurement to dissipation.

  To Mose, fresh from the long trail, it was irritating and wearying. He stood at the door of a saloon, superbly unconscious of his physical beauty, a somber dream in his eyes, a statuesque quality in his pose. He wore the wide hat of the West, but his neat, dark coat, though badly wrinkled, was well cut, and his crimson tie and dark blue shirt were handsomely decorative. His face was older, sterner, and sadder than when he faced Mary three years before. No trace of boyhood was in his manner. Seven years of life on the long trail and among the mountain peaks had taught him silence, self-restraint, and had also deepened his native melancholy. He had ridden into Wagon Wheel from the West, eager to see the great mining camp whose fame had filled the world.

  As he stood so, with the light of the setting sun in his face, the melancholy of a tiger in his eyes, a woman in an open barouche rode by. Her roving glance lighted upon his figure and rested there. "Wait!" she called to her driver, and from the shadow of her silken parasol she studied the young man's absorbed and motionless figure. He on his part perceived only a handsomely dressed woman looking out over the crowd. The carriage interested him more than the woman. It was a magnificent vehicle, the finest he had ever seen, and he wondered how it happened to be there on the mountain top.

  A small man with a large head stepped from the crowd and greeted the woman with a military salute. In answer to a question, the small man turned and glanced toward Mose. The woman bowed and drove on, and Mose walked slowly up the street, lonely and irresolute. At the door of a gambling house he halted and looked in. A young lad and an old man were seated together at a roulette table, and around them a ring of excited and amused spectators stood. Mose entered and took a place in the circle. The boy wore a look of excitement quite painful to see, and he placed his red and white chips with nervous, blundering, and ineffectual gestures, whereas the older man smiled benignly over his glasses and placed his single dollar chip each time with humorous decision. Each time he won. "This is for a new hat," he said, and the next time, "This is for a box at the theater." The boy, with his gains in the circle of his left arm, was desperately absorbed. No smile, no jest was possible to him.

  Mose felt a hand on his shoulder, and turning, found himself face to face with the small man who had touched his hat to the woman in the carriage. The stranger's countenance was stern in its outlines, and his military cut of beard added to his grimness, but his eyes were surrounded by fine lines of good humour.

  "Stranger, I'd like a word with you."

  Mose followed him to a corner, supposing him to be a man with mines to sell, or possibly a confidence man.

  "Stranger, where you from?"

  "From the Snake country," replied Mose.

  "What's your little game here?"

  Mose was angered at his tone. "None of your business."

  The older man flushe
d, and the laugh went out of his eyes. "I'll make it my business," he said grimly. "I've seen you somewhere before, but I can't place you. You want to get out o' town to-night; you're here for no man's good—you've got a 'graft.'"

  Mose struck him with the flat of his left hand, and, swift as a rattlesnake's stroke, covered him with his revolver. "Wait right where you are," he said, and the man became rigid. "I came here as peaceable as any man," Mose went on, "but I don't intend to be ridden out of town by a jackass like you."

  The other man remained calm. "If you'll kindly let me unbutton my coat, I'll show you my star; I'm the city marshal."

  "Be quiet," commanded Mose; "put up your hands!"

  Mose was aware of an outcry, then a silence, then a rush.

  From beneath his coat, quick as a flash of light from a mirror, he drew a second revolver. His eyes flashed around the room. For a moment all was silent, then a voice called, "What's all this, Haney?"

  "Keep them quiet," said Mose, still menacing the officer.

  "Boys, keep back," pleaded the marshal.

  "The man that starts this ball rolling will be sorry," said Mose, searching the crowd with sinister eyes. "If you're the marshal, order these men back to the other end of the room."

  "Boys, get back," commanded the marshal. With shuffling feet the crowd retreated. "Shut the door, somebody, and keep the crowd out."

  The doors were shut, and the room became as silent as a tomb.

  "Now," said Mose, "is it war or peace?"

  "Peace," said the marshal.

  "All right." Mose dropped the point of his revolver.

  The marshal breathed easier. "Stranger, you're a little the swiftest man I've met since harvest; would you mind telling me your name?"

  "Not a bit. My friends call me Mose Harding."

  "'Black Mose'!" exclaimed the marshal, and a mutter of low words and a laugh broke from the listening crowd. Haney reached out his hand. "I hope you won't lay it up against me." Mose shook his hand and the marshal went on: "To tell the honest truth, I thought you were one of Lightfoot's gang. I couldn't place you. Of course I see now—I have your picture at the office—the drinks are on me." He turned with a smile to the crowd: "Come, boys—irrigate and get done with it. It's a horse on me, sure."