by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A CAVE DWELLER JACK WOULD BE
Smoke-tinged sunlight and warm winds and languorous days held foranother full month in the mountains. Then the pines complained allthrough one night, and in the morning they roared like the rush ofbreakers in a storm, and sent dead branches crashing down, and siftedbrown needles thick upon the earth below.
"A-ah, but she's goin' t' give us the rain now, I dunno," Murphypredicted, staring up at the leaden clouds through his thick glasses."Ye better git up some firewood, Mike, and make the camp snug aginfoul weather. An' av' the both of ye ain't got yer place tight an'ready fer a sthorm, ye betther be stirrin' yerselves an' let thediggin' go fer a day. It's firewood ye'll need, an' in a dry place.An' while ye're talkin' 'bout wood, have yer got yer wood fer thewinter? An' yer goin' to sthay, ye bin tellin' me."
Fred looked around him at the forest where the oaks and thecottonwoods and all the trailing vines were fluttering gay red andyellow leaves in the wind. Fall was slipping on him unaware. He hadthought that there was plenty of time to make ready for winter, butnow he knew that the time was short--too short, maybe, with that windbooming up from the southwest.
"You and Mike can knock off work here, and when your camp's in shapeyou can come over and cut wood for us. Doug, we'll beat it and throwthat woodshed together we've been going to build. Think it'll stormtoday, Murphy?"
Murphy stepped out where he could glimpse the southern sky, and eyedthe drift of heavy clouds. "She will not bust loose t'day, I'mthinkin'," he decided. "She'll be workin' 'erself up to the pint avshnowin' er rainin' er both. Rain in the valley, shnow up here wherewe're at, I'm thinkin'. She'll be a rip when she does bust loose, meboy, an' ye can't have things too tight an' shnug."
"I believe yuh. Come on, Doug. Murphy, you can take care of the toolsand cover up the hole, will you?"
"I will do that." Murphy grinned after the two tolerantly. "Will Itake care av me tools, an' it buildin' a sthorm?" he sarcasticallyasked the swaying bushes around him. "An' do I need a pilgrim toremind me av that? An' thim wit' no wood, I dunno, whin they shud havethurrty tier at the very least, sawed an' sphlit an' ricked up undercover where it can be got at whin they want it--an' they will want it,fair enough! A-ah, but they'll find they ain't winterin' in SouthernCaliforny, before they're t'rough with this country. They're not gottheir winter grub laid in, an' I'll bet money on't, an' no wood, an'they're like t' be shnowed in here, whin no rig will come up thotgrade wit' a load an' I don't care how much they'll pay t' have ithauled, an' them two not able t' pack grub on their backs as I've donemanny's the time, an' them wimmin wantin' all the nicks Lee's got inhis sthores! Cake an' pie, it's likely they must have in the house erthey think they're not eatin'." Murphy talked as he worked, puttingthe tools in a pile ready to be carried to camp, picking up pieces ofrope and wire and boards and nails, and laying a plank roof over thewindlass and weighting it with rocks. Mike had gone pacing to camp,swinging his arms and talking to himself also, though his talk wasless humanly kind under the monotonous grumble. Mike was gobblingunder his breath, something about law-suing anybody that comebotherin' him an' tryin' t' arrest him for nothin'. But Murphycontinued to harp upon the subject of domestic preparedness.
"An' that leanto them men sleep in is no better than nothin' an' if itkapes the rain off their blankets it'll not kape off the shnow, an'it won't kape off the wind at all. An' they've not got the beddin'they'll be needin', an' I'll bet money on it.
"They should have a cellar dug back av the cabin where's the hill thesun gets to, an' they should have it filled with spuds an' cabbagesan' the like--but what have they got? A dollar's worth av sugar,maybe, an' a fifty-poun' sack av flour, an' maybe a roll av butter an'a table full of nicknacks which they could do without--an' wintercomin' on like the lope av a coyote after a rabbit, an' them no betterprepared than the rabbit, ner so, fer the rabbit's maybe got a hole hecan duck inty an' they have nawthin' but the summer camp they've made,an' _hammicks_, by gorry, whin they should have warrm overshoes an'sourdough coats! Tenderfeet an' pilgrims they be, an' these mountainsis no place fer such with winter comin' on--an' like to be a bad wanthe way the squrls has been layin' away nuts."
Pilgrims and tenderfeet they were, and their lack of foresight mightwell shock an oldtimer like Murphy. But he would have been still moreshocked had he seen what poor amateurish preparations for the comingwinter another young tenderfoot had been making. If he had seen theplace which Jack Corey had chosen for his winter hide-out I think hewould have taken a fit; and if he had seen the little pile of foodwhich Jack referred to pridefully as his grubstake I don't know whathe would have done.
Under the barren, rock-upended peak of King Solomon there was a narrowcleft between two huge slabs that had slipped off the ledge when themountain was in the making. At the farther end of the cleft there wasa cave the size of a country school-house, with a jagged opening inthe roof at one side, and with a "back-door" opening that let one outinto a network of clefts and caves. It was cool and quiet in therewhen Jack discovered the hiding place, and the wind blowing directlyfrom the south that day, did not more than whistle pleasantly througha big fissure somewhere in the roof.
Jack thought it must have been made to order, and hastened down totheir meeting place and told Marion so. And the very next day sheinsisted upon meeting him on the ridge beyond Toll-Gate basin andclimbing with him to the cave. As soon as she had breath enough totalk, she agreed with him as emphatically as her vocabulary and herflexible voice would permit. Made to order? She should say it was!Why, it was perfect, and she was just as jealous of him as she couldbe. Why, look at the view! And the campfire smoke wouldn't show butwould drift away through all those caves; or if it did show, peoplewould simply think that a new volcano had bursted loose, and theywould be afraid to climb the peak for fear of getting caught in aneruption. Even if they did come up, Jack could see them hours beforethey got there, and he could hide. And anyway, they never would findhis cave. It was perfect, just like a moonshiner story or something.
Speaking of smoke reminded Jack that he would have to lay in a supplyof wood, which was some distance below the rock crest. Manzanita wasthe closest, and that was brushy stuff. He also told Marion gravelythat he must do it before any snow came, or his tracks would be a deadgive-away to the place. He must get all his grubstake in too, andafter snowfall he would have to be mighty careful about making tracksaround any place.
Marion thought that snow on the mountain would be "keen," andsuggested that Jack try a pair of her shoes, and see if he couldn'tmanage to wear them whenever there was snow. His feet were very smallfor a man's, and hers were--well, not tiny for a woman, and she wouldspend so much time hiking around over the hills that a person wouldthink, of course, she had made the tracks. Being an impulsive youngwoman who believed in doing things on the spot, she thereupon retiredbehind a corner of rock, and presently threw one of her high-laceboots out to Jack. It crumpled his toes, but Jack thought he couldwear it if he had to. So that point was settled satisfactorily, andthey went on planning impossibilities with a naive enthusiasm thatwould have horrified Murphy.
Any man could have told Jack things to dampen his enthusiasm forwintering on the top of King Solomon. But Jack, for perfectly obviousreasons, was not asking any man for information or advice upon thatsubject. Hank Brown would have rambled along the trail of many wordsand eventually have told Jack some things that he ought to know--onlyHank Brown came no more to Mount Hough lookout station. A strangerbrought Jack's weekly pack-load of supplies; a laconic type of man whoheld his mind and his tongue strictly to the business at hand. Theother men who came there were tourists, and with them Jack would nottalk at all if he could help it.
So he went blandly on with his camp building, four precious days outof every month. He chopped dead manzanita bush and carried it on hisback to his hide-out, and was tickled with the pile he managed to storeaway in one end of the cave. Working in warm weather, it seemed to bea great deal of wood.
From the lookout station he watched the slow building of the stormthat so worried Murphy because of the Toll-Gate people. He watched thecircled sweep of the clouds rushing from mountain ridge to mountainridge. Straight off Claremont they came, and tangled themselves in thetreetops of the higher slopes. The wind howled over the mountain sofiercely that he could scarcely force his way against it to the springfor water. And when he filled his bucket the wind sloshed half of itout before he could reach the puny shelter of his station. If he hadever wondered why that station was banked solid to the window-sillswith rocks, he wondered no more when he felt that gale pushing andtugging at it and shrieking as if it were enraged because it could notpick the station up bodily and fling it down into the lake below.
"Gee! I'm glad I've got a cave the wind can't monkey with, to winterin," he congratulated himself fatuously once, when the little boxlikebuilding shook in the blast.
That night the wind slept, and the mountain lay hushed after thetumult. But the clouds hung heavy and gray at dark, and in the morningthey had not drifted on. It was as though the mountain tops hadcorralled all the clouds in the country and held them penned likesheep over the valleys. With the gray sunrise came the wind again, andhowled and trumpeted and bullied the harassed forests until dark. Andthen, with dark came the stinging slap of rain upon the windows, andpressed Jack's loneliness deep into the soul of him.
"They'll be shutting up this joint for the winter," he told himselfmany times that night, half hopefully, half regretfully. "They won'tpay a man to watch forests that are soaking wet. I guess my job's donehere."
The next morning a thin white blanket of snow fresh sifted from theclouds lay all over the summit and far down the sides. Beyond itsedges the rain beat steadily upon the matted leaves and branches.Surely his job was ended with that storm, Jack kept telling himself,while he stared out at his drenched world capped with white. It wasthe nearest he had ever been to snow, except once or twice when he hadgone frolicking up Mount Wilson with snowballing parties. He scoopedup handfuls of it with a dreary kind of gleefulness--dreary because hemust be gleeful alone--he made tracks all around just for the noveltyof it; he snowballed the rocks. He would soon go into a different kindof exile, without rules and regulations to hamper his movements;without seventy-five dollars a month salary, too, by the way! But hewould have the freedom of the mountains. He would be snug and safe inhis cave over there, and Marion would climb up to meet him every dayor so and bring him magazines and news of the outside world. And hewould fill in the time hunting, and maybe do a little prospecting, ashe had vaguely hinted to the man who brought his supplies. It wouldnot be so bad.
But his job did not end with that storm. The storm passed after a fewdays of dreary drizzle in the lower country and howling winds over thecrest and a few hours of daytime snowfall that interested Jack hugelybecause he had never in his life before seen snow actually falling outof the sky. Then the sun came out and dried the forests, andSupervisor Ross said nothing whatever about closing the lookoutstation for the winter.
A week of beautiful weather brought other beautiful weeks. He hadanother four days' relief and, warned by the storm, he spent the timein laboriously carrying dead pine wood and spruce bark up to his cave.It wouldn't do any harm to have a lot of wood stored away. It mightget pretty cold, some stormy days. Already the nights were prettynippy, even to a warm blooded young fellow who had never in his lifereally suffered from cold. Some instinct of self-preservation impelledhim to phone in for a canvas bed sheet--a "tarp," he had heard HankBrown call it--and two pairs of the heaviest blankets to be had inQuincy. You bet a fellow ought to be prepared for the worst when he isplanning to winter in a cave! Especially when he must do his preparingnow, or tough it out till spring.
With his mirror he heliographed a signal to Marion, and when she camehe said he must have more cigarettes, because he might smoke harderwhen he was really settled down to roughing it. What he should haveordered was more bacon and flour, but he did not know that, his minddwelling upon the luxuries of life rather than the necessities--he whohad never met real necessity face to face.
"I'll send the order right away," Marion obligingly promised him. "ButKate will be simply furious if she sees the package. The last lot Imade her believe was candy that was sent me, and because I didn'toffer her any of it--I couldn't, of course--she would hardly talk fora whole day, and she hinted about selfishness. She thinks I carry mypockets full of candy when I start off hiking through the woods, andeat it all by myself." She laughed because it seemed a good joke onKate.
The next time she climbed up to the station she found him boarding upthe windows and hanging certain things from the ceiling to keep themaway from rats, under the telephone directions of the supervisor. Heexpected Hank's successor up that afternoon to move down what must betaken to town for the winter. He did not seem so cheerful over thenear prospect of hiding out on King Solomon, and Marion herself seemeddepressed a bit and more silent than usual. The wind whistled keenlyover the peak, whipping her khaki skirt around her ankles andsearching out the open places in her sweater. Claremont and the piledridges beyond were hooded in clouds that seemed heavy with moisture,quite unlike the woolly fleeces of fair weather.
"Well, she's all nailed down for the winter," Jack said apatheticallywhen the last board was in place. "She's been a queer old summer, butI kind of hate to leave the old peak, at that."
They turned their heads involuntarily and stared across thefire-scarred mountainside to where Taylor Rock thrust bleakly up intothe sky. A summer unmarked by incidents worthy the name of events,spent on one mountain top; a winter that promised as little diversionupon another mountain top--
"Say, a ride on a real live street car would look as big to me rightnow as a three-ring circus," Jack summed up his world-hunger with ashrug. "By the time I've wintered over there I'll be running round incircles trying to catch my shadow. Plumb bugs, that's what I'll be;and don't I know it!"
"You'll love it," Marion predicted with elaborate cheerfulness. "Ionly wish I could change places with you. Think of me, shut up in adark little three-room cabin with one elocutionist, one chronic grouchand one human bluebottle fly that does nothing but buzz! You're alucky kid to have a whole mountain all to yourself. Think of me!"
"Oh, I'll think of you, all right!" Jack returned glumly and turnedback to the denuded little station. "I'll think of you," he repeatedunder his breath, feeling savagely for the top button of his thickgray sweater. "Don't I know it!"