The Yellow Sign & Other Stories

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Or shot,” repeated Pierpont, who was owner of the Cross-Cut Gold Mine and found his income too small; “Professor La Grange will of course be prudent;—science need not know things that would upset the world!”

  “Little Willy,” said Barris laughing, “your income is safe.” “I suppose,” said I, “some flaw in the nugget gave Professor La Grange the tip.” “Exactly. He cut the flaw out before sending the nugget to be tested. He worked on the flaw and separated gold into its three ele- ments.”

  “He is a great man,” said Pierpont, “but he will be the greatest man in the world if he can keep his discovery to himself.” “Who?” said Barris.

  “Professor La Grange.”

  “Professor La Grange was shot through the heart two hours ago,” replied Barris slowly.

  II We had been at the shooting box in the Cardinal Woods five days when a telegram was brought to Barris by a mounted messenger from the nearest telegraph station, Cardinal Springs, a hamlet on the lumber railroad which joins the Quebec and Northern at Three Rivers Junction, thirty miles below.

  Pierpont and I were sitting out under the trees, loading some special shells as experiments; Barris stood beside us, bronzed, erect, holding his pipe carefully so that no sparks should drift into our powder box. The beat of hoofs over the grass aroused us, and when the lank messenger drew bridle before the door, Barris stepped forward and took the sealed telegram. When he had torn it open he went into the house and presently reappeared, reading something that he had written.

  “This should go at once,” he said, looking the messenger full in the face..”At once, Colonel Barris,” replied the shabby countryman. Pienpont glanced up and I smiled at the messenger who was gathering his bridle and settling himself in his stirrups. Barris handed him the written reply and nodded good-bye: there was a thud of hoofs on the greensward, a jingle of bit and spur across the gravel, and the messenger was gone. Barris’ pipe went out and he stepped to windward to relight it.

  “It is queer”, said I, “that your messenger—a battered native,— should speak like a Harvard man.”

  “He is a Harvard man,” said Barris.

  ‘And the plot thickens,” said Pierpont; “are the Cardinal Woods full of your Secret Service men, Barris?”

  “No,” replied Barris, “but the telegraph stations are. How many ounces of shot are you using, Roy?” I told him, holding up the adjustable steel measuring cup. He nodded. After a moment on two he sat down on a camp-stool beside us and picked up a crimper.

  “That telegram was from Drummond,” he said; “the messenger was one of my men as you two bright little boys divined. Pooh! If he had spoken the Cardinal County dialect you wouldn’t have known.”

  “His make-up was good,” said Pierpont.

  Barris twirled the crimper and looked at the pile of loaded shells. Then he picked up one and crimped it.

  “Let ‘em alone,” said Pienpont, “you crimp too tight.” “Does his little gun kick when the shells are crimped too tight?” enquired Barris tenderly; “well, he shall crimp his own shells then,— where’s his little man?”

  “His little man” was a weird English importation, stiff, very carefully scrubbed, tangled in his aspirates, named Howlett. As valet, gilly, gun-bearer, and crimper, he aided Pierpont to endure the ennui of existence, by doing for him everything except breathing. Lately, however, Barris’ taunts had driven Pierpont to do a few things for himself To his astonishment he found that cleaning his own gun was not a bore, so he timidly loaded a shell or two, was much pleased with himself, loaded some more, crimped them, and went to breakfast with an appetite. So when Barris asked where “his little man” was, Pierpont did not reply but dug a cupful of shot from the bag and poured it solemnly into the half filled shell.

  Old David came out with the dogs and of course there was a powwow when “Voyou,” my Gordon, wagged his splendid rail across the loading table and sent a dozen unstopped cartridges rolling oven the grass, vomiting powder and shot.

  “Give the dogs a mile on two,” said I; “we will shoot oven the Sweet Fern Covert about four o’clock, David.”

  “Two guns, David,” added Barris.

  ‘Are you not going?” asked Pierpont, looking up, as David disappeared with the dogs. “Bigger game,” said Barris shortly. He picked up a mug of ale from the tray which Howlett had just set down beside us and took a long pull. We did the same, silently. Pierpont set his mug on the turf beside him and returned to his loading.

  We spoke of the murder of Professor La Grange, of how it had been concealed by the authorities in New York at Drummond’s request, of the certainty that it was one of the gang of gold-makers who had done it, and of the possible alertness of the gang.

  “Oh, they know that Drummond will be after them sooner on later,” said Barris, “but they don’t know that the mills of the gods have already begun to grind. Those smart New York papers.builded better than they knew when their ferret-eyed reporter poked his red nose into the house on 58th Street and sneaked off with a column on his cuffs about the ‘suicide’ of Professor La Grange. Billy Pierpont, my revolver is hanging in your room; I’ll take yours too— “Help your- self,” said Pierpont.

  “I shall be gone oven night,” continued Barris; “my poncho and some bread and meat are all I shall take except the ‘barkers.’ “ “Will they bark to-night?” I asked. “No, I trust not for several weeks yet. I shall nose about a bit. Roy, did it even strike you how queer it is that this wonderfully beautiful country should contain no inhabitants?”

  “It’s like those splendid stretches of pools and rapids which one finds on every trout river and in which one never finds a fish,” sug- gested Pierpont.

  “Exactly,—and Heaven alone knows why,” said Barris; “I sup - pose this country is shunned by human beings for the same mysterious reasons.”

  “The shooting is the better for it,” I observed. “The shooting is good,” said Barris, “have you noticed the snipe on the meadow by the lake? Why it’s brown with them! That’s a wonderful meadow.”

  “It’s a natural one,” said Pierpont, “no human being even cleaned that land.”

  “Then it’s supernatural,” said Barris; “Pierpont, do you want to come with me?”

  Pierpont’s handsome face flushed as he answered slowly, “It’s awfully good of you,—if I may.”

  “Bosh,” said I, piqued because he had asked Pierpont, “what use is little Willy without his man?” “True,” said Barris gravely, “you can’t take Howlett, you know.” Pierpont muttered something which ended in “d—n.”

  “Then,” said I, “there will be but one gun on the Sweet Fern Covent this afternoon. Very well, I wish you joy of your cold supper and colder bed. Take your night-gown, Willy, and don’t sleep on the damp ground.”

  “Let Pierpont alone,” retorted Barris, “you shall go next time, Roy.” “Oh, all right,—you mean when there’s shooting going on?” “And I?” demanded Pierpont, grieved.

  “You too, my son; stop quarrelling! Will you ask Howlett to pack our kits—lightly mind you,—no bottles,—they clink.”

  “My flask doesn’t,” said Pierpont, and went off to get ready for a night’s stalking of dangerous men.

  “It is strange,” said I, “that nobody ever settles in this region. How many people live in Cardinal Springs, Barris?” “Twenty counting the telegraph operator and not counting the lumbermen; they are always changing and shifting. I have six men among them.”

  “Where have you no men? In the Four Hundred?” “I have men there also,—chums of Billy’s only he doesn’t know it. David tells me that there was a strong flight of woodcock last night. You ought to pick up some this afternoon.”

  Then we chatted about alder-coven and swamp until Pierpont came out of the house and it was time to part.

  “Au revoir,” said Barris, buckling on his kit, “come along, Pierpont, and don’t walk in the damp grass.” “If you are not back by to-morrow noon,” said I, “I will take Howlett and Dav
id and hunt you up. You say your course is due north?”

  “Due north.” replied Barris, consulting his compass. “There is a trail for two miles and a spotted lead for two more, said Pierpont. “Which we won’t use for various reasons,” added Barris pleasantly; “don’t worry, Roy, and keep your confounded expedition out of the way; there’s no danger.”

  He knew, of course, what he was talking about and I held my peace. When the tip end of Pienpont’s shooting coat had disappeared in the Long Covert, I found myself standing alone with Howlett. He bore my gaze for a moment and then politely lowered his eyes.

  “Howlett,” said I, “take these shells and implements to the gun room, and drop nothing. Did Voyou come to any harm in the briers this morning?”

  “No ‘arm, Mr. Cardenhe, sir,” said Howlett. “Then be careful not no drop anything else,” said I, and walked away leaving him decorously puzzled. For he had dropped no cartridges. Poor Howlett!

  III About four o’clock that afternoon I men David and the dogs at the spinney which leads into the Sweet Fern Covent. The three setters, Voyou, Gamin, and Mioche, were in fine feather,—David had killed a woodcock and a brace of grouse oven them that morning,—and they were thrashing about the spinney an short range when I came up, gun under arm and pipe lighted.

  “What’s the prospect, David,” I asked, trying to keep my feet in the tangle of wagging, whining dogs; “hello, what’s amiss with Mioche?”

  “A brier in his foot sir; I drew it and stopped the wound but I guess the gravel’s got in. If you have no objection, sin, I might take him back with me.”

  “It’s safer,” I said; “take Gamin too, I only want one dog this afternoon. What is the situation?” “Fair sir; the grouse lie within a quarter of a mile of the oak second-growth. The woodcock are mostly on the alders. I saw any number of snipe on the meadows. There’s something else in by the lake,— I can’t just tell what, but the wood-duck set up a clatter when I was in the thicket and they come dashing through the wood as if a dozen foxes was snappin’ an their tail feathers.”

  “Probably a fox,” I said; “leash those dogs,—they must learn to stand in. I’ll be back by dinner time.”

  “There is one more thing sir,” said David, lingering with his gun under his arm.

  “Well,” said I.

  “I saw a man in the woods by the Oak Covern,—at least I think I did.”

  ‘A lumberman?”

  “I think not sir—at least,—do they have Chinamen among them?”

  “Chinese? No. You didn’t see a Chinaman in the woods here?” “I— I think I did sir,—I can’t say positively. He was gone when I ran into the covert.”

  “Did the dogs notice it?” “I can’t say—exactly.They acted queer like. Gamin here lay down an’whined—it may have been colic—and Mioche whimpered,—per- haps it was the brier.”

  “And Voyou?”

  “Voyou, he was most remarkable sir, and the hair on his back stood up, I did see a groundhog makin’ for a tree near by.” “Then no wonder Voyou bristled. David, your Chinaman was a stump or tussock. Take the dogs now.”

  “I guess it was sir; good afternoon sir,” said David, and walked away with the Gordons leaving me alone with Voyou in the spinney. I looked at the dog and he looked at me.

  “Voyou!”

  The dog sat down and danced with his fore feet, his beautiful brown eyes sparkling. “You’re a fraud,” I said; “which shall it be, the alders or the upland? Upland? Good!—now for the grouse,—heel, my friend, and show your miraculous self-restraint.”

  Voyou wheeled into my tracks and followed close, nobly refusing to notice the impudent chipmunks and the thousand and one alluring and important smells which an ordinary dog would have lost no time in investigating.

  The brown and yellow autumn woods were crisp with drifting heaps of leaves and twigs that crackled under foot as we turned from the spinney into the forest. Every silent little stream hurrying toward the lake was gay with painted leaves afloat, scarlet maple or yellow oak. Spots of sunlight fell upon the pools, searching the brown depths, illuminating the gravel bottom where shoals of minnows swam to and fro, and to and fro again, busy with the purpose of their little lives. The crickets were chirping in the long brittle grass on the edge of the woods, but we left them far behind in the silence of the deeper forest.

  “Now!” said I to Voyou. The dog sprang to the front, circled once, zigzagged through the ferns around us and, all in a moment, stiffened stock still, rigid as sculptured bronze. I stepped forward, raising my gun, two paces, three paces, ten perhaps, before a great cock-grouse blundered up from the brake and burst through the thicket fringe toward the deeper growth. There was a flash and puff from my gun, a crash of echoes among the low wooded cliffs, and through the faint veil of smoke something dark dropped from mid-air amid a cloud of feathers, brown as the brown leaves under foot.

  “Fetch!” Up from the ground sprang Voyou, and in a moment he came galloping back, neck arched, tail stiff but waving, holding tenderly in his pink mouth a mass of mottled bronzed feathers. Very gravely he laid the bird at my feet and crouched close beside in, his silky ears across his paws, his muzzle on the ground.

  I dropped the grouse into my pocket, held for a moment a silent caressing communion with Voyou, then swung my gun under my arm and motioned the dog on.

  It must have been five o’clock when I walked into a little open - ing in the woods and sat down to breathe. Voyou came and san down in front of me.

  “Well?” I enquired.

  Voyou gravely presented one paw which I took. “We will never get back in time for dinner,” said I, “so we might as well take it easy It’s all your fault, you know. Is there a brier in your foot?—let’s see,—there! it’s out my friend and you are free to nose about and lick it. If you loll your tongue out you’ll get it all over twigs and moss.

  Can’t you lie down and try to pant less? No, there is no use in sniffing and looking an that fern patch, for we are going to smoke a little, doze a little, and go home by moonlight. Think what a big dinner we will have! Think of Howlett’s despair when we are not in time! Think of all the stories you will have to tell to Gamin and Mioche! Think what a good dog you have been!

  There—you are tired old chap; take forty winks with me.” Voyou was a little tired. He stretched out on the leaves at my feet but whether or not he really slept I could not be certain, until his hind legs twitched and I knew he was dreaming of mighty deeds.

  Now I may have taken forty winks, but the sun seemed no be no lower when I sat up and unclosed my lids. Voyou raised his head, saw in my eyes that I was not going yet, thumped his tail half a dozen times on the dried leaves, and settled back with a sigh.

  I looked lazily around, and for the first rime noticed what a won - derfully beautiful spot I had chosen for a nap. It was an oval glade in the heart of the forest, level and carpeted with green grass. The trees that surrounded it were gigantic; they formed one towering circular wall of verdure, blotting out all except the turquoise blue of the skyoval above. And now I noticed that in the centre of the greensward lay a pool of water, crystal clear, glimmering like a mirror in the meadow grass, beside a block of granite. It scarcely seemed possible than the symmetry of tree and lawn and lucent pool could have been one of nature’s accidents. I had never before seen this glade nor had I ever heard it spoken of by either Pierpont on Barris. It was a marvel, this diamond clean basin, regular and graceful as a Roman fountain, set in the gem of turf. And these great trees,—they also belonged, not in America but in some legend-haunted forest of France, where mossgrown marbles stand neglected in dim glades, and the twilight of the forest shelters fairies and slender shapes from shadow-land.

  I lay and watched the sunlight showering the tangled thicket where masses of crimson Cardinal-flowers glowed, or where one long dusty sunbeam tipped the edge of the floating leaves in the pool, run- ning them to palest gilt. There were birds too, passing through the dim avenues of trees like jets of flam
e,—the gorgeous Cardinal-Bind in his deep stained crimson robe,—the bird that gave to the woods, to the village fifteen miles away, to the whole country, the name of Cardinal.

  I rolled over on my back and looked up an the sky. How pale,— paler than a robin’s egg,—it was. I seemed to be lying at the bottom of a well, walled with verdure, high towering on every side. And, as I lay, all about me the air became sweet scented. Sweeter and sweeter and more penetrating grew the perfume, and I wondered what stray breeze, blowing oven acres of lilies, could have brought in. But there was no breeze; the air was still. A gilded fly alighted on my hand,—a honey-fly. It was as troubled as I by the scented silence.

  Then, behind me, my dog growled. I sat quite still at first, hardly breathing, but my eyes were fixed on a shape that moved along the edge of the pool among the meadow grasses. The dog had ceased growling and was now snaring, alert and trembling.

  At last I nose and walked rapidly down to the pool, my dog following close to heel. The figure, a woman’s, turned slowly toward us.

  IV

  She was standing still when I approached the pool. The forest around us was so silent that when I spoke the sound of my own voice startled me.

  “No,” she said,—and her voice was smooth as flowing water, “I have not lost my way. Will he come to me, your beautiful dog?” Before I could speak, Voyou crept to her and laid his silky head against her knees. “But surely,” said I, “you did not come here alone.” “Alone? I did come alone.”

  “But the nearest settlement is Cardinal, probably nineteen miles from where we are standing.”

  “I do not know Cardinal,” she said.

  “Ste. Croix in Canada is forty miles at least,—how did you come into the Cardinal Woods?” I asked amazed. “Into the woods?” she repeated a little impatiently.

  “Yes.”

  She did not answer at first but stood caressing Voyou with gentle phrase and gesture.

  “Your beautiful dog I am fond of, but I am non fond of being questioned,” she said quietly.