CHAPTER II
Thus did John Cardigan dream, and as he dreamed he worked. The city ofSequoia was born with the Argonaut's six-room mansion of rough redwoodboards and a dozen three-room cabins with lean-to kitchens; and thetradespeople came when John Cardigan, with something of the largeness ofhis own redwood trees, gave them ground and lumber in order to encouragethe building of their enterprises. Also the dream of the schoolhouseand the church came true, as did the steam tugboat and the schooner withthree masts. The mill was enlarged until it could cut forty thousandfeet on a twelve-hour shift, and a planer and machines for making rusticsiding and tongued-and-grooved flooring and ceiling were installed. Moreox-teams appeared upon the skid-road, which was longer now; the cry of"Timber-r-r!" and the thunderous roar of a falling redwood grew fainterand fainter as the forest receded from the bay shore, and at last thewhine of the saws silenced these sounds forever in Sequoia.
At forty John Cardigan was younger than most men at thirty, albeit heworked fourteen hours a day, slept eight, and consumed the remaining twoat his meals. But through all those fruitful years of toil he had stillfound time to dream, and the spell of the redwoods had lost none of itspotency. He was still checker-boarding the forested townships with hisadverse holdings--the key-positions to the timber in back of beyondwhich some day should come to his hand. Also he had competition now:other sawmills dotted the bay shore; other three-masted schoonerscarried Humboldt redwood to the world beyond the bar, over which theywere escorted by other and more powerful steam-tugs. This competitionJohn Cardigan welcomed and enjoyed, however, for he had been first inHumboldt, and the townsite and a mile of tidelands fronting on deepwater were his; hence each incoming adventurer merely helped his dreamof a city to come true.
At forty-two Cardigan was the first mayor of Sequoia. At forty-four hewas standing on his dock one day, watching his tug kick into her berththe first square-rigged ship that had ever come to Humboldt Bay to loada cargo of clear redwood for foreign delivery. She was a big Bath-builtclipper, and her master a lusty down-Easter, a widower with one daughterwho had come with him around the Horn. John Cardigan saw this girl comeup on the quarter-deck and stand by with a heaving-line in her hand;calmly she fixed her glance upon him, and as the ship was shunted incloser to the dock, she made the cast to Cardigan. He caught the lightheaving-line, hauled in the heavy Manila stern-line to which it wasattached, and slipped the loop of the mooring-cable over the dolphin atthe end of the dock.
"Some men wanted aft here to take up the slack of the stern-line on thewindlass, sir," he shouted to the skipper, who was walking around on topof the house. "That girl can't haul her in alone."
"Can't. I'm short-handed," the skipper replied. "Jump aboard and helpher."
Cardigan made a long leap from the dock to the ship's rail, balancedthere lightly a moment, and sprang to the deck. He passed the bight ofthe stern-line in a triple loop around the drum of the windlass, andwithout awaiting his instructions, the girl grasped the slack of theline and prepared to walk away with it as the rope paid in on thewindlass. Cardigan inserted a belaying-pin in the windlass, pausedand looked at the girl. "Raise a chantey," he suggested. Instantly shelifted a sweet contralto in that rollicking old ballad of the sea--"Blowthe Men Down."
For tinkers and tailors and lawyers and all, Way! Aye! Blow the men down! They ship for real sailors aboard the Black Ball, Give me some time to blow the men down.
Round the windlass Cardigan walked, steadily and easily, and the girl'seyes widened in wonder as he did the work of three powerful men. Whenthe ship had been warped in and the slack of the line made fast on thebitts, she said:
"Please run for'd and help my father with the bow-lines. You're worththree foremast hands. Indeed, I didn't expect to see a sailor on thisdock."
"I had to come around the Horn to get here, Miss," he explained, "andwhen a man hasn't money to pay for his passage, he needs must work it."
"I'm the second mate," she explained. "We had a succession of gales fromthe Falklands to the Evangelistas, and there the mate got her in ironsand she took three big ones over the taffrail and cost us eight men.Working short-handed, we couldn't get any canvas on her to speakof--long voyage, you know, and the rest of the crew got scurvy."
"You're a brave girl," he told her.
"And you're a first-class A. B.," she replied. "If you're looking for aberth, my father will be glad to ship you."
"Sorry, but I can't go," he called as he turned toward the companionladder. "I'm Cardigan, and I own this sawmill and must stay here andlook after it."
There was a light, exultant feeling in his middle-aged heart as hescampered along the deck. The girl had wonderful dark auburn hair andbrown eyes, with a milk-white skin that sun and wind had sought in vainto blemish. And for all her girlhood she was a woman--bred from a race(his own people) to whom danger and despair merely furnished a tonicfor their courage. What a mate for a man! And she had looked at himpridefully.
They were married before the ship was loaded, and on a knoll of thelogged-over lands back of the town and commanding a view of the bay,with the dark-forested hills in back and the little second-growthredwoods flourishing in the front yard, he built her the finest home inSequoia. He had reserved this building-site in a vague hope that someday he might utilize it for this very purpose, and here he spent withher three wonderfully happy years. Here his son Bryce was born, andhere, two days later, the new-made mother made the supreme sacrifice ofmaternity.
For half a day following the destruction of his Eden John Cardigan satdumbly beside his wife, his great, hard hand caressing the auburn headwhose every thought for three years had been his happiness and comfort.Then the doctor came to him and mentioned the matter of funeralarrangements.
Cardigan looked up at him blankly. "Funeral arrangements?" he murmured."Funeral arrangements?" He passed his gnarled hand over his leoninehead. "Ah, yes, I suppose so. I shall attend to it."
He rose and left the house, walking with bowed head out of Sequoia, upthe abandoned and decaying skid-road through the second-growth redwoodsto the dark green blur that marked the old timber. It was May, andNature was renewing herself, for spring comes late in Humboldt County.From an alder thicket a pompous cock grouse boomed intermittently; thevalley quail, in pairs, were busy about their household affairs; from aclump of manzanita a buck watched John Cardigan curiously. On past thelanding where the big bull donkey-engine stood (for with the march ofprogress, the logging donkey-engine had replaced the ox-teams, while thelogs were hauled out of the woods to the landing by means of a mile-longsteel cable, and there loaded on the flat-cars of a logging railroadto be hauled to the mill and dumped in the log-boom) he went, up theskid-road recently swamped from the landing to the down timber wherethe crosscut men and barkpeelers were at work, on into the green timberwhere the woods-boss and his men were chopping.
"Come with me, McTavish," he said to his woods-boss. They passed througha narrow gap between two low hills and emerged in a long narrow valleywhere the redwood grew thickly and where the smallest tree was notless than fifteen feet in diameter and two hundred and fifty feet tall.McTavish followed at the master's heels as they penetrated this grove,making their way with difficulty through the underbrush until they cameat length to a little amphitheatre, a clearing perhaps a hundred feetin diameter, oval-shaped and surrounded by a wall of redwoods of suchdimensions that even McTavish, who was no stranger to these naturalmarvels, was struck with wonder. The ground in this little amphitheatrewas covered to a depth of a foot with brown, withered little redwoodtwigs to which the dead leaves still clung, while up through thisaromatic covering delicate maidenhair ferns and oxalis had thrustthemselves. Between the huge brown boles of the redwoods woodwardia grewriotously, while through the great branches of these sentinels of theages the sunlight filtered. Against the prevailing twilight of thesurrounding forest it descended like a halo, and where it struck theground John Cardigan paused.
"McTavish," he said, "she died this morning."
"I'm sore distressed for you, sir," the woods-boss answered. "We'd awhisper in the camp yesterday that the lass was like to be in a badway."
Cardigan scuffed with his foot a clear space in the brown litter. "Taketwo men from the section-gang, McTavish," he ordered, "and have them digher grave here; then swamp a trail through the underbrush and out to thedonkey-landing, so we can carry her in. The funeral will be private."
McTavish nodded. "Any further orders, sir?"
"Yes. When you come to that little gap in the hills, cease your loggingand bear off yonder." He waved his hand. "I'm not going to cut thetimber in this valley. You see, McTavish, what it is. The treeshere--ah, man, I haven't the heart to destroy God's most wonderfulhandiwork. Besides, she loved this spot, McTavish, and she called thevalley her Valley of the Giants. I--I gave it to her for a weddingpresent because she had a bit of a dream that some day the town Istarted would grow up to yonder gap, and when that time came and wecould afford it, 'twas in her mind to give her Valley of the Giants toSequoia for a city park, all hidden away here and unsuspected.
"She loved it, McTavish. It pleased her to come here with me; she'd makeup a lunch of her own cooking and I would catch trout in the stream bythe dogwoods yonder and fry the fish for her. Sometimes I'd barbecue avenison steak and--well, 'twas our playhouse, McTavish, and I who am nolonger young--I who never played until I met her--I--I'm a bit foolish,I fear, but I found rest and comfort here, McTavish, even before Imet her, and I'm thinking I'll have to come here often for the same.She--she was a very superior woman, McTavish--very superior. Ah, man,the soul of her! I cannot bear that her body should rest in Sequoiacemetery, along with the rag tag and bobtail o' the town. She was likethis sunbeam, McTavish. She--she--"
"Aye," murmured McTavish huskily. "I ken. Ye wouldna gie her a commonor a public spot in which to wait for ye. An' ye'll be shuttin' downthe mill an' loggin'-camps an' layin' off the hands in her honour for abit?"
"Until after the funeral, McTavish. And tell your men they'll be paidfor the lost time. That will be all, lad."
When McTavish was gone, John Cardigan sat down on a small sugar-pinewindfall, his head held slightly to one side while he listened to thatwhich in the redwoods is not sound but rather the absence of it. And ashe listened, he absorbed a subtle comfort from those huge brown trees,so emblematic of immortality; in the thought he grew closer to hisMaker, and presently found that peace which he sought. Love such astheirs could never die... The tears came at last.
At sundown he walked home bearing an armful of rhododendrons and dogwoodblossoms, which he arranged in the room where she lay. Then he soughtthe nurse who had attended her.
"I'd like to hold my son," he said gently. "May I?"
She brought him the baby and placed it in his great arms that trembledso; he sat down and gazed long and earnestly at this flesh of his fleshand blood of his blood. "You'll have her hair and skin and eyes," hemurmured. "My son, my son, I shall love you so, for now I must love fortwo. Sorrow I shall keep from you, please God, and happiness and worldlycomfort shall I leave you when I go to her." He nuzzled his grizzledcheek against the baby's face. "Just you and my trees," he whispered,"just you and my trees to help me hang on to a plucky finish."
For love and paternity had come to him late in life, and so had hisfirst great sorrow; wherefore, since he was not accustomed to theseheritages of all flesh, he would have to adjust himself to the change.But his son and his trees--ah, yes, they would help. And he would gathermore redwoods now!
The Valley of the Giants Page 2