by Bret Harte
IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS
by
Bret Bret Harte
CHAPTER I.
It was very dark, and the wind was increasing. The last gust had beenpreceded by an ominous roaring down the whole mountain-side, whichcontinued for some time after the trees in the little valley had lapsedinto silence. The air was filled with a faint, cool, sodden odor, asof stirred forest depths. In those intervals of silence the darknessseemed to increase in proportion and grow almost palpable. Yet out ofthis sightless and soundless void now came the tinkle of a spur'srowels, the dry crackling of saddle leathers, and the muffled plunge ofa hoof in the thick carpet of dust and desiccated leaves. Then avoice, which in spite of its matter-of-fact reality the obscurity lenta certain mystery to, said:--
"I can't make out anything! Where the devil have we got to, anyway?It's as black as Tophet, here ahead!"
"Strike a light and make a flare with something," returned a secondvoice. "Look where you're shoving to--now--keep your horse off, willye."
There was more muffled plunging, a silence, the rustle of paper, thequick spurt of a match, and then the uplifting of a flickering flame.But it revealed only the heads and shoulders of three horsemen, framedwithin a nebulous ring of light, that still left their horses and eventheir lower figures in impenetrable shadow. Then the flame leaped upand died out with a few zigzagging sparks that were falling to theground, when a third voice, that was low but somewhat pleasant in itscadence, said:--
"Be careful where you throw that. You were careless last time. Withthis wind and the leaves like tinder, you might send a furnace blastthrough the woods."
"Then at least we'd see where we were."
Nevertheless, he moved his horse, whose trampling hoofs beat out thelast fallen spark. Complete darkness and silence again followed.Presently the first speaker continued:--
"I reckon we'll have to wait here till the next squall clears away thescud from the sky? Hello! What's that?"
Out of the obscurity before them appeared a faint light,--a dim butperfectly defined square of radiance,--which, however, did not appearto illuminate anything around it. Suddenly it disappeared.
"That's a house--it's a light in a window," said the second voice.
"House be d--d!" retorted the first speaker. "A house with a window onGalloper's Ridge, fifteen miles from anywhere? You're crazy!"
Nevertheless, from the muffled plunging and tinkling that followed,they seemed to be moving in the direction where the light had appeared.Then there was a pause.
"There's nothing but a rocky outcrop here, where a house couldn'tstand, and we're off the trail again," said the first speakerimpatiently.
"Stop!--there it is again!"
The same square of light appeared once more, but the horsemen hadevidently diverged in the darkness, for it seemed to be in a differentdirection. But it was more distinct, and as they gazed a shadowappeared upon its radiant surface--the profile of a human face. Thenthe light suddenly went out, and the face vanished with it.
"It IS a window, and there was some one behind it," said the secondspeaker emphatically.
"It was a woman's face," said the pleasant voice.
"Whoever it is, just hail them, so that we can get our bearings. Singout! All together!"
The three voices rose in a prolonged shout, in which, however, thedistinguishing quality of the pleasant voice was sustained. But therewas no response from the darkness beyond. The shouting was repeatedafter an interval with the same result: the silence and obscurityremained unchanged.
"Let's get out of this," said the first speaker angrily; "house or nohouse, man or woman, we're not wanted, and we'll make nothing waltzinground here!"
"Hush!" said the second voice. "Sh-h! Listen."
The leaves of the nearest trees were trilling audibly. Then came asudden gust that swept the fronds of the taller ferns into their faces,and laid the thin, lithe whips of alder over their horses' flankssharply. It was followed by the distant sea-like roaring of themountain-side.
"That's a little more like it!" said the first speaker joyfully."Another blow like that and we're all right. And look! there's alightenin' up over the trail we came by."
There was indeed a faint glow in that direction, like the firstsuffusion of dawn, permitting the huge shoulder of the mountain alongwhose flanks they had been journeying to be distinctly seen. The soddenbreath of the stirred forest depths was slightly tainted with an acridfume.
"That's the match you threw away two hours ago," said the pleasantvoice deliberately. "It's caught the dry brush in the trail round thebend."
"Anyhow, it's given us our bearings, boys," said the first speaker,with satisfied accents. "We're all right now; and the wind's liftingthe sky ahead there. Forward now, all together, and let's get out ofthis hell-hole while we can!"
It was so much lighter that the bulk of each horseman could be seen asthey moved forward together. But there was no thinning of theobscurity on either side of them. Nevertheless the profile of thehorseman with the pleasant voice seemed to be occasionally turnedbackward, and he suddenly checked his horse.
"There's the window again!" he said. "Look! There--it's gone again."
"Let it go and be d--d!" returned the leader. "Come on."
They spurred forward in silence. It was not long before the waysidetrees began to dimly show spaces between them, and the ferns to giveway to lower, thick-set shrubs, which in turn yielded to a velvetymoss, with long quiet intervals of netted and tangled grasses. Theregular fall of the horses' feet became a mere rhythmic throbbing.Then suddenly a single hoof rang out sharply on stone, and the firstspeaker reined in slightly.
"Thank the Lord we're on the ridge now! and the rest is easy. Tell youwhat, though, boys, now we're all right, I don't mind saying that Ididn't take no stock in that blamed corpse light down there. If thereever was a will-o'-the-wisp on a square up mountain, that was one. Itwasn't no window! Some of ye thought ye saw a face too--eh?"
"Yes, and a rather pretty one," said the pleasant voice meditatively.
"That's the way they'd build that sort of thing, of course. It's luckyye had to satisfy yourself with looking. Gosh! I feel creepy yet,thinking of it! What are ye looking back for now like Lot's wife?Blamed if I don't think that face bewitched ye."
"I was only thinking about that fire you started," returned the otherquietly. "I don't see it now."
"Well--if you did?"
"I was wondering whether it could reach that hollow."
"I reckon that hollow could take care of any casual nat'rel fire thatcame boomin' along, and go two better every time! Why, I don't believethere was any fire; it was all a piece of that infernal ignis fatuusphantasmagoriana that was played upon us down there!"
With the laugh that followed they started forward again, relapsing intothe silence of tired men at the end of a long journey. Even their fewremarks were interjectional, or reminiscent of topics whose freshnesshad been exhausted with the day. The gaining light which seemed tocome from the ground about them rather than from the still, overcastsky above, defined their individuality more distinctly. The man whohad first spoken, and who seemed to be their leader, wore the virginunshaven beard, mustache, and flowing hair of the Californian pioneer,and might have been the eldest; the second speaker was close shaven,thin, and energetic; the third, with the pleasant voice, in height,litheness, and suppleness of figure appeared to be the youngest of theparty. The trail had now become a grayish streak along the leveltable-land they were following, which also had the singular effect ofappearing lighter than the surrounding landscape, yet of plunging intoutter darkness on either side of its precipitous walls. Nevertheless,at the end of an hour the lead
er rose in his stirrups with a sigh ofsatisfaction.
"There's the light in Collinson's Mill! There's nothing gaudy andspectacular about that, boys, eh? No, sir! it's a square, honestbeacon that a man can steer by. We'll be there in twenty minutes." Hewas pointing into the darkness below the already descending trail.Only a pioneer's eye could have detected the few pin-pricks of light inthe impenetrable distance, and it was a signal proof of his leadershipthat the others accepted it without seeing it. "It's just ten o'clock,"he continued, holding a huge silver watch to his eye; "we've wasted anhour on those blamed spooks yonder!"
"We weren't off the trail more than ten minutes, Uncle Dick," protestedthe pleasant voice.
"All right, my son; go down there if you like and fetch out your Witchof Endor, but as for me, I'm going to throw myself the other side ofCollinson's lights. They're good enough for me, and a blamed sightmore stationary!"
The grade was very steep, but they took it, California fashion, at agallop, being genuinely good riders, and using their brains as well astheir spurs in the understanding of their horses, and of certainnatural laws, which the more artificial riders of civilization are aptto overlook. Hence there was no hesitation or indecision communicatedto the nervous creatures they bestrode, who swept over crumbling stonesand slippery ledges with a momentum that took away half their weight,and made a stumble or false step, or indeed anything but an actualcollision, almost impossible. Closing together they avoided the latter,and holding each other well up, became one irresistible wedge-shapedmass. At times they yelled, not from consciousness nor bravado, butfrom the purely animal instinct of warning and to combat thebreathlessness of their descent, until, reaching the level, theycharged across the gravelly bed of a vanished river, and pulled up atCollinson's Mill. The mill itself had long since vanished with theriver, but the building that had once stood for it was used as a rudehostelry for travelers, which, however, bore no legend or invitatorysign. Those who wanted it, knew it; those who passed it by, gave it nooffense.
Collinson himself stood by the door, smoking a contemplative pipe. Asthey rode up, he disengaged himself from the doorpost listlessly,walked slowly towards them, said reflectively to the leader, "I've beenthinking with you that a vote for Thompson is a vote thrown away," andprepared to lead the horses towards the water tank. He had parted withthem over twelve hours before, but his air of simply renewing arecently interrupted conversation was too common a circumstance toattract their notice. They knew, and he knew, that no one else hadpassed that way since he had last spoken; that the same sun had swungsilently above him and the unchanged landscape, and there had been nointerruption nor diversion to his monotonous thought. The wildernessannihilates time and space with the grim pathos of patience.
Nevertheless he smiled. "Ye don't seem to have got through coming downyet," he continued, as a few small boulders, loosened in their rapiddescent, came more deliberately rolling and plunging after thetravelers along the gravelly bottom. Then he turned away with thehorses, and, after they were watered, he reentered the house. Hisguests had evidently not waited for his ministration. They had alreadytaken one or two bottles from the shelves behind a wide bar and helpedthemselves, and, glasses in hand, were now satisfying the more imminentcravings of hunger with biscuits from a barrel and slices of smokedherring from a box. Their equally singular host, accepting theirconduct as not unusual, joined the circle they had comfortably drawnround the fireplace, and meditatively kicking a brand back at the fire,said, without looking at them:--
"Well?"
"Well!" returned the leader, leaning back in his chair after carefullyunloosing the buckle of his belt, but with his eyes also on thefire,--"well! we've prospected every yard of outcrop along the Divide,and there ain't the ghost of a silver indication anywhere."
"Not a smell," added the close-shaven guest, without raising his eyes.
They all remained silent, looking at the fire, as if it were the onething they had taken into their confidence. Collinson also addressedhimself to the blaze as he said presently: "It allus seemed to me thatthar was something shiny about that ledge just round the shoulder ofthe spur, over the long canyon."
The leader ejaculated a short laugh. "Shiny, eh? shiny! Ye think THATa sign? Why, you might as well reckon that because Key's head, overthar, is gray and silvery that he's got sabe and experience." As hespoke he looked towards the man with a pleasant voice. The fireshining full upon him revealed the singular fact that while his facewas still young, and his mustache quite dark, his hair was perfectlygray. The object of this attention, far from being disconcerted by thecomparison, added with a smile:--
"Or that he had any silver in his pocket."
Another lapse of silence followed. The wind tore round the house andrumbled in the short, adobe chimney.
"No, gentlemen," said the leader reflectively, "this sort o' thing isplayed out. I don't take no more stock in that cock-and-bull storyabout the lost Mexican mine. I don't catch on to that Sunday-schoolyarn about the pious, scientific sharp who collected leaves andvegetables all over the Divide, all the while he scientifically knewthat the range was solid silver, only he wouldn't soil his fingers withGod-forsaken lucre. I ain't saying anything agin that fine-spun theorythat Key believes in about volcanic upheavals that set up on endargentiferous rock, but I simply say that I don't see it--with thenaked eye. And I reckon it's about time, boys, as the game's up, thatwe handed in our checks, and left the board."
There was another silence around the fire, another whirl and turmoilwithout. There was no attempt to combat the opinions of their leader;possibly the same sense of disappointed hopes was felt by all, onlythey preferred to let the man of greater experience voice it. He wenton:--
"We've had our little game, boys, ever since we left Rawlin's a weekago; we've had our ups and downs; we've been starved and parched,snowed up and half drowned, shot at by road-agents and horse-thieves,kicked by mules and played with by grizzlies. We've had a heap o' fun,boys, for our money, but I reckon the picnic is about over. So we'llshake hands to-morrow all round and call it square, and go on our waysseparately."
"And what do you think you'll do, Uncle Dick?" said his close-shavencompanion listlessly.
"I'll make tracks for a square meal, a bed that a man can comfortablytake off his boots and die in, and some violet-scented soap.Civilization's good enough for me! I even reckon I wouldn't mind 'thesound of the church-going bell' ef there was a theatre handy, as therelikely would be. But the wilderness is played out."
"You'll be back to it again in six months, Uncle Dick," retorted theother quickly.
Uncle Dick did not reply. It was a peculiarity of the party that intheir isolated companionship they had already exhausted discussion andargument. A silence followed, in which they all looked at the fire asif it was its turn to make a suggestion.
"Collinson," said the pleasant voice abruptly, "who lives in the hollowthis side of the Divide, about two miles from the first spur above thebig canyon?"
"Nary soul!"
"Are you sure?"
"Sartin! Thar ain't no one but me betwixt Bald Top andSkinner's--twenty-five miles."
"Of course, YOU'D know if any one had come there lately?" persisted thepleasant voice.
"I reckon. It ain't a week ago that I tramped the whole distance thatyou fellers just rode over."
"There ain't," said the leader deliberately, "any enchanted castle orcabin that goes waltzing round the road with revolving windows andfairy princesses looking out of 'em?"
But Collinson, recognizing this as purely irrelevant humor, withpossibly a trap or pitfall in it, moved away from the fireplace withouta word, and retired to the adjoining kitchen to prepare supper.Presently he reappeared.
"The pork bar'l's empty, boys, so I'll hev to fix ye up with jerkedbeef, potatoes, and flapjacks. Ye see, thar ain't anybody ben overfrom Skinner's store for a week."
"All right; only hurry up!" said Uncle Dick cheerfully, settlinghimself back in his ch
air, "I reckon to turn in as soon as I've rastledwith your hash, for I've got to turn out agin and be off at sun-up."
They were all very quiet again,--so quiet that they could not helpnoticing that the sound of Collinson's preparations for their supperhad ceased too. Uncle Dick arose softly and walked to the kitchendoor. Collinson was sitting before a small kitchen stove, with a forkin his hand, gazing abstractedly before him. At the sound of hisguest's footsteps he started, and the noise of preparation recommenced.Uncle Dick returned to his chair by the fire. Leaning towards thechair of the close-shaven man, he said in a lower voice:--
"He was off agin!"
"What?"
"Thinkin' of that wife of his."
"What about his wife?" asked Key, lowering his voice also.
The three men's heads were close together.
"When Collinson fixed up this mill he sent for his wife in the States,"said Uncle Dick, in a half whisper, "waited a year for her, hanginground and boarding every emigrant wagon that came through the Pass.She didn't come--only the news that she was dead." He paused andnudged his chair still closer--the heads were almost touching. "Theysay, over in the Bar"--his voice had sunk to a complete whisper--"thatit was a lie! That she ran away with the man that was fetchin' herout. Three thousand miles and three weeks with another man upsets somewomen. But HE knows nothing about it, only he sometimes kinder goesoff looney-like, thinking of her." He stopped, the heads separated;Collinson had appeared at the doorway, his melancholy patienceapparently unchanged.
"Grub's on, gentlemen; sit by and eat."
The humble meal was dispatched with zest and silence. A fewinterjectional remarks about the uncertainties of prospecting onlyaccented the other pauses. In ten minutes they were out again by thefireplace with their lit pipes. As there were only three chairs,Collinson stood beside the chimney.
"Collinson," said Uncle Dick, after the usual pause, taking his pipefrom his lips, "as we've got to get up and get at sun-up, we might aswell tell you now that we're dead broke. We've been living for thelast few weeks on Preble Key's loose change--and that's gone. You'llhave to let this little account and damage stand over."
Collinson's brow slightly contracted, without, however, altering hisgeneral expression of resigned patience.
"I'm sorry for you, boys," he said slowly, "and" (diffidently) "kindersorry for myself, too. You see, I reckoned on goin' over to Skinner'sto-morrow, to fill up the pork bar'l and vote for Mesick and thewagon-road. But Skinner can't let me have anything more until I'vepaid suthin' on account, as he calls it."
"D'ye mean to say thar's any mountain man as low flung and mean asthat?" said Uncle Dick indignantly.
"But it isn't HIS fault," said Collinson gently; "you see, they won'tsend him goods from Sacramento if he don't pay up, and he CAN'T if IDON'T. Sabe?"
"Ah! that's another thing. They ARE mean--in Sacramento," said UncleDick, somewhat mollified.
The other guests murmured an assent to this general proposition.Suddenly Uncle Dick's face brightened.
"Look here! I know Skinner, and I'll stop there-- No, blank it all! Ican't, for it's off my route! Well, then, we'll fix it this way. Keywill go there and tell Skinner that I say that I'LL send the money tothat Sacramento hound. That'll fix it!"
Collinson's brow cleared; the solution of the difficulty seemed tosatisfy everybody, and the close-shaven man smiled.
"And I'll secure it," he said, "and give Collinson a sight draft onmyself at San Francisco."
"What's that for?" said Collinson, with a sudden suffusion on eachcheek.
"In case of accident."
"Wot accident?" persisted Collinson, with a dark look of suspicion onhis usually placid face.
"In case we should forget it," said the close-shaven man, with a laugh.
"And do you suppose that if you boys went and forgot it that I'd haveanything to do with your d--d paper?" said Collinson, a murky cloudcoming into his eyes.
"Why, that's only business, Colly," interposed Uncle Dick quickly;"that's all Jim Parker means; he's a business man, don't you see.Suppose we got killed! You've that draft to show."
"Show who?" growled Collinson.
"Why,--hang it!--our friends, our heirs, our relations--to get yourmoney, hesitated Uncle Dick.
"And do you kalkilate," said Collinson, with deeply laboring breath,"that if you got killed, that I'd be coming on your folks for the worthof the d--d truck I giv ye? Go 'way! Lemme git out o' this. You'remakin' me tired." He stalked to the door, lit his pipe, and began towalk up and down the gravelly river-bed. Uncle Dick followed him.From time to time the two other guests heard the sounds of alternateprotest and explanation as they passed and repassed the windows.Preble Key smiled, Parker shrugged his shoulders.
"He'll be thinkin' you've begrudged him your grub if you don't--that'sthe way with these business men," said Uncle Dick's voice in one ofthese intervals. Presently they reentered the house, Uncle Dick sayingcasually to Parker, "You can leave that draft on the bar when you'reready to go to-morrow;" and the incident was presumed to have ended.But Collinson did not glance in the direction of Parker for the rest ofthe evening; and, indeed, standing with his back to the chimney, morethan once fell into that stolid abstraction which was supposed to bethe contemplation of his absent wife.
From this silence, which became infectious, the three guests weresuddenly aroused by a furious clattering down the steep descent of themountain, along the trail they had just ridden! It came near,increasing in sound, until it even seemed to scatter the fine gravel ofthe river-bed against the sides of the house, and then passed in a gustof wind that shook the roof and roared in the chimney. With one commonimpulse the three travelers rose and went to the door. They opened itto a blackness that seemed to stand as another and an iron door beforethem, but to nothing else.
"Somebody went by then," said Uncle Dick, turning to Collinson. "Didn'tyou hear it?"
"Nary," said Collinson patiently, without moving from the chimney.
"What in God's name was it, then?"
"Only some of them boulders you loosed coming down. It's touch and gowith them for days after. When I first came here I used to start upand rush out into the road--like as you would--yellin' and screechin'after folks that never was there and never went by. Then it got kindermonotonous, and I'd lie still and let 'em slide. Why, one night I'd a'sworn that some one pulled up with a yell and shook the door. But Isort of allowed to myself that whatever it was, it wasn't wantin' toeat, drink, sleep, or it would come in, and I hadn't any call tointerfere. And in the mornin' I found a rock as big as that box, lyingchock-a-block agin the door. Then I knowed I was right."
Preble Key remained looking from the door.
"There's a glow in the sky over Big Canyon," he said, with a meaningglance at Uncle Dick.
"Saw it an hour ago," said Collinson. "It must be the woods afire justround the bend above the canyon. Whoever goes to Skinner's had bettergive it a wide berth."
Key turned towards Collinson as if to speak, but apparently changed hismind, and presently joined his companions, who were already rollingthemselves in their blankets, in a series of wooden bunks or berths,ranged as in a ship's cabin, around the walls of a resinous, sawdustyapartment that had been the measuring room of the mill. Collinsondisappeared,--no one knew or seemed to care where,--and, in less thanten minutes from the time that they had returned from the door, thehush of sleep and rest seemed to possess the whole house. There was nolight but that of the fire in the front room, which threw flickeringand gigantic shadows on the walls of the three empty chairs before it.An hour later it seemed as if one of the chairs were occupied, and agrotesque profile of Collinson's slumbering--or meditating--face andfigure was projected grimly on the rafters as though it were thehovering guardian spirit of the house. But even that passed presentlyand faded out, and the beleaguering darkness that had encompassed thehouse all the evening began to slowly creep in through every chink andcranny of the rambling,
ill-jointed structure, until it at lastobliterated even the faint embers on the hearth. The cool fragrance ofthe woodland depths crept in with it until the steep of human warmth,the reek of human clothing, and the lingering odors of stale humanvictual were swept away in that incorruptible and omnipotent breath.An hour later--and the wilderness had repossessed itself of all.
Key, the lightest sleeper, awoke early,--so early that the dawnannounced itself only in two dim squares of light that seemed to growout of the darkness at the end of the room where the windows looked outupon the valley. This reminded him of his woodland vision of the nightbefore, and he lay and watched them until they brightened and began tooutline the figures of his still sleeping companions. But there werefaint stirrings elsewhere,--the soft brushing of a squirrel across theshingled roof, the tiny flutter of invisible wings in the rafters, the"peep" and "squeak" of baby life below the floor. And then he fellinto a deeper sleep, and awoke only when it was broad day.
The sun was shining upon the empty bunks; his companions were alreadyup and gone. They had separated as they had come together,--with thelight-hearted irresponsibility of animals,--without regret, andscarcely reminiscence; bearing, with cheerful philosophy and thehopefulness of a future unfettered by their past, the finaldisappointment of their quest. If they ever met again, they wouldlaugh and remember; if they did not, they would forget without a sigh.He hurriedly dressed himself, and went outside to dip his face andhands in the bucket that stood beside the door; but the clear air, thedazzling sunshine, and the unexpected prospect half intoxicated him.
The abandoned mill stretched beside him in all the pathos of itspremature decay. The ribs of the water-wheel appeared amid a tangle ofshrubs and driftwood, and were twined with long grasses and stragglingvines; mounds of sawdust and heaps of "brush" had taken upon themselvesa velvety moss where the trickling slime of the vanished river lostitself in sluggish pools, discolored with the dyes of redwood. But onthe other side of the rocky ledge dropped the whole length of thevalley, alternately bathed in sunshine or hidden in drifts of white andclinging smoke. The upper end of the long canyon, and the crests ofthe ridge above him, were lost in this fleecy cloud, which at timesseemed to overflow the summits and fall in slow leaps like lazycataracts down the mountain-side. Only the range before the ledge wasclear; there the green pines seemed to swell onward and upward in longmounting billows, until at last they broke against the sky.
In the keen stimulus of the hour and the air Key felt the mountaineer'slonging for action, and scarcely noticed that Collinson hadpathetically brought out his pork barrel to scrape together a fewremnants for his last meal. It was not until he had finished hiscoffee, and Collinson had brought up his horse, that a slight sense ofshame at his own and his comrades' selfishness embarrassed his partingwith his patient host. He himself was going to Skinner's to plead forhim; he knew that Parker had left the draft,--he had seen it lying inthe bar,--but a new sense of delicacy kept him from alluding to it now.It was better to leave Collinson with his own peculiar ideas of theresponsibilities of hospitality unchanged. Key shook his hand warmly,and galloped up the rocky slope. But when he had finally reached thehigher level, and fancied he could even now see the dust raised by hisdeparting comrades on their two diverging paths, although he knew thatthey had already gone their different ways,--perhaps never to meetagain,--his thoughts and his eyes reverted only to the ruined millbelow him and its lonely occupant.
He could see him quite distinctly in that clear air, still standingbefore his door. And then he appeared to make a parting gesture withhis hand, and something like snow fluttered in the air above his head.It was only the torn fragments of Parker's draft, which this homelygentleman of the Sierras, standing beside his empty pork barrel, hadscattered to the four winds.