Ridgwell Cullum

“ Not a trace was there of any human life but their own. The waters from the hill swept the little valley, and hugged to their bosom the secrets that lay beneath their surface. And the fall of rock held deeply buried all that which it had embraced in its rending. The farm was utterly destroyed, and with it had fallen victims every head of stock Joan had possessed. The old fur fort had yielded to the fire demon, where, for all the ages, it had resisted the havoc of storm. There was nothing left to mark the handiwork of man, nothing but the terrible destruction it had brought about. ”

“ The perfumed air filled lungs and nostrils with a beatific joy in living, and the darkened splendor of the crowding hills inspired a reverence in the human heart so profound, that it left scarce a place for the smallness of mundane hopes and yearnings. The splendor, the breadth of beauty sank into the human soul and left the spirit straining at its earthly bonds, and gazing with longing towards the infinite power which ordered its existence.
For ten miles of the journey from the old ranch-house Hazel rode under the sublime influence of feelings so inspired. ”

“ The green grassland rolled away on every hand, a fascinating, limitless plain whose monotony drives men to deep-throated curses, and yet holds them to its bosom as surely as might a well-loved mistress. It was a morning when the heart of man should be stirred with the joy of life, when lungs expand with deep draughts of the earth’s purest air, when the full, rich blood circulates with strong, virile pulsations, and the power to do tingles in every nerve.
It was no day on which a man, branded with the worst crime known to a cattle country, should set out to face his fellow men. ”

“ But, from the hut door, the rift which marks its course in the dark carpet cannot be seen.
In the awesome view no life is revealed. The forests shadow the earth and every living thing upon it, and where the forest is not there lies the snow to the depth of many feet. It is a scene of solemn grandeur, over which broods silence and illimitable space.
Out of the deathly stillness comes a long-drawn sigh. It echoes down the hillside like the weary expression of patient suffering from some poor creature imprisoned where ancient glacier and everlasting snows hold place. ”

“ As it was on the trail, so it was on Snake River, where the old black walls of Fort Mowbray gazed out upon the groaning and booming glacial bed, burying the dead earth beyond the eyes of man. The fount of life was renewing itself in man, in beast, even in the matter we choose to regard as dead.
Jessie Mowbray was watching the broken ice as it swept on down the flooding river. She was clad in an oilskin which had only utility for its purpose. Her soft gray eyes were gazing out through the gently falling rain with an awe which the display of winter's break up never failed to inspire in her. ”

“ The great ramparts of the prairie are a magnificent sight on a clear day. Flat and smooth as any billiard-table stretched this silent, mysterious muskeg, already green and fair to the eye, an alluring pasture to the unwary. An experienced eye might have judged it too green—too alluring. Could a more perfect trap be devised by evil human ingenuity than this? Think for one instant of a bottomless pit of liquid soil, absorbing in its peculiar density. Think of all the horrors of a quicksand, which, embracing, sucks down into its cruel bosom the despairing victim of its insatiable greed. ”

“ And all the time the girl saw that the smoke haze was thickening, and some strange distant sounds like the discharge of heavy ordnance reached her.
The sweet oval face wore a strained expression; her eyes were wide open and staring, and the fear which looked out of them was fear of no ordinary danger. She watched the dull haze as it thickened and rolled on towards her. She saw it rise like great steam-jets and wreath itself upwards as fresh volumes displayed the lower strata. She saw the dull brown tint creep into it as it densified, and she knew that it was smoke. ”

“ Her thought had flung back to another life and its people; folk, who, unlike herself, lived in the open and the daylight. She was thinking of the rugged coast with its fiercely alluring bays, its inlets and its upstanding headlands. She was thinking of the rough, strong man who lived in a home like an eagle’s eyrie so that he could gaze upon God’s good world and revel in those fierce, bracing elements which so appealed to and matched his own nature. ”

“ How'd you fancy living like a swell woman on the world's best, and with folks around you to act the way you say? How'd you feel with pockets stuffed with dollars, and wearing swell gowns instead of the darn buckskin that hides up half the woman in you? How'd you like living where you've as much chance of snow as eating ice cream in hell, and supping your tea without needing to blow aside the dead flies floating on top to make a place for your dandy lips? ”

“ But the harsh voice of the driving machinery rose dominant above all other sounds. Repose was impossible, even for Nature, where the restless spirit of Dave's enterprise prevailed.
The vast wooden structures of the mills, acres of them, stood like some devouring growth at the very core of Nature's fair body. It almost seemed like a living organism feeding upon all the best she had to yield. Day and night the saws, like the gleaming fangs of a voracious life, tore, devoured, digested, and the song of its labors droned without ceasing. ”

“ Now he saw before him a woman still beautiful, but a woman whose eyes had lost every vestige of that happy light. Despair was written in every feature, despair and utter hopelessness. Her mouth, that beautiful mouth so rich and delicate, was now tight shut as of one in great suffering, and deep, hard lines had suddenly gathered about the corners of it. The change smote him to the heart, but left him utterly helpless.
Realization had come. Joan had suddenly remembered all that lay behind her—all that had driven her to seek the remoteness of the wild Western world. ”

“ Then as if by chance, one great dog-wolf is driven out upon the battleground. He is a leader, high 246 of shoulder, broad of chest, with jaws like the iron fangs of a trap, and limbs that are so lean that the muscles stand out upon them like knots of rope. And his action is a signal to the crowd of savage poltroons behind. With one accord they send their fierce battle-cry out upon the still air, and leap, like the rush of an avalanche, to the lair of the mountain lion. Out from his shelter springs the royal beast, and close upon his heels comes his mate. ”

“ Leo waited for her emotion to pass. He stood gazing out down at the creek. His eyes shone with that peculiar fire which in unguarded moments would not be denied. Then after a few moments the sound of sobs died down, and the man turned.
There was a marked change in him. The fire in his eyes was deep and somber. Audie, glancing into his face, knew that he was deeply stirred. She knew that for the first time in her companionship with him the restraint that was always his had been relaxed. The soul of the man had risen superior to the domination of his will. ”

“ The trail rose with the upland. It rose with that gradation which so wears down the ardor of almost any horse. But the creatures Wild Bill was driving were made of unusual mettle. Their courage was the courage of the man behind them. And only when his courage failed him would their spirit falter. They swept up the long stretch as though the effort were a pastime. With ears pricked forward, nostrils gushing, their veins standing out like whipcord through their satin coats, they moved as though every stride were an expression of the joy of living. ”

“ THE VENGEANCE OF USAK The towering Alaskan hills overshadowed the broad waterway of the Hekor River. From the level of the water the shores rose up monstrously. There were precipitate, sterile, encompassing walls of granite that rose hundreds of feet without a break. And back of them, mounting by dizzy slopes, the great hills raised their snow-crowned crests till the misty cloud line enveloped them. The world was grey, and dark, and something overwhelming towards the headwaters of the great river. ”

“ The loose buckskin coat, which reached to her knees, and had been fashioned and beaded by the Mission squaws, had picturesqueness. But she gained nothing from these things as a setting for her beauty.
But for Kars, at least, her beauty was undeniable. Her soft crown of chestnut hair, hatless, at the mercy of the mood of the breeze, to him seemed like a ruddy halo crowning a face of a childlike purity. Her gentle gray eyes were to him unfathomable wells of innocence, while her lips had all the ripeness of a delicious womanhood. ”

“ The winter stole upon the plains; that hard, relentless winter which knows no yielding till spring drives it forth. First the fierce black frosts, then the snow, and later the shrieking blizzard, battling, tearing for possession of the field, carrying death in its breath for belated man and beast, and sweeping the snow into small mountains about the lonely prairie dwellings as though, in its bitter fury at the presence of man, it would bury them out of sight where its blast proved powerless to destroy them. ”

“ The world was nothing, life was nothing, except that it gave them this power to love. They drank in each other’s kisses till the woman lay panting in the fierce embrace of the man, and he––he was devouring her with eyes which hungered for her, like the eyes of a starving man, while he crushed her in the arms of a man savage with the delicious pain of his passion.
At last it was the woman who stirred to release herself. It is ever the woman who leads where love dominates. She gently but firmly freed herself. She held his hands and looked up into his glowing eyes. ”

“ The blazing arc of the rising sun was lifting over the tattered skyline, and its light burnished the snow-crowned glacial beds to an almost blinding whiteness. As yet it only caught the hill tops within its range. The hollows, the shadowed woodlands, remained lost beneath the early morning mists. It gave the impression of gazing down upon one vast steaming lake, out of which was slowly emerging ridges of white-crested land chequered with masses of primeval forest.
In all directions it was the same; a hidden world having laboriously to free itself from the bondage of the mists. ”

“ It was the northwest coast of Australia, the coast of that almost unexplored region which is one of the few remote territories of the world still retaining its fabulous atmosphere of romance.
It was on the shores of a wide, shallow bay where a small river abruptly opened out its land arms in welcome to the tropical ocean. Sun-scorched, fleshy vegetation grew densely almost to the water’s edge, keeping dank and fever-laden the suffocating atmosphere within its widespread bosom. Yet only was it this merciful shade that made life endurable to sensitive human creatures. ”

“ Joan was sitting bending over the cook-stove, her feet resting on the rack at the foot of the oven, her hands outstretched to the warming glow of the fire. The evenings in the hills, even in the height of summer, were never without a nip of cold which drifted down from the dour, ages-old glaciers crowning the distant peaks. She was talking, gazing into the glowing coals. She was piecing out her story as it had been told her by her Aunt Mercy, feeling that only with a full knowledge of it could this wise old white-haired friend of Buck’s understand and help her. ”

“ Oh, Frank, think of all the years I have gone through without a home, without any of those things which a woman has a right to, except what I have earned for myself with my own two hands. Think of the loveless life I have been forced to live for all these years. Frank, Frank, I have given up everything in the world for you, and now—now I love this man—I love him with my whole soul. ”

“ The hill was a mass of redolent pinewoods. It was as though the gradual densifying of this belt of woodland country had culminated upon the hill. The brooding gloom of the forest was profound. The dark green foliage of the pines seemed black by contrast with the snow, and gazing in amongst the leafless lower trunks was like peering into a world of dayless night The horses walked with ears pricked and wistful eyes alertly gazing. The darkness of their surroundings seemed to have conveyed something of its mysterious dread to their sensitive nerves. ”

“ Fallen greatness evoked her enthusiasm as keenly as success, only that the enthusiasm was of a different nature. With her it was better to have striven with all one's might and encountered disaster than to have lived fallow, a life of the most perfect rectitude. Her twenty-seven years of life had set her thrilling with a mental and physical virility which was forever urging her, and steadily moulding her whole outlook upon life, even though that outlook carried her no farther than the confines of her beautiful sunlit valley. ”

“ But word came back, and the rush began. Out into the twilight of the Arctic night leapt the army of trail dogs and their teamsters. Hundreds of sleds hissed their way over the snow-bed on the great river. Hundreds of voices shouted the jargon of the trail at their eager beasts of burden, and the fierce whips flung out. Many were rushing on disaster in the blind northern night. Many would never reach the hoped-for goal to grab the alluring wealth from the bosom of mother earth. ”

“ Meanwhile the wolves draw ever nearer and nearer, as their courage rises in response to the voice of their famished bellies. So the strange pursuit goes on, on; over hills and through valleys, now scaling barren, snow-clad rocks, now clambering drearily down jagged rifts of earth; over Nature’s untrodden trails, or along beaten paths made by the passage of forest beasts. Through clearing and brake, and over the rotting ice which fills the bed of the mountain torrent. On, on into Nature’s dim recesses, where only the forest creatures lord it, and the feet of man have never been set. ”

“ It was a trail of mud and washout. It was a trail of landslide and flood. It was a dripping land, dank with melting mists, and awash with the slush of the thaw. The skies were pouring out their flood of summer promise, those warming rains which must always be endured before the hordes of flies and mosquitoes swarm to announce the real open season.
But these men were hard beyond all complaint at physical discomfort. If they cursed the land they haunted, it was because it was their habit so to curse. ”

“ It was the splitting of the solid bed of ice into which the river that came up out of the south had been transformed.
But somehow he did not readily sleep again. He was weary enough. His mind was at rest. But sleep—sleep was reluctant, and the old thread of his waking dreams came again as he gazed across at the beacon fire.
Hours passed. He had no idea of time. He had no care. He lay there watching the dancing firelight, building for the hundredth time those priceless castles of the night which the daylight loves to shatter. Never were they more resplendent. ”

“ Alone, helpless, almost nerveless, Joan waited that end which she felt could not long be delayed. She did not know, she could not understand. On every hand was a threat so terrible that in her weakness she believed that life could not long last. The din in the heavens, the torturing heat so fierce and painful. The glare of light which penetrated even her closed eyelids, the choking gasps of smoke-laden, scorching air with which she struggled. Death itself must come, nor could it be far from her now.
The wind rushed madly down from the hilltops. ”

“ Marcel and Keeko were standing at the dawn of a new life. The man had looked into a woman's wide, blue eyes. He had gazed upon softly rounded cheeks, as perfect as physical well-being could make them. He had contemplated rich, ripe lips that tempted him well-nigh to distraction. Thus it was that the passionless life of the outworld had no longer power before the stirring of a soul at last awakened from its pristine slumbers. ”

“ Bell River lay far behind. Leagues beyond the shadowy hills serrating the purple horizon, it was lost like a bad dream yielding to the light of day.
For Kars the lure of it all was broken, broken beyond repair. The wide expanses of the northland had become a desert in which life was no longer endurable. The wind-swept crests, the undulating, barren plains no longer spoke of a boundless freedom and the elemental battle. These things had become something to forget in the absorbing claim of a life to come, wherein the harshness of battle had no place. ”

“ One looks about and cannot tell what it is. It may be that the air is colder; it may be that the daylight has changed its tone; it may be that the sunlit scene is changed as the air fills with sparkling, diamond frost particles. Something has happened.
Suddenly a dismal howl splits the air, and its echoes intensify the gloom. Another howl succeeds it, and then the weird cry is taken up by other voices.
And ere the echoes die out another breath comes down from the hilltop, a breath less patient; angry with a biting fierceness which speaks of patience exhausted and a spirit of retaliation. ”

“ It was a perfect scene, typical of the greater foothills where Nature permits nothing human to disturb her hush. On every hand hills rose to immense heights, bald of head, but densely clad on their lower slopes with forests of every shade of green. Soft, and gracious, and pleasant to gaze upon, the forests were deep, and dark, and well-nigh illimitable. They were full of preying animal life, and even in the full of daylight the howl of coyote and the harsher bay of prowling timber wolf came echoing down the aisles of leafless trunks. ”

“ Monica spoke in a deep, tender voice that was full of pain, full of suffering. "I am beginning to understand many things I did not comprehend before. You, perhaps, are not so much to blame as I thought. I have been so weak, too. A little candor and honesty on my part might have saved it all. We are both terribly to blame, and perhaps most of it lies at my door. Let us try to forget ourselves. Let us forget everything but that which we owe to Frank. We both owe him so much. Oh, when I think of the way I have fulfilled poor Elsie's trust I feel as though my heart would break." ”

“ He had once more encountered Betty. The pure fresh beauty of the girl had promptly set his vitiated soul on fire. But now there was no love, not even a love such as had been his before, but only a mad desire, a desire as uncontrolled as the wind-swept rollers of a raging sea. It was the culminating evil of a manhood debased by a long period of loose, vicious living. She must be his at any cost, and opposition only fired his desire the more, and drove him to any length to attain his end. ”

“ His blankets and his sleeping-bag lay spread out ready to receive him. And the old, sightless moose gazed out in its silent, never-ceasing vigil.
Night shut down with a stillness that must have been maddening to a less preoccupied mind. The perfect night sky shone coldly with the burnish of its million stars. The blazing northern lights plodded their ghostly measure with the sedateness of the ages through which they had endured, while the youth sat on unstirring, smoking his pipe of perfect peace. They were moments such as Marcel would never know again. ”

“ The grey spring snow spread itself out on every hand, only was the wood-lined hill, which stretched away to the right and left of him, and behind the hut, bare of the wintry pall. The sky was brilliant in contrast with the greyness of the world beneath it, and the sun shone high in the blue vault. Everywhere was the deadly calm of the Silent North. The presence of any moving forest beast in that brooding picture, however distant, must surely have caught the eye. There was not a living thing to be seen. These woful wastes have much to do with the rugged nature of those who dwell in the north. ”

“ Your face was the face of Alexander Hendrie just now. I have seen that look in his, not once, but a hundred times, and—then it was in yours. Oh, Frank, I am so glad, so—so glad you felt like that. I long to think and feel that now the old miserable past is over and done with, that you, too, will take life in your two strong hands, and—and fight out the big battle the Almighty has set for men. I want no man who must have others to fight for him; I want no man who will cry out weakly at every blow in the face; I want no man who will yield beneath the flail of Fate. ”

“ Winter still resists, and the gentle legions of Spring have yet to fight out their annual battle. The forests are astir with wild, furred life; the fierce life which emphasizes the solitude of the mountain world. The pine-cones scrunch under the feet of the prowling beast as he moves solemnly upon his dread way; there is a swish of bush or a snapping of wood as some startled 143 animal seeks cover; or a heavy crashing of branches, as the mighty-antlered moose, solemn-eyed, unheeding, thrusts himself through the undergrowth. ”

“ It was a cavernous break in the rock-bound confines of a nameless Northern river.
Steve passed a hand down his face. He brushed away the moisture of melting ice. It was a significant gesture, accompanied as it was by a deep breath of weariness. Two hundred miles and more of Arctic terror lay behind him. As yet he had no reckoning of how much more lay ahead.
The world outside was lost in a chaos of warring elements. So it had lain for a week. In the fury of the blizzard the Arctic night was reduced to a pitchy blackness worse than the sightlessness of the blind. ”

“ The fox, hungering as he always hungers, foremost, lest other scavengers, like himself, shall steal the prize he seeks; a troupe of broad-antlered deer racing headlong down the valley; shaggy wolves, grey or red, lurking within the shadow, as though fearing the open daylight, or perhaps him whose voice has summoned them; these things they see, but their meaning is lost to the feathered wanderers, as they wing their way onward.
The cry of the human floats over the tree-tops and beats itself out upon the solemn hillsides. ”

“ CHAPTER XIII "ADRESOL"
The horrible aroma of a gently smouldering smudge fire, battling with invading mosquitoes; the pleasant smell of tobacco, adding to the enjoyment of the crisp Northern air; the resplendent sunset, slashing a broken sky with a sea of multitudinous colours, and lighting a prospect of verdant woods at the foot of a line of distant hills; a wide, sheltered stoop with deep-seated rocking-chairs; these things were the key to the deeper recesses of the hearts of men who have learned to play the great game of life upon the lonely wastes of a Northern world. ”