Irving Bacheller

“ The cage creaked and hurtled. The animals rolled from side to side in their noisy encounter. The indignant Sinth struggled to get free with loud, hysteric cries. Strong ran beneath his burden. He gained the dry trail, and set his sister upon the ground. He flung off the shoulder-straps, and with a stick separated the animals. He opened the cage and seized the fox by the nape of the neck, and, before he could haul him forth, got a nip on the back of his hand. He lifted the spitting fox and fastened the chain upon his collar. Then Silas put his hands on his hips and blew like a frightened deer. ”

“ Soon the elder Migley began to feel the need of information. He passed his rod to the Emperor.
"Show me how ye do it," said he.
Strong paddled to a large, flat rock which rose, mid-stream, a little above water. He climbed upon it and sat down lazily.
Nature had taught him, as she teaches all who bear heavy burdens, to conserve his strength. He had none to waste in the support of dignity. When he sat down his weight was braced with hand, foot, and elbow so as to rest his heart and muscles. ”

“ He stopped and listened. He could hear the sound of retreating footsteps and could see briers moving some thirty rods down the slash. His heart had shaken off its rage. He was now the cunning, stealthy, determined hunter. He saw a dry, stag-headed pine in the edge of the briers near him and hurried up its shaft like a bear pressed by the dogs. On a dead limb, some thirty feet above ground, he halted and looked away. He could see nothing of his unknown foe.
Slowly Strong descended from the dead tree. ”

“ When a girl of eighteen she had taught in the log school-house. Since the death of her mother the care of the little home had fallen upon her. She was a well-fed, cheerful, and comely creature with a genius for housekeeping.
June had come, and Silas was getting ready to go into camp. There was no longer any peace for him in the clearing. The odor of the forest and the sight of the new leaves gave him no rest. Had he not heard in his dreams the splash of leaping trout, and deer playing in the lily-pads? ”

“ The shrewd old trout knew how to gather slack on a fisherman. Strong rose like a jack-in-the-box. His hand flashed to the reel. It began to play like the end of a piston. He swung half around and his rod came up. The fish turned for a mad rush. With hands upon rod and silk the fisherman held to check him. Strong's line ripped through the water plane from mid-river to the shadow of the bank. The strain upon the fish's jaw halted him. He settled and began to jerk on the line. Strong raised his foot and tapped the butt of his rod. ”

“ Suddenly the trained eye of Strong had caught the gleam of eyes—then the faint outline of lips dumb with terror. He struck with his paddle and swung his bow.
The hammer fell. A little flame burst out of the rifle-muzzle, and a great roar shook the silences. A shrill cry rang in its first echo. The canoe bounded over lily-pads and flung her bow on the bank a foot above water. Master sprang ashore followed by Strong. They clambered up the bank.
"Strong, I've killed somebody," said the young man, his voice full of the distress he felt. He swept the shore with his light. ”

“ Silas Strong knew that his land of refuge was doomed—that the forerunner of its desolation was even then hiding somewhere in the near, dusky woods. He thought of the peril after a dry summer. The mould of the forest would burn like tinder.
The dethroned Emperor reached the shore of Rainbow, put up a tent, and helped to get supper ready. After supper he lay down to rest in the firelight, and told the children about the great bear and the panther-bird. Sinth, weary after that long day of travel, had gone to sleep. After an hour or so Strong rose and looked down at her. ”

“ Again sound-waves of the great whistle at Benson Falls swept wearily through the silence above them.
"Makes me kind o' homesick," said Sinth, as she listened thoughtfully. The Emperor had begun, just faintly, to entertain a feeling akin to hers.
Master helped her up the hill on her way to camp with the children. He returned shortly and gave a hand to the building of his little home on the shore of Catamount. It was to be an open shanty, leaning on the ledge, its pole roof covered with tar-paper, its floor carpeted with balsam boughs. ”

“ Something from the hearts of the men made Sinth touch her eyes with her handkerchief. Then a curious thing happened. Some of the lumber-jacks dropped their saws and axes.
Those people could forgive much in "a good fellow"—they could forgive almost any infamy, it would seem, but the stony heart. Let one do a mean thing and rouse their quick sympathies a little and their oaths were as a deadly, fateful curse upon him. They never forgot the tear of sympathy or the wrath of resentment.
The sorrow of the weak now seemed to touch the hearts of the strong. ”

“ The man who had tried to kill him could not have stood more than two hundred feet away. Strong sat, rifle in hand, peering through the fir branches—alert as a panther waiting for its prey. Soon he caught a glimpse of his enemy fleeing between distant tree columns. The sight seemed to fill him with deadly anger.
He leaped to his feet, seized his pack-basket, and started swiftly in pursuit of him. He gained the summit of the high ground and saw a broad slash covered with berry bushes and sloping to the flats around Bushrod Creek. A trail cut through it from the edge of the woods near him. ”

“ And so with a rush of feet and a rattle of pots and pans and a sliding of griddles and a banging of iron doors "Mis' Strong" wore off her temper at hard work.
The Emperor used to smile at this variety of noise and call it "f-f-female profanity," a phrase not wholly inapt. When the "sport" had finished his dinner, and she and her brother sat side by side at the table, she was plain Sinth again, with a look of sickliness and resignation. She ate freely—but would never confess her appetite—and so leisurely that Strong often had most of the dishes washed before she had finished eating. ”

“ Why not, if one's art can perform miracles? This book aims not to emulate or amend the work of the Creator. Its people are just folks of a very old pattern, its animals rather common and of small attainments. It is in no sense a literary performance. It pretends to be nothing more than a simple account of one summer's life, pretty much as it was lived, in a part of the Adirondacks. It goes on about as things happen there, with a leisurely pace, like that of the woods lover on a trail who may be halted by nothing more than a flower or a bird-song. ”

“ S STRONG HAS MOVED TO RAINBOW LAKE
The camp was now in the shadow of Long Ridge. Sinth and the Emperor were silent. Bird-songs that rang in the deep, shaded hall of the woods had a note of farewell in them. The children were laughing and chattering as ox and boat-jumper entered the unbroken forest. Zeb stood in front of the children, his forefeet on the gunwale, and seemed to complain of their progress. ”

“ Strong and his companions stood a moment longer watching the scene.
"Huh!" the Emperor grunted, with a sorry look as they passed on.
Near sundown they came into the cleared land—the sandy, God-forsaken barrens of Tifton, robbed of root and branch and soil, of their glory, and the one crop nature had designed for them. The travellers passed a deserted cabin on a hot, stony hill. In its door-yard they could see a plough and an old wagon partly overgrown with weeds. Some one had tried to live on the spoiled earth and had come to discouragement. ”

“ After supper that evening Silas Strong gathered a heap of wood for a bonfire—a way he had of celebrating arrivals at Lost River camp. Soon he was running upon hands and knees in the firelight, with Socky and Sue on his back.
"Silas Strong!" was the seornful exclamation of Sinth, as she took a seat by the fire, "P-present!" he answered, as he werit on, the children laughing merrily. "Be you a man 'or a fool?"
"Both;" he answered, ceasing his harlequinade. Sinth began her knitting, wearing, a look of injury. "Plumb crazy 'bout them air childern!" ”

“ By-and-by they go to the woodpecker, for he has a pair of forceps and can pull anything, and the woodpecker pulls their teeth. Then the young fairies do nothing but ride around—each on a spotted fawn—and drink at the wonderful spring and grow fat and lazy, and the birds pull every hair out of their heads to build nests with. They live down in the woods, for they cannot climb the trees any more, and one day they fall asleep for the first time and tumble off the fawns and lie on the ground dreaming. ”

“ She put up a hand and felt his face.
"Why, Silas," she said, in a frightened voice, "you're crying."
It was then that he fell to the ground helpless.
XXXV TERROR had begun to spread in the wilderness north of Rainbow. The smoky wind, the growing firelight had roused all the children of the forest. Chattering birds rose high and took the way of the wind to safety. One could see flying lines of wild-fowl in the lighted heavens; faintly, as they passed, one could hear their startled cries. Deer ran aimlessly through the woods like frightened sheep. ”

“ He was again their sublime, their wonderful Emperor.
"You better keep it; you're going to buy an album for Aunt Sinthy," the boy warned her.
Her little hand closed half-way on the silver; it wavered and fell in her lap. She seemed to weigh the coin between her thumb and finger. She looked from the man to the woman. Socky saw her dilemma and felt for her.
"I'll get her an album myself," he proposed. In that world of magic where he lived nothing could discourage his faith and generosity. Their uncle lifted them in his arms and held them against his breast without speaking. ”

“ Zeb retreated promptly and took refuge in a fallen tree-top, out of which he peered, his hair rising. Soon he satisfied himself that the violence of the Duke was not a serious matter. Socky ran upon him, waving his sword and crying, in a loud voice, "You're a coward, sir!" Zeb rushed through the ferns, back and forth around the boy, growling and grimacing as if to show that he could be a swashbuckler himself.
On his merry frolic he ran wide in thickets of young fir. Suddenly he began barking and failed to return. ”

“ He proudly put the cage in her hands.
"Much obliged to you, Sile," said she, laughing.
"S-Strong's ahead!" he stammered, cheerfully.
This indicated that in his fight with the powers of evil Strong felt as if he had at least temporary advantage. When, perhaps, after a moment of anger it seemed that the Evil One had got the upper hold on him, he was wont to exclaim, "Satan's ahead!" But the historian is glad to say that those occasions were, in the main, rare and painful.
"Strong will never give in," said Annette, with laughter. ”

“ And his timber shall be used to build a nobler man than he."
"Wh-what do ye mean by his t-timber?" Strong asked.
"His character," Dunmore answered. "Men are like trees. Some are hickory, some are oak, some are cedar, some are only basswood. Some are strong, beautiful, generous; some are small and sickly for want of air and sunlight; some are as selfish and quarrelsome as a thorn-tree. Every year we must draw energy out of the great breast of nature and put on a fresh ring of wood. We must grow or die. You know what comes to the rotten-hearted?"
"Uh-huh," said the hunter. ”

“ Then, while Sinth supported her brother, the young man reached backward over his shoulders and, grasping the rope, lifted his friend so their backs were against each other, and, leaning under his burden, struggled on with it, the others following.
It was a toilsome, painful journey to Harris's. But what is impossible when the strong heart of youth, warmed with dauntless courage, turns to its task? We that wonder as we look backward may venture to put the query, but dare not answer it. ”

“ Strong answered, soberly, as the storm ended in a little gust of laughter.
Strong had stripped the guide of his anger as deftly as a squirrel could take the shell off a nut. In the brief silence that followed he thought of another maxim for his memorandum-book, and soon it was recorded therein as follows:
"Man that makes trouble sure to have most of it."
Presently he who sat on the cracker-barrel remarked, "If them air woods git afire now, they'll burn the stars out o' heaven."
All eyes turned upon the once violent man. ”

“ The Emperor turned as if not sure of his meaning.
"Bribery!" said Master. "Migley got a law passed which provides a fine so low for cutting State timber that he can pay it and make money."
"B-Business is k-king," said Strong, thoughtfully. He perceived how even the State itself had become a subject of the great ruler.
"And Satan is behind the throne," Master went on. "Down goes the forest and the will of the people. I tell you, Strong, the rich thief is a great peril; so many souls and bodies are mortgaged by his pay-roll and his favor. ”

“ Strong's camp consisted of three little log cabins and a large cook-tent. The end of each cabin was a rude fireplace built of flat rocks enclosed by upright logs which, lined with sheet-iron, towered above the roof for a chimney. Each floor an odd mosaic of wooden blocks, each wall sheathed with redolent strips of cedar, each rude divan bottomed with deer-skin and covered with balsam pillows, each bedstead of peeled spruce neatly cut and joined—the whole represented years of labor. Every winter Silas had come through the woods on a big sled with "new improvements" for camp. ”