Ridgwell Cullum

“ This is the man who has told you that your fate only exists in distorted fancy. This is the man who is the foster-father of your wonderful Buck, who defies the curse of disaster which dogs your feet. Child, child, you have proved my words out of your own lips. The disaster you deny is hard upon your heels, hard upon the heels of this man you love. Your own hand, the hand even of your lover, is in it. Was it fate that brought you here? Was it fate that you should love this man? ”

“ 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. ”

“ God knows how it may help you—for I can’t see. I loved your father with a passion nothing, no disaster could destroy. I loved him so that I could crush every other feeling down, subservient to my passion. Go you, child, and find such a love. Go you and find a love so strong that no disaster can kill it. And maybe life may still have some compensations for you, maybe it will lift the curse from your suffering shoulders. It—it is the only thing in the world that is stronger than disaster. It is the only thing in the world that is stronger than—death.”
Joan had no answer. ”

“ Life would teach them in their turn; they must not learn the truths which lay before them before their time. It was better to lie than to destroy the hope of youth.
His conscience was clear, his resolve perfect in its steadiness. The happiness of two people was at stake. For Buck he would give up all. There was no sacrifice too great. For Joan—she was the fair daughter of his oldest friend. His duty was clear by her. There was one course, and one course only that he could see for himself. To remove the last shadow from these young lives he must face the ordeal which lay before him. ”

“ Believe me, child, you cannot influence the destinies of men. You have no say in the matter. As we are made, so we must work out our own salvation. It has been your lot to witness many disasters, but had these things occurred with other girls as the central figure, would you have attributed this hideous curse to their lives? Would you? Never. But you readily attribute it to your own. I am an old man my dear; older to-day, perhaps, by far than my years call for. I have seen so much of misery and trouble that sometimes I have thought that all life is just one long sea of disaster. ”

“ The hill, as Buck indicated, was just ahead. Joan’s anxious eyes looked for the beginning of the slope. Yes, it was there. Less than two hundred yards ahead.
The air filled with steam as the angry fire strove to battle with its arch-enemy. But the rain was as merciless in its onslaught as had been the storm, and the fire itself. The latter had been given full scope to work its mischief, and now it was being called to its account. Heavier and heavier the deluge fell, and the miracle of its irresistible power was in the rapid fading of the ruddy glow in the smoke-laden atmosphere. ”

“ As Buck approached he could not help feeling that they were the most deplorable huts ever built. They were like a number of inverted square boxes, with roofs sloping from front to back. They were made out of rough logs cut from the pine woods, roofed in with an ill-laid thatch of mud and grass, supported on the lesser limbs cut from the trees felled to supply the logs. How could such despairing hovels ever be expected to shelter men marked out for success? There was disaster, even tragedy, in every line of them. ”

“ Buck stared. Then he gathered himself together.
“Your fate?”
“Yes, yes. I am cursed. Oh,” Joan suddenly gave a shrill laugh that was painful to hear. “Every man that has ever told me—what you have told me—has met with disaster, and—death.”
For one second no sound broke the stillness of the barn but the restless movements of Cæsar. Then, suddenly, a laugh, a clear, buoyant laugh, full of defiance, full of incredulity, rang through the building. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The wonder of the “washout” had passed. Its awe was no longer upon the human mind. The men of the camp regarded it with no more thought than if the destruction had been caused by mere blasting operations. They were not interested in the power causing the wreck, but only in their own motives, their own greedy longings, their own lust for the banquet of gold outspread before their ravening eyes.
The Padre watched these people his news had brought to the hill with tolerant, kindly eye. He saw them scattered like a small swarm of bees in the immensity of the ruin wrought by the storm. ”

“ A pariah! Nor, in the light of those things which to her own knowledge had happened, could she doubt the hideous denunciation. She had heard and understood that ill-luck could and did pursue its victims. But this! Oh, it was too terrible—too cruel! For an instant she thought of the doctor and his words of warning. But one glance at the bowed figure, again intent upon her crystal, and the thought passed. The story she had listened to was too real, too full of those things which had driven her poor aunt to her present unyielding attitude toward the world to be the ravings of an insane mind. ”

“ Mercy’s eyes lit with fine scorn as she caught at Joan’s final words.
“The happiness of the man you love!” she cried with passionate anger, “Why should I give you your man’s love? Why should I help any woman to a happiness I have never been allowed to taste? Perhaps it pleases me to think that your Buck will be involved. Have I not warned you of the disaster which you have permitted him to court? Listen, girl, not one detail of all that which I have waited for will I forego. Not one detail. When it is accomplished nothing on earth matters to me. ”

“ It was through this very attitude that his threat against Beasley Melford was not to be treated lightly. His comrades understood it. Beasley himself knew it. Buck had assured him that he would shoot him down like a dog if he offended against the unwritten laws of instinctive chivalry as he understood them, and he would do it without any compunction or fear of consequences.
A woman’s fame to him was something too sacred to be lightly treated, something quite above the mere consideration of life and death. ”

“ The man I love knows all, he and his great friend. He knows all you have ever told me, and his love is the strongest and bravest. He laughs this fate to scorn, he has no fears for himself, or for me. I tell you you shall have your proof. But you must leave me in peace.”
For a moment it almost seemed as if her aunt were abashed at the passion of her protest. She withdrew her cold stare, and, with her jeweled hands folded in her lap, gazed down at the white table-cloth. She waited until Joan dropped despairingly back into her chair, then she looked up, and her glance was full of malicious irony. ”

“ He was sure that he was capable of accepting anything from anybody, while yet being in a position to more than help himself.
Buck went outside to see the Kid off, and some of the men had gathered in the doorway. They watched the boy swing himself into the saddle, and the desperate shadows had lightened on their hungry faces. The buoyancy of their irresponsible natures was reasserting itself. That bridge, which the Padre’s promise had erected between their despair and the realms of hope, however slight its structure, was sufficient to lift them once more to the lighter mood so natural to them. ”

“ Live a wholesome, healthy life. Enjoy all that it is given you to enjoy. Where good can be done, do it. Where evil lies, shun it. Forget all this that lies behind you, and—Live! Evil is merely the absence of Good. Life is all Good. If we deny that good, then there is Evil. Live your life with all its blessings, and your God will bless you. This is your duty to yourself; to your fellows; to life; to your God.”
Joan had risen from her seat. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The farm was still, so still, in the glowing afternoon heat. The cattle were out in the pastures filling themselves with the succulent grass and dozing the long daylight hours away. The “hired” man was out with the team, breaking a new patch of prairie land in the interim between the haying and harvesting. The hogs were gently snuffling in their pens, and a few hens and cockerels were amiably flirting whilst scratching about amongst the barn litter in that busy, inconsequent manner so suggestive to the human mind of effort for the sheer delight of being busy. ”

“ Joan’s eyes were startled. A sudden pallor had replaced the smile on her lips, and drained the rich, warm color from her cheeks.
“You’ve always done those things for me, Buck,” she interrupted him hastily. “You’ve been the kindest—the best——”
“Don’t say those things,” Buck broke in with a hardly restrained passion. “It hurts to hear ’em. Kindest? Best? Say, when a man feels same as me, words like them hurt, hurt right in through here,” he tapped his chest with an awkward gesture. “They drive a man nigh crazy. A man don’t want to hear them from the woman he loves. Yes, loves!” ”

“ The smile died abruptly, leaving her burning eyes shining in an icy setting. “I am cruel, eh?” she went on intensely. “Cruel because I have refused to bend beneath the injustice of my fellows and the persecutions of Fate. Cruel because I meet the world in the spirit in which it has received me. Why should I have sympathy? The world has robbed me of the only happiness I ever desired. What obligation, then, is mine? You are right. I have no sympathy for any living creature—none!”
Joan offered no comment. ”

“ A hundred thoughts and sensations were passing through the man’s body and mind. He was sub-consciously estimating Cæsar’s power by the gait at which he was traveling. He was guessing at the rate of the racing fire. He was calculating the direction of the wind to an absurd fraction. He was observing without interest the racing of a strangely assorted commingling of forest creatures down the trail, seeking safety in flight from the speeding fire. He cared nothing for them. He had no feelings of pity for anything or any one but Joan. ”

“ Joan responded to his look.
“How?” she inquired, with a heightened color.
“Why, jest git a look at me. Me! You’re goin’ to marry me! I’d sure say you’ve a heap more grit than any gal-hero I’ve heard tell of.”
Joan surveyed his unkempt figure,—the torn clothing, his unshaven face; the bandages made of her own undergarments, which he still wore,—and the happy smile on her young face broadened.
“Well, you see, Buck, dear,” she said joyously, “you can’t be a proper hero if you don’t carry the scars of battle on you.” She sighed contentedly. ”

“ She rode at Buck’s side hour after hour on the sturdy horse that had served the Padre so faithfully, till her body was healthily weary, and her eyes grew heavy with straining. But she welcomed the work. For, with the tender mother eye of the woman in her, she beheld that which gladdened her heart, and made the hardest work a mere labor of love. Each passing day, almost with each passing hour, she witnessed the returning vigor of the man she loved. ”

“ She knew that duty was not only duty, but something which was to yield her a measure of happiness. She knew, too, that duty was not only to be regarded from a point of view of its benefit to others. There was a duty to oneself—which must not be claimed for the sin of selfishness—just as surely as to others; that in its thoroughness of performance lay the secret of all that was worth having in life, and that the disobedience of the laws of such duty, the neglect of them, was to outrage the canons of all life’s ethics, and to bring down upon the head of the offender the inevitable punishment. ”

“ It was nearly nine o’clock, and the yellow lamplight shed its soft monotony over the little parlor, revealing the occupants of the room in attitudes of tense concentration, even antagonism. Mercy Lascelles swayed slowly to and fro in the new rocking-chair Joan had purchased for her comfort. Her attenuated figure was huddled down in that familiar attitude which the girl knew so well, but her face wore an expression which Joan had never beheld before.
Usually her hard eyes were coldly unsmiling. Now they smiled—terribly. Usually her thin cheeks were almost dead white in their pallor. ”

“ Men moved about slowly, their tongues actively cursing. They cursed the heat as they mopped their dripping brows. They cursed the flies, and hurled mighty blows for their destruction. They cursed all work, and gold became the last thing in the world they desired at such a price. They cursed the camp, the country, but more than all they cursed the black hill from which they drew their living. ”