Ridgwell Cullum

“ 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. ”

“ You know, Mac, there’s a heap to Max of the feline species. He’s a mitt on him that ’ud shame velvet, and a tongue to match, and I feel plumb sick in the pit of the stomach, and like handling a newly hooked eel, when I get near enough to listen to his fancy dope, and feel the tips of his polished fingers in my hand. Get a line on him bowing around to folks whose bank roll he’s made his life’s study. See his Dago antics. You’d guess he loves us all to death, while all the time he’s out for plunder like any ‘hold-up’ that ever flagged a western express. ”

“ He was a man of something over thirty, with a strong face that was clean-shaven, or was supposed to be, and with a pair of such pale blue eyes as to be devoid of all expression. They were curious eyes, curious in that they revealed not a glimmer of the mind behind them, curious in that their stony expression was unchanging under any and every emotion.
His boat was moored securely, for the tide was a-surge and running out to sea. An iron bar, jammed in a crevice in the shelving granite, afforded him his second mooring and left him free to pursue his labours at leisure. ”

“ For that he had no interest whatever. The ravishing shimmer of the summer waters, the tattered magnificence of the element’s aged battle-ground. These things were matters of complete indifference to him. Even his view of McLagan’s high-perched home for the moment seemed to make no claim.
His searching gaze was preoccupied with the thing he had never looked to discover. He was gazing down upon the wreck of the Limpet lying upon its deathbed of rocks, which the night ebb had left bare. ”

“ There were added gashes in the poor thing’s sides where her lumber cargo somehow contrived to protrude. There was no longer a stitch of canvas upon her yards to scare the sea-fowl with its whipping in the chill wintry breeze blowing in off the ocean. Whether or not this was due to Sasa’s depredations it was impossible to tell. It might be. All her gear was limply adrift, and her yards were lying sadly. She was leaning at a perilous angle, and the tides had driven her farther up on to the rocks. One real great storm and anything might happen to her.
McLagan turned again to his henchman. ”

“ It was a little backwater hidden in a rift in the granite hills. Its mouth opening on to the waters of the Lias River was a ten foot split in the sheer face of bald rock. But inside it was quite different. Within a few yards of the absurd opening it widened abruptly, with sloping, funnel-like sides that were graciously clad by a wealth of spruce growing up the hillsides, and staunchly protected from the devastating winds above. It was a remote, stuffy spot, humid and dank, and a tangle of undergrowth profusely crowded the water’s edge. ”

“ It was a no less bleak and desolate inlet than a hundred others which serrated the southern coast line of Alaska. Attacked from sea and land, a way had been driven through the granite cliffs so that river and sea merged in an iron-bound bay, sea-bird haunted and without a vestige of softening from its barren austerity. Its waters were set with numberless upstanding granite fangs, and the swirl of its turbulent tide revealed submerged traps in almost any direction. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the realisation of these things even the women stood by in frank admiration, while her amazing good fortune filled them with superlative envy.
Claire had been staunch and true to herself and her purpose. Never once had there fallen a lapse. She eschewed the vices she witnessed in others of her sex who haunted the place, while she gave full run to her capacity for sheer enjoyment. Never once in the thirsty, heated atmosphere of the place had she permitted any beverage more harmful than a mineral water to pass her pretty lips. ”

“ The general run of the men and women of Beacon Glory demanded a good time. And the Speedway, under Max’s consummate guidance and absolute control, provided for their every need in this direction. Oh, yes, Max saw to that. For underneath his patient, smiling veneer, and his pose of polished respectability, he possessed a hard, unyielding, astute commercial soul, greedy for the last cent of profit he could extract from his customers.
Hardened trail men, no less than educated men from the cities of culture in the outer world, yielded to the seductions of the Speedway. ”

“ I tell you there’s no sort of limit to human vanity when it gets a-riot fixing cities. Beacon Glory? Did you ever call a hogpen by any other fancy name? Sure you didn’t. You aren’t plumb crazed yet for all you’re talking this burg as though winter had no right hiding it up for six months of the year. Get a look at the garbage lying around even the business avenue. Avenue! Sounds fine, doesn’t it? And then think of the hell of flies and skitters you got to live through next summer. Look at the shanties lying scattered around desecrating a swell picture of Nature’s painting. ”

“ The sun had just lifted above the eastern hills. Nature was astir. The restless sea-fowl were breaking their fast upon such fare as the waters provided, and sunrise had brought up with it a freshening breeze. The night tide was rapidly running out and the race of water was still fierce and strong and threatening.
Cy Liskard was laboriously clambering along the foreshore of the inner cove. He was moving up towards the headland guarding the southern shore of the river mouth. He was searching for the most promising direction whence he could attack its lofty summit. ”

“ Yet the man paid heed to the obliteration of all signs of his encampment with as much care as though his very life depended upon the complete covering of his tracks. Finally, the brushwood bundle was added to the burden of his canoe and he cast off his moorings. Then, in a moment, he took his place amidships and thrust off with the blade of his double paddle.
The little vessel shot out into the tide with a velocity that was almost threatening. But the man was ready and skilful and its nose swung round under the pressure of the dipping paddle and headed across current making tremendous leeway. ”

“ A Bunch of Humanity IT was the day of celebration at the Speedway. It was the anniversary of its first opening and Max Lepende had ordained that once a year high revel should hold sway in commemoration of the foundation of his fortunes. The Speedway was to Beacon Glory what the Casino is to Monte Carlo. It was perhaps a good deal more. But then, Monte Carlo is in the eyes of society and Beacon Glory had somehow contrived a position on the map more or less unrecorded. On the whole the “Glory” citizens, as they loved to call themselves, were well enough satisfied with their position. ”

“ Reaching out he took possession of the slim hands lying in her lap, those hands he had so often marvelled over in their deft manipulation of the cards in the Speedway’s poker room. “I’ve hit the biggest thing this world can show a feller in the work that’s mine. Gee!” he breathed deeply, while his eyes narrowed as they gazed into the beautiful eager face before him. “I’m through with it all. I’m through—almost—with Beacon. We’re going to get right out. You and me and your Mum. We’re going where we can live in sunshine all the year round, where there’s no skitters and blizzards, and no muck. ”

“ Cy Liskard was squatting over a camp fire that was built just outside his log home on the hillside. Nearby his dogs were pursuing some evening pastime that appealed to their savage natures. Maybe it was play, but the snarls that were so frequently accompanied by the fierce snapping of ivory-shod jaws suggested the narrow line dividing it from canine warfare.
His ponies were beyond the fence of a small, roughly constructed corral, and they stood close up to it at a point most nearly approaching the home of the man it was their life’s burden to serve. ”

“ He had heard of Bernard’s and other outrages, but the whole thing had left him unimpressed. When men were driven to spectre-play to achieve their ends he felt that sufficient boldness could defeat them all the time. So these white-shirted creatures with their cedar boughs, and rawhide hanging ropes, were dismissed from his mind leaving him free to contemplate that other who had brought about his undoing at the Speedway. ”

“ Here, on a calm Spring day, with a seemingly flat sea, a white man’s vessel under full sail—no wreck, no derelict with broken masts and spars, and with perhaps the steering-gear carried away—was heading calmly, almost it seemed, happily, to become a total wreck on perhaps the cruellest coast in the world. ”

“ McLagan shook his head. Then he flung out a hand pointing down the deck. The sun had broken out, and the wreck was bathed in its generous light.
“No, boy,” he said. “Look right down the deck there. You’re asking the way I know Jim was murdered by Caspar. It’s there for you to see, and I was waiting on it. Am I crazy? Are we all crazy? Is that real or imagination? What is it, anyway? There’s Jim, right there. That queer fool shadow that’s trying its best to walk along towards us and don’t ever get nearer. That’s Jim. ”

“ A rattling, aged buckboard driven by the man they had known for nearly five years. It contained no outfit, no burden of any sort but the reckless teamster who had literally made the trail by his own many journeys between his home and the city of Beacon Glory. But it was the final stage of the journey. A heart-bursting haul up an incline steeper than one in four.
At the summit were rest and feed in plenty. Unlike other men in the region using horse labour, McLagan cared for his ponies better than he would care for himself. ”

“ Already it was looming large as it approached the headland. And now, as it drew nearer, its yawing became more and more pronounced. For some moments no one spoke while they contemplated the wretched vessel’s impending fate. Then, as her high bows disappeared behind the upstanding belt of the headland, McLagan turned on his contemptuous servant.
“Who’s the feller you’re talking about? The feller who looks into caves and climbs rocks?” he asked sharply.
The half-breed shrugged without withdrawing his gaze from where the vessel was disappearing behind the headland. ”

“ It was a spacious apartment with panelled walls of dark green to match the colour of the baize-covered tables. It was carpeted thickly with oriental reds and blues, and such woodwork as there was was gleaming white. The tables were spaced evenly round the walls, with one only somewhat larger than the rest, occupying the centre of the room. The place was entered from a landing just beyond a wide, decorated archway hung with curtains, and this, in turn, gave on to the head of the great staircase. ”

“ The irrepressible Jubilee Hurst made no pretence of his reluctance, and he was airing his views with that simple freedom which he claimed as his right at all times.
“You know, boys,” he said, smashing a bunch of mosquitoes on the back of his bull-like neck, “Max is mostly a decent citizen for all he’s a Dago. But his craze for patent shoes and hair oil gets me all the time. You know, there’s no sort of reason in a guy acting the way he does behind a bow-tie fit for a Dago revolutionary, and wearing a sheath-knife on his hip fit to carve up whale blubber. ”