Roger Pocock

“ I'm only twenty-eight years old. It wasn't fair that I should be treated like that. I doubt if I remember all that happened. I must have been crazed with pain and fear until suddenly I woke up on a boulder by that awful river, and saw him drift past me, caught in the rapids, drowning. I would have shouted I was so glad, until he saw me, and dying as he was, looked at me with Lionel's clear sane eyes.
I fainted, and when I awoke again in the dusk, Jesse bent over me, not as he is, the rugged fighting frontiersman, but dressed in white, wearing a wreath of beaten gold leaves, the laurel crown. ”

“ Instead of Jesse's whistling, Mick's barking, the altercations in the new ram-pasture where our cow-boys live, the snuffles of old Jones, our yard was filled with the exact opposite. Of course each sound has its opposite, its shadow, making a gap in the chorus of things heard, and when all the homely voices are replaced by gaps, one feels the desolation of the high lonesome. Yet I fled away lest the widow's vengeful stump should overtake me. ”

“ The air was full of a big noise, like the skirl of sea-gulls screaming in a gale, and there was Mr. McTavish on the sidewalk, marching with his bagpipes to wake the folk out of their Sunday beds. He'd pants down to his heels, just as father said, and fat bacon to eat every day of his life. He was strong as a team of bullocks, a big, bonny, red man, with white teeth when he turned, smiling, in a sudden silence of the pipes. Then he saw father's body, with legs and arms stiffened all ways, and the number-four trap still gripped on broken bones. Off came his fur cap. ”

“ There was the last of my poor little test which had proved in him a chivalry, a generosity, a moral valor, a physical courage, a sense of beauty, a native humor, which made me very humble. All I had foolishly imagined in poor Lionel, all that a woman hopes for in a man, was here beyond the accidents of rank or caste. How pitiful seemed the standards of value which rated Lionel a gentleman, and this man common! Jesse is something by nature which gentlemen try to imitate with their culture. ”

“ CHAPTER XI BILLY O'FLYNN
Kate's Narrative
Both Jesse and I have a habit of committing our thoughts to paper and not to speech. Things written can be destroyed, whereas things said stay terribly alive. I think if other husbands and wives I know of wrote more and talked less, their homes would not feel so dreadful, so full of horrible shadows. There are houses where I feel ill as soon as I cross the door-step, because the very air of the rooms is foul with the spite, the nagging, the strife of bitter souls. ”

“ But so far as I seen, up to whar grass meets sky, this trade of punching cows appeals to me most plentiful. In every other vocation the job's just work, but all a cow-boy's paid for is forms of joy—to ride, to rope, to cut out, to shoot, to study tracks an' sign, read brands, learn cow. A bucking horse, a range fire, a gun fight, a stampede, is maybe acquired tastes, for I've known good men act bashful. ”

“ Many find peace in death, only a few in life, and I found peace thar in the wilderness, the very medicine of torn souls, fresh from the hand of the Almighty Father.
And I found wealth. Seems there's many persons mistaking dollars for some sort of wealth. I've had a few at times by way of samples, the things which you're apt to be selfish with, or give away to buy self-righteousness. Reckoning with them projuces the feeling called poverty. They're the very stuff and substance of meanness, and no man walks straight-loaded. ”

“ There was the puppy piano, green with mold, her work-basket, half eaten, her writing-table littered with rat-gnawed paper. The pages are yellow, the ink is rusty brown, but the [Pg 237] past is alive in every line, the living past, the sunny warm-scented land of memory, all full of love and glory and delight, and agony which can not be taken from me.
If she were here with me in the old log cabin, she should not see me mourning, or afraid to face the past, or dreading to set an end to our book. ”

“ Jesse Closes the Book
It is years now since my lady left me. Never has an ax touched her trees, or any human creature entered her locked house. The rustle of her dress is in the leaves each fall, the pines still echo to her [Pg 249] voice. I hear her footsteps over the new snow, I feel her presence when I read her books. I know her thoughts are spirits haunting me, and all things wait until she comes back. Not until I lost my lady did I ever hear that faint, thin, swaying echo when her grove seemed to be humming tunes. ”

“ To judge by the hind shoes, Mrs. Trevor's mean colt had gone down toward the river not more'n ten minutes ago, on the dead run, then back up the road at a racking out-of-breath trot. Something must have gone wrong, and sure enough as I neared a point of rocks which hid the trail ahead, Jones suddenly shied hard in the midst of a hiccup. There was the Widow Bear's track right across the road, and Mick had to yell blue blazes to get the other ponies past the smell. Ahead of me the tracks of the Trevor colt were dancing the width of the road, bucking good and hard at the stink of bear. ”

“ In the days when I thought this Jesse person was important, I used to read the Old Testament, which is [Pg 291] full human with pride and arrogance of man. But since I learned that this whole world is only a dream from which we shall awake, the New Testament has been my pasturage. Maybe three moons ago, when my ammunition had run out, and my neighbor animals had learned all the little secrets of my traps and snares, there was no food for the earthly part of me, and I wondered what God was going to do about it. ”

“ In the ruined shack, half-way to our home, Kate was to have a candle, screened so that it could only be seen from our trail. As soon as we rose the edge of the bench, and a mile before we would reach the shack, I seen the candle and knew that she was safe. We passed my fence, we crossed the half-mile creek, we gathered speed along the open pasture, and then Kate's yell went through me like a knife. The robbers must have had a man on night herd, and found her by that light!
Dale's hand grabbed my rein, and with a growl he halted our whole outfit. "Steady," says he, "you fool!" ”

“ That was my great lesson, more gain to me than peace and wealth of mind, for I was humbled to the dust of earth, below that dust of stars. So as a very humble thing, not worth praying for, at least I could be master of myself. I rode no more for wages, but cut out my ponies from the Lightning herd, mounted my stud horse William, told the boys good-by at Montecello, and then rode slowly north into the British possessions. So I come at last to this place, an old abandoned ranch. There's none so poor in dollars as to envy ragged Jesse, or rich enough to want to rob my home. ”

“ Jesse's Narrative
While I made signal fires on the top of the cliff, Mr. Robber came to find out from my wife why for I hadn't called to leave my card at the South Cave. He's picturesque, says she, hair like a raven's wing, eyes steel-blue, scarf indigo striped with orange, shirt black silk, woolly shaps out of a Wild West show, gold and silver fixings, Cheyenne saddle, carbine of some foreign breed, or maybe a Krag, manners fit for a king, age thirty-four, height six feet two inches, chest only thirty-eight, and such a sad smile—all of this will be useful to the police. ”

“ I run home for my rifle, posts myself at big pine, takes a steady bead, and lets fly, knocking a salmon out of the lady's mouth. Then I remembers that the shock of a gunshot is enough to loose the end of Apex Rock. It does, and while the scenery is being rearranged, the landlady sets up, wondering what's the trouble. When the dust clears, Apex Rock up here is reduced to a stump; down thar by the rapids the fishing rock's extended with additions; the landlord's a widower, running for all he's worth; and the landlady is no more—not enough left of her to warrant funeral obsequies. ”

“ I'd answer to all he did, grave as a constable, playing the game of life just as I used to.
All of us have to play, at trade, at war, at love, at kingdoms and republics. We play at empire without a grin, we play with serious faces at learning and the arts. ”

“ Kate's Narrative
Jesse argues that there's nothing to boast of in the way he saved me. Horse and rifle are like feet to run with, hands to fight with, part of his life. "Now, if I'd rode a giraffe and harpooned you, I'd have my name in all the papers. Shucks! Skill and courage are things to shame the man who hasn't got them."
I married Lionel Trevor in the days when he looked like a god as Parsifal, sang like an angel, had Europe at his feet. "Something wrong with Europe," is Jesse's comment. "West of the Rockies we don't use such, except to sell their skins." ”

“ The spring storms came, the rains changed to snow, the snow changed to rain, with hail-storms, and thunder rolling over snow. The cheeky little [Pg 321] buttercups peeped up through the tails of the snowdrift, and far away, below Jesse's ranch in the Fraser cañon, the Star brand mules worshiped their old bell mare among the marigolds. The ground was bare now about Pete's cabin, all sodden pine chips to the edge of the rain-drenched bush, and the willow buds were bursting.
Pete sat under a roof of cedar shakes which he had built to shelter the new "riggings." ”

“ I stared until in shame she sat up, still for all the world like an animal lost to human feeling, and to a woman's dignity, until as she looked at me a wan shamed smile seemed to apologize. She sat back then against the log wall, limp, relaxed with weakness.
"Nurse," I called, still with my gaze on Polly, "this woman is wounded. You are a nurse. You claimed to be a nurse."
But Miss Panton indulged in hysterics, so I turned to Billy. "Run into the house, get the hip bath, warm water, blankets, bandages." ”

“ Iron calls me a coward. But Polly only weighs ninety-eight pounds, and I two hundred, so that I couldn't have managed to feel brave fighting her. Then Iron claims it's not the little woman I ought to fight, but the big evil she did in bringing all our settlers to death or ruin. A woman's whim is light as thistle-down, but thistles choke the pasture unless you fight them, and Christ himself fought to the death against the evils which grew rank around him. ”

“ But, Jesse, when you and Kate were joined in holy matrimony, was it man's law which said, 'Whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder.' What has man's law to do with the awful justice of Almighty God? ”

“ Jesse's Narrative
With creditors, women, robbers, and everything dangerous, you want to be chuck full of deportment, smooth as old Honeypott, and a whole lot tactful. Anything distractful or screeching disturbs one's peace of mind, and sends one's aplomb to blazes, just when a bear trap may happen at any moment. I traveled for all I was worth to put that widow behind me, and compose my mind. ”

“ No, proud as Lucifer! Was he ashamed of the dress of his trade? Not by a damned sight! Soldiers and sailors are proud to wear the dress of their trade when they marry. "So are cow-punchers," said he, with his head in the air. "S'pose we ride to Cariboo City, and get married in that little old log church."
He managed to persuade me; and I consented also to a hunting trip, instead of the usual honeymoon.
When I was well enough for the journey, I rode my colt, and Jesse his demon mare—Jones—my sole rival, I think, except that dreadful bear, in his affections. ”

“ For miles I had followed the edge of the bench lands, searching for the place, for the right place, some point where the rocks went sheer, twelve hundred feet into the river. There must be nothing to break the fall, no risk of being alive, of being taken back there, of seeing him again. But the edge was never sheer, and perhaps after all, the place by the Soda Spring was best. There the trail from the ranch goes at a sharp turn, over the edge of the cliffs and down to the ferry. Beyond there are three great bull pines on a headland, and the cliff is sheer for at least five hundred feet. ”

“ A bunch of East Oregon horses, three cow-boys to handle our stock, a man to run the Sky-line contract, an irrigated corn field, and winter feed, two Chinese servants, so many 'must haves' that we waxed quite despondent over ways and means. Jesse must go to Vancouver on business, and thus after much preamble I came at last to the point.
"Take Billy with you."
"But if I go, he's got to look after the ranch." [Pg 217]
Men are so stupid. When I sing to my dear bull pines, they breathe a swaying thin echo like some distant chorus; yet at the sight of Jesse, become impassive as red Indian chiefs. ”

“ Let me here quote one of Jesse's letters to his mother. "This Brooke and I grew our beef and matured our horns on the same strong pasture, but where a homely face kept me out of temptation, he had what you call beauty, and I'd call vanity. Instead of trying to be, he aimed to act. He'd play cow-boy, or robber, or gambler, things he could never be, because he's not a man. He could wear the clothes, the manners, the talk, and pass himself off for real. The women who petted him sank and were left in the lurch. The men who trusted him were shot and hanged. ”

“ Jesse supposed me to be destitute, and when I spoke of returning to my work in Europe, offered to raise the money for my passage. Knowing his ranch to be mortgaged already to its full value, I wondered what limit there was to this poor man's valor. Yes, I would accept, assuring him of swift repayment, yet dared not tell him the wages offered me at Covent Garden. It seemed indecent that a woman's voice should be valued at more per week than his heroic earnings for a year. ”