Sid

“ Sid was rather an odd character, somewhat quiet, much given to study, and to delving after the odd and unusual. One of his fads was biology, and another, allied to it, nature study. He would tramp all day for a sight of some comparatively rare bird, nesting; or walk many miles to get a picture of a fox, or a ground-hog, just as it darted into its burrow. ”

“ Sid sat down, with non-committal aloofness. She put her arm around his rigid shoulders, and whispered.
“You are the greatest goose that ever lived. I never kissed Jack Meriden. I love you—not as a man loves, but as a woman loves.”
“I love you the same way,” answered Sid, the storm-clouds suddenly swept from his face, “there is only one way of—loving. The other thing needs another name.”
And, with that, Rosamund snapped to the door of his cage forever. ”

“ Presently there emerged two stalwart bucks, bearing the carcass of the ram that Sid had seen shot before his eyes that morning. The three arrows that still stuck in his side identified him for Sid. In addition its body was now gayly decorated with prayer sticks and symbolic feathers signifying thankful remembrance to the Great Mystery who had given them this food. All the village turned out rejoicing at the hunters’ song. From the grass huts came squealing children, laughing girls, and lithe young men, all sunburned black as negroes which gave Sid the idea that most of them had been born here. ”

“ Sedley and I were one day conversing together about women. Sid was a very deep fellow in that game: no passion you know; no love on his own side; nothing of the sort; all done by rule and compass; knew women as well as dice, and calculated the exact moment when his snares would catch them, according to the principles of geometry. D——d clever fellow, faith; but a confounded rascal: but let it go no further; mum’s the word! must not slander the dead; and ‘tis only my suspicion, you know, after all. ”

“ Swiftly the twilight grew, while the pony slowed to a walk, his feet not making a sound in the soft duff. It was growing eerie and mysterious in here, thought Sid, as a slight shiver ran through him, and [66] he now wished he had stayed out in the open valley. But he fought back that wish as cowardly and foolish. Men did not turn back from what they had once set their hand to!
Then a stick cracked, somewhere behind him. Sid reined up and listened. All was still as death; even the birds had gone to roost in the dim twilight of the chasm. ”

“ Nothing came down here; nothing could get down here, except an occasional bird and the ubiquitous pack rat, one of which had come snuffing into his lean-to the night before.
Sid was more than weary of the whole thing—but he was learning, from life itself, the meanings of the words patience and fortitude. To take things as they came; never to give up, never to be discouraged; always look for the bright outcome somehow, somewhere—it took a strong soul to do that! His own soul was growing, under the exercise of the Indian’s virtues—courage, honor, fortitude, faith. ”

“ Sid waved his arm to Honanta and his bucks to jump in and join in the search for the leak, but they stood back, arms folded, eying him gloomily. Childlike, in many ways, is the Indian mind! Before anything whose cause they cannot reason out they stand helpless. Only Niltci followed Sid and Scotty into the water, and that from blind obedience. ”

“ Sid stood there and watched him. When the other actors came boiling up behind him, he put his hands on the doorframe to either side so none of them could get past. Their faces peered around him.
And all this while the stranger was saying, "What may this mean? Can such things be? Are all the seeds of time ... wetted by some hell-trickle ... sprouted at once in their granary? Speak ... speak! You played me a play ... that I am writing in my secretest heart. Have you disjointed the frame of things ... to steal my unborn thoughts? Fair is foul indeed. Is all the world a stage? ”

“ Sid followed him, once the heavy bulk of the cowman had left the pole on the other side. Below him dropped away an endless shadowy chasm, with the tiny pines and firs of the [14] valley visible hot in the sunlight far below. On both sides towered above him the huge smooth walls of the chimney made by the pinnacle and its neighbors. Sid cast a mere glance at the prospect below, and then climbed over swiftly and joined Big John in the black depths of the tunnel.
It was some time before their eyes became accustomed to the dim light. Up and up inside the living rock the narrow fissure climbed. ”

“ The very thought gave Sid a glimpse,—like a rift through the clouds at some mountain top,—of the unapproachable dignity of Nature. Man, at his best, is but a mere insult in her presence, an audacious, unspanked microbe, that has occupied and will occupy but a brief period in her cosmic processes, even when his whole history is told from start to finish. ”

“ When people travel in strange countries they have to have a guide who knows the fine roads and wonderful places to be seen in that part of the world. Now Sid was a little traveller just setting out on a very long journey and it was a very fortunate thing for him that he had his mother as a guide.
When night was coming on and it was getting dark out of doors, the open wood fire was lighted in the back parlor; and then in the glow which made everything in the room look so queer, with his hand in hers, Sid’s mother took him off to other lands and even to the Moon. ”

“ Sid soliloquised just audibly.
"Shut up Sid! A body does just the same in a dream as he'd do if he was awake. Here's a big Milum apple I've been saving for you Tom, if you was ever found again—now go 'long to school. ”

“ But Pinto’s actions told him that that noise was not imagination. His pony’s ears lay flat back and he was shivering all over with fear!
Sid watched, intently, down the chasm. He thought he saw a bush move. A second’s concentration on it told him it had moved, for the tips of its lower branches still vibrated. He reached down and drew his army carbine out of its scabbard. For some minutes Sid watched the bush, his heart beating with excitement. A more experienced man than he would have hummed a shot into it to smoke out whatever might be lurking there. ”

“ Blaze bawled out in pain, then sprawled out flat, with all four of his furry paws spread out like woolly broom handles, while his pained eyes looked up piteously to Sid. An arrow transfixed him above his shoulders. The dog seemed paralyzed as Sid dropped beside him, hot anger welling up in his heart. A hurt to one’s own person does not cause a whiter rage than one [106] done to a dumb pet! Sid peered about him, seeking with glittering eye for something to fire at. Beside him Blaze moaned, sighed deeply, and then fell over stiffly, the arrow sticking in the rock and partly supporting him. ”

“ At a slow, almost a painfully slow pace, Sidney re-entered, his hand still on Ann Packet's arm.
"Sid—I—I think I'll say good-bye, now!"
Sidney sprung forward and caught his hands.
"Not yet—not good-bye yet, sir!"
"Why not? I don't fear to say it Sid—I'm strong at—heart—still; it's a brave—a brave parting! No regrets—no sense of duty—neg—lected! A kind father, I hope—a—a good son—I know! God bless you, boy!—peace and happiness to yours—in life. Mattie—think—of him!"
Mattie bowed her head, and covered her face with her hands.
"Sidney—help her, too—if she's in trouble—ever an old friend." ”

“ Sid, his son, and Sid’s chum, Scotty, were patching their cruiser moccasins with hand sewing-awls, the former now and then glancing over at his father anxiously.
The Colonel looked peaked and worn,—a thin, gray ghost of his former robust self,—for his duty during the War had been onerous in the extreme, as head of the Army Detail Office at Washington. Sid [2] feared a total collapse of the old Indian fighter, for nothing is harder on the system of a man raised to years of violent outdoor life than a long period of desk work. Sid knew the only road back to health. ”

“ Sid laughed gayly. There was no quenching the giant Montanian’s humor so long as the breath of life existed in him! “Guess you’re better, all right!” he answered, relieved.
“Whar’s my dear friend, Mister Spigotty?” inquired Big John with elaborate sarcasm. “Last I seen of him, he was fixin’ to turn loose a machine-gun onto me.”
“We’re still worrying about him, John,” replied Sid seriously. “He got away. The chief’s arrow took him just as he was about to pull trigger on you, but I think that loose serapé he wore saved him. An arrow just loses its punch in it. ”

“ He's blond, you know; he's as fresh as a girl, but he has an uncommonly set look at times, when he's serious or a bit disgusted about something. He has a set in his temper, too. I should not care to have Sid hear our story—not till after he had seen you, Esmée. Perhaps even then he could not understand. He has never loved a woman, except his mother. He doesn't know what a man's full-grown passion means. ”

“ John's face set. All the wrongs which Sid had perpetrated since the Halloween party—the earlier sodas, the persistence which had culminated in the theater affair, the baseball election, and his arrogance since that time—clamored for revenge. He'd get even, he would. He'd go back and punch Sid's face in, and muss that new suit, and throw his baseball gloves up on a house roof. Then Mr. Sid would quit monkeying with his girl. ”

“ It was through that plateau of pine timber that their route north to the Canyon Cheyo would lie, and somewhere, cut deep in the plateau, would be that valley of the ancient cliff dwellers that they all wished to see. As Sid studied the huge panorama an overwhelming desire for solitude came over him. He wanted to be alone, to take for himself the Indian boy’s three days of trial and to face life and his future for a time with wide open eyes, alone and uncounseled. Like them, he wanted to ask questions of life and learn what it all was going to mean for him. ”

“ But we'll drink the boy's health, at all events, God bless him! and we'll have a game at whist, three and a dummy, and make quite a party of it in our little way. Sid one-and-twenty, Wesden! by all that's glorious, it's a fine thing to have a son come to maturity!"
Wine-glasses were produced—even a pack of cards, a brand new pack from the stock—and Sid's health was drunk very quietly, without any musical honours, but very heartily, for all that.
And five minutes after the health had been drunk, Sidney Hinchford, portmanteau in hand, entered the shop, and walked straight into the parlour. ”

“ Not, of course, that she really cared for Sid, any more than he cared for her. It was merely two flirts making a trial of strength, the old eternal duel between man and woman; but, for once, the man had most to lose—and that Sid kept reiterating to himself: for this momentary diversion he might lose Rosamund, lose his whole life, and the meaning of it—for this!{212}
The siren, who had not known him for three days without knowing all about him, estimated accurately with what she had to contend. For the woman flirt there is no incentive like—Another Woman! ”

“ Knees, and the heavy weight of a man on his back, bore him to earth. His arms sprawled out, dropping the rifle; his tongue shot out and out, gagging fiercely against that awful halter grip around his throat. Sid thought of the Thug strangling cloth in that last instant before an enormous drumming in his head gave way to blackness clouding over his eyes. ”

“ Sid, whose overwhelming ambition was to make the first eleven and aid in defeating Hammond, had hero worship in its most virulent form. After two or three days of Sid's attention Roy got so that he would dodge out of sight when he saw the youngster coming.
It required some bravery on Sid's part to show open admiration for Roy, for Horace still ruled the school, and the juniors especially, with an iron hand, and Sid was, as he well knew, courting dire punishment. But it was a time of open revolt against Horace's supremacy and Sid, with many others, escaped chastisement. ”

“ How Charlie did admire Sid for his easy flow of language! The “lane,” as Seamont called the narrow street before the barn, was now searched for recruits, and the barn-chamber was deserted a whole hour. The big horse-flies sawed on their bass-viols at their leisure. The warm gold of the sunshine undisturbed continued to decorate the floor of the chamber. Hark! There’s a noise in the yard! It grows to a harried, breathless scramble on the stairs. Finally eight boys appeared, the future members of the club, save one or two later additions. There was Sid or Sidney Waters, aged eleven. ”

“ Victories are seldom graceful. In the thick of battle it is occasionally necessary to be impolite. Suddenly Sid had seen, as it were, luridly embodied the moment he had told himself might some day come—the moment of temptation. ”

“ They were under some strain, though, for the life of them, neither Sid nor Phil could tell what it was.
"Why doesn't some one say something?" asked Phil at length, and it was as if some one had broken the silence in a church.
Sid picked up the book he had cast aside. Then he threw it down again, for there sounded the noise of a person coming along the corridor. The Snail came in.
"Well?" gasped Tom, and it was as if he had shouted it, though he spoke in a low, tense voice.
"They're in a bad way," said the Snail slowly, "but there's a chance to pull them through. ”