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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
Ernest Haycox's 'Canyon Passage' is a gripping tale set in the rugged landscape of the American West, following the lives of a group of settlers as they face challenges of love, betrayal, and survival. Haycox's prose is vivid and atmospheric, transporting the reader to a time and place where courage and determination are the only things that can guarantee survival. The novel's exploration of the complexities of human relationships and the harsh realities of frontier life make it a compelling read for fans of Western literature. 'Canyon Passage' is a prime example of Haycox's skill in crafting authentic narratives that capture the essence of the American frontier. Haycox's deep understanding of the Western genre shines through in this masterfully written novel, showcasing his talent for storytelling and character development. Readers who appreciate richly detailed historical fiction with a strong sense of place will find 'Canyon Passage' a captivating and unforgettable read.
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Canyon Passage
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1. — AT THE AMERICAN EXCHANGE
AS soon as he entered Portland, Logan Stuart stabled his horse at the Fashion Livery on Oak and retraced his way along Front Street toward the express office. A violent southwest wind rolled ragged black clouds low over the town and the flatly swollen drops of an intemperate rain formed a slanting silver screen all around him, dimpling the street's watery mud and dancing a crystal dance on glistening rooftops. The plank walk-ways across the street intersections were half afloat and sank beneath his weight as he used them; at two o'clock of such a day the kerosene lights were sparkling through drenched panes and the smell of the saloons, when he moved by them, was a rich warm blend of tobacco, whisky and men's soaked woolen clothes.
Three or four sailing ships lay at the levee with their bare spars showing above the row of frame buildings on Front. Beyond Seventh, in the other direction, the great fir forest was a black semicircle crowding Portland's thousand people hard against the river. Tradesmen's shingles squealed on their iron brackets and a raw wild odor—of massive timbered hills and valleys turned sweet by rain—assailed Logan Stuart and as he turned into the express office he saw a stocky shape, vague in this agitated twilight, wheel abruptly through a saloon's doorway ahead of him. A four-horse dray came up Front at the moment, the great wheels of the dray plunged half to the hubs; the teamster's cursing, issued with vigor, was instantly lost in the steady tempest.
The express office was warm and quiet once the door had closed behind Logan Stuart. He dropped his saddlebags on the counter and watched a young man with a dry, cool visage rise and come forward. The young man, Cornelius van Houten, wore a pair of steel-rimmed glasses in whose lenses the room's yellow lamplight bloomed.
"Damp day," said van Houten. "How's Jacksonville?"
"Lively," replied Stuart and opened the saddlebags to lay upon the counter a dozen gold pokes crowded skintight with nuggets and dust. With the drawstring clinched at the end of each, they looked like fat summer sausages.
"Credit to account?" asked van Houten.
"I'll take back specie. We're shy on cash at the diggings. What time do you open in the morning?"
"Tomorrow's Sunday."
"Put the specie in the saddlebags. I'll get them before you close tonight and keep them in my hotel room."
"I'd guess you've got seven thousand there—and that's no trinket to be left loose in a hotel room."
"Cornelius," said Stuart with a smile that broke the rough reserve on his face, "gold is only yellow gravel."
"Ah," said van Houten, agreeably dissenting, "but the yellow color makes a difference."
"Butter's yellow, too, and you can spread it on bread. Ever try that with gold?"
"For a man of business," commented van Houten, "you have got odd notions. Were I a banker, as I someday shall be, I should conclude you unsound and lend you nothing."
"A man can choose his gods, Cornelius. What are your gods?"
"What?" asked van Houten.
Logan Stuart returned to the intemperate day.
The rain had thickened until the buildings across the street squatted half vague in the sparkling downpour and ropy cascades splashed upon the sidewalk from gorged eaves. Out in the middle of the street a man stood on the surface of a stump with a set of muttonchop whiskers wetly plastered to his jowls and watched the yellow mud slowly flow around him. Stuart turned into a store at the corner of Alder, bought himself some dry clothes and made a couple of purchases for the Dance family away down the Oregon- California road, and thereafter walked a narrow plank across Front Street and entered a barber-shop near the American Exchange Hotel.
He had a bath, a shave and a haircut; and with a cigar fragrantly ignited between his lips, he went on to the American Exchange, got a room and ascended to it. He laid his wet clothes over a chair, walked a restless circle around the room and brought up at one of the two windows in the room to watch the storm-battered street below him. Above him, the peak of the hotel roof emitted a dull organ tone as the wind struck it With one shoulder tipped against the windowsill he achieved a moment's stillness not characteristic of him. He was a man of loose and rough and durable parts, like a machine intended for hard usage; there was no fineness or smoothness about him. His long mouth was expressive only when he smiled and his heavy nose swelled somewhat at the base to accommodate wide nostrils. He had the blackest of hair, lying in long chunks on his head; his eyes were sharp gray and well-bedded in their sockets—and all this made a face which in repose held the mixed elements of sadness and strong temper. Only when that face lightened did it show any sign of the rash streak which he possessed. He was a little under six feet, long of arms and meaty of legs, with a chest that had breadth rather than thickness. A scar shaped like a fish hook stood at the left corner of his mouth, the relic of some fist fight he had been rather eager to indulge in when younger. Now at twenty-eight he had better control of himself.
He could stand still only for a short while, and suddenly turned from the window, left the room and descended the stairs to the saloon which adjoined the American Exchange's lobby.
Henry McLane saw him at once and beckoned him over for a drink. "Just to keep the chills out," said Henry. "How's things at the mines?"
"Brisk," said Logan Stuart and heard the hoarse whistle of a steamboat in the river; that would be the Belle coming in from the Cascades run. He made room for himself at the crowded bar, beside Henry McLane, who removed his stovepipe hat and thumped it like a drum to catch the barman's attention. At five o'clock there was no natural light left in this drowned world.
"What are the Indians going to do this year?" asked Henry McLane.
"It is, so far, quiet and uncertain."
The barroom was at this hour of a bad day crowded, smoky and cheerful. Portland was a new and small town on the scarcely explored northwest coast, therefore Portland was still largely a town of bachelors arrived in search of the business chance; and the American Exchange bar served them both as a club and a commercial meeting point. Here were the plain types of a new land: the ship captain with his benign mutton chops and his frosty eyes; the farmer stained with the back country's mud roads; the emigrant whose manner was brisk and blunt and hearty and whose voice was pitched to Oregon's deep timbered reaches and long open plains; and the New Englander, so sharp and so cool, who had come here specifically for the mercantile advantages to be had in a fresh land and who meant to seize them and make his fortune. There was an Eastern twang in the room's talk, mixed with Iowa, mixed with Missouri, and mixed with Virginia's softness.
"Logan," said Henry McLane, "I have got a consignment of goods from the brig Alice, to be delivered to Clay and King at Jacksonville. I shall ship by the boat Canemah to Salem. Do you wish the business of packing it from there? General hardware, a few bolts of cloth, buckets, tin dishes, rope."
"How many mules will it make?"
"Twenty, I suppose. What's your freight?"
"Three dollars the mule per day."
McLane studied it a moment and nodded his head. "Agreeable. It will be at Salem on the twentieth of the month."
The deal having been made, Logan Stuart bought the second round of drinks, after which McLane excused himself. "I have got to see if George Miller can take a load of windows out toward Gale's creek."
"Windows—windows with glass?"
"We are becoming civilized," said McLane and moved away to intercept a man in muddy boots, round fur cap and a huge army overcoat. "George," he called through the steady confusion of the saloon. "George!"
The place was packed. Logan Stuart pressed his way through the crowd and circled a group who were deep in reminiscences concerning the emigrant trail. Five of Portland's leading businessmen sat at a poker table, closely engaged with some business speculation of their own; and a ship captain near by was in half an argument with another man. "Lumber's selling sky high in San Francisco and you'll make a handsome profit. You have got to let other men make a little. Don't haggle so damned much over the freight, my friend, or I'll pull out of here in ballast." When he left the saloon, Logan Stuart observed that Henry McLane was at the bar again, sealing another bargain.
He crossed to the clerk's desk. "Miss Lucy Overmire arrived?"
"In Ten," said the clerk, "just off the Cascades boat. She has been asking for George Camrose."
Stuart walked up a stairway whose red plush runner was stained with the day's fresh mud.
He turned down the hall and he stood a moment in front of her door, visualizing her face with a keen start of interest; then he knocked and heard her voice murmur, "Come in, George."
She was in the center of the room when he opened the door and she had a smile on her face. But it was a smile meant for Camrose and he now observed the smile change character. Something went out of it, he didn't know what; and something came into it, nor did he know what that quality was.
"George knew I was coming up, and asked me to bring you home. He had a sudden trip to make toward Crescent City."
"Will you mind having me on your hands, Logan?" Then quite unexpectedly she broke into a small, free laugh. "That was a foolish question. You don't mind women on your hands."
"Who has given me that reputation?" he asked.
"Rumor."
"Rumor borne by George Camrose," he said. "The man is building up his faithfulness at my expense. Have you got stout clothes? We leave before daylight and the weather is foul."
"I do not mind," she said and watched him with her lips retaining the smile in their corners.
There was a speculative light in her eyes and the shape of judgment on her face—and this too was something familiar to him. They knew each other very well. She wore a brown and beautiful dress and her black hair was softly, shiningly plaited back of her head. She was a filled-out and mature woman within her clothes.
"Supper?" he said.
She moved to the bureau mirror to give herself a swift glance; and, catching up a shawl-like wrap, she moved down the stairs with him into the dining room. Talk made a great racket in the place; at the bachelors' table in the center of the room Logan Stuart saw Henry McLane, turned pink and dignified with his business trips to the bar.
She sat across from Stuart, pleasantly still; she was aware of her surroundings and occasionally her eyes showed curiosity and some vagrant thought stirred her face. Then he found her attention on him, once more with its deep and well-guarded interest. Sometimes warmth lay between them, strong and unsettling, and his own expression would sharpen; and at times like these the bare repose of his face would break, giving way to smiling restlessness. It was these times when she looked at him most observantly, trying to read him.
"How was your visit?" he asked. "How was The Dalles?"
"Quiet," she said. "But, Logan, there are a lot of cattle and horses up there which have been abandoned by the emigrants when they came down the river. They could be gotten for very little. Perhaps it would be profitable to buy and drive them to Southern Oregon."
"See any mules?"
She sat still, trying to remember, and for an instant he saw in this stillness a quality that struck roughly through him.
"No," she said. But she observed the change of his expression and her guard lifted again. They ate a silent meal and moved back to the stairs. He walked up to her door with her and paused a moment.
"Five o'clock," he said. "And dress warm. We'll make Salem the first day and the head of the Long Tom the second. We ought to be in Jacksonville Friday afternoon. Is that traveling too fast for you?"
"No," she said. "I suppose you're going down to play a little poker now."
"I guess not. Good night."
Her answering "Good night" followed him. He went past the door of his own room and stopped at the stairs, looking back. She still stood by her door, the hall lamp showing the outline of her face.
"A woman, Logan?"
He laughed, and saw a sudden gust of anger come to her. She turned in and closed the door. He had been amused at her suspicion but, going down the stairs, he no longer found amusement in her judgment of him. He was restless, he was irritated and he thought: "George must have made me out a hell of a fellow. I shall have to speak to him." He heard the beat of the rain on the hotel wall and he went back up to his room for his coat and hat; afterwards he walked along the black gut of Front Street and crossed over to the express office. Van Houten had delayed closing time for him; and now brought the saddlebags out of the big company safe.
"Sure you want to keep this in the hotel room?"
"It's all right," said Stuart and slung the bags over his shoulder. He waited while van Houten snuffed out the lamps and damped the cast-iron stove. Van Houten took up a dragoon pistol from behind the counter and locked the office door. He said something which was washed away by the tidal wind, and put himself between Stuart and the building walls as they walked back toward the American Exchange. He fell from the narrow crossing plank, up to his boot tops, and bitterly swore. At the hotel's doorway he stopped and said, "Luck." By the light glowing through the doorway Stuart saw that the young man had carried the dragoon pistol cocked and presented all the way from the express office.
"Keep your feet dry," said Stuart and watched van Houten vanish completely three steps onward; it was that black a night. He crossed the lobby and tramped up the stairs, at the upper landing he paused and then went on to Lucy Overmire's door. He knocked and heard her voice, still cool, call him in.
She stood by the window, now turning to look at him and show him the same reserved judgment he had seen before. "No," he said, "it wasn't a woman."
"Why didn't you say so, then?"
"You're marrying George, not me," he said.
"Why should I tell you where I'm going?"
Suddenly they were laughing at each other. She came across the room, the room's light richening her cheeks; she looked up at him, speaking with a blended sharpness and softness. "I'd never want a woman to make a fool of you, Logan."
"Do you question George like this?"
"Why," she said, "it has never occurred to me to doubt him."
"I am flattered by the distinction," he dryly said.
"George is less vulnerable than you, with women. He judges them more critically. You have too much compassion in you, Logan. You're fair game."
"Am I?" he said. "Yet he's engaged, and I am not."
"What have you got in the saddlebags?"
"Gold coin."
"I watched you from the hotel window. There was a man standing at the corner of Alder as you passed. He followed you across the mud."
"Good night, Lucy," he said and left the room. Noise came robustly up from the lobby and saloon. In his own room he put the saddlebags beneath the mattress at the head of the bead. He stripped to his woolen underwear and drank from the water pitcher, and then braced a chair under the door's knob. There were no catches on the two windows, but they were both fifteen feet or more above the street level and not to be worried about. He slid his revolver under the pillow, turned out the light and lay flat on his back, listening to the steady slash of the rain against the hotel; now and then a harsher gust of wind shook the whole structure. For a moment he thought of Lucy as she stood in her room, a fairer woman than any man had a right to expect; he remembered her face as it lightened with laughter, and the tones of that laughter, and he remembered how still her eyes could be, how deep in them were the strange things she felt. He fell asleep...
He was a man who slept without dreaming, and who slept light. Thus when a gust of cold wind touched the back of his head his eyes came instantly open. He lay with his back to the side window and he had his arms beneath the bed covers so that he could not easily reach his revolver. There was a faint sliding sound in the room, and the sibilance of a man's heavy breathing. The breathing diminished for a little while, and then it grew greater and Stuart felt a hand move gingerly along the bed's edge. Stuart pictured the man's location—and swung and raised himself and seized the heavy shadow before him. His arms went around a thick body; he was carried off the bed by the man's rapid turn, and he was dropped to his feet. He hung on. He butted the top of his head against the prowler's chin and heard it crack; then the prowler's forearm came down on the back of his neck with all the power of a club. It stunned him and sent him falling backward upon the bed. He got his feet up and he plunged them full into the prowler's belly as the latter was about to fall upon him. His head ached in full violence, and flashes of light danced before his eyes. He heard the prowler stumble backward and curse under his breath; and then he reached under his pillow and seized up his gun. He righted himself on the bed for a shot. He fired at the man's moving shadow and in another moment the prowler, rushing low across the room, went out through the window, taking sash and glass with him.
He heard the man fall in the alley below. When he reached the window he saw nothing in the alley's black strip below him, but he caught the last swashing echoes of the man's steps as the latter ran through the pure mud toward the river.
Cold wind poured through the window and there was a racket in the hotel's hallway. The chair blocking the door capsized and the door wheeled open, letting in the sallow light of a hall lamp. A man peered through the doorway. "What the hell's going on—"
"Nothing," said Stuart. "Close the door and go away."
The door swung shut, blocking the violent gust of wind. Stuart stood still a little while, slowly turning his neck from side to side. "A funny one," he thought. "He must have had an arm like a chunk of oak. Damned near tore my neck apart." He settled down on the bed, he lay gingerly back, favoring the steady ache; he lay flat, staring up to the black ceiling. "It might have been Bragg," he said to himself. "It might have been."
The door opened again and Lucy's voice came across the room, gently disturbed. "Logan."
The light was faintly on her and he saw her tall-shaped in her robe with her hair braided down behind. He saw the vague silhouette of her face as she walked toward him and stood over his bed. "Logan."
"Nothing at all," he said. "He got away. It was a bad try." His head quit aching; it ceased to pound as abruptly as it had begun, and presently he felt good. "Lucy, get out of here."
She stood wholly motionless, looking down at him. She said: "Did you get hurt?"
"No. You go on."
He watched her as she retreated; he saw her turn and look back a moment, and then close the door.
CHAPTER 2. — LUCY'S MAN
THEY left Portland at six o'clock of a rain- drowned morning, crossed the ferry and moved through the fir timber's dense twilight all the way to the Clackamas. Beyond Oregon City they came out upon the flat Willamette Valley, bordered eastward by the Cascades and on the west by the Coast Range. Ranch houses stood at lonely distance, low and dark in the rain fog, and now and then the pure mud road skirted the porch of a store or a rough frame cabin serving as a tavern for passers- by. At dusk of a weeping day they reached Salem, whose few houses were the outgrowth of a Methodist mission, and there slept.
The rain held on, turning the valley greener before their eyes as they pushed south. They ferried the Santiam at Syracuse City and spent the second night at the Harris Claim. The third day took them through Skinner's and on down to the valley's narrowing foot; and the fourth day saw them through the Calapooyia's rough and timbered ridges—by way of the military road—and on to Jesse Applegate's house. The dark fir timber began to give way before oak and madrona and pine, and the rain ceased and the land grew warm and brown. They traveled fast, passing wagons loaded deep with settlers' household freight; they came upon mule trains and single travelers on horseback. On the fifth day they crossed the Umpqua at Aaron Roses's store and in the late afternoon they reached a little settlement built at the narrow mouth of a canyon whose sides rose up in increasing sharpness, heavy-clad with trees. All the country before them was massive and broken.
Cliff Anslem came out of his cabin while Stuart unsaddled.
"One miner killed on upper Graves Creek two nights ago," Anslem said. "It was Limpy's Indians, I think. There's a cavalry outfit somewhere in the canyon now, under that young fellow Bristow. Pack outfits have been going through doubled up for safety. Tomorrow morn-in' you'll have plenty of company."
"Too slow," said Stuart. He turned to the girl. "We'll make a night ride of it and reach Dance's by daylight, if you can stand it."
Lucy nodded and walked into the cabin while Anslem drove the horses into his compound.
Four or five cabins lay scattered in the little meadow at the base of these rough hills and a steady current of wind came out of the canyon, cool and wild. A last sunlight streamed over the meadow, strengthening the pungency of its natural hay. Stuart sat down on the edge of the dusty road; he leaned back and lighted his pipe and he heard the tinkling approach of a pack outfit's bell mare. Twilight began to flow off the mountain as the pack outfit, out of Scottsburg's settlement for the mines, arrived and halted to make camp. It was a Howison string, loaded with sugar, coffee and salt. A campfire blossomed in the shadows as Anslem called Stuart to supper.
The cabin was a single room with a bed, a table and a fireplace. Lucy lay on the bed, half awakened from her short sleep. She had her glance on the ceiling directly above her and the yellow lamplight of the room danced in her eyes. Stuart paused by the bed, his head dropped as he looked upon her. She lifted a hand to him; he took it, swinging her upright, and suddenly she laughed at him and made a quick turn away to the supper table. Mrs. Anslem gave these two a quick and slyly warm glance and afterwards served supper—venison and beans and biscuits. Horsemen fell out of the canyon at a whirling run and a sharp voice gave a command. Anslem rose and walked to the door.
"Supper's ready, Lieutenant."
The lieutenant, when he entered, was stained by a hard day's riding; he had a full beard to cover a youthful face and his eyes were dancing bright. He said: "Hello, Logan—Miss Over-mire, how do?" and he took his place and made no ceremony about his meal.
"What's up there in the canyon?"
"A lot of tracks across the Cow Creek meadows."
Anslem said: "I'll saddle for you, Logan," and left the house.
"You're going now?" asked the lieutenant. "Limpy and his bucks are somewhere, but I don't know where. Maybe we'll have a quiet year."
Mrs. Anslem, standing before the fireplace's crane to watch the coffeepot, looked around at him. "There's never a quiet year."
Anslem had the horses waiting outside. Stuart rose with Lucy and as the two of them walked toward the door, Mrs. Anslem murmured: "Give my hello to the Dances and say I'm lonesome for talk."
Full dark was a cape loosely thrown over the mountains and upon the meadow and the baying of Anslem's dogs woke echoes far through the furrowed hills. Lucy's smile came down to Stuart as he handed her up to the saddle. He adjusted his saddlebags, he slid his rifle tentatively in and out of its boot and he passed a hand across the butt of his revolver. He said "So long" to Anslem and moved away with Lucy beside him. The canyon's breath was damp and cold upon them. The trail tilted up and the soft dust absorbed the sound of the horses' pacing. A creek ran hard beside the trail, musically brawling over its stones, and a night- prowling animal crossed fugitively before them and slipped into the timber. The sky was a steel-blue alley edged by the ragged shadow of timber. An hour from Anslem's they paused and rested and were still; and went on. A rising quarter moon painted dull silver patches on the canyon walls, and glinted against the creek and glowed dully on the bleached trunks of fire-killed firs. Another hour brought them to the head of the canyon and dropped them out upon a mountain meadow lying as a dark and half-hidden lake against the bulky shores of the mountains round about. A keener wind blew against them. Paused to rest, Stuart listened for whatever the wind might bring. He was sharp and he was wholly roused, but when he looked at Lucy he was smiling. Her voice came to him in careful smallness. "You are never happy except when in motion."
He said, "Hark," and thought he heard a running rumor in the night. Far over the meadow—a mile away—there seemed to be a party traveling. The horses were still, their heads alertly pointed; they were breathing deeper, they were scenting for something which interested them. Then the sound ceased.
They forded a shallow creek and turned into the meadow, crossing over. The creek's willows idly danced in the light wind and the creek was a pale and crooked streak. The massive blackness of the mountains closed presently down upon them again and they began to climb steadily along a sightless lane between huge, still fir columns. Here he stopped once more to rest the horses.
She said: "A house, an office, or a woman you've known more than a week—these things grow old to you. You ride into Jacksonville, spend a night, and you are gone."
"My business needs a lot of riding."
"You ride for business—and you ride just to be riding."
"How is it you know that much about me?"
"No woman can look at a man two years without knowing something of him."
"You know more about me," he said, "than I know about you."
"Women are always more observant—and more interested."
He swung his horse around, caught the rein of Lucy's mount and moved off the trail. A sound grew greater above them and became the rush of a single rider flinging himself through this blind corridor without caution. He passed them at arm's length; he was making a small singing sound as he rode, as though breaking his loneliness. They heard him run downgrade and long afterward they made out the tattoo of his horse in the meadow below. Stuart and Lucy returned to the trail. He still remembered her question; he thought of it a long while as he rode.
"I want my business to grow," he said at last. "I want to see a Stuart & Company pack outfit stringing along every road. When stages come, I want them to be Stuart & Company stages. I guess I am ambitious."
"Even ambition would not push you so hard. You are not quite happy. Something bothers you. It may be something you look for, or something that dissatisfies you."
He rode on without comment, his mind half on her talk, half on the sounds and sensations around him. He heard her voice, so low and seriously soft, come through the blackness. "Is it a woman?"
"Damn George Camrose for giving me a bad reputation," he murmured. "Must it always be a woman who makes a man lie awake at night?"
"When the time comes, don't let it be an ordinary woman. Don't let it be a calm woman."
"Why not?" he said.
"You'd come to hate her," she said. They rode in silence, through midnight and the pit-black hours while the trail carried them higher into the mountains and a canyon deepened below them on the left, felt rather than seen. Once they caught a moment's view of a light burning far down at the canyon's bottom. "Ed Blackerby," he murmured. The air was thin and cold and the odor of the mountain was stronger and stronger; it was a wildness flowing from unknown reaches, out of places never seen since time began. Somewhere half between midnight and first dawn, he stopped for a longer rest and lifted Lucy from her saddle; her weight came down against him and she stood passive in his arms for a moment, and her face tilted upward, so near to him that he saw the weariness on it. He dropped his arms and took a backward step to his saddle, unlashing an overcoat tied behind the cantle. He laid the coat on the trail and watched her sink down and curl upon it. He crouched near her and pulled the edges of the coat around her, meanwhile searching a coat pocket for his pipe. He held the pipe cold between his teeth while he listened to the forest, to the fugitive murmurings all about, the sibilance of disturbed brush, the faint abrasions of padded feet, the velvet whirring of wings, to all the undertones of this massive earth.
She was sound asleep when he bent down, half an hour later, and placed his hand on her cheek. He said, "Lucy," and heard her answer from her sleep. Her name was a pleasant echo, it was soft on his tongue and he said it again, "Lucy," and watched her sit up and turn her head in the darkness.
He helped her to the saddle and rolled his overcoat and lashed it fast. Resuming the march, they moved steadily through the low hours, through the world's ebb time, bending with the trail and dipping with it, into glen and up sharp slope and down sudden grades. The moon, pale and futile during the night, now vanished behind the massive western ridges and the blackness was greater than before. This was the time before dawn, when the vitality of all things burned fitful and uncertain. By degrees he began to feel the nearness of open country. The weight of the timber mass pressed less heavily against him and the color of the foreground grew paler, until finally the trail came out of the timber and descended in long, turning loops to a lower country. Just before daylight he saw a single light shining in the distance.
Morning twilight was breaking when he came before the cabin of Ben Dance and helped Lucy to the ground. Dance's dogs were shouting around him and the smell of woodsmoke and coffee laced the thin air. The cabin door opened and a flood of yellow light gushed out and a man took a quick step through the door and moved aside from it. He had a rifle across his arm, ready for use; when he identified these two people he let his robust voice fall upon them. "Come in—come in. Breakfast's waitin'. Asa, come out and get these horses."
Lucy went directly into the cabin. Stuart stood a moment with the saddlebags over a shoulder, watching morning spread over the eastern ridge tops; it moved in formless waves, spreading like mist, water-colored, trickling over the high summits and spreading downslope through the black hill creases. The sky began to grow blue, the stars slowly to fade. Young Asa took the horses away.
"The young lieutenant passed here yesterday," said Dance.
"One miner dead."
"Peaceful for this time of year," said Dance.
Stuart ducked through Dance's door and faced a bright fire on the open hearth. There was a table at which Lucy now sat; two more Dance boys sat by it, eating without lifting their heads. Mrs. Dance, scarcely forty, turned a pan of cornbread onto a platter and gave Logan a brisk smile. "How's Portland, Logan?"
"A thousand people, and raining."
"Ah," said Mrs. Dance and shook her head. Her skin was dark and her features were practical and pretty. "How can anyone live in such a crowd?"
Dance came in with a question. "You want me to change horses for you now?"
"We'll sleep till noon."
"Caroline," shouted Dance, "fix the beds."
A girl came out of the cabin's adjoining room and gave Lucy a nod and Stuart a longer glance.
Her even "Hello" covered both people. She was near twenty with her mother's blue eyes and her mother's mass of light-brown hair. Her round arms were bare to her elbows, and her mouth was calm and full.
"I've got something for you," said Stuart. "What?" said the girl.
"If you've got on your brown dress at noon I'll give it to you."
Caroline Dance tipped her head aside as she studied Stuart, and her lips showed a warming interest. "Perhaps," she said in a skeptical tone, and left the room.
Lucy rose from her breakfast and walked into the other room. Stuart loitered over his coffee and his pipe; the Dance boys rose and silently departed, like young hounds bound for a fresh scent. Dance sat at the table awhile to supply the week's gossip and then Stuart tapped out his pipe and stepped into the extra room. There were three beds in it and a rag rug on the dirt floor. Lucy lay already asleep, her hands doubled in front of her face. He watched her a moment, and then lay down on the adjoining bed.
At noon there were three horses waiting in the yard instead of two. Caroline Dance sat in the saddle of the third one when Stuart and Lucy came out of the cabin. Dance explained this in his vigorous voice: "Ma's sending Caroline down to Megarry's place. Missis Megarry's come to her time." Mrs. Dance stepped from the cabin with a plump package and handed it up to Caroline. "Now that's everything you need."
Stuart said: "You want me to send Dr. Balance back from Jacksonville?"
Caroline shook her head. She was in her brown dress and she had her hair done neatly up. "I can do everything necessary," she said. "For sure," added Mrs. Dance, surprised there should be any question. "It's only a baby. You stay at Megarry's tonight, Caroline, and come home tomorrow."
The day was hot and still and the trail ran southward up and down a series of rounded knolls and ridges which were the ragged extension of the heavier mountains to the east. They slid into a short valley half surrounded by hills and passed a small settlement sitting beside Rogue River; they crossed the ferry and went briskly along the river. A few miles beyond the ferry, Caroline Dance drew in her horse before a cabin which was scarcely more than a lean-to. This was Megarry's. A woman came to the door and tipped her hand across her eyes against the sun. She said: "Caroline, you ain't much time."
Caroline sat still in the saddle, facing Stuart. She wasn't smiling but anticipation made her mouth quietly expressive. He had teased her with his delay, and she knew it, but it didn't trouble her.
He drew a small package from his pocket and he took his time unwrapping it. He held it concealed in his hand and rode his horse near her and bent to put his hands around her head. He swayed back on the saddle and watched her as she looked down to the cameo brooch hanging from its thin gold chain around her neck.
"Why," said Caroline with pleasure in her voice, "it's like my Missouri grandmother's heirloom brooch."
The woman at the Megarry cabin called in sharper tone: "There's no time, Caroline."
Excitement brightened Caroline's face and although she was not an impulsive girl impulse nevertheless stirred her toward Stuart. Then she remembered Lucy's presence, gave her an oblique glance and swung down from her horse, at once going into the cabin.
Stuart and Lucy went on, pointing toward the opening bay of a valley ahead. The river was beside them but the ridges slowly receded to form a valley; the trail rose gradually from the valley and began to cut its way southwestward along the bench. Fort Lane showed in the distance, its log houses squatted under a full bright sun on the north side of the river.
"You would have had your kiss, if I'd not been present to interfere," Lucy commented. "Yes," said Stuart, amiable.
"I'm sorry I caused you to miss it." She gave him a veiled inspection. "She's twenty you're twenty-eight."
"What would you have me do?"
She met his eyes and she saw his smile; suddenly she began to laugh. "Oh, Logan."
The trail took them around the breast of a hill and, at sundown, brought them to a creek with its miners' brush lean-to shelters, its canvas tents and flimsy log structures. They crossed the creek and moved through a grove of pine and oak and at last came out into the irregular lane which was Jacksonville's main street.
It was a settlement of perhaps sixty houses built of logs and riven cedar shakes, all scattered along the creek and up the side of the surrounding hills. Supper time's smoke drifted out of tin chimneys and men strolled the street, stained by the yellow-green clay of the diggings. Riders drifted in and a pack train wound down the slope of the hills from the west.
Stuart and Lucy passed a pair of saloons and Howison's big hay shed; they skirted Stuart's own store and moved up toward a large log-and-shake cabin on the hill slope. Jonas Over-mire stood waiting for them with his hands in his front pockets and his stovepipe tipped well forward to give his daughter a hand down and he raked back his beard before he kissed her. Mrs. Overmire came out to embrace her daughter, and then a shout reached them and they saw George Camrose leave his cabin and walk rapidly upgrade.
Stuart leaned his arms on the saddle horn to watch this scene. Lucy had turned about to meet Camrose as he approached. He was a high and handsome man, light of complexion and carefully dressed. There was no mining-camp roughness on him at all, none of the exaggerated mining-camp temper in him. He was cool and held himself on tight rein, so that even now, approaching Lucy, he carried himself with negligent restraint, as though he had seen her but an hour before.
Lucy, Stuart noticed, seemed to match that temper and that composure. She was unruffled and as certain of herself. She had a smile for Camrose and she looked at him directly; yet Stuart saw no great fire of impatience in either of them, no impetuous wanting. He said to himself, "Is this the way a woman looks at a man she loves?" He pushed his hands heavily against the saddle and wondered what went on inside the girl. She murmured, "Hello, George. Are you glad to see me?" Camrose put his arms around her, smiling down. "You are always good to see," he murmured, and lowered his face to kiss her.
She did a strange thing. She turned her head and she looked at Stuart for a short moment with the gravest kind of an expression on her face and for that instant he saw some kind of shadow in her eyes. It was a thing quickly happening and soon passing, so that he was not certain of what he saw. She looked back to Camrose and took his kiss and stepped away.
Stuart said: "Is that the best you can do, George?"
Camrose stared at Stuart with a controlled grin. "Could you do better?"
"A hell of a lot better," answered Stuart and rode away. A gust of irritation unaccountably moved through him.
He cooked supper in the small room behind the store; he cleaned his dishes and strolled through the store's long main room, around the boxes and kegs and bales of merchandise stacked on the floor, past harness and lanterns hanging from the log beams. He gave a glance to the well-stocked shelves and he stopped a moment to watch his head clerk, Henry Clenchfield, weigh out gold for a miner. A breeze came through the store to stir up the sweet and musty and pungent odors of all this merchandise.
He paused at the doorway and lighted a cigar. Voices softly traveled through the night's bland warm air and the lamps of Jacksonville winked tawny in the dark. A guitar somewhere sent forth its lively tune and men drifted in from the dark creases of the hills to break a long week's loneliness in the town's deadfalls; and families arrived from their donation claims along the Rogue.
He walked back into the store and sat down on a box. "Where's John Trent?"
"He'll be in from Crescent City day after tomorrow," said Clenchfield. "I sent forty mules on the trip. Burl McGiven left two days ago for Yreka. Twenty mules. Jack Card left this morning on the Applegate trip. Murrow and Vane Blazier will take the Scottsburg string in the morning."
"Put this on the book," said Stuart. "Thirty mules to be at Salem on the twentieth for Henry McLane's freight, off the boat Canemah."
"Where will you get the mules?" asked Clenchfield. "You have got too much business now."
"Maybe it is time to buy a few more."
