Baskets and shawls were soon safely stowed away, and Winthrop, with the help of the girls, arranged a sort of shelter of boughs. When a small fire had been kindled on a flat rock just in front, Puss laughed with delight, and Marie’s delicate face showed a glow of healthy pleasure, which her brother noted with quiet satisfaction. Plainly Taconic life was bringing the frail invalid back to strength and health.
Leaving the girls to chatter over the beauties of the place and their plans for the coming weeks, Winthrop strayed down stream a few rods, following a cat-bird, whose whimsical calls led him to suspect a nest among the alders which lined the river at that point.
The bird kept persistently out of sight, but repeated its cry in a more and more distressed tone, until Winthrop reached the very heart of a thicket.
“I’ve got you now!” he said aloud, as he stooped and thrust aside a mass of foliage. Then he started to his feet. He had very nearly laid his hand on—not the pretty, rounded nest of the gray-winged thrush, but the evil, grinning features of Mort Lapham.
“I rayther guess we’ve got you this time, my Boston daisy,” said Mort, rising in his turn. “Tie him up, fellows!”
The ugly youth’s two boon comrades sprang forward from the rear, and before Winthrop could offer the slightest resistance, entangled as he was in the tough, slender stems of the alders, he was bound, hand and foot.
“What are you going to do with me, Phil Bradford?” asked the prisoner quietly, though his heart sank as the three cowardly assailants hurried him roughly through the underbush.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” growled the other, who had not forgotten the blow given in defense of the girl by the roadside. They emerged presently in a little opening that crowned a bluff, some half a dozen feet or more above the surface of the river, where it here made a sudden bend toward the steep bank forming at its base a deep, black pool, with here and there a few pine needles turning slowly in its eddies.
In all this time Winthrop had not uttered a cry. He would not alarm the girls unnecessarily, and might include them in his own dangerous situation.
“Now,” said Mort, with a cruel leer, “we’ll square up our accounts. The next time I’m having a little fun on my own account, I reckon you’ll mind your own business!”
With these words he proceeded to tie his victim firmly to a stout young pine that grew close to the edge of the bluff. They placed his face to the trunk, and clasping his hands around it, lashed them tightly together.
“I say,” interposed Dick, as he saw the cords cut into the captive’s wrists, “you needn’t pull ’em so tight! Don’t you see—you’re hurting him awfully!”
Winthrop set his lips together, and said nothing.
“Hurting him!” repeated Mort savagely. “I guess he’ll wish he wa’n’t hurt any more’n that, before I get through with him! Gimme that whip!”
“Don’t whip him!” cried Dick again. “We’ve scared him enough, now. You said you only wanted to frighten him, Mort.”
“Git out o’ the way, will you? I’m running this job, and this slim Sunday-school chap from the city has got to have a little more scarin’ yet.”
“But”—
“If you don’t want a taste yourself, you’ll keep quiet, Dick Stanwood. Phil an’ I’ll duck ye in the river, ’f you say much more!”
“All right,” said Dick, who evidently regretted his part in the matter. “If that’s all the thanks I get, I’m off!” And turning suddenly on his heel, he walked away through the woods.
“Hold on! Stop him, will you, Phil?” cried Mort angrily. But Dick had hastened his steps and was already out of sight.
Still Winthrop said never a word. His face was white, and the two guards thought he was too frightened to speak.
“Strip off his coat and vest,” commanded Mort, brandishing the whip. Phil obeyed his leader like a lamb, untying the captive’s hands cautiously, and, with Mort’s aid, fastening them again more securely than ever.
“Now, then, here’s one for interfering between me and the girl!”
Down came the leather lash across the thinly clad shoulders.
“One more for the lick you gave me between the eyes!”
Again the stinging, burning blow. Still Winthrop did not cry out.
“You want some more, do you?” cried Mort, enraged at his victim’s silence.
The lash was raised again. As Mort raised and swung it, to give the full force of the blow, he stepped backward. The embankment, long ago undermined by the river, crumbled under the bully’s feet; with a shriek of terror he toppled over, and disappeared beneath the black eddies of the pool. Winthrop could not see what had happened, for his back, now smarting as if living coals were bound to it, was toward the bank. From the sound of the falling earth, the cry of his tormentor, and the loud splash that followed, he guessed what had occurred.
“Untie me, quick!” he shouted to Phil, who stood gazing stupidly at the whirling bubbles where his leader had disappeared. “No, cut the rope—take my knife out of my pocket!”
Phil, who was always ready to follow the party in power, obeyed mechanically. In a few seconds Winthrop was free.
“Can’t he swim?” he cried, kicking off the last coils of the rope, as Mort rose, screaming and splashing to the surface, and went under again.
“Not a stroke,” said Phil stoically. “Serves him right, don’t it? Say, Win, I’m awful sorry”—
But he was apologizing only to the pine-tree and the cut cords. Winthrop had sprung into the pool, and even now had his late assailant by the collar and was striking out for the shore lower down, where the bank was not so high.
“Don’t drown me!” yelled Mort, rolling up his eyes. “I didn’t mean”—
“Stop kicking—you’re all right!” gasped Winthrop. “There—put your feet down—can’t you touch bottom?”
“Winthrop, my lad! Here—give me your hand!” cried a new voice; and Puss’s father leaned perilously far over the bank to assist the boy. At the same time Phil and Dick—the latter of whom had brought Mr. Rowan to the scene—helped the choking, crest-fallen, dripping Mort to his feet.
“What does this mean?” demanded the older man sternly, surveying the cords and whip.
“O, Winthrop!—brother!” and the two girls came hurrying down to the river’s edge. Winthrop tried to toss on his coat, but did not succeed before the stains on his poor, smarting back told the story to his sister’s anxious eye.
Of course the picnic was ended for that day. The whole party hurried to the wagon and drove home. On the way, Winthrop begged Mr. Rowan not to have either of his late captors prosecuted, or punished in any way.
“I’m satisfied,” he said, “if they are.”
“Well, I’m not!” burst out Mort suddenly, “and I sha’n’t be, till I get square with you somehow!”
The girls turned and looked at him in new amazement and terror. But Winthrop understood him better.
“All right, old fellow,” he replied simply, holding out his hand to the other.
Mort grasped it and said no more.
“Good story, father!” called out Tom, whose voice, whether for approval or criticism, was never wanting. “I’d like to know how Mort got square with him, though.”
Mr. Percival laughed as he rose. “That is not of so much consequence. In such a case, ‘the readiness is all.’ Does that finish the paper, Mr. Editor?”
“It does,” said Selborne gravely. “And the publication of the ‘Tri-Weekly Chichagoff Decade’ is suspended until further notice.”
The voyage southward proceeded without special incident. “Glaciers” were gradually left behind, but “gulfs” and bays, channels and narrow passages were still a part of the programme. The day following the reading of the “Decade” was Sunday. Mr. Selborne at the request of many of the passengers, preached in the cabin, the Percivals organizing a choir which led the singing with their clear young voices.
On Monday the Queen reached Nanaimo, a city and coaling-station for ships, on the east shore of Vancouver’s Island. Tom and Fred hired a team and drove half a dozen miles inland to a trout-brook of which they had heard. Tom could not walk about much, but he enjoyed the ride immensely, and when they reached the brook he limped along the bank to a shady spot, from which he shouted various comments, disparaging and otherwise, on his companion’s methods of angling and rather limited success. They returned tired but happy, with a dozen silvery little fish as trophies. In the late afternoon Randolph and Pet headed a party to explore the city, which they found a hot and dusty one, but, in its upper portions, abounding in wonderfully bright flowers.
At one garden they stopped and bought a great ball of nasturtiums. It was nearly twilight, and as the travelers leaned against the fence, idly watching the owner of the garden as he gathered the nosegay, they saw whole flocks of evening primroses opening their wings like yellow butterflies, one by one.
This gardener, it seemed, was a blacksmith, employed by day in a coal mine which ran out half a mile under the sea. His business, he said, was to keep the mules shod.
The shaft of this great mine came up in the outskirts of the town, and the Percivals, earlier in the day, had seen the huge buckets come rushing up from the bowels of the earth, six hundred and forty feet below, laden with coal and streaming with water.
The evening was memorable for a row in the harbor to an Indian burying-ground, where strange and hideously carved figures kept watch over the neglected graves.
Until a late hour, after their return from this boating excursion, the party remained on deck, talking over the events of the day.
“Do you know,” asked Tom, “how this place started?”
“Well?” said Mr. Percival, who was always pleased to have his boy thorough in looking up the history of a place.
“An Englishman named Richard Dunsmuir, was riding horseback along a trail back on the mountain. The horse stumbled, and when Dunsmuir came to look at the log or stone, it was coal. He started a big mine, with two partners who put in about five thousand dollars apiece. A few years later one of them sold out to Dunsmuir for two hundred and fifty thousand, and afterward the second one sold for seven hundred and fifty thousand.”
“Whew!” whistled Randolph. “I say, Tom, let’s give up Latin and go into the coal-mining business.”
“All right,” says Tom cheerfully. “You buy a horse and gallop through the woods till you both tumble down. Then I’ll pick you up, point out the coal—if it doesn’t turn out to be a stump—and we’ll go halves. Or I’ll sell out now for ten dollars and fifteen cents!”
Just as the steamer cast off her fasts and started her paddles, Selborne announced that the bright sky had, as usual, cajoled them into keeping late hours, for it was now nearly eleven, and in four hours it would be daylight again. Whereupon the deck party broke up.
Next morning they found themselves at Victoria, where they stopped long enough to complete their purchases of miniature totem poles and other Indian curiosities, which were displayed for sale upon the wharf.
All through that bright day the Queen ploughed her way southward through a blue, sunlit sea. It was Puget Sound, said Tom, the cartographer of the occasion. They touched at Port Townsend and at Seattle. At the latter port the ship left half her passengers, as the Excursion was too large to be quartered at one hotel. The rest, including the individuals in whom we are specially interested, kept on to Tacoma. Here they said good-by to the Queen—now as homelike as the “Kamloops”—and took up their abode in a large hotel which they found to be delightfully situated on high ground, with a broad, cool veranda overlooking the Sound.
Immediately after supper Tom rushed out to have his kodak refilled. He had already taken nearly a hundred pictures, and reveled in anticipation of showing them, especially the instantaneous and surreptitious views of his unconscious relatives and friends, together with many captive bears, to an admiring circle during the coming winter.
The following day was spent in riding about the city, the planked streets and sidewalks of which struck them as very odd, and in visiting the Indian reservation at Puyallup, a few miles distant. The country was very dry, and forest fires were smouldering all along the road.
At Seattle, the next stopping-place, the historian (“I’m a regular ‘Pooh Bah’ on this trip,” exclaimed Tom) was called on for statistics concerning the city.
“Be accurate, my son,” added Fred; “but above all, be brief.”
“Population rising forty thousand,” rattled off Tom, who had his lesson well this time; “twice destroyed by fire, the last time in 1889. Now nearly rebuilt again. Situated between a big body of fresh water called Lake Washington, and Puget Sound. Always fighting, good-naturedly enough, with its rival Tacoma.”
Oh! the dust, the dust. It lay in the streets four inches deep. It filled the air at every step, and powdered the pretty traveling dresses of the girls.
But it was a wonderful city, with its push and rush and fever of building and money-getting. To-day a vacant lot, to-morrow an eight-story bank building; to-day a peaceful bit of upland pasture, to-morrow a huge hotel, crowded with guests from all parts of the world.
“Nobody can stop to walk, or even ride in carriages,” observed Bess. “It fairly takes away my breath here. You get into a cable car and whirl off at ten miles an hour, up hill and down dale. Do they ever sleep, do you suppose?”
The Percivals had a really enjoyable excursion to Lake Washington, where they sailed and steamed to their hearts’ content. A cable car took them to and from the lake, and beside the road they could see lots of land offered for sale at high foot-rates, with tall forest-trees still standing in them; others, partly built upon, and occupied by fine dwelling-houses, with the back yard full of charred stumps.
The busiest streets of the city, like those of Tacoma, were “paved” with four-inch planks. Electric cars, as well as those run by cable, dashed to and fro with startling speed. The air was so filled with smoke from forest fires that ships in the harbor could hardly be distinguished from the shore. A day’s ride through a wonderfully fertile country brought them to Portland, Oregon, where Randolph’s first move was to hunt up Bert Martin.
Bert and Susie were overjoyed to see their old friends. They lived in a pretty cottage not far from the railroad station, and Randolph had to bring Kittie, Pet, Tom, Fred and Bess to take tea with them.
When supper was finished, and the young people had talked over the dear old Latin School days, and the gay summer at the Isles of Shoals, Bert got a step-ladder and gathered handfuls of red roses from the trellis over the front door, where they grew in true Oregonian abundance.
Tom and Susie got on marvelously well together, and the former showed a singular eagerness to have Bert correspond with him, after he should have arrived home in the East.
From Portland the managers had provided their travelers with a little two-day side trip to the Dalles.
They rode in the cars all one afternoon along the southern shore of the Columbia, stopping to scramble up a steep hillside to the foot of the beautiful Multnomah Falls, and arriving at Dalles just after dark. Randolph and Fred were the only ones who cared to explore the town, which they conscientiously did, traveling miles, they averred, over the plank sidewalks, and hopelessly losing their way on several occasions; but turning up in good season at last at the depot.
The train was side-tracked here, and tooting and puffing engines, shifting freight cars, kept sleep from the eyes of most of the party. At daybreak they rose and made their way sleepily down to the river, where a steamer was waiting for them. Back they went, down the river to Portland. A thick fog hid the “mountainous and precipitous cliffs” and “bold headlands” which the guide-book promised them.
Wearily they boarded the cars standing ready at the Portland depot, and took possession of their comfortable compartments and drawing-rooms for their Eastward journey.
The next morning found them at Tacoma, and then on the Northern Pacific, striking across the new State of Washington. The Cascade Mountains—a long and insurmountable barrier between East and West—had to be crossed, and up went the train, curving, groaning and winding, as the Canadian Pacific had through the Rockies.
“Longest tunnel in America except the Hoosac!” screamed Tom above the din of the cars, as they plunged into the “Stampede.” “Nearly two miles from end to end, and half a mile above the level of the sea.”
And now came the most wearisome part of the homeward journey. The sun rose in a cloudless sky, and disclosed only hot, treeless, rolling prairie as far as the eye could reach. In the cars the mercury stood at ninety-six degrees, and linen dusters were once more brought to light.
In the evening they reached Spokane Falls, and set forward their watches one hour. It gave the travelers a queer sensation to arrive at a station at nine o’clock, stop half an hour, and start on at half-past ten.
The following day they recrossed the Rocky Mountains and descended the eastern slope, through a pleasant farming country, to the city of Helena. Here there was a stop of several hours, and the boys had a good swim in the great tank which was fed by hot springs.
When they were on board the train and in motion once more, Tom was called on for the “probabilities.”
“To-morrow morning,” he announced, “we shall be in Cinnabar, seven miles from the Mammoth Hot Springs. There we shall divide up into parties, and ‘do’ the Yellowstone Park in four-horse mountain-wagons, taking about five days for the job. It’s going to be one of the biggest things on the whole trip, too.”
But we must leave Yellowstone Park, surnamed “The Wonderland of America,” for another chapter.
“Hurrah!” cried Tom, who had now fully recovered from his recent unpleasantness with the silver-tip. “Hurrah! Here we are in Cinnabar.” He had jumped from the car, and was tapping at Kittie’s curtained window.
Kittie waved her hand to signify assent and keep him quiet, and before long all the passengers were hurrying through their breakfast and preparing for the long coach journey through the park. While this is going on, in the now motionless Northern Pacific train, we have time for a few words regarding the great reservation itself.
About one thirtieth of the new State of Wyoming—the extreme northwest corner—is reserved by the United States Government for the “Yellowstone National Park.” Nearly the whole area thus set apart remains a virgin wilderness, traversed only by rough and narrow carriage roads, and hardly affording shelter to the increasing number of tourists each summer in its hastily erected hotels. The whole park is about the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.
The Government, through the Secretary of the Interior, has issued certain regulations regarding the conduct of travelers in the park. These relate chiefly to camping, destroying trees, etc. One of the most stringent rules forbids the discharge of firearms within the limits of the Reservation. Mounted soldiers of the regular United States Army are scattered all through the park, doing police duty; and if you are caught firing a gun, or even having one (unsealed) in your possession, good-by to your fowling-piece and good-by to the park. The former is at once confiscated, and you are marched out of the latter without ceremony. Those travelers who wish to take firearms are obliged to have the lock sealed by a Government official, at the entrance of the park.
The result of this wholesome regulation is that wild game of all sorts is on the rapid increase, in this favored spot. About one hundred and fifty buffalo, the remnant of the immense herds that once roamed the Western prairies, are peacefully quartered somewhere among these wild hills—nobody knows exactly where.
Most of these facts Tom hastily repeated to his companions in the “Broadwater,” as the dining-car was called. The ride over to Mammoth Hot Springs was full of interest, the road following a wild mountain-stream, and finding its way farther and farther into the wilderness.
At one point an exclamation from Randolph called the attention of the rest to an eagle’s nest on a jutting cliff that almost overhung the road. The heads of the young eagles could be plainly seen over the edge of the nest, and far overhead soared the parent birds.
On making up the wagon parties at the hotel, the Percivals found to their delight that all could go in one team, including Mr. and Miss Selborne. Off they went with shouts and cheers, leaving the wonders of the “Mammoth” district for their return trip.
Up and up, along the edge of frightful precipices, where the road was built of planking, with great props, sheer out around promontories of rock; up and up, to the high tablelands of the park; through evergreen forests, along silent lakes, haunted by beavers and strange water-fowl; beside black cliffs of volcanic glass, or “obsidian”; across unbridged streams where the horses plunged into the swift-running waters, and the wagon lurched from side to side, hub-deep in the flood. So onward until they had covered twenty-two miles, and reached the Norris Geyser Basin, where dinner was served in a long, shed-like structure called a hotel.
As soon as the meal was over, the young people hurried ahead on foot, to see their first geysers. A quarter of a mile walk, and a sudden turn of the road brought them into view. Strange, uncanny things they were, bursting upward at intervals through the treacherous and chalk-like “formation,” and throwing their jets of steaming water into the air with hollow gurgles and growls from their hot throats.
The atmosphere was charged with sulphurous odors, and while the travelers were fascinated with the novelty and mystery of the scene, they were glad to enter their wagons once more and press forward on their journey. They all felt the rarity of the air, being about a thousand feet higher than the summit of Mt. Washington, above the level of the sea. It became very cold, too, as the sun went down. The girls were glad to don their sealskin capes, and the boys turned up their coat-collars.
Eighteen miles over the wildest country they had yet seen, brought them to the Lower Geyser Basin.
That night the hotel was so crowded that each room was shared by three or four occupants. Tom, Randolph, Fred and Rossiter were allotted to a chamber in an outbuilding. They had to reach it by an outside stairway, and I grieve to state that all four—not excepting the Reverend Rossiter Selborne—told stories and laughed over them until very nearly midnight.
Next morning Rossiter left the room before the boys were up, and walked out in the clear, cold air. He had not taken a dozen steps when he saw Bess and Kittie emerging from the main building, which was dignified by the term “hotel.” Hailing them merrily, he was soon at their side, and the three walked down to the Firehole River, from whose sulphurous waters there arose a warm, faint odor, as it foamed along its white-and-yellow-streaked bed.
Over they went, one by one, on a narrow log bridge to the further bank, which they followed down to a little fir grove. There they had a tiny camp-fire, taking great precautions to keep the blaze down and use only dry twigs, so as not to make a smoke.
After breakfast the teams were ready again, and the journey was resumed. For twelve miles they rode among geysers and springs, through low fir woods, over chalky formation, to the Upper Basin, where they were to spend the night.
On the way, it should be mentioned, they stopped to view a singular mud spring, called the “Mammoth Paint Pot.” There was a bowl-shaped crater nearly filled with gray, pasty mud, through the surface of which great bubbles slowly forced themselves, as in a boiling kettle of molasses candy, nearly done. As one of the guide-books said, there was “a continuous bubbling up of mud, producing sounds like a hoarsely whispered ‘plop, plop.’” Travelers were further informed that these bubbling circlets of mud fell into beautiful floral forms; but Kittie could find in them no resemblance to anything but electric bell knobs; while her mother plaintively declared they looked like nothing so much as old-fashioned doughnuts.
That evening Tom caused great merriment at the supper-table by gravely asking Mrs. Percival to “pass the plops,” he having previously ordered doughnuts for that purpose.
But if I were to tell you of all the wonders the Percivals visited and heard with their ears and saw with their eyes, I might be accused of writing a guide-book myself. I can only add that during the next forty-eight hours our friends became intimately acquainted with a dozen or more great geysers, knowing their names and the times for their appearance to the hour, if not the minute.
There was the “Excelsior” (this was passed on the right between the Lower and Upper Basins), the largest geyser in the world; the “Giant,” throwing a huge volume of scalding water high into the air every eight days; the “Grotto,” with a crater of strange, irregular walls as if built by gnomes; the “Castle,” to the brink of which two of the girls climbed and gazed fearlessly down into the terrible throat; and “Old Faithful” which spouts a hundred feet once every sixty-five minutes, and has probably been as prompt as a clock, scientific men tell us, for the last twenty thousand years.
A comical incident occurred as the party were standing near the last-named geyser waiting for it to “erupt.” Tom had timed it by his watch, and had given out word that it would begin to play in just three minutes and a half.
While the words were on his lips, a man was seen approaching from a camp near by, carrying a bucket and some clothes which he evidently intended to wash in warm water from one of the many pools near the crater’s mouth. It was then merely a hole, some four or five feet in diameter, from which came occasional wreaths of steam, and an ominous gurgling growl which the new-comer disregarded altogether.
“You wait!” cried Tom to the rest. “He isn’t near enough to get hurt, but he’ll be about the most astonished man in Wyoming in just one minute and three quarters.”
The camper proceeded to dip up a bucket full of water with great coolness, and, having taken a comfortable seat on a ridge of “formation,” was just proceeding to immerse his wash, when up came “Old Faithful’s” head. In less time than it takes to tell it, the great, roaring, boiling jet was hurling itself far aloft, and descending in floods of hot, sulphurous water. The man had given one startled look over his shoulder at the first outbreak, and then fled like a deer, leaving his property to be reclaimed later in the day. The sight of his ludicrously startled face and flying heels was irresistible, and the boys screamed with laughter.
Beside the great, active geysers, there were multitudes of hot springs, some of them many feet wide and deep, with treacherous, overhanging banks and exquisitely tinted depths of turquoise and sapphire, through which arose a continuous train of silvery bubbles. There was a story told, that summer, of a lady who had neglected the precautions which others took, and straying carelessly among these springs, broke through the thin crust of sulphurous deposit. She was instantly drawn out, but not before she was terribly scalded.
While the Percivals were at the “Upper Geyser Basin,” they were invited to witness a queer sight in the edge of the woods about a quarter of a mile from the hotel, just at dusk. One of the men employed about the place began to call coaxingly, “Barney! Barney!” And now a dark form appeared among the pines, and out came a huge black bear. He approached timidly within a few feet of the silent group, now advancing, now bounding lightly away at the cracking of a twig, and took several pieces of raw meat from a stump near by. When his silent meal was finished, he gave the spectators one inquiring look, and wheeling round, disappeared in the shadow of the forest.
All this time it was very cold, especially at night when, although it was in August, ice formed over pools about the hotel.
Reluctantly the tourists left the wonders of the “Upper Basin” behind, and drove on toward the next point of interest, Yellowstone Lake.
“Give us the points, Tom,” Randolph sings out, as the driver cracks his whip and the wagon rattles down the road. “Tell us about the Lake.”
“Nearly eight thousand feet above the sea,” rejoins Tom. He is so ready with his figures that skeptical Kittie declares he makes them up, whenever his memory fails him.
“Perhaps you think,” rejoins Thomas, with dignity, “that the Lake doesn’t cover one hundred and thirty-nine square miles, and hasn’t a hundred miles of shore line, and isn’t chock-full of splendid trout, and hasn’t a beautiful beach of obsidian five miles long, ‘reflecting the sun’s rays like brilliant gems,’ and doesn’t”—
“Oh! stop, stop, Davy; I’ll come down,” cried Kittie; while Fred strikes up “Annie Rooney” at the top of his voice. It was afternoon when they drove down into a pretty valley where were clustered three or four large white tents.
“What’s this—a circus?” shouted Tom.
“It’s Larry Matthews’ hotel,” replied the driver.
Out came Larry himself, as the teams drew up with a flourish, before the door of the principal tent.
“Glad to see yez, ladies an’ gintlemen!” he cried, with broad, rich brogue. “Step right into me parlor, but be careful of the carpet, av ye plase!”
As the tent knew no floor but turf, this raised a laugh, and this was followed by another and another at Larry’s quaint observations, which he showered without stint on his guests.
When they were all seated at long tables, he was everywhere at once.
“Milk, sor? Milk it is. Eggs? there’s wan the little speckled hin laid for you, mem! Coffee? Do take another cup! There’s plenty more to be had—the geyser’s playin’ right along.”
The meal was eaten in a gale of merriment, and all hands declared that sandwiches, boiled eggs and coffee—for of these viands it largely consisted—had never tasted so good.
After dinner there was an hour or two of leisure, during which the travelers strolled about on the hillside overlooking “Trout Creek” (for which this little encampment was named), securing kodak views, and enjoying life generally.
“Good-by, sor! Good-by, mem!” shouted Larry to his guests, as they at length clambered to their seats and rode off. “Long life to yez all! Come ag’in!”
They now had a dozen miles of beautiful prairie, river and mountain scenery before reaching the Lake. The ride was not without attractions also, that bordered on the perilous.
At one point they were told by the driver that only three weeks before, a huge buffalo had suddenly emerged from the woods, and with lowered head galloped across the road. The six horses of the team immediately in front had been thrown into wild panic, and wheeling about, had dashed off, dragging a broken wagon after them.
“So I had to dodge a buffalo and a runaway team,” concluded John grimly.
The wheel-tracks showed plainly in the turf where he had lashed his own horses out of the road. He added that one of the passengers, a lady from the East, was quite severely injured in jumping from the forward wagon.
They saw deer feeding quietly beside the road. Great white pelicans floated on the calm surface of the river; eagles flew overhead in full view. There are many pumas, or “mountain lions,” as they are called there, in the lonelier tracts of the park, and bears, brown, black and grizzly, roam to and fro unmolested.
But the great feature of the ride was presented about five miles further on—when they were driving close to the banks of a clear flowing stream.
“What’s that creature down by the water?” asked Adelaide carelessly. “A calf?”
They all glanced toward the river, when Tom—who was unquestionably authority on the subject—sung out, “A bear! A bear!”
The driver pulled up his horses with a jerk, and none too soon. Up scrambled a huge brown, or “cinnamon” bear from the bank of the river, not a hundred yards ahead of them. She jumped a log which lay along the embankment, and crossing the road, began to climb the steep, wooded hill on their left.
Presently a woolly cub, about the size of a half-grown Newfoundland dog, came hurrying after her. He tried to climb the log as she had done, but after straining to get over, exactly like a boy endeavoring to mount a horizontal bar, tumbled backward into the brush.
Fred and Tom cheered him on, and the second attempt succeeded. Down he went, head over heels, into the dusty road, and then how he did scramble up hill after his mother! The boys laughed and shouted to him until both bears were out of sight among the pines, far up the mountain slope.
The horses had acted bravely during this scene, merely standing with quivering limbs and alert ears until little Bruin and his mother had passed.
At Yellowstone Lake the boys hastily organized a fishing excursion, and came back with a fine string of trout, averaging a pound to a pound and a half apiece. In the evening they took the girls out on the lake for a moonlight row. The songs they sang were of a gentler and more plaintive character than usual; for they realized that the beautiful journey over gulf and glacier, and through Wonderland, was fast drawing to a close.
“Row, brothers, row!” rang out Pet’s sweet soprano; and even Fred’s “Jolly boating weather” had an undertone of sadness, as the chorus came in, full and strong, at the end of each verse. Ah! how far ahead a “good-by” casts its shadow. How will it seem to reach a land where the word is not known!
“The rapids are near, and the daylight’s past,” sang Pet; while the moonlight quivered on the waters of the strange, wild mountain lake.
I must hurry on, myself, in my story of those fair, sweet days and silvery nights; for I find myself lingering only too long among the hills—dreading perhaps, as I trust some of you do, my boy and girl readers, the parting from the glad young lives that, in the course of these six volumes, have become a part of my very own. Yes, my manly Randolph, impulsive, good-hearted Tom, merry Kittie, golden-haired Pet, and sweet, gentle “Captain Bess,” I must leave you all too soon, in the fair morning-land where hearts beat warmly and young faces glow with mirth and noble resolve; whither in very truth, I have tried, poorly and feebly but most earnestly, to take the real, living boys and girls who have gathered around the pine-cone fires and many a time have sent me words of cheer from their own far-away firesides, year after year. God bless them, every one!
Randolph and Fred were loath to leave the fine fishing-grounds of the Lake, but the word was “Onward!” and another day’s ride took the party away from those picturesque shores to the Grand Cañon of the Yellowstone.
On horseback they rode slowly along the banks of this mighty ravine, whose tawny flanks have given the river its name. One moment the girls were speechless with laughter over Tom’s dismay as his horse began to slide down a steep descent; the next they caught their breath with wonder and awe, as they came out on the brink of the mighty cañon, and, making their way on foot to the very edge of a jutting promontory, gazed downward into the fearful depths of a sheer thousand feet below.
A few rods from their narrow perch was an eagle’s nest, and it made the head giddy and the pulse beat fast to see the great birds float out over the abyss. Coiling along the very base of the precipices was the river, a silken thread of twisted white and emerald.
But oh! the Falls. Here the Yellowstone gathered itself, at the head of the Cañon, and leaped abroad into the air, falling three hundred feet before it knitted together its torn threads on the rocks below.
“In His hands are the deep places of the earth,” murmured Mr. Percival, half to himself.
“The strength of the hills is His also!” finished the young clergyman, involuntarily baring his head, as if in the visible presence of the Creator.
“How can He—how can He think of our little every-day-nesses, and of that!” said Bess, not turning to the last speaker, but knowing that he heard.
Rossiter stooped, picked a single blade of grass from the brink of the awful cataract, and handed it to her without a word. And she understood, and was grateful.
“Home again, from a foreign shore!” sang the Percival Glee Club, as the mountain wagon rattled down a long hill, across a dusty plain, and whirled up to the front door of a great hotel. It wasn’t home, really, but only the Mammoth Hot Springs, which they had left nearly a week before.
Half of the Excursion had taken the circuit through the Park in the opposite direction, and now that all were united once more, many were the handshakings, and loud and eager the exchange of experiences.
“Did you take dinner at Larry’s?”
“I almost tumbled into the ‘Morning Glory’”—
“Oh! what a funny hotel that was at the Upper Basin—walls of pasteboard between the rooms, and all peeling off, you know”—
“Weren’t you awfully cold?”
“How many trout did you catch, Doctor?”
“My! wasn’t Mary’s Hill steep? We got out and walked. The horses just went up hand over hand, as if ’twas a ladder”—
“Did you see a bear?” This last from Tom, who became the center of a knot of eager questioners, and assumed airs of importance accordingly.
The attractions of the Mammoth Springs, marvelous though they were, were rather slighted by the tourists, who were sated with “formations” and boiling pools. That afternoon the train bore them over the branch road to Livingston, where fine furs were purchased by several parties, this little frontier town being a regular emporium for such articles.
At nightfall they had a jolly supper in the car, and afterward made their Pullman ring with “The Soldier’s Farewell” and—well—“A. R.!”
All the next day they rode at thirty-five miles an hour through the “Bad Lands” and across North Dakota, reaching Minneapolis the following morning.
“I tell you, it’s good to see green grass again, after those scorched-up prairies!” exclaimed Tom; and the rest echoed his words. For weeks not a drop of rain had fallen in the Northwest, and our New Englanders had longed for a sight of the fresh verdure of their own homeland.
There was plenty of sightseeing in Minneapolis to crowd the few hours allowed there. The younger Percivals, in particular, rushed furiously about the city, visited the Falls of Minnehaha, “which were extremely interesting,” Fred Seacomb remarked, “except that there were no falls there”—only a narrow rivulet trickling over some mossy rocks in a park; and climbed (by elevator) to the top of a twelve-story building on the roof of which was a flourishing garden, as well as an elegant restaurant. Later in the day they hurriedly inspected one of the great “Pillsbury” mills, which turn out seven thousand barrels of flour a day.
“I like this better than even the Falls in the Grand Cañon,” whispered Bess to Kittie, as they watched the flour pouring down through the boxes in a beautiful white flood. “There it was a great Power, you know; as if you were somehow seeing the world made; but here is where He makes answers for prayers for daily bread—just think, seven thousand people a day getting a whole barrel apiece, somewhere!”
I am glad Mr. Selborne happened to hear that last sentence. He was learning to know the little Captain better and better every day; and he understood what she meant, perhaps even better than bright, saucy Pet did.
“It is pleasant to remember, Miss Bessie,” he said, taking up the conversation very simply, “that the power and the giving are not separate, but each a part of the great, lovely Plan that guides the world’s living. ‘He watereth the hills,’ you know, ‘from His chambers,’ and the flood that roared over the brink of that precipice is sure to fall somewhere on the earth, at some time, in gentle rain.”
“I know,” said Bess, catching her breath a little, as she has a pretty way of doing when she is deeply moved; “and there was the blade of grass!”
She might have said “is,” for don’t I know that that self-same blade was safely pressed in her little Testament, in the steamer trunk that she had shared with Kittie throughout the journey?
They “finished” Minneapolis and its sturdy rival St. Paul, and hurried on to Chicago. Several in the original hundred of the Excursion had left them, and strangers had taken their places. It began to seem like breaking up in earnest.
There was one thing that disturbed Randolph; namely, that he had been unable to fulfill a laughing request made by Pet at almost the outset of the journey. He had competed with Tom in securing wild flowers for the girls, and, it must be confessed, the finest specimens had somehow found their way into Miss Pet’s lap. One variety had followed another during the passage by rail, across New England and Canada, until Pet had cried out, “You’ve given me everything!”
“Not every kind,” he replied, breathing hard after a run he had just made for some great golden daisies. “Isn’t there some special flower you want, that you haven’t had?”
“Well, let me see—a water lily!” said the girl merrily, choosing the most unlikely flower she could think of at the moment.
Randolph had laughed, too, but had resolved in his inmost heart to procure just that particular white blossom, if it could be had for love, muscle or money. But no lilies could be found. All through Manitoba, Assiniboia and Alberta he had looked in vain. Alaska yielded fir and spruce in abundance, but no water lilies. Nor was he more successful during the homeward-bound trip, across the States. Pet said nothing more about it—indeed, I think she forgot her careless suggestion almost the moment it was made; but Randolph felt himself put on his mettle, and failure stared him in the face.
No, I am not writing a “love story,” unless you grant that all true stories are that, in which pure, sweet young lives are thrown together, and drawn to one another by finest and frankest sympathy, looking ahead no farther than the sunset of that day or the sunrise of the next.
What might come in the future, these honest, joyous young people did not try to fathom. Perhaps for some of them the sacredness of a life-long companionship was waiting—who could tell? but now they just took the sweetness and comradery of To-day, and were satisfied.
As for Randolph’s failure to procure the lily, more of that by and by.
For there was one marvel, familiar to some, but new to most of the party, yet to come—the Falls of Niagara.
Chicago, with its never-ceasing stir of business activity, its broad streets, its huge “Auditorium” building, twenty stories high, its art galleries and its good-natured Western hurry and hospitality, was left behind, and one misty morning in early September the Excursion train deposited its passengers at the Niagara depot, from which they were whirled round to the Cataract House for breakfast.
“Tom hates to waste his time eating in the vicinity of Niagara Falls,” said Fred at the table, “but I am glad to see that he is going through the form, at any rate.”
A glance at the latter’s heaped-up plate was convincing.
“Certainly a splendid imitation of a hungry boy,” remarked Kittie. “Take another biscuit, won’t you, Tommy?”
But when at last they did enter Prospect Park, and huddled together at the brink of the mighty American Falls, there were no more jests. All the world seemed sweeping onward and over, into that white uproar. The solid rock beneath them trembled in the thunderous fall of many waters.
Some of the party walked over the little rustic bridge to Goat Island, and out to the bit of rock where Terrapin Tower once stood. But it was all too terrible to invite a long stay. Glad they were to reach the quiet of the grove again, where moss and furrowed bark and waving fern told their simple story of peace, and the sparrow’s twitter was heard against the deep undertone of the Fall.
In the afternoon half a dozen of the bolder spirits went down the Inclined Plane to the shore below the Falls, and embarked on the Maid of the Mist. They had to encase themselves in rubber coats and tarpaulin hats, while the little boat steamed up into the verge of the boiling caldron until its awe-struck passengers were deafened and drenched by the columns of rolling spray from the cataract.
Evening came, and for the last time the Percivals, with their special friends, gathered in the car for a final “concert.” Nearly one half of the Excursion party had left them at Niagara, waving handkerchiefs and singing, “Should auld acquaintance be forgot?”
Mr. Rossiter and his sister were to reach their journey’s end at a little town in Western Massachusetts, and would leave the train in the early morning, while their comrades were still asleep. Altogether, despite the anticipation of getting home once more, it was a sad evening, as “good-by” evenings must always be.
Next morning all was eagerness and bustle, for when breakfast was over the train was within twenty miles of Boston.
Alaskan paddles and totem poles were lashed together, and the sharp noses and bright eyes of stuffed foxes from Mandan peered from their paper wrappings as their owners prepared for the last disembarkation.
Near historic Concord the train stopped for a local freight to pull out of the way. Randolph carelessly strolled out to the car platform, and cast his eye along a little stream which was crossed by the track at that point. Something made him start suddenly and beckon to a group of boys who were idling near.
“A silver dollar for the boy that brings me a pond lily before the train starts!” he cried, pointing to the river.
How those boys did scatter, some up stream, some down! One bright little fellow, who had just divested himself for a bath, plunged in and swam lustily for the prize. Another waded in, waist-deep, regardless of clothes. Half a dozen more threw themselves on to a rude raft, capsized it, and scrambling on board again, poled it toward the white beauties, floating serenely on the dark waters of the Assabet.
Randolph stood waiting eagerly, with the dollar in his hand, expecting every moment to hear the signal-whistle for starting. A group of workmen engaged in repairing the bridge left off working and cheered the boys on, laughing, and shouting to the little fellows.
“Go it, Dick! Now, Billy, there’s a big one in front of you—no, to your right, to your right! Hurry, Pat, you’ll get it! Good for you!”
“Off brakes!” rang out the whistle sharply. The train started. Four boys scrambled, panting, up the steep, sandy bank. Randolph jumped on the lowest step of the car and stretched out his hand.
“Here they are, Mister!” and four snowy, perfumed blossoms were thrust by grimy little fingers into his own.
“Catch!” he shouted, throwing out four bright silver quarters for which he had hastily changed the dollar. “Thank you, boys. Good-by!” and the train rolled on.
Randolph entered the car, his eyes shining. Evidently no one within had witnessed this little episode.
“Almost home,” he said, coming up behind Pet. “Too bad I couldn’t”—
“Oh! that lily,” laughed the girl. “Well, Randolph, perhaps it will do you good to fail just once. It’s a sort of discipline, you know.”
“I’m afraid I shall have to get my discipline some other way,” said Randolph demurely; and he deposited the lilies in the lap of astonished Pet.
Just what she saw in those exquisite, fragrant things, all dripping from the cool depths from which they had come to greet her, I cannot say. She looked her delight at Randolph, and then buried the pretty pink of her own cheeks in the white petals. I believe she did not even thank the giver; but he was satisfied.
Twenty minutes later the train thundered into the Fitchburg depot in Boston, and the long, ten-thousand mile journey was at an end.
I have entitled this chapter “Conclusion,” because it seems necessary to have the last chapter of a book named in that way. But the author might as well have named it “Beginning,” for there is no such thing in life as a “conclusion,” unless, indeed (as Randolph, looking over my shoulder, and fresh from the classic shades of Cambridge, suggests), we take the literal meaning of the word, a “shutting together”—of the covers of this book!
No; life is full of beginnings, and stories can never, never, to all eternity, “conclude.” Because the “Pine Cone Stories” can have but just six volumes, of so many pages each, we must let the story go on without us. But it will not conclude, any more than your life or mine forever. With which little “preachment,” as Miss Alcott’s young people somewhere call it, let us take a last look at the friends whose stories are drifting away out of our sight.
More than three years have passed since Tom delivered that lucky shot at old Silver-Tip; since Bessie gazed thoughtfully down into the mighty cañon in the Yellowstone, and took in her hand the slender ribbon of grass for a token.
It is Christmas time, and we are in an old mansion house in the depths of a deep forest in the Pine Tree State. You recognize the room at once, I hope—for it is Uncle Will’s little secret chamber at the Pines.
It is night, and the North Wind is smiting grandly his “thunder harp of pines,” while the window panes whiten and rattle with the sheets of snow that are flung against them by the storm.
There is a glorious fire in the fireplace, throwing great billows of flame far up the chimney, crackling, snapping and purring, sending a ruddy glow into every corner of the room and over its inmates.
For the chamber is not empty; the fire is not talking to itself, but to a goodly company that gather around it, with all the old-time cheer.
Uncle Will is there, sturdy and broad-shouldered as ever, with hair only a little whiter than when we first met him, standing beside his good horses at the Pineville depot years ago.
Aunt Puss, too, is not far away, and her husband’s occasional “Eunice” is even more full of tenderness than in earlier days, when they met by the lilac bushes.
Close by her side nestles golden-haired Pet, who turns, however, as she talks, to a tall youth with a dark curling mustache, whom she addresses as Randolph. The flush on her cheeks and the brightness in her happy eyes is not alone borrowed from the dancing fire; for Randolph has just stooped down and whispered to his aunt—Pet knew perfectly well, too, what he was saying, sly puss!—that the wedding-day was set for the first of May.
In another corner of the room Tom, now a grave senior at Harvard, is reading by the fire-light a letter postmarked “Portland, Oregon.” I don’t believe Bert Martin wrote it, though there is a great deal in the letter about him; for the handwriting is decidedly feminine. Can it be that Bert employs his sister as an amanuensis?
The young lady in navy blue, next to Tom, must be Kittie, whose engagement to Fred Seacomb “came out” simultaneously with Randolph and Pet’s. She tells me privately that she can not help teasing him, he’s so dignified with his new instructorship in the University of Pennsylvania; but then he’s good-natured and don’t seem to mind it a bit—“‘so long as he has me,’ he says—foolish fellow!”
“Have you heard from Bess lately?” asks Uncle Will.
“Only last week,” replies Tom, throwing a handful of cones on the fire, and then trying to get the pitch off his white hands. “She and Ross were in Geneva, and having a glorious time.”
“I shall be glad when she is back in this country again,” remarks Aunt Puss, stroking Pet’s bright hair. “If all my girls should run away so far, as soon as they were married, I don’t know what I should do!”
Pet laughs and blushes a little, and assures her aunt that “there’s no danger!” For she and Randolph have talked it over, you see, and have resolved on another Alaskan trip, where they can renew their memories of that bright summer among the gulfs and glaciers of the far Northwest.
“Just for the sake of old times” Uncle Will tells a story, while the red blaze crackles around a plentiful supply of cones and curling sheets of “silver rags.” Without, the northern crosses all through the wood are white with snow, and the wind rises until in its continuous voice can be heard a roar as of the kelp-laden surges around the lonely reefs of Appledore.
There is silence in the little chamber as young folk and old gaze dreamily into the heart of the fire, their thoughts full of dear old days, yet looking forward, strong, trustful, hopeful, to the shelter that shall be for them in the heart of every storm that may assail them; to the work and the joy and the gladness of life that is set before them.
UP AND DOWN THE MERRIMAC. Illustrated, 12mo, 1.00.
A vacation trip upon one of the most charming rivers in the world, made in a dory by the author and his two sons for the purpose of hunting, fishing and a good time generally.