The Rim of the Desert

by Ada Woodruff Anderson

  “I am writing for my brother, Frederic Morganstein, who is recuperating aboard his yacht, to ask you to join us on a little cruise around Bainbridge Island this afternoon at four o'clock. Ever since his interests have been identified with Alaska, he has hoped to know you personally, and he wishes particularly to meet you now, to thank you for your services in Snoqualmie Pass. In the general confusion after the accident I am afraid none of us remembered to.

  “We expect to touch at the Navy Yard and again at Frederic's new villa to see how the work is coming on, but the trip should not take longer than four hours, and we are dining informally on board.

  “Do not trouble to answer. If the salt air is a strong enough lure this warm day, you will find the Aquila at Pier Three.

  “Very truly yours,

  “MARCIA FEVERSHAM.

  “Tuesday, September seventh.”

  “That floating palace ought to stir up some breeze.” Tisdale crumpled the invitation again and dropped it deliberately in the waste basket. “And to-morrow I shall be shut up on my eastbound train.” He looked at his watch; there was still half an hour to spare before the time of sailing. “After all, why not?”

  A little later, when he had hurried into white flannels as expeditiously as possible with his disabled hand, the suggestion crept to his inner consciousness that he might find Mrs. Weatherbee aboard the Aquila. “Well, why not?” he asked himself again. “Why not?” and picked up his hat.

  So he came to Pier Number Three and, looking down the gangway as he crossed, saw her standing in the little group awaiting him on the after deck. Morganstein spoke to him and introduced him to the ladies. He did not avoid her look and, under his appraising eyes, he saw the color begin to play in her face. Then her glance fell to his bandaged hand, and an inquiry rushed to her lips. But she checked the words in time and drew slowly aloof to a seat near the rail.

  Tisdale took a place near the reclining chair of his host. When she ventured to give him a swift side-glance, his mouth set austerely. But the space between them became electrical. It was as though wireless messages passed continually between them.

  “Look back. See how often I tried to tell you! My courage failed. Believe in me. I am not the monster you thought.”

  And always the one response: “The facts are all against you.”

  Duwamish Head had dropped from sight; Magnolia Bluff fell far astern, and the Aquila steamed out into the long, broad reach of Puget Sound; but though the tide had turned, there was still no wind. The late sun touched the glassy swells with the changing effect of a prism. The prow of the craft shattered this mirror, and her wake stretched in a ragged and widening crack. But under the awnings Frederic Morganstein's guests found it delightfully cool. Only Jimmie Daniels, huddled on a stool in the glare, outside the lowered curtain that cut him off from the breeze created by the motion of the yacht, felt uncomfortably warm.

  The representative of the Press had arrived on board in time to see Tisdale come down the pier and had discreetly availed himself of the secluded place that the financier had previously put to his disposal. He had heard it told at the newspaper office that Tisdale, whose golden statements were to furnish his little scoop, Hollis Tisdale of Alaska and the Geographical Survey, who knew more about the coal situation than any other man, was also the most silent, baffling sphinx on record when it came to an interview.

  At the moment the Aquila came into the open, the Japanese boy placed a bowl of punch, with, pleasant clinking of ice, on the wicker table before Mrs. Feversham, who began to serve it. Like Elizabeth's, the emblems on her nautical white costume were embroidered in scarlet, and a red silk handkerchief was knotted loosely on her full, boyish chest. She was not less striking, and indeed she believed this meeting on the deck of the yacht, where formalities were quickly abridged, would appeal to the out-of-doors man and pave the way to a closer acquaintance in Washington. But Tisdale's glance involuntarily moved beyond to the woman seated by the rail. Her head was turned so that he caught the finely chiseled profile, the outward sweep of black lashes, the adorable curve of the oval chin to meet the throat. She too wore the conventional sailor suit, but without color, and this effect of purity, the inscrutable delicacy of her, seemed to set her apart from these dark, materialistic sisters as though she had strayed like a lost vestal into the wrong atmosphere. His brows relaxed. For a moment the censor that had come to hold dominion in his heart was off guard. He felt the magnetism of her personality drawing him once more; he desired to cross the deck to her, drop a word into those deep places he had discovered, and see her emotions stir and overflow. Then suddenly the enthusiasm, for which during that drive through the mountains he had learned to watch, broke in her face. “Look!” she exclaimed softly. “See Rainier!”

  Every one responded, but Tisdale started from his chair, and went over and stood beside her. There, southward, through golden haze, with the dark and wooded bluffs of Vashon Island flanking the deep foreground of opal sea, the dome lifted like a phantom peak. “It doesn't seem to belong to our world,” she said, and her voice held its soft minor note, “but a vision of some higher, better country.”

  She turned to give him her rare, grave look, and instantly his eyes telegraphed appreciation. Then he remembered. The swift revulsion came over him. He swung on his heel to go back to his chair, and the unexpected movement brought him in conjunction with the punch tray. The boy righted it dexterously, and she took the offered glass and settled again in her seat. But from his place across the deck, Tisdale noticed a drop had fallen, spreading, above the hem of her white skirt. The red stain held his austere gaze. It became a symbol of blood; on the garment of the vestal the defilement of sacrifice.

  She was responsible for Weatherbee's death. He must not forget that. And he saw through her. Now he saw. Had she not known at the beginning he was an out-of-doors man? That he lived his best in the high spaces close to Nature's heart? And so determined to win him in this way? She had meant to win him. Even yet, she could not trust alone to his desire to see David's project through, but threw in the charm of her own personality to swing the balance. Oh, she understood him. At the start she had read him, measured him, sounded him through. That supreme moment, at the crisis of the storm, had she not lent herself to the situation, counting the price? At this thought, the heat surged to his face. He wished in that instant to punish her, break her, but deeper than his anger with her burned a fury against himself. That he should have allowed her to use him, make a fool of him. He who had blamed Weatherbee, censured Foster, for less.

  Then Marcia Feversham took advantage of the silence and, at her first statement, Jimmie Daniels sat erect; he forgot his thirst, the discomfort of his position, and opened his notebook on his knee. “I understand your work this season was in the Matanuska coal region, Mr. Tisdale; you must be able to guess a little nearer than the rest of us as to the outcome of the Naval tests. Is it the Copper River Northwestern or the Prince William Development Company that is to have the open door?”

  Tisdale's glance moved from the opal sea to the lady's face; the genial lines crinkled faintly at the corners of his eyes. “I believe the Bering and Matanuska coal will prove equally good for steaming purposes,” he replied.

  Frederic Morganstein grasped the arms of his chair and moved a little, risking a twinge of pain, to look squarely at Tisdale. “You mean the Government may conserve both?” His voice was habitually thick and deliberate, as though the words had difficulty to escape his heavy lips. “That, sir, would lock the shackles on every resource in Alaska. Guess you've seen how construction and development are forced to a standstill, pending the coal decision. Guess you know our few finished miles of railroad, built at immense expense and burdened with an outrageous tax, are operating under imported coal. Placed an order with Japan in the spring for three thousand tons.”

  “Think of it!” exclaimed Marcia. “Coal from the Orient, the lowest grade, when we should be exporting the best. Think of the handicap, the injustice put upon
those pioneer Alaskans who fought tremendous obstacles to open the interior; who paved the way for civilization.”

  Tisdale's face clouded. “I am thinking of those pioneers, madam, and I believe the Government is going to. Present laws can be easily amended and enforced to fit nearly every situation until better ones are framed. The settler and prospector should have privileges, but at the same time the Government must put some restriction on speculation and monopoly.”

  Behind the awning Jimmie's pencil was racing down the page, and Morganstein dropped his head back on the pillow; a purplish flush rose in his face.

  “The trouble is,” Hollis went on evenly, “each senator has been so over-burdened with the bills of his own State that Alaska has been side-tracked. But I know the President's interest is waking; he wants to see the situation intelligently; in fact, he favors a Government-built railroad from the coast to the upper Yukon. And I believe as soon as a selection is made for naval use, some of those old disputed coal claims— some, not all—will be allowed. Or else—Congress must pass a bill to lease Alaska coal lands.”

  “Lease Alaska coal lands?” Frederic started up again so recklessly he was forced to sink back with a groan. “Do you mean we won't be allowed to mine any coal in Alaska, in that case, except by lease?” And he added, turning his cheek to the pillow, “Oh, damn!”

  Tisdale seemed not to have heard the question. His glance moved slowly again over the opal sea and rested on the shining ramparts of the Olympics, off the port bow. “Constance!” he exclaimed mellowly. “The Brothers! Eleanor!” Then he said whimsically: “Thank God they can't set steam-shovels to work there and level those peaks and fill the canyons. Do you know?”—his look returned briefly and the genial lines deepened— “those mountains were my playground when I was a boy. My last hunting trip, the year I finished college, came to an untimely end up there in the gorge of the Dosewallups. You see it? That shaded contour cross-cutting the front of Constance.”

  Elizabeth, who had opened her workbag, looked up with sudden interest. “Was there an accident?” she asked. “Something desperate and thrilling?”

  “It seemed so to me,” he said.

  Then Mrs. Weatherbee rose and came over to the port rail. “I see,” she said, and shaded her eyes with her hand. “You mean where that gold mist rises between that snow slope and the blue rim of that lower, nearer mountain. And you had camped in that gorge”—her hand dropped; she turned to him expectantly—“with friends, on a hunting trip?”

  He paused a moment then answered slowly: “Yes, madam, with one of them. Sandy, our old camp cook, made a third in the party.”

  CHAPTER XV. THE STORY OF THE TENAS PAPOOSE

  Tisdale paused another moment, while his far-seeing gaze sifted the shadows of Constance, then began: “We had made camp that afternoon, at the point where Rocky Brook tumbles over the last boulders to join the swift current of the Dosewallups. I am something of an angler, and Sandy knew how to treat a Dolly Varden to divide honors with a rainbow; so while the others were pitching the tents, it fell to me to push up stream with my rod and flies. The banks rose in sharp pitches under low boughs of fir, hemlock, or cedar, but I managed to keep well to the bed of the stream, working from boulder to boulder and stopping to make a cast wherever a riffle looked promising. Finally, to avoid an unusually deep pool, I detoured around through the trees. It was very still in there; not even the cry of a jay or the drum of a woodpecker to break the silence, until suddenly I heard voices. Then, in a tangle of young alder, I picked up a trail and came soon on a group of squaws picking wild blackberries. They made a great picture with their beautifully woven, gently flaring, water-tight baskets, stained like pottery; their bright shawls wrapped scarfwise around their waists out of the way; heads bound in gay handkerchiefs. It was a long distance from any settlement, and they stood watching me curiously while I wedged myself between twin cedars, on over a big fallen fir, out of sight.

  “A little later I found myself in a small pocket hemmed by cliffs of nearly two hundred feet, over which the brook plunged in a fine cataract. Above, where it cut the precipice, a hanging spur of rock took the shape of a tiger's profile, and a depression colored by mineral deposit formed a big red eye; midway the stream struck shelving rock, breaking into a score of cascades that spread out fan-shape and poured into a deep, green, stone-lined pool; stirring, splashing, rippling ceaselessly, but so limpid I could see the trout. It was a place that held me. When at last I put away my flies and started down the bank, I knew dinner must be waiting for me, but I had a string of beauties to pacify Sandy. As I hurried down to the fallen tree, I heard the squaws calling to each other at a different point out of sight up the ridge; then I found a step in the rough bole and, setting my hands on the top, vaulted over. The next instant I would have given anything, the best years of my life, to undo that leap. There, where my foot had struck, left with some filled baskets in the lee of the log, lay a small papoose.”

  Tisdale's voice vibrated softly and stopped, while his glance moved from face to face. He held the rapt attention of every one, and in the pause the water along the keel played a minor interlude. Behind the awning a different sound broke faintly. It was like the rustle of paper; a turned page.

  “The baby was bound to the usual-shaped board,” Hollis went on, “with a woven pocket for the feet and a broad carrying-strap to fit the head of the mother. I sat down and lifted the little fellow to my knees. I wore heavy shoes, studded with nails for mountain climbing, and the mark of my heel was stamped, cruelly, on the small brown cheek; the rim had crushed the temple.”

  Tisdale halted again, and in the silence Elizabeth sighed. Then, “I'll bet you didn't waste any time in that place,” exclaimed Morganstein.

  “The eyes were closed,” resumed Tisdale gently. “I saw the blow had taken him in his sleep, but the wantonness, the misery of it, turned me cold. Then, you are right, I was seized with a panic to get away. I laid the papoose back in the place where I had found him and left my string of fish, a poor tribute, with what money I had about me, and hurried down into the bed of the brook.

  “The squaws were several days' travel from the reservation, but I remembered we had passed a small encampment a few miles down the river and another near the mouth of the Dosewallups, where a couple of Indians were fishing from canoes. I knew they would patrol the stream as soon as the alarm was given, and my only chance was to make a wide detour, avoiding my camp where they would first look for me, swim the river, and push through the forest, around that steep, pyramid peak to the next canyon. You see it?—The Duckabush cuts through there to tide water. I left no trail in crossing the stony bed of the brook, and took advantage of a low basalt bluff in climbing the farther bank. It was while I was working my way over the rock into cover of the trees that the pleasant calling on the ridge behind me changed to the first terrible cry. The mother had found her dead baby.

  “Twilight was on me when I stopped at last on the river bank to take off my shoes. I rolled them with my coat in a snug pack, which I secured with a length of fish-line to my shoulders before I plunged in. The current was swift; I lost headway, and a whirlpool caught me; I was swept under, came up grazing a ragged rock, dipped again through a riffle, and when I finally gathered myself and won out to the opposite shore, there was my camp in full view below me. I was winded, bruised, shivering, and while I lay resting I watched Sandy. He stirred the fire under his kettle, put a fresh lag on, then walked to the mouth of the brook and stood looking up stream, wondering, no doubt, what was keeping me. Then a long cry came up the gorge. It was lost in the rush of the rapids and rose again in a wailing dirge. The young squaw was mourning for her papoose. It struck me colder than the waters of the Dosewallups. Sandy turned to listen. I knew I had only to call, show myself, and the boys would be ready to fight for me every step of the trail down to the settlement; but there was no need to drag them in; I hoped they would waste no time in going out, and I found my pocket compass, set a course, and pushed
into the undergrowth.

  “That night journey was long-drawn torture. The moon rose, but its light barely penetrated the fir boughs. My coat and shoes were gone, torn from me in the rapids, and I walked blindly into snares of broken and pronged branches, trod tangles of blackberry, and more than once my foot was pierced by the barbs of a devil's-club. Dawn found me stumbling into a small clearing. I was dull with weariness, but I saw a cabin with smoke rising from the chimney, and the possibility of a breakfast heartened me. As I hurried to the door, it opened, and a woman with a milking pail came out. At sight of me she stopped, her face went white, and, dropping the bucket, she moved backward into the room. The next moment she brought a rifle from behind the door. 'If you come one step nearer,' she cried, 'I'll shoot.'“

  Tisdale paused, and the humor broke gently in his face. “I saw she was quite capable of it,” he went on, “and I stopped. It was the first time I had seemed formidable to a woman, and I raised my hand to my head—my hat was gone—to smooth my ruffled hair; then my glance fell from my shirt sleeves, soiled and in tatters, down over my torn trousers to my shoeless feet; my socks were in rags. 'I am sorry,' I began, but she refused to listen. 'Don't you say a word,' she warned and had the rifle to her shoulder, looking along the sight. 'If you do, I'll shoot, and I'm a pretty good shot.'

  “'I haven't a doubt of that,' I answered, taking the word, 'and even if you were not, you could hardly miss at that range.'

  “Her color came back, and she stopped sighting to look me over. 'Now,' she said, 'you take that road down the Duckabush, and don't you stop short of a mile. Ain't you ashamed,' she shrilled, as I moved ignominiously into the trail, 'going 'round scaring ladies to death?'

  “But I did not go that mile. Out of sight of the cabin I found myself in one of those old burned sections, overgrown with maple. The trees were very big, and the gnarled, fantastic limbs and boles were wrapped in thick bronze moss. It covered the huge, dead trunks and logs of the destroyed timber, carpeted the earth, and out of it grew a natural fernery.” He turned his face a little, involuntarily seeking Mrs. Weatherbee. “I wish you could have seen that place,” he said. “Imagine a great billowing sea of infinite shades of green, fronds waving everywhere, light, beautifully stencilled elk-fern, starting with a breadth of two feet and tapering to lengths of four or five; sword-fern shooting stiffly erect, and whole knolls mantled in maidenhair.”