Silas Strong 4

Silas Strong 4

They arrived at Tupper's Mill late in the afternoon. There Gordon found

a canoe and made ready. At this point the river turned like a scared

horse and ran east by south, around Tup-per Ridge, in a wide loop, and,

as if doubting its way, slackened pace, and, wavering right and left,

moved slowly into the shade of the forest, and then, as if reassured,

went on at a full gallop, leaping over the cliff at Fiddler's Falls.

Below, it turned to the north, and, seeming to see its way at last, grew

calm and crossed the flats wearily, covered with foam.

 

Socky woke and rubbed his eyes when he and his sister were taken out of

the wagon. Sue continued to sleep, although carried like a sack of

meal under the arm of the driver and Silas Strong laid amidships on a

blanket. Mr. Tupper, the mill man, gave them a piece of meat which, out

of courtesy to the law, he called "mountain lamb." With pack aboard and

Socky on a blanket in the bow, Gordon pushed his canoe into the current.

 

All who journeyed to the Lost River country from the neighborhood

of Hillsborough arrived at Tupper's late in the afternoon. There,

generally, they took canoe and paddled six miles to a log inn at the

head of the still water. But as Gordon started from Tupper's Mill down

stream he had in mind a destination not on any map of this world. Socky

sat facing him, a little hand on either gunwale.

 

Socky had thought often that day of the incident of the night before and

of his father's poverty. Now he looked him over from head to foot.

He saw the little steel chain fastened to his father's waistcoat and

leading into the pocket where he knew that his own watch lay hidden. The

look of it gave him a feeling of great virtue and satisfaction.

 

"Father, will you please tell me what time it is?" he inquired.

 

Gordon removed the watch from his pocket. "Half-past six. We've got to

push on."

 

It was fine to see that watch in his father's hand.

 

"I'm going to give it to you," said the boy, soberly. "You can wear it

Sundays an' every day."

 

Gordon looked into the eyes of his son. He saw there the white soul of

the little traveller just entering upon the world.

 

"I'm going to buy you some new clothes, too," said Socky, now

overflowing with generosity.

 

"Where'll you get the money?"

 

"From my Uncle Silas." After a few moments Socky added, "If I was Lizzie

Cornell's father I'd give her a good whipping."

 

They rode in silence awhile, and soon the boy lay back on his blanket

looking up at the sky.

 

"Father," said he, presently.

 

"What?"

 

"I'm good to you, ain't I?"

 

"Very."

 

There was a moment of silence, and then the boy added, "I love you."

 

Those words gave the man a new sense of comfort. If he could have done

so he would have embraced his son and covered his face with kisses.

 

The sun had sunk low and they were entering the edge of the night and

the woodland. Soon the boy fell asleep. The silence of the illimitable

sky seemed to be flooding down and delightful sounds were drifting on

its current. They had passed the inn, long ago and walls of fir and pine

were on either side of them. Gordon put into a deep cove, stopping under

the pine-trees with his bow on a sand-bar. Then he let himself down,

stretching his legs on the canoe bottom and lying back on his blanket.

 

For a long time he lay there thinking. He had been a man of some

refinement, and nature had punished him, after an old fashion, for the

abuse of it with extreme sensitiveness. He had come to the Adirondacks

from a New England city and married and gone into business. At first he

had prospered, and then he had begun to go down.

 

He had been a lover of music and a reader of the poets. As he lay

thinking in the early dusk he heard the notes of the wood-thrush. That

bird was like a welcoming trumpeter before the gate of a palace; it

bade him be at home. Above all he could hear the water song of Fiddler's

Falls--the tremulous, organ bass of rock caverns upon which the river

drummed as it fell, the chorus of the on-rushing stream and great

overtones in the timber.

 

Sound and rhythm seemed to be full of that familiar strain--so like a

solemn warning:

 

[Illustration: 0038]

 

A long time he sat hearing it. He began to feel ashamed of his folly and

awakened to the inspiration of a new purpose. He rose and looked about

him.

 

When you enter a house you begin to feel the heart of its owner.

Something in the walls and furnishings, something in the air--is it a

vibration which dead things have gathered from the living?--bids you

welcome or warns you to depart. It is the true voice of the master.

As Gordon came into the wilderness he felt like one returning to his

father's house. In this great castle the heart of its Master seemed to

speak to him with a tenderness fatherly and unmistakable.

 

A subtle force like that we find in houses built with hands now bade him

welcome. "Lie down and rest, my son," it seemed to say. "Let not your

heart be troubled. Here in your Father's house are forgiveness and

plenty."

 

He put away the thought of death. He covered the sleeping boy and girl,

pushed his canoe forward upon the sand, and lying back comfortably soon

fell asleep.

 

He awoke refreshed at sunrise. The great, green fountain of life, in

the midst of which he had rested, now seemed to fill his heart with its

uplifting joy and energy and persistence.

 

He built a fire under the trees and broiled the meat and made toast and

coffee. He lifted the children in his arms and kissed them with unusual

tenderness.

 

"To-day we'll see Uncle Silas," Gordon assured them.

 

"My Uncle Silas!" said the boy, fondly.

 

"He's mine, too," Sue declared.

 

"He's both of our'n," Socky allowed, as they began to eat their

breakfast.

 

 

 

 

IV

 

SILAS STRONG, or "Panther Sile," as the hunters called him, spent every

winter in the little forest hamlet of Pitkin and every summer in the

woods.

 

Lawrence County was the world, and game, wood, and huckleberries the

fulness thereof; all beyond was like the reaches of space unexplored and

mysterious. God was only a word--one may almost say--and mostly part

of a compound adjective; hell was Ogdensburg, to which he had once

journeyed; and the devil was Colonel Jedson. This latter opinion, it

should be said, grew out of an hour in which the Colonel had bullied him

in the witness-chair, and not to any lasting resemblance.

 

As to Ogdensburg itself, the hunter had based his judgment upon evidence

which, to say the least, was inconclusive. When Sile and the city first

met, they regarded each other with extreme curiosity. A famous hunter,

as he moved along the street with rifle, pack, and panther-skin, Sile

was trying to see everything, and everything seemed to be trying to see

Sile. The city was amused while the watchful eye of Silas grew weary and

his bosom filled with distrust. One tipsy man offered him a jack-knife

as a compliment to the length of his nose, and before he could escape

a new acquaintance had wrongfully borrowed his watch. His conclusions

regarding the city were now fully formed. He broke with it suddenly, and

struck out across country and tramped sixty miles without a rest. Ever

after the thought of Ogdensburg revived memories of confusion, headache,

and irreparable loss. So, it is said, when he heard the minister

describing hell one Sunday at the little school-house in Pitkin, he had

no doubt either of its existence or its location.

 

All this, however, relates to antecedent years of our history--years

which may not be wholly neglected if one is to understand what follows

them.

 

After the death of his sister--the late Mrs. Gordon--Strong began to

read his Bible and to cut his trails of thought further and further

towards his final destination. A deeper reverence and a more correct

notion of the devil rewarded his labor.

 

It must be added that his meditations led him to one remarkable

conclusion--namely, that all women were angels. His parents had left him

nothing save a maiden sister named Cynthia, and characterized by some as

"a reg'lar human panther."

 

"Wherever Sile is they's panthers," said a guide once, in the little

store at Pitkin.

 

"Don't make no dif'er'nce whuther he's t' home er in the woods," said

another, solemnly.

 

That was when God owned the wilderness and kept there a goodly number of

his big cats, four of which had fallen before the rifle of Strong.

 

Cynthia, in his view, had a special sanctity, but there was another

woman whom he regarded with great tenderness--a cheery-faced maiden lady

of his own age and of the name of Annette.

 

To Silas she was always Lady Ann. He gave her this title without any

thought or knowledge of foreign customs. "Miss Roice" would have been

too formal, and "Ann" or "Annette" would have been too familiar.

"Lady Ann" seemed to have the proper ring of respect, familiarity, and

distinction. In his view a "lady" was a creature as near perfection as

anything could be in this world.

 

When a girl of eighteen she had taught in the log school-house. Since

the death of her mother the care of the little home had fallen upon

her. She was a well-fed, cheerful, and comely creature with a genius for