Silas Strong 8

Silas Strong 8

"Good-night."

 

It was growing dark. Strong's outbreak had wearied him. He groaned and

shook his head and stood a moment thinking. In the distance he could

hear the hoot of an owl and the bull bass of frogs booming over the

still water.

 

"G-gone!" he exclaimed, presently. Soon he added, in a mournful tone,

"W-wouldn't d-dast tell Mis' Strong."

 

He started slowly towards the camp.

 

"I'll l-lie to her," he whispered, as he went along.

 

Before going to bed he made this note in his memorandum-book:

 

_"June the 26 More snags Strong says trubel is like small-pox thing to

do is kepe it from spreadin."_

 

 

 

 

VII

 

SINCE early May there had been no rain save a sprinkle now and then.

From Lake Ontario to Lake Champlain, from the St. Lawrence to Sandy

Hook, the earth had been scorching under a hot sun. The heat and dust of

midsummer had dimmed the glory of June.

 

People those days were thinking less of the timber of the woods and more

of their abundant, cool, and living green. The inns along the edge of

the forest were filling up.

 

About eleven o'clock of a morning late in June, a young man arrived at

Lost River camp--one Robert Master, whose father owned a camp and some

forty thousand acres not quite a day's tramp to the north. He was a big,

handsome youth of twenty-two, just out of college. Sinth regarded every

new-comer as a natural enemy. She suspected most men of laziness and a

capacity for the oppression of females. She stood in severe silence at

the door of the cook-tent and looked him over as he came. Soon she

went to the stove and began to move the griddles. Silas entered with an

armful of wood.

 

"If he thinks I'm goin' to wait on him hand an' foot, he's very much

mistaken," said Sinth.

 

"R-roughlocks!" Silas answered, calmly, as he put a stick on the fire.

 

Sinth made no reply, but began sullenly rushing to and fro with pots

and pans. Soon her quick knife had taken the jackets off a score of

potatoes. While her hands flew, water leaped on the potatoes, and the

potatoes tumbled into the pot, and the pot jumped into the stove-hole as

the griddle took a slide across the top of the stove. And so with a rush

of feet and a rattle of pots and pans and a sliding of griddles and a

banging of iron doors "Mis' Strong" wore off her temper at hard work.

 

The Emperor used to smile at this variety of noise and call it

"f-f-female profanity," a phrase not wholly inapt. When the "sport" had

finished his dinner, and she and her brother sat side by side at

the table, she was plain Sinth again, with a look of sickliness and

resignation. She ate freely--but would never confess her appetite--and

so leisurely that Strong often had most of the dishes washed before she

had finished eating.

 

The young man was eager to begin fishing, and soon after dinner the

Emperor took him over to Catamount Pond. On their way the young man

spoke of the object of his visit.

 

"Mr. Strong, you know my father?" he half inquired.

 

"Ay-ah," the Emperor answered.

 

"He's been a property-holder in this county for five years, every summer

of which I have spent on his land. I feel at home in the woods, and I

cast my first vote at Tifton."

 

Strong listened thoughtfully.

 

"I want to do what I can to save the wilderness," young Master went on.

 

"R-right!" said the Emperor.

 

"If I were in the Legislature, I believe I could accomplish something.

Anyhow, I am going to make a fight for the vacant seat in the Assembly."

 

Strong surveyed him from head to foot.

 

"I wish you would do what you can for me in Pitkin."

 

"Uh-huh!" Strong answered, in a gentle tone, without opening his

lips. It was a way he had of expressing uncertainty leaning towards

affirmation. He liked the young man; there was, indeed, something

grateful to him in the look and voice of a gentleman.

 

"You'll never be ashamed of me--I'll see to that," said Master.

 

Having reached the little pond, Strong gave him his boat, and promised

to return and bring him into camp at six. Here and there trout were

breaking through the smooth plane of water.

 

The Emperor took a bee-line over the wooded ridge to Robin Lake. There

he spent an hour repairing his bark shanty and gathering balsam boughs

for a bed. Stepping on a layer of spruce poles over which the boughs

were to be spread, in a dark corner of the shanty, his foot went through

and came down upon the nest of one of the most disagreeable creatures in

the wilderness. He sprang away with an oath and fled into the open air.

For a moment he expressed himself in a series of sharp reports, Then,

picking up a long pole, he met the offenders leaving their retreat, and

"mellered" them, as he explained to Sinth that evening.

 

"T-take that, Amos," he muttered, as he gave one of them another blow.

 

It should be borne in mind that he called every member of this

malodorous tribe "Amos," because the meanest man he ever knew had borne

that name.

 

He put his heel in the crotch of a fallen limb and drew his boot. Then

he cautiously cut off the leg of his trousers at the knee, and, poking

cloth and leather into a little hollow, buried them under black earth.

 

Slowly the "Emperor of the Woods" climbed a ridge on his way to Lost

River camp, one leg bare to the knee. Walking, he thought of Annette.

Lately misfortune had come between them, and now he seemed to be getting

farther from the trail of happiness.

 

At a point on Balsam Hill he came into the main thoroughfare of the

woodsmen which leads from Bear Mountain to Lost River camp. Where he

could see far down the big trail, under arches of evergreen, he sat on

a stump to rest. His bootless foot, now getting sore, rested on a giant

toadstool.

 

Thus enthroned, the Emperor looked down at his foot and reconsidered the

relative positions of himself and the Evil One. His faded crown of felt

tilting over one ear, his rough, bearded face wet with perspiration, his

patched trousers truncated over the right knee, below which foot and leg

were uncovered, he was an emperor more distinguished for his appearance

than his lineage.

 

He took out his old memorandum-book and made this note in it with a stub

of a pencil:

 

_"June the 27 Strong says one Amos in the bush is worth two in yer

company an a pair of britches."_

 

The Emperor, although in the main a serious character, enjoyed some

private fun with this worn little book, which he always carried with

him. Therein he did most of his talking, with secret self-applause now

and then, one may fancy. It has thrown some light on the inner life of

the man, and, in a sense, it is one of the figures of our history.

 

 

 

 

VIII

 

SILAS put the book in his pocket and looked down the trail. Some ten

rods away two children were running towards him, their hands full of

wild flowers. They were Socky and Sue, on their way to Lost River camp,

and were the first children--save one--who had ever set their feet on

the old trail. Gordon walked slowly, under a heavy pack, well behind

them. They knew they were near their destination. Their father could

scarcely keep them in hailing distance.

 

Sue had observed that Socky's generosity in the matter of the tin bank

had pleased her father, and so, after much thought, she had determined

to make a venture in benevolence.

 

"When I see Uncle Silas," said she, "I'm going to give him the

twenty-five cents my Aunt Marie gave me."

 

"Pooh! he's got loads of money," Socky answered.

 

They stopped suddenly. Sue dropped her flowers and turned to run. Socky

gave a little jump and recovered his courage. Both retreated a few

steps. There, before them, was the dejected "Emperor of the Woods."

 

"Says I!" he exclaimed, looking down calmly from his throne.

 

Socky glanced up at him fearfully.

 

"Who b-be you?"

 

"John Socksmith Gordon."

 

"T-y-ty!" exclaimed the Emperor, an __EXPRESSION__, as the historian

believes', of great surprise, standing, perhaps, for the old oath

"By 'Mighty." It consisted of the pronunciation of the two letters

separately and then together.

 

The Emperor turned to the girl. "And y-yourn?" he inquired.

 

"Susan Bradbury Gordon," she answered, in a half-whisper.

 

"I tnum!" exclaimed the Emperor, shaking his bootless foot, whereupon

the new-comers retreated a little farther. The singular word "tnum"

expressed an unusual degree of interest on the part of the Emperor.

"G-goin' fur?" he inquired.

 

"To Lost River, to see my Uncle Silas."

 

The Emperor gave a loud whistle of surprise, and repeated the

exclamation--"I tnum!"

 

"My father's coming," said Socky, as he pointed down the trail.

 

"Whee-o!" whistled the "Emperor of the Woods," wh