CHAPTER II

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*THE LEANING TOWER*

Suddenly Forrest, who had taken the lead, turned and laid his hand on his horse's rein. "Back, Colonel," he said, "back. Steady, now, steady."

The trail, which ran between the edge of a windfall and the brink of a cliff, was cut off by a slide.

Presently, when there was room, the teacher slipped down from the saddle, and Forrest turned the black and led him into a small open on the level shoulder to which they had climbed. Below them they heard the voices of the settlers urging Ginger, the other horse, up the sharp incline; then, with a final clatter of tin and scraping of hoofs, he appeared over the spur. He dropped his muzzle abjectly to the heather, showing covertly the whites of his eyes; his legs seemed to shorten like set posts, while Mrs. Myers, who followed closely, stopped to look at the pack. She tucked in a loose end of canvas and made a new hitch in a length of rope. She had a deft yet masculine touch, and it was her husband's standing tribute that she knew more about packing than he did; when Marthy fixed a load, it stayed.

There was nothing weak and little effeminate about Martha. Her scant cotton gown, without decoration, was shortened above a streak of coarse gray hose; her shoes were of calf, heavy, unshapely, and her hat, Eben's winter one, had seen protracted service. It shaded a face darkened by exposure to wind and sun, and seamed not by age but habitual anxiety.

The settler mounted a log and cast a slow glance along the windfall. There were mighty firs, centuries old, with their trunks hurled in air; boles of ancient cedars snapped mid-length; giant hemlocks held uptilted and forming a breastwork for living trees; gnarled roots locking with green branches; all dropped together like jackstraws, the playthings of Titan winds. Presently Martha joined him and they began to work along the labyrinth, picking a course for the horses.

Forrest had tied the black, and, taking advantage of the delay, led the teacher to a better view-point of the canyon, which swept below them, rounding the opposite ridge in the shape of a crescent. A granite tower, crowning a higher cliff, held the curve. It was a curious pile, of boulders fitted nicely, block on block, with loophole and parapet, and the whole structure tilted slightly, leaning towards the precipice.

The girl seated herself on a stone in the shade of a stunted fir, and Forrest, a little worn from the long tramp, threw himself on the ground, putting aside his hat and resting his head on his hand, his elbow on the earth, while he looked off down the gorge. "Somewhere in there," he said, "beyond that curve, I ought to find my lost prospect. The mother lode should crop out in one of those lower bluffs towards the Des Chutes. The thunder of the river reached me not long before,--I remember that clearly,--but I wish the place I staked that day had only been in range of that fine old landmark, the tower."

She looked down thoughtfully into the wooded gorge. "In such a tangle you might pass the place a dozen times. Your stakes must have been overgrown in a few weeks with fern and salal, or shoots of alder. It's really beginning again."

"Almost." He set his square jaw and a vertical line deepened between his eyes. "Still, it's there and sooner or later I'll find it. But I must make the most of this trip; I can't hope for many days off at the Freeport mills. That's the worst of it,"--he smiled, shaking his head,--"no more timber-cruising; nothing to take me out-of-doors."

"Do you know, I can't think of Tumwater, the mills, the falls, the ridge road, without remembering you? You've been a part of it, Paul; the spirit of it all."

"That's nice of you." He gave her a swift look of appreciation. His eyes, a deep, clear hazel, were his most expressive feature; they put weight and character into his slightest remark. "But a man must step out of his cradle, sometime, and Judge Kingsley has made me a fine offer. He is sure to gain the election,--no man is better known, or as popular in the whole territory; no one has the interests of the country more at heart. And when he goes to Congress he means to leave the Freeport mills under my management altogether; that is with the co-operation of Philip."

"The co-operation of Philip? Do you think because Phil Kingsley has put his money into that property it will make any difference?"

"The Judge thinks it will be the making of him."

"Phil Kingsley's gain," she said slowly, "is always someone else's loss. You ought to know it."

Forrest laughed, his short, pleasant laugh. "I think," he said, "you can trust me to take care of myself. Of course you know," he went on presently, "Phil means to live at the mills. His uncle opposes it. If he goes to Washington the house at Olympia will have to be leased to strangers or closed, and it will be a miserable place, at the mills, for your sister and little Si. She had better take a house over the harbor at Seattle. But she is going to live at Freeport. Like you she is determined."

"Freeport is different. It's just a bleak, wind-swept beach, shut off from the green earth by a towering bluff. Indeed, I wouldn't live there. Here, I have the woods and mountains all around. And I love the Nisqually. It's freedom."

"Your sister will be disappointed. She still hopes that when the novelty of all this has worn off, you will be ready to come back and make your home with her."

She shook her head. "I never can do that again. I can't help disapproving of Philip. The habit grows. I object to him more and more. We often quarrel--now."

Forrest laughed softly. "Of course you do; of course. But the Judge," he went on gravely, "is miserable. He says if you won't let him help you it isn't necessary to bury yourself out here in the wilderness, in a nest of outlaws. If you are determined to be independent, you could teach or paint, or put your music to advantage in town."

"Oh," she answered, "he doesn't see. I was meant for a pioneer, Paul; it's in the blood. You ought to understand. I love the great spaces, just as you do, and your life in the big out-of-doors."

A soft enthusiasm shone in her face; she looked off absently at the tower. Her hands were clasped loosely on her knee, and the sunlight, sifting between the boughs of the fir, brought out the gold in her hair; the wind roughened it under her close velvet cap, and twisted it into minute spirals about her neck and ears. The young man watching her set his lips over a quick breath and turned his eyes away. She loved these things, yes, but as a bird loves light and air; not as he loved them, to work for them, to build, reclaim, spend himself for them, fight if the time came. No, not for one foolish moment could he expect it of her.

"Was ever anything as nicely balanced as that tower?" he said. "To look like a touch would send it toppling and yet to withstand the gales that sweep these hills. But the eternal forces are busy around it; some day it will go."

"It's wonderful," she answered. "It looks like it had been built there to protect the gorge. What a stronghold it would make."

"Stronghold? For whom?"

"Why, for Pete Smith, Dick Slocum, any of them."

"Who is Slocum?"

She shook her head slowly. "I don't really know. But he came in while we were at dinner the night before last. His clothes were torn and his hat gone, and there were twigs and needles clinging to his hair. He was very hungry. The sheriff and a posse were hunting him. They had passed up the trail half an hour before, and he hurried, scowling at every one, and before any one spoke was gone, taking part of the meal in his hands."

"Freeport couldn't be as bad as this. Own you were afraid."

"Afraid? No, why should I have been? It was Dick Slocum who was frightened. He was running away. Mr. Myers said he had shot a man. But," she admitted grudgingly, "I was afraid of Pete Smith, and of the bear."

"Smith?" He changed his position a little, dropping his arm and resting his shoulder against a rock. "What of Smith? I thought he was safe in the penitentiary."

"He escaped. It was very stormy the night he came back. Trees were falling on the ridge, and after school Lem and I went home with Mose. Mr. Laramie was away with his traps, and his wife, you know, is a Yakima, the daughter of Yelm Jim. It would have been all right if the boys hadn't entertained me with stories of the rising, but they were dreadful to hear with the wind whistling, boughs soughing, rain driving on the shingles, and just the light of the backlog in the fireplace. When Lem followed Mose off to bed in the barn loft I was a little unnerved.

"There were two beds in the room; mine was curtained. But I couldn't sleep. I kept listening and waiting for something to happen. There was a rifle on the wall near the door; I began to wish I had it. Mose's mother was surely asleep, I heard her regular breathing from the other bed, and finally I crept over softly and took the gun down. It was heavy and I let the stock strike the floor. Still she didn't move, and I hurried back and stood it inside the curtains where I could reach it instantly, felt safer then and at last went to sleep."

She paused, looking off again absently to the tower. It was as though she saw that room, the sleeping squaw, she herself in the curtained bed with the rifle at hand. "It must have been nearly morning when I wakened. There was still light from the smouldering backlog, and between the curtains I saw Mose's mother standing near the door and talking to a man. His clothes were wet and torn as if he had pushed through underbrush; an old, soft hat shaded his face, and perhaps it was the shadows or the flicker of the firelight, but it seemed the most hideous face in the world. She pointed to my corner and he started towards me. My heart leaped, But she stopped him. He spoke to her in Yakima, throwing off her hand and stamping his foot. Then she came over cautiously and looked in at me. I pretended I was asleep, but the perspiration started; I could have screamed. I quite forgot the gun until I felt she had taken it and was going quickly back to the man."

She paused again to give her listener a swift look with the mounting fun in her eyes. "He took the rifle," she added, "and went out."

Her laugh was irresistible.

"And it was Smith?" he asked directly,

"Yes, it was all explained the next morning when Lem noticed the vacant place on the wall and said, 'I see Pete's out again; he's be'n fur his gun.'"

Forrest laughed again at her perfect mimicry of the boy, then he turned his face again to the gorge. He thought of a good many things, but he felt the futility of saying any of them. He only asked finally, "And what of the bear?"

"Oh, he was berrying, I suppose, and I happened to overtake him on the trail, I had been down the river making a sketch of Yelm Jim, fishing, and Lem had gone home without me. I noticed the bear moving ahead of me towards the creek, but I thought he was just a great pig until he lumbered around to look at me. And the moment I caught his profile, you may be sure I turned and went flying back to the river, on over the log where I had left the old chief--he gave me right of way--and into the midst of the Laramie barn-raising. 'Come, quick,' I said, 'I have seen a bear.' And they all came; two had guns. But he was gone; he hadn't left a track, and I found myself, suddenly, standing there under the scrutiny of the whole settlement. It was only my second week, then, and teachers, up the Nisqually, are more unusual than bears."

But the amusement went out of Forrest's face. "You should have at least the security of a good horse. You must take Colonel. I can't use him at the new mills," he explained quickly, "and I don't want to sell him. He never knew another master. Will you keep him while I stay at Freeport?"

"I keep Colonel? Oh, there's nothing I should like better; nothing. You are the best, the most generous man I ever knew." She leaned a little towards him, all delight, eagerness, charm. "I can't ever hope to repay you, Paul, but I'd be glad of the opportunity to do anything--anything in the world--for you."

"I wish I could be sure of that. See here,"--his voice deepened and shook,--"I don't ask you to come to Freeport, or anywhere, until I can offer you something worth while, only--if you care enough for me to wait for me, Alice--tell me so."

She drew back; the delight went out of her face; she rose in consternation to her feet. "You," she faltered. "You-- Oh, what made you, Paul? What made you?"

"How could I help it?" He, too, rose and stood looking down into her flushed face. "I always have loved you, Alice,--don't you know it?--even when you were a small girl and I carried your books to school. Once I was late and you came up the road to meet me.--Don't you remember?--It was my last year at the Academy, when you were twelve. You were reading your first Waverley novel, and you told me that morning, some day your knight would come riding down the ridge. I never forgot. I was the better horseman for it. Long afterwards, when I bought Colonel, I thought of it. I always meant to be that knight."

He smiled, half ashamed of that boyish dream, but she drew herself straight and turned her eyes again to the tower. "You," she said, "whom I have known my whole life through."

"Yes, does that count so much against me?"

"I'm so sorry. You've been the best friend I ever had; the one I could always depend on. Oh, I wish--I wish it hadn't happened."

He laid his hand, bracing himself a little, on the bole of the fir, and turned his own face away, looking off once more down the canyon. Myers, coming back to the edge of the windfall, called, but neither of them answered. Presently she reached and broke a sprig from a lower bough and began slowly to strip it of its needles. "But I see--I see--how much I've been to blame," she said. "I can't forgive myself, ever. I never thought of you--in--that way, Paul. You never seemed--like other men. And I see--I see--I shouldn't have spoken, as I did just now, about Colonel."

"Why, it's all right." He swung around and looked at her. "It's all right. Don't let it trouble you; don't give it another thought. And, of course, you will keep Colonel."

She shook her head. "How can I?"

"Don't make me feel you hold him in the light of a bribe. Understand, it's just a favor to me. I think a good deal of my horse; it means a lot to me to be able to leave him with some one I can trust."

Her lip trembled; she brushed her hand across her eyes. "You are the best--the noblest man in the world," she said.

Eben called again and Forrest answered with a clear "Hello." He began to walk back towards the windfall. Presently he stopped to pick up a small, morocco-bound book which she had lost from her pocket in crossing a boulder on the way out to the cliff. He slipped the volume into his own pocket and turned to help her over the rock. "See here," he said, "I want you to know that I'm glad to be that best friend, the one you depend on. You needn't be afraid of me; you've given me a character that I've got to live up to."

"You mean--" the light came back to her face--"you do mean you are not going to let it make any difference between us."

"Of course. Why should it? Only--tell me this--" the rock was smooth and difficult; he watched her footing--"is there some one else?"

"No, there is no one else--yet."

She paused on the word, for suddenly, lifting her glance beyond Forrest's shoulder, she saw the stranger she had met at the creek on the school trail. He stopped a few yards from the boulder, and, dismounting, took the chestnut's halter, and, making it fast to a sapling, stood waiting.

Forrest gave him a straight look and slight nod, and would have passed directly on, but the man smiled and held out his hand. "I hope you have not forgotten me," he said. "I am Stratton, lately of Victoria. I met you with the Kingsleys, when you came over to see the new mills at Seattle."

Forrest gave him another look from under slightly knotted brows. "I remember. You were going on a cruise with the Captain in the _Phantom_. I've heard, too, of you through my friend Bates, of the Customs Service."

Stratton dropped his disregarded hand. A wave of color swept his face, and the latent heat flared and died in his eyes. Then he said, evenly, "I am out here on a little hunting trip, and, incidentally, to see what can be picked up in the way of furs. I am interested in the trade, as you probably know, and I find Laramie has been taking some prime beaver." His glance had moved to Alice; apparently the explanation was meant for her, and she looked at Forrest, waiting for the obvious introduction.

It was withheld.

"But," Stratton went on after a moment, and he moved a few steps in the direction of the gorge, "I was stopped just now at this windfall. Myers told me the trail was impassable, and he spoke of a curious old tower worth turning aside here to see."

"Yes," answered Forrest, "it's the most prominent landmark in these hills." And he walked on towards his horse.

Alice went with him, and directly Stratton halted to send a look after them. "So," he said softly, "so it is what you have heard, through Bates, against the friend of a Kingsley. But you were rash to show your hand, young fellow, you were rash." Then his glance rested on the girl and he smiled. "I never yet wanted to know a pretty woman," he added, "that I could not find a way."

He turned and walked out to the cliff. He stood for an interval under the stunted fir, and scanned the gorge, bluff after bluff, down to the tower; afterwards he went along the precipice a short distance and climbed a bald knob of rock. He waited again, posed, with his head and shoulders etched on the sky, while he searched the opposite heights, the walls of the canyon; then, with a sweeping glance behind him, he looked once more in the direction of the leaning bastion. Presently he drew a handkerchief from his pocket and held it by one corner at arm's length to the breeze. In a little while a thread of smoke rose from the rear of the tower. He took out another handkerchief, a black one, and repeated the signal, twice. Almost directly the smoke ceased. He left the place then, and went back to his horse. Picking up the trail, he rode along the front of the windfall, on over the shoulder of the hill which he had lately climbed, and returned towards the settlement.

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