CHAPTER VI

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*MOSE*

Yelm Jim sat brooding in his lodge. He was wrapped in his blanket and an old campaign hat shaded his eyes from the fire, which was kindled on the packed earth floor, and found partial vent through an opening in the roof, around which hung haunches of drying venison and bear. The squaw Clak-la-sum-kah was cooking bread, an unleavened mixture of flour and water, in a frying-pan over the coals. At the same time she watched some fine trout, which were suspended from a rod set in forked stakes above the embers. Mose, who had caught these fish, lounged on a couch that, built of shakes, extended along three sides of the room, and was furnished with woven mats of ribbon grass or the bast of cedar. The wall behind him also was covered with this fabric, which was of the color of ripened maize.

It was one of those intervals when the boy, having incensed his father, sought refuge with his mother's people while Laramie's wrath cooled. At such times the Indian in Mose effaced the white. He bound his head in a crimson handkerchief, and wrapped himself in a blanket, which Clak-la-sum-kah had adorned with many buttons for her grandson's use. He looked a true Klickitat, straight as a young hemlock, lithe as a nearly grown cougar in the woods. His face was a bronze oval, sharply chiseled, and he had the eyes of a hawk. He recalled to the old chief his own youth, when, having a different and much hyphened name, he had been a leader among the young braves of the powerful Yakima nation beyond the Cascades; when, hunting the buffalo, he had crossed the Rockies and skirmished with the Blackfeet, or, exacting tribute from weaker neighbors, had driven home numberless horses to pasture on the vast Palouse plains. He found in the boy an appreciative and tireless listener when he recounted these past glories, and he painted them brilliantly, in sharp contrast to the colorless present. Mose had no brave companions, no followers in the hunt, no tribe.

And the whites were responsible for this; they only were to blame. Not the Hudson Bay men, who, trading for furs, brought guns and many useful things to the Indians, but the "Bostons," who came at the first to rob them of their country. From the beginning the Yakimas had understood and opposed them, and, when at last a thousand warriors had crossed the Cascades to fall on the white settlements of the salt water, Yelm Jim had been among them. They had met defeat, and he, himself, had spent breaking years in the strong house of the "Bostons," and at the end of his captivity he had found himself poor and forgotten and another tyee raised in his place. For this reason the old chief had not returned to his people, but had buried himself in the forest.

But already the white settlers pressed hard on his retreat; axes, the rasp of saws, their shrill voices scattered the deer. He must go farther and farther in search of grouse that once had nested almost at his door; and now, since Slocum had robbed Mose of the musket, the old chief must set laboriously to work and shape the miserable arrow points of agate.

When Yelm Jim thought of this final outrage he drew yet more fiercely at his pipe, and in the shadow of his ragged hatbrim his brows beetled and gloomed. It was not the right moment for young Kingsley to darken the doorway.

One of Laramie's hounds, which had again tracked Mose, sprang up growling, but at a word from the boy settled back whimpering, with his nose between his paws. His mate, snuffing suspiciously, moved to the intruder's feet.

His familiar "Clahowya," said in a big, frank voice, startled the lodge and the first dog belled a note.

"Clahowya," he repeated. "Hello."

Still no answer except a longer note from the hound.

The young man stopped in the entrance and took off his hat, using it slowly as a fan. His close-cropped hair clung in damp, blond waves to his shapely head. The tan of a brief outing had not spoiled his unusual fairness; his face in the shadows was white, but his black eyes gathered depth and brilliancy.

"I think you are the young fellow I'm looking for," he said, addressing the indifferent boy on the couch. "It's dark to one coming in from the sunlight, and that blanket and handkerchief hardly tally with the description I had of you, but you must be Mose."

The boy regarded the trout which the squaw was turning. "Nawitka," he said.

"You are? Well then, Mose, I want you to guide us to Mt. Rainier." He paused, but the boy was silent and the old chief continued to draw deeply at his pipe. "You understand," he went on, "we are going to the mountain and want you to show us the way. If the weather stays fine I mean to try for the summit. Nika cumtux?" And he repeated in Chinook with an elaborate gesture, "Copa si-yah top."

Mose expressed his appreciation of the man's attempt at the language in a fleeting smile, but he made no reply. Yelm Jim also was silent, but he drew yet more furiously at his pipe.

"Let him go with us," continued Kingsley, addressing the chief, "and you shall have that pair of brown blankets you were so interested in yesterday, at the camp."

Still another pause. "If he goes with me up the mountain you can have all my blankets, the tents, the whole outfit, when we come back," added Kingsley.

Then Clak-la-sum-kah rose from her squatting posture by the fire and said in her vehement guttural, "Wake, wake. Mose wake clatawa. Wake clatawa copa si-yah illahee. Tyee Sahgalee hyas solleks. Hy-as solleks. Mose wake clatawa."

Kingsley looked from her to the boy, puzzled. "What is it she says?"

Mose rose from his lounging position and drew his blanket close. "Clak-la-sum-kah ees say 'no.' You mus' un'stan' Tyee Sahgalee ees same you all tam call God. Dat top of Rainier ees His plas. He doan' lak it for sure, we go dare. Sacre, dat mountain ees goin' shake an' smoke an' mek mooch fire we go dare, you can beli've it. But ya-as, Yelm Jim ees see it do dat long tam 'go. He ees say Tyee Sahgalee, ees be mad, because de firs' white man ees come."

Kingsley threw back his head and laughed. "I see," he said, "I see. And your Indian God wanted to reserve this country for his favorite people. But it's all foolishness, Mose; you ought to know it. That priest of your father's, who has been coming out here every month from Olympia, must have taught you different. You don't believe any such heathen nonsense. And you will show us over the trail. You aren't afraid to try the summit with me, though I doubt there's another boy in the settlement would dare."

"I ees hunt on dat mountain, si-yah, to de red snow," answered the boy slowly; "no Indian ees go pas' de red snow."

There was another silence. Kingsley ran his hand lightly down a tawny pelt that hung in the doorway. "Miss Hunter showed me that other cougar skin," he said. "She thinks you saved her life." He paused a grave moment, still stroking the fur. "And I know the story of this one. It's the pelt of the one you faced on that log crossing over the Des Chutes. You stopped to take careful aim, with the brute snarling, and the log dipping and heaving to the freshet underneath. And when he dropped no one else would have plunged into the flood as you did; not even to save this skin."

Mose's lips parted in his fleeting smile. "Dat ees not good plas to swim by Laramie's claim; monjee, no."

Yelm Jim shook his head slowly, and for the first time broke his silence with a profound, "Ugh."

"It was all the woods afloat that day," said Kingsley, "Myers told me,--and the drift tearing down a current gone mad." He paused again and his glance moved to a great shaggy trophy against the matting on the farther wall. "And that," he added, "must be the pelt of the cinnamon bear you met up in the hills, single-handed, with just your knife."

"Nawitka." A sudden fire leaped in the old chief's eyes. "Hy-as close peltry. Mose hy-as shookum tumtum. Hy-as skookum."

"Mose has the strong heart," interpreted Kingsley. "Strong heart, yes. I tell you I'd have paid a stiff price to see that encounter."

"It ees good skin," said Mose, simply. "Oh, ya-as, for sure."

"See here, Mose,--" the young man drew nearer,--"in the face of all this you can't make me believe you're afraid of Rainier."

"A'm not 'fraid anyt'ing dese woods; bear, cougar, hi-yu water, snow, doan' mek me 'fraid. But Tyee Sahgalee, ugh." Mose drew his shoulders high in eloquent conclusion, and resuming his place on the couch, turned his face.

Kingsley laughed once more. "Oh, well, think it over. We shall start for the mountain anyway, whether we have a guide or not. We shall break camp the day after to-morrow. Let me know if you make up your mind to go, Mose; and you had better look at those blankets. They are pretty fine."

He turned away then, taking the river trail, and, as he went, his lips shaped a gay whistle. Once, as he approached his camp, he turned from the path and stepped out on a fallen fir that served as a footbridge to a green island, and looking up-stream saw the splendor of a northern sunset on the mighty dome. "I don't wonder they believe it," he said. "I don't wonder."

Almost an hour later Mose also stopped at this crossing and lifted his eyes to the mountain. It loomed, vast, white, symmetrical against the darkening east, its consecrated summit touched with a holy fire. He waited while the glory paled to opal and to a cold silver. When he turned from the log his lips set in a thin line; his eyes narrowed; his face hinted of cruelty.

Laramie's hounds had followed him; they crept through the underbrush at heel. But suddenly, on the edge of the mam trail, he stopped and laid his hand on one of them. "Back, Pichou," he said. "Monjee, down, down, so."

He remained almost hidden by a tangle of alder, while two riders passed. Neither noticed him; the teacher was talking, and Stratton, though he might have lifted his arm and touched the boy, turned his head to watch her face. They moved slowly, at a walk, until the thoroughbred, sighting the waiting figure, started, and, dancing, crowding the black, circled suspiciously by. Then, directly, both horses broke into a light canter, taking advantage of the bit of wider track.

Mose stepped out into the trail and stood looking after them, but his gaze rested on Stratton's mount. He loved the thoroughbred, coveted him, every inch of the long sleek body, the slender limbs, the swelling chest, the dappled shading, that, like a reflection of leaves on a forest pool, ran through the shining, chestnut coat. Surely there was never another like him. Even among those fine herds of which Yelm Jim boasted this horse must stand the chief, the glory of the whole Palouse plains, the envy of the proudest Yakima.

He walked on towards the bend around which the horses had disappeared. The noise of the river was in his ears. After a while the air grew resinous with burning firboughs, and finally, through the trees, he caught the glow of Kingsley's camp-fire. He and his wife had chosen to pitch their tents here on the bank of the Nisqually, rather than to share the cramped quarters of the settler.

She was seated with the teacher on a log in the full light of the blazing boughs, when Mose stopped on the edge of the open to reconnoiter, and he saw instantly their resemblance to each other. The two men, resting a little apart, listened amusedly to their eager conversation, while nearer, but to the right, Mill Thornton stood with his hand at the bit of the young sorrel, waiting for a last word with Samantha Myers.

She had joined the camp to "help an' hev er little fun." And she was a slim, graceful girl,--"all tech an' go," Eben would have told you,--with the beautiful color that is as delicate as the tints of a seashell, and yet impervious to life out-of-doors. Her hair, as fine as corn silk, was pale red, and when she bent over the tin reflector, in which she was cooking some very light rolls, her head seemed to catch the vital charm of the flames.

"But," Thornton was saying, "kem to think of it, I never see er Myers yet that wasn't er good cook. Ther's your Uncle Eben, when he's driv to it, he kin stir up a flapjack, an' turn her at eggsactly ther minute. Beats all. Yes," he resumed in afterthought, "take 'em as er fambly, ther Myerses is er pretty smart crowd; but you, well, I don't keer how many's on ther tree, Samanthy, you're ther peach."

She stood erect and flashed him a look that startled the boldness from his young eyes. "Mebbe I am, Mill," she said, gently, "but I bet, even ef you do think so, you wouldn't spare the sorrel long 'nough fur me to ride ter Rainier."

"No," he answered, flushing, "no, I wouldn't. She ain't well 'nough broke. You oughter not ask me."

"I'd resk her," she urged still, sweetly, and smiled into his troubled face; "I'd love ter ride her, Mill. But," she went on after a pause, and shrugging her shoulders, drew herself aloof, "you're jest like Jake. He's turrible 'fraid I'd get Ketchem killed."

"And yourself, too," he said warmly.

"But Uncle Eben," she added, "he 'lows I kin ride. He ain't so powerful scared 'bout--_Ginger_."

With this she laughed, her hands on her hips, her elbows shaking, and Thornton, himself laughing deeply, in keen appreciation, turned to set his foot in the stirrup. "You're all right, Samanthy," he said. "You're all right, but I 'low it wa'n't a peach I meant; it was jest er sassy sweetbrier rose. It's so blame' innercent lookin' an' soft, but er feller can't tech it 'ithout feelin' ther thorns."

The horse started, but she tripped after him a step to say softly, "Say, Mill, why don't you call it eglantine?"

He wheeled. "Who calls it eglantine?"

She laid a warning finger on her lip. "Mr. Stratton. But I never sensed what he was talkin' 'bout tell he showed me that ther sweetbrier growin' ther by the table."

"Was he meanin' you?"

She started back to the reflector, but paused to nod her head over her shoulder; a hundred imps danced in her eyes. "I'd love ter hear you call me that, Mill. My stars--eglantine!"

Her lips bubbled laughter; it followed him, teasing, taunting, as he rode on through the wood.

Mose, passing him, stalked into the open and towards the farther group. Kingsley waved his hand in careless recognition, and rising, threw back his tent-fly and drew out the blankets. "Well, Mose," he said, "what do you think of these?"

The boy bent to feel their texture gravely. "Dey ess plent' good 'nough blankets, monjee, ya-as, an Yelm Jim ees tell me--_go_. But Tyee Sahgalee ees goin' be hy-as mad. Sacre, it ees pos'ble he ees keel you. Den, merci, some more white man doan' lak go Rainier."

He turned with this and stalked swiftly back into the gloom. Alice rose in astonishment. Kingsley laughed. "If I should lose myself over a precipice," he said, "or drop into a crevasse, I suppose he would believe it was all the vengeance of his Indian God."

"But," she answered, "his father is a devout Catholic. The priest is making an acolyte of Mose." She sank back, helplessly, into her place. "I--I suppose it's impossible for him to grasp everything"--she was thinking of Laramie and the globe--"at once."

Her sister leaned towards Kingsley. A sudden apprehension rose in her great, dark eyes, and her voice, in emotion, dropped to contralto notes. "I wish you would give up that idea of trying for the summit," she said.

He laughed again, tossing his fine head. "Oh, don't bother, Louise; I shall be safe enough with Stratton along. He never takes a risk."

Stratton smiled and adjusted the rolled blankets to his back, leaning on them comfortably. "The Captain's right," he said. "He knows me. I always ask myself first, 'Is it safe?' And then, 'Is it worth while?'"

The teacher looked at him a searching moment and arched her brows. Then she reached and lifted her sister's guitar from the end of the log. Her fingers trailed briefly over the strings and settled in a thread of tune. She repeated the accompaniment, singing softly, inviting Kingsley's tenor.

"She shone in the light of declining day, Each sail was set, and each heart was gay."

And presently the other man hummed an undernote, but Louise was silent. She had changed her position a little, clasping her hands loosely around her knee, with her face slightly lifted and turned to the darkening wood. It was the face of a dreamer, rapt, sensitive, who peopled the shadows, and to whom the many voices of the night tuned in unbroken symphony.

In the interlude Kingsley turned to her. "Where is your voice, Louise? We need the contralto."

She started and looked at him, smiling. It was then she resembled Alice. The expression was there and the charm; but softened, finer, as the painting of a master may be reproduced in pastel.

Her voice was beautiful. She took up the song, subduing her notes to her sister's lighter compass, but the music, that had been simply pleasing, assumed, suddenly, the touch and finish of grand opera.

For the white squall rides on the surg-ing wave, And the bark is gulph'd in an o-cean's grave, For the white squall rides on the surg-ing wave, And the bark is gulph'd in an o-cean's grave, in an o-cean's grave, in an o - - ocan's grave.

[Illustration: Music fragment]

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