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Title: The Sky Pilot
Full Title:  Sky Pilot:  A Tale of the Foothills

Author: Ralph Connor

Release Date: May, 2002  [Etext #3248]
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Edition: 10

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THE SKY PILOT

A TALE OF THE FOOTHILLS


by Ralph Connor



PREFACE


The measure of a man's power to help his brother is the measure of
the love in the heart of him and of the faith he has that at last
the good will win.  With this love that seeks not its own and this
faith that grips the heart of things, he goes out to meet many
fortunes, but not that of defeat.

This story is of the people of the Foothill Country; of those men
of adventurous spirit, who left homes of comfort, often of luxury,
because of the stirring in them to be and to do some worthy thing;
and of those others who, outcast from their kind, sought to find in
these valleys, remote and lonely, a spot where they could forget
and be forgotten.

The waving skyline of the Foothills was the boundary of their
lookout upon life.  Here they dwelt safe from the scanning of the
world, freed from all restraints of social law, denied the gentler
influences of home and the sweet uplift of a good woman's face.
What wonder if, with the new freedom beating in their hearts and
ears, some rode fierce and hard the wild trail to the cut-bank of
destruction!

The story is, too, of how a man with vision beyond the waving
skyline came to them with firm purpose to play the brother's part,
and by sheer love of them and by faith in them, win them to believe
that life is priceless, and that it is good to be a man.



CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I.  The Foothills Country

II.  The Company of the Noble Seven

III.  The Coming of the Pilot

IV.  The Pilot's Measure

V.  First Blood

VI.  His Second Wind

VII.  The Last of the Permit Sundays

VIII.  The Pilot's Grip

IX.  Gwen

X.  Gwen's First Prayers

XI.  Gwen's Challenge

XII.  Gwen's Canyon

XIII.  The Canyon Flowers

XIV.  Bill's Bluff

XV.  Bill's Partner

XVI.  Bill's Financing

XVII.  How the Pinto Sold

XVIII.  The Lady Charlotte

XIX.  Through Gwen's Window

XX.  How Bill Favored "Home-Grown Industries"

XXI.  How Bill Hit the Trail

XXII.  How the Swan Creek Church was Opened

XXIII.  The Pilot's Last Port




THE SKY PILOT



CHAPTER I

THE FOOTHILLS COUNTRY


Beyond the great prairies and in the shadow of the Rockies lie the
Foothills.  For nine hundred miles the prairies spread themselves
out in vast level reaches, and then begin to climb over softly
rounded mounds that ever grow higher and sharper till, here and
there, they break into jagged points and at last rest upon the
great bases of the mighty mountains.  These rounded hills that join
the prairies to the mountains form the Foothill Country.  They
extend for about a hundred miles only, but no other hundred miles
of the great West are so full of interest and romance.  The natural
features of the country combine the beauties of prairie and of
mountain scenery.  There are valleys so wide that the farther side
melts into the horizon, and uplands so vast as to suggest the
unbroken prairie.  Nearer the mountains the valleys dip deep and
ever deeper till they narrow into canyons through which mountain
torrents pour their blue-gray waters from glaciers that lie
glistening between the white peaks far away.  Here are the great
ranges on which feed herds of cattle and horses.  Here are the
homes of the ranchmen, in whose wild, free, lonely existence there
mingles much of the tragedy and comedy, the humor and pathos, that
go to make up the romance of life.  Among them are to be found the
most enterprising, the most daring, of the peoples of the old
lands.  The broken, the outcast, the disappointed, these too have
found their way to the ranches among the Foothills.  A country it
is whose sunlit hills and shaded valleys reflect themselves in the
lives of its people; for nowhere are the contrasts of light and
shade more vividly seen than in the homes of the ranchmen of the
Albertas.

The experiences of my life have confirmed in me the orthodox
conviction that Providence sends his rain upon the evil as upon the
good; else I should never have set my eyes upon the Foothill
country, nor touched its strangely fascinating life, nor come to
know and love the most striking man of all that group of striking
men of the Foothill country--the dear old Pilot, as we came to call
him long afterwards.  My first year in college closed in gloom.  My
guardian was in despair.  From this distance of years I pity him.
Then I considered him unnecessarily concerned about me--"a fussy
old hen," as one of the boys suggested.  The invitation from Jack
Dale, a distant cousin, to spend a summer with him on his ranch in
South Alberta came in the nick of time.  I was wild to go.  My
guardian hesitated long; but no other solution of the problem of my
disposal offering, he finally agreed that I could not well get into
more trouble by going than by staying.  Hence it was that, in the
early summer of one of the eighties, I found myself attached to a
Hudson's Bay Company freight train, making our way from a little
railway town in Montana towards the Canadian boundary.  Our train
consisted of six wagons and fourteen yoke of oxen, with three
cayuses, in charge of a French half-breed and his son, a lad of
about sixteen.  We made slow enough progress, but every hour of the
long day, from the dim, gray, misty light of dawn to the soft glow
of shadowy evening, was full of new delights to me.  On the evening
of the third day we reached the Line Stopping Place, where Jack
Dale met us.  I remember well how my heart beat with admiration of
the easy grace with which he sailed down upon us in the loose-
jointed cowboy style, swinging his own bronco and the little cayuse
he was leading for me into the circle of the wagons, careless of
ropes and freight and other impedimenta.  He flung himself off
before his bronco had come to a stop, and gave me a grip that made
me sure of my welcome.  It was years since he had seen a man from
home, and the eager joy in his eyes told of long days and nights of
lonely yearning for the old days and the old faces.  I came to
understand this better after my two years' stay among these hills
that have a strange power on some days to waken in a man longings
that make his heart grow sick.  When supper was over we gathered
about the little fire, while Jack and the half-breed smoked and
talked.  I lay on my back looking up at the pale, steady stars in
the deep blue of the cloudless sky, and listened in fullness of
contented delight to the chat between Jack and the driver.  Now and
then I asked a question, but not too often.  It is a listening
silence that draws tales from a western man, not vexing questions.
This much I had learned already from my three days' travel.  So I
lay and listened, and the tales of that night are mingled with the
warm evening lights and the pale stars and the thoughts of home
that Jack's coming seemed to bring.

Next morning before sun-up we had broken camp and were ready for
our fifty-mile ride.  There was a slight drizzle of rain and,
though rain and shine were alike to him, Jack insisted that I
should wear my mackintosh.  This garment was quite new and had a
loose cape which rustled as I moved toward my cayuse.  He was an
ugly-looking little animal, with more white in his eye than I cared
to see.  Altogether, I did not draw toward him.  Nor did he to me,
apparently.  For as I took him by the bridle he snorted and sidled
about with great swiftness, and stood facing me with his feet
planted firmly in front of him as if prepared to reject overtures
of any kind soever.  I tried to approach him with soothing words,
but he persistently backed away until we stood looking at each
other at the utmost distance of his outstretched neck and my
outstretched arm.  At this point Jack came to my assistance, got
the pony by the other side of the bridle, and held him fast till I
got into position to mount.  Taking a firm grip of the horn of the
Mexican saddle, I threw my leg over his back.  The next instant I
was flying over his head.  My only emotion was one of surprise, the
thing was so unexpected.  I had fancied myself a fair rider, having
had experience of farmers' colts of divers kinds, but this was
something quite new.  The half-breed stood looking on, mildly
interested; Jack was smiling, but the boy was grinning with
delight.

"I'll take the little beast," said Jack.  But the grinning boy
braced me up and I replied as carelessly as my shaking voice would
allow:

"Oh, I guess I'll manage him," and once more got into position.
But no sooner had I got into the saddle than the pony sprang
straight up into the air and lit with his back curved into a bow,
his four legs gathered together and so absolutely rigid that the
shock made my teeth rattle.  It was my first experience of
"bucking."  Then the little brute went seriously to work to get rid
of the rustling, flapping thing on his back.  He would back
steadily for some seconds, then, with two or three forward plunges,
he would stop as if shot and spring straight into the upper air,
lighting with back curved and legs rigid as iron.  Then he would
walk on his hind legs for a few steps, then throw himself with
amazing rapidity to one side and again proceed to buck with vicious
diligence.

"Stick to him!" yelled Jack, through his shouts of laughter.
"You'll make him sick before long."

I remember thinking that unless his insides were somewhat more
delicately organized than his external appearance would lead one to
suppose the chances were that the little brute would be the last to
succumb to sickness.  To make matters worse, a wilder jump than
ordinary threw my cape up over my head, so that I was in complete
darkness.  And now he had me at his mercy, and he knew no pity.  He
kicked and plunged and reared and bucked, now on his front legs,
now on his hind legs, often on his knees, while I, in the darkness,
could only cling to the horn of the saddle.  At last, in one of the
gleams of light that penetrated the folds of my enveloping cape, I
found that the horn had slipped to his side, so the next time he
came to his knees I threw myself off.  I am anxious to make this
point clear, for, from the expression of triumph on the face of the
grinning boy, and his encomiums of the pony, I gathered that he
scored a win for the cayuse.  Without pause that little brute
continued for some seconds to buck and plunge even after my
dismounting, as if he were some piece of mechanism that must run
down before it could stop.

By this time I was sick enough and badly shaken in my nerve, but
the triumphant shouts and laughter of the boy and the complacent
smiles on the faces of Jack and the half-breed stirred my wrath.  I
tore off the cape and, having got the saddle put right, seized
Jack's riding whip and, disregarding his remonstrances, sprang on
my steed once more, and before he could make up his mind as to his
line of action plied him so vigorously with the rawhide that he set
off over the prairie at full gallop, and in a few minutes came
round to the camp quite subdued, to the boy's great disappointment
and to my own great surprise.  Jack was highly pleased, and even
the stolid face of the half-breed showed satisfaction.

"Don't think I put this up on you," Jack said.  "It was that cape.
He ain't used to such frills.  But it was a circus," he added,
going off into a fit of laughter, "worth five dollars any day."

"You bet!" said the half-breed.  "Dat's make pretty beeg fun, eh?"

It seemed to me that it depended somewhat upon the point of view,
but I merely agreed with him, only too glad to be so well out of
the fight.

All day we followed the trail that wound along the shoulders of the
round-topped hills or down their long slopes into the wide, grassy
valleys.  Here and there the valleys were cut through by coulees
through which ran swift, blue-gray rivers, clear and icy cold,
while from the hilltops we caught glimpses of little lakes covered
with wild-fowl that shrieked and squawked and splashed, careless of
danger.  Now and then we saw what made a black spot against the
green of the prairie, and Jack told me it was a rancher's shack.
How remote from the great world, and how lonely it seemed!--this
little black shack among these multitudinous hills.

I shall never forget the summer evening when Jack and I rode into
Swan Creek.  I say into--but the village was almost entirely one of
imagination, in that it consisted of the Stopping Place, a long log
building, a story and a half high, with stables behind, and the
store in which the post-office was kept and over which the owner
dwelt.  But the situation was one of great beauty.  On one side the
prairie rambled down from the hills and then stretched away in
tawny levels into the misty purple at the horizon; on the other it
clambered over the round, sunny tops to the dim blue of the
mountains beyond.

In this world, where it is impossible to reach absolute values, we
are forced to hold things relatively, and in contrast with the
long, lonely miles of our ride during the day these two houses,
with their outbuildings, seemed a center of life.  Some horses were
tied to the rail that ran along in front of the Stopping Place.

"Hello!" said Jack, "I guess the Noble Seven are in town."

"And who are they?" I asked.

"Oh," he replied, with a shrug, "they are the elite Of Swan Creek;
and by Jove," he added, "this must be a Permit Night."

"What does that mean?" I asked, as we rode up towards the tie rail.

"Well," said Jack, in a low tone, for some men were standing about
the door, "you see, this is a prohibition country, but when one of
the boys feels as if he were going to have a spell of sickness he
gets a permit to bring in a few gallons for medicinal purposes; and
of course, the other boys being similarly exposed, he invites them
to assist him in taking preventive measures.  And," added Jack,
with a solemn wink, "it is remarkable, in a healthy country like
this, how many epidemics come near ketching us."

And with this mystifying explanation we joined the mysterious
company of the Noble Seven.



CHAPTER II

THE COMPANY OF THE NOBLE SEVEN


As we were dismounting, the cries, "Hello, Jack!"  "How do, Dale?"
"Hello, old Smoke!" in the heartiest of tones, made me see that my
cousin was a favorite with the men grouped about the door.  Jack
simply nodded in reply and then presented me in due form.  "My
tenderfoot cousin from the effete," he said, with a flourish.  I
was surprised at the grace of the bows made me by these roughly-
dressed, wild-looking fellows.  I might have been in a London
drawing-room.  I was put at my ease at once by the kindliness of
their greeting, for, upon Jack's introduction, I was admitted at
once into their circle, which, to a tenderfoot, was usually closed.

What a hardy-looking lot they were!  Brown, spare, sinewy and hard
as nails, they appeared like soldiers back from a hard campaign.
They moved and spoke with an easy, careless air of almost lazy
indifference, but their eyes had a trick of looking straight out at
you, cool and fearless, and you felt they were fit and ready.

That night I was initiated into the Company of the Noble Seven--but
of the ceremony I regret to say I retain but an indistinct memory;
for they drank as they rode, hard and long, and it was only Jack's
care that got me safely home that night.

The Company of the Noble Seven was the dominant social force in the
Swan Creek country.  Indeed, it was the only social force Swan
Creek knew.  Originally consisting of seven young fellows of the
best blood of Britain, "banded together for purposes of mutual
improvement and social enjoyment," it had changed its character
during the years, but not its name.  First, its membership was
extended to include "approved colonials," such as Jack Dale and
"others of kindred spirit," under which head, I suppose, the two
cowboys from the Ashley Ranch, Hi Keadal and "Bronco" Bill--no one
knew and no one asked his other name--were admitted.  Then its
purposes gradually limited themselves to those of a social nature,
chiefly in the line of poker-playing and whisky-drinking.  Well
born and delicately bred in that atmosphere of culture mingled with
a sturdy common sense and a certain high chivalry which surrounds
the stately homes of Britain, these young lads, freed from the
restraints of custom and surrounding, soon shed all that was
superficial in their make-up and stood forth in the naked
simplicity of their native manhood.  The West discovered and
revealed the man in them, sometimes to their honor, often to their
shame.  The Chief of the Company was the Hon. Fred Ashley, of the
Ashley Ranch, sometime of Ashley Court, England--a big, good-
natured man with a magnificent physique, a good income from home,
and a beautiful wife, the Lady Charlotte, daughter of a noble
English family.  At the Ashley Ranch the traditions of Ashley Court
were preserved as far as possible.  The Hon. Fred appeared at the
wolf-hunts in riding-breeches and top boots, with hunting crop and
English saddle, while in all the appointments of the house the
customs of the English home were observed.  It was characteristic,
however, of western life that his two cowboys, Hi Kendal and Bronco
Bill, felt themselves quite his social equals, though in the
presence of his beautiful, stately wife they confessed that they
"rather weakened."  Ashley was a thoroughly good fellow, well up to
his work as a cattle-man, and too much of a gentleman to feel, much
less assert, any superiority of station.  He had the largest ranch
in the country and was one of the few men making money.

Ashley's chief friend, or, at least, most frequent companion, was a
man whom they called "The Duke."  No one knew his name, but every
one said he was "the son of a lord," and certainly from his style
and bearing he might be the son of almost anything that was high
enough in rank.  He drew "a remittance," but, as that was paid
through Ashley, no one knew whence it came nor how much it was.  He
was a perfect picture of a man, and in all western virtues was
easily first.  He could rope a steer, bunch cattle, play poker or
drink whisky to the admiration of his friends and the confusion of
his foes, of whom he had a few; while as to "bronco busting," the
virtue par excellence of western cattle-men, even Bronco Bill was
heard to acknowledge that "he wasn't in it with the Dook, for it
was his opinion that he could ride anythin' that had legs in under
it, even if it was a blanked centipede."  And this, coming from one
who made a profession of "bronco busting," was unquestionably high
praise.  The Duke lived alone, except when he deigned to pay a
visit to some lonely rancher who, for the marvellous charm of his
talk, was delighted to have him as guest, even at the expense of
the loss of a few games at poker.  He made a friend of no one,
though some men could tell of times when he stood between them and
their last dollar, exacting only the promise that no mention should
be made of his deed.  He had an easy, lazy manner and a slow
cynical smile that rarely left his face, and the only sign of
deepening passion in him was a little broadening of his smile.  Old
Latour, who kept the Stopping Place, told me how once The Duke had
broken into a gentle laugh.  A French half-breed freighter on his
way north had entered into a game of poker with The Duke, with the
result that his six months' pay stood in a little heap at his
enemy's left hand.  The enraged freighter accused his smiling
opponent of being a cheat, and was proceeding to demolish him with
one mighty blow.  But The Duke, still smiling, and without moving
from his chair, caught the descending fist, slowly crushed the
fingers open, and steadily drew the Frenchman to his knees,
gripping him so cruelly in the meantime that he was forced to cry
aloud in agony for mercy.  Then it was that The Duke broke into a
light laugh and, touching the kneeling Frenchman on his cheek with
his finger-tips, said:  "Look here, my man, you shouldn't play the
game till you know how to do it and with whom you play."  Then,
handing him back the money, he added:  "I want money, but not
yours."  Then, as he sat looking at the unfortunate wretch dividing
his attention between his money and his bleeding fingers, he once
more broke into a gentle laugh that was not good to hear.

The Duke was by all odds the most striking figure in the Company of
the Noble Seven, and his word went farther than that of any other.
His shadow was Bruce, an Edinburgh University man, metaphysical,
argumentative, persistent, devoted to The Duke.  Indeed, his chief
ambition was to attain to The Duke's high and lordly manner; but,
inasmuch as he was rather squat in figure and had an open, good-
natured face and a Scotch voice of the hard and rasping kind, his
attempts at imitation were not conspicuously successful.  Every
mail that reached Swan Creek brought him a letter from home.  At
first, after I had got to know him, he would give me now and then a
letter to read, but as the tone became more and more anxious he
ceased to let me read them, and I was glad enough of this.  How he
could read those letters and go the pace of the Noble Seven I could
not see.  Poor Bruce!  He had good impulses, a generous heart, but
the "Permit" nights and the hunts and the "roundups" and the poker
and all the wild excesses of the Company were more than he could
stand.

Then there were the two Hill brothers, the younger, Bertie, a fair-
haired, bright-faced youngster, none too able to look after
himself, but much inclined to follies of all degrees and sorts.
But he was warm-hearted and devoted to his big brother, Humphrey,
called "Hump," who had taken to ranching mainly with the idea of
looking after his younger brother.  And no easy matter that was,
for every one liked the lad and in consequence helped him down.

In addition to these there were two others of the original seven,
but by force of circumstances they were prevented from any more
than a nominal connection with the Company.  Blake, a typical wild
Irishman, had joined the police at the Fort, and Gifford had got
married and, as Bill said, "was roped tighter'n a steer."

The Noble Company, with the cowboys that helped on the range and
two or three farmers that lived nearer the Fort, composed the
settlers of the Swan Creek country.  A strange medley of people of
all ranks and nations, but while among them there were the evil-
hearted and evil-living, still, for the Noble Company I will say
that never have I fallen in with men braver, truer, or of warmer
heart.  Vices they had, all too apparent and deadly, but they were
due rather to the circumstances of their lives than to the native
tendencies of their hearts.  Throughout that summer and the winter
following I lived among them, camping on the range with them and
sleeping in their shacks, bunching cattle in summer and hunting
wolves in winter, nor did I, for I was no wiser than they, refuse
my part on "Permit" nights; but through all not a man of them ever
failed to be true to his standard of honor in the duties of
comradeship and brotherhood.



CHAPTER III

THE COMING OF THE PILOT


He was the first missionary ever seen in the country, and it was the
Old Timer who named him.  The Old Timer's advent to the Foothill
country was prehistoric, and his influence was, in consequence,
immense.  No one ventured to disagree with him, for to disagree with
the Old Timer was to write yourself down a tenderfoot, which no one,
of course, cared to do.  It was a misfortune which only time could
repair to be a new-comer, and it was every new-comer's aim to assume
with all possible speed the style and customs of the aristocratic
Old Timers, and to forget as soon as possible the date of his own
arrival.  So it was as "The Sky Pilot," familiarly "The Pilot," that
the missionary went for many a day in the Swan Creek country.

I had become schoolmaster of Swan Creek.  For in the spring a kind
Providence sent in the Muirs and the Bremans with housefuls of
children, to the ranchers' disgust, for they foresaw ploughed
fields and barbed-wire fences cramping their unlimited ranges.  A
school became necessary.  A little log building was erected and I
was appointed schoolmaster.  It was as schoolmaster that I first
came to touch The Pilot, for the letter which the Hudson Bay
freighters brought me early one summer evening bore the inscription:


     The Schoolmaster,
               Public School,
                        Swan Creek,
                                 Alberta.


There was altogether a fine air about the letter; the writing was
in fine, small hand, the tone was fine, and there was something
fine in the signature--"Arthur Wellington Moore."  He was glad to
know that there was a school and a teacher in Swan Creek, for a
school meant children, in whom his soul delighted; and in the
teacher he would find a friend, and without a friend he could not
live.  He took me into his confidence, telling me that though he
had volunteered for this far-away mission field he was not much of
a preacher and he was not at all sure that he would succeed.  But
he meant to try, and he was charmed at the prospect of having one
sympathizer at least.  Would I be kind enough to put up in some
conspicuous place the enclosed notice, filling in the blanks as I
thought best?


      "Divine service will be held at Swan creek
       in ---- ----- at ---- o'clock.
          All are cordially invited.
                    Arthur Wellington Moore."


On the whole I liked his letter.  I liked its modest self-
depreciation and I liked its cool assumption of my sympathy and co-
operation.  But I was perplexed.  I remembered that Sunday was the
day fixed for the great baseball match, when those from "Home," as
they fondly called the land across the sea from which they had
come, were to "wipe the earth" with all comers.  Besides, "Divine
service" was an innovation in Swan Creek and I felt sure that, like
all innovations that suggested the approach of the East, it would
be by no means welcome.

However, immediately under the notice of the "Grand Baseball Match
for 'The Pain Killer' a week from Sunday, at 2:30, Home vs. the
World," I pinned on the door of the Stopping Place the
announcement:


"Divine service will be held at Swan Creek, in the Stopping Place
Parlor, a week from Sunday, immediately upon the conclusion of the
baseball match.
              "Arthur Wellington Moore."


There was a strange incongruity in the two, and an unconscious
challenge as well.

All next day, which was Saturday, and, indeed, during the following
week, I stood guard over my notice, enjoying the excitement it
produced and the comments it called forth.  It was the advance wave
of the great ocean of civilization which many of them had been glad
to leave behind--some could have wished forever.

To Robert Muir, one of the farmers newly arrived, the notice was a
harbinger of good.  It stood for progress, markets and a higher
price for land; albeit he wondered "hoo he wad be keepit up."  But
his hard-wrought, quick-spoken little wife at his elbow "hooted"
his scruples and, thinking of her growing lads, welcomed with
unmixed satisfaction the coming of "the meenister."  Her
satisfaction was shared by all the mothers and most of the fathers
in the settlement; but by the others, and especially by that
rollicking, roistering crew, the Company of the Noble Seven, the
missionary's coming was viewed with varying degrees of animosity.
It meant a limitation of freedom in their wildly reckless living.
The "Permit" nights would now, to say the least, be subject to
criticism; the Sunday wolf-hunts and horse-races, with their
attendant delights, would now be pursued under the eye of the
Church, and this would not add to the enjoyment of them.  One great
charm of the country, which Bruce, himself the son of an Edinburgh
minister, and now Secretary of the Noble Seven, described as
"letting a fellow do as he blanked pleased," would be gone.  None
resented more bitterly than he the missionary's intrusion, which he
declared to be an attempt "to reimpose upon their freedom the
trammels of an antiquated and bigoted conventionality."  But the
rest of the Company, while not taking so decided a stand, were
agreed that the establishment of a church institution was an
objectionable and impertinent as well as unnecessary proceeding.

Of course, Hi Kendal and his friend Bronco Bill had no opinion one
way or the other.  The Church could hardly affect them even
remotely.  A dozen years' stay in Montana had proved with
sufficient clearness to them that a church was a luxury of
civilization the West might well do without.

Outside the Company of the Noble Seven there was only one whose
opinion had value in Swan Creek, and that was the Old Timer.  The
Company had sought to bring him in by making him an honorary
member, but he refused to be drawn from his home far up among the
hills, where he lived with his little girl Gwen and her old half-
breed nurse, Ponka.  The approach of the church he seemed to resent
as a personal injury.  It represented to him that civilization from
which he had fled fifteen years ago with his wife and baby girl,
and when five years later he laid his wife in the lonely grave that
could be seen on the shaded knoll just fronting his cabin door, the
last link to his past was broken.  From all that suggested the
great world beyond the run of the Prairie he shrank as one shrinks
from a sudden touch upon an old wound.

"I guess I'll have to move back," he said to me gloomily.

"Why?" I said in surprise, thinking of his grazing range, which was
ample for his herd.

"This blank Sky Pilot."  He never swore except when unusually
moved.

"Sky Pilot?" I inquired.

He nodded and silently pointed to the notice.

"Oh, well, he won't hurt you, will he?"

"Can't stand it," he answered savagely, "must get away."

"What about Gwen?" I ventured, for she was the light of his eyes.
"Pity to stop her studies."  I was giving her weekly lessons at the
old man's ranch.

"Dunno.  Ain't figgered out yet about that baby."  She was still
his baby.  "Guess she's all she wants for the Foothills, anyway.
What's the use?" he added, bitterly, talking to himself after the
manner of men who live much alone.

I waited for a moment, then said:  "Well, I wouldn't hurry about
doing anything," knowing well that the one thing an old-timer hates
to do is to make any change in his mode of life.  "Maybe he won't
stay."

He caught at this eagerly.  "That's so!  There ain't much to keep
him, anyway," and he rode off to his lonely ranch far up in the
hills.

I looked after the swaying figure and tried to picture his past
with its tragedy; then I found myself wondering how he would end
and what would come to his little girl.  And I made up my mind that
if the missionary were the right sort his coming might not be a bad
thing for the Old Timer and perhaps for more than him.



CHAPTER IV

THE PILOT'S MEASURE


It was Hi Kendal that announced the arrival of the missionary.  I
was standing at the door of my school, watching the children ride
off home on their ponies, when Hi came loping along on his bronco
in the loose-jointed cowboy style.

"Well," he drawled out, bringing his bronco to a dead stop in a
single bound, "he's lit."

"Lit?  Where?  What?" said I, looking round for an eagle or some
other flying thing.

"Your blanked Sky Pilot, and he's a beauty, a pretty kid--looks too
tender for this climate.  Better not let him out on the range."  Hi
was quite disgusted, evidently.

"What's the matter with him, Hi?"

"Why, HE ain't no parson!  I don't go much on parsons, but when I
calls for one I don't want no bantam chicken.  No, sirree, horse!
I don't want no blankety-blank, pink-and-white complected nursery
kid foolin' round my graveyard.  If you're goin' to bring along a
parson, why bring him with his eye-teeth cut and his tail feathers
on."

That Hi was deeply disappointed was quite clear from the selection
of the profanity with which he adorned this lengthy address.  It
was never the extent of his profanity, but the choice, that
indicated Hi's interest in any subject.

Altogether, the outlook for the missionary was not encouraging.
With the single exception of the Muirs, who really counted for
little, nobody wanted him.  To most of the reckless young bloods of
the Company of the Noble Seven his presence was an offence; to
others simply a nuisance, while the Old Timer regarded his advent
with something like dismay; and now Hi's impression of his personal
appearance was not cheering.

My first sight of him did not reassure me.  He was very slight,
very young, very innocent, with a face that might do for an angel,
except for the touch of humor in it, but which seemed strangely out
of place among the rough, hard faces that were to be seen in the
Swan Creek Country.  It was not a weak face, however.  The forehead
was high and square, the mouth firm, and the eyes were luminous, of
some dark color--violet, if there is such a color in eyes--dreamy
or sparkling, according to his mood; eyes for which a woman might
find use, but which, in a missionary's head, appeared to me one of
those extraordinary wastes of which Nature is sometimes guilty.

He was gazing far away into space infinitely beyond the Foothills
and the blue line of the mountains behind them.  He turned to me as
I drew near, with eyes alight and face glowing.

"It is glorious," he almost panted.  "You see this everyday!"
Then, recalling himself, he came eagerly toward me, stretching out
his hand.  "You are the schoolmaster, I know.  Do you know, it's a
great thing?  I wanted to be one, but I never could get the boys
on.  They always got me telling them tales.  I was awfully
disappointed.  I am trying the next best thing.  You see, I won't
have to keep order, but I don't think I can preach very well.  I am
going to visit your school.  Have you many scholars?  Do you know,
I think it's splendid?  I wish I could do it."

I had intended to be somewhat stiff with him, but his evident
admiration of me made me quite forget this laudable intention, and,
as he talked on without waiting for an answer, his enthusiasm, his
deference to my opinion, his charm of manner, his beautiful face,
his luminous eyes, made him perfectly irresistible; and before I
was aware I was listening to his plans for working his mission with
eager interest.  So eager was my interest, indeed, that before I
was aware I found myself asking him to tea with me in my shack.
But he declined, saying:

"I'd like to, awfully; but do you know, I think Latour expects me."

This consideration of Latour's feelings almost upset me.

"You come with me," he added, and I went.

Latour welcomed us with his grim old face wreathed in unusual
smiles.  The pilot had been talking to him, too.

"I've got it, Latour!" he cried out as he entered; "here you are,"
and he broke into the beautiful French-Canadian chanson, "A la
Claire Fontaine," to the old half-breed's almost tearful delight.

"Do you know," he went on, "I heard that first down the Mattawa,"
and away he went into a story of an experience with French-Canadian
raftsmen, mixing up his French and English in so charming a manner
that Latour; who in his younger days long ago had been a shantyman
himself, hardly knew whether he was standing on his head or on his
heels.

After tea I proposed a ride out to see the sunset from the nearest
rising ground.  Latour, with unexampled generosity, offered his own
cayuse, "Louis."

"I can't ride well," protested The Pilot.

"Ah! dat's good ponee, Louis," urged Latour.  "He's quiet lak wan
leetle mouse; he's ride lak--what you call?--wan horse-on-de-rock."
Under which persuasion the pony was accepted.

That evening I saw the Swan Creek country with new eyes--through
the luminous eyes of The Pilot.  We rode up the trail by the side
of the Swan till we came to the coulee mouth, dark and full of
mystery.

"Come on," I said, "we must get to the top for the sunset."

He looked lingeringly into the deep shadows and asked:  "Anything
live down there?"

"Coyotes and wolves and ghosts."

"Ghosts?" he asked, delightedly.  "Do you know, I was sure there
were, and I'm quite sure I shall see them."

Then we took the Porcupine trail and climbed for about two miles
the gentle slope to the top of the first rising ground.  There we
stayed and watched the sun take his nightly plunge into the sea of
mountains, now dimly visible.  Behind us stretched the prairie,
sweeping out level to the sky and cut by the winding coulee of the
Swan.  Great long shadows from the hills were lying upon its yellow
face, and far at the distant edge the gray haze was deepening into
purple.  Before us lay the hills, softly curving like the shoulders
of great sleeping monsters, their tops still bright, but the
separating valleys full of shadow.  And there, far beyond them, up
against the sky, was the line of the mountains--blue, purple, and
gold, according as the light fell upon them.  The sun had taken his
plunge, but he had left behind him his robes of saffron and gold.
We stood long without a word or movement, filling our hearts with
the silence and the beauty, till the gold in the west began to grow
dim.  High above all the night was stretching her star-pierced,
blue canopy, and drawing slowly up from the east over the prairie
and over the sleeping hills the soft folds of a purple haze.  The
great silence of the dying day had fallen upon the world and held
us fast.

"Listen," he said, in a low tone, pointing to the hills.  "Can't
you hear them breathe?"  And, looking at their curving shoulders, I
fancied I could see them slowly heaving as if in heavy sleep, and I
was quite sure I could hear them breathe.  I was under the spell of
his voice and his eyes, and nature was all living to me then.

We rode back to the Stopping Place in silence, except for a word of
mine now and then which he heeded not; and, with hardly a good
night, he left me at the door.  I turned away feeling as if I had
been in a strange country and among strange people.

How would he do with the Swan Creek folk?  Could he make them see
the hills breathe?  Would they feel as I felt under his voice and
eyes?  What a curious mixture he was!  I was doubtful about his
first Sunday, and was surprised to find all my indifference as to
his success or failure gone.  It was a pity about the baseball
match.  I would speak to some of the men about it to-morrow.

Hi might be disappointed in his appearance, but, as I turned into
my shack and thought over my last two hours with The Pilot and how
he had "got" old Latour and myself, I began to think that Hi might
be mistaken in his measure of The Pilot.



CHAPTER V

FIRST BLOOD


One is never so enthusiastic in the early morning, when the emotions
are calmest and the nerves at their steadiest.  But I was determined
to try to have the baseball match postponed.  There could be no
difficulty.  One day was as much of a holiday as another to these
easy-going fellows.  But The Duke, when I suggested a change in the
day, simply raised his eyebrows an eighth of an inch and said:

"Can't see why the day should be changed."  Bruce stormed and swore
all sorts of destruction upon himself if he was going to change his
style of life for any man.  The others followed The Duke's lead.

That Sunday was a day of incongruities.  The Old and the New, the
East and the West, the reverential Past and iconoclastic Present
were jumbling themselves together in bewildering confusion.  The
baseball match was played with much vigor and profanity.  The
expression on The Pilot's face, as he stood watching for a while,
was a curious mixture of interest, surprise, doubt and pain.  He
was readjusting himself.  He was so made as to be extremely
sensitive to his surroundings.  He took on color quickly.  The
utter indifference to the audacious disregard of all he had
hitherto considered sacred and essential was disconcerting.  They
were all so dead sure.  How did he know they were wrong?  It was
his first near view of practical, living skepticism.  Skepticism in
a book did not disturb him; he could put down words against it.
But here it was alive, cheerful, attractive, indeed fascinating;
for these men in their western garb and with their western swing
had captured his imagination.  He was in a fierce struggle, and in
a few minutes I saw him disappear into the coulee.

Meantime the match went uproariously on to a finish, with the
result that the champions of "Home" had "to stand The Painkiller,"
their defeat being due chiefly to the work of Hi and Bronco Bill as
pitcher and catcher.

The celebration was in full swing; or as Hi put it, "the boys were
takin' their pizen good an' calm," when in walked The Pilot.  His
face was still troubled and his lips were drawn and blue, as if he
were in pain.  A silence fell on the men as he walked in through
the crowd and up to the bar.  He stood a moment hesitating, looking
round upon the faces flushed and hot that were now turned toward
him in curious defiance.  He noticed the look, and it pulled him
together.  He faced about toward old Latour and asked in a high,
clear voice:

"Is this the room you said we might have?"

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders and said:

"There is not any more."

The lad paused for an instant, but only for an instant.  Then,
lifting a pile of hymn books he had near him on the counter, he
said in a grave, sweet voice, and with the quiver of a smile about
his lips:

"Gentlemen, Mr. Latour has allowed me this room for a religious
service.  It will give me great pleasure if you will all join," and
immediately he handed a book to Bronco Bill, who, surprised, took
it as if he did not know what to do with it.  The others followed
Bronco's lead till he came to Bruce, who refused, saying roughly:

"No! I don't want it; I've no use for it."

The missionary flushed and drew back as if he had been struck, but
immediately, as if unconsciously, The Duke, who was standing near,
stretched out his hand and said, with a courteous bow, "I thank
you; I should be glad of one."

"Thank you," replied The Pilot, simply, as he handed him a book.
The men seated themselves upon the bench that ran round the room,
or leaned up against the counter, and most of them took off their
hats.  Just then in came Muir, and behind him his little wife.

In an instant The Duke was on his feet, and every hat came off.

The missionary stood up at the bar, and announced the hymn, "Jesus,
Lover of My Soul."  The silence that followed was broken by the
sound of a horse galloping.  A buckskin bronco shot past the
window, and in a few moments there appeared at the door the Old
Timer.  He was about to stride in when the unusual sight of a row
of men sitting solemnly with hymn books in their hands held him
fast at the door.  He gazed in an amazed, helpless way upon the
men, then at the missionary, then back at the men, and stood
speechless.  Suddenly there was a high, shrill, boyish laugh, and
the men turned to see the missionary in a fit of laughter.  It
certainly was a shock to any lingering ideas of religious propriety
they might have about them; but the contrast between his frank,
laughing face and the amazed and disgusted face of the shaggy old
man in the doorway was too much for them, and one by one they gave
way to roars of laughter.  The Old Timer, however, kept his face
unmoved, strode up to the bar and nodded to old Latour, who served
him his drink, which he took at a gulp.

"Here, old man!" called out Bill, "get into the game; here's your
deck," offering him his book.  But the missionary was before him,
and, with very beautiful grace, he handed the Old Timer a book and
pointed him to a seat.

I shall never forget that service.  As a religious affair it was a
dead failure, but somehow I think The Pilot, as Hi approvingly
said, "got in his funny work," and it was not wholly a defeat.  The
first hymn was sung chiefly by the missionary and Mrs. Muir, whose
voice was very high, with one or two of the men softly whistling an
accompaniment.  The second hymn was better, and then came the
Lesson, the story of the feeding of the five thousand.  As the
missionary finished the story, Bill, who had been listening with
great interest, said:

"I say, pard, I think I'll call you just now."

"I beg your pardon!" said the startled missionary.

"You're givin' us quite a song and dance now, ain't you?"

"I don't understand," was the puzzled reply.

"How many men was there in the crowd?" asked Bill, with a judicial
air.

"Five thousand."

"And how much grub?"

"Five loaves and two fishes," answered Bruce for the missionary.

"Well," drawled Bill, with the air of a man who has reached a
conclusion, "that's a little too unusual for me.  Why," looking
pityingly at the missionary, "it ain't natarel."

"Right you are, my boy," said Bruce, with a laugh.  "It's deucedly
unnatural."

"Not for Him," said the missionary, quietly.  Then Bruce joyfully
took him up and led him on into a discussion of evidences, and from
evidences into metaphysics, the origin of evil and the freedom of
the will, till the missionary, as Bill said, "was rattled worse nor
a rooster in the dark."  Poor little Mrs. Muir was much scandalized
and looked anxiously at her husband, wishing him to take her out.
But help came from an unexpected quarter, and Hi suddenly called
out:

"Here you, Bill, shut your blanked jaw, and you, Bruce, give the
man a chance to work off his music."

"That's so!  Fair play!  Go on!" were the cries that came in
response to Hi's appeal.

The missionary, who was all trembling and much troubled, gave Hi a
grateful look, and said:

"I'm afraid there are a great many things I don't understand, and I
am not good at argument."  There were shouts of "Go on! fire ahead,
play the game!" but he said, "I think we will close the service
with a hymn."  His frankness and modesty, and his respectful,
courteous manner gained the sympathy of the men, so that all joined
heartily in singing, "Sun of My Soul."  In the prayer that followed
his voice grew steady and his nerve came back to him.  The words
were very simple, and the petitions were mostly for light and for
strength.  With a few words of remembrance of "those in our homes
far away who think of us and pray for us and never forget," this
strange service was brought to a close.

After the missionary had stepped out, the whole affair was
discussed with great warmth.  Hi Kendal thought "The Pilot didn't
have no fair show," maintaining that when he was "ropin' a steer he
didn't want no blanked tenderfoot to be shovin' in his rope like
Bill there."  But Bill steadily maintained his position that "the
story of that there picnic was a little too unusual" for him.
Bruce was trying meanwhile to beguile The Duke into a discussion of
the physics and metaphysics of the case.  But The Duke refused with
quiet contempt to be drawn into a region where he felt himself a
stranger.  He preferred poker himself, if Bruce cared to take a
hand; and so the evening went on, with the theological discussion
by Hi and Bill in a judicial, friendly spirit in one corner, while
the others for the most part played poker.

When the missionary returned late there were only a few left in the
room, among them The Duke and Bruce, who was drinking steadily and
losing money.  The missionary's presence seemed to irritate him,
and he played even more recklessly than usual, swearing deeply at
every loss.  At the door the missionary stood looking up into the
night sky and humming softly "Sun of My Soul," and after a few
minutes The Duke joined in humming a bass to the air till Bruce
could contain himself no longer.

"I say," he called out, "this isn't any blanked prayer-meeting, is
it?"

The Duke ceased humming, and, looking at Bruce, said quietly:
"Well, what is it?  What's the trouble?"

"Trouble!" shouted Bruce.  "I don't see what hymn-singing has to do
with a poker game."

"Oh, I see!  I beg pardon!  Was I singing?" said The Duke.  Then
after a pause he added, "You're quite right.  I say, Bruce, let's
quit.  Something has got on to your nerves."  And coolly sweeping
his pile into his pocket, he gave up the game.  With an oath Bruce
left the table, took another drink, and went unsteadily out to his
horse, and soon we heard him ride away into the darkness, singing
snatches of the hymn and swearing the most awful oaths.

The missionary's face was white with horror.  It was all new and
horrible to him.

"Will he get safely home?" he asked of The Duke.

"Don't you worry, youngster," said The Duke, in his loftiest
manner, "he'll get along."

The luminous, dreamy eyes grew hard and bright as they looked The
Duke in the face.

"Yes, I shall worry; but you ought to worry more."

"Ah!" said The Duke, raising his brows and smiling gently upon the
bright, stern young face lifted up to his.  "I didn't notice that I
had asked your opinion."

"If anything should happen to him," replied the missionary, quickly,
"I should consider you largely responsible."

"That would be kind," said The Duke, still smiling with his lips.
But after a moment's steady look into the missionary's eyes he
nodded his head twice or thrice, and, without further word, turned
away.

The missionary turned eagerly to me:

"They beat me this afternoon," he cried, "but thank God, I know now
they are wrong and I am right!  I don't understand!  I can't see my
way through!  But I am right!  It's true!  I feel it's true!  Men
can't live without Him, and be men!"

And long after I went to my shack that night I saw before me the
eager face with the luminous eyes and heard the triumphant cry:  "I
feel it's true!  Men can't live without Him, and be men!" and I
knew that though his first Sunday ended in defeat there was victory
yet awaiting him.



CHAPTER VI

HIS SECOND WIND


The first weeks were not pleasant for The Pilot.  He had been
beaten, and the sense of failure damped his fine enthusiasm, which
was one of his chief charms.  The Noble Seven despised, ignored, or
laughed at him, according to their mood and disposition.  Bruce
patronized him; and, worst of all, the Muirs pitied him.  This last
it was that brought him low, and I was glad of it.  I find it hard
to put up with a man that enjoys pity.

It was Hi Kendal that restored him, though Hi had no thought of
doing so good a deed.  It was in this way:  A baseball match was on
with The Porcupines from near the Fort.  To Hi's disgust and the
team's dismay Bill failed to appear.  It was Hi's delight to stand
up for Bill's pitching, and their battery was the glory of the Home
team.

"Try The Pilot, Hi," said some one, chaffing him.

Hi looked glumly across at The Pilot standing some distance, away;
then called out, holding up the ball:

"Can you play the game?"

For answer Moore held up his hands for a catch.  Hi tossed him the
ball easily.  The ball came back so quickly that Hi was hardly
ready, and the jar seemed to amaze him exceedingly.

"I'll take him," he said, doubtfully, and the game began.  Hi
fitted on his mask, a new importation and his peculiar pride, and
waited.

"How do you like them?" asked The Pilot.

"Hot!" said Hi.  "I hain't got no gloves to burn."

The Pilot turned his back, swung off one foot on to the other and
discharged his ball.

"Strike!" called the umpire.

"You bet!" said Hi, with emphasis, but his face was a picture of
amazement and dawning delight.

Again The Pilot went through the manoeuvre in his box and again the
umpire called:

"Strike!"

Hi stopped the ball without holding it and set himself for the
third.  Once more that disconcerting swing and the whip-like action
of the arm, and for the third time the umpire called:

"Strike!  Striker out!"

"That's the hole," yelled Hi.

The Porcupines were amazed.  Hi looked at the ball in his hand,
then at the slight figure of The Pilot.

"I say! where do you get it?"

"What?" asked Moore innocently.

"The gait!"

"The what?"

"The gait! the speed, you know!"

"Oh! I used to play in Princeton a little."

"Did, eh?  What the blank blank did you quit for?"

He evidently regarded the exchange of the profession of baseball
for the study of theology as a serious error in judgment, and in
this opinion every inning of the game confirmed him.  At the bat
The Pilot did not shine, but he made up for light hitting by his
base-running.  He was fleet as a deer, and he knew the game
thoroughly.  He was keen, eager, intense in play, and before the
innings were half over he was recognized as the best all-round man
on the field.  In the pitcher's box he puzzled the Porcupines till
they grew desperate and hit wildly and blindly, amid the jeers of
the spectators.  The bewilderment of the Porcupines was equaled
only by the enthusiasm of Hi and his nine, and when the game was
over the score stood 37 to 7 in favor of the Home team.  They
carried The Pilot off the field.

From that day Moore was another man.  He had won the unqualified
respect of Hi Kendal and most of the others, for he could beat them
at their own game and still be modest about it.  Once more his
enthusiasm came back and his brightness and his courage.  The Duke
was not present to witness his triumph, and, besides, he rather
despised the game.  Bruce was there, however, but took no part in
the general acclaim; indeed, he seemed rather disgusted with
Moore's sudden leap into favor.  Certainly his hostility to The
Pilot and to all that he stood for was none the less open and
bitter.

The hostility was more than usually marked at the service held on
the Sunday following.  It was, perhaps, thrown into stronger relief
by the open and delighted approval of Hi, who was prepared to back
up anything The Pilot would venture to say.  Bill, who had not
witnessed The Pilot's performance in the pitcher's box, but had
only Hi's enthusiastic report to go upon, still preserved his
judicial air.  It is fair to say, however, that there was no mean-
spirited jealousy in Bill's heart even though Hi had frankly
assured him that The Pilot was "a demon," and could "give him
points."  Bill had great confidence in Hi's opinion upon baseball,
but he was not prepared to surrender his right of private judgment
in matters theological, so he waited for the sermon before
committing himself to any enthusiastic approval.  This service was
an undoubted success.  The singing was hearty, and insensibly the
men fell into a reverent attitude during prayer.  The theme, too,
was one that gave little room for skepticism.  It was the story of
Zaccheus, and story-telling was Moore's strong point.  The thing
was well done.  Vivid portraitures of the outcast, shrewd,
converted publican and the supercilious, self-complacent, critical
Pharisee were drawn with a few deft touches.  A single sentence
transferred them to the Foothills and arrayed them in cowboy garb.
Bill was none too sure of himself, but Hi, with delightful winks,
was indicating Bruce as the Pharisee, to the latter's scornful
disgust.  The preacher must have noticed, for with a very clever
turn the Pharisee was shown to be the kind of man who likes to fit
faults upon others.  Then Bill, digging his elbows into Hi's ribs,
said in an audible whisper:

"Say, pardner, how does it fit now?"

"You git out!" answered Hi, indignantly, but his confidence in his
interpretation of the application was shaken.  When Moore came to
describe the Master and His place in that ancient group, we in the
Stopping Place parlor fell under the spell of his eyes and voice,
and our hearts were moved within us.  That great Personality was
made very real and very winning.  Hi was quite subdued by the story
and the picture.  Bill was perplexed; it was all new to him; but
Bruce was mainly irritated.  To him it was all old and filled with
memories he hated to face.  At any rate he was unusually savage
that evening, drank heavily and went home late, raging and cursing
at things in general and The Pilot in particular--for Moore, in a
timid sort of way, had tried to quiet him and help him to his
horse.

"Ornery sort o' beast now, ain't he?" said Hi, with the idea of
comforting The Pilot, who stood sadly looking after Bruce
disappearing in the gloom.

"No! no!" he answered, quickly, "not a beast, but a brother."

"Brother!  Not much, if I know my relations!" answered Hi,
disgustedly.

"The Master thinks a good deal of him," was the earnest reply.

"Git out!" said Hi, "you don't mean it!  Why," he added, decidedly,
"he's more stuck on himself than that mean old cuss you was tellin'
about this afternoon, and without half the reason."

But Moore only said, kindly, "Don't be hard on him, Hi," and turned
away, leaving Hi and Bill gravely discussing the question, with the
aid of several drinks of whisky.  They were still discussing when,
an hour later, they, too, disappeared into the darkness that
swallowed up the trail to Ashley Ranch.  That was the first of many
such services.  The preaching was always of the simplest kind,
abstract questions being avoided and the concrete in those
wonderful Bible tales, dressed in modern and in western garb, set
forth.  Bill and Hi were more than ever his friends and champions,
and the latter was heard exultantly to exclaim to Bruce:

"He ain't much to look at as a parson, but he's a-ketchin' his
second wind, and 'fore long you won't see him for dust."



CHAPTER VII

THE LAST OF THE PERMIT SUNDAYS


The spring "round-ups" were all over and Bruce had nothing to do
but to loaf about the Stopping Place, drinking old Latour's bad
whisky and making himself a nuisance.  In vain The Pilot tried to
win him with loans of books and magazines and other kindly
courtesies.  He would be decent for a day and then would break
forth in violent argumentation against religion and all who held to
it.  He sorely missed The Duke, who was away south on one of his
periodic journeys, of which no one knew anything or cared to ask.
The Duke's presence always steadied Bruce and took the rasp out of
his manners.  It was rather a relief to all that he was absent from
the next fortnightly service, though Moore declared he was ashamed
to confess this relief.

"I can't touch him," he said to me, after the service; "he is far
too clever, but," and his voice was full of pain, "I'd give
something to help him."

"If he doesn't quit his nonsense," I replied, "he'll soon be past
helping.  He doesn't go out on his range, his few cattle wander
everywhere, his shack is in a beastly state, and he himself is
going to pieces, miserable fool that he is."  For it did seem a
shame that a fellow should so throw himself away for nothing.

"You are hard," said Moore, with his eyes upon me.

"Hard?  Isn't it true?" I answered, hotly.  "Then, there's his
mother at home."

"Yes, but can he help it?  Is it all his fault?" he replied, with
his steady eyes still looking into me.

"His fault?  Whose fault, then?"

"What of the Noble Seven?  Have they anything to do with this?"
His voice was quiet, but there was an arresting intensity in it.

"Well," I said, rather weakly, "a man ought to look after himself."

"Yes!--and his brother a little."  Then, he added:  "What have any
of you done to help him?  The Duke could have pulled him up a year
ago if he had been willing to deny himself a little, and so with
all of you.  You all do just what pleases you regardless of any
other, and so you help one another down."

I could not find anything just then to say, though afterwards many
things came to me; for, though his voice was quiet and low, his
eyes were glowing and his face was alight with the fire that burned
within, and I felt like one convicted of a crime.  This was
certainly a new doctrine for the West; an uncomfortable doctrine to
practice, interfering seriously with personal liberty, but in The
Pilot's way of viewing things difficult to escape.  There would be
no end to one's responsibility.  I refused to think it out.

Within a fortnight we were thinking it out with some intentness.
The Noble Seven were to have a great "blow-out" at the Hill
brothers' ranch.  The Duke had got home from his southern trip a
little more weary-looking and a little more cynical in his smile.
The "blow-out" was to be held on Permit Sunday, the alternate to
the Preaching Sunday, which was a concession to The Pilot, secured
chiefly through the influence of Hi and his baseball nine.  It was
something to have created the situation involved in the distinction
between Preaching and Permit Sundays.  Hi put it rather graphically.
"The devil takes his innin's one Sunday and The Pilot the next,"
adding emphatically, "He hain't done much scorin' yit, but my
money's on The Pilot, you bet!"  Bill was more cautious and
preferred to wait developments.  And developments were rapid.

The Hill brothers' meet was unusually successful from a social
point of view.  Several Permits had been requisitioned, and whisky
and beer abounded.  Races all day and poker all night and drinks
of various brews both day and night, with varying impromptu
diversions--such as shooting the horns off wandering steers--were
the social amenities indulged in by the noble company.  On Monday
evening I rode out to the ranch, urged by Moore, who was anxious
that someone should look after Bruce.

"I don't belong to them," he said, "you do.  They won't resent your
coming."

Nor did they.  They were sitting at tea, and welcomed me with a
shout.

"Hello, old domine!" yelled Bruce, "where's your preacher friend?"

"Where you ought to be, if you could get there--at home," I
replied, nettled at his insolent tone.

"Strike one!" called out Hi, enthusiastically, not approving
Bruce's attitude toward his friend, The Pilot.

"Don't be so acute," said Bruce, after the laugh had passed, "but
have a drink."

He was flushed and very shaky and very noisy.  The Duke, at the
head of the table, looked a little harder than usual, but, though
pale, was quite steady.  The others were all more or less nerve-
broken, and about the room were the signs of a wild night.  A bench
was upset, while broken bottles and crockery lay strewn about over
a floor reeking with filth.  The disgust on my face called forth an
apology from the younger Hill, who was serving up ham and eggs as
best he could to the men lounging about the table.

"It's my housemaid's afternoon out," he explained gravely.

"Gone for a walk in the park," added an other.

"Hope MISTER Connor will pardon the absence," sneered Bruce, in his
most offensive manner.

"Don't mind him," said Hi, under his breath, "the blue devils are
runnin' him down."

This became more evident as the evening went on.  From hilarity
Bruce passed to sullen ferocity, with spasms of nervous terror.
Hi's attempts to soothe him finally drove him mad, and he drew his
revolver, declaring he could look after himself, in proof of which
he began to shoot out the lights.

The men scrambled into safe corners, all but The Duke, who stood
quietly by watching Bruce shoot.  Then saying:

"Let me have a try, Bruce," he reached across and caught his hand.

"No! you don't," said Bruce, struggling.  "No man gets my gun."

He tore madly at the gripping hand with both of his, but in vain,
calling out with frightful oaths:

"Let go! let go!  I'll kill you!  I'll kill you!"

With a furious effort he hurled himself back from the table,
dragging The Duke partly across.  There was a flash and a report
and Bruce collapsed, The Duke still gripping him.  When they lifted
him up he was found to have an ugly wound in his arm, the bullet
having passed through the fleshy part.  I bound it up as best I
could and tried to persuade him to go to bed.  But he would go
home.  Nothing could stop him.  Finally The Duke agreed to go with
him, and off they set, Bruce loudly protesting that he could get
home alone and did not want anyone.

It was a dismal break-up to the meet, and we all went home feeling
rather sick, so that it gave me no pleasure to find Moore waiting
in my shack for my report of Bruce.  It was quite vain for me to
make light of the accident to him.  His eyes were wide open with
anxious fear when I had done.

"You needn't tell me not to be anxious," he said, "you are anxious
yourself.  I see it, I feel it."

"Well, there's no use trying to keep things from you," I replied,
"but I am only a little anxious.  Don't you go beyond me and work
yourself up into a fever over it."

"No," he answered quietly, "but I wish his mother were nearer."

"Oh, bosh, it isn't coming to that; but I wish he were in better
shape.  He is broken up badly without this hole in him."

He would not leave till I had promised to take him up the next day,
though I was doubtful enough of his reception.  But next day The
Duke came down, his black bronco, Jingo, wet with hard riding.

"Better come up, Connor," he said, gravely, "and bring your
bromides along.  He has had a bad night and morning and fell asleep
only before I came away.  I expect he'll wake in delirium.  It's
the whisky more than the bullet.  Snakes, you know."

In ten minutes we three were on the trail, for Moore, though not
invited, quietly announced his intention to go with us.

"Oh, all right," said The Duke, indifferently, "he probably won't
recognize you any way."

We rode hard for half an hour till we came within sight of Bruce's
shack, which was set back into a little poplar bluff.

"Hold up!" said The Duke.  "Was that a shot?"  We stood listening.
A rifle-shot rang out, and we rode hard.  Again The Duke halted us,
and there came from the shack the sound of singing.  It was an old
Scotch tune.

"The twenty-third Psalm," said Moore, in a low voice.

We rode into the bluff, tied up our horses and crept to the back of
the shack.  Looking through a crack between the logs, I saw a
gruesome thing.  Bruce was sitting up in bed with a Winchester
rifle across his knees and a belt of cartridges hanging over the
post.  His bandages were torn off, the blood from his wound was
smeared over his bare arms and his pale, ghastly face; his eyes
were wild with mad terror, and he was shouting at the top of his
voice the words:

     "The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want,
        He makes me down to lie
      In pastures green, He leadeth me
        The quiet waters by."

Now and then he would stop to say in an awesome whisper, "Come out
here, you little devils!" and bang would go his rifle at the
stovepipe, which was riddled with holes.  Then once more in a loud
voice he would hurry to begin the Psalm,

     "The Lord's my Shepherd."

Nothing that my memory brings to me makes me chill like that
picture--the low log shack, now in cheerless disorder; the ghastly
object upon the bed in the corner, with blood-smeared face and arms
and mad terror in the eyes; the awful cursings and more awful
psalm-singing, punctuated by the quick report of the deadly rifle.

For some moments we stood gazing at one another; then The Duke
said, in a low, fierce tone, more to himself than to us:

"This is the last.  There'll be no more of this cursed folly among
the boys."

And I thought it a wise thing in The Pilot that he answered not a
word.



CHAPTER VIII

THE PILOT'S GRIP


The situation was one of extreme danger--a madman with a Winchester
rifle.  Something must be done and quickly.  But what?  It would be
death to anyone appearing at the door.

"I'll speak; you keep your eyes on him," said The Duke.

"Hello, Bruce!  What's the row?" shouted The Duke.

Instantly the singing stopped.  A look of cunning delight came over
his face as, without a word, he got his rifle ready pointed at the
door.

"Come in!" he yelled, after waiting for some moments.  "Come in!
You're the biggest of all the devils.  Come on, I'll send you down
where you belong.  Come, what's keeping you?"

Over the rifle-barrel his eyes gleamed with frenzied delight.  We
consulted as to a plan.

"I don't relish a bullet much," I said.

"There are pleasanter things," responded The Duke, "and he is a
fairly good shot."

Meantime the singing had started again, and, looking through the
chink, I saw that Bruce had got his eye on the stovepipe again.
While I was looking The Pilot slipped away from us toward the door.

"Come back!" said the Duke, "don't be a fool!  Come back, he'll
shoot you dead!"

Moore paid no heed to him, but stood waiting at the door.  In a few
moments Bruce blazed away again at the stovepipe.  Immediately the
Pilot burst in, calling out eagerly:

"Did you get him?"

"No!" said Bruce, disappointedly, "he dodged like the devil, as of
course he ought, you know."

"I'll get him," said Moore.  "Smoke him out," proceeding to open
the stove door.

"Stop!" screamed Bruce, "don't open that door!  It's full, I tell
you."  Moore paused.  "Besides," went on Bruce, "smoke won't touch
'em."

"Oh, that's all right," said Moore, coolly and with admirable
quickness, "wood smoke, you know--they can't stand that."

This was apparently a new idea in demonology for Bruce, for he sank
back, while Moore lighted the fire and put on the tea-kettle.  He
looked round for the tea-caddy.

"Up there," said Bruce, forgetting for the moment his devils, and
pointing to a quaint, old-fashioned tea-caddy upon the shelf.

Moore took it down, turned it in his hands and looked at Bruce.

"Old country, eh?"

"My mother's," said Bruce, soberly.

"I could have sworn it was my aunt's in Balleymena," said Moore.
"My aunt lived in a little stone cottage with roses all over the
front of it."  And on he went into an enthusiastic description of
his early home.  His voice was full of music, soft and soothing,
and poor Bruce sank back and listened, the glitter fading from his
eyes.

The Duke and I looked at each other.

"Not too bad, eh?" said The Duke, after a few moments' silence.

"Let's put up the horses," I suggested.  "They won't want us for
half an hour."

When we came in, the room had been set in order, the tea-kettle was
singing, the bedclothes straightened out, and Moore had just
finished washing the blood stains from Bruce's arms and neck.

"Just in time," he said.  "I didn't like to tackle these," pointing
to the bandages.

All night long Moore soothed and tended the sick man, now singing
softly to him, and again beguiling him with tales that meant
nothing, but that had a strange power to quiet the nervous
restlessness, due partly to the pain of the wounded arm and partly
to the nerve-wrecking from his months of dissipation.  The Duke
seemed uncomfortable enough.  He spoke to Bruce once or twice, but
the only answer was a groan or curse with an increase of
restlessness.

"He'll have a close squeak," said The Duke.  The carelessness of
the tone was a little overdone, but The Pilot was stirred up by it.

"He has not been fortunate in his friends," he said, looking
straight into his eyes.

"A man ought to know himself when the pace is too swift," said The
Duke, a little more quickly than was his wont.

"You might have done anything with him.  Why didn't you help him?"
Moore's tones were stern and very steady, and he never moved his
eyes from the other man's face, but the only reply he got was a
shrug of the shoulders.

When the gray of the morning was coming in at the window The Duke
rose up, gave himself, a little shake, and said:

"I am not of any service here.  I shall come back in the evening."

He went and stood for a few moments looking down upon the hot,
fevered face; then, turning to me, he asked:

"What do you think?"

"Can't say!  The bromide is holding him down just now.  His blood
is bad for that wound."

"Can I get anything?"  I knew him well enough to recognize the
anxiety under his indifferent manner.

"The Fort doctor ought to be got."

He nodded and went out.

"Have breakfast?" called out Moore from the door.

"I shall get some at the Fort, thanks.  They won't take any hurt
from me there," he said, smiling his cynical smile.

Moore opened his eyes in surprise.

"What's that for?" he asked me.

"Well, he is rather cut up, and you rather rubbed it into him, you
know," I said, for I thought Moore a little hard.

"Did I say anything untrue?"

"Well, not untrue, perhaps; but truth is like medicine--not always
good to take."  At which Moore was silent till his patient needed
him again.

It was a weary day.  The intense pain from the wound, and the high
fever from the poison in his blood kept the poor fellow in delirium
till evening, when The Duke rode up with the Fort doctor.  Jingo
appeared as nearly played out as a horse of his spirit ever allowed
himself to become.

"Seventy miles," said The Duke, swinging himself off the saddle.
"The doctor was ten miles out.  How is he?"

I shook my head, and he led away his horse to give him a rub and a
feed.

Meantime the doctor, who was of the army and had seen service, was
examining his patient.  He grew more and more puzzled as he noted
the various symptoms.  Finally he broke out:

"What have you been doing to him?  Why is he in this condition?
This fleabite doesn't account for all," pointing to the wound.

We stood like children reproved.  Then The Duke said, hesitatingly:

"I fear, doctor, the life has been a little too hard for him.  He
had a severe nervous attack--seeing things, you know."

"Yes, I know," stormed the old doctor.  "I know you well enough,
with your head of cast-iron and no nerves to speak of.  I know the
crowd and how you lead them.  Infernal fools!  You'll get your turn
some day.  I've warned you before."

The Duke was standing up before the doctor during this storm,
smiling slightly.  All at once the smile faded out and he pointed
to the bed.  Bruce was sitting up quiet and steady.  He stretched
out his hand to The Duke.

"Don't mind the old fool," he said, holding The Duke's hand and
looking up at him as fondly as if he were a girl.  "It's my own
funeral--funeral?" he paused--"Perhaps it may be--who knows?--feel
queer enough--but remember, Duke--it's my own fault--don't listen
to those bally fools," looking towards Moore and the doctor.  "My
own fault"--his voice died down--"my own fault."

The Duke bent over him and laid him back on the pillow, saying,
"Thanks, old chap, you're good stuff.  I'll not forget.  Just keep
quiet and you'll be all right."  He passed his cool, firm hand over
the hot brow of the man looking up at him with love in his eyes,
and in a few moments Bruce fell asleep.  Then The Duke lifted
himself up, and facing the doctor, said in his coolest tone:

"Your words are more true than opportune, doctor.  Your patient
will need all your attention.  As for my morals, Mr. Moore kindly
entrusts himself with the care of them."  This with a bow toward
The Pilot.

"I wish him joy of his charge," snorted the doctor, turning again
to the bed, where Bruce had already passed into delirium.

The memory of that vigil was like a horrible nightmare for months.
Moore lay on the floor and slept.  The Duke rode off somewhither.
The old doctor and I kept watch.  All night poor Bruce raved in the
wildest delirium, singing, now psalms, now songs, swearing at the
cattle or his poker partners, and now and then, in quieter moments,
he was back in his old home, a boy, with a boy's friends and
sports.  Nothing could check the fever.  It baffled the doctor, who
often, during the night, declared that there was "no sense in a
wound like that working up such a fever," adding curses upon the
folly of The Duke and his Company.

"You don't think he will not get better, doctor?" I asked, in
answer to one of his outbreaks.

"He ought to get over this," he answered, impatiently, "but I
believe," he added, deliberately, "he'll have to go."

Everything stood still for a moment.  It seemed impossible.  Two
days ago full of life, now on the way out.  There crowded in upon
me thoughts of his home; his mother, whose letters he used to show
me full of anxious love; his wild life here, with all its generous
impulses, its mistakes, its folly.

"How long will he last?" I asked, and my lips were dry and numb.

"Perhaps twenty-four hours, perhaps longer.  He can't throw off the
poison."

The old doctor proved a true prophet.  After another day of
agonized delirium he sank into a stupor which lasted through the
night.

Then the change came.  As the light began to grow at the eastern
rim of the prairie and up the far mountains in the west, Bruce
opened his eyes and looked about upon us.  The doctor had gone; The
Duke had not come back; Moore and I were alone.  He gazed at us
steadily for some moments; read our faces; a look of wonder came
into his eyes.

"Is it coming?" he asked in a faint, awed voice.  "Do you really
think I must go?"

The eager appeal in his voice and the wistful longing in the wide-
open, startled eyes were too much for Moore.  He backed behind me
and I could hear him weeping like a baby.  Bruce heard him, too.

"Is that The Pilot?" he asked.  Instantly Moore pulled himself up,
wiped his eyes and came round to the other side of the bed and
looked down, smiling.

"Do YOU say I am dying?"  The voice was strained in its earnestness.
I felt a thrill of admiration go through me as the Pilot answered in
a sweet, clear voice:  "They say so, Bruce.  But you are not afraid?"

Bruce kept his eyes on his face and answered with grave hesitation:

"No--not--afraid--but I'd like to live a little longer.  I've made
such a mess of it, I'd like to try again."  Then he paused, and his
lips quivered a little.  "There's my mother, you know," he added,
apologetically, "and Jim."  Jim was his younger brother and sworn
chum.

"Yes, I know, Bruce, but it won't be very long for them, too, and
it's a good place."

"Yes, I believe it all--always did--talked rot--you'll forgive me
that?"

"Don't; don't," said Moore quickly, with sharp pain in his voice,
and Bruce smiled a little and closed his eyes, saying:  "I'm tired."
But he immediately opened them again and looked up.

"What is it?" asked Moore, smiling down into his eyes.

"The Duke," the poor lips whispered.

"He is coming," said Moore, confidently, though how he knew I could
not tell.  But even as he spoke, looking out of the window, I saw
Jingo come swinging round the bluff.  Bruce heard the beat of his
hoofs, smiled, opened his eyes and waited.  The leap of joy in his
eyes as The Duke came in, clean, cool and fresh as the morning,
went to my heart.

Neither man said a word, but Bruce took hold of The Duke's hand in
both of his.  He was fast growing weaker.  I gave him brandy, and
he recovered a little strength.

"I am dying, Duke," he said, quietly.  "Promise you won't blame
yourself."

"I can't, old man," said The Duke, with a shudder.  "Would to
heaven I could."

"You were too strong for me, and you didn't think, did you?" and
the weak voice had a caress in it.

"No, no!  God knows," said The Duke, hurriedly.

There was a long silence, and again Bruce opened his eyes and
whispered:

"The Pilot."

Moore came to him.

"Read 'The Prodigal,'" he said faintly, and in Moore's clear, sweet
voice the music of that matchless story fell upon our ears.

Again Bruce's eyes summoned me.  I bent over him.

"My letter," he said, faintly, "in my coat--"

I brought to him the last letter from his mother.  He held the
envelope before his eyes, then handed it to me, whispering:

"Read."

I opened the letter and looked at the words, "My darling Davie."
My tongue stuck and not a sound could I make.  Moore put out his
hand and took it from me.  The Duke rose to go out, calling me with
his eyes, but Bruce motioned him to stay, and he sat down and bowed
his head, while Moore read the letter.

His tones were clear and steady till he came to the last words,
when his voice broke and ended in a sob:

"And oh, Davie, laddie, if ever your heart turns home again,
remember the door is aye open, and it's joy you'll bring with you
to us all."

Bruce lay quite still, and, from his closed eyes, big tears ran
down his cheeks.  It was his last farewell to her whose love had
been to him the anchor to all things pure here and to heaven
beyond.

He took the letter from Moore's hand, put it with difficulty to his
lips, and then, touching the open Bible, he said, between his
breaths:

"It's--very like--there's really--no fear, is there?"

"No, no!" said Moore, with cheerful, confident voice, though his,
tears were flowing.  "No fear of your welcome."

His eyes met mine.  I bent over him.  "Tell her--" and his voice
faded away.

"What shall I tell her?" I asked, trying to recall him.  But the
message was never given.  He moved one hand slowly toward The Duke
till it touched his head.  The Duke lifted his face and looked down
at him, and then he did a beautiful thing for which I forgave him
much.  He stooped over and kissed the lips grown so white, and then
the brow.  The light came back into the eyes of the dying man, he
smiled once more, and smilingly faced toward the Great Beyond.  And
the morning air, fresh from the sun-tipped mountains and sweet with
the scent of the June roses, came blowing soft and cool through the
open window upon the dead, smiling face.  And it seemed fitting so.
It came from the land of the Morning.

Again The Duke did a beautiful thing; for, reaching across his dead
friend, he offered his hand to The Pilot.  "Mr. Moore," he said,
with fine courtesy, "you are a brave man and a good man; I ask your
forgiveness for much rudeness."

But Moore only shook his head while he took the outstretched hand,
and said, brokenly:

"Don't!  I can't stand it."

"The Company of the Noble Seven will meet no more," said The Duke,
with a faint smile.

They did meet, however; but when they did, The Pilot was in the
chair, and it was not for poker.

The Pilot had "got his grip," as Bill said.



CHAPTER IX

GWEN


It was not many days after my arrival in the Foothill country that
I began to hear of Gwen.  They all had stories of her.  The details
were not many, but the impression was vivid.  She lived remote from
that centre of civilization known as Swan Creek in the postal
guide, but locally as Old Latour's, far up among the hills near the
Devil's Lake, and from her father's ranch she never ventured.  But
some of the men had had glimpses of her and had come to definite
opinions regarding her.

"What is she like?" I asked Bill one day, trying to pin him down to
something like a descriptive account of her.

"Like!  She's a terrer," he said, with slow emphasis, "a holy
terrer."

"But what is she like?  What does she look like?" I asked
impatiently.

"Look like?"  He considered a moment, looked slowly round as if
searching for a simile, then answered:  "I dunno."

"Don't know?  What do you mean?  Haven't you seen her?"

"Yeh!  But she ain't like nothin'."

Bill was quite decided upon this point.

I tried again.

"Well, what sort of hair has she got?  She's got hair, I suppose?"

"Hayer!  Well, a few!" said Bill, with some choice combinations of
profanity in repudiation of my suggestion.  "Yards of it!  Red!"

"Git out!" contradicted Hi.  "Red!  Tain't no more red than mine!"

Bill regarded Hi's hair critically.

"What color do you put onto your old brush?" he asked cautiously.

"'Tain't no difference.  'Tain't red, anyhow."

"Red!  Well, not quite exactly," and Bill went off into a low,
long, choking chuckle, ejaculating now and then, "Red!  Jee-mi-ny
Ann!  Red!"

"No, Hi," he went on, recovering himself with the same abruptness
as he used with his bronco, and looking at his friend with a face
even more than usually solemn, "your hayer ain't red, Hi; don't let
any of your relatives persuade you to that.  'Tain't red!" and he
threatened to go off again, but pulled himself up with dangerous
suddenness.  "It may be blue, cerulyum blue or even purple, but
red--!"  He paused violently, looking at his friend as if he found
him a new and interesting object of study upon which he could not
trust himself to speak.  Nor could he be induced to proceed with
the description he had begun.

But Hi, paying no attention to Bill's oration, took up the subject
with enthusiasm.

"She kin ride--she's a reg'lar buster to ride, ain't she, Bill?"
Bill nodded.  "She kin bunch cattle an' cut out an' yank a steer up
to any cowboy on the range."

"Why, how big is she?"

"Big?  Why, she's just a kid!  'Tain't the bigness of her, it's the
nerve.  She's got the coldest kind of nerve you ever seen.  Hain't
she, Bill?"  And again Bill nodded.

"'Member the day she dropped that steer, Bill?" went on Hi.

"What was that?" I asked, eager for a yarn.

"Oh, nuthin'," said Bill.

"Nuthin'!" retorted Hi.  "Pretty big nuthin'!"

"What was it?" I urged.

"Oh, Bill here did some funny work at old Meredith's round-up, but
he don't speak of it.  He's shy, you see," and Hi grinned.

"Well, there ain't no occasion for your proceedin' onto that tact,"
said Bill disgustedly, and Hi loyally refrained, so I have never
yet got the rights of the story.  But from what I did hear I
gathered that Bill, at the risk of his life, had pulled The Duke
from under the hoofs of a mad steer, and that little Gwen had, in
the coolest possible manner, "sailed in on her bronco" and, by
putting two bullets into the steer's head, had saved them both from
great danger, perhaps from death, for the rest of the cattle were
crowding near.  Of course Bill could never be persuaded to speak of
the incident.  A true western man will never hesitate to tell you
what he can do, but of what he has done he does not readily speak.

The only other item that Hi contributed to the sketch of Gwen was
that her temper could blaze if the occasion demanded.

"'Member young Hill, Bill?"

Bill "'membered."

"Didn't she cut into him sudden?  Sarved him right, too."

"What did she do?"

"Cut him across the face with her quirt in good style."

"What for?"

"Knockin' about her Indian Joe."

Joe was, as I came to learn, Ponka's son and Gwen's most devoted
slave.

"Oh, she ain't no refrigerator."

"Yes," assented Bill.  "She's a leetle swift."  Then, as if fearing
he had been apologizing for her, he added, with the air of one
settling the question:  "But she's good stock!  She suits me!"

The Duke helped me to another side of her character.

"She is a remarkable child," he said, one day.  "Wild and shy as a
coyote, but fearless, quite; and with a heart full of passions.
Meredith, the Old Timer, you know, has kept her up there among the
hills.  She sees no one but himself and Ponka's Blackfeet
relations, who treat her like a goddess and help to spoil her
utterly.  She knows their lingo and their ways--goes off with them
for a week at a time."

"What!  With the Blackfeet?"

"Ponka and Joe, of course, go along; but even without them she is
as safe as if surrounded by the Coldstream Guards, but she has
given them up for some time now."

"And at home?" I asked.  "Has she any education?  Can she read or
write?"

"Not she.  She can make her own dresses, moccasins and leggings.
She can cook and wash--that is, when she feels in the mood.  And
she knows all about the birds and beasts and flowers and that sort
of thing, but--education!  Why, she is hardly civilized!"

"What a shame!" I said.  "How old is she?"

"Oh, a mere child; fourteen or fifteen, I imagine; but a woman in
many things."

"And what does her father say to all this?  Can he control her?"

"Control!" said The Duke, in utter astonishment.  "Why, bless your
soul, nothing in heaven or earth could control HER.  Wait till you
see her stand with her proud little head thrown back, giving orders
to Joe, and you will never again connect the idea of control with
Gwen.  She might be a princess for the pride of her.  I've seen
some, too, in my day, but none to touch her for sheer, imperial
pride, little Lucifer that she is."

"And how does her father stand her nonsense?" I asked, for I
confess I was not much taken with the picture The Duke had drawn.

"Her father simply follows behind her and adores, as do all things
that come near her, down, or up, perhaps, to her two dogs--Wolf and
Loo--for either of which she would readily die if need be.  Still,"
he added, after a pause, "it IS a shame, as you say.  She ought to
know something of the refinements of civilization, to which, after
all, she belongs, and from which none of us can hope to escape."
The Duke was silent for a few moments, and then added, with some
hesitation:  "Then, too, she is quite a pagan; never saw a prayer-
book, you know."

And so it came about, chiefly through The Duke's influence, I
imagine, that I was engaged by the Old Timer to go up to his ranch
every week and teach his daughter something of the elementaries of
a lady's education.

My introduction was ominous of the many things I was to suffer of
that same young maiden before I had finished my course with her.
The Old Timer had given careful directions as to the trail that
would lead me to the canyon where he was to meet me.  Up the Swan
went the trail, winding ever downward into deeper and narrower
coulees and up to higher open sunlit slopes, till suddenly it
settled into a valley which began with great width and narrowed to
a canyon whose rocky sides were dressed out with shrubs and
trailing vines and wet with trickling rivulets from the numerous
springs that oozed and gushed from the black, glistening rocks.
This canyon was an eerie place of which ghostly tales were told
from the old Blackfeet times.  And to this day no Blackfoot will
dare to pass through this black-walled, oozy, glistening canyon
after the moon has passed the western lip.  But in the warm light
of broad day the canyon was a good enough place; cool and sweet,
and I lingered through, waiting for the Old Timer, who failed to
appear till the shadows began to darken its western black sides.

Out of the mouth of the canyon the trail climbed to a wide stretch
of prairie that swept up over soft hills to the left and down to
the bright gleaming waters of the Devil's Lake on the right.  In
the sunlight the lake lay like a gem radiant with many colors, the
far side black in the shadow of the crowding pines, then in the
middle deep, blue and purple, and nearer, many shades of emerald
that ran quite to the white, sandy beach.  Right in front stood the
ranch buildings, upon a slight rising ground and surrounded by a
sturdy palisade of upright pointed poles.  This was the castle of
the princess.  I rode up to the open gate, then turned and stood to
look down upon the marvellous lake shining and shimmering with its
many radiant colors.  Suddenly there was an awful roar, my pony
shot round upon his hind legs after his beastly cayuse manner,
deposited me sitting upon the ground and fled down the trail,
pursued by two huge dogs that brushed past me as I fell.  I was
aroused from my amazement by a peal of laughter, shrill but full of
music.  Turning, I saw my pupil, as I guessed, standing at the head
of a most beautiful pinto (spotted) pony with a heavy cattle quirt
in her hand.  I scrambled to my feet and said, somewhat angrily, I
fear:

"What are you laughing at?  Why don't you call back your dogs?
They will chase my pony beyond all reach."

She lifted her little head, shook back her masses of brown-red
hair, looked at me as if I were quite beneath contempt and said:
"No, they will kill him."

"Then," said I, for I was very angry, "I will kill them," pulling
at the revolver in my belt.

"Then," she said, and for the first time I noticed her eyes blue-
black, with gray rims, "I will kill you," and she whipped out an
ugly-looking revolver.  From her face I had no doubt that she would
not hesitate to do as she had said.  I changed my tactics, for I
was anxious about my pony, and said, with my best smile:

"Can't you call them back?  Won't they obey you?"

Her face changed in a moment.

"Is it your pony?  Do you love him very much?"

"Dearly!" I said, persuading myself of a sudden affection for the
cranky little brute.

She sprang upon her pinto and set off down the trail.  The pony
was now coursing up and down the slopes, doubling like a hare,
instinctively avoiding the canyon where he would be cornered.  He
was mad with terror at the huge brutes that were silently but with
awful and sure swiftness running him down.

The girl on the pinto whistled shrilly, and called to her dogs:
"Down, Wolf!  Back, Loo!" but, running low, with long, stretched
bodies, they heeded not, but sped on, ever gaining upon the pony
that now circled toward the pinto.  As they drew near in their
circling, the girl urged her pinto to meet them, loosening her
lariat as she went.  As the pony neared the pinto he slackened his
speed; immediately the nearer dog gathered herself in two short
jumps and sprang for the pony's throat.  But, even as she sprang,
the lariat whirled round the girl's head and fell swift and sure
about the dog's neck, and next moment she lay choking upon the
prairie.  Her mate paused, looked back, and gave up the chase.  But
dire vengeance overtook them, for, like one possessed, the girl
fell upon them with her quirt and beat them one after the other
till, in pity for the brutes, I interposed.

"They shall do as I say or I shall kill them!  I shall kill them!"
she cried, raging and stamping.

"Better shoot them," I suggested, pulling out my pistol.

Immediately she flung herself upon the one that moaned and whined
at her feet, crying:

"If you dare!  If you dare!"  Then she burst into passionate
sobbing.  "You bad Loo!  You bad, dear old Loo!  But you WERE bad--
you KNOW you were bad!" and so she went on with her arms about
Loo's neck till Loo, whining and quivering with love and delight,
threatened to go quite mad, and Wolf, standing majestically near,
broke into short howls of impatience for his turn of caressing.
They made a strange group, those three wild things, equally fierce
and passionate in hate and in love.

Suddenly the girl remembered me, and standing up she said, half
ashamed:

"They always obey ME.  They are MINE, but they kill any strange
thing that comes in through the gate.  They are allowed to."

"It is a pleasant whim."

"What?"

"I mean, isn't that dangerous to strangers?"

"Oh, no one ever comes alone, except The Duke.  And they keep off
the wolves."

"The Duke comes, does he?"

"Yes!" and her eyes lit up.  "He is my friend.  He calls me his
'princess,' and he teaches me to talk and tells me stories--oh,
wonderful stories!"

I looked in wonder at her face, so gentle, so girlish, and tried to
think back to the picture of the girl who a few moments before had
so coolly threatened to shoot me and had so furiously beaten her
dogs.

I kept her talking of The Duke as we walked back to the gate,
watching her face the while.  It was not beautiful; it was too
thin, and the mouth was too large.  But the teeth were good, and
the eyes, blue-black with gray rims, looked straight at you; true
eyes and brave, whether in love or in war.  Her hair was her glory.
Red it was, in spite of Hi's denial, but of such marvellous,
indescribable shade that in certain lights, as she rode over the
prairie, it streamed behind her like a purple banner.  A most
confusing and bewildering color, but quite in keeping with the
nature of the owner.

She gave her pinto to Joe and, standing at the door, welcomed me
with a dignity and graciousness that made me think that The Duke
was not far wrong when he named her "Princess."

The door opened upon the main or living room.  It was a long,
apartment, with low ceiling and walls of hewn logs chinked and
plastered and all beautifully whitewashed and clean.  The tables,
chairs and benches were all home-made.  On the floor were
magnificent skins of wolf, bear, musk ox and mountain goat.  The
walls were decorated with heads and horns of deer and mountain
sheep, eagles' wings and a beautiful breast of a loon, which Gwen
had shot and of which she was very proud.  At one end of the room a
huge stone fireplace stood radiant in its summer decorations of
ferns and grasses and wild-flowers.  At the other end a door opened
into another room, smaller and richly furnished with relics of
former grandeur.

Everything was clean and well kept.  Every nook, shelf and corner
was decked with flowers and ferns from the canyon.

A strange house it was, full of curious contrasts, but it fitted
this quaint child that welcomed me with such gracious courtesy.



CHAPTER X

GWEN'S FIRST PRAYERS


It was with hesitation, almost with fear, that I began with Gwen;
but even had I been able to foresee the endless series of
exasperations through which she was destined to conduct me, still
would I have undertaken my task.  For the child, with all her
wilfulness, her tempers and her pride, made me, as she did all
others, her willing slave.

Her lessons went on, brilliantly or not at all, according to her
sweet will.  She learned to read with extraordinary rapidity, for
she was eager to know more of that great world of which The Duke
had told her such thrilling tales.  Writing she abhorred.  She had
no one to write to.  Why should she cramp her fingers over these
crooked little marks?  But she mastered with hardly a struggle the
mysteries of figures, for she would have to sell her cattle, and
"dad doesn't know when they are cheating."  Her ideas of education
were purely utilitarian, and what did not appear immediately useful
she refused to trifle with.  And so all through the following long
winter she vexed my righteous soul with her wilfulness and pride.
An appeal to her father was idle.  She would wind her long, thin
arms about his neck and let her waving red hair float over him
until the old man was quite helpless to exert authority.  The Duke
could do most with her.  To please him she would struggle with her
crooked letters for an hour at a time, but even his influence and
authority had its limits.

"Must I?" she said one day, in answer to a demand of his for more
faithful study; "must I?"  And throwing up her proud little head,
and shaking back with a trick she had her streaming red hair, she
looked straight at him from her blue-gray eyes and asked the
monosyllabic question, "Why?"  And The Duke looked back at her with
his slight smile for a few moments and then said in cold, even
tones:

"I really don't know why," and turned his back on her.  Immediately
she sprang at him, shook him by the arm, and, quivering with
passion, cried:

"You are not to speak to me like that, and you are not to turn your
back that way!"

"What a little princess it is," he said admiringly, "and what a
time she will give herself some day!"  Then he added, smiling
sadly:  "Was I rude, Gwen?  Then I am sorry."  Her rage was gone,
and she looked as if she could have held him by the feet.  As it
was, too proud to show her feelings, she just looked at him with
softening eyes, and then sat down to the work she had refused.
This was after the advent of The Pilot at Swan Creek, and, as The
Duke rode home with me that night, after long musing he said with
hesitation:  "She ought to have some religion, poor child; she will
grow up a perfect little devil.  The Pilot might be of service if
you could bring him up.  Women need that sort of thing; it refines,
you know."

"Would she have him?" I asked.

"Question," he replied, doubtfully.  "You might suggest it."

Which I did, introducing somewhat clumsily, I fear, The Duke's
name.

"The Duke says he is to make me good!" she cried.  "I won't have
him, I hate him and you too!"  And for that day she disdained all
lessons, and when The Duke next appeared she greeted him with the
exclamation, "I won't have your old Pilot, and I don't want to be
good, and--and--you think he's no good yourself," at which the Duke
opened his eyes.

"How do you know?  I never said so!"

"You laughed at him to dad one day."

"Did I?" said The Duke, gravely.  "Then I hasten to assure, you
that I have changed my mind.  He is a good, brave man."

"He falls off his horse," she said, with contempt.

"I rather think he sticks on now," replied The Duke, repressing a
smile.

"Besides," she went on, "he's just a kid; Bill said so."

"Well, he might be more ancient," acknowledged The Duke, "but in
that he is steadily improving."

"Anyway," with an air of finality, "he is not to come here."

But he did come, and under her own escort, one threatening August
evening.

"I found him in the creek," she announced, with defiant
shamefacedness, marching in The Pilot half drowned.

"I think I could have crossed," he said, apologetically, "for Louis
was getting on his feet again."

"No, you wouldn't," she protested.  "You would have been down into
the canyon by now, and you ought to be thankful."

"So I am," he hastened to say, "very!  But," he added, unwilling to
give up his contention, "I have crossed the Swan before."

"Not when it was in flood."

"Yes, when it was in flood, higher than now."

"Not where the banks are rocky."

"No-o!" he hesitated.

"There, then, you WOULD have been drowned but for my lariat!" she
cried, triumphantly.

To this he doubtfully assented.

They were much alike, in high temper, in enthusiasm, in vivid
imagination, and in sensitive feeling.  When the Old Timer came in
Gwen triumphantly introduced The Pilot as having been rescued from
a watery grave by her lariat, and again they fought out the
possibilities of drowning and of escape till Gwen almost lost her
temper, and was appeased only by the most profuse expressions of
gratitude on the part of The Pilot for her timely assistance.  The
Old Timer was perplexed.  He was afraid to offend Gwen and yet
unwilling to be cordial to her guest.  The Pilot was quick to feel
this, and, soon after tea, rose to go.  Gwen's disappointment
showed in her face.

"Ask him to stay, dad," she said, in a whisper.  But the half-
hearted invitation acted like a spur, and The Pilot was determined
to set off.

"There's a bad storm coming," she said; "and besides," she added,
triumphantly "you can't cross the Swan."

This settled it, and the most earnest prayers of the Old Timer
could not have held him back.

We all went down to see him cross, Gwen leading her pinto.  The
Swan was far over its banks, and in the middle running swift and
strong.  Louis snorted, refused and finally plunged.  Bravely he
swam, till the swift-running water struck him, and over he went on
his side, throwing his rider into the water.  But The Pilot kept
his head, and, holding by the stirrups, paddled along by Louis'
side.  When they were half-way across Louis saw that he had no
chance of making the landing; so, like a sensible horse, he turned
and made for the shore.  Here, too, the banks were high, and the
pony began to grow discouraged.

"Let him float down further!" shrieked Gwen, in anxious excitement;
and, urging her pinto down the bank, she coaxed the struggling pony
down the stream till opposite a shelf of rock level with the high
water.  Then she threw her lariat, and, catching Louis about the
neck and the horn of his saddle, she held taut, till, half drowned,
he scrambled up the bank, dragging The Pilot with him.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" she said, almost tearfully.  "You see, you
couldn't get across."

The Pilot staggered to his feet, took a step toward her, gasped
out:

"I can!" and pitched headlong.  With a little cry she flew to him,
and turned him over on his back.  In a few moments he revived, sat
up, and looked about stupidly.

"Where's Louis?" he said, with his face toward the swollen stream.

"Safe enough," she answered; "but you must come in, the rain is
just going to pour."

But The Pilot seemed possessed.

"No, I'm going across," he said, rising.

Gwen was greatly distressed.

"But your poor horse," she said, cleverly changing her ground; "he
is quite tired out."

The Old Timer now joined earnestly in urging him to stay till the
storm was past.  So, with a final look at the stream, The Pilot
turned toward the house.

Of course I knew what would happen.  Before the evening was over he
had captured the household.  The moment he appeared with dry things
on he ran to the organ, that had stood for ten years closed and
silent, opened it and began to play.  As he played and sang song
after song, the Old Timer's eyes began to glisten under his shaggy
brows.  But when he dropped into the exquisite Irish melody, "Oft
in the Stilly Night," the old man drew a hard breath and groaned
out to me:

"It was her mother's song," and from that time The Pilot had him
fast.  It was easy to pass to the old hymn, "Nearer, My God, to
Thee," and then The Pilot said simply, "May we have prayers?"  He
looked at Gwen, but she gazed blankly at him and then at her
father.

"What does he say, dad?"

It was pitiful to see the old man's face grow slowly red under the
deep tan, as he said:

"You may, sir.  There's been none here for many years, and the
worse for us."  He rose slowly, went into the inner room and
returned with a Bible.

"It's her mother's," he said, in a voice deep with emotion.  "I put
it in her trunk the day I laid her out yonder under the pines."
The Pilot, without looking at him, rose and reverently took the
book in both his hands and said gently:

"It was a sad day for you, but for her--"  He paused.  "You did not
grudge it to her?"

"Not now, but then, yes!  I wanted her, we needed her."  The Old
Timer's tears were flowing.

The Pilot put his hand caressingly upon the old man's shoulder as
if he had been his father, and said in his clear, sweet voice,
"Some day you will go to her."

Upon this scene poor Gwen gazed with eyes wide open with amazement
and a kind of fear.  She had never seen her father weep since the
awful day that she could never forget, when he had knelt in dumb
agony beside the bed on which her mother lay white and still; nor
would he heed her till, climbing up, she tried to make her mother
waken and hear her cries.  Then he had caught her up in his arms,
pressing her with tears and great sobs to his heart.  To-night she
seemed to feel that something was wrong.  She went and stood by her
father, and, stroking his gray hair kindly, she said:

"What is he saying, daddy?  Is he making you cry?"  She looked at
The Pilot defiantly.

"No, no, child," said the old man, hastily, "sit here and listen."

And while the storm raved outside we three sat listening to that
ancient story of love ineffable.   And, as the words fell like
sweet music upon our ears, the old man sat with eyes that looked
far away, while the child listened with devouring eagerness.

"Is it a fairy tale, daddy?" she asked, as The Pilot paused.  "It
isn't true, is it?" and her voice had a pleading note hard for the
old man to bear.

"Yes, yes, my child," said he, brokenly.  "God forgive me!"

"Of course it's true," said The Pilot, quickly.  "I'll read it all
to you to-morrow.  It's a beautiful story!"

"No," she said, imperiously, "to-night.  Read it now!  Go on!" she
said, stamping her foot, "don't you hear me?"

The Pilot gazed in surprise at her, and then turning to the old
man, said:

"Shall I?"

The Old Timer simply nodded and the reading went on.  Those were
not my best days, and the faith of my childhood was not as it had
been; but, as The Pilot carried us through those matchless scenes
of self-forgetting love and service the rapt wonder in the child's
face as she listened, the appeal in her voice as, now to her
father, and now to me, she cried:  "Is THAT true, too?  Is it ALL
true?" made it impossible for me to hesitate in my answer.  And I
was glad to find it easy to give my firm adherence to the truth of
all that tale of wonder.  And, as more and more it grew upon The
Pilot that the story he was reading, so old to him and to all he
had ever met, was new to one in that listening group, his face
began to glow and his eyes to blaze, and he saw and showed me
things that night I had never seen before, nor have I seen them
since.  The great figure of the Gospels lived, moved before our
eyes.  We saw Him bend to touch the blind, we heard Him speak His
marvellous teaching, we felt the throbbing excitement of the crowds
that pressed against Him.

Suddenly The Pilot stopped, turned over the leaves and began again:
"And He led them out as far as to Bethany.  And He lifted up His
hands and blessed them.  And it came to pass as He blessed them He
was parted from them and a cloud received Him out of their sight."
There was silence for some minutes, then Gwen said:

"Where did He go?"

"Up into Heaven," answered The Pilot, simply.

"That's where mother is," she said to her father, who nodded in
reply.

"Does He know?" she asked.  The old man looked distressed.

"Of course He does," said The Pilot, "and she sees Him all the
time."

"Oh, daddy!" she cried, "isn't that good?"

But the old man only hid his face in his hands and groaned.

"Yes," went on The Pilot, "and He sees us, too, and hears us speak,
and knows our thoughts."

Again the look of wonder and fear came into her eyes, but she said
no word.  The experiences of the evening had made the world new to
her.  It could never be the same to her again.  It gave me a queer
feeling to see her, when we three kneeled to pray, stand helplessly
looking on, not knowing what to do, then sink beside her father,
and, winding her arms about his neck, cling to him as the words of
prayer were spoken into the ear of Him whom no man can see, but who
we believe is near to all that call upon Him.

Those were Gwen's first "prayers," and in them Gwen's part was
small, for fear and wonder filled her heart; but the day was to
come, and all too soon, when she should have to pour out her soul
with strong crying and tears.  That day came and passed, but the
story of it is not to be told here.



CHAPTER  XI

GWEN'S CHALLENGE


Gwen was undoubtedly wild and, as The Sky Pilot said, wilful and
wicked.  Even Bronco Bill and Hi Kendal would say so, without, of
course, abating one jot of their admiration for her.  For fourteen
years she had lived chiefly with wild things.  The cattle on the
range, wild as deer, the coyotes, the jack-rabbits and the timber
wolves were her mates and her instructors.  From these she learned
her wild ways.  The rolling prairie of the Foothill country was
her home.  She loved it and all things that moved upon it with
passionate love, the only kind she was capable of.  And all summer
long she spent her days riding up and down the range alone, or with
her father, or with Joe, or, best of all, with The Duke, her hero
and her friend.  So she grew up strong, wholesome and self-reliant,
fearing nothing alive and as untamed as a yearling range colt.

She was not beautiful.  The winds and sun had left her no complexion
to speak of, but the glory of her red hair, gold-red, with purple
sheen, nothing could tarnish.  Her eyes, too, deep blue with rims of
gray, that flashed with the glint of steel or shone with melting
light as of the stars, according to her mood--those Irish, warm,
deep eyes of hers were worth a man's looking at.

Of course, all spoiled her.  Ponka and her son Joe grovelled in
abjectest adoration, while her father and all who came within touch
of her simply did her will.  Even The Duke, who loved her better
than anything else, yielded lazy, admiring homage to his Little
Princess, and certainly, when she stood straight up with her proud
little gold-crowned head thrown back, flashing forth wrath or
issuing imperious commands, she looked a princess, all of her.

It was a great day and a good day for her when she fished The Sky
Pilot out of the Swan and brought him home, and the night of Gwen's
first "prayers," when she heard for the first time the story of the
Man of Nazareth, was the best of all her nights up to that time.
All through the winter, under The Pilot's guidance, she, with her
father, the Old Timer, listening near, went over and over that
story so old now to many, but ever becoming new, till a whole new
world of mysterious Powers and Presences lay open to her imagination
and became the home of great realities.  She was rich in imagination
and, when The Pilot read Bunyan's immortal poem, her mother's old
"Pilgrim's Progress," she moved and lived beside the hero of that
tale, backing him up in his fights and consumed with anxiety over
his many impending perils, till she had him safely across the river
and delivered into the charge of the shining ones.

The Pilot himself, too, was a new and wholesome experience.  He was
the first thing she had yet encountered that refused submission,
and the first human being that had failed to fall down and worship.
There was something in him that would not ALWAYS yield, and,
indeed, her pride and her imperious tempers he met with surprise
and sometimes with a pity that verged toward contempt.  With this
she was not well pleased and not infrequently she broke forth upon
him.  One of these outbursts is stamped upon my mind, not only
because of its unusual violence, but chiefly because of the events
which followed.  The original cause of her rage was some trifling
misdeed of the unfortunate Joe; but when I came upon the scene it
was The Pilot who was occupying her attention.  The expression of
surprise and pity on his face appeared to stir her up.

"How dare you look at me like that?" she cried.

"How very extraordinary that you can't keep hold of yourself
better!" he answered.

"I can!" she stamped, "and I shall do as I like!"

"It is a great pity," he said, with provoking calm, "and besides,
it is weak and silly."  His words were unfortunate.

"Weak!" she gasped, when her breath came back to her.  "Weak!"

"Yes," he said, "very weak and childish."

Then she could have cheerfully put him to a slow and cruel death.
When she had recovered a little she cried vehemently:

"I'm not weak!  I'm strong!  I'm stronger than you are!  I'm strong
as--as--a man!"

I do not suppose she meant the insinuation; at any rate The Pilot
ignored it and went on.

"You're not strong enough to keep your temper down."  And then, as
she had no reply ready, he went on, "And really, Gwen, it is not
right.  You must not go on in this way."

Again his words were unfortunate.

"MUST NOT!" she cried, adding an inch to her height.  "Who says
so?"

"God!" was the simple, short answer.

She was greatly taken back, and gave a quick glance over her
shoulder as if to see Him, who would dare to say MUST NOT to her;
but, recovering, she answered sullenly:

"I don't care!"

"Don't care for God?"  The Pilot's voice was quiet and solemn, but
something in his manner angered her, and she blazed forth again.

"I don't care for anyone, and I SHALL do as I like."

The Pilot looked at her sadly for a moment, and then said slowly:

"Some day, Gwen, you will not be able to do as you like."

I remember well the settled defiance in her tone and manner as she
took a step nearer him and answered in a voice trembling with
passion:

"Listen!  I have always done as I like, and I shall do as I like
till I die!"  And she rushed forth from the house and down toward
the canyon, her refuge from all disturbing things, and chiefly from
herself.

I could not shake off the impression her words made upon me.
"Pretty direct, that," I said to The Pilot, as we rode away.  "The
declaration may be philosophically correct, but it rings uncommonly
like a challenge to the Almighty.  Throws down the gauntlet, so to
speak."

But The Pilot only said, "Don't!  How can you?"

Within a week her challenge was accepted, and how fiercely and how
gallantly did she struggle to make it good!

It was The Duke that brought me the news, and as he told me the
story his gay, careless self-command for once was gone.  For in the
gloom of the canyon where he overtook me I could see his face
gleaming out ghastly white, and even his iron nerve could not keep
the tremor from his voice.

"I've just sent up the doctor," was his answer to my greeting.  "I
looked for you last night, couldn't find you, and so rode off to
the Fort."

"What's up?" I said, with fear in my heart, for no light thing
moved The Duke.

"Haven't you heard?  It's Gwen," he said, and the next minute or
two he gave to Jingo, who was indulging in a series of unexpected
plunges.  When Jingo was brought down, The Duke was master of
himself and told his tale with careful self-control.

Gwen, on her father's buckskin bronco, had gone with The Duke to
the big plain above the cut-bank where Joe was herding the cattle.
The day was hot and a storm was in the air.  They found Joe riding
up and down, singing to keep the cattle quiet, but having a hard
time to hold the bunch from breaking.  While The Duke was riding
around the far side of the bunch, a cry from Gwen arrested his
attention.  Joe was in trouble.  His horse, a half-broken cayuse,
had stumbled into a badger-hole and had bolted, leaving Joe to the
mercy of the cattle.  At once they began to sniff suspiciously at
this phenomenon, a man on foot, and to follow cautiously on his
track.  Joe kept his head and walked slowly out, till all at once a
young cow began to bawl and to paw the ground.  In another minute
one, and then another of the cattle began to toss their heads and
bunch and bellow till the whole herd of two hundred were after Joe.
Then Joe lost his head and ran.  Immediately the whole herd broke
into a thundering gallop with heads and tails aloft and horns
rattling like the loading of a regiment of rifles.

"Two more minutes," said The Duke, "would have done for Joe, for I
could never have reached him; but, in spite of my most frantic
warnings and signalings, right into the face of that mad,
bellowing, thundering mass of steers rode that little girl.  Nerve!
I have some myself, but I couldn't have done it.  She swung her
horse round Joe and sailed out with him, with the herd bellowing at
the tail of her bronco.  I've seen some cavalry things in my day,
but for sheer cool bravery nothing touches that."

"How did it end?  Did they run them down?" I asked, with terror at
such a result.

"No, they crowded her toward the cut-bank, and she was edging them
off and was almost past, when they came to a place where the bank
bit in, and her iron-mouthed brute wouldn't swerve, but went
pounding on, broke through, plunged; she couldn't spring free
because of Joe, and pitched headlong over the bank, while the
cattle went thundering past.  I flung myself off Jingo and slid
down somehow into the sand, thirty feet below.  Here was Joe safe
enough, but the bronco lay with a broken leg, and half under him
was Gwen.  She hardly knew she was hurt, but waved her hand to me
and cried out, 'Wasn't that a race?  I couldn't swing this hard-
headed brute.  Get me out.'  But even as she spoke the light faded
from her eyes, she stretched out her hands to me, saying faintly,
'Oh, Duke,' and lay back white and still.  We put a bullet into the
buckskin's head, and carried her home in our jackets, and there she
lies without a sound from her poor, white lips."

The Duke was badly cut up.  I had never seen him show any sign of
grief before, but as he finished the story he stood ghastly and
shaking.  He read my surprise in my face and said:

"Look here, old chap, don't think me quite a fool.  You can't know
what that little girl has done for me these years.  Her trust in
me--it is extraordinary how utterly she trusts me--somehow held me
up to my best and back from perdition.  It is the one bright spot
in my life in this blessed country.  Everyone else thinks me a
pleasant or unpleasant kind of fiend."

I protested rather faintly.

"Oh, don't worry your conscience," he answered, with a slight
return of his old smile, "a fuller knowledge would only justify the
opinion."  Then, after a pause, he added:  "But if Gwen goes, I must
pull out, I could not stand it."

As we rode up, the doctor came out.

"Well, what do you think?" asked The Duke.

"Can't say yet," replied the old doctor, gruff with long army
practice, "bad enough.  Good night."

But The Duke's hand fell upon his shoulder with a grip that must
have got to the bone, and in a husky voice he asked:

"Will she live?"

The doctor squirmed, but could not shake off that crushing grip.

"Here, you young tiger, let go!  What do you think I am made of?"
he cried, angrily.  "I didn't suppose I was coming to a bear's den,
or I should have brought a gun."

It was only by the most complete apology that The Duke could
mollify the old doctor sufficiently to get his opinion.

"No, she will not die!  Great bit of stuff!  Better she should die,
perhaps!  But can't say yet for two weeks.  Now remember," he added
sharply, looking into The Duke's woe-stricken face, "her spirits
must be kept up.  I have lied most fully and cheerfully to them
inside; you must do the same," and the doctor strode away, calling
out:

"Joe!  Here, Joe!  Where is he gone?  Joe, I say!  Extraordinary
selection Providence makes at times; we could have spared that lazy
half-breed with pleasure!  Joe!  Oh, here you are!  Where in
thunder--"  But here the doctor stopped abruptly.  The agony in the
dark face before him was too much even for the bluff doctor.
Straight and stiff Joe stood by the horse's head till the doctor
had mounted, then with a great effort he said:

"Little miss, she go dead?"

"Dead!" called out the doctor, glancing at the open window.  "Why,
bless your old copper carcass, no!  Gwen will show you yet how to
rope a steer."

Joe took a step nearer, and lowering his tone said:

"You speak me true?  Me man, Me no papoose."  The piercing black
eyes searched the doctor's face.  The doctor hesitated a moment,
and then, with an air of great candor, said cheerily:

"That's all right, Joe.  Miss Gwen will cut circles round your old
cayuse yet.  But remember," and the doctor was very impressive,
"you must make her laugh every day."

Joe folded his arms across his breast and stood like a statue till
the doctor rode away; then turning to us he grunted out:

"Him good man, eh?"

"Good man," answered The Duke, adding, "but remember, Joe, what he
told you to do.  Must make her laugh every day."

Poor Joe!  Humor was not his forte, and his attempt in this
direction in the weeks that followed would have been humorous were
they not so pathetic.  How I did my part I cannot tell.  Those
weeks are to me now like the memory of an ugly nightmare.  The
ghostly old man moving out and in of his little daughter's room
in useless, dumb agony; Ponka's woe-stricken Indian face; Joe's
extraordinary and unusual but loyal attempts at fun-making
grotesquely sad, and The Duke's unvarying and invincible
cheeriness; these furnish light and shade for the picture my
memory brings me of Gwen in those days.

For the first two weeks she was simply heroic.  She bore her pain
without a groan, submitted to the imprisonment which was harder
than pain with angelic patience.  Joe, The Duke and I carried out
our instructions with careful exactness to the letter.  She never
doubted, and we never let her doubt but that in a few weeks she
would be on the pinto's back again and after the cattle.  She made
us pass our word for this till it seemed as if she must have read
the falsehoods on our brows.

"To lie cheerfully with her eyes upon one's face calls for more
than I possess," said The Duke one day.  "The doctor should supply
us tonics.  It is an arduous task."

And she believed us absolutely, and made plans for the fall "round-
up," and for hunts and rides till one's heart grew sick.  As to the
ethical problem involved, I decline to express an opinion, but we
had no need to wait for our punishment.  Her trust in us, her eager
and confident expectation of the return of her happy, free, outdoor
life; these brought to us, who knew how vain they were, their own
adequate punishment for every false assurance we gave.  And how
bright and brave she was those first days!  How resolute to get
back to the world of air and light outside!

But she had need of all her brightness and courage and resolution
before she was done with her long fight.



CHAPTER XII

GWEN'S CANYON


Gwen's hope and bright courage, in spite of all her pain, were
wonderful to witness.  But all this cheery hope and courage and
patience snuffed out as a candle, leaving noisome darkness to
settle down in that sick-room from the day of the doctor's
consultation.

The verdict was clear and final.  The old doctor, who loved Gwen as
his own, was inclined to hope against hope, but Fawcett, the clever
young doctor from the distant town, was positive in his opinion.
The scene is clear to me now, after many years.  We three stood in
the outer room; The Duke and her father were with Gwen.  So earnest
was the discussion that none of us heard the door open just as
young Fawcett was saying in incisive tones:

"No! I can see no hope.  The child can never walk again."

There was a cry behind us.

"What!  Never walk again!  It's a lie!"  There stood the Old Timer,
white, fierce, shaking.

"Hush!" said the old doctor, pointing at the open door.  He was too
late.  Even as he spoke, there came from the inner room a wild,
unearthly cry as of some dying thing and, as we stood gazing at one
another with awe-stricken faces, we heard Gwen's voice as in quick,
sharp pain.

"Daddy! daddy! come!  What do they say?  Tell me, daddy.  It is not
true!  It is not true!  Look at me, daddy!"

She pulled up her father's haggard face from the bed.

"Oh, daddy, daddy, you know it's true.  Never walk again!"

She turned with a pitiful cry to The Duke, who stood white and
stiff with arms drawn tight across his breast on the other side of
the bed.

"Oh, Duke, did you hear them?  You told me to be brave, and I tried
not to cry when they hurt me.  But I can't be brave!  Can I, Duke?
Oh, Duke!  Never to ride again!"

She stretched out her hands to him.  But The Duke, leaning over her
and holding her hands fast in his, could only say brokenly over and
over:  "Don't, Gwen!  Don't, Gwen dear!"

But the pitiful, pleading voice went on.

"Oh, Duke!  Must I always lie here?  Must, I?  Why must I?"

"God knows," answered The Duke bitterly, under his breath, "I
don't!"

She caught at the word.

"Does He?" she cried, eagerly.  Then she paused suddenly, turned to
me and said:  "Do you remember he said some day I could not do as I
liked?"

I was puzzled.

"The Pilot," she cried, impatiently, "don't you remember?  And I
said I should do as I liked till I died."

I nodded my head and said:  "But you know you didn't mean it."

"But I did, and I do," she cried, with passionate vehemence, "and I
will do as I like!  I will not lie here!  I will ride!  I will! I
will! I will!" and she struggled up, clenched her fists, and sank
back faint and weak.  It was not a pleasant sight, but gruesome.
Her rage against that Unseen Omnipotence was so defiant and so
helpless.

Those were dreadful weeks to Gwen and to all about her.  The
constant pain could not break her proud spirit; she shed no tears;
but she fretted and chafed and grew more imperiously exacting every
day.  Ponka and Joe she drove like a slave master, and even her
father, when he could not understand her wishes, she impatiently
banished from her room.  Only The Duke could please or bring her
any cheer, and even The Duke began to feel that the day was not far
off when he, too, would fail, and the thought made him despair.
Her pain was hard to bear, but harder than the pain was her longing
for the open air and the free, flower-strewn, breeze-swept prairie.
But most pitiful of all were the days when, in her utter weariness
and uncontrollable unrest, she would pray to be taken down into the
canyon.

"Oh, it is so cool and shady," she would plead, "and the flowers up
in the rocks and the vines and things are all so lovely.  I am
always better there.  I know I should be better," till The Duke
would be distracted and would come to me and wonder what the end
would be.

One day, when the strain had been more terrible than usual, The
Duke rode down to me and said:

"Look here, this thing can't go on.  Where is The Pilot gone?  Why
doesn't he stay where he belongs?  I wish to Heaven he would get
through with his absurd rambling."

"He's gone where he was sent," I replied shortly.  "You don't set
much store by him when he does come round.  He is gone on an
exploring trip through the Dog Lake country.  He'll be back by the
end of next week."

"I say, bring him up, for Heaven's sake," said The Duke, "he may be
of some use, and anyway it will be a new face for her, poor child."
Then he added, rather penitently:  "I fear this thing is getting on
to my nerves.  She almost drove me out to-day.  Don't lay it up
against me, old chap."

It was a new thing to hear The Duke confess his need of any man,
much less penitence for a fault.  I felt my eyes growing dim, but I
said, roughly:

"You be hanged!  I'll bring The Pilot up when he comes."

It was wonderful how we had all come to confide in The Pilot during
his year of missionary work among us.  Somehow the cowboy's name of
"Sky Pilot" seemed to express better than anything else the place
he held with us.  Certain it is, that when, in their dark hours,
any of the fellows felt in need of help to strike the "upward
trail," they went to The Pilot; and so the name first given in
chaff came to be the name that expressed most truly the deep and
tender feeling these rough, big-hearted men cherished for him.
When The Pilot came home I carefully prepared him for his trial,
telling all that Gwen had suffered and striving to make him feel
how desperate was her case when even The Duke had to confess
himself beaten.  He did not seem sufficiently impressed.  Then I
pictured for him all her fierce wilfulness and her fretful humors,
her impatience with those who loved her and were wearing out their
souls and bodies for her.  "In short," I concluded, "she doesn't
care a rush for anything in heaven or earth, and will yield to
neither man nor God."

The Pilot's eyes had been kindling as I talked, but he only
answered, quietly:

"What could you expect?"

"Well, I do think she might show some signs of gratitude and some
gentleness towards those ready to die for her."

"Oh, you do!" said he, with high scorn.  "You all combine to ruin
her temper and disposition with foolish flattery and weak yielding
to her whims, right or wrong; you smile at her imperious pride and
encourage her wilfulness, and then not only wonder at the results,
but blame her, poor child, for all.  Oh, you are a fine lot, The
Duke and all of you!"

He had a most exasperating ability for putting one in the wrong,
and I could only think of the proper and sufficient reply long
after the opportunity for making it had passed.  I wondered what
The Duke would say to this doctrine.  All the following day, which
was Sunday, I could see that Gwen was on The Pilot's mind.  He was
struggling with the problem of pain.

Monday morning found us on the way to the Old Timer's ranch.  And
what a morning it was!  How beautiful our world seemed!  About us
rolled the round-topped, velvet hills, brown and yellow or faintly
green, spreading out behind us to the broad prairie, and before,
clambering up and up to meet the purple bases of the great
mountains that lay their mighty length along the horizon and thrust
up white, sunlit peaks into the blue sky.  On the hillsides and
down in the sheltering hollows we could see the bunches of cattle
and horses feeding upon the rich grasses.  High above, the sky,
cloudless and blue, arched its great kindly roof from prairie to
mountain peaks, and over all, above, below, upon prairie, hillsides
and mountains, the sun poured his floods of radiant yellow light.

As we followed the trail that wound up and into the heart of these
rounded hills and ever nearer to the purple mountains, the morning
breeze swept down to meet us, bearing a thousand scents, and
filling us with its own fresh life.  One can know the quickening
joyousness of these Foothill breezes only after he has drunk with
wide-open mouth, deep and full of them.

Through all this mingling beauty of sunlit hills and shady hollows
and purple, snow-peaked mountains, we rode with hardly a word,
every minute adding to our heart-filling delight, but ever with the
thought of the little room where, shut in from all this outside
glory, lay Gwen, heart-sore with fretting and longing.  This must
have been in The Pilot's mind, for he suddenly held up his horse
and burst out:

"Poor Gwen, how she loves all this!--it is her very life.  How can
she help fretting the heart out of her?  To see this no more!"  He
flung himself off his bronco and said, as if thinking aloud:  "It is
too awful!  Oh, it is cruel!  I don't wonder at her!  God help me,
what can I say to her?"

He threw himself down upon the grass and turned over on his face.
After a few minutes he appealed to me, and his face was sorely
troubled.

"How can one go to her?  It seems to me sheerest mockery to speak
of patience and submission to a wild young thing from whom all this
is suddenly snatched forever--and this was very life to her, too,
remember."

Then he sprang up and we rode hard for an hour, till we came to the
mouth of the canyon.  Here the trail grew difficult and we came to
a walk.  As we went down into the cool depths the spirit of the
canyon came to meet us and took The Pilot in its grip.  He rode in
front, feasting his eyes on all the wonders in that storehouse of
beauty.  Trees of many kinds deepened the shadows of the canyon.
Over us waved the big elms that grew up here and there out of the
bottom, and around their feet clustered low cedars and hemlocks and
balsams, while the sturdy, rugged oaks and delicate, trembling
poplars clung to the rocky sides and clambered up and out to the
canyon's sunny lips.  Back of all, the great black rocks, decked
with mossy bits and clinging things, glistened cool and moist
between the parting trees.  From many an oozy nook the dainty
clematis and columbine shook out their bells, and, lower down, from
beds of many-colored moss the late wind-flower and maiden-hair and
tiny violet lifted up brave, sweet faces.  And through the canyon
the Little Swan sang its song to rocks and flowers and overhanging
trees, a song of many tones, deep-booming where it took its first
sheer plunge, gay-chattering where it threw itself down the ragged
rocks, and soft-murmuring where it lingered about the roots of the
loving, listening elms.  A cool, sweet, soothing place it was, with
all its shades and sounds and silences, and, lest it should be sad
to any, the sharp, quick sunbeams danced and laughed down through
all its leaves upon mosses, flowers and rocks.  No wonder that The
Pilot, drawing a deep breath as he touched the prairie sod again,
said:

"That does me good.  It is better at times even than the sunny
hills.  This was Gwen's best spot."

I saw that the canyon had done its work with him.  His face was
strong and calm as the hills on a summer morning, and with this
face he looked in upon Gwen.  It was one of her bad days and one of
her bad moods, but like a summer breeze he burst into the little
room.

"Oh, Gwen!" he cried, without a word of greeting, much less of
Commiseration, "we have had such a ride!"  And he spread out the
sunlit, round-topped hills before her, till I could feel their very
breezes in my face.  This The Duke had never dared to do, fearing
to grieve her with pictures of what she should look upon no more.
But, as The Pilot talked, before she knew, Gwen was out again upon
her beloved hills, breathing their fresh, sunny air, filling her
heart with their multitudinous delights, till her eyes grew bright
and the lines of fretting smoothed out of her face and she forgot
her pain.  Then, before she could remember, he had her down into
the canyon, feasting her heart with its airs and sights and sounds.
The black, glistening rocks, tricked out with moss and trailing
vines, the great elms and low green cedars, the oaks and shivering
poplars, the clematis and columbine hanging from the rocky nooks,
and the violets and maiden-hair deep bedded in their mosses.  All
this and far more he showed her with a touch so light as not to
shake the morning dew from bell or leaf or frond, and with a voice
so soft and full of music as to fill our hearts with the canyon's
mingling sounds, and, as I looked upon her face, I said to myself:
"Dear old Pilot! for this I shall always love you well."  As poor
Gwen listened, the rapture of it drew the big tears down her
cheeks--alas! no longer brown, but white, and for that day at least
the dull, dead weariness was lifted from her heart.



CHAPTER XIII

THE CANYON FLOWERS


The Pilot's first visit to Gwen had been a triumph.  But none knew
better than he that the fight was still to come, for deep in Gwen's
heart were thoughts whose pain made her forget all other.

"Was it God let me fall?" she asked abruptly one day, and The Pilot
knew the fight was on; but he only answered, looking fearlessly
into her eyes:

"Yes, Gwen dear."

"Why did He let me fall?" and her voice was very deliberate.

"I don't know, Gwen dear," said The Pilot steadily.  "He knows."

"And does He know I shall never ride again?  Does He know how long
the days are, and the nights when I can't sleep?  Does He know?"

"Yes, Gwen dear," said The Pilot, and the tears were standing in
his eyes, though his voice was still steady enough.

"Are you sure He knows?"  The voice was painfully intense.

"Listen to me, Gwen," began The Pilot, in great distress, but she
cut him short.

"Are you quite sure He knows?  Answer me!" she cried, with her old
imperiousness.

"Yes, Gwen, He knows all about you."

"Then what do you think of Him, just because He's big and strong,
treating a little girl that way?"  Then she added, viciously:  "I
hate Him!  I don't care!  I hate Him!"

But The Pilot did not wince.  I wondered how he would solve that
problem that was puzzling, not only Gwen, but her father and The
Duke, and all of us--the WHY of human pain.

"Gwen," said The Pilot, as if changing the subject, "did it hurt to
put on the plaster jacket?"

"You just bet!" said Gwen, lapsing in her English, as The Duke was
not present; "it was worse than anything--awful!  They had to
straighten me out, you know," and she shuddered at the memory of
that pain.

"What a pity your father or The Duke was not here!" said The Pilot,
earnestly.

"Why, they were both here!"

"What a cruel shame!" burst out The Pilot.  "Don't they care for
you any more?"

"Of course they do," said Gwen, indignantly.

"Why didn't they stop the doctors from hurting you so cruelly?"

"Why, they let the doctors.  It is going to help me to sit up and
perhaps to walk about a little," answered Gwen, with blue-gray eyes
open wide.

"Oh," said The Pilot, "it was very mean to stand by and see you
hurt like that."

"Why, you silly," replied Owen, impatiently, "they want my back to
get straight and strong."

"Oh, then they didn't do it just for fun or for nothing?" said The
Pilot, innocently.

Gwen gazed at him in amazed and speechless wrath, and he went on:

"I mean they love you though they let you be hurt; or rather they
let the doctors hurt you BECAUSE they loved you and wanted to make
you better."

Gwen kept her eyes fixed with curious earnestness upon his face
till the light began to dawn.

"Do you mean," she began slowly, "that though God let me fall, He
loves me?"

The Pilot nodded; he could not trust his voice.

"I wonder if that can be true," she said, as if to herself; and
soon we said good-by and came away--The Pilot, limp and voiceless,
but I triumphant, for I began to see a little light for Gwen.

But the fight was by no means over; indeed, it was hardly well
begun.  For when the autumn came, with its misty, purple days, most
glorious of all days in the cattle country, the old restlessness
came back and the fierce refusal of her lot.  Then came the day of
the round-up.  Why should she have to stay while all went after the
cattle?  The Duke would have remained, but she impatiently sent him
away.  She was weary and heart-sick, and, worst of all, she began
to feel that most terrible of burdens, the burden of her life to
others.  I was much relieved when The Pilot came in fresh and
bright, waving a bunch of wild-flowers in his hand.

"I thought they were all gone," he cried.  "Where do you think I
found them?  Right down by the big elm root," and, though he saw by
the settled gloom of her face that the storm was coming, he went
bravely on picturing the canyon in all the splendor of its autumn
dress.  But the spell would not work.  Her heart was out on the
sloping hills, where the cattle were bunching and crowding with
tossing heads and rattling horns, and it was in a voice very bitter
and impatient that she cried:

"Oh, I am sick of all this!  I want to ride!  I want to see the
cattle and the men and--and--and all the things outside."  The
Pilot was cowboy enough to know the longing that tugged at her
heart for one wild race after the calves or steers, but he could
only say:

"Wait, Gwen.  Try to be patient."

"I am patient; at least I have been patient for two whole months,
and it's no use, and I don't believe God cares one bit!"

"Yes, He does, Gwen, more than any of us," replied The Pilot,
earnestly.

"No, He does not care," she answered, with angry emphasis, and The
Pilot made no reply.

"Perhaps," she went on, hesitatingly, "He's angry because I said I
didn't care for Him, you remember?  That was very wicked.  But
don't you think I'm punished nearly enough now?  You made me very
angry, and I didn't really mean it."

Poor Gwen!  God had grown to be very real to her during these weeks
of pain, and very terrible.  The Pilot looked down a moment into
the blue-gray eyes, grown so big and so pitiful, and hurriedly
dropping on his knees beside the bed he said, in a very unsteady
voice:

"Oh, Gwen, Gwen, He's not like that.  Don't you remember how Jesus
was with the poor sick people?  That's what He's like."

"Could Jesus make me well?"

"Yes, Gwen."

"Then why doesn't He?" she asked; and there was no impatience now,
but only trembling anxiety as she went on in a timid voice:  "I
asked Him to, over and over, and said I would wait two months, and
now it's more than three.  Are you quite sure He hears now?"  She
raised herself on her elbow and gazed searchingly into The Pilot's
face.  I was glad it was not into mine.  As she uttered the words,
"Are you quite sure?" one felt that things were in the balance.  I
could not help looking at The Pilot with intense anxiety.  What
would he answer?  The Pilot gazed out of the window upon the hills
for a few moments.  How long the silence seemed!  Then, turning,
looked into the eyes that searched his so steadily and answered
simply:

"Yes, Gwen, I am quite sure!"  Then, with quick inspiration, he got
her mother's Bible and said:  "Now, Gwen, try to see it as I read."
But, before he read, with the true artist's instinct he created the
proper atmosphere.  By a few vivid words he made us feel the
pathetic loneliness of the Man of Sorrows in His last sad days.
Then he read that masterpiece of all tragic picturing, the story of
Gethsemane.  And as he read we saw it all.  The garden and the
trees and the sorrow-stricken Man alone with His mysterious agony.
We heard the prayer so pathetically submissive and then, for
answer, the rabble and the traitor.

Gwen was far too quick to need explanation, and The Pilot only
said, "You see, Gwen, God gave nothing but the best--to His own Son
only the best."

"The best?  They took Him away, didn't they?"  She knew the story
well.

"Yes, but listen."  He turned the leaves rapidly and read:  "'We see
Jesus for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor.'
That is how He got His Kingdom."

Gwen listened silent but unconvinced, and then said slowly:

"But how can this be best for me?  I am no use to anyone.  It can't
be best to just lie here and make them all wait on me, and--and--I
did want to help daddy--and--oh--I know they will get tired of me!
They are getting tired already--I--I--can't help being hateful."

She was by this time sobbing as I had never heard her before--deep,
passionate sobs.  Then again the Pilot had an inspiration.

"Now, Gwen," he said severely, "you know we're not as mean as that,
and that you are just talking nonsense, every word.  Now I'm going
to smooth out your red hair and tell you a story."

"It's NOT red," she cried, between her sobs.  This was her sore
point.

"It is red, as red can be; a beautiful, shining purple RED," said
The Pilot emphatically, beginning to brush.

"Purple!" cried Gwen, scornfully.

"Yes, I've seen it in the sun, purple.  Haven't you?" said The
Pilot, appealing to me.  "And my story is about the canyon, our
canyon, your canyon, down there."

"Is it true?" asked Gwen, already soothed by the cool, quick-moving
hands.

"True?  It's as true as--as--" he glanced round the room, "as the
Pilgrim's Progress."  This was satisfactory, and the story went on.

"At first there were no canyons, but only the broad, open prairie.
One day the Master of the Prairie, walking out over his great
lawns, where were only grasses, asked the Prairie, 'Where are your
flowers?' and the Prairie said, 'Master, I have no seeds.'  Then he
spoke to the birds, and they carried seeds of every kind of flower
and strewed them far and wide, and soon the Prairie bloomed with
crocuses and roses and buffalo beans and the yellow crowfoot and
the wild sunflowers and the red lilies all the summer long.  Then
the Master came and was well pleased; but he missed the flowers he
loved best of all, and he said to the Prairie:  'Where are the
clematis and the columbine, the sweet violets and wind flowers, and
all the ferns and flowering shrubs?'  And again he spoke to the
birds, and again they carried all the seeds and strewed them far
and wide.  But, again, when the Master came, he could not find the
flowers he loved best of all, and he said:  'Where are those, my
sweetest flowers?' and the Prairie cried sorrowfully:  'Oh, Master,
I cannot keep the flowers, for the winds sweep fiercely, and the
sun beats upon my breast, and they wither up and fly away.'  Then
the Master spoke to the Lightning, and with one swift blow the
Lightning cleft the Prairie to the heart.  And the Prairie rocked
and groaned in agony, and for many a day moaned bitterly over its
black, jagged, gaping wound.  But the Little Swan poured its waters
through the cleft, and carried down deep black mould, and once more
the birds carried seeds and strewed them in the canyon.  And after
a long time the rough rocks were decked out with soft mosses and
trailing vines, and all the nooks were hung with clematis and
columbine, and great elms lifted their huge tops high up into the
sunlight, and down about their feet clustered the low cedars and
balsams, and everywhere the violets and wind-flower and maiden-hair
grew and bloomed, till the canyon became the Masters place for rest
and peace and joy."

The quaint tale was ended, and Gwen lay quiet for some moments,
then said gently:

"Yes!  The canyon flowers are much the best.  Tell me what it
means."

Then The Pilot read to her:  "The fruits--I'll read 'flowers'--
of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, self-control, and some of these grow
only in the canyon."

"Which are the canyon flowers?" asked Gwen softly, and The Pilot
answered:

"Gentleness, meekness, self-control; but though the others, love,
joy, peace, bloom in the open, yet never with so rich a bloom and
so sweet a perfume as in the canyon."

For a long time Gwen lay quite still, and then said wistfully,
while her lip trembled:

"There are no flowers in my canyon, but only ragged rocks."

"Some day they will bloom, Gwen dear; He will find them, and we,
too, shall see them."

Then he said good-by and took me away.  He had done his work that
day.

We rode through the big gate, down the sloping hill, past the
smiling, twinkling little lake, and down again out of the broad
sunshine into the shadows and soft lights of the canyon.  As we
followed the trail that wound among the elms and cedars, the very
air was full of gentle stillness; and as we moved we seemed to feel
the touch of loving hands that lingered while they left us, and
every flower and tree and vine and shrub and the soft mosses and
the deep-bedded ferns whispered, as we passed, of love and peace
and joy.

To The Duke it was all a wonder, for as the days shortened outside
they brightened inside; and every day, and more and more Gwen's
room became the brightest spot in all the house, and when he asked
The Pilot:

"What did you do to the Little Princess, and what's all this about
the canyon and its flowers?"  The Pilot said, looking wistfully
into The Duke's eyes:

"The fruits of the Spirit are love, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control, and some of
these are found only in the canyon," and The Duke, standing up
straight, handsome and strong, looked back at The Pilot and said,
putting out his hand:

"Do you know, I believe you're right."

"Yes, I'm quite sure," answered The Pilot, simply.  Then, holding
The Duke's hand as long as one man dare hold another's, he added:
"When you come to your canyon, remember."

"When I come!" said The Duke, and a quick spasm of pain passed over
his handsome face--"God help me, it's not too far away now."  Then
he smiled again his old, sweet smile, and said:

"Yes, you are all right, for, of all flowers I have seen, none are
fairer or sweeter than those that are waving in Gwen's Canyon."



CHAPTER XIV

BILL'S BLUFF


The Pilot had set his heart upon the building of a church in the
Swan Creek district, partly because he was human and wished to set
a mark of remembrance upon the country, but more because he held
the sensible opinion, that a congregation, as a man, must have a
home if it is to stay.

All through the summer he kept setting this as an object at once
desirable and possible to achieve.  But few were found to agree
with him.

Little Mrs. Muir was of the few, and she was not to be despised,
but her influence was neutralized by the solid immobility of her
husband.  He had never done anything sudden in his life.  Every
resolve was the result of a long process of mind, and every act of
importance had to be previewed from all possible points.  An honest
man, strongly religious, and a great admirer of The Pilot, but
slow-moving as a glacier, although with plenty of fire in him deep
down.

"He's soond at the hairt, ma man Robbie," his wife said to The
Pilot, who was fuming and fretting at the blocking of his plans,
"but he's terrible deleeberate.  Bide ye a bit, laddie.  He'll come
tae."

"But meantime the summer's going and nothing will be done," was The
Pilot's distressed and impatient answer.

So a meeting was called to discuss the question of building a
church, with the result that the five men and three women present
decided that for the present nothing could be done.  This was
really Robbie's opinion, though he refused to do or say anything
but grunt, as The Pilot said to me afterwards, in a rage.  It is
true, Williams, the storekeeper just come from "across the line,"
did all the talking, but no one paid much attention to his fluent
fatuities except as they represented the unexpressed mind of the
dour, exasperating little Scotchman, who sat silent but for an "ay"
now and then, so expressive and conclusive that everyone knew what
he meant, and that discussion was at an end.  The schoolhouse was
quite sufficient for the present; the people were too few and too
poor and they were getting on well under the leadership of their
present minister.  These were the arguments which Robbie's "ay"
stamped as quite unanswerable.

It was a sore blow to The Pilot, who had set his heart upon a
church, and neither Mrs; Muir's "hoots" at her husband's slowness
nor her promises that she "wad mak him hear it" could bring comfort
or relieve his gloom.

In this state of mind he rode up with me to pay our weekly visit to
the little girl shut up in her lonely house among the hills.

It had become The Pilot's custom during these weeks to turn for
cheer to that little room, and seldom was he disappointed.  She was
so bright, so brave, so cheery, and so full of fun, that gloom
faded from her presence as mist before the sun, and impatience was
shamed into content.

Gwen's bright face--it was almost always bright now--and her bright
welcome did something for The Pilot, but the feeling of failure was
upon him, and failure to his enthusiastic nature was worse than
pain.  Not that he confessed either to failure or gloom; he was far
too true a man for that; but Gwen felt his depression in spite of
all his brave attempts at brightness, and insisted that he was ill,
appealing to me.

"Oh, it's only his church," I said, proceeding to give her an
account of Robbie Muir's silent, solid inertness, and how he had
blocked The Pilot's scheme.

"What a shame!" cried Gwen, indignantly.  "What a bad man he must
be!"

The Pilot smiled.  "No, indeed," he answered; "why, he's the best
man in the place, but I wish he would say or do something.  If he
would only get mad and swear I think I should feel happier."

Gwen looked quite mystified.

"You see, he sits there in solemn silence looking so tremendously
wise that most men feel foolish if they speak, while as for doing
anything the idea appears preposterous, in the face of his
immovableness."

"I can't bear him!" cried Gwen.  "I should like to stick pins in
him."

"I wish some one would," answered The Pilot.  "It would make him
seem more human if he could be made to jump."

"Try again," said Gwen, "and get someone to make him jump."

"It would be easier to build the church," said The Pilot, gloomily.

"I could make him jump," said Gwen, viciously, "and I WILL," she
added, after a pause.

"You!" answered The Pilot, opening his eyes.  "How?"

"I'll find some way," she replied, resolutely.

And so she did, for when the next meeting was called to consult as
to the building of a church, the congregation, chiefly of farmers
and their wives, with Williams, the storekeeper, were greatly
surprised to see Bronco Bill, Hi, and half a dozen ranchers and
cowboys walk in at intervals and solemnly seat themselves.  Robbie
looked at them with surprise and a little suspicion.  In church
matters he had no dealings with the Samaritans from the hills, and
while, in their unregenerate condition, they might be regarded as
suitable objects of missionary effort, as to their having any part
in the direction, much less control, of the church policy--from
such a notion Robbie was delivered by his loyal adherence to the
scriptural injunction that he should not cast pearls before swine.

The Pilot, though surprised to see Bill and the cattle men, was
none the less delighted, and faced the meeting with more confidence.
He stated the question for discussion:  Should a church building be
erected this summer in Swan Creek? and he put his case well.  He
showed the need of a church for the sake of the congregation, for
the sake of the men in the district, the families growing up, the
incoming settlers, and for the sake of the country and its future.
He called upon all who loved their church and their country to unite
in this effort.  It was an enthusiastic appeal and all the women and
some of the men were at once upon his side.

Then followed dead, solemn silence.  Robbie was content to wait
till the effect of the speech should be dissipated in smaller talk.
Then he gravely said:

"The kirk wad be a gran' thing, nae doot, an' they wad a'
dootless"--with a suspicious glance toward Bill--"rejoice in its
erection.  But we maun be cautious, an' I wad like to enquire hoo
much money a kirk cud be built for, and whaur the money wad come
frae?"

The Pilot was ready with his answer.  The cost would be $1,200.
The Church Building Fund would contribute $200, the people could
give $300 in labor, and the remaining $700 he thought could be
raised in the district in two years' time.

"Ay," said Robbie, and the tone and manner were sufficient to
drench any enthusiasm with the chilliest of water.  So much was
this the case that the chairman, Williams, seemed quite justified
in saying:

"It is quite evident that the opinion of the meeting is adverse to
any attempt to load the community with a debt of one thousand
dollars," and he proceeded with a very complete statement of the
many and various objections to any attempt at building a church
this year.  The people were very few, they were dispersed over a
large area, they were not interested sufficiently, they were all
spending money and making little in return; he supposed, therefore,
that the meeting might adjourn.

Robbie sat silent and expressionless in spite of his little wife's
anxious whispers and nudges.  The Pilot looked the picture of woe,
and was on the point of bursting forth, when the meeting was
startled by Bill.

"Say, boys! they hain't much stuck on their shop, heh?"  The low,
drawling voice was perfectly distinct and arresting.

"Hain't got no use for it, seemingly," was the answer from the dark
corner.

"Old Scotchie takes his religion out in prayin', I guess," drawled
in Bill, "but wants to sponge for his plant."

This reference to Robbie's proposal to use the school moved the
youngsters to tittering and made the little Scotchman squirm, for
he prided himself upon his independence.

"There ain't $700 in the hull blanked outfit."  This was a
stranger's voice, and again Robbie squirmed, for he rather prided
himself also on his ability to pay his way.

"No good!" said another emphatic voice.  "A blanked lot o' psalm-
singing snipes."

"Order, order!" cried the chairman.

"Old Windbag there don't see any show for swipin' the collection,
with Scotchie round," said Hi, with a following ripple of quiet
laughter, for Williams' reputation was none too secure.

Robbie was in a most uncomfortable state of mind.  So unusually
stirred was he that for the first time in his history he made a
motion.

"I move we adjourn, Mr. Chairman," he said, in a voice which
actually vibrated with emotion.

"Different here! eh, boys?" drawled Bill.

"You bet," said Hi, in huge delight.  "The meetin' ain't out yit."

"Ye can bide till mor-r-nin'," said Robbie, angrily.  "A'm gaen
hame," beginning to put on his coat.

"Seems as if he orter give the password," drawled Bill.

"Right you are, pardner," said Hi, springing to the door and
waiting in delighted expectation for his friend's lead.

Robbie looked at the door, then at his wife, hesitated a moment, I
have no doubt wishing her home.  Then Bill stood up and began to
speak.

"Mr. Chairman, I hain't been called on for any remarks--"

"Go on!" yelled his friends from the dark corner.  "Hear! hear!"

"An' I didn't feel as if this war hardly my game, though The Pilot
ain't mean about invitin' a feller on Sunday afternoons.  But them
as runs the shop don't seem to want us fellers round too much."

Robbie was gazing keenly at Bill, and here shook his head,
muttering angrily:  "Hoots, nonsense! ye're welcome eneuch."

"But," went on Bill, slowly, "I guess I've been on the wrong track.
I've been a-cherishin' the opinion" ["Hear! hear!" yelled his
admirers], "cherishin' the opinion," repeated Bill, "that these
fellers," pointing to Robbie, "was stuck on religion, which I ain't
much myself, and reely consarned about the blocking ov the devil,
which The Pilot says can't be did without a regular Gospel factory.
O' course, it tain't any biznis ov mine, but if us fellers was
reely only sot on anything condoocin'," ["Hear! hear!" yelled Hi,
in ecstasy], "condoocin'," repeated Bill slowly and with relish,
"to the good ov the Order" (Bill was a brotherhood man), "I b'lieve
I know whar five hundred dollars mebbe cud per'aps be got."

"You bet your sox," yelled the strange voice, in chorus with other
shouts of approval.

"O' course, I ain't no bettin' man," went on Bill, insinuatingly,
"as a regular thing, but I'd gamble a few jist here on this pint;
if the boys was stuck on anythin' costin' about seven hundred
dollars, it seems to me likely they'd git it in about two days,
per'aps."

Here Robbie grunted out an "ay" of such fulness of contemptuous
unbelief that Bill paused, and, looking over Robbie's head, he
drawled out, even more slowly and mildly:

"I ain't much given to bettin', as I remarked before, but, if a man
shakes money at me on that proposition, I'd accommodate him to a
limited extent."  ["Hear! hear! Bully boy!" yelled Hi again, from
the door.]  "Not bein' too bold, I cherish the opinion" [again
yells of approval from the corner], "that even for this here Gospel
plant, seein' The Pilot's rather sot onto it, I b'lieve the boys
could find five hundred dollars inside ov a month, if perhaps these
fellers cud wiggle the rest out ov their pants."

Then Robbie was in great wrath and, stung by the taunting, drawling
voice beyond all self-command, he broke out suddenly:

"Ye'll no can mak that guid, I doot."

"D'ye mean I ain't prepared to back it up?"

"Ay," said Robbie, grimly.

'Tain't likely I'll be called on; I guess $500 is safe enough,"
drawled Bill, cunningly drawing him on.  Then Robbie bit.

"Oo ay!" said he, in a voice of quiet contempt, "the twa hunner
wull be here and 'twull wait ye long eneuch, I'se warrant ye."

Then Bill nailed him.

"I hain't got my card case on my person," he said, with a slight
grin.

"Left it on the pianner," suggested Hi, who was in a state of great
hilarity at Bill's success in drawing the Scottie.

"But," Bill proceeded, recovering himself, and with increasing
suavity, "if some gentleman would mark down the date of the almanac
I cherish the opinion" [cheers from the corner] "that in one month
from to-day there will be five hundred dollars lookin' round for
two hundred on that there desk mebbe, or p'raps you would incline
to two fifty," he drawled, in his most winning tone to Robbie, who
was growing more impatient every moment.

"Nae matter tae me.  Ye're haverin' like a daft loon, ony way."

"You will make a memento of this slight transaction, boys, and
per'aps the schoolmaster will write it down," said Bill.

It was all carefully taken down, and amid much enthusiastic
confusion the ranchers and their gang carried Bill off to Old
Latour's to "licker up," while Robbie, in deep wrath but in dour
silence, went off through the dark with his little wife following
some paces behind him.  His chief grievance, however, was against
the chairman for "allooin' sic a disorderly pack o' loons tae
disturb respectable fowk," for he could not hide the fact that he
had been made to break through his accustomed defence line of
immovable silence.  I suggested, conversing with him next day upon
the matter, that Bill was probably only chaffing.

"Ay," said Robbie, in great disgust, "the daft eejut, he wad mak a
fule o' onything or onybuddie."

That was the sorest point with poor Robbie.  Bill had not only cast
doubts upon his religious sincerity, which the little man could not
endure, but he had also held him up to the ridicule of the
community, which was painful to his pride.  But when he understood,
some days later, that Bill was taking steps to back up his offer
and had been heard to declare that "he'd make them pious ducks take
water if he had to put up a year's pay," Robbie went quietly to
work to make good his part of the bargain.  For his Scotch pride
would not suffer him to refuse a challenge from such a quarter.



CHAPTER XV

BILL'S PARTNER


The next day everyone was talking of Bill's bluffing the church
people, and there was much quiet chuckling over the discomfiture of
Robbie Muir and his party.

The Pilot was equally distressed and bewildered, for Bill's
conduct, so very unusual, had only one explanation--the usual one
for any folly in that country.

"I wish he had waited till after the meeting to go to Latour's.  He
spoiled the last chance I had.  There's no use now," he said,
sadly.

"But he may do something," I suggested.

"Oh, fiddle!" said The Pilot, contemptuously.  "He was only giving
Muir 'a song and dance,' as he would say.  The whole thing is off."

But when I told Gwen the story of the night's proceedings, she went
into raptures over Bill's grave speech and his success in drawing
the canny Scotchman.

"Oh, lovely! dear old Bill and his 'cherished opinion.'  Isn't he
just lovely?  Now he'll do something."

"Who, Bill?"

"No, that stupid Scottie."  This was her name for the immovable
Robbie.

"Not he, I'm afraid.  Of course Bill was just bluffing him.  But it
was good sport."

"Oh, lovely!  I knew he'd do something."

"Who?  Scottie?" I asked, for her pronouns were perplexing.

"No!" she cried, "Bill!  He promised he would, you know," she
added.

"So you were at the bottom of it?" I said, amazed.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she kept crying, shrieking with laughter over
Bill's cherishing opinions and desires.  "I shall be ill.  Dear old
Bill.  He said he'd 'try to get a move on to him.'"

Before I left that day, Bill himself came to the Old Timer's ranch,
inquiring in a casual way "if the 'boss' was in."

"Oh, Bill!" called out Gwen, "come in here at once; I want you."

After some delay and some shuffling with hat and spurs, Bill
lounged in and set his lank form upon the extreme end of a bench at
the door, trying to look unconcerned as he remarked:  "Gittin' cold.
Shouldn't wonder if we'd have a little snow."

"Oh, come here," cried Gwen, impatiently, holding out her hand.
"Come here and shake hands."

Bill hesitated, spat out into the other room his quid of tobacco,
and swayed awkwardly across the room toward the bed, and, taking
Gwen's hand, he shook it up and down, and hurriedly said:

"Fine day, ma'am; hope I see you quite well."

"No; you don't," cried Gwen, laughing immoderately, but keeping
hold of Bill's hand, to his great confusion.  "I'm not well a bit,
but I'm a great deal better since hearing of your meeting, Bill."

To this Bill made no reply, being entirely engrossed in getting his
hard, bony, brown hand out of the grasp of the white, clinging
fingers.

"Oh, Bill," went on Gwen, "it was delightful!  How did you do it?"

But Bill, who had by this time got back to his seat at the door,
pretended ignorance of any achievement calling for remark.  He
"hadn't done nothin' more out ov the way than usual."

"Oh, don't talk nonsense!" cried Gwen, impatiently.  "Tell me how
you got Scottie to lay you two hundred and fifty dollars."

"Oh, that!" said Bill, in great surprise; "that ain't nuthin' much.
Scottie riz slick enough."

"But how did you get him?" persisted Gwen.  "Tell me, Bill," she
added, in her most coaxing voice.

"Well," said Bill, "it was easy as rollin' off a log.  I made the
remark as how the boys ginerally put up for what they wanted
without no fuss, and that if they was sot on havin' a Gospel shack
I cherished the opinion"--here Gwen went off into a smothered
shriek, which made Bill pause and look at her in alarm.

"Go on," she gasped.

"I cherished the opinion," drawled on Bill, while Gwen stuck her
handkerchief into her mouth, "that mebbe they'd put up for it the
seven hundred dollars, and, even as it was, seein' as The Pilot
appeared to be sot on to it, if them fellers would find two hundred
and fifty I cher--" another shriek from Gwen cut him suddenly
short.

"It's the rheumaticks, mebbe," said Bill, anxiously.  "Terrible bad
weather for 'em.  I get 'em myself."

"No, no," said Gwen, wiping away her tears and subduing her
laughter.  "Go on, Bill."

"There ain't no more," said Bill.  "He bit, and the master here put
it down."

"Yes, it's here right enough," I said, "but I don't suppose you
mean to follow it up, do you?"

"You don't, eh?  Well, I am not responsible for your supposin', but
them that is familiar with Bronco Bill generally expects him to
back up his undertakin's."

"But how in the world can you get five hundred dollars from the
cowboys for a church?"

"I hain't done the arithmetic yet, but it's safe enough.  You see,
it ain't the church altogether, it's the reputation of the boys."

"I'll help, Bill," said Gwen.

Bill nodded his head slowly and said:  "Proud to have you," trying
hard to look enthusiastic.

"You don't think I can," said Gwen.  Bill protested against such an
imputation.  "But I can.  I'll get daddy and The Duke, too."

"Good line!" said Bill, slapping his knee.

"And I'll give all my money, too, but it isn't very much," she
added, sadly.

"Much!" said Bill, "if the rest of the fellows play up to that lead
there won't be any trouble about that five hundred."

Gwen was silent for some time, then said with an air of resolve:

"I'll give my pinto!"

"Nonsense!" I exclaimed, while Bill declared "there warn't no
call."

"Yes.  I'll give the Pinto!" said Gwen, decidedly.  "I'll not need
him any more," her lips quivered, and Bill coughed and spat into
the next room, "and besides, I want to give something I like.  And
Bill will sell him for me!"

"Well," said Bill, slowly, "now come to think, it'll be purty hard
to sell that there pinto."  Gwen began to exclaim indignantly, and
Bill hurried on to say, "Not but what he ain't a good leetle horse
for his weight, good leetle horse, but for cattle--"

"Why, Bill, there isn't a better cattle horse anywhere!"

"Yes, that's so," assented Bill.  "That's so, if you've got the
rider, but put one of them rangers on to him and it wouldn't be no
fair show."  Bill was growing more convinced every moment that the
pinto wouldn't sell to any advantage.  "Ye see," he explained
carefully and cunningly, "he ain't a horse you could yank round and
slam into a bunch of steers regardless."

Gwen shuddered.  "Oh, I wouldn't think of selling him to any of
those cowboys."  Bill crossed his legs and hitched round
uncomfortably on his bench.  "I mean one of those rough fellows
that don't know how to treat a horse."  Bill nodded, looking
relieved.  "I thought that some one like you, Bill, who knew how to
handle a horse--"

Gwen paused, and then added:  "I'll ask The Duke."

"No call for that," said Bill, hastily, "not but what The Dook
ain't all right as a jedge of a horse, but The Dook ain't got the
connection, it ain't his line."  Bill hesitated.  "But, if you are
real sot on to sellin' that pinto, come to think I guess I could
find a sale for him, though, of course, I think perhaps the figger
won't be high."

And so it was arranged that the pinto should be sold and that Bill
should have the selling of it.

It was characteristic of Gwen that she would not take farewell of
the pony on whose back she had spent so many hours of freedom and
delight.  When once she gave him up she refused to allow her heart
to cling to him any more.

It was characteristic, too, of Bill that he led off the pinto after
night had fallen, so that "his pardner" might be saved the pain of
the parting.

"This here's rather a new game for me, but when my pardner," here
he jerked his head towards Gwen's window, "calls for trumps, I'm
blanked if I don't throw my highest, if it costs a leg."



CHAPTER XVI

BILL'S FINANCING


Bill's method of conducting the sale of the pinto was eminently
successful as a financial operation, but there are those in the
Swan Creek country who have never been able to fathom the mystery
attaching to the affair.  It was at the fall round-up, the beef
round-up, as it is called, which this year ended at the Ashley
Ranch.  There were representatives from all the ranches and some
cattle-men from across the line.  The hospitality of the Ashley
Ranch was up to its own lofty standard, and, after supper, the men
were in a state of high exhilaration.  The Hon. Fred and his wife,
Lady Charlotte, gave themselves to the duties of their position as
hosts for the day with a heartiness and grace beyond praise.  After
supper the men gathered round the big fire, which was piled up
before the long, low shed, which stood open in front.  It was a
scene of such wild and picturesque interest as can only be
witnessed in the western ranching country.  About the fire, most of
them wearing "shaps" and all of them wide, hard-brimmed cowboy
hats, the men grouped themselves, some reclining upon skins thrown
upon the ground, some standing, some sitting, smoking, laughing,
chatting, all in highest spirits and humor.  They had just got
through with their season of arduous and, at times, dangerous toil.
Their minds were full of their long, hard rides, their wild and
varying experiences with mad cattle and bucking broncos, their
anxious watchings through hot nights, when a breath of wind or a
coyote's howl might set the herd off in a frantic stampede, their
wolf hunts and badger fights and all the marvellous adventures that
fill up a cowboy's summer.  Now these were all behind them.
To-night they were free men and of independent means, for their
season's pay was in their pockets.  The day's excitement, too, was
still in their blood, and they were ready for anything.

Bill, as king of the bronco-busters, moved about with the slow,
careless indifference of a man sure of his position and sure of his
ability to maintain it.

He spoke seldom and slowly, was not as ready-witted as his partner,
Hi Kendal, but in act he was swift and sure, and "in trouble" he
could be counted on.  He was, as they said, "a white man; white to
the back," which was understood to sum up the true cattle man's
virtues.

"Hello, Bill," said a friend, "where's Hi?  Hain't seen him
around!"

"Well, don't jest know.  He was going to bring up my pinto."

"Your pinto?  What pinto's that?  You hain't got no pinto!"

"Mebbe not," said Bill, slowly, "but I had the idee before you
spoke that I had."

"That so?  Whar'd ye git him?  Good for cattle?"  The crowd began
to gather.

Bill grew mysterious, and even more than usually reserved.

"Good fer cattle!  Well, I ain't much on gamblin', but I've got a
leetle in my pants that says that there pinto kin outwork any
blanked bronco in this outfit, givin' him a fair show after the
cattle."

The men became interested.

"Whar was he raised?"

"Dunno."

"Whar'd ye git him?  Across the line?"

"No," said Bill stoutly, "right in this here country.  The Dook
there knows him."

This at once raised the pinto several points.  To be known, and,
as Bill's tone indicated, favorably known by The Duke, was a
testimonial to which any horse might aspire.

"Whar'd ye git him, Bill?  Don't be so blanked oncommunicatin'!"
said an impatient voice.

Bill hesitated; then, with an apparent burst of confidence, he
assumed his frankest manner and voice, and told his tale.

"Well," he said, taking a fresh chew and offering his plug to his
neighbor, who passed it on after helping himself, "ye see, it was
like this.  Ye know that little Meredith gel?"

Chorus of answers:  "Yes!  The red-headed one.  I know!  She's a
daisy!--reg'lar blizzard!--lightnin' conductor!"

Bill paused, stiffened himself a little, dropped his frank air and
drawled out in cool, hard tones:  "I might remark that that young
lady is, I might persoom to say, a friend of mine, which I'm
prepared to back up in my best style, and if any blanked blanked
son of a street sweeper has any remark to make, here's his time
now!"

In the pause that followed murmurs were heard extolling the many
excellences of the young lady in question, and Bill, appeased,
yielded to the requests for the continuance of his story, and, as
he described Gwen and her pinto and her work on the ranch, the men,
many of whom had had glimpses of her, gave emphatic approval in
their own way.  But as he told of her rescue of Joe and of the
sudden calamity that had befallen her a great stillness fell upon
the simple, tender-hearted fellows, and they listened with their
eyes shining in the firelight with growing intentness.  Then Bill
spoke of The Pilot and how he stood by her and helped her and
cheered her till they began to swear he was "all right"; "and now,"
concluded Bill, "when The Pilot is in a hole she wants to help him
out."

"O' course," said one.  "Right enough.  How's she going to work
it?" said another.

"Well, he's dead set on to buildin' a meetin'-house, and them
fellows down at the Creek that does the prayin' and such don't seem
to back him up!"

"Whar's the kick, Bill?"

"Oh, they don't want to go down into their clothes and put up for
it."

"How much?"

"Why, he only asked 'em for seven hundred the hull outfit, and
would give 'em two years, but they bucked--wouldn't look at it."

[Chorus of expletives descriptive of the characters and personal
appearance and belongings of the congregation of Swan Creek.]

"Were you there, Bill?  What did you do?"

"Oh," said Bill, modestly, "I didn't do much.  Gave 'em a little
bluff."

"No!  How?  What?  Go on, Bill."

But Bill remained silent, till under strong pressure, and, as if
making a clean breast of everything, he said:

"Well, I jest told 'em that if you boys made such a fuss about
anythin' like they did about their Gospel outfit, an' I ain't
sayin' anythin' agin it, you'd put up seven hundred without turnin'
a hair."

"You're the stuff, Bill!  Good man!  You're talkin' now!  What did
they say to that, eh, Bill?"

"Well," said Bill, slowly, "they CALLED me!"

"No!  That so?  An' what did you do, Bill?"

"Gave 'em a dead straight bluff!"

[Yells of enthusiastic approval.]

"Did they take you, Bill?"

"Well, I reckon they did.  The master, here, put it down."

Whereupon I read the terms of Bill's bluff.

There was a chorus of very hearty approvals of Bill's course in
"not taking any water" from that variously characterized "outfit."
But the responsibility of the situation began to dawn upon them
when some one asked:

"How are you going about it, Bill?"

"Well," drawled Bill, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice,
"there's that pinto."

"Pinto be blanked!" said young Hill.  "Say, boys, is that little
girl going to lose that one pony of hers to help out her friend The
Pilot?  Good fellow, too, he is!  We know he's the right sort."

[Chorus of, "Not by a long sight; not much; we'll put up the stuff!
Pinto!"]

"Then," went on Bill, even more slowly, "there's The Pilot; he's
going for to ante up a month's pay; 'taint much, o' course--twenty-
eight a month and grub himself.  He might make it two," he added,
thoughtfully.  But Bill's proposal was scorned with contemptuous
groans.  "Twenty-eight a month and grub himself o' course ain't
much for a man to save money out ov to eddicate himself."  Bill
continued, as if thinking aloud, "O' course he's got his mother at
home, but she can't make much more than her own livin', but she
might help him some."

This was altogether too much for the crowd.  They consigned Bill
and his plans to unutterable depths of woe.

"O' course," Bill explained, "it's jest as you boys feel about it.
Mebbe I was, bein' hot, a little swift in givin' 'em the bluff."

"Not much, you wasn't!  We'll see you out!  That's the talk!
There's between twenty and thirty of us here."

"I should be glad to contribute thirty or forty if need be," said
The Duke, who was standing not far off, "to assist in the building
of a church.  It would be a good thing, and I think the parson
should be encouraged.  He's the right sort."

"I'll cover your thirty," said young Hill; and so it went from one
to another in tens and fifteens and twenties, till within half an
hour I had entered three hundred and fifty dollars in my book, with
Ashley yet to hear from, which meant fifty more.  It was Bill's
hour of triumph.

"Boys," he said, with solemn emphasis, "ye're all white.  But that
leetle pale-faced gel, that's what I'm thinkin' on.  Won't she open
them big eyes ov hers!  I cherish the opinion that this'll tickle
her some."

The men were greatly pleased with Bill and even more pleased with
themselves.  Bill's picture of the "leetle gel" and her pathetically
tragic lot had gone right to their hearts and, with men of that
stamp, it was one of their few luxuries to yield to their generous
impulses.  The most of them had few opportunities of lavishing love
and sympathy upon worthy objects and, when the opportunity came, all
that was best in them clamored for expression.



CHAPTER XVII

HOW THE PINTO SOLD


The glow of virtuous feeling following the performance of their
generous act prepared the men for a keener enjoyment than usual of
a night's sport.  They had just begun to dispose themselves in
groups about the fire for poker and other games when Hi rode up
into the light and with him a stranger on Gwen's beautiful pinto
pony.

Hi was evidently half drunk and, as he swung himself of his bronco,
he saluted the company with a wave of the hand and hoped he saw
them "kickin'."

Bill, looking curiously at Hi, went up to the pinto and, taking him
by the head, led him up into the light, saying:

"See here, boys, there's that pinto of mine I was telling you
about; no flies on him, eh?"

"Hold on there!  Excuse me!" said the stranger, "this here hoss
belongs to me, if paid-down money means anything in this country."

"The country's all right," said Bill in an ominously quiet voice,
"but this here pinto's another transaction, I reckon."

"The hoss is mine, I say, and what's more, I'm goin' to hold him,"
said the stranger in a loud voice.

The men began to crowd around with faces growing hard.  It was
dangerous in that country to play fast and loose with horses.

"Look a-hyar, mates," said the stranger, with a Yankee drawl, "I
ain't no hoss thief, and if I hain't bought this hoss reg'lar and
paid down good money then it ain't mine--if I have it is.  That's
fair, ain't it?"

At this Hi pulled himself together, and in a half-drunken tone
declared that the stranger was all right, and that he had bought
the horse fair and square, and "there's your dust," said Hi,
handing a roll to Bill.  But with a quick movement Bill caught the
stranger by the leg, and, before a word could be said, he was lying
flat on the ground.

"You git off that pony," said Bill, "till this thing is settled."

There was something so terrible in Bill's manner that the man
contented himself with blustering and swearing, while Bill, turning
to Hi, said:

"Did you sell this pinto to him?"

Hi was able to acknowledge that, being offered a good price, and
knowing that his partner was always ready for a deal, he had
transferred the pinto to the stranger for forty dollars.

Bill was in distress, deep and poignant.  "'Taint the horse, but
the leetle gel," he explained; but his partner's bargain was his,
and wrathful as he was, he refused to attempt to break the bargain.

At this moment the Hon. Fred, noting the unusual excitement about
the fire, came up, followed at a little distance by his wife and
The Duke.

"Perhaps he'll sell," he suggested.

"No," said Bill sullenly, "he's a mean cuss."

"I know him," said the Hon. Fred, "let me try him."  But the
stranger declared the pinto suited him down to the ground and he
wouldn't take twice his money for him.

"Why," he protested, "that there's what I call an unusual hoss, and
down in Montana for a lady he'd fetch up to a hundred and fifty
dollars."  In vain they haggled and bargained; the man was
immovable.  Eighty dollars he wouldn't look at, a hundred hardly
made him hesitate.  At this point Lady Charlotte came down into the
light and stood by her husband, who explained the circumstances to
her.  She had already heard Bill's description of Gwen's accident
and of her part in the church-building schemes.  There was silence
for a few moments as she stood looking at the beautiful pony.

"What a shame the poor child should have to part with the dear
little creature!" she said in a low tone to her husband.  Then,
turning to the stranger, she said in clear, sweet tones:

"What do you ask for him?"  He hesitated and then said, lifting his
hat awkwardly in salute:  "I was just remarking how that pinto would
fetch one hundred and fifty dollars down into Montana.  But seein'
as a lady is enquirin', I'll put him down to one hundred and
twenty-five."

"Too much," she said promptly, "far too much, is it not, Bill?"

"Well," drawled Bill, "if 'twere a fellar as was used to ladies
he'd offer you the pinto, but he's too pizen mean even to come down
to the even hundred."

The Yankee took him up quickly.  "Wall, if I were so blanked--
pardon, madam"--taking off his hat, "used to ladies as some folks
would like to think themselves, I'd buy that there pinto and make a
present of it to this here lady as stands before me."  Bill twisted
uneasily.

"But I ain't goin' to be mean; I'll put that pinto in for the even
money for the lady if any man cares to put up the stuff."

"Well, my dear," said the Hon. Fred with a bow, "we cannot well let
that gage lie."  She turned and smiled at him and the pinto was
transferred to the Ashley stables, to Bill's outspoken delight, who
declared he "couldn't have faced the music if that there pinto had
gone across the line."  I confess, however, I was somewhat
surprised at the ease with which Hi escaped his wrath, and my
surprise was in no way lessened when I saw, later in the evening,
the two partners with the stranger taking a quiet drink out of the
same bottle with evident mutual admiration and delight.

"You're an A1 corker, you are!  I'll be blanked if you ain't a
bird--a singin' bird--a reg'lar canary," I heard Hi say to Bill.

But Bill's only reply was a long, slow wink which passed into a
frown as he caught my eye.  My suspicion was aroused that the sale
of the pinto might bear investigation, and this suspicion was
deepened when Gwen next week gave me a rapturous account of how
splendidly Bill had disposed of the pinto, showing me bills for one
hundred and fifty dollars!  To my look of amazement, Gwen replied:

"You see, he must have got them bidding against each other, and
besides, Bill says pintos are going up."

Light began to dawn upon me, but I only answered that I knew they
had risen very considerably in value within a month.  The extra
fifty was Bill's.

I was not present to witness the finishing of Bill's bluff, but was
told that when Bill made his way through the crowded aisle and laid
his five hundred and fifty dollars on the schoolhouse desk the look
of disgust, surprise and finally of pleasure on Robbie's face, was
worth a hundred more.  But Robbie was ready and put down his two
hundred with the single remark:

"Ay! ye're no as daft as ye look," mid roars of laughter from all.

Then The Pilot, with eyes and face shining, rose and thanked them
all; but when he told of how the little girl in her lonely shack in
the hills thought so much of the church that she gave up for it her
beloved pony, her one possession, the light from his eyes glowed in
the eyes of all.

But the men from the ranches who could understand the full meaning
of her sacrifice and who also could realize the full measure of her
calamity, were stirred to their hearts' depths, so that when Bill
remarked in a very distinct undertone, "I cherish the opinion that
this here Gospel shop wouldn't be materializin' into its present
shape but for that leetle gel," there rose growls of approval in a
variety of tones and expletives that left no doubt that his opinion
was that of all.

But though The Pilot never could quite get at the true inwardness
of Bill's measures and methods, and was doubtless all the more
comfortable in mind for that, he had no doubt that while Gwen's
influence was the moving spring of action, Bill's bluff had a good
deal to do with the "materializin'" of the first church in Swan
Creek, and in this conviction, I share.

Whether the Hon. Fred ever understood the peculiar style of Bill's
financing, I do not quite know.  But if he ever did come to know,
he was far too much of a man to make a fuss.  Besides, I fancy the
smile on his lady's face was worth some large amount to him.  At
least, so the look of proud and fond love in his eyes seemed to say
as he turned away with her from the fire the night of the pinto's
sale.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE LADY CHARLOTTE


The night of the pinto's sale was a night momentous to Gwen, for
then it was that the Lady Charlotte's interest in her began.
Momentous, too, to the Lady Charlotte, for it was that night that
brought The Pilot into her life.

I had turned back to the fire around which the men had fallen into
groups prepared to have an hour's solid delight, for the scene was
full of wild and picturesque beauty to me, when The Duke came and
touched me on the shoulder.

"Lady Charlotte would like to see you."

"And why, pray?"

"She wants to hear about this affair of Bill's."

We went through the kitchen into the large dining-room, at one end
of which was a stone chimney and fireplace.  Lady Charlotte had
declared that she did not much care what kind of a house the Hon.
Fred would build for her, but that she must have a fireplace.

She was very beautiful--tall, slight and graceful in every line.
There was a reserve and a grand air in her bearing that put people
in awe of her.  This awe I shared; but as I entered the room she
welcomed me with such kindly grace that I felt quite at ease in a
moment.

"Come and sit by me," she said, drawing an armchair into the circle
about the fire.  "I want you to tell us all about a great many
things."

"You see what you're in for, Connor," said her husband.  "It is a
serious business when my lady takes one in hand."

"As he knows to his cost," she said, smiling and shaking her head
at her husband.

"So I can testify," put in The Duke.

"Ah! I can't do anything with you," she replied, turning to him.

"Your most abject slave," he replied with a profound bow.

"If you only were," smiling at him--a little sadly, I thought--"I'd
keep you out of all sorts of mischief."

"Quite true, Duke," said her husband, "just look at me."

The Duke gazed at him a moment or two.  "Wonderful!" he murmured,
"what a deliverance!"

"Nonsense!" broke in Lady Charlotte.  "You are turning my mind away
from my purpose."

"Is it possible, do you think?" said The Duke to her husband.

"Not in the very least," he replied, "if my experience goes for
anything."

But Lady Charlotte turned her back upon them and said to me:

"Now, tell me first about Bill's encounter with that funny little
Scotchman."

Then I told her the story of Bill's bluff in my best style,
imitating, as I have some small skill in doing, the manner and
speech of the various actors in the scene.  She was greatly amused
and interested.

"And Bill has really got his share ready," she cried.  "It is very
clever of him."

"Yes," I replied, "but Bill is only the very humble instrument, the
moving spirit is behind."

"Oh, yes, you mean the little girl that owns the pony," she said.
"That's another thing you must tell me about."

"The Duke knows more than I," I replied, shifting the burden to
him; "my acquaintance is only of yesterday; his is lifelong."

"Why have you never told me of her?" she demanded, turning to the
Duke.

"Haven't I told you of the little Meredith girl?  Surely I have,"
said The Duke, hesitatingly.

"Now, you know quite well you have not, and that means you are
deeply interested.  Oh, I know you well," she said, severely.

"He is the most secretive man," she went on to me, "shamefully and
ungratefully reserved."

The Duke smiled; then said, lazily:  "Why, she's just a child.  Why
should you be interested in her?  No one was," he added sadly,
"till misfortune distinguished her."

Her eyes grew soft, and her gay manner changed, and she said to The
Duke gently:  "Tell me of her now."

It was evidently an effort, but he began his story of Gwen from
the time he saw her first, years ago, playing in and out of her
father's rambling shack, shy and wild as a young fox.  As he went
on with his tale, his voice dropped into a low, musical tone, and
he seemed as if dreaming aloud.  Unconsciously he put into the tale
much of himself, revealing how great an influence the little child
had had upon him, and how empty of love his life had been in this
lonely land.  Lady Charlotte listened with face intent upon him,
and even her bluff husband was conscious that something more than
usual was happening.  He had never heard The Duke break through his
proud reserve before.

But when The Duke told the story of Gwen's awful fall, which he did
with great graphic power, a little red spot burned upon the Lady
Charlotte's pale cheek, and, as The Duke finished his tale with the
words, "It was her last ride," she covered her face with her hands
and cried:

"Oh, Duke, it is horrible to think of!  But what splendid courage!"

"Great stuff! eh, Duke?" cried the Hon. Fred, kicking a burning log
vigorously.

But The Duke made no reply.

"How is she now, Duke?" said Lady Charlotte.  The Duke looked up as
from a dream.  "Bright as the morning," he said.  Then, in reply to
Lady Charlotte's look of wonder, he added:

"The Pilot did it.  Connor will tell you.  I don't understand it."

"Nor do I, either.  But I can tell you only what I saw and heard,"
I answered.

"Tell me," said Lady Charlotte very gently.

Then I told her how, one by one, we had failed to help her, and how
The Pilot had ridden up that morning through the canyon, and how he
had brought the first light and peace to her by his marvellous
pictures of the flowers and ferns and trees and all the wonderful
mysteries of that wonderful canyon.

"But that wasn't all," said the Duke quickly, as I stopped.

"No," I said slowly, "that was NOT all by a long way; but the rest
I don't understand.  That's The Pilot's secret."

"Tell me what he did," said Lady Charlotte, softly, once more.  "I
want to know."

"I don't think I can," I replied.  "He simply read out of the
Scriptures to her and talked."

Lady Charlotte looked disappointed.

"Is that all?" she said.

"It is quite enough for Gwen," said The Duke confidently, "for
there she lies, often suffering, always longing for the hills and
the free air, but with her face radiant as the flowers of the
beloved canyon."

"I must see her," said Lady Charlotte, "and that wonderful Pilot."

"You'll be disappointed in him," said The Duke.

"Oh, I've see him and heard him, but I don't know him," she
replied.  "There must be something in him that one does not see
at first."

"So I have discovered," said The Duke, and with that the subject
was dropped, but not before the Lady Charlotte made me promise to
take her to Gwen, The Duke being strangely unwilling to do this for
her.

"You'll be disappointed," he said.  "She is only a simple little
child."

But Lady Charlotte thought differently, and, having made up her
mind upon the matter, there was nothing for it, as her husband
said, but "for all hands to surrender and the sooner the better."

And so the Lady Charlotte had her way, which, as it turned out, was
much the wisest and best.



CHAPTER XIX

THROUGH GWEN'S WINDOW


When I told The Pilot of Lady Charlotte's purpose to visit Gwen, he
was not too well pleased.

"What does she want with Gwen?" he said impatiently.  "She will
just put notions into her head and make the child discontented."

"Why should she?" said I.

"She won't mean to, but she belongs to another world, and Gwen
cannot talk to her without getting glimpses of a life that will
make her long for what she can never have," said The Pilot.

"But suppose it is not idle curiosity in Lady Charlotte," I
suggested.

"I don't say it is quite that," he answered, "but these people love
a sensation."

"I don't think you know Lady Charlotte," I replied.  "I hardly
think from her tone the other night that she is a sensation
hunter."

"At any rate," he answered, decidedly, "she is not to worry poor
Gwen."

I was a little surprised at his attitude, and felt that he was
unfair to Lady Charlotte, but I forbore to argue with him on the
matter.  He could not bear to think of any person or thing
threatening the peace of his beloved Gwen.

The very first Saturday after my promise was given we were
surprised to see Lady Charlotte ride up to the door of our shack
in the early morning.

"You see, I am not going to let you off," she said, as I greeted
her.  "And the day is so very fine for a ride."

I hastened to apologize for not going to her, and then to get out
of my difficulty, rather meanly turned toward The Pilot, and said:

"The Pilot doesn't approve of our visit."

"And why not, may I ask?" said Lady Charlotte, lifting her eyebrows.

The Pilot's face burned, partly with wrath at me, and partly with
embarrassment; for Lady Charlotte had put on her grand air.  But he
stood to his guns.

"I was saying, Lady Charlotte," he said, looking straight into her
eyes, "that you and Gwen have little in common--and--and--" he
hesitated.

"Little in common!" said Lady Charlotte quietly.  "She has suffered
greatly."

The Pilot was quick to catch the note of sadness in her voice.

"Yes," he said, wondering at her tone, "she has suffered greatly."

"And," continued Lady Charlotte, "she is bright as the morning, The
Duke says."  There was a look of pain in her face.

The Pilot's face lit up, and he came nearer and laid his hand
caressingly upon her beautiful horse.

"Yes, thank God!" he said quickly, "bright as the morning."

"How can that be?" she asked, looking down into his face.  "Perhaps
she would tell me."

"Lady Charlotte," said The Pilot with a sudden flush, "I must ask
your pardon.  I was wrong.  I thought you--" he paused; "but go to
Gwen, she will tell you, and you will do her good."

"Thank you," said Lady Charlotte, putting out her hand, "and
perhaps you will come and see me, too."

The Pilot promised and stood looking after us as we rode up the
trail.

"There is something more in your Pilot than at first appears," she
said.  "The Duke was quite right."

"He is a great man," I said with enthusiasm; "tender as a woman and
with the heart of a hero."

"You and Bill and The Duke seem to agree about him," she said,
smiling.

Then I told her tales of The Pilot, and of his ways with the men,
till her blue eyes grew bright and her beautiful face lost its
proud look.

"It is perfectly amazing," I said, finishing my story, "how these
devil-may-care rough fellows respect him, and come to him in all
sorts of trouble.  I can't understand it, and yet he is just a
boy."

"No, not amazing," said Lady Charlotte slowly.  "I think I
understand it.  He has a true man's heart; and holds a great
purpose in it.  I've seen men like that.  Not clergymen, I mean,
but men with a great purpose."

Then, after a moment's thought, she added:  "But you ought to care
for him better.  He does not look strong."

"Strong!" I exclaimed quickly, with a queer feeling of resentment
at my heart.  "He can do as much riding as any of us."

"Still," she replied, "there's something in his face that would
make his mother anxious."  In spite of my repudiation of her
suggestion, I found myself for the next few minutes thinking of how
he would come exhausted and faint from his long rides, and I
resolved that he must have a rest and change.

It was one of those early September days, the best of all in the
western country, when the light falls less fiercely through a soft
haze that seems to fill the air about you, and that grows into
purple on the far hilltops.  By the time we reached the canyon the
sun was riding high and pouring its rays full into all the deep
nooks where the shadows mostly lay.

There were no shadows to-day, except such as the trees cast upon
the green moss beds and the black rocks.  The tops of the tall elms
were sere and rusty, but the leaves of the rugged oaks that fringed
the canyon's lips shone a rich and glossy brown.  All down the
sides the poplars and delicate birches, pale yellow, but sometimes
flushing into orange and red, stood shimmering in the golden light,
while here and there the broad-spreading, feathery sumachs made
great splashes of brilliant crimson upon the yellow and gold.  Down
in the bottom stood the cedars and the balsams, still green.  We
stood some moments silently gazing into this tangle of interlacing
boughs and shimmering leaves, all glowing in yellow light, then
Lady Charlotte broke the silence in tones soft and reverent as if
she stood in a great cathedral.

"And this is Gwen's canyon!"

"Yes, but she never sees it now," I said, for I could never ride
through without thinking of the child to whose heart this was so
dear, but whose eyes never rested upon it.  Lady Charlotte made no
reply, and we took the trail that wound down into this maze of
mingling colors and lights and shadows.  Everywhere lay the fallen
leaves, brown and yellow and gold;--everywhere on our trail, on the
green mosses and among the dead ferns.  And as we rode, leaves
fluttered down from the trees above silently through the tangled
boughs, and lay with the others on moss and rock and beaten trail.

The flowers were all gone; but the Little Swan sang as ever its
many-voiced song, as it flowed in pools and eddies and cascades,
with here and there a golden leaf upon its black waters.  Ah! how
often in weary, dusty days these sights and sounds and silences
have come to me and brought my heart rest!

As we began to climb up into the open, I glanced at my companion's
face.  The canyon had done its work with her as with all who loved
it.  The touch of pride that was the habit of her face was gone,
and in its place rested the earnest wonder of a little child, while
in her eyes lay the canyon's tender glow.  And with this face she
looked in upon Gwen.

And Gwen, who had been waiting for her, forgot all her nervous
fear, and with hands outstretched, cried out in welcome:

"Oh, I'm so glad!  You've seen it and I know you love it!  My
canyon, you know!" she went on, answering Lady Charlotte's
mystified look.

"Yes, dear child," said Lady Charlotte, bending over the pale face
with its halo of golden hair, "I love it."  But she could get no
further, for her eyes were full of tears.  Gwen gazed up into the
beautiful face, wondering at her silence, and then said gently:

"Tell me how it looks to-day!  The Pilot always shows it to me.  Do
you know," she added, thoughtfully, "The Pilot looks like it
himself.  He makes me think of it, and--and--" she went on shyly,
"you do, too."

By this time Lady Charlotte was kneeling by the couch, smoothing
the beautiful hair and gently touching the face so pale and lined
with pain.

"That is a great honor, truly," she said brightly through her
tears--"to be like your canyon and like your Pilot, too."

Gwen nodded, but she was not to be denied.

"Tell me how it looks to-day," she said.  "I want to see it.  Oh, I
want to see it!"

Lady Charlotte was greatly moved by the yearning in the voice, but,
controlling herself, she said gaily:

"Oh, I can't show it to you as your Pilot can, but I'll tell you
what I saw."

"Turn me where I can see," said Gwen to me, and I wheeled her
toward the window and raised her up so that she could look down the
trail toward the canyon's mouth.

"Now," she said, after the pain of the lifting had passed, "tell
me, please."

Then Lady Charlotte set the canyon before her in rich and radiant
coloring, while Gwen listened, gazing down upon the trail to where
the elm tops could be seen, rusty and sere.

"Oh, it is lovely!" said Gwen, "and I see it so well.  It is all
there before me when I look through my window."

But Lady Charlotte looked at her, wondering to see her bright
smile, and at last she could not help the question:

"But don't you weary to see it with your own eyes?"

"Yes," said Gwen gently, "often I want and want it, oh, so much!"

"And then, Gwen, dear, how can you bear it?"  Her voice was eager
and earnest.  "Tell me, Gwen.  I have heard all about your canyon
flowers, but I can't understand how the fretting and the pain went
away."

Gwen looked at her first in amazement, and then in dawning
understanding.

"Have you a canyon, too?" she asked, gravely.

Lady Charlotte paused a moment, then nodded.  It did appear strange
to me that she should break down her proud reserve and open her
heart to this child.

"And there are no flowers, Gwen, not one," she said rather bitterly,
"nor sun nor seeds nor soil, I fear."

"Oh, if The Pilot were here, he would tell you."

At this point, feeling that they would rather be alone, I excused
myself on the pretext of looking after the horses.

What they talked of during the next hour I never knew, but when I
returned to the room Lady Charlotte was reading slowly and with
perplexed face to Gwen out of her mother's Bible the words "for the
suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor."

"You see even for Him, suffering," Gwen said eagerly, "but I can't
explain.  The Pilot will make it clear."  Then the talk ended.

We had lunch with Gwen--bannocks and fresh sweet milk and
blueberries--and after an hour of gay fun we came away.

Lady Charlotte kissed her tenderly as she bade Gwen good-by.

"You must let me come again and sit at your window," she said,
smiling down upon the wan face.

"Oh, I shall watch for you.  How good that will be!" cried Gwen,
delightedly.  "How many come to see me!  You make five."  Then she
added, softly:  "You will write your letter."  But Lady Charlotte
shook her head.

"I can't do that, I fear," she said, "but I shall think of it."

It was a bright face that looked out upon us through the open
window as we rode down the trail.  Just before we took the dip into
the canyon, I turned to wave my hand.

"Gwen's friends always wave from here," I said, wheeling my bronco.

Again and again Lady Charlotte waved her handkerchief.

"How beautiful, but how wonderful!" she said as if to herself.
"Truly, HER canyon is full of flowers."

"It is quite beyond me," I answered.  "The Pilot may explain."

"Is there anything your Pilot can't do?" said Lady Charlotte.

"Try him," I ventured.

"I mean to," she replied, "but I cannot bring anyone to my canyon,
I fear," she added in an uncertain voice.

As I left her at her door she thanked me with courteous grace.

"You have done a great deal for me," she said, giving me her hand.
"It has been a beautiful, a wonderful day."

When I told the Pilot all the day's doings, he burst out:

"What a stupid and self-righteous fool I have been!  I never
thought there could be any canyon in her life.  How short our sight
is!" and all that night I could get almost no words from him.

That was the first of many visits to Gwen.  Not a week passed but
Lady Charlotte took the trail to the Meredith ranch and spent an
hour at Gwen's window.  Often The Pilot found her there.  But
though they were always pleasant hours to him, he would come home
in great trouble about Lady Charlotte.

"She is perfectly charming and doing Gwen no end of good, but she
is proud as an archangel.  Has had an awful break with her family
at home, and it is spoiling her life.  She told me so much, but she
will allow no one to touch the affair."

But one day we met her riding toward the village.  As we drew near,
she drew up her horse and held up a letter.

"Home!" she said.  "I wrote it to-day, and I must get it off
immediately."

The Pilot understood her at once, but he only said:

"Good!" but with such emphasis that we both laughed.

"Yes, I hope so," she said with the red beginning to show in her
cheek.  "I have dropped some seed into my canyon."

"I think I see the flowers beginning to spring," said The Pilot.

She shook her head doubtfully and replied:

"I shall ride up and sit with Gwen at her window."

"Do," replied The Pilot, "the light is good there.  Wonderful
things are to be seen through Gwen's window."

"Yes," said Lady Charlotte softly.  "Dear Gwen!--but I fear it is
often made bright with tears."

As she spoke she wheeled her horse and cantered off, for her own
tears were not far away.  I followed her in thought up the trail
winding through the round-topped hills and down through the golden
lights of the canyon and into Gwen's room.  I could see the pale
face, with its golden aureole, light up and glow, as they sat
before the window while Lady Charlotte would tell her how Gwen's
Canyon looked to-day and how in her own bleak canyon there was the
sign of flowers.



CHAPTER XX

HOW BILL FAVORED "HOME-GROWN INDUSTRIES"


The building of the Swan Creek Church made a sensation in the
country, and all the more that Bronco Bill was in command.

"When I put up money I stay with the game," he announced; and stay
he did, to the great benefit of the work and to the delight of The
Pilot, who was wearing his life out in trying to do several men's
work.  It was Bill that organized the gangs for hauling stone for
the foundation and logs for the walls.  It was Bill that assigned
the various jobs to those volunteering service.  To Robbie Muir and
two stalwart Glengarry men from the Ottawa lumber region, who knew
all about the broadaxe, he gave the hewing down of the logs that
formed the walls.  And when they had done, Bill declared they were
"better 'an a sawmill."  It was Bill, too, that did the financing,
and his passage with Williams, the storekeeper from "the other
side" who dealt in lumber and building material, was such as
established forever Bill's reputation in finance.

With The Pilot's plans in his hands he went to Williams, seizing a
time when the store was full of men after their mail matter.

"What do you think ov them plans?" he asked innocently.

Williams was voluble with opinions and criticism and suggestions,
all of which were gratefully, even humbly received.

"Kind ov hard to figger out jest how much lumber 'll go into the
shack," said Bill; "ye see the logs makes a difference."

To Williams the thing was simplicity itself, and, after some
figuring, he handed Bill a complete statement of the amount of
lumber of all kinds that would be required.

"Now, what would that there come to?"

Williams named his figure, and then Bill entered upon negotiations.

"I aint no man to beat down prices.  No, sir, I say give a man his
figger.  Of course, this here aint my funeral; besides, bein' a
Gospel shop, the price naterally would be different."  To this the
boys all assented and Williams looked uncomfortable.

"In fact," and Bill adopted his public tone to Hi's admiration and
joy, "this here's a public institooshun" (this was Williams' own
thunder), "condoocin' to the good of the community" (Hi slapped his
thigh and squirted half way across the store to signify his entire
approval, "and I cherish the opinion"--(delighted chuckle from Hi)--
"that public men are interested in this concern."

"That's so!  Right you are!" chorused the boys gravely.

Williams agreed, but declared he had thought of all this in making
his calculation.  But seeing it was a church, and the first church
and their own church, he would make a cut, which he did after more
figuring.  Bill gravely took the slip of paper and put it into his
pocket without a word.  By the end of the week, having in the
meantime ridden into town and interviewed the dealers there, Bill
sauntered into the store and took up his position remote from
Williams.

"You'll be wanting that sheeting, won't you, next week, Bill?" said
Williams.

"What sheetin' 's that?"

"Why, for the church.  Aint the logs up?"

"Yes, that's so.  I was just goin' to see the boys here about
gettin' it hauled," said Bill.

"Hauled!" said Williams, in amazed indignation.  "Aint you goin' to
stick to your deal?"

"I generally make it my custom to stick to my deals," said Bill,
looking straight at Williams.

"Well, what about your deal with me last Monday night?" said
Williams, angrily.

"Let's see.  Last Monday night," said Bill, apparently thinking
back; "can't say as I remember any pertickler deal.  Any ov you
fellers remember?"

No one could recall any deal.

"You don't remember getting any paper from me, I suppose?" said
Williams, sarcastically.

"Paper!  Why, I believe I've got that there paper onto my person at
this present moment," said Bill, diving into his pocket and drawing
out Williams' estimate.  He spent a few moments in careful
scrutiny.

"There ain't no deal onto this as I can see," said Bill, gravely
passing the paper to the boys, who each scrutinized it and passed
it on with a shake of the head or a remark as to the absence of any
sign of a deal.  Williams changed his tone.  For his part, he was
indifferent in the matter.

Then Bill made him an offer.

"Ov course, I believe in supportin' home-grown industries, and if
you can touch my figger I'd be uncommonly glad to give you the
contract."

But Bill's figure, which was quite fifty per cent. lower than
Williams' best offer, was rejected as quite impossible.

"Thought I'd make you the offer," said Bill, carelessly, "seein' as
you're institootin' the trade and the boys here 'll all be buildin'
more or less, and I believe in standin' up for local trades and
manufactures."  There were nods of approval on all sides, and
Williams was forced to accept, for Bill began arranging with the
Hill brothers and Hi to make an early start on Monday.  It was a
great triumph, but Bill displayed no sign of elation; he was rather
full of sympathy for Williams, and eager to help on the lumber
business as a local "institooshun."

Second in command in the church building enterprise stood Lady
Charlotte, and under her labored the Hon. Fred, The Duke, and,
indeed, all the company of the Noble Seven.  Her home became the
centre of a new type of social life.  With exquisite tact, and much
was needed for this kind of work, she drew the bachelors from their
lonely shacks and from their wild carousals, and gave them a taste
of the joys of a pure home-life, the first they had had since
leaving the old homes years ago.  And then she made them work for
the church with such zeal and diligence that her husband and The
Duke declared that ranching had become quite an incidental interest
since the church-building had begun.  But The Pilot went about with
a radiant look on his pale face, while Bill gave it forth as his
opinion, "though she was a leetle high in the action, she could hit
an uncommon gait."

With such energy did Bill push the work of construction that by the
first of December the church stood roofed, sheeted, floored and
ready for windows, doors and ceiling, so that The Pilot began to
hope that he should see the desire of his heart fulfilled--the
church of Swan Creek open for divine service on Christmas Day.

During these weeks there was more than church-building going on,
for while the days were given to the shaping of logs, and the
driving of nails and the planing of boards, the long winter
evenings were spent in talk around the fire in my shack, where The
Pilot for some months past had made his home and where Bill, since
the beginning of the church building, had come "to camp."  Those
were great nights for The Pilot and Bill, and, indeed, for me, too,
and the other boys, who, after a day's work on the church, were
always brought in by Bill or The Pilot.

Great nights for us all they were.  After bacon and beans and
bannocks, and occasionally potatoes, and rarely a pudding, with
coffee, rich and steaming, to wash all down, pipes would follow,
and then yarns of adventures, possible and impossible, all exciting
and wonderful, and all received with the greatest credulity.

If, however, the powers of belief were put to too great a strain by
a tale of more than ordinary marvel, Bill would follow with one of
such utter impossibility that the company would feel that the limit
had been reached, and the yarns would cease.  But after the first
week most of the time was given to The Pilot, who would read to us
of the deeds of the mighty men of old, who had made and wrecked
empires.

What happy nights they were to those cowboys, who had been cast up
like driftwood upon this strange and lonely shore!  Some of them
had never known what it was to have a thought beyond the work and
sport of the day.  And the world into which The Pilot was ushering
them was all new and wonderful to them.  Happy nights, without a
care, but that The Pilot would not get the ghastly look out of his
face, and laughed at the idea of going away till the church was
built.  And, indeed, we would all have sorely missed him, and so he
stayed.



CHAPTER XXI.

HOW BILL HIT THE TRAIL


When "the crowd" was with us The Pilot read us all sorts of tales
of adventures in all lands by heroes of all ages, but when we three
sat together by our fire The Pilot would always read us tales of
the heroes of sacred story, and these delighted Bill more than
those of any of the ancient empires of the past.  He had his
favorites.  Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, never failed to arouse
his admiration.  But Jacob was to him always "a mean cuss," and
David he could not appreciate.  Most of all he admired Moses and
the Apostle Paul, whom he called "that little chap."  But, when the
reading was about the One Great Man that moved majestic amid the
gospel stories, Bill made no comments; He was too high for
approval.

By and by Bill began to tell these tales to the boys, and one
night, when a quiet mood had fallen upon the company, Bill broke
the silence.

"Say, Pilot, where was it that the little chap got mixed up into
that riot?"

"Riot!" said The Pilot.

"Yes; you remember when he stood off the whole gang from the
stairs?"

"Oh, yes, at Jerusalem!"

"Yes, that's the spot.  Perhaps you would read that to the boys.
Good yarn!  Little chap, you know, stood up and told 'em they were
all sorts of blanked thieves and cut-throats, and stood 'em off.
Played it alone, too."

Most of the boys failed to recognize the story in its new dress.
There was much interest.

"Who was the duck?  Who was the gang?  What was the row about?"

"The Pilot here'll tell you.  If you'd kind o' give 'em a lead
before you begin, they'd catch on to the yarn better."  This last
to The Pilot, who was preparing to read.

"Well, it was at Jerusalem," began The Pilot, when Bill interrupted:

"If I might remark, perhaps it might help the boys on to the trail
mebbe, if you'd tell 'em how the little chap struck his new gait."
So he designated the Apostle's conversion.

Then The Pilot introduced the Apostle with some formality to the
company, describing with such vivid touches his life and early
training, his sudden wrench from all he held dear, under the stress
of a new conviction, his magnificent enthusiasm and courage, his
tenderness and patience, that I was surprised to find myself
regarding him as a sort of hero, and the boys were all ready to
back him against any odds.  As The Pilot read the story of the
Arrest at Jerusalem, stopping now and then to picture the scene, we
saw it all and were in the thick of it.  The raging crowd hustling
and beating the life out of the brave little man, the sudden thrust
of the disciplined Roman guard through the mass, the rescue, the
pause on the stairway, the calm face of the little hero beckoning
for a hearing, the quieting of the frantic, frothing mob, the
fearless speech--all passed before us.  The boys were thrilled.

"Good stuff, eh?"

"Ain't he a daisy?"

"Daisy!  He's a whole sunflower patch!"

"Yes," drawled Bill, highly appreciating their marks of approval.
"That's what I call a partickler fine character of a man.  There
ain't no manner of insecks on to him."

"You bet!" said Hi.

"I say," broke in one of the boys, who was just emerging from the
tenderfoot stage, "o' course that's in the Bible, ain't it?"

The Pilot assented.

"Well, how do you know it's true?"

The Pilot was proceeding to elaborate his argument when Bill cut in
somewhat more abruptly than was his wont.

"Look here, young feller!"  Bill's voice was in the tone of
command.  The man looked as he was bid.  "How do you know
anything's true?  How do you know The Pilot here's true when he
speaks?  Can't you tell by the feel?  You know by the sound of his
voice, don't you?"  Bill paused and the young fellow agreed
readily.

"Well how do you know a blanked son of a she jackass when you see
him?"  Again Bill paused.  There was no reply.

"Well," said Bill, resuming his deliberate drawl.  "I'll give you
the information without extra charge.  It's by the sound he makes
when he opens his blanked jaw."

"But," went on the young skeptic, nettled at the laugh that went
round, "that don't prove anything.  You know," turning to The
Pilot, "that there are heaps of people who don't believe the
Bible."

The Pilot nodded.

"Some of the smartest, best-educated men are agnostics," proceeded
the young man, warming to his theme, and failing to notice the
stiffening of Bill's lank figure.  "I don't know but what I am one
myself."

"That so?" said Bill, with sudden interest.

"I guess so," was the modest reply.

"Got it bad?" went on Bill, with a note of anxiety in his tone.

But the young man turned to The Pilot and tried to open a fresh
argument.

"Whatever he's got," said Bill to the others, in a mild voice,
"it's spoilin' his manners."

"Yes," went on Bill, meditatively, after the slight laugh had died,
"it's ruinin' to the judgment.  He don't seem to know when he
interferes with the game.  Pity, too."

Still the argument went on.

"Seems as if he ought to take somethin'," said Bill, in a voice
suspiciously mild.  "What would you suggest?"

"A walk, mebbe!" said Hi, in delighted expectation.

"I hold the opinion that you have mentioned an uncommonly vallable
remedy, better'n Pain Killer almost."

Bill rose languidly.

"I say," he drawled, tapping the young fellow, "it appears to me a
little walk would perhaps be good, mebbe."

"All right, wait till I get my cap," was the unsuspecting reply.

"I don't think perhaps you won't need it, mebbe.  I cherish the
opinion you'll, perhaps, be warm enough."  Bill's voice had
unconsciously passed into a sterner tone.  Hi was on his feet and
at the door.

"This here interview is private AND confidential," said Bill to his
partner.

"Exactly," said Hi, opening the door.  At this the young fellow,
who was a strapping six-footer, but soft and flabby, drew back and
refused to go.  He was too late.  Bill's grip was on his collar and
out they went into the snow, and behind them Hi closed the door.
In vain the young fellow struggled to wrench himself free from the
hands that had him by the shoulder and the back of the neck.  I
took it all in from the window.  He might have been a boy for all
the effect his plungings had upon the long, sinewy arms that
gripped him so fiercely.  After a minute's furious struggle the
young fellow stood quiet, when Bill suddenly shifted his grip from
the shoulder to the seat of his buckskin trousers.  Then began a
series of evolutions before the house--up and down, forward and
back, which the unfortunate victim, with hands wildly clutching at
empty air, was quite powerless to resist till he was brought up
panting and gasping, subdued, to a standstill.

"I'll larn you agnostics and several other kinds of ticks," said
Bill, in a terrible voice, his drawl lengthening perceptibly.
"Come round here, will you, and shove your blanked second-handed
trash down our throats?"  Bill paused to get words; then, bursting
out in rising wrath:

"There ain't no sootable words for sich conduct.  By the livin'
Jeminy--"  He suddenly swung his prisoner off his feet, lifted him
bodily, and held him over his head at arm's length.  "I've a notion
to--"

"Don't! don't! for Heaven's sake!" cried the struggling wretch,
"I'll stop it! I will!"

Bill at once lowered him and set him on his feet.

"All right!  Shake!" he said, holding out his hand, which the other
took with caution.

It was a remarkably sudden conversion and lasting in its effects.
There was no more agnosticism in the little group that gathered
around The Pilot for the nightly reading.

The interest in the reading kept growing night by night.

"Seems as if The Pilot was gittin' in his work," said Bill to me;
and looking at the grave, eager faces, I agreed.  He was getting in
his work with Bill, too; though perhaps Bill did not know it.  I
remember one night, when the others had gone, The Pilot was reading
to us the Parable of the Talents, Bill was particularly interested
in the servant who failed in his duty.

"Ornery cuss, eh?" he remarked; "and gall, too, eh?  Served him
blamed well right, in my opinion!"

But when the practical bearing of the parable became clear to him,
after long silence, he said, slowly:

"Well, that there seems to indicate that it's about time for
me to get a rustle on."  Then, after another silence, he said,
hesitatingly, "This here church-buildin' business now, do you think
that'll perhaps count, mebbe?  I guess not, eh?  'Tain't much, o'
course, anyway."  Poor Bill, he was like a child, and The Pilot
handled him with a mother's touch.

"What are you best at, Bill?"

"Bronco-bustin' and cattle," said Bill, wonderingly; "that's my
line."

"Well, Bill, my line is preaching just now, and piloting, you
know."  The Pilot's smile was like a sunbeam on a rainy day, for
there were tears in his eyes and voice.  "And we have just got to
be faithful.  You see what he says:  'Well done, good and FAITHFUL
servant.  Thou hast been FAITHFUL.'"

Bill was puzzled.

"Faithful!" he repeated.  "Does that mean with the cattle, perhaps?"

"Yes, that's just it, Bill, and with everything else that comes
your way."

And Bill never forgot that lesson, for I heard him, with a kind of
quiet enthusiasm, giving it to Hi as a great find.  "Now, I call
that a fair deal," he said to his friend; "gives every man a show.
No cards up the sleeve."

"That's so," was Hi's thoughtful reply; "distributes the trumps."

Somehow Bill came to be regarded as an authority upon questions
of religion and morals.  No one ever accused him of "gettin'
religion."  He went about his work in his slow, quiet way, but he
was always sharing his discoveries with "the boys."  And if anyone
puzzled him with subtleties he never rested till he had him face to
face with The Pilot.  And so it came that these two drew to each
other with more than brotherly affection.  When Bill got into
difficulty with problems that have vexed the souls of men far wiser
than he, The Pilot would either disentangle the knots or would turn
his mind to the verities that stood out sure and clear, and Bill
would be content.

"That's good enough for me," he would say, and his heart would be
at rest.



CHAPTER XXII

HOW THE SWAN CREEK CHURCH WAS OPENED


When, near the end of the year, The Pilot fell sick, Bill nursed
him like a mother and sent him off for a rest and change to Gwen,
forbidding him to return till the church was finished and visiting
him twice a week.  The love between the two was most beautiful,
and, when I find my heart grow hard and unbelieving in men and
things, I let my mind wander back to a scene that I came upon in
front of Gwen's house.  These two were standing alone in the clear
moonlight, Bill with his hand upon The Pilot's shoulder, and The
Pilot with his arm around Bill's neck.

"Dear old Bill," The Pilot was saying, "dear old Bill," and the
voice was breaking into a sob.  And Bill, standing stiff and
straight, looked up at the stars, coughed and swallowed hard for
some moments, and said, in a queer, croaky voice:

"Shouldn't wonder if a Chinook would blow up."

"Chinook?" laughed The Pilot, with a catch in his voice.  "You dear
old humbug," and he stood watching till the lank form swayed down
into the canyon.

The day of the church opening came, as all days, however long
waited for, will come--a bright, beautiful Christmas Day.  The air
was still and full of frosty light, as if arrested by a voice of
command, waiting the word to move.  The hills lay under their
dazzling coverlets, asleep.  Back of all, the great peaks lifted
majestic heads out of the dark forests and gazed with calm,
steadfast faces upon the white, sunlit world.  To-day, as the light
filled up the cracks that wrinkled their hard faces, they seemed to
smile, as if the Christmas joy had somehow moved something in their
old, stony hearts.

The people were all there--farmers, ranchers, cowboys, wives and
children--all happy, all proud of their new church, and now all
expectant, waiting for The Pilot and the Old Timer, who were to
drive down if The Pilot was fit and were to bring Gwen if the day
was fine.  As the time passed on, Bill, as master of ceremonies,
began to grow uneasy.  Then Indian Joe appeared and handed a note
to Bill.  He read it, grew gray in the face and passed it to me.
Looking, I saw in poor, wavering lines the words, "Dear Bill.  Go
on with the opening.  Sing the Psalm, you know the one, and say a
prayer, and oh, come to me quick, Bill.  Your Pilot."

Bill gradually pulled himself together, announced in a strange
voice, "The Pilot can't come," handed me the Psalm, and said:

"Make them sing."

It was that grand Psalm for all hill peoples, "I to the hills will
lift mine eyes," and with wondering faces they sang the strong,
steadying words.  After the Psalm was over the people sat and
waited, Bill looked at the Hon. Fred Ashley, then at Robbie Muir,
then said to me in a low voice:

"Kin you make a prayer?"

I shook my head, ashamed as I did so of my cowardice.

Again Bill paused, then said:

"The Pilot says there's got to be a prayer.  Kin anyone make one?"

Again dead, solemn silence.

Then Hi, who was near the back, said, coming to his partner's help:

"What's the matter with you trying, yourself, Bill?"

The red began to come up in Bill's white face.

"'Taint in my line.  But The Pilot says there's got to be a prayer,
and I'm going to stay with the game."  Then, leaning on the pulpit,
he said:

"Let's pray," and began:

"God Almighty, I ain't no good at this, and perhaps you'll
understand if I don't put things right."  Then a pause followed,
during which I heard some of the women beginning to sob.

"What I want to say," Bill went on, "is, we're mighty glad about
this church, which we know it's you and The Pilot that's worked it.
And we're all glad to chip in."

Then again he paused, and, looking up, I saw his hard, gray face
working and two tears stealing down his cheeks.  Then he started
again:

"But about The Pilot--I don't want to persoom--but if you don't
mind, we'd like to have him stay--in fact, don't see how we kin do
without him--look at all the boys here; he's just getting his work
in and is bringin' 'em right along, and, God Almighty, if you take
him away it might be a good thing for himself, but for us--oh,
God," the voice quivered and was silent "Amen."

Then someone, I think it must have been the Lady Charlotte, began:
"Our Father," and all joined that could join, to the end.  For a
few moments Bill stood up, looking at them silently.  Then, as if
remembering his duty, he said:

"This here church is open.  Excuse me."

He stood at the door, gave a word of direction to Hi, who had
followed him out, and leaping on his bronco shook him out into a
hard gallop.

The Swan Creek Church was opened.  The form of service may not have
been correct, but, if great love counts for anything and appealing
faith, then all that was necessary was done.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE PILOT'S LAST PORT


In the old times a funeral was regarded in the Swan Creek country
as a kind of solemn festivity.  In those days, for the most part,
men died in their boots and were planted with much honor and loyal
libation.  There was often neither shroud nor coffin, and in the
Far West many a poor fellow lies as he fell, wrapped in his own or
his comrade's blanket.

It was the manager of the X L Company's ranch that introduced
crape.  The occasion was the funeral of one of the ranch cowboys,
killed by his bronco, but when the pall-bearers and mourners
appeared with bands and streamers of crape, this was voted by the
majority as "too gay."  That circumstance alone was sufficient to
render that funeral famous, but it was remembered, too, as having
shocked the proprieties in another and more serious manner.  No one
would be so narrow-minded as to object to the custom of the return
procession falling into a series of horse-races of the wildest
description, and ending up at Latour's in a general riot.  But to
race with the corpse was considered bad form.  The "corpse-driver,"
as he was called, could hardly be blamed on this occasion.  His
acknowledged place was at the head of the procession, and it was a
point of honor that that place should be retained.  The fault
clearly lay with the driver of the X L ranch sleigh, containing the
mourners (an innovation, by the way), who felt aggrieved that Hi
Kendal, driving the Ashley team with the pall-bearers (another
innovation), should be given the place of honor next the corpse.
The X L driver wanted to know what, in the name of all that was
black and blue, the Ashley Ranch had to do with the funeral?  Whose
was that corpse, anyway?  Didn't it belong to the X L ranch?  Hi,
on the other hand, contended that the corpse was in charge of the
pall-bearers.  "It was their duty to see it right to the grave, and
if they were not on hand, how was it goin' to get there?  They
didn't expect it would git up and get there by itself, did they?
Hi didn't want no blanked mourners foolin' round that corp till it
was properly planted; after that they might git in their work."
But the X L driver could not accept this view, and at the first
opportunity slipped past Hi and his pall-bearers and took the place
next the sleigh that carried the coffin.  It is possible that Hi
might have borne with this affront and loss of position with even
mind, but the jeering remarks of the mourners as they slid past
triumphantly could not be endured, and the next moment the three
teams were abreast in a race as for dear life.  The corpse-driver,
having the advantage of the beaten track, soon left the other two
behind running neck and neck for second place, which was captured
finally by Hi and maintained to the grave side, in spite of many
attempts on the part of the X L's.  The whole proceeding, however,
was considered quite improper, and at Latour's, that night, after
full and bibulous discussion, it was agreed that the corpse-driver
fairly distributed the blame.  "For his part," he said, "he knew he
hadn't ought to make no corp git any such move on, but he wasn't
goin' to see that there corp take second place at his own funeral.
Not if he could help it.  And as for the others, he thought that
the pall-bearers had a blanked sight more to do with the plantin'
than them giddy mourners."

But when they gathered at the Meredith ranch to carry out The Pilot
to his grave it was felt that the Foothill Country was called to a
new experience.  They were all there.  The men from the Porcupine
and from beyond the Fort, the Police with the Inspector in command,
all the farmers for twenty miles around, and of course all the
ranchers and cowboys of the Swan Creek country.  There was no
effort at repression.  There was no need, for in the cowboys, for
the first time in their experience, there was no heart for fun.
And as they rode up and hitched their horses to the fence, or drove
their sleighs into the yard and took off the bells, there was no
loud-voiced salutation, no guying nor chaffing, but with silent nod
they took their places in the crowd about the door or passed into
the kitchen.

The men from the Porcupine could not quite understand the gloomy
silence.  It was something unprecedented in a country where men
laughed all care to scorn and saluted death with a nod.  But they
were quick to read signs, and with characteristic courtesy they
fell in with the mood they could not understand.  There is no man
living so quick to feel your mood, and so ready to adapt himself to
it, as is the true Westerner.

This was the day of the cowboy's grief.  To the rest of the
community The Pilot was preacher; to them he was comrade and
friend.  They had been slow to admit him to their confidence, but
steadily he had won his place with them, till within the last few
months they had come to count him as of themselves.  He had ridden
the range with them; he had slept in their shacks and cooked his
meals on their tin stoves; and, besides, he was Bill's chum.  That
alone was enough to give him a right to all they owned.  He was
theirs, and they were only beginning to take full pride in him when
he passed out from them, leaving an emptiness in their life new and
unexplained.  No man in that country had ever shown concern for
them, nor had it occurred to them that any man could, till The
Pilot came.  It took them long to believe that the interest he
showed in them was genuine and not simply professional.  Then, too,
from a preacher they had expected chiefly pity, warning, rebuke.
The Pilot astonished them by giving them respect, admiration, and
open-hearted affection.  It was months before they could get over
their suspicion that he was humbugging them.  When once they did,
they gave him back without knowing it all the trust and love of
their big, generous hearts.  He had made this world new to some of
them, and to all had given glimpses of the next.  It was no wonder
that they stood in dumb groups about the house where the man, who
had done all this for them and had been all this to them lay dead.

There was no demonstration of grief.  The Duke was in command, and
his quiet, firm voice, giving directions, helped all to self-
control.  The women who were gathered in the middle room were
weeping quietly.  Bill was nowhere to be seen, but near the inner
door sat Gwen in her chair, with Lady Charlotte beside her, holding
her hand.  Her face, worn with long suffering, was pale, but serene
as the morning sky, and with not a trace of tears.  As my eye
caught hers, she beckoned me to her.

"Where's Bill?" she said.  "Bring him in."

I found him at the back of the house.

"Aren't you coming in, Bill?" I said.

"No; I guess there's plenty without me," he said, in his slow way.

"You'd better come in; the service is going to begin," I urged.

"Don't seem as if I cared for to hear anythin' much.  I ain't much
used to preachin', anyway," said Bill, with careful indifference,
but he added to himself, "except his, of course."

"Come in, Bill," I urged.  "It will look queer, you know," but Bill
replied:

"I guess I'll not bother," adding, after a pause:  "You see, there's
them wimmin turnin' on the waterworks, and like as not they'd swamp
me sure."

"That's so," said Hi, who was standing near, in silent sympathy
with his friend's grief.

I reported to Gwen, who answered in her old imperious way, "Tell
him I want him."  I took Bill the message.

"Why didn't you say so before?" he said, and, starting up, he
passed into the house and took up his position behind Gwen's chair.
Opposite, and leaning against the door, stood The Duke, with a look
of quiet earnestness on his handsome face.  At his side stood the
Hon. Fred Ashley, and behind him the Old Timer, looking bewildered
and woe-stricken.  The Pilot had filled a large place in the old
man's life.  The rest of the men stood about the room and filled
the kitchen beyond, all quiet, solemn, sad.

In Gwen's room, the one farthest in, lay The Pilot, stately and
beautiful under the magic touch of death.  And as I stood and
looked down upon the quiet face I saw why Gwen shed no tear, but
carried a look of serene triumph.  She had read the face aright.
The lines of weariness that had been growing so painfully clear the
last few months were smoothed out, the look of care was gone, and
in place of weariness and care, was the proud smile of victory and
peace.  He had met his foe and was surprised to find his terror
gone.

The service was beautiful in its simplicity.  The minister, The
Pilot's chief, had come out from town to take charge.  He was
rather a little man, but sturdy and well set.  His face was burnt
and seared with the suns and frosts he had braved for years.  Still
in the prime of his manhood, his hair and beard were grizzled and
his face deep-lined, for the toils and cares of a pioneer
missionary's life are neither few nor light.  But out of his kindly
blue eye looked the heart of a hero, and as he spoke to us we felt
the prophet's touch and caught a gleam of the prophet's fire.

"I have fought the fight," he read.  The ring in his voice lifted
up all our heads, and, as he pictured to us the life of that
battered hero who had written these words, I saw Bill's eyes begin
to gleam and his lank figure straighten out its lazy angles.  Then
he turned the leaves quickly and read again, "Let not your heart be
troubled . . . in my father's house are many mansions."  His voice
took a lower, sweeter tone; he looked over our heads, and for a few
moments spoke of the eternal hope.  Then he came back to us, and,
looking round into the faces turned so eagerly to him, talked to us
of The Pilot--how at the first he had sent him to us with fear and
trembling--he was so young--but how he had come to trust in him and
to rejoice in his work, and to hope much from his life.  Now it was
all over; but he felt sure his young friend had not given his life
in vain.  He paused as he looked from one to the other, till his
eyes rested on Gwen's face.  I was startled, as I believe he was,
too, at the smile that parted her lips, so evidently saying:  "Yes,
but how much better I know than you."

"Yes," he went on, after a pause, answering her smile, "you all
know better than I that his work among you will not pass away with
his removal, but endure while you live," and the smile on Gwen's
face grew brighter.  "And now you must not grudge him his reward
and his rest . . . and his home."  And Bill, nodding his head
slowly, said under his breath, "That's so."

Then they sang that hymn of the dawning glory of Immanuel's land,--
Lady Charlotte playing the organ and The Duke leading with clear,
steady voice verse after verse.  When they came to the last verse
the minister made a sign and, while they waited, he read the words:


     "I've wrestled on towards heaven
      'Gainst storm, and wind, and tide."


And so on to that last victorious cry,--


     "I hail the glory dawning
      In Immanuel's Land."


For a moment it looked as if the singing could not go on, for tears
were on the minister's face and the women were beginning to sob,
but The Duke's clear, quiet voice caught up the song and steadied
them all to the end.

After the prayer they all went in and looked at The Pilot's face
and passed out, leaving behind only those that knew him best.  The
Duke and the Hon. Fred stood looking down upon the quiet face.

"The country has lost a good man, Duke," said the Hon. Fred.  The
Duke bowed silently.  Then Lady Charlotte came and gazed a moment.

"Dear Pilot," she whispered, her tears falling fast.  "Dear, dear
Pilot!  Thank God for you!  You have done much for me."  Then she
stooped and kissed him on his cold lips and on his forehead.

Then Gwen seemed to suddenly waken as from a dream.  She turned
and, looking up in a frightened way, said to Bill hurriedly:

"I want to see him again.  Carry me!"

And Bill gathered her up in his arms and took her in.  As they
looked down upon the dead face with its look of proud peace and
touched with the stateliness of death, Gwen's fear passed away.
But when The Duke made to cover the face, Gwen drew a sharp breath
and, clinging to Bill, said, with a sudden gasp:

"Oh, Bill, I can't bear it alone.  I'm afraid alone."

She was thinking of the long, weary days of pain before her that
she must face now without The Pilot's touch and smile and voice.

"Me, too," said Bill, thinking of the days before him.  He could
have said nothing better.  Gwen looked in his face a moment, then
said:

"We'll help each other," and Bill, swallowing hard, could only nod
his head in reply.  Once more they looked upon The Pilot, leaning
down and lingering over him, and then Gwen said quietly:

"Take me away, Bill," and Bill carried her into the outer room.
Turning back I caught a look on The Duke's face so full of grief
that I could not help showing my amazement.  He noticed and said:

"The best man I ever knew, Connor.  He has done something for me
too. . . .  I'd give the world to die like that."

Then he covered the face.

We sat Gwen's window, Bill, with Gwen in his arms, and I watching.
Down the sloping, snow-covered hill wound the procession of sleighs
and horsemen, without sound of voice or jingle of bell till, one by
one, they passed out of our sight and dipped down into the canyon.
But we knew every step of the winding trail and followed them in
fancy through that fairy scene of mystic wonderland.  We knew how
the great elms and the poplars and the birches clinging to the
snowy sides interlaced their bare boughs into a network of
bewildering complexity, and how the cedars and balsams and spruces
stood in the bottom, their dark boughs weighted down with heavy
white mantles of snow, and how every stump and fallen log and
rotting stick was made a thing of beauty by the snow that had
fallen so gently on them in that quiet spot.  And we could see the
rocks of the canyon sides gleam out black from under overhanging
snow-banks, and we could hear the song of the Swan in its many
tones, now under an icy sheet, cooing comfortably, and then
bursting out into sunlit laughter and leaping into a foaming pool,
to glide away smoothly murmuring its delight to the white banks
that curved to kiss the dark water as it fled.  And where the
flowers had been, the violets and the wind-flowers and the clematis
and the columbine and all the ferns and flowering shrubs, there lay
the snow.  Everywhere the snow, pure, white, and myriad-gemmed, but
every flake a flower's shroud.

Out where the canyon opened to the sunny, sloping prairie, there
they would lay The Pilot to sleep, within touch of the canyon he
loved, with all its sleeping things.  And there he lies to this
time.  But Spring has come many times to the canyon since that
winter day, and has called to the sleeping flowers, summoning them
forth in merry troops, and ever more and more till the canyon
ripples with them.  And lives are like flowers.  In dying they
abide not alone, but sow themselves and bloom again with each
returning spring, and ever more and more.

For often during the following years, as here and there I came upon
one of those that companied with us in those Foothill days, I would
catch a glimpse in word and deed and look of him we called, first
in jest, but afterwards with true and tender feeling we were not
ashamed to own, our Sky Pilot.





End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Sky Pilot by Ralph Connor

