第2章

If there ever was a will-o'-the-wisp on a square up mountain,that was one.It wasn't no window!Some of ye thought ye saw a face too--eh?""Yes,and a rather pretty one,"said the pleasant voice meditatively.

"That's the way they'd build that sort of thing,of course.It's lucky ye had to satisfy yourself with looking.Gosh!I feel creepy yet,thinking of it!What are ye looking back for now like Lot's wife?Blamed if I don't think that face bewitched ye.""I was only thinking about that fire you started,"returned the other quietly."I don't see it now.""Well--if you did?"

"I was wondering whether it could reach that hollow.""I reckon that hollow could take care of any casual nat'rel fire that came boomin'along,and go two better every time!Why,Idon't believe there was any fire;it was all a piece of that infernal ignis fatuus phantasmagoriana that was played upon us down there!"With the laugh that followed they started forward again,relapsing into the silence of tired men at the end of a long journey.Even their few remarks were interjectional,or reminiscent of topics whose freshness had been exhausted with the day.The gaining light which seemed to come from the ground about them rather than from the still,overcast sky above,defined their individuality more distinctly.The man who had first spoken,and who seemed to be their leader,wore the virgin unshaven beard,mustache,and flowing hair of the Californian pioneer,and might have been the eldest;the second speaker was close shaven,thin,and energetic;the third,with the pleasant voice,in height,litheness,and suppleness of figure appeared to be the youngest of the party.The trail had now become a grayish streak along the level table-land they were following,which also had the singular effect of appearing lighter than the surrounding landscape,yet of plunging into utter darkness on either side of its precipitous walls.

Nevertheless,at the end of an hour the leader rose in his stirrups with a sigh of satisfaction.

"There's the light in Collinson's Mill!There's nothing gaudy and spectacular about that,boys,eh?No,sir!it's a square,honest beacon that a man can steer by.We'll be there in twenty minutes."He was pointing into the darkness below the already descending trail.Only a pioneer's eye could have detected the few pin-pricks of light in the impenetrable distance,and it was a signal proof of his leadership that the others accepted it without seeing it.

"It's just ten o'clock,"he continued,holding a huge silver watch to his eye;"we've wasted an hour on those blamed spooks yonder!""We weren't off the trail more than ten minutes,Uncle Dick,"protested the pleasant voice.

"All right,my son;go down there if you like and fetch out your Witch of Endor,but as for me,I'm going to throw myself the other side of Collinson's lights.They're good enough for me,and a blamed sight more stationary!"The grade was very steep,but they took it,California fashion,at a gallop,being genuinely good riders,and using their brains as well as their spurs in the understanding of their horses,and of certain natural laws,which the more artificial riders of civilization are apt to overlook.Hence there was no hesitation or indecision communicated to the nervous creatures they bestrode,who swept over crumbling stones and slippery ledges with a momentum that took away half their weight,and made a stumble or false step,or indeed anything but an actual collision,almost impossible.

Closing together they avoided the latter,and holding each other well up,became one irresistible wedge-shaped mass.At times they yelled,not from consciousness nor bravado,but from the purely animal instinct of warning and to combat the breathlessness of their descent,until,reaching the level,they charged across the gravelly bed of a vanished river,and pulled up at Collinson's Mill.The mill itself had long since vanished with the river,but the building that had once stood for it was used as a rude hostelry for travelers,which,however,bore no legend or invitatory sign.

Those who wanted it,knew it;those who passed it by,gave it no offense.

Collinson himself stood by the door,smoking a contemplative pipe.

As they rode up,he disengaged himself from the doorpost listlessly,walked slowly towards them,said reflectively to the leader,"I've been thinking with you that a vote for Thompson is a vote thrown away,"and prepared to lead the horses towards the water tank.He had parted with them over twelve hours before,but his air of simply renewing a recently interrupted conversation was too common a circumstance to attract their notice.They knew,and he knew,that no one else had passed that way since he had last spoken;that the same sun had swung silently above him and the unchanged landscape,and there had been no interruption nor diversion to his monotonous thought.The wilderness annihilates time and space with the grim pathos of patience.

Nevertheless he smiled."Ye don't seem to have got through coming down yet,"he continued,as a few small boulders,loosened in their rapid descent,came more deliberately rolling and plunging after the travelers along the gravelly bottom.Then he turned away with the horses,and,after they were watered,he reentered the house.

His guests had evidently not waited for his ministration.They had already taken one or two bottles from the shelves behind a wide bar and helped themselves,and,glasses in hand,were now satisfying the more imminent cravings of hunger with biscuits from a barrel and slices of smoked herring from a box.Their equally singular host,accepting their conduct as not unusual,joined the circle they had comfortably drawn round the fireplace,and meditatively kicking a brand back at the fire,said,without looking at them:--"Well?"