For an hour they sat on the sofa with their arms around each other, talking and planning; and then when they became silent, the pictures they saw in the glowing coals partook of a log house, a dreary sagebrush plain, and the building of ca.n.a.ls and reservoirs.
The worst did come. They could, perhaps, have retained a part of Ames farm, but they decided to give up everything, pay their debts, and face the world honorably. So, before Christmas, everything had been cleared up, and Widow Ames was installed in a neat three-roomed house nearer town, for which they paid a monthly rental.
Miss Virginia Wilton was on a visit to her "folks in the East." Rupert both longed and feared for her return. In his letters he had said nothing about the change in his affairs. He would wait until her return, and then he would explain it fully to her. He had decided, for her sake, to propose to her the postponement of their marriage until spring. He would certainly be better prepared then. It would be a sacrifice on his part, but Virginia would be wise enough to see its advisability. Yes, they would counsel together, and Virginia"s love would be the power to hold him up. After all, the world was not so dark with such a girl as Virginia Wilton waiting to become his wife.
The day after her return to Willowby, Rupert called on her. Mrs. Worth, the landlady, responded to his knock, and said that Virginia had gone out for the day. She was, however, to give him this note if he called.
Rupert took the paper and turned away. He would find her at some neighbor"s. He carefully broke the envelope and read:
_Dear Mr. Ames_:
As I have accepted a position to teach in another state, I shall have to leave Willowby tomorrow. I shall be too busy to see you, and you have too much good sense to follow me. Forget the past. With kindest regards, I am, _Virginia Wilton_.
Nina was married on the first of the year. Widow Ames died about two weeks after.
And so life"s shifting scenes came fast to Rupert Ames; and they were mostly scenes of dreariness and trial; but he did not altogether give up. Many of his friends were his friends still, and he could have drowned his sorrow in the social whirl; but he preferred to sit at home during the long winter evenings, beside his fire and shaded lamp, and forget himself in his books. He seemed to be drifting away from his former life, into a strange world of his own. He lost all interest in his surroundings. To him, the world was getting empty and barren and cold.
The former beautiful valley was a prison. The hills in which his boyhood had been spent lost all their loveliness. How foolish, anyway, he began to think, to always live in a narrow valley, and never know anything of the broad world without. Surely the soul will grow small in such conditions.
Early that spring, Rupert packed his possessions in a bundle which he tied behind the saddle on his horse and bade good-bye to his friends.
"Where are you going, Rupe?" they asked.
But his answer was always, "I don"t know."
VIII.
"No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby."--_Heb. 12:11_.
Rupert Ames had ridden all day, resting only at noon to permit his horse to graze. As for himself, he was not tired. The long pent-up energy had begun to escape, and it seemed that he could have ridden, or walked, or in any way worked hard for a long time without need of rest. Move, move he must. He had been dormant long enough; thinking, thinking, nothing but that for months. It would have driven him mad had he not made a change. Where was he going? No one knew; Rupert himself did not know; anywhere for a change; anywhere to get away, for a time, from the scenes and remembrances of the valley and town of Willowby.
At dark he rode into a village at the mouth of a gorge. Lights gleamed from the windows. A strong breeze came from the gorge, and the trees which lined the one stony street all leaned away from the mountain.
Rupert had never been in the place before, but he had heard of Windtown.
Was there a hotel? he asked a pa.s.ser-by. No; but they took lodgers at Smith"s, up the hill. At Smith"s he, therefore, put up his horse and secured supper and bed. Until late at night he walked up and down Windtown"s one street, and even climbed the cliffs above the town.
Next morning he was out early, and entered the canyon as the sun began to illumine its rocky domes and cast long shafts of light across the chasm. A summer morning ride through a canyon of the Rockies is always an inspiration, but Rupert was not conscious of it. Again, at noon, he fed his horse a bag of grain, and let him crop the scanty bunch-gra.s.s on the narrow hillside. A slice of bread from his pocket, dipped into the clear stream, was his own meal. Then, out of the canyon, and up the mountain, and over the divide he went. All that afternoon he rode over a stretch of sagebrush plain. It was nearly midnight when he stopped at a mining camp. In the morning he sold his horse for three twenty-dollar gold pieces, and with his bundle on his back, walked to the railroad station, a distance of seven miles.
"I want a ticket," said he to the man at the little gla.s.s window.
"Where to?"
"To--to--well, to Chicago."
The man looked suspiciously at Rupert, and then turned to a card hanging on the wall.
"Twenty-eight-fifty," he said.
Two of the gold pieces were shoved under the gla.s.s, and Rupert received his ticket and his change.
In the car, he secured a seat near the window that he might see the country. It was the same familiar mountains and streams all that day, but the next morning when he awoke and looked out of the car windows, a strange sight met his gaze. In every direction, as far as he could see, stretched the level prairie, over which the train sped in straight lines for miles and miles. "We must be in Kansas," he thought. "What a sight, to see so much level land."
But what was he going to do in Chicago? To see the world, to mingle in the crowd, to jostle with his fellow-beings--what else, he did not know.
Chicago! What a sight to the man of the mountains! Streets, houses, people and the continuous din and traffic of the city nearly turned his head for a time. What an ideal place in which to lose one"s self. Rupert had a bundle no longer, but in his pocket just fifteen dollars and ten cents. He kept well out of the clutches of the sharpers in the city, and lived quite comfortably for a week, seeing the sights of the wonderful city. Then, when his money was getting low, he tried to get work, as he wished to remain longer. But Rupert was a farmer, and they were not in demand within the city limits. Outside the city, Rupert fell in with a body of travelers who were going West--walking, and riding on the trains when they had a chance. He joined them. Somehow, he had ceased to consider what his doings might lead to, and as for misgivings as to the company he was keeping, that did not trouble him. For many days there was more walking than riding. Rupert was not expert at swinging himself under the cars and hanging to the brakebeams, so he traveled with the more easy-going element, who slept in the haylofts at night and got what food they could from farmhouses, though Rupert h.o.a.rded his little store of money and usually paid for what he got. Then he lost all track of time. It must have been far into the summer when Rupert separated from his companions, and found himself at the base of the mountains. Here he spent his last cent for a loaf of bread.
That night Rupert felt a fever burning within him, and in the morning he was too weak to travel. He, therefore, lay in the hay which had served him for a bed until the sun shone in upon him; then he again tried to get out, but he trembled so that he crawled back into the loft and there lay the whole day. Towards evening he was driven out by the owner of the barn. Rupert staggered along until he came to another hayloft, which he succeeded in reaching without being seen. All that night he tossed in fever and suffered from the pains which racked his body. The next day a farmer found him, and seeing his condition, brought him some food. Then on he went again. His mind was now in a daze. Sometimes the mountains, the houses, and the fences became so jumbled together that he could not distinguish one from the other. Was he losing his mind? Or was it but the fever? Was the end coming?--and far from home, too--Home?--he had no home. One place was as good as another to him. He had no distinct recollection how he got to the usual hayloft, nor how long he lay there.
It was one confused ma.s.s of pains and dreams and fantastic shapes. Then the fever must have burned out, for he awoke one night with a clear brain. Then he slept again.
On awakening next morning and crawling out, he saw the sun shining on the snow-tipped peaks of the mountains. He had dreamed during the night of his mother and Virginia and Nina, and the dream had impressed him deeply. His haggard face was covered with a short beard; his clothes were dirty, and some rents were getting large. Yes, he had reached the bottom. He could go no further. He was a tramp--a dirty tramp. He had got to the end of his rope. He would reach the mountains which he still loved, and there on some cliff he would lie down and die. He would do it--would do it!
All that day he walked. He asked not for food. He wanted nothing from any man. Alone he had come into the world, alone he would leave it. His face was set and hard. Up the mountain road he went, past farmhouse and village, up, farther up, until he reached a valley that looked like one he knew, but there was no town there, nothing but a level stretch of bench-land and a stream coursing down the lower part of the valley.
Groves of pines extended over the foothills up towards the peaks. Up there he would go. Under the pines his bones would lie and bleach.
He left the wagon road, and followed a trail up the side of the hill.
The sun was nearing the white mountain peaks. An autumn haze hung over the valley and made the distance dim and blue. The odor from the trees greeted him, and recalled memories of the time when, full of life and hope, he had roamed his native pine-clad hills. He was nearing home, anyway. The preacher had said that dying was only going home. If there was a hereafter, it could be no worse than the present; and if death ended all, well, his bones would rest in peace in this lone place. The wolf and the coyote might devour his flesh--let them--and their night howl would be his funeral dirge.
Far up, he went into the deepest of the forest. The noise of falling waters came to him as a distant hymn. He sat on the ground to rest, before he made his last climb. Mechanically, he took from his pocket a small book, his testament--his sole remaining bit of property. He opened it, and his eyes fell on some lines which he had penciled on the margin, seemingly, years and years ago. They ran as follows:
""Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up, Whose golden rounds are our calamities."
And the pa.s.sages to which they pointed read:
"My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him; for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye receive chastenings, G.o.d dealeth with you as with sons, for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?"
The book dropped from the reader"s trembling grasp. It was then that the Angel of Mercy said, "It is enough," and touched the young man"s heart.
The long pent-up spring burst forth, and Rupert sobbed like a child. By a huge gray rock sheltered by the pines, he uttered his first prayer to G.o.d. For a full hour he prayed and wept, until a peaceful spirit overpowered him, and he slept.
Rupert awoke with a changed heart, though he was weak and faint. Evening was coming on and he saw the smoke curling from the chimney of a farmhouse half a mile below. Painfully, he made his way down to it.
A young man was feeding the cows for the night, and Rupert went up to him, and said:
"Good evening, sir; have you any objection to my sleeping in your barn tonight?"
The man eyed him closely. Tramps did not often come to his out-of-the-way place.
"Do you smoke?"
"No, sir."
"Then I have no objection, though I don"t like tramps around the place."
"Thank you, sir."