"The boat," moaned Ruth. "Uncle Philip"s boat, and the sick man!"
Every eye turned in the direction of the island. No one spoke after that first look. None marvelled to see that the boat was missing; nothing afloat could live in that seething maelstrom, thickened with melted earth and tangled with fallen trees. The overwhelming thing which their faculties could not grasp was the fact that the island itself was gone.
They could only stand staring, expecting to see it between the mountainous waves, utterly unable to believe the truth, that it had sunk out of sight and was resting on the bottom of the river. And as they were thus still searching the wild, dark flood with incredulous eyes, they suddenly saw a small row-boat in the middle of the stream. It darted down a towering wave and flew up the next, and came flying on like some wild, winged thing, toward the Kentucky sh.o.r.e. Another and a wilder wave caught it, lifted it aloft, and tossed it still nearer the land. It was not far away now, and there came a sudden lightening of the gloom, so that they could see two men in the little boat.
"They can never live to reach the sh.o.r.e!" cried the doctor.
"As G.o.d wills," said the priest.
Instinctively every eye but the girl"s was scanning the sh.o.r.e, trying to find something that would float, something that might help to save the men in the boat. But there was nothing in sight; the fierce waves had swallowed everything, and the helpless people on the bank could only turn again to watch the little boat. Ruth"s gaze had never wandered from it, and she still watched it flying from one wave to another, gazing as intently as she could through the tears that rained over her pale cheeks. She saw it go up a gigantic wave with a flying leap and dart down again, and then it was lost to sight so long that they thought it was gone. But at last it came up near the sh.o.r.e, overturned, and with only one man clinging to it. He was on the far side of the frail sh.e.l.l, so that they could not see him distinctly, although he was not far from the sh.o.r.e and there was more light. And then a swirl of the wild waters brought him to the nearer side, and raised him higher.
"It"s an old man!" sobbed Ruth. "His head is white. Oh! Oh! It"s uncle Philip! It"s uncle Philip! He has been to the island. Save him, Paul!"
The doctor had already thrown off his coat, and was throwing aside his boots. He had not waited for her last words; he was not sure that it was Philip Alston; but he knew that some fellow-creature was perishing almost within reach of his arm. He was now running down the trembling bank, and in another instant had plunged into the boiling, roaring, furious flood, and was swimming toward that wildly rising and falling silver head, which shone like a beacon, through the lurid light. It was hard to keep anything in sight. He was a strong swimmer, but his full strength had not come back, and the fury of the waves was swirling trees like straws.
After that one involuntary appeal, Ruth was silent. Her heart almost stopped beating as she realized what her cry had done. A woman"s mind acts with marvellous quickness when all she loves is at stake. As in a lightning flash she knew that she had sent her lover to risk his life for her foster-father, without knowing what she did. What she would have done had there been time to hesitate she could not tell, dared not think. It must have been a bitter choice, this risking of her lover"s life against the certainty of her father"s death. But now she realized nothing, felt nothing, except that the desperate die was cast. She did not notice that the others followed as she flew after Paul to the river"s very brink. The earth had ceased quivering, but the sh.o.r.es were still crumbling under the crushing blows of the maddened waves. The thick, dark water coiled unheeded about her feet, as she stood silent, straining her eyes after her lover as he swam toward that silver head which still rose and fell with the waves. She did not move when she saw a gigantic cottonwood lean, uprooted and tottering. She did not utter a cry when it fell behind him, cutting him off and hiding him, so that neither he nor the silver head could be seen from the land. She stood as if turned to stone, waiting--only waiting--hardly hoping that it had not carried them both down. She began to weep softly, and her hands were suddenly and unconsciously clasped in silent prayer, when she saw him once more swimming--still swimming--but coming back around the top of the tree.
It had struck the little boat in its fall, sending it down to come up in fragments, but the man was left hanging to a bough, and it was toward him that Paul Colbert was struggling against the fury of the flood. The tree hung to the bank by its loosened roots, but its trunk and branches were swaying wildly, fiercely tossed by the waves. The man was sinking lower in the water, his strength almost was gone, and his hold was giving way, when Paul reached him. The white head, turning, revealed Philip Alston"s face and Paul Colbert thought that he shrank under his touch. Neither spoke for a moment; both needed all their breath to reach a higher bough.
"Let me help you," gasped Paul Colbert. "Try to climb to the next limb.
It is stronger and steadier."
"Thank you," panted Philip Alston.
They reached it together and could now see the sh.o.r.e, and both looked at Ruth through the swaying boughs and flying spray. The young man"s heart leapt and his courage rose at the sight of the slender, girlish form. He saw her stretch out her arms, and remembering that she loved this old man, panting and struggling at his side, he shouted with all the power that he had, telling her that he would do his best to bring him to land.
Philip Alston gave him a strange look, and then turned his gaze again toward the little figure on the sh.o.r.e. In a tone that was even more strange than his look, he murmured something about being on his way back from the island. He also said something about going to the boat early in the morning to countermand an order that he had given on the night before.
"I changed my mind--I found I couldn"t do--"
Paul Colbert did not understand, and scarcely heard the confused, gasping, hurried words. He was looking at Ruth, and longing to loose his hold on the bough, long enough to wave the a.s.surance that his voice could not carry across the roaring waters. And this was the instant that Nature chose to mock the pitting of his puny powers against her resistless forces. A fierce wave tore away the roots that the tree bound to the bank, and hurled it into the flood. It swung round and turned partly over, burying the bough that they clung to, deep under the water.
Both went down with it and Paul Colbert thought, with the quickness and clearness of mind that comes to the drowning, that they could never come up again. When he found his own head once more above water, with his hand grasping a bough of a smaller tree, which had been driven close to the sh.o.r.e, he looked round for Philip Alston. There was no silver head anywhere to be seen now above the thick, dark river. Half stunned, he gazed again blankly, feeling vaguely that his own head must go down very soon; his strength was wholly gone; he could not even see the sh.o.r.e, though it was very near, because he was not strong enough to lift himself above the trunk of the tree which hid it from his sight. And then at last he heard Father Orin"s voice:--
"Hold fast, my boy. Hold fast just a moment longer. We are coming, Toby and I. Try to hold on. We are almost there."
They reached him as his hand let go and his head sunk, and they bore him to the sh.o.r.e and laid him down at Ruth"s feet, unconscious, but alive.
When Nature has thus rent the trembling earth and thus smitten appalled humanity by some stupendous convulsion, the outburst of pa.s.sion nearly always pa.s.ses quickly, and she hastens to console by concealing its traces. These fatal throes were hardly over before she was quelling the frenzied river by her sudden coldness, and only a few days had pa.s.sed before she was covering its subdued waters with a heavy white sheet of glittering ice. And then, as if to make the torn land lovely again at once, she wrapped it in a dazzling robe of spotless snow. Above this she hurriedly hung the broken boughs of the wrecked cottonwoods with countless flashing prisms, encrusting the smallest twigs to the very top in sparkling crystal; and coming down she stilled the murmur of the reeds under icy helmets--binding all together with crystalline cables of frost. So that under the rainbow light of the brilliant winter sun the world was once more radiant with peace and joy and beauty unspeakable.
And Cedar House, too, was now just as it had been before. From its open door nothing could be seen of the marks left by Nature"s pa.s.sionate fury; marks which must remain forever unless some more furious pa.s.sion should come to erase them. It was hard to tell just how and wherein the whole face of the country had been so greatly changed. The people of Cedar House knew that a great lake nearly seventy miles in length and deeper in places than the height of the tallest trees whose tops barely showed above the water, had taken the place of a range of high hills covered with primeval forest. But this was too far away to be seen from Cedar House, and no one there had the heart to approach it. One sad pilgrimage had been made, and that was to the ruins of Philip Alston"s house. It was now a mere heap of fallen logs, and although these were lifted and laid in orderly rows, and the ground searched over inch by inch, there was nothing but his fine clothes and some simple furniture to show that it had ever been occupied.
"To think that he lived like this--that he gave me everything and kept nothing for himself," Ruth said softly through her tears, looking up in Paul Colbert"s troubled face. "Such a desolate, lonely life. It breaks my heart to think of it. But I would have lived in his house if I could.
I wanted to live in it--I wouldn"t have cared how plain and rough it was. I wanted to live with him and cheer him and make him happy, as if he had been my own father. I couldn"t have loved him more dearly if he had been. And you would have loved him, too, if you had known him better. I am sure that you would. You couldn"t have helped loving him--if only for his goodness to me. And he was kind to every one. I never heard him speak a harsh word of any living thing. It was in being kind that he lost his life; he must have gone to see the man who was ill on the boat."
The young doctor looked away and fixed his eyes on the men who were going over the ground around the cabin.
"Who are those men, Paul? And what are they doing here?" she asked suddenly, observing that they seemed to be looking for something. "It hurts me to have strangers handling these things that belonged to him.
What are they looking for? Who are they?"
"Dearest, when a thing like this happens the law has to take certain--"
"What has the law to do with my uncle Philip"s clothes? No one shall touch them but me or you!" bending over the garments and gathering them up in her arms. "What are they digging for? Make them stop. Oh, stop them; this spot is like his grave, the only grave he can ever have."
Paul could not tell her then, nor for months afterward, that it was impossible to stop the search for the gold which was believed to be buried in the earth of the forest near the ruined cabin. He waited till the forest was once more quivering with tender young leaves and the river was gentle and warm again--and she had become his wife. When he gently told her at last, she looked at him wonderingly like a child, and was silent for some time. She knew so little about money or the eagerness for riches. And then she smiled and said that she herself would certainly claim any gold belonging to Philip Alston that ever might be found, and that David and the Sisters and Father Orin and Toby should have the spending of it.
"For that is what he would like and we have no need of more, now that you are becoming famous. We have all and more than we want. Uncle Robert has plenty for himself and his sisters. William will soon be going to Congress, if you and uncle Robert work hard for him. Yes, David and the Sisters and Father Orin and Toby shall have dear uncle Philip"s gold. He would wish them to have it. Think how generous he always was to them and every one, and how kind to all. If you only could have known him just a little longer, dear heart! Knowing him better, you would have known, as I do, how truly he loved everything fine and n.o.ble and great."
He did not reply but silently laid his hand on hers. Sighing and smiling, she nestled closer to his side. And then as they sat thus with their eyes on the glorious afterglow, the Angelus began to peal softly through the shadows, and the Beautiful River seemed in the softened light to curve its majestic arm more closely around this wonderful new country, from which a blighting shadow was lifted forever.