And why? Because of the virtue of perfect natural selection--the fittest to the fittest, without the let and hindrance of sickly sentimentality, the unnatural joining by Man-G.o.d made crimes of the unfit to the fit.
Wolves breed wolves, with full powers of the highest enjoyment of Life and Love. Humanity begets weaklings, cowards, driveling idiots whose highest evolution is that shapeless thing called Hope, whose greatest virtue is submission to the anomalies of civilization. Even you, who could be the peer of any wolf that ever ran untrammeled--"
He stopped abruptly, ashamed of his vehemence, and somewhat abashed by the indulgent if slightly satirical smile of his amused listener.
"Even if I could run, and howl, and go hungry; every man"s hand, and what is infinitely worse, every woman"s tongue against me! And what could the Wolf give me in exchange for this?" waving her hand around the room comprehensively and incidentally fondling her jewels.
"He could give you something in exchange for _that_," he said, with a sinister glance towards the fireplace and again she dropped her eyes.
He drew the chess board towards him and began mechanically arranging the pieces. Then he swept them impatiently into a heap and made as if to arise. She leaned forward suddenly and again laid her hand on his arm.
"The wolf subject is an interesting one to me. It is really a pity that I will not be accorded an opportunity of studying them in their native haunts. If it were not for your, to us, unfortunate obligations elsewhere, I should devote quite a portion of my time to the pursuit of more definite information about them."
His hot hand almost burned hers. "Why shouldn"t you investigate the matter if you want to? Your husband is going to buy the VN ranch!" In silence more eloquent than words she gave him her hand.
After a few desultory minutes with the group about the fireplace, he strolled over to the piano. Grace welcomed him shyly, her touch on the keys a little uncertain as in compliance with her request he sang to her accompaniment the Toreador song from Carmen. The request was an inspiration on her part, she never having heard him sing before, and she had preferred it only to cover her soft confusion as she suddenly felt rather than saw his presence behind her. If his instant compliance had surprised her, his execution of it was a revelation to everyone in the room. He sang it easily and freely, a little raucously from lack of practice, it is true, but with the power and richness of voice that made even Constance Brevoort, hypercritical as she was in things musical, sit breathless to its conclusion.
The silence which followed was first broken by Red. "Gee, Ken," he said quaintly, "who"d ever thought yuh could beller so melojious as that!
Why, yuh"re a reg"lah preemoh-johnny!" In the hilarity which this evoked Grace said, reproachfully:
"And to think I never knew!"
He was almost boyishly elated at the implied compliment, and, at the insistence of his audience sang several other operatic selections very creditably. Then he turned in modest explanation to Carter"s demand.
"We all sang a little at college, you know, and my mother was an accomplished musician. It is four years since I last sang. You are overkind to me."
"Do you not play as well?" impulsively asked Mrs. Brevoort. He shook his head negatively.
"Only a few accompaniment chords that I smash out indifferently! and I am dubious of my ability to do that after all these years of roping and ditch digging."
Anselm Brevoort, watching him speculatively through a fragrant cloud of cigar smoke, suddenly sprang a bomb. "Have you ever composed, Mr.
Dougla.s.s, written any songs, for instance? I have heard that you range men have an apt.i.tude in that direction."
Dougla.s.s surveyed him levelly for a moment, his face hardening with quick suspicion. "I have done most things foolish, after the manner of my kind, Mr. Brevoort," he said, curtly; "but I hardly think you would find even a pa.s.sing interest in anything I have accomplished in that direction." Whereupon that astute financier subsided promptly, evincing no further curiosity as to the poetic attainments of this uncomfortably straight-speaking young personage. He was a very shrewd man and had long since learned to respect the moods and idiosyncrasies of others.
But Constance, his wife, detecting the sharp irritation in Dougla.s.s"s voice, was seized with a malicious desire to know its cause; like her husband she was thinking: "That caught him on the raw, somehow. I wonder why?"
"You should allow your friends to be the judge of that, Mr. Dougla.s.s,"
she said, pleasantly. "I am quite certain myself that we should find much more than a pa.s.sing interest if we could induce you to favor us.
The songs inspired by this environment must naturally be full of color and strength. I should very much enjoy hearing one."
"Upon your heads be it, then!" He seated himself at the piano. "This,"
he said, turning to Mrs. Brevoort, meaningly, "I call "The Song of the Wolf.""
Through the silence of the room crept a queer, faint murmur like the breath of an aeolian harp or the sighing of the wind through far-off pines. There was no attempt at harmonious arrangement and concordance; it was rather a vague, erratic and intangible dissonance, a weird jumble of soft discords that alternately pleased and pained. Gradually it increased in volume, as the wind rises to the approach of a storm, culminating finally in a thunderous crash of double ba.s.s. Then out of the contrastive silence of the succeeding lull came unmistakably the mournful howl of a wolf, wonderfully rendered by a few soft tremulous touches of those strong yet sensitive fingers.
Another rolling crash, a diminishing rumble, and then the rich, deep voice of the singer:
"Child of the Wind and Sun, I glide Like a tongue of flame o"er the mountain"s side.
Wherever falleth my blighting tread Lie the whitening bones of the silent Dead.
For trail of wrath Is my red-wet path From the Sea"s low rim to the glaciers high, _Ai y-u-u--yu--yu-u-u-u!_ I live the better that others die.
_Ai yu-u-u-u-u-u!_
"Oh! sweet is the scent in the evening gale, Of the dun deer wending adown the trail Where I lie, grim ambushed, with bated breath, A gray lance couched in the hand of Death!
At that maddening tang White-bared each fang, Dripping anon with ambrosia red; _Ai y-u-u--yu--yu-u-u-u!_ Haste, sweetheart, to the feast outspread!
_Ai yu-u-u-u-u-u!_
"But sweeter even than Life"s rich wine, As, hot from the kill--ah-h! draught divine!-- It trickles adown my ravished throat, Is my gaunt mate"s deep-toned, chesty note.
As o"er hill and plain She calls amain Till the welkin quivers with ecstasy: _Ai y-u-u--yu--yu-u-u-u!_ "Oh come, Beloved, to Love and me!"
_Ai yu-u-u-u-u-u!_
"Manlings sp.a.w.ned in the cities" slime.
Weaklings, withered before your prime.
What ken ye of the joys there be Of Life and of Love and of Liberty!
Better hill and dell As free Ishmael Than the shackles of pomp and pageantry: _Ai yu-u-u--yu--yu-u-u-u!_ Come out, oh! faint hearts, and howl with me!
_Ai yu-u-u-u-u-u!_"
In the storm of applause that rewarded his unique performance he rose and went over to the fireplace.
"If you are still disposed to the purchase of the Vaughan holdings I will accept your offer," he said to Brevoort. "But I must be free to come and go at will. I am one of the wolves, you know!"
Brevoort nodded a brisk acquiescence. "That is perfectly satisfactory to me. We will arrange the details."
McVey was genuinely pleased and said so; Carter rather grudgingly extended his congratulations; he would rather Dougla.s.s were the manager of his own estate. His grievance was still fresh and rankling.
Constance Brevoort, toying with the ivory chessmen, smiled commiseratingly at the soft irradiation of Grace"s face.
CHAPTER XVII
THE FROWNING G.o.dDESS SMILES
It was arranged that the transfer of the VN interests should be made at the last day of the year. The weather was still open and the days very delightful, and Brevoort evincing a lively interest in Dougla.s.s"s mining venture, his wife proposed a junket over to the claims on the head of the Roaring Fork, something less than forty miles away as the crow flies. As the trip would have to be made over rather difficult trails it was decided to go on horseback, the camp paraphernalia being loaded on pack animals in charge of McVey, who somewhat eagerly volunteered his services.
The trail led through a very rugged country alive with big game and Brevoort was in the seventh heaven of a hunter"s delight. For three days the cavalcade slowly wended its way through scenery unequaled anywhere on earth, and every minute was fraught with enjoyment. On the afternoon of the third day, when they finally reached the rough claim-cabin nestling in the giant spruces on the edge of a little sun-kissed park, their delight was unbounded.
Artistic in nature, Dougla.s.s had selected a most charming spot for his habitation. The little park, sloping to the westward, was knee-deep with gra.s.s, studded with the belated blooms of the high alt.i.tudes. Down one side purled a little brook, fed from a beautiful waterfall in easy view from the cabin door. To the south lay the snow-capped purple reaches of the Taylor Range over which they had just come, and to the east, behind the cabin, towered the majestic grandeur of the continent-dividing Rockies, the "Backbone of the World" in the poetical phraseology of the Ute Indians. From the cabin door one looked over an immense vista of mountain, plain, valley and river too exquisite for description by words.
Having come leisurely and comfortably, all were in the proper frame of mind and body for its enjoyment, and the scrupulously clean cabin came in for its share of deserved encomiums. It was immediately given over for the personal use of the ladies, who were delighted with the cozy bunks and foot-deep mattresses of aromatic spruce needles. The men, as much from preference as from necessity, spread their blankets under the open sky.
The sportsman"s instinct was strong in Brevoort, so he and Dougla.s.s went out with their rifles, returning in less than an hour with a splendid buck deer and a dozen grouse. The little stream had also yielded up to Carter, who was an expert fly-fisherman, some two-score delicious trout, and the resulting meal was one fit for the G.o.ds. All cowboys are from necessity good cooks, and the fluffy, golden brown biscuits and fragrant coffee of Red"s making were unexceptionable.
Despite the chill of the evening they sat around a roaring camp-fire until long after the moon rose, regaled by the quaint narratives of McVey, who was a born raconteur. What added to their subtle humor immensely was the fact that the embodied jokes were almost always turned at his own expense. But the last of his relations brought tears into the eyes of one woman at least, and made Dougla.s.s kick embarra.s.sedly at the glowing log heap until the sparks arose in an inverted cascade of fire.
"Theah is some people in thu wohld that seem just bawn foh trubble! They are built a-puppos, like a woodp.e.c.k.e.r, an" mizzery nacherally poahs upon "em when everybody else is so allfired happy that it hurts.
"I mind a fambly o" that kind which come oveh yeah from thu Picketwire (Purgatoire River) three yeah ago. They was foah on "em, two ole ones an" a couple o" kids, boy "n gyurl, "bout sixteen yeahs ole, each."