Annie's Boy

: The Man From The Bitter Roots

When Bruce was left alone in the gloomy canyon, where the winter sun at

its best did not shine more than three hours in the twenty-four, he had

wondered whether the days or nights would be the hardest to endure. It

was now well into December, and still he did not know. They were equally

intolerable.



During the storms which kept him inside he spent the days looking at the

floor, the nights staring at the c
iling, springing sometimes to his

feet burning with feverish energy, a maddening desire to do

something--and there was nothing for him to do but wait. Moments would

come when he felt that he could go out and conquer the world bare-handed

but they quickly passed with a fresh realization of his helplessness,

and he settled back to the inevitable.



It was folly to go out penniless--unarmed; he had learned that lesson in

the East and his condition then had been affluence compared to this. He

was doing the one thing that it was possible for him to do in the

circumstances--to get money enough to go outside.



"Slim" had brought a collection of traps down the river from Meadows,

and Bruce had set these out. So far he had been rather lucky and the

pile of skins in the corner was growing--lynx, cougar, marten, mink--but

it still was not high enough.



If Bruce had been less sensitive, more world-hardened, his failure would

not have seemed such a crushing, unbearable thing, but alone in the

killing monotony he brooded over the money he had sunk for other people

until it seemed like a colossal disgrace for which there was no excuse

and that he could never live down. In his bitter condemnation of himself

for his inexperience, his ill-judged magnanimity, he felt as though his

was an isolated case--that no human being ever had made such mistakes

before.



But it was thoughts of Helen that always gave his misery its crowning

touch. She pitied him, no doubt, because, she was kind, but in her heart

he felt she must despise him for a weakling--a braggart who could not

make good his boasts. She needed him, too,--he was sure of it--and lack

of money made him as helpless to aid her as though he were serving a

jail sentence. When, in the night, his mind began running along this

line he could no longer stay in his bunk; and not once, but many times,

he got up and dressed and went outside, stumbling around in the brush,

over the rocks--anything to change his thoughts.



He tried his utmost to put her out of his mind, yet as he plodded on his

snow-shoes, along his fifteen-mile trap line, either actively or

subconsciously his thoughts were of her. He could no longer imagine

himself feeling anything more than a mild interest in any other woman.

He loved her with the same concentration of affection that he had loved

his mother.



Bruce had formed the habit of wondering what she would think of this and

that--of imagining how she would look--what she would say--and so all

through the summer she had been associated with the work. He had

anticipated the time when he should be showing her the rapids with the

moonlight shining on the foam, the pink and amber sunsets behind the

umbrella tree, and when the wind blew among the pines of listening with

her to the sounds that were like Hawaiian music in the distance.



Now, try as he would, he could not rid himself of the habit, and, as he

pushed his way among the dark underbrush of creeks, he was always

thinking that she, too, would love that "woodsy" smell; that she, too,

would find delight in the frozen waterfalls and the awesome stillness of

the snow-laden pines.



But just so often as he allowed his imagination rein, just so often he

came back to earth doubly heavy-hearted, for the chance that she would

ever share his pleasure in these things seemed to grow more remote as

the days went by.



Bruce had built himself a shelter at the end of his trap-line that

consisted merely of poles and pine boughs leaned against a rim-rock.

Under this poor protection, wrapped in a blanket, with his feet toward

the fire at the entrance and his back against the wall, he spent many a

wretched night. Sometimes he dozed a little, but mostly wide-eyed, he

counted the endless hours waiting for the dawn.



During the summer when things had continually gone wrong Bruce had found

some comfort in recounting the difficulties which his hero of the

Calumet and Hecla had gone through in the initial stages of the

development of that great mine. But that time had passed, for, while

Alexander Agassiz had had his struggles, Bruce told himself with a

shadowy smile, he never had been up against a deal like this! there was

no record that he ever had had to lie out under a rim-rock when the

thermometer stood twenty and twenty-five below.



In the long, soundless nights that had the cold stillness of infinite

space, Bruce always had the sensation of being the only person in the

universe. He felt alone upon the planet. Facts became hazy myths, truths

merely hallucinations, nothing seemed real, actual, except that if he

slept too long and the fire went out he would freeze to death under the

rim-rock.



It was only when he dropped down from the peaks and ridges and began to

follow his own steps back, that he returned to reality and things seemed

as they are again. Then it was not so hard to believe that over beyond

that high, white range there were other human beings--happy people,

successful people, people with plenty to read and plenty to do, people

who looked forward with pleasure, not dread, to the days as they came.



He was so lonely that he always felt a little elated when he came across

an elk track in the snow. It was evidence that something was stirring

in the world beside himself.



One day three deer came within thirty feet of him and stared.



"I suppose," he mused, "they're wondering what I am? Dog-gone!" with

savage cynicism. "I'm wondering that myself."



Whatever small portion of his spirits he had recovered by exercise and

success at his traps, always disappeared again on his return down Big

Squaw Creek. To pass the head-gate and the flume gave him an acute pang,

while the high trestle which represented so much toil and sweat, hurt

him like a stab. It seemed unbelievable that he could fail after all

that work!



When he passed the power-house with its nailed windows and doors he

turned his head the other way. It was like walking by a graveyard where

some one was sleeping that he loved.



Bruce always had been peculiarly depressed by abandoned homesteads,

deserted cabins, machinery left to rust, because they represented wasted

efforts, failure, but when these monuments to dead hopes were his own!

His quickened footsteps sometimes became very nearly like a run.



It was from such a trip that Bruce came back to his cabin after two

days' absence more than ordinarily heavy-hearted, if that were possible,

though his luck had been unusually good. He had a cougar, one lynx, and

six dark marten. Counting the State bounty on the cougar, the green

skins be brought back represented close to a hundred dollars. At that

rate he soon could go "outside."



But to-night the thought did not elate him. What was there for him

outside? What was there for him anywhere? As he had trudged along the

trail through the broken snow, the gloom of the canyon had weighed upon

him heavily, but it was the chill silence in the bare cabin when he

opened the door that put the finishing touches upon his misery. The

emptiness of it echoed in his heart.



The blankets were in a mound in the bunk; he had been too disheartened

before he left even to sweep the floor; the ashes over-flowed the stove

hearth and there was no wood split. The soiled dishes, caked with

hardened grease, made him sick. The chimney of the lamp he lighted was

black with smoke. It was the last word in cheerlessness, and there was

no reason to think, Bruce told himself, that it would not be in such

surroundings that he would end his days. He was tired, hungry; his

vitality and spirits were at low ebb.



He warmed over a pan of biscuits and cold bacon and threw a handful of

coffee in the dismal looking coffee pot. When it was ready he placed it

on the clammy oilcloth and sat down. He eyed the food for a moment--the

ever-present bacon, the sticky can of condensed milk, the black coffee

in the tin cup, the biscuits covered with protuberances that made them

look like a panful of horned toads. He realized suddenly that, hungry as

he had thought himself, he could not eat.



With a sweeping, vehement gesture he pushed it all from him. The tin cup

upset and a small waterfall of coffee splashed upon the floor, the can

of condensed milk rolled across the table and fell off but he did not

pick it up. Instead, he folded his arms upon the oilcloth in the space

he had made and dropping his forehead upon his ragged shirt-sleeve, he

cried. Bruce had hit bottom.



Older, wiser, braver men than Bruce have cried in some crisis of their

lives. Tears are no sign of weakness. And they did not come now because

he was quitting--because he did not mean to struggle on somehow or

because there was anything or anybody of whom he was afraid. It was only

that he was lonely, heartsick, humiliated, weary of thinking, bruised

with defeat.



These tears were different from the ready tears of childhood, different

from the last he had shed upon his dead mother's unresponsive shoulder;

these came slowly--smarting, stinging as they rose. His shoulders moved

but he made no sound.



* * * * *



A little way from the cabin where the steep trail from Ore City dropped

off the mountain to the sudden flatness of the river bar, some dead

branches cracked and a horse fell over a fallen log, upsetting the

toboggan that it dragged and taking Uncle Bill with it. Helen hurried to

the place where he was trying to extricate himself from the tangle.



"Are you dead, Uncle Bill?"



"Can't say--I never died before. Say," in a querulous whisper as he

helped the floundering horse up--"Why don't you notice where you're

goin'? Here you come down the mountain like you had fur on your feet,

and the minute I gits you where I wants you to be quiet you make more

noise nor a cow-elk goin' through the brush. How you feelin', ma'am?" to

Helen. "I expect you're about beat."



"Sorry to disappoint you, Uncle Bill, but I'm not. You tried so hard to

keep me from coming I don't think I'd tell you if I was."



"You wouldn't have to--I reckon I'd find it out before we'd gone far.

I've noticed that when a lady is tired or hungry she gits powerful

cross."



"Where did you learn so much about women?"



"I've picked up considerable knowledge of the female disposition from

wranglin' dudes. A bald-face bear with cubs is a reg'lar streak of

sunshine compared to a lady-dude I had out campin' once--when she got

tired or hungry, or otherwise on the peck. Her and me got feelin' pretty

hos-tile toward each other 'fore we quit.



"I didn't so much mind packin' warm water mornin's for her to wash her

face, or buttonin' her waist up the back, or changin' her stirrups every

few miles or gittin' off to see if it was a fly on her horse's stummick

that made him switch his tail, but I got so weak I couldn't hardly set

in the saddle from answerin' questions and tryin' to laugh at her

jokes.



"'Say,' says she, 'ain't you got no sense of humor?' atter I'd let out

somethin' between a groan and a squeal. 'I had,' I says, ''till I was

shot in the head.' 'Shot in the head! Why didn't it kill you?' 'The

bullet struck a bolt, ma'am, and glanced off.' We rode seven hours that

day without speakin' and 'twere the only enjoyable time I had. Dudin'

wouldn't be a bad business," Uncle Bill added judicially, "if it weren't

for answerin' questions and listenin' to their second-hand jokes.

Generally they're smart people when they're on their home range and

sometimes they turns out good friends."



"Like Sprudell." Helen suggested mischievously.



"Sprudell!" The old man's eyes blazed and he fairly jumped at the sound

of the name. "I ain't blood-thirsty and I never bore that reputation but

if I had knowed as much about that feller as I know now he'd a slept in

that there snow-bank until spring.



"You know, ma'am," Uncle Bill went on solemnly while he cast an eye back

up the trail for Burt who had fallen behind, "when a feller's drunk or

lonesome he's allus got some of a dream that he dreams of what he'd do

if he got rich. Sometimes its a hankerin' to travel, or be State

Senator, or have a whole bunch of bananny's hangin' up in the house to

onct. I knowed an old feller that died pinin' for a briled lobster with

his last breath. Since I read that piece about sobbin' out my gratitude

on Sprudell's broad chest it's woke a new ambition in me. Every time I

gits about three fingers of 'cyanide' from the Bucket o' Blood under my

belt I sees pictures of myself gittin' money enough together to go back

to Bartlesville, Indianny, and lick him every day, reg'lar, or jest as

often as I kin pay my fine, git washed up, and locate him agin." Uncle

Bill added reflectively:



"If this deal with Dill goes through without any hitch, I'd ort to be

able to start about the first of the month."



"When you get through with him," Helen laughed, "I'll review the book

he's publishing at his own expense. Here comes Mr. Burt; he looks fagged

out."



"These plains fellers are never any good on foot," Uncle Bill commented

as Burt caught up. "Now," to Burt and Helen, "I'll jest hold this

war-horse back while you two go on ahead. Down there's his light."



There was eagerness in Burt's voice as he said:



"Yes, I'd like to have a look at him before he knows we're here. I'm

curious to see how he lives--what he does to pass the time."



"I hope as how you won't ketch him in the middle of a wild rannicaboo of

wine, women and song," Uncle Bill suggested dryly. "Bachin' in the

winter twenty miles from a neighbor is about the most dissipatin' life I

know. There must be somethin' goin' on this evenin' or he wouldn't be

settin' up after it's dark under the table."



"I'm so excited I'm shaking." Helen declared. "My teeth are almost

chattering. I'm so afraid he'll hear us. That will spoil the surprise."



But Bruce had not heard. In complete abandonment to his wretchedness he

was still sitting at the table with his head upon his arm. So it was

that his father saw him after fifteen years.



When he had thought of Bruce it was always as he had seen him that day

through the window of the prairie ranch house--his head thrown back in

stubborn defiance, his black eyes full of the tears of childish anger

and hurt pride, running bare-footed and bare-headed down the dusty

road--running, as he realized afterward, out of his life.



He had bitterly imagined that his son was prospering somewhere, with a

wife and children of his own, too indifferent in his contentment and

success to bother with his old Dad; and the picture had hardened his

heart.



His own life had been no bed of roses--no pioneer's was--and he, too,

had known loneliness, hardships, but never anything like this. His

shrewd face, deep-seamed and weather-beaten by the suns and snows of

many years, worked. Then he straightened his shoulders, stooped from

years of riding, and the black eyes under their thick eyebrows flashed.



"So this was that Sprudell fellow's work, was it? He was trying to

freeze Bruce out, down him because he thought he had no backing--break

him on the rack!" His teeth shut hard and the fingers inside his mittens

clenched. "There were people in the world who thought they could treat

Bruce like that--and get away with it? Annie's boy--his son! Not yet,

by God, not while steers were bringing nine-sixty on the hoof."



Burt strode around the corner and threw the door back wide.



"Bruce! Bruce! You mustn't feel so bad!" Excitement made his voice sound

harsh, but there was no mistaking the sympathy intended or the yearning

in his face.



Bruce jumped, startled, to his feet and stared, his vision dimmed by the

smarting tears. Was it a ghost--was he, too, getting "queer?"



"Haven't you anything to say to me, Bruce?"



There was an odd timidity in his father's voice but it was real

enough--it was no hallucination. Simultaneous with the relief the

thought flashed through Bruce's mind that his father had seen him

through the window in his moment of weakness and despair. His features

stiffened and with a quick, shamed movement he brushed his eyes with the

back of his hand while his eyes flashed pride and resentment.



"I said all I had to say fifteen years ago when you refused me the

chance to make something of myself. If I'd had an education nobody could

have made a fool of me like this." His voice vibrated with mingled

bitterness and mortification.



"I suppose you've heard all about it and come to say--'I told you so.'"



"I've come to see you through."



"You're too late; I'm down and out." In Bruce's voice Burt recognized

his own harsh tones. "You've got nothing that I want now; you might as

well go back." His black eyes were relentless--hard.



"Won't you shake hands with me, Bruce?" There was pleading in his voice

as he took a step toward his son. Bruce did not stir, and Burt added

with an effort: "It ain't so easy as you might think for me to beg like

this."



"I begged, too, but it didn't do any good."



"I've come twenty miles--on foot--to tell you that I'm sorry. I'm not

young any more, Bruce. I'm an old man--and you're all I've got in the

world."



An old man! The words startled Bruce--shocked him. He never had thought

of his father as old, or lonely, but always as tireless, self-centred,

self-sufficient, absorbed heart and soul in getting rich. He seemed

suddenly to see the bent shoulders, the graying hair and eyebrows, the

furrows and deep, drooping lines about the mouth that had not been

engraved by happiness. There was something forlorn, pathetic about him

as he stood there with his hand out asking for forgiveness. And he had

plodded through the snow--twenty miles--on foot to see him!



The blood that is thicker than water stirred, and the tugging at his

heart strings grew too hard to withstand. He unfolded his arms and

stretched out a hand impulsively--"Father!" Then both--"Dad!" he cried.



"My boy!" There was a catch in the old man's voice, misty eyes looked

into misty eyes and fifteen years of bitterness vanished as father and

son clasped hands.



When Burt could speak he looked at Bruce quizzically and said, "I

thought you'd be married by this time, Bruce."



"Married! What right has a Failure to get married?"



"That's no way to talk. What's one slip-up, or two, or three? Nobody's a

failure till he's dead. Confidence comes from success, but, let me tell

you, boy, practical knowledge comes from jolts."



"Dog-gone! I ought to be awful wise," Bruce answered ironically. "Yes,"

sobering. "I've learned something--I'm not liable to make the same

mistake twice." He added ruefully: "Nor, by the same token, am I likely

to have the chance. I suppose I've got the reputation of being something

midway between an idiot and a thief."



Burt seemed to consider.



"Well, now, I can't recall that the person who engineered this trip for

me used any such names as that. As near as I could make out she was

somewhat prejudiced on your side."



Bruce stared.



"She? Not 'Ma' Snow!"



Burt's eyes twinkled as he shook his head.



"No," drily, "not 'Ma' Snow. She's an estimable lady but I doubt if she

could talk me into comin' on a tour like this in winter."



A wonderful light dawned suddenly in Bruce's eyes.



"You mean--"



"--Helen. I'm feelin' well enough acquainted with her now to call her

Helen. Whatever else we disagree on, Bruce, it looks as though we had

the same taste when it comes to girls."



"You know her?" Bruce's tone was as incredulous as his face.



Burt answered with a wry smile:



"After you've ridden on the back seat of that Beaver Creek stage with a

person and bumped heads every fifteen feet for a hundred miles, you're

not apt to feel like strangers when you get in."



Bruce almost shouted--



"She's in Ore City!"



"She was."



Bruce fell back into his old attitude at the table, but his father

stepped quickly to the door and an instant later threw it open. At his

side was Helen--with outstretched arms and face aglow, her eyes shining

happily.



Bruce had not known that great and sudden joy could make a person

dizzy, but the walls, the floor, everything, seemed to waver as he

leaped to his feet.



"I was sure you wouldn't turn your own partner out of doors!" Her lips

parted in the smile that he loved and though he could not speak he went

toward her with outstretched arms.



Passing the window, Uncle Bill stopped and stood for a second looking

into the light.



"Hells catoots!" he muttered gruffly, "Seems like sometimes in this

world things happen as they ort." And then, Ore City to the contrary, he

demonstrated that he had both presence of mind and tact, for he shouted

to Burt in a voice that would have carried a mile on a still night--"Hi!

Old Man! Come out and help me with this horse. Sounds like he's down

agin and chokin' hisself."



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