CHAPTER XIX.
CLEARWATER GLEN.
Next morning we came into Clearwater Glen.
Shalah spoke to me of it before we started. He did not fear theCherokees, who had come from the far south of the range and had neverbeen settled in these parts. But he thought that there might be othersfrom the back of the hills who would have crossed by this gap, andmight be lying in the lower parts of the glen. It behoved us,therefore, to go very warily. Once on the higher ridges, he thought wemight be safe for a time. An invading army has no leisure to explorethe rugged summits of a mountain.
The first sight of the place gave me a strong emotion of dislike. Alittle river brawled in a deep gorge, falling in pools and linns likeone of my native burns. All its course was thickly shaded with bushesand knotted trees. On either bank lay stretches of rough hill pasture,lined with dark and tangled forests, which ran up the hill-side tillthe steepness of the slope broke them into copses of stunted pinesamong great bluffs of rock and raw red scaurs. The glen was verynarrow, and the mountains seemed to beetle above it so as to shut outhalf the sunlight. The air was growing cooler, with the queer, acridsmell in it that high hills bring. I am a great lover of uplands, andthe sourest peat-moss has a charm for me, but to that strange glen Iconceived at once a determined hate. It is the way of some places withsome men. The senses perceive a hostility for which the mind has noproof, and in my experience the senses are right.
Part of my discomfort was due to my bodily health. I had proudlythought myself seasoned by those hot Virginian summers, in which I hadescaped all common ailments. But I had forgotten what old hunters hadtold me, that the hills will bring out a fever which is dormant in theplains. Anyhow, I now found that my head was dizzy and aching, and mylimbs had a strange trembling. The fatigue of the past day had draggedme to the limits of my strength and made me an easy victim. My heart,too, was full of cares. The sight of Elspeth reminded me how heavy wasmy charge. 'Twas difficult enough to scout well in this tangled place,but, forbye my duty to the dominion, I had the business of taking onewho was the light of my life into this dark land of bloody secrets.
The youth and gaiety were going out of my quest. I could only plodalong dismally, attentive to every movement of Shalah, prayingincessantly that we might get well out of it all. To make mattersworse, the travelling became desperate hard. In the Tidewater therewere bridle paths, and in the vales of the foothills the going had beengood, with hard, dry soil in the woods, and no hindrances save athicket of vines or a rare windfall. But in this glen, where the hillrains beat, there was no end to obstacles. The open spaces were marshy,where our horses sank to the hocks. The woods were one medley of fallentrees, rotting into touchwood, hidden boulders, and matted briers.Often we could not move till Donaldson and Bertrand with their hatchetshad hewn some sort of road. All this meant slow progress, and by middaywe had not gone half-way up the glen to the neck which meant the ridgeof the pass.
This was an occasion when Ringan showed at his best. He had lost hisawe of Elspeth, and devoted himself to making the road easy for her.Grey, who would fain have done the same, was no match for the seafarer,and had much ado to keep going himself. Ringan's cheery face was betterthan medicine. His eyes never lost their dancing light, and he wasready ever with some quip or whimsy to tide over the worst troubles. Wekept very still, but now and again Elspeth's laugh rang out at hisfooling, and it did my heart good to hear it.
After midday the glen seemed to grow darker, and I saw that the bluesky, which I had thought changeless, was becoming overcast. As I lookedupwards I saw the high ridge blotted out and a white mist creepingdown. I had noticed for some time that Shalah was growing uneasy. Hewould halt us often, while he went a little way on, and now he turnedwith so grim a look that we stopped without bidding.
He slipped into the undergrowth, while we waited in that dark, lonesomeplace. Even Ringan was sober now.
Elspeth asked in a low voice what was wrong, and I told her that theIndian was uncertain of the best road.
"Best road!" she laughed. "Then pray show me what you call the worst."
Ringan grinned at me ruefully. "Where do you wish yourself at thismoment, Andrew?"
"On the top of this damned mountain," I grunted.
"Not for me," he said. "Give me the Dry Tortugas, on a moonlight nightwhen the breaming fires burn along the shore, and the lads are singing'Spanish Ladies.' Or, better still, the little isle of St. John theBaptist, with the fine yellow sands for careening, and Mother Dariabrewing bobadillo and the trades blowing fresh in the tops of thepalms. This land is a gloomy sort of business. Give me the bright,changeful sea."
"And I," said Elspeth, "would be threading rowan berries for a necklacein the heather of Medwyn Glen. It must be about four o'clock of amidsummer afternoon and a cloudless sky, except for white streamersover Tinto. Ah, my own kind countryside!"
Ringan's face changed.
"You are right, my lady. No Tortugas or Spanish isles for NinianCampbell. Give him the steeps of Glenorchy on an October morn when thedeer have begun to bell. My sorrow, but we are far enough from ourdesires--all but Andrew, who is a prosaic soul. And here comes Shalahwith ugly news!"
The Indian spoke rapidly to me. "The woods are full of men. I do notthink we are discovered, but we cannot stay here. Our one hope is togain the cover of the mist. There is an open space beyond this thicket,and we must ride our swiftest. Quick, brother."
"The men?" I gasped. "Cherokees?"
"Nay," he said, "not Cherokees. I think they are those you seek frombeyond the mountains."
The next half-hour is a mad recollection, wild and confused, anddistraught with anxiety. The thought of Elspeth among savages maddenedme, the more so as she had just spoken of Medwyn Glen, and had sent mymemory back to fragrant hours of youth. We scrambled out of the thicketand put our weary beasts to a gallop. Happily it was harder ground,albeit much studded with clumps of fern, and though we all slipped andstumbled often, the horses kept their feet. I was growing so dizzy inthe head that I feared every moment I would fall off. The mist had nowcome low down the hill, and lay before us, a line, of grey vapour drawnfrom edge to edge of the vale. It seemed an infinite long way off.
Shalah on foot kept in the rear, and I gathered from him that thedanger he feared was behind. Suddenly as I stared ahead something fellten yards in advance of us in a long curve, and stuck, quivering in thesoil.
It was an Indian arrow.
We would have reined up if Shalah had not cried on us to keep on. I donot think the arrow was meant to strike us. 'Twas a warning, a grimjest of the savages in the wood.
Then another fell, at the same distance before our first rider.
Still Shalah cried us on. I fell back to the rear, for if we were toescape I thought there might be need of fighting there. I felt in mybelt for my loaded pistols.
We were now in a coppice again, where the trees were short and sparse.Beyond that lay another meadow, and, then, not a quarter-mile distant,the welcome line of the mist, every second drawing down on us.
A third time an arrow fell. Its flight was shorter and dropped almostunder the nose of Elspeth's horse, which swerved violently, and wouldhave unseated a less skilled horsewoman.
"On, on," I cried, for we were past the need for silence, and when Ilooked again, the kindly fog had swallowed up the van of the party.
I turned and gazed back, and there I saw a strange sight. A dozen menor more had come to the edge of the trees on the hill-side. They werequite near, not two hundred yards distant, and I saw them clearly. Theycarried bows or muskets, but none offered to use them. They were tallfellows, but lighter in the colour than any Indians I had seen. Indeed,they were as fair as many an Englishman, and their slim, golden-brownbodies were not painted in the maniac fashion of the Cherokees. Theystood stock still, watching us with a dreadful impassivity which wasmore frightening to me than violence. Then I, too, was overtaken by thegrey screen.
"Will they follow?" I asked Shalah.
"I
do not think so. They are not hill-men, and fear the high placeswhere the gods smoke. Further-more, there is no need."
"We have escaped, then?" I asked, with a great relief in my voice.
"Say rather we have been shepherded by them into a fold. They will findus when they desire us."
It was a perturbing thought, but at any rate we were safe for themoment, and I resolved to say nothing to alarm the others. We overtookthem presently, and Shalah became our guide. Not that more guiding wasneeded than Ringan or I could have given, for the lift of the groundgave us our direction, and there was the sound of a falling stream. Toan upland-bred man mist is little of a hindrance, unless on afeatureless moor.
Ever as we jogged upward the air grew colder. Rain was blowing in ourteeth, and the ferny grass and juniper clumps dripped with wet. Almostit might have been the Pentlands or the high mosses between DouglasWater and Clyde. To us coming fresh from the torrid plains it wasbitter weather, and I feared for Elspeth, who was thinly clad for thehill-tops. Ringan seemed to feel the cold the worst of us, for he hadspent his days in the hot seas of the south. He put his horse-blanketover his shoulders, and cut a comical figure with his red face peepingfrom its folds.
"Lord," he would cry, "I wish I was in the Dry Tortugas or snug in thebeach-house at the Isle o' Pines. This minds me painfully of my youngdays, when I ran in a ragged kilt in the cold heather of Cruachan. Imust be getting an old man, Andrew, for I never thought the hills couldfreeze my blood."
Suddenly the fog lightened a little, the slope ceased, and we had thatgust of freer air which means the top of the pass. My head was lessdizzy now, and I had a momentary gladness that at any rate we had donepart of what we set out to do.
"Clearwater Gap!" I cried. "Except for old Studd, we are the firstChristians to stand on this watershed."
Below us lay a swimming hollow of white mist, hiding I knew not whatstrange country.
From the vales below I had marked the lie of the land on each side ofthe gap. The highest ground was to the right, so we turned up theridge, which was easier than the glen and better travelling. Presentlywe were among pines again, and got a shelter from the driving rain. Myplan was to find some hollow far up the mountain side, and there tomake our encampment. After an hour's riding, we came to the very placeI had sought. A pocket of flat land lay between two rocky knolls, witha ring of good-sized trees around it. The spot was dry and hidden, andwhat especially took my fancy was a spring of water which welled up inthe centre, and from which a tiny stream ran down the hill. 'Twas afine site for a stockade, and so thought Shalah and the two Borderers.
There was much to do to get the place ready, and Donaldson and Bertrandfell to with their axes to fell trees for the fort. Now that we hadreached the first stage in our venture, my mind was unreasonablycomforted. With the buoyancy of youth, I argued that since we had gotso far we must get farther. Also the fever seemed to be leaving mybones and my head clearing. Elspeth was almost merry. Like a childplaying at making house, she ordered the men about on divers errands.She was a fine sight, with the wind ruffling her hair and her cheeksreddened from the rain.
Ringan came up to me. "There are three Hours of daylight in front ofus. What say you to make for the top of the hills and find Studd'scairn? I need some effort to keep my blood running."
I would gladly have stayed behind, for the fever had tired me, but Icould not be dared by Ringan and not respond. So we set off at a greatpace up the ridge, which soon grew very steep, and forced us to acrawl. There were places where we had to scramble up loose cliffs amida tangle of vines, and then we would dip into a little glade, and thenonce again breast a precipice. By and by the trees dropped away, andthere was nothing but low bushes and boulders and rank mountaingrasses. In clear air we must have had a wonderful prospect, but themist hung close around us, the drizzle blurred our eyes, and the mostwe saw was a yard or two of grey vapour. It was easy enough to find theroad, for the ridge ran upwards as narrow as a hog's back.
Presently it ceased, and with labouring breath we walked a step or twoin flat ground. Ringan, who was in front, stumbled over a little heapof stones about a foot high.
"Studd had a poor notion of a cairn," he said, as he kicked them down.There was nothing beneath but bare soil.
But the hunter had spoken the truth. A little digging in the earthrevealed the green metal of an old powder-flask with a wooden stopper.I forced it open, and shook from its inside a twist of very dirtypaper. There were some rude scratchings on it with charcoal, which Iread with difficulty.
_Salut to Adventrs_. _Robbin Studd on ye Sumit of Mountaine ye 3rd_ _dy of June, yr_ 1672 _hathe sene ye_ _Promissd Lande_.
Somehow in that bleak place this scrap of a human message wonderfullyuplifted our hearts. Before we had thought only of our danger andcares, but now we had a vision of the reward. Down in the mists lay anew world. Studd had seen it, and we should see it; and some day theVirginian people would drive a road through Clearwater Gap and enterinto possession. It is a subtle joy that which fills the heart of thepioneer, and mighty unselfish too. He does not think of payment, forthe finding is payment enough. He does not even seek praise, for it isthe unborn generations that will call him blessed. He is content, likeMoses, to leave his bones in the wilderness if his people may pass overJordan.
Ringan turned his flask in his hands. "A good man, this old Studd," hesaid. "I like his words, _Salute to Adventurers_. He was thinking ofthe folk that should come after him, which is the mark of a big mind,Andrew. Your common fellow would have writ some glorification of hisown doings, but Studd was thinking of the thing he had done and not ofhimself. You say he's dead these ten years. Maybe he's looking down atus and nodding his old head well pleased. I would like fine to drinkhis health."
We ran down the hill, and came to the encampment at the darkening.Ringan, who had retained the flask, presented it to Elspeth with a bow.
"There, mistress," he says, "there's the key of your new estate."