10 The Mountain King

Although the door was shut between them, Cynthia stepped quickly to the window and watched Harry and Herbert Newton walk down the trail. The last cloud was gone, and the late sun was brilliant, turning to gold the rain drops that sparkled on leaves and grass, and she could see distinctly the two figures for a long way. Poor Mr. Newton! The country, the elements, circumstance, all seemed to have conspired against him. He did not fit into the picture at all. He alone had labored in coming up the path, he alone had no suggestion to offer, he alone seemed to be out of touch with everything. It was still Harry who led the way, and a thrill of pride, and of something more, passed through her, as she looked at his straight young figure striding on ahead. A moment later, when both were shut out by a curve in the path she turned back to her companions.

Cynthia thought that the face of the woman showed distinct relief, although she did not associate it at that moment with the going of Harry Beauchamp. Rose Compton was interested, almost delighted. Both she and Cynthia were used to the rough life in the hills, and this had the spice of an adventure. Neither felt the slightest fear; they knew there was cause for none.

“You must let us help you get the supper,” said Cynthia to the woman who had begun evident preparations.

“No, no, you mustn’t tech a thing,” she said, shaking her head, “You’ll spi’l your pretty clothes. An’ clothes like them must a-cost a heap.”

“We know how to work,” protested Cynthia “and we would really like to help. I ought to say that we are both from Groveton. This is Rose Compton and I’m Cynthia Braxton, Judge William Braxton’ s daughter.”

“Yes, I’ve heard uv Judge Braxton often, an’ I’ve seen him in Pleasantville, when he comes ridin’ the circuit.”

The young men with us were Harry Beauchamp, the owner and editor of the Groveton Herald, and Mr. Herbert Newton of Chicago, whose father is a great steel manufacturer.”

She paused interrogatively, but the woman offered no information about herself. She merely said:

“From Chicago? I ’lowed that nobody from a place ez big an’ ez fur away ez Chicago would ever reach these parts. Ez for the other I knowed he wuz Mr. Boshong. I seen him in Groveton once!

Then she resumed her preparations for supper and Cynthia and Rose, tucking up their skirts, helped her despite her protest. She opened the door to the second room, revealing a cooking stove in one corner and a bed in the other. She brought a ham from a cupboard and made coffee and corn cakes on the stove. A pleasant aroma arose, and Cynthia and Rose realized that they were very hungry. Both were still interested, and the spice of adventure, that was so agreeable, remained.

Outside the dark was coming down fast. The peaks were lost, the forests became a blur, and then night enveloped the wilderness. The only point of light was the one that shone from the candle, lighted by the woman in the cabin.

The woman set the table and Cynthia suddenly noticed that she had laid four plates. Then she noticed too that a dark night had fully come, and, for the first time, she felt a tremor.

“There he is,” said the woman, “I hear his step.”

The door was opened and Cad Burke entered.

He stood in the doorway, staring in astonishment at the scene that confronted him. He was still the mountain gallant, the cock of his walk. His hat was slightly, but jauntily, on one side, and the spray of sumac glowed in the band of it like a flame. Silhouetted in the doorway, his figure seemed very lithe and very powerful. Slowly the surprise passed from his face, and a singular expression, half of gratification half of mockery, took its place.

“I didn’t know you had guests, Mother” he said.

“This is Miss Braxton, daughter uv Judge Braxton from Groveton” said his mother “an’ this is Miss Rose Compton uv the same place.”

“Yes, I know it, I’ve seen ’em both afore” said Burke.

“They got lost an’ they hid here from the storm. Thar wuz two young men with em, but they’ve gone back to Pleasantville to tell the news. This is my son, Cad, ladies.”

Cynthia bowed slightly. What an extraordinary whim of fate that she should be brought here to the house of Cad Burke, the mountaineer who had killed Harry Beauchamp’s uncle, the mountaineer who had dared, to stand under her window, and throw a kiss at her! She shivered with both fear and repulsion, and the cabin suddenly became a hateful place.

Burke closed the door, hung his hat on a peg, and went to the fire. Despite his size he trod lightly and with a sinuous grace like a mountain panther. Cynthia, an instinctive reader of people’s thoughts knew that he was mightily pleased about something, and she more than guessed what it was. Why had not Harry taken her away with him, even through the dark?

“I’m right pleased, Mother,” said Burke, “to know that the ladies found our house in time. That storm would hev most nigh whipped ’em to pieces.”

“Yes, sech tender things ez they be,” said Mrs. Burke. “To hev passed through that storm an’ then to hev spent a night on the mountains without shelter would hev finished ’em.”

He cast a sidelong glance at Cynthia, a glance of admiration and of something else. Yes, wicked and incredible as it seemed, it was true, and her heart contracted within her. Rose Compton had noticed nothing, and fortunately she broke now into the light chatter, which was as natural to her as the flowing of a brook, and much like it.

“Supper ready,” said the woman. “Will you all set?”

Cynthia had forgotten the pleasant odors, and she sat down to the table automatically. But Rose rambled on. She was really enjoying herself. The spice of adventure had not departed for her, and this big mountaineer, handsome in his wild and savage way, was an interesting man.

“I saw you in Pleasantville today, Mr. Burke,” she said, “and I heard you talking, when the men hurt themselves with the hand car.”

Burke smiled sourly.

“The railroad’s a terrible oppressor,” he said, “It kills us an’ robs us too. But I didn’t have no chance with that man Wentworth. His tongue is hung in the middle, an’ works at both ends, at the same time. I got so I wuz willin’ to do anything ef he’d only stop talkin’.”

Rose laughed, a hearty silvery laugh of keen enjoyment.

“Yes, Charlie is something of a talker,” she admitted.

Cynthia remained silent, conscious however that Burke was taking swift, sly glances at her. She no longer had any appetite, but she forced herself to eat, while Rose chattered on, amused by the big mountain man.

But Cynthia knew that Burke was dangerous, full of an infinite presumption, and believing now that chance or fate was working for him. He gave a greater impression of physical strength than any other man whom she had ever seen. Sitting at the table now she saw that he was even larger than he had appeared when walking about. His very ease and activity in motion had served to reduce his apparent proportions. He was a reversion in type, a powerful animal of prey, that moved his head slightly from side to side as he ate. She almost imagined that she could hear his purr of content, and she noticed too that he ate largely, as one must furnish much fuel to a great engine. She shivered again slightly. It was like looking at a huge tiger, with no bars between.

“You wuz lost an’ you got in here just before the storm busted?” he said to Cynthia—he took no notice of Rose.

“Yes,” she replied. But Rose added:

“And the gentlemen with us, Mr. Beauchamp and Mr. Newton started back to Pleasantville, as soon as they could, to tell that we were safe.”

“It wuz the Harry Beechum that edits the paper in Groveton?” said Burke.

“It was he,” replied chattering Rose, “and Mr. Newton is the son of a great steel millionaire in Chicago. It is said that he is going to help Tom Kidd finish the railroad. But we don’t say Beechum now. It’s Beauchamp.”

“Bo-shong,” said Burke slowly. “Well, it don’t make no difference, Beechum or Boshong.”

He showed no interest whatever in Mr. Newton. His mother after giving him a single look that indicated fear, averted her head.

“Why do you people oppose the railroad so?” continued Rose in all innocence. “It will bring great development, it will open out the country.”

“Some uv us don’t want to be opened out ma’am,” replied Burke grimly. “The country’s ours an’ it suits us ez it is.”

Cynthia signalled to Rose to change the subject, and presently the supper was finished. Mrs. Burke built up the fire a little, as the night had come on cool, and replaced the willow-bottomed chairs before it.

“Thar ain’t nothin’ stirring” said Burke at the window. “Jest the lim’s uv the trees movin’ in the wind.”

Cynthia glanced out. She could see only a solid wall of darkness that had rolled up and enclosed the cabin. Yet Burke’s eyes had penetrated the blackness with ease. He was, in very truth, a reversion to type, a primeval man, with the strength and physical perceptions of a powerful beast of prey, and with a beast of prey’s impulses. His eyes met hers for a moment, and his look was sardonic, saying plainly to her: “You are here, you are under my roof, you have come to me for shelter, it is I alone who could give it.” She looked hastily away, and went to the side of Rose.

Seen now by the firelight, the cabin bore all the aspect of a wilderness fortress, of one of those log houses, belonging to an earlier time, when every man must defend his own. The oaken door was fastened on the inside with a heavy bar, extending from hook to hook. The window too had a wooden shutter over the glass although it was not now closed, and she noticed for the first time a rifle standing in the corner, a breech-loading weapon, of the finest and most improved make. Cynthia felt herself a prisoner, held hard and fast in the forest by Cad Burke. Oh, why had Harry gone away and left her there?

The fire was very grateful to Rose Compton—it was cool on the mountains and in the night—and the glow of the flames was reflected over her pretty, pleased face. She and Cynthia sat on one side of the hearth, and Cad Burke and his mother on the other. She had undergone much physical exertion and some anxiety. Now she had found shelter, she had eaten and rested and a pleasant languor stole over her. Her chatter ceased and she gazed dreamily into the coals, reading there the answers to a young girl’s questions. Cynthia too was silent and Burke and his mother were also silent. It seemed natural for the man and his mother, to be so—the primitive people speak but little—probably they had sat many a time and hour or more without ever saying a word. The wind rose, and the forest gave forth a long plaintive moan under its touch.

An overhanging bough rubbed against the roof with a persistent, sliding motion, as, if a moccasined enemy were creeping there, and it got upon Cynthia’s nerves. She felt terribly alone.

“Mr. Beauchamp and Mr. Newton are coming back for us in the morning,” said Rose at last.

Mrs. Burke glanced up quickly and there was a look of fear on her face. Cynthia saw the withered hand tremble as it lay on her knee.

“Cad won’t be here when they come,” said the mother. “He was ’lowing to go away at daylight on a trip over the mountains.”

Cynthia suddenly drew a deep breath, but the mountaineer continued to gaze into the fire. Nevertheless Cynthia saw the singular play of his features. His remarkable, intensely black eyes expressed power, derision, a sense of triumph. His mother looked anxiously at him for a nod of affirmation, but he gave none. Cynthia looked with equal anxiety, and she too saw none. The meeting in the morning was one of the things that she dreaded. A while ago she was asking herself why had Harry gone away and left her, but that was a thoughtless question. It was well that he had gone, and now she devoutly hoped that chance would cause him to stay, sending some one else in his place.

Rose’s eyelids drooped lower. The moan of the wind and the rubbing of the bough on the board roof did not disturb her. They were only a soothing monotone. Burke walked softly to the window and closed the wooden shutter. The Burkes had enemies, and they did not wish to show any light. Outside the darkness thickened and deepened. The wild little things now regarded the wilderness as their own. The single cabin seemed to be blotted out. The strait cornfield was merely a scar on the slope of the mountain that another season would heal. The wilderness had returned to its own.

Rose’s eyes closed entirely, then she opened them quickly, but they dropped down again and Mrs. Burke noticed.

“Come” she said, “The bed in the next room is ready for you an’ Miss Braxton, an’ I know you both are mighty tired.”

She lighted a tallow candle and led the way.

“Good night,” said Cynthia out of politeness to Cad Burke.

“Good night” he replied, but did not change his position before the fire, humped slightly on the willow-bottomed chair, like a great wild animal crouching for warmth. Cynthia was glad when the door closed between them.

Mrs. Burke put the candle on a small home-made wooden table in the second room. “I bid good night to you,” she said politely, “an’ I hope you’ll sleep well. We hev breakfast a little after daylight.”

Then she went out, and the two girls were left alone. Their room was the one also used as a kitchen, but the fire was now dead in the stove. The bed in the corner had four high posts, and it too was covered with a highly colored quilt. The floor was bare, but the walls were decorated with strings of dried vegetables and from the ceiling hung dried sausage meat, enclosed in casings of corn shucks. Despite the rudeness there was a certain air of homeliness, and it delighted Rose Compton’s romantic soul.

“Isn’t it cosy?” she exclaimed.

“Cosy” seemed scarcely the word to Cynthia’s graver mind, but she nodded. The room like the other was lighted by a single window, and, opening the shutter, she looked out into a darkness so thick that one could almost cut it with a knife. This rolling blackness, surrounding that pin-point in the wilderness, the cabin, was inexpressibly lonely and weird to her. She closed the shutter again, and came back to Rose Compton, who was already preparing for bed.

“What did you think of Mr. Burke?” asked Rose as she twisted her yellow hair into braids.

“I don’t know,” replied Cynthia. She was sure that Rose did not remember the matter that lay between the Burkes and the Masons. It had happened long ago.

“He looked very romantic to me,” continued Rose, “so bold and so strong, like one of those old chiefs in the highlands of Scotland. He seems to belong to the mountains or the mountains to him.”

“Yes, these people are largely of the same blood, and I suppose its the same result coming from the same conditions.”

Cynthia suddenly felt herself very much older than Rose, although she was in reality a year younger. No wonder they always spoke of Rose as “little.” Rose chattered on now about Cad Burke and his fascination. “But I wouldn’t take him out of his setting, the mountains.” she said.

“No,” said Cynthia, with a slight irony that Rose failed to notice, “I’d leave him here.”

Rose soon jumped into the big bed, and Cynthia, blowing out the candle, followed her. Rose, despite the bit of romance over which she had been lingering, was asleep in a few minutes, but Cynthia did not close her eyes. The window had no glass, and, although the shutter was closed the cracks between the boards were wide enough to admit air, and the slight sighing sound of the wind. But no light came, and to Cynthia the illusion of a cabin disappeared. She and Rose were lying in the forest, without shelter, and the wind was blowing above them.

She shut her eyes at last, and tried counting in order to go to sleep, but did not succeed. The wind died, and after a while the sound of voices came out of the intense stillness. They were low, but earnest, and she judged that Cad Burke and his mother were talking together. She had no doubt that the subject they discussed was Harry Beauchamp, and she took a resolution. Then some of her nervousness departed and she fell asleep.

Cynthia awoke just as a few faint beams of grayish light were coming between the cracks in the shutters. Rose lay beside her sound asleep. No thoughts had troubled that yellow head the night before. Cynthia stepped lightly from the bed, and opened the shutter a little.

The first herald of day, a fragment of gray, was appearing on the eastern mountains. The West was still in darkness, but she knew that there in the East the morning light was creeping up the ridges. Already, she heard the low, earnest voices again in the next room. She dressed hastily, opened the kitchen door that led to the rear of the cabin, and stepped out. The first object that met her eyes was Cad Burke coming from the spring, with a pail of water. His head was bare and the wind stirred his thick black hair. The hand that held the pail was brown, large and powerful. None of the sinuous, panther-like grace that had marked him in the night had departed in the morning.

He saw Cynthia at the same time and bowed—it seemed to her with a trace of mockery and conscious triumph. Then he put the pail of water on the little porch and approached her.

“Good mornin’, Miss Braxton,” he said. “I hope you slept well. I didn’t expect to see you up so early.”

“I rose early for a purpose,” she said, and then conquering her repulsion she continued. “It was because I wanted to see you, before anyone else came.”

The bold black eyes flashed and the dark brows drew together, but she refused to notice. Down from the eastern mountains the daylight poured, and ridges and forest rose from the shadows. Cynthia stood directly before the mountaineer, a slender figure, not large, but instinct with courage and resolution. The first sunshine fell upon her face.

“I’ve come to ask a favor of you, Mr. Burke,” she said, “that you go away from here now, and that you do not come back until afternoon.”

“It’s my house,” he said with an insidious smile, “an’ I hate to go away an’ leave it, when two such handsome ladies from Groveton are here.”

Again she refused to notice either the smile or the bold compliment. She was aware that he knew well enough why she wanted him to go, but she was aware also that he was resolved to make her tell. She scorned to beat about the bush.

“I want you to go,” she said, “because Harry Beauchamp is coming here. You two shall not meet, here in the mountains.”

Burke smiled again, but now the smile was wholly evil.

“Must I run away from my own house because that Beechum boy is comin’?” he asked. “Why, I could break him in pieces across my knee.”

Cynthia flamed up for a moment.

“You could do nothing of the kind!” she exclaimed. “Harry Beauchamp is afraid of nobody!” and then she added, in a softer tone, because she knew she must placate him: “You will go away, will you not, as I have asked, Mr. Burke? There is no need of trouble between you two.”

His smile was malicious, for a second or two, and then changed to admiration—admiration so open and bold that Cynthia flushed.

“Will it please you a lot, Miss Braxton?” he asked.

“It will.”

“Then I’ll do it, to please you. But I wouldn’ do it fur anything else, under the sun. It’s jest somethin’ between you an’ me, Miss Braxton.”

His confidential manner, his air of doing a great favor, for which he might expect a great reward, set all of Cynthia’s nerves on edge, but she held herself in hand.

“I shall not speak of it,” she said, “but go. Please go! There must not be any trouble!”

“I’m off like a bullet from a gun,” he said, and slipping into the front room he brought out his hat, the same soft hat with the sprig of sumac burning in the band. He did not tell her that his mother also, both night and morning, had been begging him to go. He put on the hat, waved a salute to Cynthia, almost as if they were the dearest of friends, and disappeared into the forest.

She shivered a little, afraid she had tied a knot that she could not soon untie, and then went back into the room, where Rose was still sleeping.

“Wake up! wake up, Rose!” she said, shaking the yellow head. “It’s morning and people rise early in the mountains!”

Rose sat up dazed at first, and then, looking around at the unfamiliar room, the stove and the cupboard in the corner, remembered.

“I’ve never slept better than I did on this feather bed,” she said. “But what are you doing up so early Cynthia?”

“I wanted to see the sun rise on the mountain. It was an extraordinary zeal.”

Rose glanced at Cynthia, but she had no suspicion. Cynthia Braxton was continually doing odd things.

“Come out on the porch,” said Cynthia,“and you can bathe your face.”

The pail of fresh water, that Burke had brought, stood there, and, pouring it into a tin pan which also was there for that purpose, Cynthia made use of it. Such were the crude toilet preparations that the mountain cabin afforded. But Rose kept her illusions. It was a picturesque adventure, still going happily. A restful night had brought a beautiful morning. A gorgeous sun was just swinging clear of the Eastern mountains. A faint, fine mist was rising from the valleys, and with the difference of but a day, the forests on the slopes burned with touches of a deeper red. Only Cynthia was silent and abstracted. She wished, for a moment, that she had said nothing to Cad Burke. Come what might, she wanted to have no secrets with him.

Mrs. Burke came upon the porch, and Cynthia saw at once that she was relieved—Cynthia knew why.

“Cad’s gone,” said Mrs. Burke. “He had to go on an erran’ over the mountain an’ he started afore day. He axed me to say good bye to you two, an’ to say too that he wuz glad our house wuz here to take you out uv the storm.”

“I’m so sorry he’s gone,” exclaimed the effusive Rose, “Your son is such an interesting man Mrs. Burke! He seems so very strong!”

“He’s strong enough,” said the mother dryly, as she lighted the stove in Cynthia and Rose’s bedroom—she had already done part of the cooking at the hearth fire in the front room. Cynthia surmised, that Cad Burke had slept on the floor before that hearth.

Not long after breakfast Cynthia looked out the window and saw, with genuine relief and pleasure, that Harry was approaching. She noticed that Herbert Newton was not with him, and at once she divined the truth. He had sunk under the fatigue of the adventure and the return journey, and was now resting. But Harry had come!

“I’m going out to meet him,” she said to Rose, although she had something else in mind—a wish to speak a word to Harry before he reached the cabin. When she reached him she exclaimed:

“Don’t go in Harry! It’s the house of Cad Burke, and the woman is his mother.”

Harry started violently.

“Is he here, is that man here, Cynthia?” he exclaimed.

She saw his rising anger, and she was glad now that she had asked Burke to go.

“No,” she replied, “he started on an errand over the mountains before daylight. We are ready, Harry, to go at once.”

She was anxious to leave the place without an instant’s delay, and after Rose and Cynthia had thanked Mrs. Burke, who refused to take any pay, they began the return journey. Harry remained aloof. It was not necessary for him to enter the house, and he did not speak to Mrs. Burke again. Like Cynthia, he was glad when the path turned around a hill, and the Burke cabin was no longer in view.

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