| OLD
Maurice Delorme boasted the blood of many nations; his
“bulldog” grit came to him from an English
sea-captain, a bluff, genial old tar whom he could recall
as being his “grand-daddy” sixty years ago;
his gay, rollicking love of laughter and song came to
him through his half French father; his love of wood
and water lore, his endurance, his gift of strategy,
were his birthright directly from his Red Indian mother;
consequently there was but one place in the world where
such a trinity of nationalities could be fostered in
one man, but one place where that man could breathe
and be happy, and that place was amid the struggling
heights and the yawning canyons of the Rocky Mountains.
Years before Canada had constructed
her world-famous transcontinental railroad, which now
stretches its belt of steel from Atlantic to Pacific,
Maurice Delorme set out for the golden West, working
his way across the vast Canadian half of the American
continent. He had done everything for a living—that
is, everything that was honorable, for his British-French-Indian
blood was the blood of honest forefathers, and he prided
himself that he could directly and bravely look into
the eyes of any man living; for, after all, does not
dishonesty make the eyes shift and the heart cowardly?
He had trapped for fur-bearing
animals on the North Shores; he had twice fought the
rebels at the Red River; he had freighted many and many
a “prairie schooner” from the Assiniboine
to the Saskatchewan; and then, one glorious morning
in July, when the hot yellow sun poured [Page
158] its wealth of heat and light into the
velvety plains of Alberta, Maurice descried at the very
edge of the western horizon a far-off speck of shining
white, apparently not larger than a single lump of sugar.
As day followed day, and he traversed mile upon mile,
more sugar lumps were visible; and, below their whiteness,
the grayish distances grew into mountain shapes. Then
he realized that at last he beheld the inimitable glory
of the Rockies that swept in snow-tipped grandeur from
south to north.
Then followed the years when
he, his wife and a little Maurice lived in the fastnesses
of those mighty ranges; when he learned to know and
follow the trail of the mountain goat; when the rugged
passes grew familiar to him as the little village where
he had been born in Quebec; when the countless forests
of Douglas firs held no mysteries and no fears for him;
and, because he had learned these things, because he
was brave and courageous, because his life had been
clean and honest, he was selected to carry His
Majesty’s mails from a primitive “landing”
on one of the Kootenay Lakes to the great gold mines,
forty miles into the interior, and over one of the wildest,
loneliest mountain trails in all British Columbia.
Then it was that, once a month,
when the mail came in by the tiny steamer, Maurice Delorme
would harness up his six tough little mountain-climbing
horses, put on his cartridge belt, tuck a formidable
revolver into his hip pocket and a good gun beneath
the seat of the wagon, toss in the bags of mail and
the express packages, say a laughing good-bye to Mrs.
Delorme and little Maurice, and “hit the trail”
for the gold mines. How he hated to leave those two
helpless ones alone in the vast, uninhabited surroundings!
But Mrs. Delorme had the fearless courage and self-reliance
of the women of the North, and little Maurice was yearly
growing, growing, growing. Now he was ten, now twelve,
now fourteen—a sturdy young mountaineer, with
the sinews of an athlete, and a [Page 159]
store of learning, not from books, for he had never
know a school, but from the simple teaching of his parents
and the unlimited knowledge of woodcraft, of the habits
of wild things, of mountain peaks, of plants, of animals,
insects and birds, and of the incessant hunt for food
that must always be when one lives beyond the pale of
civilized markets.
*
* *
* *
*
And
then one day, when little Maurice was about fifteen
years old, his father staggered into their pretty log
home, bleeding, crushed and dazed. The fate of the mountaineer
had met him, for, during one of those sudden tempests
that sweep through the canyons, a wind-riven tree had
hurled its length down across the trail, its rotting
heart and decaying branches falling—providentially
with broken force—sparing the galloping horses
and only injuring the driver—for how he escaped
death was beyond human explanation.
Little
Maurice was then the man of the house. He helped his
brave mother dress the sufferer’s wounds, he cared
for the horses, he provided wood and water, going about
whistling softly to himself and trying to shut his eyes
to the fact that the food was growing less and less
daily, and that the mail day was drawing nearer and
nearer. Of course the steamer would bring flour and
bacon and tea, but it would also bring the mail and
express to be transported to the gold mines. His father
would never be well enough to drive the mails up that
jagged mountain trail; and, worse than that, his father
must have fresh meat broth at once. Little Maurice went
into the sick-room, and standing beside the bed looked
carefully into the face of old Maurice. The eyes were
feverish, the forehead puckered with pain, the hands
hot and growing thin. Then he turned away, followed
his mother outside, and, after a brief talk with her,
he reached up for his father’s gun, took the stock
of ammunition [Page 160] and dry biscuits,
whistled for his dog, and, a moment later, was swallowed
up in the forest.
The
long day slipped by; hour after hour Mrs. Delorme would
go to the door, shade her eyes with her hand, and look
keenly up the mountain slopes, with their wilderness
of pines. Once she saw a faint, blue puff of smoke,
and her quick ear caught the sharp crack of a far-off
rifle. Then all was silent for hours. The warm September
sun had dropped behind the western peaks, and the canyons
were purpling with oncoming twilight, when two quick
successive shots broke the evening stillness, and echoed
like a salute of twenty-one guns far down the valley.
Mrs. Delorme ran once again to the door. The shots could
not have been five hundred yards distant, for down through
the firs came Royal, the magnificent hound, whining
and grinning and licking his mouth with delight, and,
behind him, Maurice, shouting that he had killed a deer,
and was hungry enough to eat half of it himself.
“And,
mother,” he cried, “I could have got the
game at noon to-day, but Royal and I have been hours
and hours closing in on him, getting him into the runway,
so that, when I did drop him, it would be near home,
for I could never pack his carcass all that way. He
must weigh two hundred and fifty pounds. Oh, but he’s
a fat one. And here are some mountain grouse Roy and
I got. Daddy will have all the broth he can drink, and
you and old Roy here and I will have some venison steaks
for supper!”
So,
breathless and proud and excited, Maurice chattered
on, preparing a huge knife to quarter the deer, the
more easily to pack it home.
There
was great rejoicing in the log shack that night. Old
Maurice swallowed his bowl of hot grouse soup with relish,
and clasped his son’s hand with the firm grip
one man gives to another. The anxious lines left Mrs.
Delorme’s face, as she laughed and praised young
Maurice’s prowess as a bread-winner. Royal stretched
his long, [Page 161] lithe legs, yawning
audibly with weariness and content as he lay beside
the stove sniffing the appetizing smells of broiling
steaks, knowing well his share would be generous after
his long and faithful hunt and obedience to his young
master. And so the little mountain home was well supplied
with fresh meat, hot soups, smoked venison hams and
dried flitches, until the day of fresh supplies, when
the primitive steamer tooted its shrill whistle far
down the lake, and Mrs. Delorme, young Maurice and Royal
all went down to greet the first fellow-beings they
had seen for a month, and to receive and care for seven
bags of His Majesty’s mails, bound for the distant
gold mines.
“Why
seven bags?” asked Mrs. Delorme of the captain.
“We never get more than six.”
“The
extra is a large consignment of registered mail, madam,”
he replied. “Big money for the mines, they tell
me. You want to keep an eye on that extra bag. Old Maurice
doesn’t want to lose that.”
Then
he was told the story of the old driver’s accident,
and forthwith climbed the steep trail from the landing
to the shack to see how things really were. He saw at
a glance that Delorme would not be about for some weeks
to come; so, after an encouraging word and a kindly
good-bye, the captain turned, as he left the door, and,
slapping young Maurice on the shoulder in his bluff,
hearty way, said:
“Well,
kid, I guess you’ll have to carry the mails this
time. Start good and early to-morrow. I’m a day
late bringing them, as it is. The managers of the mines
are not of the waiting sort, and there’s money—money
that they need—in that extra bag. Better take
a gun with you, boy, and keep a sharp lookout for that
registered stuff—mind!”
“Yes,
captain,” answered young Maurice, very quietly.
“I’ll land the mail at the mines all right.”
And,
a few minutes later, the departing whistle of the little
steamer was heard far down the lake, as night fell [Page
162] softly and silently on the solitary little
mountain home of the Delormes.
*
* *
* *
*
In
the grey dawn of the next morning Maurice was astir,
his horses were being well fed, his mail bags packed
securely, his gun looked over sharply. Then came the
savory smells of bacon and toast for breakfast, the
hurried good-byes, the long, persistent whistle for
Royal, the deer hound, his constant chum in all things,
then the whizzing crack of the young driver’s
“blacksnake” whip, a bunching together of
the four horses’ sturdy little hoofs, a spring
forward, and the “mountain mail” was away—away
up the yawning canyon, where the peaks lifted on every
side, where the black forests crowded out the glorious
sunrise, away up the wild gorge, where human foot rarely
fell and only the wild things prowled from starlight
to daylight the long years through; where the trail
wound up and up the steeps, losing itself in the clouds
which hung like great festoons of cobwebs half-high
against the snow line. In all that vast world Maurice
drove on utterly alone, save for the pleasant companionship
of his four galloping horses and the cheering presence
of Royal, who panted at the rear wheels of the mail
coach, and wagged his tail in a frenzy of delight whenever
his human friend spoke to him. The climb was so precipitous
that it was hours before he could reach the summit,
and he was yet some miles from being half way when his
well-trained eye caught indications of coming disaster.
A thousand trivial things announced that a mountain
storm was brewing; the clouds trailed themselves into
long, leaden ribbons, then swirled in circles like whirlpools.
The huge Douglas firs began to murmur, then whisper,
then growl. The sky grew thick and reddish, the gleaming,
snow-clad peaks disappeared.
Maurice
took in the situation at once. With the instinct of
a veteran mail carrier, his first care was to roll his
mail bags in a rubber sheet, while the registered sack,
[Page 163] doubly protected, he never
allowed for a moment to leave its station beneath his
knees under the seat. These simple precautions were
barely completed before the storm was upon him. A blinding
flash set his horses on edge, their sensitive nerves
quivering in every flank. Maurice gathered the lines
firmly, seized his “blacksnake,” and, with
a low whistle, urged his animals, that bounded forward,
snorting with fear as a crack of thunder followed, booming
down the gorges with deafening echoes. In another moment
the whole forest seemed alive. The giant pines whipped
and swayed together, their supple tips bending and beaten
with the fury of the tempest. Above the wild voices
of the hurricane came the frequent crash of falling
timber; but, through it all, the boy drove on without
thought of himself or of shelter, and through it all
the splendid animals kept the trail, responding as only
the horse can respond to the touch of a guiding rein
or the sound of the mountaineer’s whistle. But
the end came for Maurice, when, upon rounding an abrupt
steep, his four animals reared in terror, then seemed
to crouch back upon their haunches. The rude log bridge
they should have dashed across was gone—in its
place gaped a huge fissure, its throat choked with wreckage
of trestle and planking.
The unexpected halt nearly pitched
Maurice from the wagon, but he steadied first his nerve,
then his hands, then his eyes. Why had the bridge gone
down, was his first thought. The storm was of far too
brief duration to have done the mischief. Then those
keen young eyes of his saw beyond the tempest and the
ruined bridge. They saw about the useless supports and
wooden props fresh chips from a recent axe. In a second
his brain grasped the fact that the bridge had been
cut away on purpose. His thoughts flew forward—for
what purpose was it destroyed? Like a dream seemed to
come the captain’s voice in his ears: “Better
take a gun with you, boy, and keep a sharp lookout for
that registered stuff—mind!” [Page
164] And he heard himself reply, “I’ll
land the mail at the minds all right.”
“And I’ll do it,
too!” he said, aloud. Then, above the hoarse voices
of the storm, he heard a low, long, penetrating whistle.
Quick as a flash the boy realized his position. He snatched
the registered mail bag from between his knees. “Royal!
Royal! Good dog!” he called, softly, and the poor,
wet, storm-beaten creature came instantly, reaching
pathetically toward his young master, his forefeet pawing
the wagon wheels, his fine, keen nose sniffing at the
mail sack outheld by Maurice.
“Royal, you must watch!”
said the boy. “Watch, Royal, watch!” Then,
with a strengthy fling of his arm, he hurled the precious
bag of registered mail over the rim of the precipice,
far down into the canyon, two hundred feet below. For
an instant the dog stood rigid. Then, like the needle
to the north, he turned, held his sensitive head high
in the air for a moment, sniffed audibly and was gone.
Then again came that low, long whistle. The horses’
ears went erect, and Maurice sat silent, grasping the
reins and peering ahead through the now lessening rain.
But, with all his young courage, his heart weakened
when a voice spoke directly behind him. It said:
“Who are you?”
He turned and faced three men,
and, looking directly into the eyes of the roughest-seeming
one of the trio, he replied, quietly:
“I think you know who
I am.”
“Humph! Cool, I must say!”
answered the first speaker. “Well, perhaps we
can warm you up a bit; but maybe you can save us some
trouble by telling us where old Delorme is.”
“At home,” said
Maurice.
“And you’ve brought
the mail in place of Delorme, I suppose? Well, so much
the better for us. I’ll trouble you to hand me
out that bag of registered stuff.” [Page
165]
The man ceased speaking, his
hand on the rim of the front wheel.
“I have no registered
stuff,” the boy answered, truthfully. “Just
six common mail bags. Do you wish them? As I am only
one boy against three men, I suppose there is not much
use resisting.” Maurice’s lip curled in
a half sneer, and his eyes never left the big bully’s
face.
“A lie won’t work
this time, young fellow!” the man threatened.
“Boys, go through that wagon! go over every inch
of it now; you’ll find the stuff all right.”
The other two men emptied the
entire load into the trail, then turned and stared at
their leader.
“This is a bluff! Rip
open those bags!” he growled. And the next moment
the contents of the six bags were sprawling in the mud.
They contained nothing but ordinary letters and newspaper.
“Sold!” blurted
out the man. “We might have known that any yarn
‘Saturday Jim’ told us would be a lie. He
couldn’t give a man a straight tip to save his
life! Come on, boys! There’s nothing doing this
trip!” And, swinging about, he turned up an unbroken
trail that opened on some hidden pass to the “front.”
His two pals followed at his heels, muttering sullenly
over their ill success.
“No,” said Maurice
to himself. “You’re quite right, gentleman!
There’s nothing doing this trip!” But, aloud,
he only spoke gently to his wearied horses as he unhitched
and secured them to the rear of the wagon, gathered
the scattered mail, and then scanned the sky narrowly.
The storm was over, but the firs still thrashed their
tops in the wind, the clouds still trailed and circled
about the mountain summit. For a full hour Maurice sat
quietly and thought things. What was to be done? The
bridge was gone, the registered mail at the bottom of
the canyon, and the day growing shorter every moment.
Only one course lay before him. (He would not consider,
even for a second, that any way lay open to him behind.)
He must get that mail to the mines, or he could never
look his [Page 166] father in the face
again. He walked cautiously to the brink of the precipice
and looked over. It was very steep. Nothing was visible
but broken rock, boulders and bracken. No sign of either
Royal or the mail bag; but he knew that somewhere, far
below, the dog was keeping watch; that his four wise,
steady feet had unerringly taken him where his animal
instinct had dictated; and Maurice argued that, where
his four feet could go, his two could follow. He must
recover the bag, select his fleetest horse, and ride
bareback on to the mines.
The descent was a long, rough,
dangerous business, but Maurice had learned many a climbing
trick from the habits of the mountain goat, and at last
he stood at the canyon’s bottom, a tired, lonely
but courageous bit of boyhood, ready to suffer and dare
anything so long as he could prove himself worthy of
the trust that his father had placed in his strong young
hands.
He stood for a moment, awed
by the wonder of the granite walls that rose like a
vast fortress, towering above him, silent and motionless.
Then he gave one clear whistle, then listened. Almost
within stone’s throw came the response—the
half-sad, wholly eager whine of a dog. Maurice was beside
him in a twinkling, patting and hugging the beautiful
animal, who lay, with shining eyes and wagging tail,
his forepaws resting on the coarse canvas which bore,
woven redly into its warp and woof, the two words: “Canada
Mail.”
What a meeting it was! Boy and
dog, each with a worthy trust, worthily kept. But it
was one, two, three hours before Maurice, footsore,
exhausted, and with bleeding fingers, followed by Royal,
panting and thirsty, regained the trail where the horses
stood, ready for the onward gallop, three of them failing
to understand why they were to be left in the lonely
forest, while the fourth was quickly bridled, packed
with the mail sacks and Maurice, and told to “be
careful now!” as he picked his [Page 167]
way down and around the bridgeless gorge and “hit
the trail” on the opposite side.
It was very late that night
when the men at the mines heard the even gallop of an
approaching horse. Many of the miners had gone to bed
grumbling and threatening when no mail had arrived and
no wages were paid. The manager and his assistants were
still up, however, perplexed and worried that, for the
first time, old Maurice Delorme had failed to reach
the camp with the company’s money bags. But up
the rough makeshift of a road came those galloping hoofs,
halting before the primitive post office, while the
crowd gathered and welcomed a strange trio. The manager
himself lifted poor, stiff, tired “Little”
Maurice from the back of an equally stiff, tired mountain
pony, while a hot, hungry hound whined about, trying
to tell the whole story in his wonderful dog fashion;
but, when they did hear the real story from Maurice,
there was a momentary silence, then a rough old miner
fairly shouted, “Well, by the Great Horn Spoon,
he’s old Maurice Delorme’s son all right!”
Then came—cheers! [Page 168]
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