there were smiles before comment began, as the minister finished his odd story, which, as everybody seemed to feel, was told rather to distract attention from the outlook in the present strait than as having any serious application to the theme under discussion, and, for a time, there was a departure from the subject. the wind still howled outside, but the cold did not increase perceptibly. a more cheerful feeling had obtained and the situation was now looked upon by most of the prisoners as but one of the extraordinary incidents of rocky mountain travel.
the one woman had retired to her own car and stafford, after a season of wild imagining, had returned to earth again. he sat looking upon the scene with a degree of interest.
experienced and toughened man of the world as he chanced to be, he was not lacking in keen sympathies, and he wondered, as he studied the faces about him, how the test would be[61] endured should the car be no longer heated and the supply of food become exhausted before aid could reach them? he had been snowbound before, and he knew the more than uncomfortable possibilities of the case. there might be a more continued fall of snow than any one anticipated. the howl of the wind had subsided a little and was no longer so menacing in tone, but rather whistled and muttered, as it tossed the masses of snow about. it seemed to stafford as indicating no increased fierceness of the storm but, instead, more snow. the man who has experienced much of climes and seasons learns to recognize a prophecy in the voice of the wind and to set his house in order accordingly. in this case, stafford had much rather have heard the wind still giving utterance to its wolf's howls. howls and bluster were nothing, but an addition to the difficulties of the relief train was what was most to fear. so stafford did not like the wind's more whimpering tones. the other passengers, with the exception of a grizzled miner, and perhaps, a few others who had long known the storm king personally, appeared delighted at any abatement of the turmoil[62] outside. to them, lack of noise was proof of lack of peril.
it was the colonel, that fine combination of colonel newcombe, mr. macawber and an up-to-date retired american army officer, who gave direction to the course of events again, as the discussion went on idly. he broke in:
"what the minister told us regarding what was or was not a special providence relieved us, certainly, for it gave us a conundrum, and conundrums distract the mind, but we must keep the distraction up. have there been no other providential dispensations?" he turned to the miner, whom he chanced to know well:
"here, jim, you who have been so long in the mountains, ought to be able to tell us of escapes which seemed purely providential. don't you know of any such affair?"
the miner, who was diffident, and who, furthermore, spoke in mountain phrase and with a queer stutter, tried to say that he really did know of one such case, and the colonel forced him to tell the story. translated into english—for it was with difficulty that the miner was understood, and the colonel, who was familiar with the account, gave most of it—this is the story of what happened to a man and[63] wife, not altogether tenderfeet, in the hills, and what was accomplished by
the life line
robert felton was in luck when he met an eastern girl in salt lake city. he was from chicago and she from boston. an inveterate sportsman was felton and each autumn when he came out to visit a mine in which he was interested the trip terminated with a hunting expedition which extended sometimes to the very edge of the time of storms and snow. once or twice he and his companions had been nearly caught snowbound in the mountains and he had acquired experience, not perhaps sufficient.
he met a tall bronze-haired, gray-eyed catherine murdoch who was on a visit from the east—and that settled it. he fell in love a thousand feet and wooed with all the vigor and persistency he might have exhibited after elk or bear. it didn't take long. the splendid advance of the tempestuous hunter-miner, business man, as cultivated as she too, somehow fascinated the frigid beauty and she yielded in almost no time. they met in june, were married in september and spent the winter and[64] spring and summer in chicago. then, with approaching autumn, came again upon felton the mountain fever, and he proposed the usual western trip. he was in love as deeply as ever and he was a considerate man.
"we'll go to salt lake city," he said, "and i'll attend to my business—it's all in town there—and then, dear, you'll let me make a hunting trip, won't you, while you stay in the city and have a good time with mary." mary was mrs. felton's cousin.
"where do you hunt, bob?" inquired mrs. felton.
"oh, generally away up a canyon which forks from one where a couple of my friends have a mine. i've had a sort of shack built away up on the side of this branch canyon, which is about five miles across country from the mine, and, every fall, they send over a stock of provisions—canned goods and flour, and sugar and tea and coffee—and come over themselves when they can and hunt and fish with me. it will be a little late this year."
"what sort of a place is this shack of yours?"
"it's fine. there are a cook stove and table and three chairs and a bed. there's a window, too, and there's a lithograph of li hung chang[65] tacked up on the wall. it's just voluptuous—makes you think of the taj mahal on the outside and the boudoir of a sultan's favorite in the inside. it's a dream."
"bob, i'm not going to stay in salt lake city. i'm going hunting with you."
"what?"
the tone of the lady became just a shade pleading:
"why not, bob?"
"madam, you're an honor to my home but in a shack in the mountains you would be like la cigale. out of your fitting clime and place and your own sweet season, you would perish as do the summer insects. so go the ephemera. why, dear, up in the shack there, it's only hunting, and fishing, and climbing or falling and washing tin dishes and eating and sleeping as sleep the dead and then doing the same things over again. you're no jewel for such a setting."
the charming lady hesitated for a moment and then spoke very thoughtfully and earnestly though, it must be admitted, with a certain degree of cooingness.
"bob, i'm afraid i've been negligent, perhaps criminally secretive—but i have failed to make clear to you one side of my character. i wish[66] you to understand, sir, that i have been in the adirondacks, season after season, that i can swim like a duck, that i can cast a fly and that i can shoot tolerably well. furthermore i can cook almost anything in a tin dish. am i not going with you, bob?"
there was some astonishment and a whoop, certain excusable demonstrations and, two weeks later, his business concluded in salt lake city, felton and his wife were up in the cabin in the mountain and the nickel had been fairly dropped in the western slot.
it is wonderful when a man is afield with a man companion who understands both him and the woods. it is more wonderful still when the companion is a woman and the creature closest to him and understands all things, as well. his old friends of the mining camp—came over and hunted with him as usual and that fair veneered barbarian cooked famously for them, like a laughing, chaffing squaw and added two more to her list of her fervent admirers. never were such happy days for felton as when he fished or hunted with his wife. woman who well knew the mountains, wise as well as beautiful woman, she had provided herself with a suit for the time's exigency. thick woolen was it, ending[67] in knickerbockers and stout shoes. there was a skirt which, by unclasping its belt, could be taken on or off in an instant. she proved sturdy and there is no occasion for the telling of the fishing and hunting records of the two. they were most content and they lingered in the mountains.
one day—it was late for autumn—in the foothills—jim trumbull, one of felton's two mining friends over on a visit said abruptly:
"felton, it's time to leave. we're all ready to skip."
"i think so too," said felton. "those first little snows seem ominous. i think we'll get it early in the season. i intend to leave to-morrow night. the burros are all ready."
but the next day felton and his wife found tracks and hunting and a good day of it, and so night found them still in the cabin. at eight o'clock in the evening felton went out and looked about. there was a great ring around the moon, and the stars had a dim look, not like their usual story. "it looks like the sky over chicago," felton muttered. he slept uneasily and was awake at daylight looking anxiously from the cabin door. the earth had changed. the universe was white. the[68] earth was white and the air was white. he leaped back into the cabin. breakfast over, the man who had forced himself to eat, said:
"get a day's food, kate, and get on your hunting dress, with thick garments under it, as quickly as you can."
she did as he told her and he made swiftly a back load of the provisions and her skirt and two great blankets. well knew he that they must reach parson's camp or be lost.
they plunged into the whiteness. they must cross the billowy tongue of high land up and down lying between the two forks of the great canyon. across this mesa ran a rude trail which none knew better than did felton, but to feel and keep it with this white shroud of snow upon the ground and in the air was a feat almost impossible. they plunged ahead into the white depths, for the wind had made the snow deep in the opening, and this depth, while it retarded their progress, was after all a godsend. it aided felton in keeping the trail. what need to tell of the details of that awful day? darkness was falling when felton carried an exhausted and senseless woman into parson's camp. there was no one there. felton struck a match and found a [69]half-burned candle. he gave his wife whiskey and water and, later, food, and she was soon herself, for the trouble was but exhaustion. then felton sat down upon a chair and figured the thing out aloud.
"they thought we'd gone and so did not pay any attention to us. they had sense enough to skip in time."
his wife was up and beside him now.
"what of it?" she said, "we have shelter and warmth, and when it stops snowing perhaps we can dig out"—seeing his face, she added—"anyway we'll be rescued, somehow." her husband laughed, agreeingly.
"of course," he said, "we're all right." then he began looking around for food.
he found in one corner a bushel of potatoes and hanging beside a bunk of shelves where the cook had kept his dishes, there was a good part of a dried deer's ham. standing on a chair he peered over the top of the shelves. there was nothing there.
"we shall have to live on dried venison and potatoes," he said. "they seem to have left most of their stuff on top here," and the lady was content.
"we'll have venison in all sorts of ways,"[70] she commented. "here's some salt," and she held up a little bag she had found on the floor.
they supped on what they had brought and slept in the bunk which with its belongings, had been abandoned by one of felton's friends. there passed a couple of blithesome days—to the woman—while felton, brave liar, smiled and made fires, and puns and love, and was sick at heart and full of an inflammatory vocabulary in his inmost being. the miners had probably not yet half way floundered through the snow lying between them and a more or less green old valley. without aid from the outside felton knew that he and his wife must die.
the snow fell quietly, steadily, remorselessly. when the two should be missed on the arrival of the miners at the settlement, it was more than likely that the mountains would be inaccessible until spring.
felton found an axe and kept himself from desperation by digging out certain trees in a wind blown clear space one side of the cabin. the small trees he converted into firewood, passing the sticks through the window to kate, who delightedly piled the fuel up in great stacks by the chimney. it was not very cold, and they congratulated themselves upon their store of[71] wood, which was carefully husbanded, for future contingencies.
on the fourth day it ceased snowing and they could see the world. it was all white. the snow was about five feet on a level around the house. the canyon down which the home trail ran was evenly filled with feathery powdered snow. it grew colder. felton at last told the truth to catherine.
"dear, i have been lying to you frightfully. there has been no food on the top of the big shelf. we have enough to live on for four or five days, at the utmost. then we must starve. we are supposed by our friends to be safe, and we cannot reach the outside world. it would take weeks for the most determined men to reach us—from sharon even, the nearest settlement."
any man should be satisfied with what this woman did then. she said: "dear, the only reproach i have is that you did not tell me the true situation at first. then we could have suffered together, and that would have been better. as it is i think i realize all the situation now. we are together and we have been very happy anyhow."
this altogether illogical conclusion of her[72] words somehow strengthened felton wonderfully. he began fumbling round the room. courage filled his heart, without reason, he felt, but with courage regained he was not inclined to quibble as to its source.
"i don't know," he said, "somehow, my girl, you've given me hope. i'll bet the good god will help us."
"course he will," responded this dignified, blessed young matron born and bred in boston.
"come," said catherine, rousing herself from the thoughtful mood which had gripped her, after the first excitement of felton's revelation was over. "we haven't half explored this place. who knows but there's a barrel of flour stowed away in some dark corner."
"behind this door—for example," said felton, entering into his wife's mood, and glad for any little diversion to check thought and imagination.
there had been standing against the wall in one dark corner of the room an old door, evidently brought in from some outhouse for the repairing of its hinges. it had not been disturbed since the new occupancy of the place. felton grasped the pineplanks in both hands and set them to one side. there semi-gleaming[73] in the candlelight hung revealed one of the two business ends of the common place and eminently valuable telephone of north america.
felton gasped and then sat down backwards on the floor. "holy smoke," was all he said.
catherine came running to the half dazed man but for a little time he said nothing. he was thinking. he remembered suddenly that there was a telephone between the mine and the nearest town in the valley, that to which the miners had fled. of course the line was deep beneath the snow, part of the way, but it might be working. he looked at his wife in a dazed way, clambered to his feet and took hold of the receiver.
"don't be disappointed," said catherine, "if it doesn't work. we shall be saved somehow."
"hello!" shouted felton, into the familiar, waiting 'phone.
the dazed wife stood by in the silence which ensued, saying nothing.
moment after moment passed and there came no answer. still the man stood there repeating at intervals of four or five minutes the hopeless word, the call "hello". suddenly he upreared himself, laughed somewhat wildly, and applied his lips to the transmitter.[74]
"hello! who is this?" came the query from sharon.
"i am robert felton. tell jim worthy or george long that we are snowed in at parsons, without provisions for more than a few days, and tell them to come in a hurry—the trail is from five to twenty feet deep in snow."
"who do you mean by we—all of the parson's crowd?"
then another question was put.
"my wife is with me—we are alone—the parson's outfit left the night the storm began."
"all right. keep a stiff upper lip. there'll be help coming," called the operator, and the bell rung ending the conversation.
felton could not speak. he sat dumbly waiting, while catherine chattered to him of commonplace things to win him back to his ordinary frame of mind.
soon the telephone bell rang again, and this time friendly, well known voices gave messages of hope and good cheer. it was rumored that the men from parson's camp were on the way—but so far they had not arrived. men and horses amply supplied with tools, with provisions, with everything needful,[75] would leave the valley at once for the work of rescue.
"but how long can you hold out?" at last broke in one of the heartsome, friendly voices.
"it may take us ten or even twenty days to shovel through to you—can you stand such a siege?"
"we'll do our best," returned felton, over the wire, "but the truth is, we are pretty short of food, so take no chances."
they were already living on carefully measured out rations and felton resolved to reduce his own portion below the meagre amount he had already given himself.
"keep up heart, we'll help you—good-bye!" so ended this talk with worthy and long.
the days dragged. the wood chopping, the fire keeping, the story telling, to beguile the weary hours, went on. once or twice a day came a message of good hope from sharon. the rescuers were off, and in the shortest time possible would reach the beleagured couple.
one morning there came a sharp, insistent ringing of the bell which opened the door of the world to these two who were making their one daily meal from scraps of dried meat, and[76] almost the very last of the treasured rations were in their hands at the moment.
"hello!" called felton at the 'phone in a moment.
"hello! that you felton?"
"yes. this isn't tom, is it?"
"yes—of course, tom, just in from parson's—been hearing about you. we left in a hurry—mighty lucky or you wouldn't have had the telephone connected and ready for business."
it was one of the men from parson's camp.
"they've reached sharon!" said felton to catherine.
"say!" came tom's voice over the wire, "you've found the stores, haven't you?"
"what stores?" replied felton—"we found a little dried venison, and some potatoes in the cupboard, but they are all gone."
"darn a tenderfoot anyway!" shouted tom—then recollecting himself he went on. "take up a board there over by the table. where do you expect to find provisions if not in the cellar?" then he muttered to himself. "they're in luck. it's just a providence! we thought of packing that grub down with us."
down went the hand of felton, and away he sprung to the square pine table near the door.[77] taking up a loose board he gazed exantantly into what tom called the cellar, a square hole under the floor, filled with boxes and kegs and tin cans of meat and vegetables and biscuits.
"catherine!" he called, but catherine was already there, kneeling by him, her arms around his neck. she was crying, the brave girl, and felton was conscious of a sneaking desire to follow her example.
"but won't we feast?" at last catherine spoke. and then she ran to the telephone to send her own special message to tom, and to the whole parsons outfit, and it is certain that there never went over the wires a more grateful and gracious thankfulness than was expressed by catherine and felton upon this occasion.
and so, with renewed life, the two awaited events, and one day, toward noon, they heard through the stillness a faint sound, a sort of metallic clink, and a little later they were sure of the welcome ring of men's voices. felton fired off the loaded rifle which hung over the cabin door at parson's and soon came an answering volley of pistol shots and a faintly heard muffled "hurrah."
felton seized his own snow shovel, and began madly working through the drifts in front of[78] the door. his efforts looked puny in the waste of snow, but it was a relief to his nerves to be active, and soon catherine joined him, laughing and royally flourishing the parsons broom.
it was two hours before the rescuing army of miners and cowboys reached the little lane which felton and catherine had cut out and swept for them—scarce ten yards it reached from the doorway. and then, well, then it was but a few days back to the world—that world which had been saved to felton and his wife by the life line, the wire stretched across and through the snow between mountains and men.
