IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS(山涧)

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IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS

IN A HOLLOW OF THE

HILLS

Bret Bret Harte

IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS

CHAPTER I.

It was very dark, and the wind was increasing. The last gust had

been preceded by an ominous roaring down the whole mountain-side,

which continued for some time after the trees in the little valley had lapsed

into silence. The air was filled with a faint, cool, sodden odor, as of

stirred forest depths. In those intervals of silence the darkness seemed to

increase in proportion and grow almost palpable. Yet out of this sightless

and soundless void now came the tinkle of a spur's rowels, the dry

crackling of saddle leathers, and the muffled plunge of a hoof in the thick

carpet of dust and desiccated leaves. Then a voice, which in spite of its

matter-of-fact reality the obscurity lent a certain mystery to, said:--

"I can't make out anything! Where the devil have we got to, anyway?

It's as black as Tophet, here ahead!"

"Strike a light and make a flare with something," returned a second

voice. "Look where you're shoving to--now--keep your horse off, will

ye."

There was more muffled plunging, a silence, the rustle of paper, the

quick spurt of a match, and then the uplifting of a flickering flame. But it

revealed only the heads and shoulders of three horsemen, framed within a

nebulous ring of light, that still left their horses and even their lower

figures in impenetrable shadow. Then the flame leaped up and died out

with a few zigzagging sparks that were falling to the ground, when a third

voice, that was low but somewhat pleasant in its cadence, said:--

"Be careful where you throw that. You were careless last time. With

this wind and the leaves like tinder, you might send a furnace blast

through the woods."

"Then at least we'd see where we were."

Nevertheless, he moved his horse, whose trampling hoofs beat out the

last fallen spark. Complete darkness and silence again followed.

Presently the first speaker continued:--

"I reckon we'll have to wait here till the next squall clears away the

scud from the sky? Hello! What's that?"

Out of the obscurity before them appeared a faint light,--a dim but

IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS

perfectly defined square of radiance,--which, however, did not appear to

illuminate anything around it. Suddenly it disappeared.

"That's a house--it's a light in a window," said the second voice.

"House be d--d!" retorted the first speaker. "A house with a window

on Galloper's Ridge, fifteen miles from anywhere? You're crazy!"

Nevertheless, from the muffled plunging and tinkling that followed,

they seemed to be moving in the direction where the light had appeared.

Then there was a pause.

"There's nothing but a rocky outcrop here, where a house couldn't

stand, and we're off the trail again," said the first speaker impatiently.

"Stop!--there it is again!"

The same square of light appeared once more, but the horsemen had

evidently diverged in the darkness, for it seemed to be in a different

direction. But it was more distinct, and as they gazed a shadow appeared

upon its radiant surface--the profile of a human face. Then the light

suddenly went out, and the face vanished with it.

"It IS a window, and there was some one behind it," said the second

speaker emphatically.

"It was a woman's face," said the pleasant voice.

"Whoever it is, just hail them, so that we can get our bearings. Sing

out! All together!"

The three voices rose in a prolonged shout, in which, however, the

distinguishing quality of the pleasant voice was sustained. But there was

no response from the darkness beyond. The shouting was repeated after

an interval with the same result: the silence and obscurity remained

unchanged.

"Let's get out of this," said the first speaker angrily; "house or no

house, man or woman, we're not wanted, and we'll make nothing waltzing

round here!"

"Hush!" said the second voice. "Sh-h! Listen."

The leaves of the nearest trees were trilling audibly. Then came a

sudden gust that swept the fronds of the taller ferns into their faces, and

laid the thin, lithe whips of alder over their horses' flanks sharply. It was

followed by the distant sea-like roaring of the mountain-side.

IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS

"That's a little more like it!" said the first speaker joyfully. "Another

blow like that and we're all right. And look! there's a lightenin' up over

the trail we came by."

There was indeed a faint glow in that direction, like the first suffusion

of dawn, permitting the huge shoulder of the mountain along whose flanks

they had been journeying to be distinctly seen. The sodden breath of the

stirred forest depths was slightly tainted with an acrid fume.

"That's the match you threw away two hours ago," said the pleasant

voice deliberately. "It's caught the dry brush in the trail round the bend."

"Anyhow, it's given us our bearings, boys," said the first speaker, with

satisfied accents. "We're all right now; and the wind's lifting the sky

ahead there. Forward now, all together, and let's get out of this hell-hole

while we can!"

It was so much lighter that the bulk of each horseman could be seen as

they moved forward together. But there was no thinning of the obscurity

on either side of them. Nevertheless the profile of the horseman with the

pleasant voice seemed to be occasionally turned backward, and he

suddenly checked his horse.

"There's the window again!" he said. "Look! There--it's gone

again."

"Let it go and be d--d!" returned the leader. "Come on."

They spurred forward in silence. It was not long before the wayside

trees began to dimly show spaces between them, and the ferns to give way

to lower, thick-set shrubs, which in turn yielded to a velvety moss, with

long quiet intervals of netted and tangled grasses. The regular fall of the

horses' feet became a mere rhythmic throbbing. Then suddenly a single

hoof rang out sharply on stone, and the first speaker reined in slightly.

"Thank the Lord we're on the ridge now! and the rest is easy. Tell

you what, though, boys, now we're all right, I don't mind saying that I

didn't take no stock in that blamed corpse light down there. If there ever

was a will-o'-the-wisp on a square up mountain, that was one. It wasn't

no window! Some of ye thought ye saw a face too--eh?"

"Yes, and a rather pretty one," said the pleasant voice meditatively.

"That's the way they'd build that sort of thing, of course. It's lucky ye

IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS

had to satisfy yourself with looking. Gosh! I feel creepy yet, thinking of

it! What are ye looking back for now like Lot's wife? Blamed if I don't

think that face bewitched ye."

"I was only thinking about that fire you started," returned the other

quietly. "I don't see it now."

"Well--if you did?"

"I was wondering whether it could reach that hollow."

"I reckon that hollow could take care of any casual nat'rel fire that

came boomin' along, and go two better every time! Why, I don't believe

there was any fire; it was all a piece of that infernal ignis fatuus

phantasmagoriana that was played upon us down there!"

With the laugh that followed they started forward again, relapsing into

the silence of tired men at the end of a long journey. Even their few

remarks were interjectional, or reminiscent of topics whose freshness had

been exhausted with the day. The gaining light which seemed to come

from the ground about them rather than from the still, overcast sky above,

defined their individuality more distinctly. The man who had first

spoken, and who seemed to be their leader, wore the virgin unshaven

beard, mustache, and flowing hair of the Californian pioneer, and might

have been the eldest; the second speaker was close shaven, thin, and

energetic; the third, with the pleasant voice, in height, litheness, and

suppleness of figure appeared to be the youngest of the party. The trail

had now become a grayish streak along the level table-land they were

following, which also had the singular effect of appearing lighter than the

surrounding landscape, yet of plunging into utter darkness on either side of

its precipitous walls. Nevertheless, at the end of an hour the leader rose in

his stirrups with a sigh of satisfaction.

"There's the light in Collinson's Mill! There's nothing gaudy and

spectacular about that, boys, eh? No, sir! it's a square, honest beacon that

a man can steer by. We'll be there in twenty minutes." He was pointing

into the darkness below the already descending trail. Only a pioneer's

eye could have detected the few pin-pricks of light in the impenetrable

distance, and it was a signal proof of his leadership that the others

accepted it without seeing it. "It's just ten o'clock," he continued, holding a

IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS

huge silver watch to his eye; "we've wasted an hour on those blamed

spooks yonder!"

"We weren't off the trail more than ten minutes, Uncle Dick," protested

the pleasant voice.

"All right, my son; go down there if you like and fetch out your Witch

of Endor, but as for me, I'm going to throw myself the other side of

Collinson's lights. They're good enough for me, and a blamed sight more

stationary!"

The grade was very steep, but they took it, California fashion, at a

gallop, being genuinely good riders, and using their brains as well as their

spurs in the understanding of their horses, and of certain natural laws,

which the more artificial riders of civilization are apt to overlook. Hence

there was no hesitation or indecision communicated to the nervous

creatures they bestrode, who swept over crumbling stones and slippery

ledges with a momentum that took away half their weight, and made a

stumble or false step, or indeed anything but an actual collision, almost

impossible. Closing together they avoided the latter, and holding each

other well up, became one irresistible wedge-shaped mass. At times they

yelled, not from consciousness nor bravado, but from the purely animal

instinct of warning and to combat the breathlessness of their descent, until,

reaching the level, they charged across the gravelly bed of a vanished river,

and pulled up at Collinson's Mill. The mill itself had long since vanished

with the river, but the building that had once stood for it was used as a

rude hostelry for travelers, which, however, bore no legend or invitatory

sign. Those who wanted it, knew it; those who passed it by, gave it no

offense.

Collinson himself stood by the door, smoking a contemplative pipe. As

they rode up, he disengaged himself from the doorpost listlessly, walked

slowly towards them, said reflectively to the leader, "I've been thinking

with you that a vote for Thompson is a vote thrown away," and prepared to

lead the horses towards the water tank. He had parted with them over

twelve hours before, but his air of simply renewing a recently interrupted

conversation was too common a circumstance to attract their notice.

They knew, and he knew, that no one else had passed that way since he

IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS

had last spoken; that the same sun had swung silently above him and the

unchanged landscape, and there had been no interruption nor diversion to

his monotonous thought. The wilderness annihilates time and space with

the grim pathos of patience.

Nevertheless he smiled. "Ye don't seem to have got through coming

down yet," he continued, as a few small boulders, loosened in their rapid

descent, came more deliberately rolling and plunging after the travelers

along the gravelly bottom. Then he turned away with the horses, and,

after they were watered, he reentered the house. His guests had evidently

not waited for his ministration. They had already taken one or two

bottles from the shelves behind a wide bar and helped themselves, and,

glasses in hand, were now satisfying the more imminent cravings of

hunger with biscuits from a barrel and slices of smoked herring from a box.

Their equally singular host, accepting their conduct as not unusual, joined

the circle they had comfortably drawn round the fireplace, and

meditatively kicking a brand back at the fire, said, without looking at

them:--

"Well?"

"Well!" returned the leader, leaning back in his chair after carefully

unloosing the buckle of his belt, but with his eyes also on the fire,--"well!

we've prospected every yard of outcrop along the Divide, and there ain't

the ghost of a silver indication anywhere."

"Not a smell," added the close-shaven guest, without raising his eyes.

They all remained silent, looking at the fire, as if it were the one thing

they had taken into their confidence. Collinson also addressed himself to

the blaze as he said presently: "It allus seemed to me that thar was

something shiny about that ledge just round the shoulder of the spur, over

the long canyon."

The leader ejaculated a short laugh. "Shiny, eh? shiny! Ye think

THAT a sign? Why, you might as well reckon that because Key's head,

over thar, is gray and silvery that he's got sabe and experience." As he

spoke he looked towards the man with a pleasant voice. The fire shining

full upon him revealed the singular fact that while his face was still young,

and his mustache quite dark, his hair was perfectly gray. The object of

IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS

this attention, far from being disconcerted by the comparison, added with

a smile:--

"Or that he had any silver in his pocket."

Another lapse of silence followed. The wind tore round the house

and rumbled in the short, adobe chimney.

"No, gentlemen," said the leader reflectively, "this sort o' thing is

played out. I don't take no more stock in that cock-and-bull story about

the lost Mexican mine. I don't catch on to that Sunday-school yarn about

the pious, scientific sharp who collected leaves and vegetables all over the

Divide, all the while he scientifically knew that the range was solid silver,

only he wouldn't soil his fingers with God-forsaken lucre. I ain't saying

anything agin that fine-spun theory that Key believes in about volcanic

upheavals that set up on end argentiferous rock, but I simply say that I

don't see it--with the naked eye. And I reckon it's about time, boys, as

the game's up, that we handed in our checks, and left the board."

There was another silence around the fire, another whirl and turmoil

without. There was no attempt to combat the opinions of their leader;

possibly the same sense of disappointed hopes was felt by all, only they

preferred to let the man of greater experience voice it. He went on:--

"We've had our little game, boys, ever since we left Rawlin's a week

ago; we've had our ups and downs; we've been starved and parched,

snowed up and half drowned, shot at by road-agents and horse-thieves,

kicked by mules and played with by grizzlies. We've had a heap o' fun,

boys, for our money, but I reckon the picnic is about over. So we'll shake

hands to-morrow all round and call it square, and go on our ways

separately."

"And what do you think you'll do, Uncle Dick?" said his close- shaven

companion listlessly.

"I'll make tracks for a square meal, a bed that a man can comfortably

take off his boots and die in, and some violet-scented soap. Civilization's

good enough for me! I even reckon I wouldn't mind 'the sound of the

church-going bell' ef there was a theatre handy, as there likely would be.

But the wilderness is played out."

"You'll be back to it again in six months, Uncle Dick," retorted the

IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS

other quickly.

Uncle Dick did not reply. It was a peculiarity of the party that in

their isolated companionship they had already exhausted discussion and

argument. A silence followed, in which they all looked at the fire as if it

was its turn to make a suggestion.

"Collinson," said the pleasant voice abruptly, "who lives in the hollow

this side of the Divide, about two miles from the first spur above the big

canyon?"

"Nary soul!"

"Are you sure?"

"Sartin! Thar ain't no one but me betwixt Bald Top and Skinner's--

twenty-five miles."

"Of course, YOU'D know if any one had come there lately?" persisted

the pleasant voice.

"I reckon. It ain't a week ago that I tramped the whole distance that

you fellers just rode over."

"There ain't," said the leader deliberately, "any enchanted castle or

cabin that goes waltzing round the road with revolving windows and fairy

princesses looking out of 'em?"

But Collinson, recognizing this as purely irrelevant humor, with

possibly a trap or pitfall in it, moved away from the fireplace without a

word, and retired to the adjoining kitchen to prepare supper. Presently he

reappeared.

"The pork bar'l's empty, boys, so I'll hev to fix ye up with jerked beef,

potatoes, and flapjacks. Ye see, thar ain't anybody ben over from

Skinner's store for a week."

"All right; only hurry up!" said Uncle Dick cheerfully, settling himself

back in his chair, "I reckon to turn in as soon as I've rastled with your hash,

for I've got to turn out agin and be off at sun-up."

They were all very quiet again,--so quiet that they could not help

noticing that the sound of Collinson's preparations for their supper had

ceased too. Uncle Dick arose softly and walked to the kitchen door.

Collinson was sitting before a small kitchen stove, with a fork in his hand,

gazing abstractedly before him. At the sound of his guest's footsteps he

IN A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS

started, and the noise of preparation recommenced. Uncle Dick returned

to his chair by the fire. Leaning towards the chair of the close-shaven

man, he said in a lower voice:--

"He was off agin!"

"What?"

"Thinkin' of that wife of his."

"What about his wife?" asked Key, lowering his voice also.

The three men's heads were close together.

"When Collinson fixed up this mill he sent for his wife in the States,"

said Uncle Dick, in a half whisper, "waited a year for her, hanging round

and boarding every emigrant wagon that came through the Pass. She

didn't come--only the news that she was dead." He paused and nudged

his chair still closer--the heads were almost touching. "They say, over in

the Bar"--his voice had sunk to a complete whisper--"that it was a lie!

That she ran away with the man that was fetchin' her out. Three

thousand miles and three weeks with another man upsets some women.

But HE knows nothing about it, only he sometimes kinder goes off

looney-like, thinking of her." He stopped, the heads separated; Collinson

had appeared at the doorway, his melancholy patience apparently

unchanged.

"Grub's on, gentlemen; sit by and eat."

The humble meal was dispatched with zest and silence. A few

interjectional remarks about the uncertainties of prospecting only accented

the other pauses. In ten minutes they were out again by the fireplace

with their lit pipes. As there were only three chairs, Collinson stood

beside the chimney.

"Collinson," said Uncle Dick, after the usual pause, taking his pipe

from his lips, "as we've got to get up and get at sun-up, we might as well

tell you now that we're dead broke. We've been living for the last few

weeks on Preble Key's loose change--and that's gone. You'll have to let

this little account and damage stand over."

Collinson's brow slightly contracted, without, however, altering his

general expression of resigned patience.

"I'm sorry for you, boys," he said slowly, "and" (diffidently) "kinder

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INAHOLLOWOFTHEHILLS1INAHOLLOWOFTHEHILLSBretBretHarteINAHOLLOWOFTHEHILLS2CHAPTERI.Itwasverydark,andthewindwasincreasing.Thelastgusthadbeenprecededbyanominousroaringdownthewholemountain-side,whichcontinuedforsometimeafterthetreesinthelittlevalleyhadlapsedintosilence.Theairwasfilledwithafaint,cool,sodd...

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