A Phyllis of the Sierras | Page 4

they still clung
in layers to each other as they had fallen from the axe, and the stumps
themselves, still wet and viscous from their drained life-blood, were
redolent of an odor of youth and freshness.
The young man seated himself on one of the logs and deeply inhaled
the sharp balsamic fragrance--albeit with a slight cough and a later
hurried respiration. This, and a certain drawn look about his upper lip,
seemed to indicate, in spite of his strength and color, some pulmonary
weakness. He, however, rose after a moment's rest with undiminished
energy and cheerfulness, readjusted his knapsack, and began to lightly
pick his way across the fallen timber. A few paces on, the muffled whir
of machinery became more audible, with the lazy, monotonous
command of "Gee thar," from some unseen ox-driver. Presently, the
slow, deliberately-swaying heads of a team of oxen emerged from the
bushes, followed by the clanking chain of the "skids" of sawn planks,
which they were ponderously dragging with that ostentatious
submissiveness peculiar to their species. They had nearly passed him
when there was a sudden hitch in the procession. From where he stood
he could see that a projecting plank had struck a pile of chips and
become partly imbedded in it. To run to the obstruction and, with a few
dexterous strokes and the leverage of his stout stick, dislodge the plank
was the work not only of the moment but of an evidently energetic

hand. The teamster looked back and merely nodded his appreciation,
and with a "Gee up! Out of that, now!" the skids moved on.
"Much obliged, there!" said a hearty voice, as if supplementing the
teamster's imperfect acknowledgment.
The stranger looked up. The voice came from the open, sashless,
shutterless window of a rude building--a mere shell of boards and
beams half hidden in the still leafy covert before him. He had
completely overlooked it in his approach, even as he had ignored the
nearer throbbing of the machinery, which was so violent as to impart a
decided tremor to the slight edifice, and to shake the speaker so
strongly that he was obliged while speaking to steady himself by the
sashless frame of the window at which he stood. He had a face of
good-natured and alert intelligence, a master's independence and
authority of manner, in spite of his blue jean overalls and flannel shirt.
"Don't mention it," said the stranger, smiling with equal but more
deliberate good-humor. Then, seeing that his interlocutor still lingered
a hospitable moment in spite of his quick eyes and the jarring
impatience of the machinery, he added hesitatingly, "I fancy I've
wandered off the track a bit. Do you know a Mr. Bradley--somewhere
here?"
The stranger's hesitation seemed to be more from some habitual
conscientiousness of statement than awkwardness. The man in the
window replied, "I'm Bradley."
"Ah! Thank you: I've a letter for you--somewhere. Here it is." He
produced a note from his breast-pocket. Bradley stooped to a sitting
posture in the window. "Pitch it up." It was thrown and caught cleverly.
Bradley opened it, read it hastily, smiled and nodded, glanced behind
him as if to implore further delay from the impatient machinery, leaned
perilously from the window, and said,--
"Look here! Do you see that silver-fir straight ahead?"
"Yes."

"A little to the left there's a trail. Follow it and skirt along the edge of
the canyon until you see my house. Ask for my wife-- that's Mrs.
Bradley--and give her your letter. Stop!" He drew a carpenter's pencil
from his pocket, scrawled two or three words across the open sheet and
tossed it back to the stranger. "See you at tea! Excuse me--Mr.
Mainwaring--we're short-handed--and--the engine--" But here he
disappeared suddenly.
Without glancing at the note again, the stranger quietly replaced it in
his pocket, and struck out across the fallen trunks towards the silver-fir.
He quickly found the trail indicated by Bradley, although it was faint
and apparently worn by a single pair of feet as a shorter and private cut
from some more travelled path. It was well for the stranger that he had
a keen eye or he would have lost it; it was equally fortunate that he had
a mountaineering instinct, for a sudden profound deepening of the blue
mist seen dimly through the leaves before him caused him to slacken
his steps. The trail bent abruptly to the right; a gulf fully two thousand
feet deep was at his feet! It was the Great Canyon.
At the first glance it seemed so narrow that a rifle-shot could have
crossed its tranquil depths; but a second look at the comparative size of
the trees on the opposite mountain convinced him of his error. A nearer
survey of the abyss also showed him that instead