The Freebooters of the Wilderness | Page 8

of twelve, who promptly turned a hand
spring over the slab bench, never pausing in a running fire of exuberant
comment. "Get on y'r bib and tucker, Dickie! You're goin' t' have a
s'prise party--right away! Senator Moses and Battle Brydges,
handy-andy-dandy, comin' up with Dad and MacDonald! Oh, hullo,
Miss Eleanor, how d' y' get here ahead? Did y' climb? We met His
Royal High Mightiness and His Nibs goin' to the cow-camp. Say, Miss
Eleanor, I don't care what they say, I'm goin' to take sheep all by my
lonesome this time, sure; goin' t' ride Pinto 'cause he's got a big tummy
t' keep him from sinking when he swims. You needn't laugh, it's so!
You ask Dad if a tum-jack don't keep a horse from sinkin'! Say--"
sticking forward his face in a whisper--"Senator oughtn't to sink--eh?"
"You don't swim sheep unless you're a pilgrim," admonished Wayland;
but at that moment, the Senator himself came over the edge of the
Ridge, bloused and white-vested and out of breath, a bunch of
mountain flowers in one hand, his felt hat in the other; and three men
bobbed up behind, Indian file, over the crest of the trail, the Missionary,
Williams, stepping lightly, MacDonald swarthy and close-lipped,
taking the climb with the ease of a mountaineer, Bat Brydges, the
Senator's newspaper man, hat on the back of his head, coat and vest and
collar in hand, blowing with the zest of a puffing locomotive.
"Whew!" The Senator dilated expansively and sank again. "Here we are
at last! You here, Miss Eleanor? Evening--Wayland! Night to you,
Calamity! How is the world using you since you stopped tramping over
the hills?" Calamity shrank back to the cabin. "I thought this trail hard
as a climb to Paradise. Now, I know it was," and the gentleman
wheezed a bow to Eleanor that sent his neck creasing to his flowing
collar and set his vest chortling.
"What! No flowers--either of you? You leave an old fellow like me to

gather flowers and quote 'What so rare as a day in June' and all that?
What's that lazy rascal of a Forest fellow doing? I would have spouted
yards of good poetry when I was his age a night like this. Hasn't
Wayland told you the flowers are the best part of the mountains in June?
Pshaw! Like all the rest of them from the East--stuffed full of college
chuck--can't tell a daisy from an aster! Takes an old stager who never
had your dude Service suits on his back to know the secrets of these
hills, Miss Eleanor. Has he told you about the echo? No, I'll bet you,
not; nor the gorge in behind this old Holy Cross; nor the cave? Pshaw!
See here,"--showing his bunch of wild flowers--"if you want to know
what a sly old sphinx Dame Nature is and how she's up to tricks and
wiles and ways, snow or shine, you get these little flower people to
whisper their secrets! Whenever I find a new kind on the hills, I mark
the place and have roots brought down in the fall. Now this little
mountain anemone is still blooming on upper slopes. Little fool of a
thing thinks it's April 'stead of June, paints her cheeks, see?--like an old
girl trying to look young--"
"But she has a royal white heart," interposed Eleanor.
The Senator looked up to the face of the rancher's daughter and laughed,
a big soft noiseless laugh that shook down inside the white vest.
"Typical of a woman, eh? Here, take 'em! Why am I an old bachelor?
Now, here's the wind flower; opens to touch o' the wind like woman to
love; find 'em like stars on the bleakest slopes--that's like a woman, too,
eh? And like a woman, they wither when you pick 'em, eh? And see
these little cheats--pale people--catch flies--know why they call 'em
that? Stuck all over with false honey to snare the moths--stew the poor
devils to death in sweetness--eh, now, isn't that a woman for you?"
Spreading his broad palms, the Senator shook noiselessly at his own
facetiousness.
"They keep the real honey for the royal butterflies," suggested Eleanor.
"Exactly! What chance on earth for an old bumble bee of a drudge like
me without any wings and frills and things, all weighted down with
cares of state?" And Moyese mopped the moisture from a good natured

red face, that looked anything but weighted down by the cares of state.
"You know, don't you," he added, "that the flies actually do prefer
white flowers; bees t' th' blue; butterflies, red; and the moths, white?"
So this was the manner of man representing the forces challenging to
the great national fight, a lover of flowers paying tribute to all