Books: The New Boy at Hilltop
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Ralph Henry Barbour >> The New Boy at Hilltop
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Where the road crossed the railroad track Roy touched his buckskin pony
with the quirt and loped westward until he reached a rail gate leading into
an uncultivated field. Here he leaped nimbly out of the saddle, threw open
the gate, sent Scamp through with a pat on the shoulder, closed the bars
again, remounted, and trotted over the sun-cracked adobe. Two hundred yards
away a fringe of greasewood bushes marked what, at this distance, appeared
to be a water course. Such, in a way, it was. But Roy had never seen more
water in it than he could have jumped across. It was a narrow arroyo or
gully, varying in width from twelve to twenty feet, and averaging fifteen
feet in depth. It ran almost due north and south for a distance of five
miles, through a bare, level prairie tenanted only by roving cattle and
horses--if one excepts rabbits, prairie dogs, rattlesnakes, owls, lizards,
and scorpions. There was no vegetation except grease-wood, cactus, and
sagebrush. In heavy rains or during sudden meltings of the snow back on the
mountains, each of several small gullies bore its share of water to the
junction at the beginning; of the arroyo, from whence it sped, tumbling and
churning through the miniature gorge, southward to the river.
To Roy, who loved adventure, the arroyo was ever a source of pleasure, with
its twilit depths and firm sandy bed. He knew every inch of it. Many were
the imaginary adventures he had gone through in its winding depths, now as
a painted Arapahoe on the warpath, now as a county sheriff on the trail of
murderous desperadoes, again as a mighty hunter searching the sandy floor
for the tracks of bears and mountain lions. He had found strange things in
the arroyo--rose-quartz arrow heads, notched like saws; an old, rusted
Colt's revolver, bearing the date 1858, and a picture of the holding up of
a stagecoach engraved around the chamber; queer, tiny shells of some long
gone fresh-water snail; bits of yellow pottery, their edges worn smooth and
round by the water; to say nothing of birds' nests, villages of ugly
water-white scorpions; and lizards, from the tiny ones that change their
color, chameleonlike, to "racers" well over a foot long.
From end to end of the arroyo there were but two places where it was
possible to enter or leave. Both of these had been made by cattle crossing
from side to side. One was just back of Roy's home and the other was nearly
two miles south. It was toward the latter that Roy was heading his horse.
He thought with pleasure of the comparative comfort awaiting him in the
shaded depths. Brushing the perspiration out of his eyes, he glanced
northward. Even as he looked the summits of the peaks were blurred from
sight by a dark gray veil of rain. Above, all was blackness save when for
an instant a wide, white sheet of lightning blazed above the mesa, and was
followed a moment later by the first tremendous roar of thunder. Scamp
pricked up his drooping ears and mended his pace.
"We are going to get good and wet before we get home," muttered Roy. "Come
on, Scamp!"
They reached the edge of the arroyo and the little pony, lurching from side
to side, clambered carefully down the narrow path to the bottom. Once
there, Roy used his quirt again, and the horse broke into a gallop that
carried them fast over the sandy bed. On both sides the walls of adobe and
yellow clay rose as straight as though of masonry. Along the brink grew
stunted bushes of greasewood and of sage. Here and there the tap root of a
greasewood was half exposed for its entire length, just as it had been left
by the falling earth. Many of these yellow-brown roots, tough as hempen
rope, descended quite to the bottom of the arroyo, for the greasewood
perseveres astonishingly in its search for moisture.
As Scamp hurried along the brown and gray lizards darted across his path,
and the mother scorpions, taking the air at the entrances of their holes,
scuttled out of sight. Roy took off his hat and let the little draught of
air that blew through the chasm dry the perspiration on face and hair.
Presently the sunlight above gave way to a sullen, silent shadow. The air
grew strangely quiet; even the lizards no longer moved. Roy gazed straight
upward into the slowly rolling depths of a dark cloud, and heartily wished
himself at home. He had seen many a storm; but the one that was approaching
now made him almost afraid. The little twigs of greasewood shivered and
bent, and a cool breath fanned his cheek. There came a great drop,
splashing against his bare brown hand; then another; then many, each
leaving a spot of moisture on the dry sand as big as a silver dollar. Roy
put his sombrero on and drew the string tightly back of his head. He
buttoned his blue-flannel shirt at the throat, patted Scamp encouragingly
on his reeking neck, and rode on.
For the last ten minutes the thunder had been roaring at intervals, drawing
nearer and nearer, and now it crashed directly overhead with a mighty sound
that shook the earth and sent Scamp bounding out of his path in terror.
Then down came the rain. It was as though a million buckets had been
emptied upon him; it fell in livid, hissing sheets and walls, taking
strange shapes, like pillars and columns that came from a dim nowhere and
rushed past him into the gray void behind. He was drenched ere he could
have turned in his saddle; his eyes were filled with rain, it ran dripping
from his soaking hat brim and coursed down his arms and chest and back. For
a moment even Scamp, experienced cow pony that he was, plunged and snorted
loudly, until Roy's voice shouted encouragement. Then he raced forward
again. But almost at once his gait shortened; the bed of the arroyo was
running with water and the softened sand made heavy going. Roy could
scarcely distinguish the walls on either side; but he knew that when the
storm had broken the path leading up out of the arroyo was about a half
mile ahead of him.
As suddenly as it had begun the deluge lessened. The walls, running with
mud, were crumbling and falling here and there in miniature landslides.
Scamp was plunging badly in the soft ground, and so Roy slowed him down to
a trot. He could not, he told himself grimly, get one speck wetter. There
was little use in hurrying. With sudden recollection of his bundles, Roy
glanced back. Only a wisp of wet brown paper sticking to the cantle
remained; the water had soaked the wrappings--baking powder, flavoring
extract, dried fruit, and all the rest of it, had utterly disappeared.
But Roy's regrets were cut short by Scamp. That animal suddenly stopped
short, pricked his ears forward, and showed every symptom of terror. Roy,
wondering, urged him onward. But two steps beyond the horse again stopped
and strove to turn. Roy quieted him and, peering forward up the gully,
through the driving mist of rain, tried to account for the animal's fright.
Was it a bear? he wondered. He knew that there were some in the foothills,
and it was quite possible that one had taken shelter here in the arroyo.
Then, as he looked, a roaring sound, which the boy had mistaken for the
beat of the rain, rose and grew in volume until it drowned the hissing of
the storm and filled the arroyo. Around a bend of the gully only a few
yards ahead came a wave of turbid, yellow water, bearing above it a great
rolling bank of white froth.
For an instant Roy gazed. Then, heart in mouth, he swung Scamp on his
haunches and tore madly back the way he had come. He knew on the instant
what had happened. There had been a cloud-burst on the mesa or among the
foothills, and all the little gullies had emptied their water into the
mouth of the arroyo. He knew also that if the flood caught him there
between those prisonlike walls he would be drowned like a rat. The nearest
place of refuge was a mile and a half away!
After the first moment of wild terror he grew calm. On his courage and
coolness rested his chance for life. He crouched far over the saddle horn
and lashed Scamp with the dripping quirt. Urging was unnecessary, for it
seemed the horse knew that Death was rushing along behind them. He raced as
Roy had never seen him run before. The walls rushed by, dim and misty. In a
minute Boy gathered courage to glance back over his shoulder. His heart
sank--only a yard or two behind them rushed the foam-topped wave. Here and
there the sides of the arroyo melted in the flood and toppled downward,
yards at a time, sending the yellow water high in air, but making no sound
above its roaring. Behind the first wave, perhaps a half hundred feet to
the rear, came a second, showing no froth on its crest, but higher and
mightier. And farther back the arroyo seemed filled almost to the tops of
the banks with the rushing waters. Roy used the quirt ruthlessly, searching
the banks as they sped by in the forlorn hope of finding some place that
would offer a means of egress, yet knowing well as he did so that the
nearest way out was still a full mile distant.
He wondered what death by drowning was like. Somewhere he had read that it
was painless and quick; but that was in a story. Then he wondered what his
mother would do without him to fetch the water from the cistern back of the
kitchen, and feed the chickens and look after the hives. He wondered, too,
if they would ever find his body--and Scamp's! The thought that poor,
gallant old Scamp must die too struck him as the hardest thing of all. He
loved Scamp as he loved none else save father and mother; they had had
their little disagreements, when Scamp refused to come to the halter in the
corral and had to be roped, but they always made up, with petting and sugar
beets from Roy and remorseful whinnies and lipping of the boy's cheek from
Scamp. And now Scamp must be drowned!
It was difficult going now, for the turbid stream reached above the horse's
knees; but the animal was mad with fright, and he plunged desperately
onward. Roy looked up toward the gray skies, through a world of gleaming
rain, and said both the prayers he knew. After that he felt better,
somehow, and when the second wave caught them, almost bearing Scamp from
his sturdy feet, he looked calmly about him, searching the uncertain
shadows which he knew were the walls of the chasm. He had made up his mind
to give Scamp a chance for life. He tossed aside his quirt, patted the wet
neck of the plunging animal and whispered a choking "Good-by." Then, as the
flood swept the horse from his feet and swung him sideways against one
wall, Roy kicked his feet from the stirrups and sprang blindly toward the
bank, clutching in space.
He struck against the soggy earth and, still clutching with his hands, sank
downward inch by inch, his crooked fingers bringing the moist clay with
them and his feet finding no lodgment. The water swept him outward then,
tearing at his writhing legs. Just as his last clutch failed him his other
hand encountered something that was not bare, crumbling earth, and held it
desperately. The flood buffeted him and tossed the lower half of his body
to and fro like a straw. The muddy water splashed into his face, blinding,
choking him. But the object within his grasp remained firm. For a moment he
swung there, gasping, with closed eyes. Then he blinked the water from his
lids and looked. His left hand was clutching the thick tap root of a
greasewood. In an instant he seized it with his other hand as well, and
looked about him. Scamp was no longer in sight. The water was rising
rapidly. The noise was terrific. All about him the walls, undermined by the
flood, were slipping down in wet, crumbling masses. He wondered if the root
would hold him, and prayed that it might. Then the water came up to his
breast, and he knew that if he were to save himself he must manage somehow
to crawl upward. Perhaps--perhaps he might even climb quite out of the
chasm! If only the earth and the root would hold!
Taking a deep breath he clutched the tap root a foot higher and tried his
weight upon it. It held like a rope. He pulled himself a foot higher from
the waters. Once more, and then he found that he had command of his legs
and could dig his feet into the unstable clay. Then, inch by inch, scarce
daring to hope, he pulled himself up, up until he was free of the flood and
between him and the ground above only a scant yard remained. Below him the
rushing torrents roared, as though angry at his escape, and tossed horrid
yellow spray upon him.
Once more he took fresh grip of the slippery root, watching anxiously the
low bush at the edge of the bank. Each moment he thought to see it give
toward him and send him tossing back into the water. But still it held. At
last, hours and hours it seemed since he had first begun his journey, his
hand clutched the edge of the bank, but the earth came away in wet handfuls
at every clutch. At length his fingers encountered a sprawling root or
branch, he knew not which, just beyond his sight; and, digging his toes
into the wall in a final despairing effort, he scrambled over the brink and
rolled fainting to the rain-soaked ground.
How long he lay there he never knew. But presently a tremor of the earth
roused him. Stumbling to his feet, he rushed away from the arroyo just as
the bank, for yards behind him, disappeared. After that he struggled onward
through the driving rain until he sank exhausted to the ground, burying his
head in his arms.
They found him there, hours afterwards, fast asleep, his wet clothes
steaming in the hot afternoon sunlight. They put him into the wagon of the
nearest rancher and jolted him home, his head in his father's lap and the
great horse blankets thrown over him, making him dream that he was a loaf
of bread in his mother's oven.
"When Scamp came in, wet and almost dead, we feared you were gone." They
were sitting about the supper table. Roy had told his story to a wondering
audience, and now, with his plate well filled with mother's best watermelon
preserve and citron cake, he was supremely contented, if somewhat tired and
sobered. His father continued, his rugged face working as he recalled the
anxiety of the day: "I can't see how that broncho ever got out of there
alive; can you, boys? And to think," he added wonderingly, "that it was the
root of a pesky greasewood bush that saved your life! Boy, I don't reckon
I'll ever have the heart again to grub one of 'em up!"
A COLLEGE SANTA CLAUSE
Satherwaite, '02, threw his overcoat across the broad mahogany table,
regardless of the silver and cut-glass furnishings, shook the melting
snowflakes from his cap and tossed it atop the coat, half kicked, half
shoved a big leathern armchair up to the wide fireplace, dropped himself
into it, and stared moodily at the flames.
Satherwaite was troubled. In fact, he assured himself, drawing his handsome
features into a generous scowl, that he was, on this Christmas eve, the
most depressed and bored person in the length and breadth of New England.
Satherwaite was not used to being depressed, and boredom was a state
usually far remote from his experience; consequently, he took it worse.
With something between a groan and a growl, he drew a crumpled telegram
from his pocket. The telegram was at the bottom of it all. He read it
again:
E. SATHERWAITE,
Randolph Hall, Cambridge.
Advise your not coming. Aunt Louise very ill.
Merry Christmas.
PHIL.
"' Merry Christmas!'" growled Satherwaite, throwing the offending sheet of
buff paper into the flames. "Looks like it, doesn't it? Confound Phil's
Aunt Louise, anyway! What business has she getting sick at Christmas time?
Not, of course, that I wish the old lady any harm, but it--it--well, it's
wretched luck."
When at college, Phil was the occupant of the bedroom that lay in darkness
beyond the half-opened door to the right. He lived, when at home, in a big,
rambling house in the Berkshires, a house from the windows of which one
could see into three states and overlook a wonderful expanse of wooded hill
and sloping meadow; a house which held, besides Phil, and Phil's father and
mother and Aunt Louise and a younger brother, Phil's sister. Satherwaite
growled again, more savagely, at the thought of Phil's sister; not, be it
understood, at that extremely attractive young lady, but at the fate which
was keeping her from his sight.
Satherwaite had promised his roommate to spend Christmas with him, thereby
bringing upon himself pained remonstrances from his own family,
remonstrances which, Satherwaite acknowledged, were quite justifiable. His
bags stood beside the door. He had spent the early afternoon very
pleasurably in packing them, carefully weighing the respective merits of a
primrose waistcoat and a blue-flannel one, as weapons wherewith to impress
the heart of Phil's sister. And now--!
He kicked forth his feet, and brought brass tongs and shovel clattering on
the hearth. It relieved his exasperation.
The fatal telegram had reached him at five o'clock, as he was on the point
of donning his coat. From five to six, he had remained in a torpor of
disappointment, continually wondering whether Phil's sister would care. At
six, his own boarding house being closed for the recess, he had trudged
through the snow to a restaurant in the square, and had dined miserably on
lukewarm turkey and lumpy mashed potatoes. And now it was nearly eight, and
he did not even care to smoke. His one chance of reaching his own home that
night had passed, and there was nothing for it but to get through the
interminable evening somehow, and catch an early train in the morning. The
theaters in town offered no attraction. As for his club, he had stopped in
on his way from dinner, and had fussed with an evening paper, until the
untenanted expanse of darkly furnished apartments and the unaccustomed
stillness had driven him forth again.
He drew his long legs under him, and arose, crossing the room and drawing
aside the deep-toned hangings before the window. It was still snowing.
Across the avenue, a flood of mellow light from a butcher's shop was thrown
out over the snowy sidewalk. Its windows were garlanded with Christmas
greens and hung with pathetic looking turkeys and geese. Belated shoppers
passed out, their arms piled high with bundles. A car swept by, its drone
muffled by the snow. The spirit of Christmas was in the very air.
Satherwaite's depression increased and, of a sudden, inaction became
intolerable. He would go and see somebody, anybody, and make them talk to
him; but, when he had his coat in his hands, he realized that even this
comfort was denied him. He had friends in town, nice folk who would be glad
to see him any other time, but into whose family gatherings he could no
more force himself to-night than he could steal. As for the men he knew in
college, they had all gone to their homes or to those of somebody else.
Staring disconsolately about the study, it suddenly struck him that the
room looked disgustingly slovenly and unkempt. Phil was such an untidy
beggar! He would fix things up a bit. If he did it carefully and
methodically, no doubt he could consume a good hour and a half that way. It
would then be half past nine. Possibly, if he tried hard, he could use up
another hour bathing and getting ready for bed.
As a first step, he removed his coat from the table, and laid it carefully
across the foot of the leather couch. Then he placed his damp cap on one
end of the mantel. The next object to meet his gaze was a well-worn
notebook. It was not his own, and it did not look like Phil's. The mystery
was solved when he opened it and read, "H.G. Doyle--College House," on the
fly leaf. He remembered then. He had borrowed it from Doyle almost a week
before, at a lecture. He had copied some of the notes, and had forgotten to
return the book. It was very careless of him; he would return it as soon
as--Then he recollected having seen Doyle at noon that day, coming from one
of the cheaper boarding houses. It was probable that Doyle was spending
recess at college. Just the thing--he would call on Doyle!
It was not until he was halfway downstairs that he remembered the book. He
went back for it, two steps at a time. Out in the street, with the fluffy
flakes against his face, he felt better. After all, there was no use in
getting grouchy over his disappointment; Phil would keep; and so would
Phil's sister, at least until Easter; or, better yet, he would get Phil to
take him home with him over Sunday some time. He was passing the shops now,
and stopped before a jeweler's window, his eye caught by a rather
jolly-looking paper knife in gun metal. He had made his purchases for
Christmas and had already dispatched them, but the paper knife looked
attractive and, if there was no one to give it to, he could keep it
himself. So he passed into the shop, and purchased it.
"Put it into a box, will you?" he requested. "I may want to send it away."
Out on the avenue again, his thoughts reverted to his prospective host. The
visit had elements of humor. He had known Doyle at preparatory school, and
since then, at college, had maintained the acquaintance in a casual way. He
liked Doyle, always had, just as any man must like an honest, earnest,
gentlemanly fellow, whether their paths run parallel or cross only at rare
intervals. He and Doyle were not at all in the same coterie, Satherwaite's
friends were the richest, and sometimes the laziest, men in college;
Doyle's were--well, presumably men who, like himself, had only enough money
to scrape through from September to June, who studied hard for degrees,
whose viewpoint of university life must, of necessity, be widely separated
from Satherwaite's. As for visiting Doyle, Satherwaite could not remember
ever having been in his room but once, and that was long ago, in their
Freshman year.
Satherwaite had to climb two flights of steep and very narrow stairs, and
when he stood at Doyle's door, he thought he must have made a mistake. From
within came the sounds of very unstudious revelry, laughter, a snatch of
song, voices raised in good-natured argument. Satherwaite referred again to
the fly leaf of the notebook; there was no error. He knocked and, in
obedience to a cheery "Come in!" entered.
He found himself in a small study, shabbily furnished, but cheerful and
homelike by reason of the leaping flames in the grate and the blue haze of
tobacco smoke that almost hid its farther wall. About the room sat six men,
their pipes held questioningly away from their mouths and their eyes fixed
wonderingly, half resentfully, upon the intruder. But what caught and held
Satherwaite's gaze was a tiny Christmas tree, scarcely three feet high,
which adorned the center of the desk. Its branches held toy candles, as yet
unlighted, and were festooned with strings of crimson cranberries and
colored popcorn, while here and there a small package dangled amidst the
greenery.
"How are you, Satherwaite?"
Doyle, tall, lank and near-sighted, arose and moved forward, with
outstretched hand. He was plainly embarrassed, as was every other occupant
of the study, Satherwaite included. The laughter and talk had subsided.
Doyle's guests politely removed their gaze from the newcomer, and returned
their pipes to their lips. But the newcomer was intruding, and knew it, and
he was consequently embarrassed. Embarrassment, like boredom, was a novel
sensation to him, and he speedily decided that he did not fancy it. He held
out Doyle's book.
"I brought this back, old man. I don't know how I came to forget it. I'm
awfully sorry, you know; it was so very decent of you to lend it to me.
Awfully sorry, really."
Doyle murmured that it didn't matter, not a particle; and wouldn't
Satherwaite sit down?
No, Satherwaite couldn't stop. He heard the youth in the faded
cricket-blazer tell the man next to him, in a stage aside, that this was
"Satherwaite, '02, an awful swell, you know." Satherwaite again declared
that he could not remain.
Doyle said he was sorry; they were just having a little--a sort of a
Christmas-eve party, you know. He blushed while he explained, and wondered
whether Satherwaite thought them a lot of idiots, or simply a parcel of
sentimental kids. Probably Satherwaite knew some of the fellows? he went
on.
Satherwaite studied the assemblage, and replied that he thought not, though
he remembered having seen several of them at lectures and things. Doyle
made no move toward introducing his friends to Satherwaite, and, to relieve
the momentary silence that followed, observed that he supposed it was
getting colder. Satherwaite replied, absently, that he hadn't noticed, but
that it was still snowing. The youth in the cricket-blazer fidgeted in his
chair. Satherwaite was thinking.
Of course, he was not wanted there; he realized that. Yet, he was of half a
mind to stay. The thought of his empty room dismayed him. The cheer and
comfort before him appealed to him forcibly. And, more than all, he was
possessed of a desire to vindicate himself to this circle of narrow-minded
critics. Great Scott! just because he had some money and went with some
other fellows who also had money, he was to be promptly labeled "snob," and
treated with polite tolerance only. By Jove, he would stay, if only to
punish them for their narrowness!
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