Openings in the Old Trail. Bret Harte
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long resisted the attempt of such rude sportsmen as miners, or even experts like himself. Few had seen it, except as a vague, shadowy bulk in the four feet of depth and gloom in which it hid; only once had Leonidas’s quick eye feasted on its fair proportions. On that memorable occasion Leonidas, having exhausted every kind of lure of painted fly and living bait, was rising from his knees behind the bank, when a pink five-cent stamp dislodged from his pocket fluttered in the air, and descended slowly upon the still pool. Horrified at his loss, Leonidas leaned over to recover it, when there was a flash like lightning in the black depths, a dozen changes of light and shadow on the surface, a little whirling wave splashing against the side of the rock, and the postage stamp was gone. More than that—for one instant the trout remained visible, stationary and expectant! Whether it was the instinct of sport, or whether the fish had detected a new, subtle, and original flavor in the gum and paper, Leonidas never knew. Alas! he had not another stamp; he was obliged to leave the fish, but carried a brilliant idea away with him. Ever since then he had cherished it—and another extra stamp in his pocket. And now, with this strong but gossamer-like snell, this new hook, and this freshly cut hickory rod, he would make the trial!
But fate was against him! He had scarcely descended the narrow trail to the pine-fringed margin of the stream before his quick ear detected an unusual rustling through the adjacent underbrush, and then a voice that startled him! It was HERS! In an instant all thought of sport had fled. With a beating heart, half opened lips, and uplifted lashes, Leonidas awaited the coming of his divinity like a timorous virgin at her first tryst.
But Mrs. Burroughs was clearly not in an equally responsive mood. With her fair face reddened by the sun, the damp tendrils of her unwound hair clinging to her forehead, and her smart little slippers red with dust, there was also a querulous light in her eyes, and a still more querulous pinch in her nostrils, as she stood panting before him.
“You tiresome boy!” she gasped, holding one little hand to her side as she gripped her brambled skirt around her ankles with the other. “Why didn’t you wait? Why did you make me run all this distance after you?”
Leonidas timidly and poignantly protested. He had waited before the house and on the hill; he thought she didn’t want him.
“Couldn’t you see that THAT MAN kept me in?” she went on peevishly. “Haven’t you sense enough to know that he suspects something, and follows me everywhere, dogging my footsteps every time the post comes in, and even going to the post-office himself, to make sure that he sees all my letters? Well,” she added impatiently, “have you anything for me? Why don’t you speak?”
Crushed and remorseful, Leonidas produced her letter. She almost snatched it from his hand, opened it, read a few lines, and her face changed. A smile strayed from her eyes to her lips, and back again. Leonidas’s heart was lifted; she was so forgiving and so beautiful!
“Is he a boy, Mrs. Burroughs?” asked Leonidas shyly.
“Well—not exactly,” she said, her charming face all radiant again. “He’s older than you. What has he written to you?”
Leonidas put his letter in her hand for reply.
“I wish I could see him, you know,” he said shyly. “That letter’s bully—it’s just rats! I like him pow’ful.”
Mrs. Burroughs had skimmed through the letter, but not interestedly.
“You mustn’t like him more than you like me,” she said laughingly, caressing him with her voice and eyes, and even her straying hand.
“I couldn’t do that! I never could like anybody as I like you,” said. Leonidas gravely. There was such appalling truthfulness in the boy’s voice and frankly opened eyes that the woman could not evade it, and was slightly disconcerted. But she presently started up with a vexatious cry. “There’s that wretch following me again, I do believe,” she said, staring at the hilltop. “Yes! Look, Leon, he’s turning to come down this trail. What’s to be done? He mustn’t see me here!”
Leonidas looked. It was indeed Mr. Burroughs; but he was evidently only taking a short cut towards the Ridge, where his men were working. Leonidas had seen him take it before. But it was the principal trail on the steep hillside, and they must eventually meet. A man might evade it by scrambling through the brush to a lower and rougher trail; but a woman, never! But an idea had seized Leonidas. “I can stop him,” he said confidently to her. “You just lie low here behind that rock till I come back. He hasn’t seen you yet.”
She had barely time to draw back before Leonidas darted down the trail towards her husband. Yet, in her intense curiosity, she leaned out the next moment to watch him. He paused at last, not far from the approaching figure, and seemed to kneel down on the trail. What was he doing? Her husband was still slowly advancing. Suddenly he stopped. At the same moment she heard their two voices in excited parley, and then, to her amazement, she saw her husband scramble hurriedly down the trail to the lower level, and with an occasional backward glance, hasten away until he had passed beyond her view.
She could scarcely realize her narrow escape when Leonidas stood by her side. “How did you do it?” she said eagerly.
“With a rattler!” said the boy gravely.
“With a what?”
“A rattlesnake—pizen snake, you know.”
“A rattlesnake?” she said, staring at Leonidas with a quick snatching away of her skirts.
The boy, who seemed to have forgotten her in his other abstraction of adventure, now turned quickly, with devoted eyes and a reassuring smile.
“Yes; but I wouldn’t let him hurt you,” he said gently.
“But what did you DO?”
He looked at her curiously. “You won’t be frightened if I show you?” he said doubtfully. “There’s nothin’ to be afeerd of s’long as you’re with me,” he added proudly.
“Yes—that is”—she stammered, and then, her curiosity getting the better of her fear, she added in a whisper: “Show me quick!”
He led the way up the narrow trail until he stopped where he had knelt before. It was a narrow, sunny ledge of rock, scarcely wide enough for a single person to pass. He silently pointed to a cleft in the rock, and kneeling down again, began to whistle in a soft, fluttering way. There was a moment of suspense, and then she was conscious of an awful gliding something,—a movement so measured yet so exquisitely graceful that she stood enthralled. A narrow, flattened, expressionless head was followed by a footlong strip of yellow-barred scales; then there was a pause, and the head turned, in a beautifully symmetrical half-circle, towards the whistler. The whistling ceased; the snake, with half its body out of the cleft, remained poised in air as if stiffened to stone.
“There,” said Leonidas quietly, “that’s what Mr. Burroughs saw, and that’s WHY he scooted off the trail. I just called out William Henry,—I call him William Henry, and he knows his name,—and then I sang out to Mr. Burroughs what was up; and it was lucky I did, for the next moment he’d have been on top of him and have been struck, for rattlers don’t give way to any one.”
“Oh, why didn’t you let”—She stopped herself quickly, but could not stop the fierce glint in her eye nor the sharp curve in her nostril. Luckily, Leonidas did not see this, being preoccupied with his other graceful charmer, William Henry.
“But how did you know it was here?” said Mrs. Burroughs, recovering herself.
“Fetched him here,” said Leonidas briefly.
“What in your hands?” she said, drawing back.
“No! made him follow! I HAVE handled him, but it was after I’d first made him strike his pizen out upon a stick. Ye know, after he strikes four times he ain’t got any pizen left. Then ye kin do anythin’ with him, and he knows it. He knows me, you bet! I’ve bin three months trainin’ him. Look! Don’t be frightened,” he said, as Mrs. Burroughs drew hurriedly back; “see him mind me. Now scoot home, William Henry.”
He accompanied the command with a slow, dominant movement of the hickory rod he was carrying. The snake