The Preacher of Cedar Mountain Part 45

He smiled back at her, but said nothing. They rode again and in ten minutes came to the end of the horse trail. He leaped from the saddle, lifted her down, and tied the horses. With his strong hand under her arm, he made it easy for her to climb the last steep path. A hundred feet above, they reached the top, above the final trees, above the nearer peaks, above all other things about them except the tall, gray Spirit Rock. Below spread a great golden world; behind them a world of green. The little wooden town seemed at the mountain's foot--Fort Ryan almost in shouting hail, though it was six miles off; beyond, was the open sea of sage, with heaving hills for billows and greasewood streaks for foam.

Jim gazed in utter silence so long that she looked a little shyly at him. His face was radiant, his eye was glistening, but he spoke no words. The seat they had used a year before was there and he gently drew her toward it. Seated there as of old, he put his arm about her and held her to him. She whispered, "Make a fire." She had indeed interpreted his thought. He rose, lighted a little fire on the altar at the foot of the Spirit Rock, and the smoke rose up straight in the still air. It ascended from the earth mystery of the fire to be lost in the mystery of the above. How truly has it been the symbol of prayer since first man kindled fire and prayed.

Jim took his Bible from his pocket and read from the metrical Psalm CXXI:

I to the hills will lift mine eyes, From whence doth come mine aid; My safety cometh from the Lord Who heaven and earth hath made.

"They always went up into the hills to pray, Belle, didn't they? The fathers of the faith never went down into the valley when they sought G.o.d's guidance. I don't know why, but I know that I don't feel the same, away down there on the plains as I do up here. I see things more clearly, I have more belief in Him and know He is near me.

"The clouds have been gathering in my mind pretty thick and dark; yes, darker the last half year, Belle. I began to doubt myself as I never did. Even when we were winning in our Chicago fight, I wondered whether I was doing right. I couldn't see clearly, Belle, and then my doubt grew stronger and even you could not understand; there was something within that told me to go back to Cedar Mountain. Ever since we got here I have been waiting for the moment when I could come to the mountain. From here, a mile above the sea, I know that I shall see the way of wisdom. I wonder if you know what that Rock means to me with that little thread of smoke going up?

"Belle, men called Bill Kenna a ruffian and a brute. I guess he was, too, but he had a brave, warm heart. His whole religion was to feed the hungry and honour his word as a man. That was about all he taught me; and he loved my mother--that's enough; it bit in deep. When I gave my word as a man on that wild night four years ago when I heard the call, I vowed that I would, from that time on, devote my strength to telling others what I had found and try to make them find it, too. That was my vow, Belle; I've tried to keep it. I gave up things out here because they seemed to come between. I may be doing right in the city slum work, but it is not what I set out to do; I am not keeping to the trail."

Poor Belle! The periods of vague unrest she had noted; that time of fervent prayer; the reasons she had urged upon him for returning to college, and the crisis in which she had forced him to give it up--all now came back to her in quick succession. She remembered the weakness that had so nearly ended all and how he had overmastered it--that craving for drink, so strong from inheritance and from the evil habits of his earliest manhood. Amid daily temptations of the Chicago life, it had not seemed to touch him even as temptation. The horses that he loved he had given up for principle. The surface plasticity he still showed was merely the velvet that concealed the rod of steel and why he seemed so weak she knew now, was that he was so young, so very immature, a man in stature, a little happy child at heart. And the sting of sudden iron hurt her soul.

To say that she was shamed by remorse would not be fair; but the sum of her feelings was that he had given up all for her; she owed him something to atone.

There is clear vision from the hilltop--the far-sight is in the high place. The prophets have ever gone up into the high places for their message. The uplift of Cedar Mountain was on his spirit and on hers. She spoke softly, gravely, and slowly: "Jim, G.o.d surely brought me into your life for a purpose and, if I am no help, then I have failed. As surely as He sent us to Chicago to fight that fight and overcome the things about as well as the things inside, He also sent us here to-day to show our inmost souls, to get light on ourselves, to learn the way we must go. I have learned, for my spirit's eyes are clearer now and here than they ever were in my life before, and some things have come to me so vividly that I take them as commands from Him who set this rock up here and brought us in this frame of mind to see it. Jim, you must go back to college; you must finish your course; you must carry out your vow and consecrate yourself to spreading the gospel of His love."

Jim stared with glowing eyes as Belle went on: "I've thought it all out, Jim. I know it is mine to open the way now, as once I closed it."

He clutched her in his arms and shook with a sudden storm of long pent-up feeling, now bursting all restraint. He had no words; he framed no speech; he was overwhelmed.

Why put it into words? They understood each other now. He had gone to the city because that seemed the open way. He had taken up the purely secular work of the club while his inmost soul cried out: "This is not what you vowed; this is not the way to which you consecrated all your life." It was for her sake he had turned aside, and now that she announced the way of return, they came together as they never had; now was she truly his in spirit as in law.

It was long before they spoke, and their words now were of other things.

The noon train was sounding at the bend; from the ledge below them Blazing Star sent up a querulous whinny. Jim was calm again and Belle was gently smiling, though her eyes still brimmed.

"We shall be late for the noon meal," he said, rising. For a moment they stood before the Spirit Rock, and he said in words of the old, old Book:

"He carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain."

"It is good for us to be here."

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help."

They walked hand in hand and silently down the crooked trail to the horses. He lifted her to the saddle and kissed her hand only; but their eyes met in a burning look and their souls met face to face. Then they turned and rode the downward trail, and on the level plain gave free rein to the horses so that they went like hounds unleashed and skimmed the plain and leaped the gulch nor stayed till they reached the Fort and the friendly door where the soldier grooms were waiting.

They rode again the next day, circling the plain where the Indian race had been run and pointing out familiar objects. Jim led the way to the cottonwoods near where Higginbotham's "Insurance Office" had stood.

He stopped at the very spot and said: "Little girl, do you know what happened here about a year ago?"

"What?" she answered, as though in doubt.

"Guess."

"I can't," she replied. She would not say it. If he wanted it said, he must say it himself.

"It was here that I met 'Two Strikes.' Oh, what a blind fool I have been! If G.o.d had only given me a little less body and a little more brain! But it's all right. He knows best. He gave me you and I am thankful for that."

"We understand each other better now, Jim, don't we? I know you were only a child when I first saw you. You are a boy yet, but you will soon be a man. Listen, Jim; I have not ceased to think it over since we stood by the Spirit Rock. Do you remember what I said--you must go back to college? I must open the way. And I will, Jim; I have it all planned out. You must go back, not to Coulter, there are better colleges. They do not all bar married men. There is one in Chicago; Chicago is our gateway still. The Western Theological College is there. They will accept your year at Coulter for entrance and one year's work. I think I can get Mr. Hopkins to let me keep on with the Mountain House. My salary and what we have saved will make us comfortable. I can help in all your studies. In two years you will be through; then the Methodist Church, or any other, will be glad to have you and the way will be open wide. I will not fail you. You shall not fail to keep your word. And when we know, as we cannot know now, you will see that G.o.d was guiding me. Maybe He took you from Coulter because you were too young; surely He planned for us and has led us at every turn in the trail. It seems crooked now, but every rider in the hills knows that the crooks in the trail up Cedar Mountain were made to elude some precipice or to win some height not otherwise attainable; no other trail could end at the Spirit Rock, the highest point, the calm and blessed outlook, the top of Cedar Mountain."

"Now, Belle, I understand. My heart told me to wait, then to go up the mountain and find the thing I needed. I knew you would not fail; I knew my mountain meant vision for you and me."

CHAPTER LXII

When He Walked With the King

He must have been a huge, unwieldy egotistical brute who said, "Big men have ever big frames." He might have had Samuel Johnson, Walter Scott, Lincoln or Was.h.i.+ngton in mind; but, standing ready there to hurl the glib lie in his teeth, were Napoleon, Hamilton, St. Paul, Tamerlane, and the Rev. Dr. Jo. Belloc, President of the Western Theological College in Chicago. He was five feet high in his stockinged feet, thin and wiry, with a large gray head, a short gray beard and keen gray eyes of piercing intensity. When you saw him on the street, you hardly saw him at all; when you met him in a crowded room, you felt that the spirit behind those eyes was a strong one; and when you heard him speak, he grew tall and taller in your eyes--you instinctively removed your hat, for now you knew that a great man and teacher was here.

Why should such a one devote his power to mere denominationalism? Ah, you do not understand. He answered thus to a hostile critic: "My friend, the harvest is huge, the labourers are few; we need more, and many more than we have. If they be of simple sort and not too strong, we teach them the sweep and cut of the scythe, the width of the swathe, the height of the stubble, the knot of the sheaf-band, all that is safe, neither to waste the crop, nor their time, nor cut their fellow harvesters in the legs. But, if we find a giant with his own mode, who cuts a double swath, leaves ragged stubble, smashes oft his scythe, but saves a wondrous lot of grain, we say: 'Praise G.o.d! You're doing well; the rules are for the helpless as the fence is for the sheep; but you we judge by your results; keep on.'"

Dr. Belloc was in his office when there came for an interview a man who towered above him as they shook hands. The president motioned him to a seat; then as he turned those piercing eyes on the comely countenance of his caller, the prophet's description of the youthful David came to his mind, "Now, he was ruddy and withal of a beautiful countenance and goodly to look to."

"What can I do for you?" asked the big little man who filled the room, but did not fill the chair.

Jim modestly stated that he believed he had a call to preach the Gospel and he wished to enter college. Then, in answer to questions, he told his story with simple sincerity and fervour. The keen gray eyes were glowing like coals, and although no word was spoken by the man whose soul looked through them, Jim felt his earnest, kindly spirit. He felt, as never before, that "here is one who understands. Here is one in whom I have absolute confidence. Here is one whom I should love to obey."

This leader stirred Jim to the depths. His best, his inmost soul came forth to speak in response to the master mind; and the older man smiled when he heard how the Preacher had hated the books at Coulter.

"Coulter," he said, "is a good old college, we accept their entrance; but it is quite likely that our curriculum may more quickly win your interest than theirs did."

As the president pondered the question that had brought them together, the second part of the lines of Samuel's description of David rose in his mind: "Arise and anoint him, for this is he." But the college had its own way of saying these big things; doc.u.ments, questions, boards, had each a bearing on the matter, or a drop of ink to spend, and each offered a delay to the decisive action that the President had then and there resolved on. But they slowly ran their course and in the early autumn Jim was back, a college boy, and Belle had taken up the ruler's post at the Club.

It was easier every month for Jim to fight the battle with the books, where before he had been badly beaten. No doubt he was helped by his determination to win the fight and by Belle; but the two great reasons were that he, himself, was more developed--had outgrown the childish restlessness of the first attempt; and last but strongest of all, was the compelling personality of the president. With what consummate tact had he first offered to Jim's wild spirit the concrete, the simple, the history of to-day, the things that clearly were of immediate use; and later--much later, and in lesser degree--the abstruse, the doctrinal.

And when the younger mind of the student came to a place that seemed too hard, or met a teacher who was deadening in his dullness, it needed but a little heart-to-heart talk with the strong soul in the robe to brace him up, to spur him on.

The president soon discovered Jim's love for heroic verse and at once, by wise selection, made it possible to tie that up with books. When Jim betrayed his impatience of fine-split doctrines, the president bade him forget them and read the lives of Luther, Calvin, and Wesley--take in the facts; the principles, so far as they had value, would take care of themselves. Such methods were unknown to his former teachers. Such presentation--vivid, concrete, human--was what he could understand, and accept with joy.

Two years went by. The first six months seemed slow; The last eighteen all too rapid. Jim had won his fight, he had more than won, for he was valedictorian of his cla.s.s. The graduation cla.s.s was much like any other, as the world could see it, yet it differed, too. When the tall form of the student speaker was left standing alone on the platform, there were not lacking those who said: "Never before has one gone from these halls so laden with good gifts; all, all seems showered on him."

In the audience, bound by closer ties than kins.h.i.+p, was one whose heart was too full for any human utterance. For her it was the crowning of their lives; had she not helped to make it possible?

After the set programme was over, Dr. Belloc handed to Jim an official letter. It was a call to be the pastor of the church in Cedar Mountain.

Jim could not see the typed words for his tears and the president took it from him to read aloud. As he listened to the words Jim's thought turned to his mother, and in his heart he prayed: "O, G.o.d, grant this: that she may see me now."

Reader of this tale, do you recall the history of Cedar Mountain--how the church grew strong in the newly given strength? Those of many diverse churches came, for they said: "We care not what the vessel's shape that draws the blessed water from the well, so long as it be always there and the water pure and plentiful." Then came the great gold strike in the near hills; and the Preacher was troubled till he learned that it had not touched his mountain. Another railway came, and the town grew big and bigger yet. There were those that feared that their Preacher might leave them, for the needs and calls of the great cities are ever loud and forceful. They said: "Our town is not big enough for such a man; he will surely go to the city." But it was not so; for the city came to the man and mightily grew about him.

Two years after the return to Cedar Mountain, late in the day, designedly late, two horses might have been seen ascending the crooked trail through the cedars that mantled the mountain. Familiar forms were these that rode. They had often taken this path before. The first was the Preacher; the second, the woman that had held his hand. But in her arms was another--the baby form of their first-born. This was their first long ride together since he came, this was the elected trail; and, as the big, red sun went down in the purple and gold of his curtains, Jim took the baby and led the way up the last rough trail, to the little upland, right to the Spirit Rock. The red symbols of the Indians had been recently renewed; in a crevice was a shred of tobacco wrapped in red-dyed gra.s.s. It was still a holy place, accounted so by those who knew it.

From the bundle that he carried on his back, Jim took a handful of firewood, a canteen of water, and a church baptismal bowl. He filled the bowl and set it on the lowest ledge of the Spirit Rock. Before the rock he lighted a little fire and, when it blazed, he dropped into the flames the tobacco from the crevice. "That is what they wished done with it,"