The Trail of a Sourdough Part 19

[Ill.u.s.tration: _She scanned the horizon_]

"They will surely say I am bewitched if they see me, and what a joke that would be! I am certain to be badly quizzed by the youngsters when I get home, for there is no such luck as to escape their sharp eyes while standing upon this hill-top. It will be a wonder if some of them do not follow me. If they do, they will not find me," and she laughed again as she hastened on over the brow of the bluff.

Eyllen was lithe of limb and supple. To mountain climbing she had been accustomed since a baby, and was well and hardy. She now stood for a moment to take a fresh survey of the bay. A slight breeze was blowing, and had tinted her smooth round cheeks with crimson. Her eyes sparkled, and her whole face betokened earnest and animated thought. Down her back hung two thick braids of dark hair, but the ends had become free, and, left unconfined, floated picturesquely about her shoulders.

An Aleut Indian she surely was not. She had not their short, dumpy stature, but was slender and graceful, and would not have seemed out of place in civilization.

Having satisfied herself that no vessel could put into the harbor for some hours, if at all that day, she strolled farther on. Down one hill and up another, picking a flower here and one there, humming as she went some old Russian song, her time pa.s.sed in evident enjoyment though with more or less abstraction.

"I will visit that spot again, and find out what there is so strange and uncanny about it," she murmured. "I am not afraid, for nothing can harm me. It is said that a woman has much curiosity, and I am a woman, so that will allow me to inquire into the mystery, for mystery it surely is. Why should I be so strangely affected when visiting that spot? Why these sudden head pains, and dizziness as though I were about to fall to the ground? Can it be that some witch or evil spirit dwells there and is displeased with my coming? Does it belong to them any more than to me?

Have I not the right to come and sit beside the little stream as often as I choose? I will inquire into the matter this very day, and solve the puzzle, for I will never rest until I do."

So saying, she hurried her steps and was finally standing at the head of a small stream, where, from between rocks, the water came bubbling to the surface and trickled away to lower ground. She was thirsty from her long walk and climbing in the suns.h.i.+ne, and stooped to fill a drinking cup she had brought with her for the purpose.

Suddenly she was seized with dizziness, then an electric thrill or trembling pa.s.sed through her whole body, and a wave of faintness swept over her. She felt ill.

Her face grew very pale.

Was it the work of one of the witches she had heard so many times about?

At that she ran away a little distance and sat down upon a gra.s.sy knoll.

She had not yet quenched her thirst, and longed for the water. There was no other spring near at hand, and she was determined to have a cupful from that one. The witch, she thought, (if a witch's work it was) had not done worse with her than cause the sudden illness and disagreeable sensations, and she would repeat her visit to the spring and secure a cupful of the water; which, though possibly bewitched, still looked as pure and sparkling as that of her own bright mountain stream near home.

When she had fully recovered, she again advanced toward the spring. Not until she stood above its waters and peered into their shallow depths did the old and oddly unpleasant experience repeat itself. Exactly as before it happened now; but the girl, always a determined and resolute creature, secured the water as she had intended, and retreated to her hillock where she again seated herself before tasting the liquid.

A second time the trembling left her, not so quickly as before, perhaps, yet still in a very few moments she was again herself.

Gingerly she sipped the water. It tasted clean, sweet, and deliciously cool. Again she cautiously sipped. Still no evil effects from the draught. Thus encouraged, she drained the cup, laughing aloud as she did so.

"Ha, ha! old water witch of the mountains! I am neither afraid of you nor your twin brother, the wind wizard. I am light, love and happiness, and you cannot harm me."

Saying this she began braiding her long hair with which the breezes had played so mischievously during her rambles, and growing more serious she reflected on the phenomenon.

"It is in the rocks or ground underneath the spring, and not in the water. Surely I have proved that. Before today have I visited this place, and it is always the same. I will tell no one, else the priest may say I am bewitched, and make me do severe penance. Only once more will I approach the spring today and then I must surely go home or I will lose my supper."

She was the lodestone, being irresistably drawn to the magnet, which was apparently the rocks at the fountain.

As before she approached, but with less trepidation. She began to lose all fear. Some inner monitor urged fearlessness, and she felt full of courage.

As she stooped low above the spring, surrounded on all sides as it was by ledges of rocks and boulders, she determined to hold herself, notwithstanding the decidedly disagreeable sensations it gave her, firmly in position long enough to get a view of the bottom of the spring. It was not a deep pool, forming a mirror for all above it, but rather a bed of loose rocks, evidently from crumbled ledges. These latter, crossed the place from east to west, but to the careless glance of Eyllen, seemed simply a confused jumble of rocks and nothing more.

Several of these pieces were light and clear. They looked attractive in contrast to darker ones, and being washed clean by the water, and made brighter by the suns.h.i.+ne, tempted the young girl to reach for them, which she did.

"See! What was that?"

The rock was filled with s.h.i.+ning yellow specks which shone dazzlingly in the sunbeams.

The girl gazed in astonishment upon them.

"Holy Mother Mary!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "How beautiful! I believe its gold!"

With that she made a dash for other bits of the same rock, and though her head ached fearfully, and it seemed to her that she stood upon an electric battery, which was anything but pleasant, she secured as much as she could carry, and fled as before from the spot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Holy Mother Mary!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "How beautiful! I believe its gold!"]

Upon examination it proved to be the same as the first piece discovered.

Crossing herself devoutly she murmured a prayer. That over she kissed the fragments of quartz in her hand, talking lovingly to them in the meantime.

"Why did you hide away from me so long? Why cause me to think of witches, but force me to come to you once and again, and giving me the illness? That's a funny way, you little rascals! And I will now repay you by hiding you yet longer from sight of any who might come here. I will cover you carefully until I come again, or until my father comes from across the ocean. Then I will give you to him, and he shall find the rest of your brothers and sisters." She pulled energetically at the moss and gra.s.s at her side in order to make a hiding spot for her newly discovered friends, as she chose to consider them.

Before putting the last piece beside the others she again kissed it tenderly, patted it, and giving a little gurgling laugh, said:

"You pretty darlings! Sleep quietly until I come again, and let n.o.body find you. See? I will tuck you up, head and heels, with this cover,"

and she replaced the mosses and gra.s.s she had just pulled.

"By and by you can make me very happy if you will, when I can be a rich lady. I have heard old miners talk lovingly of you many times, but they shall not find you. You are mine! Remember, you are mine!"

With that she gave a last look at the spot where her secret was hidden, and bounded away down the hillside.

Presently in the valley below she struck an old trail,--one made long ago by the cattle belonging to the settlement, and the occasional tread, perhaps, of a few reindeer and goats owned by the mission priest.

Hurrying along toward home she had almost forgotten the flowers she had intended to gather but now had little time to leave the trail and pluck them. For the sake of appearance, however, she pulled those happening to grow alongside her path, not wis.h.i.+ng to reach home empty handed.

As it was, her aunt's sharp eyes took notice.

"To be gone so long upon the hills, and yet bring so few blossoms? You must be slow in bending your back or heedless of the beauty around you.

Where are the b.u.t.tercups and beautiful blue iris from the field below the hill? Was the upper bridge gone that you could not cross the stream at that place either going or coming?" asked the woman, a little sarcastically.

"No, no, Aunt, but it is early for iris, and the b.u.t.tercups are not half so lovely as these bluets and violets. See the darling little blue eyes peeping at us! Tomorrow I will look for the iris. But let me eat my supper now, for I am very hungry," laughed Eyllen, after she had placed her spring beauties in water.

"When we played by the schoolyard," remarked her youngster cousin dryly, from between huge mouthfuls of fish and potato, "she was standing on the high hilltop and looking out to sea. I am certain I saw her wave something to the sailors, only there were no sailors there," and the urchin glanced roguishly across the table at Eyllen.

"Ha, you rogue! It was likely the corner of my ap.r.o.n you saw, if indeed your sight was clear enough to see me at all so far away. I wonder Father Peter allows you to let go your fancy in such manner."

"Father Peter wishes us to learn by seeing, he tells us. Besides I wondered how you thought to pluck flowers on that barren hilltop where the snow is hardly yet melted. Warm and sunny hillsides are the spots where spring flowers grow."

"There, there," said the boy's mother, "you talk far too much. Eat your supper and let your elders alone."

The boy shrugged his shoulders and gulped down his tea, having finished his tea before the others owing to his haste in beginning.

The older woman then gravely inquired if any s.h.i.+ps had that day been seen.

None could be reported; and the youngster was soon in a state of great sleepiness in bed, while the two women washed the supper dishes and made the small cabin once more tidy.

That night Eyllen slept little. On her cot in the corner she pondered long and earnestly. Just what was the nature of the strange phenomenon with which she was so lately identified she had no idea. She only knew that the mystical rocks lying embedded in that spring were full of life which thrilled her tremendously as she made a near approach to them.

As a magnet they had attracted her until finally she perceived what to her const.i.tuted discovery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Father Peter_]