Complete weird tales of.., p.1345
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1345
“To see you again,” he admitted.
“I thought,” she said with heightened colour, “it might have been to collect damages.”
“Oh, no,” he said. “I collected whatever was damaged. And I restored — it — to the back of the damager.”
“I was not damaged!” she said hotly.
“Oh, I know that. You were merely scared—”
“I was not!”
“Of course you have plenty of courage—”
“It requires none to ride a cow like that! I was angry and mortified, Mr. Smith. Your advice concerning horsemanship was inopportune and not welcome.”
“I knew that was it,” he murmured.
“What?”
“I knew you resented it. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“But you are still very certain that a few lessons in riding can do me no harm?”
“Not unless you fall off while taking them,” he said, laughing.
“That,” she retorted between compressed lips, “is the limit! Listen to me, Mr. Smith: I have long chafed under the humiliating knowledge that you considered my horsemanship poor. I have wished very earnestly for an opportunity to enlighten you. I am glad you came — for that reason. Because I am going to take you tomorrow on a gallop that will set your doubts concerning me at rest.”
“Delighted,” he said, smiling.
“I don’t know whether you will be. Do you ride well?”
“I — ride.”
“That,” she said dangerously, “remains to be seen.” And she drove the canoe on the beach of a little island, balanced, sprang out, and watched him land and drag up the canoe.
“Please make me a Seminole fire,” she said sweetly. “A — what?”
“A Seminole fire.... Surely,” she added, “you know what a Seminole fire is — being the excellent and seasoned sportsman that you are.”
He grinned, enjoying his punishment. Her pretty eyebrows arched in surprise:
“Is it possible you don’t know what a Seminole fire is, Mr. Smith?”
“It’s just possible,” he admitted.
“How strange. Perhaps a few lessons in woodcraft — when you have leisure—”
“Certainly. Now, tell me what a Seminole fire is.”
“I’ll show you.”
She began to gather dry sticks of wood and to arrange them on the ground in a star pattern, so that they radiated from the centre like the spokes of a wheel.
When they were properly placed she lighted a blaze in the centre with a great armful of sun-dried Spanish moss; then, walking around the circle, she shoved the end of each stick a little nearer to the centre until they caught fire.
“Now,” she said, “some green wood, please. And bring the poncho from the canoe.”
When the green wood began to send up a thick column of smoke, Damaris took the poncho, spread it to the wind with a flirt of her wrists, and, still manoeuvring the blanket as deftly as she might have kept a handkerchief fluttering, flashed it to and fro over the column of smoke.
And Smith, watching her, saw great, wavering rings of smoke ascend high into the still air.
“Would you tell me what you are doing?” he asked politely.
“I am making ring-smoke for a gentleman named Tiger-foot.”
“A signal?”
“Yes.”
“To an Indian?”
“To a Seminole.”
“Oh. Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will he see your smoke rings?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Every Seminole in the region will see them. Tiger-foot will answer them.”
“With more smoke rings?”
“Exactly. You are learning woodcraft, Mr. Smith.”
“I’d like to learn how to wave that blanket and make a column of smoke turn into rings.”
“Would you care to try? It is very easy,” she said with adorable malice; and sent the blanket scaling across the fire toward him.
He caught it and began to wave it, but the results were pitiable, and the girl hastily retired from the choking smoke.
After he had sufficiently demonstrated his utter inability, she made him lay aside the blanket, cover the fire, and embark with her. And, as they lay afloat in the home lead, she pointed to the northeast.
Very far away ascending rings of smoke stained the pure horizon. Tiger-foot was saying to Damaris:
“Me see; me come; goo’bye!”
Presently the girl turned to Smith:
“Have you,” she asked, “any riding clothes with you?”
It appeared that he had brought riding breeches. “Very well,” said Damaris, smiling a singular smile upon Smith, “now we shall see what we shall see.... You may pole the canoe — if you know how.”
And that night she said to her mother:
“He doesn’t seem to be very clever after all. He’s a rotten shot. I hope he sticks to his saddle tomorrow. I’ve sent for Tiger-foot.”
Her mother sighed her resignation. Tiger-foot meant hunting, and hunting in that country meant a reckless, breakneck gallop through open but pathless woods, over rough hammock land, through cypress branches, across dunes set with a tangle of scrub more or less thorny — anywhere, in fact, that the game led and the dogs followed.
And Mrs. Caron mildly said she didn’t like it.
But she was a wise mother and she had never yet set a trap for a sunbeam or tried to catch the wind in a net.
Damaris was that kind of girl; that was all there could be said about it. Besides, she had very great faith in Tiger-foot.
And so it happened that in the morning Smith found himself aboard a powerful horse beside Damaris mounted on another, and all around them wagged and whined and leaped a half-dozen big-jowled, heavy-shouldered hounds, controlled by a negro called Sammy.
And beside him, in flaming scarlet turban and shirt, stood Tiger-foot, his bronze legs naked, the clout-cloth hanging below his gaudy shirt.
All around them stretched the seaward wilderness, set thick with saw-palmetto in sunny glades, choked with brier in gullies where little silvery threads from the lagoon flowed away, following one crest or the other of the strange watershed.
“Cast out, Sammy!” said Damaris. The pink of excitement tinted her cheeks; her eyes of purest sapphire were like rain-washed gems.
Sammy uncoupled the dogs; Bouncer immediately ran along the top of a fallen log, sniffing; and Billy Bowlegs, a big, black hound with tan points and basset-set legs, joined him.
“It’s a cat,” said Damaris, looking at Smith.
“Really!”
“Is the trail cold?” she called to Sammy, who had found it on a bit of sandy soil and was investigating, nose to the ground.
“Fresh!” said Tiger-foot, calmly. “Big-cat walk here.”
“A tiger?”
“Tiger,” nodded the Seminole. “Hark um dogs!”
To Smith, Damaris said:
“By ‘tiger’ he means panther, not wildcat.”
Then she turned her pretty head, listening to the dogs.
They were running in a cypress cover, apparently at random but much excited. And presently Billy Bowlegs gave magnificent tongue and started westward.
“Now!” said Damaris. “Follow me—” she turned and looked Smith straight in the eyes— “if you can!”
“That’s my business in life,” he said quietly, looking at her.
“What!”
“My business in life — to follow you. You know perfectly well it is.”
The bright colour flew into her face; then a breathless little laugh came:
“I hope you can ride! You’ll need to — in your business!”
Her horse bounded forward and his followed, straight into the forest, thrashing across the cypress branch, crashing through glade after glade of scrub palmetto, floundering in windfalls, turned by briers, checked amid rough hammock land where vines and trailers hung crisscrossing every avenue.
Far ahead the hounds were yelling; Smith caught glimpses on either side of Sammy running, of the Seminole’s scarlet turban a blaze of colour through the trees.
A tough creeper nearly jerked Smith from his saddle; another almost decapitated him. Twice briers scored his legs and arms; he lost his hat and a tree branch, whipping back, laid his right cheek open for an inch.
Far ahead of him he saw Damaris riding like a demon, cool, collected, unmarked by such accidents as had befallen him, although she also rode cross-saddle and wore only a skirted riding coat of thin solaro cloth, and breeches of the same.
No tree limb whacked her, no creepers attempted to strangle her; the little maidens of the briers laid no violent fingers on her pretty legs, nor tore her clothes nor clutched at her stirrups.
Riding up to her horse’s withers at last, he saw her white stock framing her throat as though it had just been tied: nothing of disarrangement was visible about her anywhere: her fiat helmet, chin-strapped, remained unmarked by twig or leaf, her rifle lay snug in its leather boot.
She glanced sideways at him. He was not a dainty sight. One side of his countenance was painted with dry blood: his hat was gone, his shirt tom; rags fluttered at elbow and knee.
“My life’s business!” he nodded gaily to her.
His eyes were steady and amused; the short, bright hair ruffled by the wind; and on his battered visage was a smile.
As she looked at him a shaft of fear shot through Damaris; and, for a moment, she felt like the hunted panther, fleeing, yet conscious that her doom was upon her.
She set spurs to her mount; he kept abreast of her. Twice branches hit him; once he was almost knocked flat on his cantle, and she stifled a cry; but he was up, regaining his stirrups, a trifle dazed but smiling.
“Lord! How you ride!” he said. “You are the best ever!”
And Damaris knew that she could fall in love.
Which scared her, and she raced away from him through the flat-woods where, a half-mile away, she could see the dogs running round and round a tall pignut tree.
Following a short cut from the north came the swift Seminole afoot, turban gleaming above the tall dead grass; and Sammy, mounted, galloped from the south, cheering on his dogs.
Up in the tree, standing with fore feet planted on an outshooting limb, stood a big, flat-flanked, ruddy-coloured panther.
Neither dogs nor hunters appeared to trouble him in the least; he cast about uneasily for further foothold, and turned his grim head left and right as though searching. Only the furry ears were flattened with annoyance — the one sign visible that his majesty heard the frantic uproar of the dogs below him; and the extreme tip of his tail twitched at intervals.
Suddenly, as Smith galloped up, loosening his rifle, the panther turned, snarled at the dogs, and took a flying leap of thirty feet straight out into the cypress thicket.
As he landed on the ground the dogs were upon him, but he whirled about, struck right and left, then bounded into the tangle and was gone.
Damaris was already down on the ground, rifle out, throwing a cartridge into the magazine.
The Indian glided to her side and pointed; but she turned and looked at Smith.
“Come with me,” she called back to him. “I want you to kill this panther.”
“He is yours!”
“Please?” she insisted.
Tiger-foot regarded Smith superciliously as he started toward them:
“Ride very burn; heap damfool,” he remarked to Damaris. “No can shoot, p’raps; no catch-um tiger!”
“Tiger-foot,” she said, turning scarlet, “he is my very best friend! Do you understand?”
“Goo’night!” said the Seminole disgustedly, turning into the thicket.
Damaris caught Smith by the hand:
“Follow with me,” she said excitedly. “Do you hear that dreadful uproar? The dogs have cornered him and he’s fighting them.”
Into the thorny thicket they wriggled, crossed the branch, then, free of the briers, they pressed forward behind the Indian, through close-grown thickets, clumps of palmetto, over fallen trees, until the Indian halted and dropped on his knees.
Just ahead of them a dog’s tail was waving in the bushes; beyond lay piled up a vast windfall where a tree, still bearing green leaves, had crashed earthward.
From this windfall came the deafening racket of the dogs, and, through the tumult, at intervals, Smith caught the deep, menacing growling and loud explosive snarling of the panther.
“No can see,” whispered the Seminole, working his way forward on his knees.
Damaris followed; but Smith bore to the left, generously permitting her the coupe-de-grâce.
A dog ran past him howling and frantically licking his wounds; a terrific uproar followed.
Smith, dropping flat, saw the panther charge the pack, but instead of retreating again to cover the snarling cat came bounding forward.
Whether the beast meant to punish him, whether in fact it saw him at all or came on merely in the fury of flight, Smith never knew. The letter was doubtless the case.
But the creature, growling and snarling, was almost on top of him before he concluded to fire. After that he remembered nothing.
They discovered him lying flat in the grass all over blood. Across his body sprawled the panther, still kicking and biting at the empty air and tearing Smith’s clothes to ribbons. And over both of them swarmed the dogs, snarling, tugging, and nipping at the panther’s tough hide.
Smith, who had been knocked senseless by the impact, deprived of breath also, but not otherwise injured, came to when Tiger-foot soused him with water from the branch.
Damaris, deadly pale, kneeling beside him, saw him open his eyes and mouth, and she bent her head to hear what he was trying to say.
“Did I get him?” were the words of Smith.
And Damaris knew that she was in love.
OWL’S HEAD
WHEN AN OLD palmetto tree falls or is cut down it takes a long while for the trunk to decay. This fact is contrary to general opinion.
Brown happened to have heard it.
For reasons known only to itself the Government had sent Brown to Iris Lake to find out why there were no stagnant pools there and why the clear, shallow waters of the lake were always in motion. In addition, the Government desired to be informed why there was a rock basin to the lake; whether the crystalline flood welled up through bottom crevices or whether there was an inlet through the forests; whether the waters finally were drained through subterranean depths or through surface channels that ultimately found a way to the Atlantic.
With Bown went a scientific gentleman named Gibb, commissioned also by the Government to find out whether the Carolina parroquet really did nest in the Iris Lake region, and whether it was true that any scarlet flamingoes still visited that somewhat isolated sheet of semi-tropical water.
Saw-grass had left its wicked insignia on Gibb’s nose and ears, and had slashed up Brown more or less; sun, briers, creepers, saw-palmetto, and prickly vegetation had added nothing to the physical beauty of either. Also, the seat of Gibb’s breeches was missing, having been detained on a thorn bush; and the person of Gibb was now decorated with a section of spare sacking.
That morning Brown cooked breakfast on Owl’s Head, a small and almost circular island dominating the water level of Iris Lake by an inch or so. Dry land being at a premium in that region, and having sighted the lone palmetto on Owl’s Head, they had made for it with pole and paddle.
Brown fried a youthful limpkin in bacon and mush; Gibb, whistling cheerfully, beat about with his brush hook to clear out any rattlers and moccasins that might have been inclined to join in the festivities. Finally he came back to the fire and gazed upon the limpkin with unfeigned loathing.
“A complete change of diet is what we need,” he said. “Of koonti I’ve had enough, also of palm cabbage, fried fishy birds and mush—”
“Oh, shut up and tell me a story,” said Brown, amiably. Gibb was the volunteer bard of the expedition.
He began:
“Once upon a time there lived at Delmonico’s a rich and handsome tenderloin steak — so rich, in fact, that he was soon trimmed and smothered in onions, and that was the end of that rich, handsome, juicy—”
“Quit!” shouted Brown, hurling at his comrade the head of the defunct limpkin.
“That settles it; I eat no breakfast,” observed Gibb, dodging the feathered missile with a shudder. But he did, gnawing away lustily and with every symptom of satisfaction, until the breakfast was all gone and the plates closely scraped.
“How old is that tree?” inquired Brown, glancing up at the palmetto from the huge trunk of a fallen tree of the same species upon which he was squatting cross-legged. Gibbs looked around.
“About two hundred years,” he said.
Naturally, the “boot-jacks” had disappeared years and years ago. The tree stood like an enormous column of silver, tufted at the top with sweeping plumes of green.
“If that tree,” said Brown, “is as old as you say, what about this one I’m sitting on?”
“A hundred years older.”
“It’s very solid yet.”
“Quite.”
“No doubt the Spaniards saw it.”
“No doubt,” said Gibb, gnawing thoughtfully upon the wishbone.
Brown looked aloft at the towering green feather dusters above him.
“This tree would make a fine lookout. Probably the Seminoles used it for such in that disgraceful war with us.”
“Maybe the Spaniards used the one you’re sitting on.”
Brown gravely rubbed his fingers over the surface of the trunk. It scaled off in spots, but the wood underneath appeared to be sound. After he had inadvertently dislodged and enraged a scorpion, he desisted, slew the villainous little poisoner, and, rising, walked over to the standing tree.
“Hello!” he said presently. “Somebody has decorated the trunk with knife and colour. Come here, Gibb.”
“Seminoles, probably.”
“Maybe. But — there is no Owl Clan in the Seminole nation, is there?”
“None.”
“Was there ever?” inquired Brown, fingering the tree trunk curiously.
