Gulf and Glacier; or, The Percivals in Alaska

Beside the great, active geysers, there were multitudes of hot springs, some of them many feet wide and deep, with treacherous, overhanging banks and exquisitely tinted depths of turquoise and sapphire, through which arose a continuous train of silvery bubbles. There was a story told, that summer, of a lady who had neglected the precautions which others took, and straying carelessly among these springs, broke through the thin crust of sulphurous deposit. She was instantly drawn out, but not before she was terribly scalded.

While the Percivals were at the “Upper Geyser Basin,” they were invited to witness a queer sight in the edge of the woods about a quarter of a mile from the hotel, just at dusk. One of the men employed about the place began to call coaxingly, “Barney! Barney!” And now a dark form appeared among the pines, and out came a huge black bear. He approached timidly within a few feet of the silent group, now advancing, now bounding lightly away at the cracking of a twig, and took several pieces of raw meat from a stump near by. When his silent meal was finished, he gave the spectators one inquiring look, and wheeling round, disappeared in the shadow of the forest.

All this time it was very cold, especially at night when, although it was in August, ice formed over pools about the hotel.

Reluctantly the tourists left the wonders of the “Upper Basin” behind, and drove on toward the next point of interest, Yellowstone Lake.

“Give us the points, Tom,” Randolph sings out, as the driver cracks his whip and the wagon rattles down the road. “Tell us about the Lake.”

“Nearly eight thousand feet above the sea,” rejoins Tom. He is so ready with his figures that skeptical Kittie declares he makes them up, whenever his memory fails him.

“Perhaps you think,” rejoins Thomas, with dignity, “that the Lake doesn’t cover one hundred and thirty-nine square miles, and hasn’t a hundred miles of shore line, and isn’t chock-full of splendid trout, and hasn’t a beautiful beach of obsidian five miles long, ‘reflecting the sun’s rays like brilliant gems,’ and doesn’t” —

“Oh! stop, stop, Davy; I’ll come down,” cried Kittie; while Fred strikes up “Annie Rooney” at the top of his voice. It was afternoon when they drove down into a pretty valley where were clustered three or four large white tents.

“What’s this – a circus?” shouted Tom.

“It’s Larry Matthews’ hotel,” replied the driver.

Out came Larry himself, as the teams drew up with a flourish, before the door of the principal tent.

“Glad to see yez, ladies an’ gintlemen!” he cried, with broad, rich brogue. “Step right into me parlor, but be careful of the carpet, av ye plase!”

As the tent knew no floor but turf, this raised a laugh, and this was followed by another and another at Larry’s quaint observations, which he showered without stint on his guests.

When they were all seated at long tables, he was everywhere at once.

“Milk, sor? Milk it is. Eggs? there’s wan the little speckled hin laid for you, mem! Coffee? Do take another cup! There’s plenty more to be had – the geyser’s playin’ right along.”

The meal was eaten in a gale of merriment, and all hands declared that sandwiches, boiled eggs and coffee – for of these viands it largely consisted – had never tasted so good.

After dinner there was an hour or two of leisure, during which the travelers strolled about on the hillside overlooking “Trout Creek” (for which this little encampment was named), securing kodak views, and enjoying life generally.

“Good-by, sor! Good-by, mem!” shouted Larry to his guests, as they at length clambered to their seats and rode off. “Long life to yez all! Come ag’in!”

They now had a dozen miles of beautiful prairie, river and mountain scenery before reaching the Lake. The ride was not without attractions also, that bordered on the perilous.

At one point they were told by the driver that only three weeks before, a huge buffalo had suddenly emerged from the woods, and with lowered head galloped across the road. The six horses of the team immediately in front had been thrown into wild panic, and wheeling about, had dashed off, dragging a broken wagon after them.

“So I had to dodge a buffalo and a runaway team,” concluded John grimly.

The wheel-tracks showed plainly in the turf where he had lashed his own horses out of the road. He added that one of the passengers, a lady from the East, was quite severely injured in jumping from the forward wagon.

They saw deer feeding quietly beside the road. Great white pelicans floated on the calm surface of the river; eagles flew overhead in full view. There are many pumas, or “mountain lions,” as they are called there, in the lonelier tracts of the park, and bears, brown, black and grizzly, roam to and fro unmolested.

But the great feature of the ride was presented about five miles further on – when they were driving close to the banks of a clear flowing stream.

“What’s that creature down by the water?” asked Adelaide carelessly. “A calf?”

They all glanced toward the river, when Tom – who was unquestionably authority on the subject – sung out, “A bear! A bear!”

The driver pulled up his horses with a jerk, and none too soon. Up scrambled a huge brown, or “cinnamon” bear from the bank of the river, not a hundred yards ahead of them. She jumped a log which lay along the embankment, and crossing the road, began to climb the steep, wooded hill on their left.

Presently a woolly cub, about the size of a half-grown Newfoundland dog, came hurrying after her. He tried to climb the log as she had done, but after straining to get over, exactly like a boy endeavoring to mount a horizontal bar, tumbled backward into the brush.

Fred and Tom cheered him on, and the second attempt succeeded. Down he went, head over heels, into the dusty road, and then how he did scramble up hill after his mother! The boys laughed and shouted to him until both bears were out of sight among the pines, far up the mountain slope.

The horses had acted bravely during this scene, merely standing with quivering limbs and alert ears until little Bruin and his mother had passed.

At Yellowstone Lake the boys hastily organized a fishing excursion, and came back with a fine string of trout, averaging a pound to a pound and a half apiece. In the evening they took the girls out on the lake for a moonlight row. The songs they sang were of a gentler and more plaintive character than usual; for they realized that the beautiful journey over gulf and glacier, and through Wonderland, was fast drawing to a close.

“Row, brothers, row!” rang out Pet’s sweet soprano; and even Fred’s “Jolly boating weather” had an undertone of sadness, as the chorus came in, full and strong, at the end of each verse. Ah! how far ahead a “good-by” casts its shadow. How will it seem to reach a land where the word is not known!

“The rapids are near, and the daylight’s past,” sang Pet; while the moonlight quivered on the waters of the strange, wild mountain lake.

I must hurry on, myself, in my story of those fair, sweet days and silvery nights; for I find myself lingering only too long among the hills – dreading perhaps, as I trust some of you do, my boy and girl readers, the parting from the glad young lives that, in the course of these six volumes, have become a part of my very own. Yes, my manly Randolph, impulsive, good-hearted Tom, merry Kittie, golden-haired Pet, and sweet, gentle “Captain Bess,” I must leave you all too soon, in the fair morning-land where hearts beat warmly and young faces glow with mirth and noble resolve; whither in very truth, I have tried, poorly and feebly but most earnestly, to take the real, living boys and girls who have gathered around the pine-cone fires and many a time have sent me words of cheer from their own far-away firesides, year after year. God bless them, every one!

Randolph and Fred were loath to leave the fine fishing-grounds of the Lake, but the word was “Onward!” and another day’s ride took the party away from those picturesque shores to the Grand Cañon of the Yellowstone.

On horseback they rode slowly along the banks of this mighty ravine, whose tawny flanks have given the river its name. One moment the girls were speechless with laughter over Tom’s dismay as his horse began to slide down a steep descent; the next they caught their breath with wonder and awe, as they came out on the brink of the mighty cañon, and, making their way on foot to the very edge of a jutting promontory, gazed downward into the fearful depths of a sheer thousand feet below.

A few rods from their narrow perch was an eagle’s nest, and it made the head giddy and the pulse beat fast to see the great birds float out over the abyss. Coiling along the very base of the precipices was the river, a silken thread of twisted white and emerald.

But oh! the Falls. Here the Yellowstone gathered itself, at the head of the Cañon, and leaped abroad into the air, falling three hundred feet before it knitted together its torn threads on the rocks below.

“In His hands are the deep places of the earth,” murmured Mr. Percival, half to himself.

“The strength of the hills is His also!” finished the young clergyman, involuntarily baring his head, as if in the visible presence of the Creator.

“How can He – how can He think of our little every-day-nesses, and of that!” said Bess, not turning to the last speaker, but knowing that he heard.

Rossiter stooped, picked a single blade of grass from the brink of the awful cataract, and handed it to her without a word. And she understood, and was grateful.

CHAPTER XV.

WHITE LILIES

“Home again, from a foreign shore!” sang the Percival Glee Club, as the mountain wagon rattled down a long hill, across a dusty plain, and whirled up to the front door of a great hotel. It wasn’t home, really, but only the Mammoth Hot Springs, which they had left nearly a week before.

Half of the Excursion had taken the circuit through the Park in the opposite direction, and now that all were united once more, many were the handshakings, and loud and eager the exchange of experiences.

“Did you take dinner at Larry’s?”

“I almost tumbled into the ‘Morning Glory’” —

“Oh! what a funny hotel that was at the Upper Basin – walls of pasteboard between the rooms, and all peeling off, you know” —

“Weren’t you awfully cold?”

“How many trout did you catch, Doctor?”

“My! wasn’t Mary’s Hill steep? We got out and walked. The horses just went up hand over hand, as if ’twas a ladder” —

“Did you see a bear?” This last from Tom, who became the center of a knot of eager questioners, and assumed airs of importance accordingly.

The attractions of the Mammoth Springs, marvelous though they were, were rather slighted by the tourists, who were sated with “formations” and boiling pools. That afternoon the train bore them over the branch road to Livingston, where fine furs were purchased by several parties, this little frontier town being a regular emporium for such articles.

At nightfall they had a jolly supper in the car, and afterward made their Pullman ring with “The Soldier’s Farewell” and – well – “A. R.!”

All the next day they rode at thirty-five miles an hour through the “Bad Lands” and across North Dakota, reaching Minneapolis the following morning.

“I tell you, it’s good to see green grass again, after those scorched-up prairies!” exclaimed Tom; and the rest echoed his words. For weeks not a drop of rain had fallen in the Northwest, and our New Englanders had longed for a sight of the fresh verdure of their own homeland.

There was plenty of sightseeing in Minneapolis to crowd the few hours allowed there. The younger Percivals, in particular, rushed furiously about the city, visited the Falls of Minnehaha, “which were extremely interesting,” Fred Seacomb remarked, “except that there were no falls there” – only a narrow rivulet trickling over some mossy rocks in a park; and climbed (by elevator) to the top of a twelve-story building on the roof of which was a flourishing garden, as well as an elegant restaurant. Later in the day they hurriedly inspected one of the great “Pillsbury” mills, which turn out seven thousand barrels of flour a day.

“I like this better than even the Falls in the Grand Cañon,” whispered Bess to Kittie, as they watched the flour pouring down through the boxes in a beautiful white flood. “There it was a great Power, you know; as if you were somehow seeing the world made; but here is where He makes answers for prayers for daily bread – just think, seven thousand people a day getting a whole barrel apiece, somewhere!”

I am glad Mr. Selborne happened to hear that last sentence. He was learning to know the little Captain better and better every day; and he understood what she meant, perhaps even better than bright, saucy Pet did.

“It is pleasant to remember, Miss Bessie,” he said, taking up the conversation very simply, “that the power and the giving are not separate, but each a part of the great, lovely Plan that guides the world’s living. ‘He watereth the hills,’ you know, ‘from His chambers,’ and the flood that roared over the brink of that precipice is sure to fall somewhere on the earth, at some time, in gentle rain.”

“I know,” said Bess, catching her breath a little, as she has a pretty way of doing when she is deeply moved; “and there was the blade of grass!”

She might have said “is,” for don’t I know that that self-same blade was safely pressed in her little Testament, in the steamer trunk that she had shared with Kittie throughout the journey?

They “finished” Minneapolis and its sturdy rival St. Paul, and hurried on to Chicago. Several in the original hundred of the Excursion had left them, and strangers had taken their places. It began to seem like breaking up in earnest.

There was one thing that disturbed Randolph; namely, that he had been unable to fulfill a laughing request made by Pet at almost the outset of the journey. He had competed with Tom in securing wild flowers for the girls, and, it must be confessed, the finest specimens had somehow found their way into Miss Pet’s lap. One variety had followed another during the passage by rail, across New England and Canada, until Pet had cried out, “You’ve given me everything!”

“Not every kind,” he replied, breathing hard after a run he had just made for some great golden daisies. “Isn’t there some special flower you want, that you haven’t had?”

“Well, let me see – a water lily!” said the girl merrily, choosing the most unlikely flower she could think of at the moment.

Randolph had laughed, too, but had resolved in his inmost heart to procure just that particular white blossom, if it could be had for love, muscle or money. But no lilies could be found. All through Manitoba, Assiniboia and Alberta he had looked in vain. Alaska yielded fir and spruce in abundance, but no water lilies. Nor was he more successful during the homeward-bound trip, across the States. Pet said nothing more about it – indeed, I think she forgot her careless suggestion almost the moment it was made; but Randolph felt himself put on his mettle, and failure stared him in the face.

No, I am not writing a “love story,” unless you grant that all true stories are that, in which pure, sweet young lives are thrown together, and drawn to one another by finest and frankest sympathy, looking ahead no farther than the sunset of that day or the sunrise of the next.

What might come in the future, these honest, joyous young people did not try to fathom. Perhaps for some of them the sacredness of a life-long companionship was waiting – who could tell? but now they just took the sweetness and comradery of To-day, and were satisfied.

As for Randolph’s failure to procure the lily, more of that by and by.

For there was one marvel, familiar to some, but new to most of the party, yet to come – the Falls of Niagara.

Chicago, with its never-ceasing stir of business activity, its broad streets, its huge “Auditorium” building, twenty stories high, its art galleries and its good-natured Western hurry and hospitality, was left behind, and one misty morning in early September the Excursion train deposited its passengers at the Niagara depot, from which they were whirled round to the Cataract House for breakfast.

“Tom hates to waste his time eating in the vicinity of Niagara Falls,” said Fred at the table, “but I am glad to see that he is going through the form, at any rate.”

A glance at the latter’s heaped-up plate was convincing.

“Certainly a splendid imitation of a hungry boy,” remarked Kittie. “Take another biscuit, won’t you, Tommy?”

But when at last they did enter Prospect Park, and huddled together at the brink of the mighty American Falls, there were no more jests. All the world seemed sweeping onward and over, into that white uproar. The solid rock beneath them trembled in the thunderous fall of many waters.

Some of the party walked over the little rustic bridge to Goat Island, and out to the bit of rock where Terrapin Tower once stood. But it was all too terrible to invite a long stay. Glad they were to reach the quiet of the grove again, where moss and furrowed bark and waving fern told their simple story of peace, and the sparrow’s twitter was heard against the deep undertone of the Fall.

In the afternoon half a dozen of the bolder spirits went down the Inclined Plane to the shore below the Falls, and embarked on the Maid of the Mist. They had to encase themselves in rubber coats and tarpaulin hats, while the little boat steamed up into the verge of the boiling caldron until its awe-struck passengers were deafened and drenched by the columns of rolling spray from the cataract.

Evening came, and for the last time the Percivals, with their special friends, gathered in the car for a final “concert.” Nearly one half of the Excursion party had left them at Niagara, waving handkerchiefs and singing, “Should auld acquaintance be forgot?”

Mr. Rossiter and his sister were to reach their journey’s end at a little town in Western Massachusetts, and would leave the train in the early morning, while their comrades were still asleep. Altogether, despite the anticipation of getting home once more, it was a sad evening, as “good-by” evenings must always be.

Next morning all was eagerness and bustle, for when breakfast was over the train was within twenty miles of Boston.

Alaskan paddles and totem poles were lashed together, and the sharp noses and bright eyes of stuffed foxes from Mandan peered from their paper wrappings as their owners prepared for the last disembarkation.

Near historic Concord the train stopped for a local freight to pull out of the way. Randolph carelessly strolled out to the car platform, and cast his eye along a little stream which was crossed by the track at that point. Something made him start suddenly and beckon to a group of boys who were idling near.

“A silver dollar for the boy that brings me a pond lily before the train starts!” he cried, pointing to the river.

How those boys did scatter, some up stream, some down! One bright little fellow, who had just divested himself for a bath, plunged in and swam lustily for the prize. Another waded in, waist-deep, regardless of clothes. Half a dozen more threw themselves on to a rude raft, capsized it, and scrambling on board again, poled it toward the white beauties, floating serenely on the dark waters of the Assabet.

Randolph stood waiting eagerly, with the dollar in his hand, expecting every moment to hear the signal-whistle for starting. A group of workmen engaged in repairing the bridge left off working and cheered the boys on, laughing, and shouting to the little fellows.

“Go it, Dick! Now, Billy, there’s a big one in front of you – no, to your right, to your right! Hurry, Pat, you’ll get it! Good for you!”

“Off brakes!” rang out the whistle sharply. The train started. Four boys scrambled, panting, up the steep, sandy bank. Randolph jumped on the lowest step of the car and stretched out his hand.

“Here they are, Mister!” and four snowy, perfumed blossoms were thrust by grimy little fingers into his own.

“Catch!” he shouted, throwing out four bright silver quarters for which he had hastily changed the dollar. “Thank you, boys. Good-by!” and the train rolled on.

Randolph entered the car, his eyes shining. Evidently no one within had witnessed this little episode.

“Almost home,” he said, coming up behind Pet. “Too bad I couldn’t” —

“Oh! that lily,” laughed the girl. “Well, Randolph, perhaps it will do you good to fail just once. It’s a sort of discipline, you know.”

“I’m afraid I shall have to get my discipline some other way,” said Randolph demurely; and he deposited the lilies in the lap of astonished Pet.

Just what she saw in those exquisite, fragrant things, all dripping from the cool depths from which they had come to greet her, I cannot say. She looked her delight at Randolph, and then buried the pretty pink of her own cheeks in the white petals. I believe she did not even thank the giver; but he was satisfied.

Twenty minutes later the train thundered into the Fitchburg depot in Boston, and the long, ten-thousand mile journey was at an end.

CHAPTER XVI.

CONCLUSION

I have entitled this chapter “Conclusion,” because it seems necessary to have the last chapter of a book named in that way. But the author might as well have named it “Beginning,” for there is no such thing in life as a “conclusion,” unless, indeed (as Randolph, looking over my shoulder, and fresh from the classic shades of Cambridge, suggests), we take the literal meaning of the word, a “shutting together” – of the covers of this book!

No; life is full of beginnings, and stories can never, never, to all eternity, “conclude.” Because the “Pine Cone Stories” can have but just six volumes, of so many pages each, we must let the story go on without us. But it will not conclude, any more than your life or mine forever. With which little “preachment,” as Miss Alcott’s young people somewhere call it, let us take a last look at the friends whose stories are drifting away out of our sight.

More than three years have passed since Tom delivered that lucky shot at old Silver-Tip; since Bessie gazed thoughtfully down into the mighty cañon in the Yellowstone, and took in her hand the slender ribbon of grass for a token.

It is Christmas time, and we are in an old mansion house in the depths of a deep forest in the Pine Tree State. You recognize the room at once, I hope – for it is Uncle Will’s little secret chamber at the Pines.

It is night, and the North Wind is smiting grandly his “thunder harp of pines,” while the window panes whiten and rattle with the sheets of snow that are flung against them by the storm.

There is a glorious fire in the fireplace, throwing great billows of flame far up the chimney, crackling, snapping and purring, sending a ruddy glow into every corner of the room and over its inmates.

For the chamber is not empty; the fire is not talking to itself, but to a goodly company that gather around it, with all the old-time cheer.

Uncle Will is there, sturdy and broad-shouldered as ever, with hair only a little whiter than when we first met him, standing beside his good horses at the Pineville depot years ago.

Aunt Puss, too, is not far away, and her husband’s occasional “Eunice” is even more full of tenderness than in earlier days, when they met by the lilac bushes.

Close by her side nestles golden-haired Pet, who turns, however, as she talks, to a tall youth with a dark curling mustache, whom she addresses as Randolph. The flush on her cheeks and the brightness in her happy eyes is not alone borrowed from the dancing fire; for Randolph has just stooped down and whispered to his aunt – Pet knew perfectly well, too, what he was saying, sly puss! – that the wedding-day was set for the first of May.

In another corner of the room Tom, now a grave senior at Harvard, is reading by the fire-light a letter postmarked “Portland, Oregon.” I don’t believe Bert Martin wrote it, though there is a great deal in the letter about him; for the handwriting is decidedly feminine. Can it be that Bert employs his sister as an amanuensis?

The young lady in navy blue, next to Tom, must be Kittie, whose engagement to Fred Seacomb “came out” simultaneously with Randolph and Pet’s. She tells me privately that she can not help teasing him, he’s so dignified with his new instructorship in the University of Pennsylvania; but then he’s good-natured and don’t seem to mind it a bit – “‘so long as he has me,’ he says – foolish fellow!”