Chapter III: In British Oregon

I

What is a Christian? Is he one who professes the Faith? I have my doubts. The Holy Inquisition professed belief, and generously burned the bodies of the orthodox in order to save their souls.

Perhaps He accepts as Christian all who do the will of His Father by loving God and their neighbors. I dare hold that these are the Christians whom Christ believes in. Throughout a varied and misguided life I have found the sort of Christians who love God and their neighbors, both in the cities and the countryside; but they seemed most numerous in the fighting forces at war, the fishing vessels, the deep-sea shipping, the cow camps, the remote gold fields, and the forlorn outposts of trappers, rangers, scouts, explorers, pioneers. Such Christians did not always clean their teeth, or wash behind their ears, their conversation would have shocked their mothers and all angels; but then one doubts if the fisherman of Galilee had any table manners, and if Peter, James, and John called on a modern bishop, they would certainly be sent to the back door.

Is this too long a sermon? Skip, then!

Nowhere are men so jammed as in a deep-sea forecastle, or piled on top of one another for so long a time, so plagued by rats, bugs, damp, cold, and gloom, with such a suffering from lack of sleep, fresh water, decent food, pure air, and privacy. And nowhere do men learn a more whole-hearted charity towards others, and liberality, such a complete unselfishness, so grand a Christianity of mind. In foul weather everybody saves a shipmate's life, say, once a day, and nobody expects a word of thanks.

The fellow who does not matter one way or the other is called Hi! The chap who provides any sport, puts up a good fight, or makes friends worth having generally earns a nickname and as a rule will answer to it, cheerily or with his fists, according to his nature. Murderer Bill, as his shipmates called young Fright, took his nickname without resentment. So one may address the most frightful insults to a dog in such a tone of voice that he wags his tail delighted.

If anybody wanted to have trouble, Murderer Bill made haste to provide. He fought several battles, and had a reputation for pugnacity. Yet to anybody who treated him half decently he proved a loyal friend in thought, word, and deed, the least selfish man on board, recklessly generous. No doubt was ever thrown upon his courage, he had a natural bent for seamanship, and fully held his ground as able seaman. In the larboard watch his special chum, towards the end, was Silas, Auld Jock his instructor, and the rest were friends. There was no man on board more generally liked.

And when the _Beaver_ came safe inside the breakers on the Columbia bar, the captain had Murderer Bill haled down from aloft by the bos'n, clapped in irons, and once again consigned to the 'tween-decks as a prisoner. The ship's company as a whole determined to get even with the captain.

Thus Rain's prayer to the Sun came to be answered. The mate lent a flint which fitted the lock of Silas's gun. A bullet mold was found in the bos'n's locker and plenty of lead in the ballast for a supply of bullets. When the ship's magazine was opened for the salute to Fort Vancouver, a bag of powder strayed. The Iroquois made the belt and pouches, Auld Jock gave a hunting knife, somebody stole a lens from the captain's telescope to serve as a burning glass for making fire. The Yorkshireman gave a wallet with flint, steel, and tinder. There was a purse filled by subscription. It was certain that, when Murderer Bill escaped to the woods, he would not go empty handed, but doubtful rather whether he might need a wagon to carry his equipment.

II

To have a luminous mind concerning Fort Vancouver it is better not to get the place mixed with Vancouver Island, or with the modern seaport of Vancouver upon the adjacent mainland. The old capital of British Oregon--a city stands there now--was on the northern bank of the Columbia where a natural park of pasturage and timber sloped upwards from the river. Upstream the valley was barred by lofty forests, and from north to south no less than seven white immense volcanoes appeared to float above a sea of mist.

The village on the river bank had three dozen log cabins, very neatly kept by Indian housewives, their men being Shetlanders and Orkneymen, French-Canadians and Métis, Kanakas and Iroquois. The offspring attended school, where Solomon Smith taught American, singing, deportment, and morality. Behind the village rose the stockade 20 feet high, quadrangular, and in extent 750 feet by 450. It was not really a fort, having neither bastions, galleries, guns, nor even loopholes, for indeed a wooden popgun would suffice to terrorize the Chinooks. Facing the main gate was the chief factor's house, a French-Canadian manor, its white veranda trellised for vines which yielded purple grapes. Between two flights of steps forming a horseshoe stood a 24-pounder gun, with a mortar on either side, and pyramids of shot, to frighten children away from the geranium beds. On either side of the great house extended the officers' mess, anteroom, library, a range of officers' quarters, and houses for the guests. Fronting these were the big warehouses, store, ration house, hospital, and shops for the artificers, the tailor, the turner, the cobbler, the smith who made fifty hatchets a day in his spare time, the bakers who supplied hard biscuits to the Company's ships, and the Indians who beat the furs each week to rid them of moth and dust. On the lawn which covered the main square stood the bell-house and the flag-staff. Outside the stockade was the stead, with a threshing floor worked by oxen, the orchard where all the trees had props to help them carry their load, and the farm of seven hundred acres. Beyond was pasturage where the sheep yielded twelve-pound fleeces, and the growing herd of cattle was kept sacred for the future prosperity of Oregon. Downstream a couple of miles an Hawaiian herder tended the pigs in the oak woods. Upstream was the sawmill which furnished cargoes of lumber to the Sandwich Islands. In all that husbandry the figs and lemons were the only failures; but Mr. Bruce, the gardener, had an exchange of seeds with the Duke of Devonshire's place over at Chiswick-on-Thames, and yielded to no man in strawberries or Juan Fernandez peaches. Outlying this capital of the fur trade was old Astoria, an American fort bought by the Company during the American-British War of 1812, but now in ruins. A white man lived there to tend the four-acre garden and report the arrival of ships. On Puget Sound was Fort Nisqually, and farther up the coast Forts Langley, McLoughlin, Simpson, and Stickeen, which last had been leased from the Russians. Up the Columbia Valley was Fort Walla Walla, from whence a trail went eastward a couple of thousand miles to the United States, then spreading steadily up the Missouri Valley. Northward of Walla Walla was Fort Okanagan, which had stockaded outposts on the Spokane River, Lake Pend d'Oreille and Flathead River, with others farther on in what is now Canadian territory. Fort Colville, near the present boundary, and on the main stream of the Columbia, was second only to the capital, and thence the annual brigade of cargo boats went by river to Hudson's Bay. Southward of Vancouver about two hundred miles there was an outpost, and beyond that, six hundred miles or so, was the little Mexican presidio of San Francisco.

In theory the country was held jointly by Great Britain and the United States, but in fact it was British Oregon. The Hudson's Bay voyageurs retired, who farmed in the Willamette, were hardly as yet a colony, nor did the Company project large settlements to disturb the Indians or the fur trade. The time was a golden age of progress, prosperity, sane government, and unbroken peace, the sole creation of one man, Chief Factor David McLoughlin, Father of Oregon.

This gentleman was Irish on the father's and French-Canadian on the mother's side, Canadian born, and held a degree in medicine from the Faculty of Paris. He stood six feet six inches, powerfully built, strikingly handsome, with long hair iron-gray. One would compare him, in stern probity, with Washington, in charm with Lincoln, but not by any means with lesser men than these. His enemies testify to his hospitality, his delight fulness as a host, his generosity. People who came out of the wilderness or from the sea were charmed with the officers' mess, with its willow-pattern crockery salved in 1825 from a wrecked Chinese junk, the English cut glass, the bright silver, the flowers, the gracious ease, the sparkling conversation. And after dinner, Dr. McLoughlin, who had one glass of wine when a ship came in, would ring the bell for Bruce the gardener, who presented him with the snuff box. The pinch of snuff was a solemnity, a signal which sent the officers to their work, and the guests for a ride, or in wet weather to the library.

The pioneer serpents in this Paradise were the Reverend Herbert Beaver, Church of England chaplain, and Mrs. Beaver, the first white woman in Oregon. Beaver had been an army chaplain in the West Indies, a fox-hunting vicar at home, always more horse-proud than church-proud. He was a little man of light complexion, a feminine voice, an oratorical manner, flippant and arrogant, who hunted every morning and baptized the heathen in drill time all the afternoon. He was appalled by the discovery that each of the twenty officers, the doctor included, had an Indian woman in quarters, a half-breed family, not married. It did not occur to him that the Indian marriage was sacred to the Indians, and that himself was the first priest with power to celebrate the Christian rite for the men. With one exception, they refused his services as an insult. Beaver would not associate with immoral women, or Mrs. Beaver with lewd, adulterous men. They said so. Indeed, the pair made themselves variously and acutely unpleasant, and that in the name of Christ.

The American missionaries who followed them developed deadly treachery against the doctor; the American pioneers, all pleasantly uncouth, wrested the country from its British owners, but the English Beavers were first to undermine the happiness of Oregon, and it was their advent which closed the golden age.

III

H.B.C. brigantine _Beaver_, all shiny with fresh paint and burnished brass, dipped her ensign to the fort, fired her salute of guns, dropped anchor abreast of the village, reported to the chief factor, and sent ashore all sorts of reading matter and other precious treasure. Then she proceeded to turn herself into a little paddle boat, the pioneer steamer of the Pacific Ocean. It was on the 14th of June, 1836, that she took the gentlemen of the fort on an excursion all round Wapato Island. After that came her maiden voyage under steam of 800 miles to Milbank Sound, and the first filling of her little bunkers at the Nanaimo coal seam. So she passes out of our story.

Meanwhile, at his first obeisance to the chief factor, Captain Home made report with much pomp and circumstance that he had a prisoner in irons awaiting commitment on the horrible charge of murdering his parents. The doctor advised him to see Mr. Douglas, Justice of the Peace.

Black Douglas, scarce less tall and imposing of presence than the doctor himself, received the little fuss box with an amiable grin, read over the newspaper cutting with some slight impatience, and remarked that Bill Fright seemed to have a jolly good case for criminal libel against the _London Advertiser_. The captain was disgusted, and presently consoled himself by telling Mr. Beaver all about it.

Meanwhile, the ship's company related to all comers that the prisoner was a pretty good fellow, with the makings of a sailorman, although the skipper "had a down on him."

The officers' mess agreed that Captain Home was a pompous ass, sitting on a mare's nest, and making a ridiculous fuss about some youngster falsely accused of felony.

At the mess the Reverend Herbert Beaver observed over his wine that he had already reported to the Aborigines Protection Society of London on the hideous and callous immorality of the present company, and if this parricide were not at once committed for trial he in fact would proceed--to take steps.

Doctor McLoughlin rang for Bruce, took a pinch of snuff, released the servants, then requested the Reverend Chaplain to resign from the mess, because it was intended only for the use of gentlemen.

The Reverend Beaver having flounced out of the room in a huff, and banged the door, the chief factor bowed to the delighted officers, who came about him as he stood to receive their congratulations. "Do you know, gentlemen," he said, "I agree with the chaplain. Yes. I regret to say that for once I find myself in agreement with Mr. Beaver.

"Now, James," he turned to Douglas, "please don't give Mr. Beaver ground for complaints against you to the Government of Lower Canada from which you hold Commission of the Peace."

"You mean sir, that I should try this rotten case?"

"I do, Jim, really. I have my reasons too. And Jim," he winked at the magistrate, "may I be prisoner's friend?"'

There was a roar of laughter.

"And mind you, Jim, no hole-and-corner business. All white men should be present, as witnesses to the fact that Mr. Beaver has no grounds for complaint either against you or against me."

"May we use this room, sir?"

And so was the trial arranged.

IV

"Prisoner. The London news-sheets of 29th October, 1835, our latest advices, report that a coroner's inquest was convened at a place called, yes--Margate, the day previous, upon the bodies of James Fright, a barge master, and Catherine his wife. The jury gave a verdict of deliberate and willful murder against the son of the deceased, by name Bill Fright. As a Justice of the Peace I'm obliged to rule that this newspaper report is bona fide evidence.

"What is your name?"

"Bill Fright."

"Call Mr. David Home."

David Home, having taken oath, protested that he was entitled to be called Captain.

"By courtesy," said the magistrate blandly, "which I shall render, when I have inspected your log book. You will please show the prisoner's name in your log."

"Prisoner is shown here," said Home, "under a purser's name, as Willie Muggins." The captain was mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. Certainly the mess room was hot and crowded.

"You assert that the prisoner signed on under a false name?"

The captain shuffled. "Oh, well, fact is----"

"Be careful, Mister David Home, be careful!"

Still the captain shuffled, and his ship's company, present at his request, excepting the Iroquois and the Negro, began to rejoice aloud.

"Am I to understand," thundered Black Douglas, "that you attempt to prejudice the prisoner's case by suggesting that he signed under a false name?"

"No, sir!"

"Then what the devil do you mean by appearing in a British Court of Justice with a false log book? I refuse to receive your evidence. You will leave my court. Get out!"

Nothing could restrain the _Beaver's_ crew from rousing cheers as their captain was shown out, but Black Douglas ordered silence or he would clear the court.

The boatswain's evidence was accepted as to the fact of arrest.

"And now," the magistrate turned to the prisoner, "you are charged," he spoke with a grave gentleness, "with the murder of your parents. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?"

Bill knew that this man was a friend worth winning. "Not guilty!" he answered joyfully.

Black Douglas looked at the crowd. "I want you all to know," he said, "that I don't pretend to any training at all in law or in court procedure. I'm a trader. But I am a white man claiming British blood. Deep down in all our hearts there is one root principle of our common sense, fair play between man and man. We are here to play the game. A prisoner is a man restrained by the law because his conduct has been called in question, held until Justice can give him absolute fair play, and he stands free in presence of his fellows. He is an innocent man in trouble, in jeopardy."

Here the Reverend Beaver, seated in the front row of the spectators, was unrestrained in his impatience.

"Pish! Pshaw! Mawkish sentiment! Playing to the gallery! Disgraceful!"

The magistrate seemed to be pleased, and addressed the remainder of his remarks directly to the chaplain. As he drove home the attack, great was the joy of his brother officers.

"To slander a prisoner behind his back, to question, bully, or punish him, or in any way to treat him as a felon before he is proven guilty, is a beastly and contemptible act of cowardice. The prisoner before me has been slandered by the news-sheets behind his back prior to his trial. I cannot shoot the reptiles of the press, but I can and will defend the prisoner in the establishment of his own innocence. As magistrate I am allowed to ask him which way he pleads, in guilt appealing to the Crown for mercy, or in innocence demanding release as an act of justice. Pleading 'Not guilty,' he has demanded trial.

"Prisoner, Dr. David McLoughlin, Chief Factor, asks leave to appear on your behalf as prisoner's friend to see that you get fair play and benefit of doubt. Do you accept his help?"

There were tears in Bill's eyes and his voice was very gruff as he answered "Yes."

Press cuttings were then read by the clerk of the court and noted as documentary evidence, completing the case for the prosecution.

Mr. Dodd, mate of the _Beaver_, was sworn for the defense, and presently examined by the doctor.

"In whose watch, Mr. Dodd, did the prisoner serve?"

"In mine, sir; I chose him."

"Any regrets?"

"None, sir."

"What sort of character?"

"First-rate, sir; best helmsman we has, makings of an excellent seaman. Couldn't have done it, sir."

"Done what?"

"Done murder, sir."

"I think," observed the magistrate, "that this is opinion rather than evidence as to fact."

"Does the prisoner get on well with Captain Home?"

"No, sir."

"Why?"

"Rather not say. It's not my place to discuss my commanding officer."

"Excellent. By the way, Mr. Dodd, was the prisoner wearing a belt knife when he joined the ship?"

"He was, sir."

"May I request the court to have one or two of the newspaper reports read again with reference to the weapon?"

The clerk read two or three versions which described the murderer's blood-stained belt knife as found in the barge's cabin. The last version showed the weapon as clutched in the dead man's hand.

"That's right, sir," cried the prisoner, and when the doctor tried to silence him, so much the more he protested. "Why, I seen it!"

"Prisoner," said the magistrate, "you will be wise to leave your defense to your counsel."

"Bias! Bias!" The Reverend Herbert Beaver jumped up and shrieked in his shrill voice. "Bias! The court is shielding a felon!"

"Silence in court," said the magistrate. "Usher, if that man interrupts with one more word, remove him, using all necessary violence."

The prisoner had whirled round to stare at the chaplain. His face became deadly pale, his eyes were starting from his head, his teeth were clenched, lips parted. "You go to 'Ell," he snarled. "And that ain't far--for you!"

"I call you all to witness----" shrieked the reverend gentleman; but he got no further, for all necessary violence attended his departure.

The Reverend Jason and Daniel Lee, of the Methodist faith, American missionaries, some visiting officers of the company's outposts, one or two overland trappers, a couple of stray seamen, the gentlemen and servants of Fort Vancouver, and the ships' companies of the _Beaver_, _Nereid_, and _Una_, made in all perhaps the largest assemblage of white men which had so far met on the Pacific coast. The affair of Bill Fright was not of the smallest consequence that day compared with the great issue, the chaplain's grievance against the magistrate which would be laid before the Government of Lower Canada, and his complaints to the Governor and Company in London which might easily ruin the Father of Oregon. Now he would claim conspiracy between the doctor, the magistrate, and the prisoner! How much worse his grievance, if the prisoner were found not guilty, and released as an innocent man! The doctor and Black Douglas were exchanging glances, and both understood that the boy must be committed for trial.

The case went on, for Mr. Dodd was witness as to Silas discovering the charge against the prisoner, and how as chief officer he himself examined the supposed Willie Muggins, who proved perfectly frank, and manfully indignant at an outrageous slander. Again the seamen of the _Beaver_ broke out cheering, and had to be restrained. There was no doubt as to their sympathy.

Now Bill demanded that the Court should hear his story; and, rueful as they were lest he should ruin his case, neither the magistrate nor the doctor felt that it was wise to appear in the suppression of evidence. Great was their relief as the lad spoke, simply and to the point, clearing away all mystery, all doubt, until the crime was seen in its true proportions, a murder and suicide committed by his father, which left him motherless, friendless, and in jeopardy of the gallows.

The doctor scribbled a note, and handed it to Douglas.

"Dr. McLoughlin," the magistrate looked up from reading the note, "I quite understand. The clerk of the court will make record that the prisoner, having taken over his own case, the prisoner's friend withdraws from his defense."

Bill was horrified at that disaster just when he thought that he had won the game.

"Prisoner, it is your right as a British subject, to proceed to England, and there as an innocent man demand a reversal of the coroner's sentence, so that your innocence may be established before the world. You are therefore committed for trial."

"May I speak?" asked Bill.

"You may."

"Then"--he shook with anger--"I says as you sends the mouse to eat the cheese in the mousetrap--and calls that justice!"

The magistrate's grave face preserved an unsmiling severity, but his right eye closed, then opened. "Exactly so," said Douglas.

V

"And then," said Storm, "he wunk!"

"But _how_?" asked Rain.

"Like this," Storm closed one eye and opened it with much solemnity, first to the padre on his stool, and then to Rain in the corner.

"Of which," explained the padre, winking a few times to try what it felt like, "I will proceed to give the interpretation. For if," he assumed the pulpit manner, and winked devotionally, "there is an interpretation of dreams down there on Earth, there is likewise an interpretation of wakes up here in Dreamland."

"Quite so," said Rain. "I always felt that there should be, seeing that our actions down on the hunting ground are never taken seriously by any fairies here."

"The meaning of the magistrate's gesture," continued the padre, "is as follows. My good youth, if I declare you innocent and free, you are a seaman on board the _Beaver_ and go to the northwest coast, to shovel coals and have yourself bullied by that Complete Swine Captain David Home.

"Or if I get the doctor here to take you on the permanent staff of the Fort, you come under the spiritual ministrations of the Holy Beaver, which stirs up mud with its tail instead of using it as a trowel and building dams to keep out Satan withal.

"And if I commit you to take your trial as a mouse in the Public Mousetrap, which is very bad for mice----"

"That's what he done!" cried Storm indignantly.

"But for the wunk," explained the padre, "yes; albeit, dear Brethren-in-the-singular, you will take to the woods, and presently get yourself devoured by a very fierce bear----"

"A real bear," said Rain very gravely.

"Because you don't know how to shoot."

"I do!" cried Storm.

"Not to hit, my son."

"I see." Storm showed dismay, and relapsed into gloomy attention.

"Wherefore we will fool the captain of the ship, the Holy Beaver, the Public Mousetrap, and the Real Bear by sending you away to be taught hunting, trapping, and woodcraft with my old friend Lieutenant Tschirikov----"

"The Fatbald!" said Rain. "I'm sure he must be very nice to make up for being so plain."

"So that's why!" cried Storm, delighted.

"--who lives, my son, at the river of the Kutenais, on the green meads at the head of Flatbow Lake."

"Why, that's my lake!" cried Rain.

"Of course," observed the padre: "for this cause was Storm brought from the Land of Barbarian-hereticks who drop their aitches, and carried to the mouth of your river, in order that he may come to your own lake, and meet you on the high snow field overlooking the Apse of Ice."

"The Sun Lodge where I am priestess!" cried Rain, exultant. "Now do I thank thee, Holy Spirit in the Sun, for all Thy mercies!"

When they had all three said their thanks, the padre observed that Julia was outside waiting to conduct them. They really must call on the invalid dragon.

"Who is that?" asked Storm.

"He is a poor dragon who devoured so many virgins that he has grown too stout, his cave is pinching him, and he can't get out."

"If I killed him," said Rain reflectively, "it would count for a good coup, like a scalp."

"Nay," the padre rebuked her ignorance, "a proper scalping lasts, but the more you chop a dragon the more he grows, and when you kill him he comes alive again."

"Anyway," said Rain, who had turned obstinate, "when Julia guides us, she is so busy showing herself off, that she always loses her way."

"Let's give her the slip," said Storm; so they got the padre out, by stretching him a little, through the back window, and went to see the dragon.

It took Rain and Storm some time before they mislaid the clergyman, and forgot all about the dragon, as they set forward upon that great adventure. At first they crossed part of a city, set in the midst of a park with very stately, formal gardens. They wanted to have a nearer view of the palace which rose beyond. It was made of silvery morning mist carved into colonnades, big shiny towers, and, far up in the sky, a dome all iridescent like the soap bubbles which have gliding colors. Rather frightened, daring one another to come on, expecting to be turned back at any moment, they crept into the vestibule. It had a sheen of pearl, and went away on either side into cool green distances. It was like the soul of the sea. Beyond it they found a courtyard with a pool reflecting its high walls, which were of opal, changing as one watched with color which rolled like sea waves towards the open doors upon the farther side. Within those doors was a big ante-chamber, where the light was all golden. Then there was a forest of columns, dusky and enormous, where footsteps echoed so that one went on tiptoe, until one looked through into the vast throne room. That seemed to be hewn out of the heart of a diamond, and in the midst of its flashing splendors there sat enthroned and all alone the King of the High Fairies. So dazzling was the light which came from him that the intruders went down on their knees and covered their faces.

"My thought has called you here," said the King, softly as though he whispered. "Do not fear, my children. Come to the step here at my feet, and rest while I speak to you."

Now, the story which was told by the King of the High Fairies is no invention, but real; not mine at all, but copied word for word out of a splendid book.[1]

[1] _A Subaltern in Spirit Land_, by J. S. M. Ward, B.A., F.R.Econ.S., F.R.S.S. (London: Rider & Son.)

Long ago I was one of the fairy folk, such as those you have just left, and so were we all. I dwelt in a castle, and did deeds of glamour, and hoped that a mortal would one day proclaim them to the world. But one day I fell into a strange trance, and dreamed of Earth, and of the sufferings of mortals, and their follies, and I saw how foolish were their griefs, and how easy it would be to relieve them.

And when I awoke, I pondered over these things, and it grew upon me that the life I lived was aimless and empty, since it was but glamour, and there was neither real sorrow nor sin, but only make-believe. For evil was only potential, but there it was real. Here the triumph of the good knight was always assured, but there it was uncertain.

Be it understood that the High Fairies are like ourselves, real people, but belong to a separate Order of Spirits, who have never been in mortal bodies to learn the discipline of pain, of sin and sorrow. Many of their adventures which happened in Fairyland are well known to all of us, in the _Annals of the Round Table_, _The Arabian Nights_, and some of the so-called fairy tales. The writers of such books went in their dreams to Fairyland, invented earth-names for the High Fairies they encountered there, and brought back great annals of adventure. Others of the High Fairies hope that some day a writer will come and give them earth-names, so that they and their adventures may be known by mortals. Now to resume the story told by the Fairy King.

Then I set out towards the confines of Fairyland, and turned my back on the pleasant vales. I journeyed through the dark wood, and came at last to the cave where the gnomes dwell. These would have bidden me stay, but I heeded them not, and at length I came out into the astral plane, of which you know. But lower and lower I went, seeking sin and suffering, just as you menfolk flee from them, and on the astral plane I worked for a while, but as I knew not earth-life, I found my efforts of little avail.

So at length I reached the earth plane, and wandered unseen among the sons of men till the sorrow of the world ate into my soul and grief for its woe overwhelmed me.

Yet, try as I would, I found I could do little to help mankind, for I was not of their nature. Till one dread day I stood on a hill near a city men call Jerusalem, and I gazed in the faces of three who were crucified. Then He in the center saw me, though the rest saw me not, and He spoke these words:

"O spirit of air, who knowest not the love of men, draw near."

And I drew near, and said, "I have sought suffering and grief that I might be able to aid menfolk. Thou, who seemest to be the King of Pain, bring pain to me."

And He smiled. "Thou askest a hard thing. Yet shall it be given unto thee. Wrench forth the nails which fasten My hands and feet and set Me free."

Then I arose and strove to grasp the nails, but couldn't, for they were material and I immaterial. And as I strove, my helplessness filled me with a new sensation, and it was grief. For, strive as I might, I could do nothing to help that gentle sufferer.

And the grief grew to an intensity of pain which is indescribable.

Then again He spoke. "It avails not--thou canst not help Me; and yet in the striving thy request has been granted. Go, and My love for men go with thee!"

Then the vague desire to help men grew into a burning passion, and I went from the spot and strove to help them. And now it seemed that I was changed in spirit, for I comprehended their griefs and how to help them.

So I comforted the heavy-hearted in the dark watches of the night. And I guided the erring ones into the safe road. I strove with the wayward and warned the foolish, until my work was accomplished. I have learned to suffer, yet have I never learned to die, and I think that none can become perfect till that experience has been endured.

All the time that he was telling the story the King's right hand had rested upon Storm's head, or gently stroked the wavy, sun-gold hair. "Why do you tremble so?" he asked--"you that are learning to die, that shalt become what I may never be, perfected in endurance by the rite of death. Why are you frightened?"

"I'm not frightened, sir. We gets a training on our earth so as not to show funk when we're scared."

We all know how dream-scenes change, how dream-people are transformed. By the King's magic the throne room had vanished. They seemed to be in a paved courtyard, and in front of him there rose a Roman colonnade. It was the Prætorium in old Jerusalem. "Why, that's the orderly room," said Storm; "it's lucky I'm off duty."

His clothes had changed themselves into Roman infantry uniform, parade kit, a burnished and plumed steel helmet, a shining steel cuirass, a kilt, strapped sandals.

That was the King's magic, which awakened slumbering memories, making far-past events to live as though they happened within the hour.

"You are not frightened," said the King; "what then, lad, makes you as the leaves when they are dry, when their voice is harsh, ere the death wind carries them away?"

Storm glanced sideways angrily at Rain. "It was all along of her," he answered. "When she blamed it on to me that she was to have a baby. Wanted me to make an honest woman of her, as if I'd stoop to the likes--a native--a Jew drab.

"She slobbered," cried Storm, "all over my breast-plate and shoulder straps, which I'd been burnishing for inspection. I never noticed that anything was wrong until the morning parade. And there was my steel all rusted. The old centurion told our ten-man, Vivianus his name was, that if he couldn't keep his men clean he'd better chuck his stripes. The ten-man was proper sick at that and when we got back to the barrack room he took it out of me, yes, good and plenty. He had to furnish the day's execution detail, and I was senior soldier of the section. Said he couldn't trust a dirty man in charge. He'd have to take the detail himself. Besides he insulted me, and we Northmen take no lip from them little black Italians. Tell you, what with that, and the woman, and the disgrace--by Mithras! I was just about crazy by the time he marched us round here to this Prætorium Courtyard."

Storm was a Roman soldier once again, back in the garrison of old Jerusalem.

"Got to chuck a brace, breast to breastplate, shoulder blades touching or you galls your windpipe on the cuirass. Got to watch your step and mind your dressing so as not to make a holy show of our legion in front of them natives. Got to keep your mouth from yelling, yes, and leave your dirk sheathed when ye can't see nothin' but blood--blood, blood, and the ten-man a-prompting in yer ear--'left, left, left, right, left, right incline, come up on the left there! Mark time, by the left--forward, march straight through the swineherd! Shoulder through them! Damn them! Frontform. Halt. Stand at ease--stand easy.' Blood! Blood! By the crucified Mithras, I'll have his blood for insulting me.

"The natives was having their usual riot. It was something about one of them street-preachers they wanted hanged; and, after a shindy, the Governor let 'em have Him, provided of course He was turned off decently by the troops, not torn to pieces by the mob.

"Of course the Governor's guard escorted the prisoner to the Prætorium Courtyard for the usual flogging, and then, as He seemed to be something special--claimed to be King of the Jews--the boys on guard called the battalion out of barracks for a bit of fun with Him. They sent out for a dead branch from one of them acacias, with ivory-white thorns a couple of inches long. They plaited that into a crown. They got an old short crimson cloak--general officers' batmen gets such things given them. And a long cane did for scepter, though it broke. They stripped the preacher, and rigged Him out, had a great game with the King of the Jews, bashing the crown of thorns on His head with that scepter. His face was running with blood.

"Of course our execution squad, of an N.C.O. and three privates, just stood easy until the day's prisoners was handed over to us for our job of hanging. If the boys behaved like kids, they was off duty, and it weren't no business of mine. Besides, the prisoner was only a Jew, and Jews is offal.

"Yet He was sort of getting hold of me, like drink takes hold of a man before he knows. That's why I acted rough when we took over, cause us Roman soldiers can't afford to be sloppy, especially with natives. His eyes--crucified Mithras, His eyes! I couldn't look Him in the face while I was going to murder Vivianus. That's the first man I ever forgave.

"The quartermaster used to issue crosses which we had to turn into store after the day's executions. They was heavy, and this preacher, after the way the boys had handled Him--well, He was none too strong. The other two was just the usual thieves and they come fresh from the cells, but He broke down under the load. We caught a friend of His'n, an old fellow from Cyrene, in North Africa, who had a couple of sons, Alexander and Rufus, in the horse trade. Them Cyreneans is horse copers to a man. Well, this old Simon what we caught, we made to carry the preacher's cross all the way to the West Gate, with the natives mobbing Him, cursing and throwing muck. When they're roused, them Jews is beastly. So we come to the Skull Hill just due west of the city, in full view from every roof. There's holes hewn in the rock there, a row of 'em for crosses. Them two thieves was lashed to their crosses, which is the usual way, but He was a sort of special case, so I had the job of driving the spikes with a sledge through His hands and feet. He lay there on the cross, watching me, and when I went sick all of a sudden He tells me to do my duty. He was smiling at me. My God! We lifted them three crosses, dropped the butts into the mortise holes, and hammered in the wedges--same as quoins, to keep 'em steady.

"We'd took off all their clothes, which was our perquisite, and our ten-man makes fair division. Except His tunic, no use if it was cut, being woven, same as a jersey in one piece. We used knucklebones, which is much the same as throwing dice. I won, and in the evening I give it----"

He glanced at Rain.

"To her."

The King bent low. "Go on," he said.

"The day was heavy, and along in the afternoon come a big storm, dark, with sheets of rain, and blinding flashes.

* * * * * * *

"Hello!" said Storm, "that's Snow Fell! This is Broad Firth. We're in Iceland. This is another life. Oh, what's the name of the farm?"

"Under-the-lava," said Rain, "the stead of Slaying Stir. And I'm the veiled woman from Swede-realm. Don't you remember Slaying Stir has murdered my dear brothers Halli and Leikner? Their ghosts have brought me hither to murder Slaying Stir. In my dream they said I must come to Iceland and avenge their deaths. So I did. I came with the two poor ghosts to Iceland to the house of Slaying Stir. And when I tried to stab him, my heart was turned to water. My man here, Storm, was guesting at Stir's house. Storm loved me."

The King laid his hand on the lad's arm.

"That I did," said Storm.

"What were you, then?" asked the King.

"A slave. I, Harald Christian, Earl of Man, captured in battle, sold to be a thrall. My master, I loved my master, young Leif Ericson. And we came guesting to the house of Slaying Stir, where we met my woman. That was in Iceland, but our home was Greenland, the new Colony."

"So," Rain continued, "my man and I loved and were wedded secretly. But Leif captured me. Then he took his thrall, my poor man, Storm, and lashed him to a post which stood in the tideway. 'One prayer to Thor,' said Leif, 'and you go free. One prayer to Thor,' said Leif, 'and you get your woman.'"

"'One prayer to Christ,' said Storm, 'and you save your soul!' Then the tide closed over Storm's mouth."

"So," asked the King of the Fairies, "you gave your life for the Christ you had slain?"

"No such luck," answered Storm gloomily. "Leif got me back to life, made me a freeman, gave me my woman. Christ had him. Afterwards I was with him, steersman of the _Flying Dragon_, when we found a new world."

There came a sudden vision of smoking seas, of lashing spray, a reeling, staggering ship, with one great lugsail lifting her as she drove, thirty-two oarsmen straining at their labor, Storm in a leather jerkin at the thwart-ship tiller, and beside him a youth gigantic in chain mail who pointed with drawn sword, conning the passage between drowned sand banks and terrific combers into the entry of a land-locked bay.

"A new-found world," said the King. "New-found America."

But Storm answered concerning the Viking hero, Leif the Fortunate.

"He called it Christ-realm. Yes. That was afterwards, when we'd crossed the Western Ocean, made Norway, and put in at Nidaros, the new capital. There was Leif baptized, with the Norse King standing godfather. He offered Christ-Realm to Olaf Tryggveson, the Christian King of Norway."

The King of the Fairies said then:

"There seems to be a purpose running from life to life. So in the voyage of a ship the days pass, and the nights pass, but from day to day the purpose of her master continues always towards one end, one seaport. Mortals, your lives are days. Tell me of the next incarnation."

"That time," said Storm, "I never found my woman, so it don't count."

"Tell me, though. Perhaps the purpose runs."

"I was Gaston le Brut, de Joinville's body servant, and him crusading with Louis, King of France. Them wars is a muddle of battles, mud, and hunger, the pest, and slavery among the Paynim at Babylon the Less. The King and de Joinville got ransomed before they could raise the money to buy out us troops from the Soldan. It's all a muddle of bad management, but yes--I see--the ridge! the dragging my little master by the hand and he squealing 'Non! non! non!' but I made him see that which St. Louis didn't, the view of the Holy City through the heat mist faint in the distance, and the Hill of Skulls where I'd helped crucify my God! Oh, Christ Almighty!"

"The purpose runs, Rain," said the King of the Fairies. "Follow the quest. What was your next life?"

"When next we met," Rain answered, "I was what Storm calls Red Indian. I was Powhatan's daughter then. It was in those days that the English came first into our country--the land they call Virginia--yes, and the English called me Pocahontas. It wasn't my real name though. I wedded my man, and he was Master John Rolfe--a little widower. Twice he was Roman soldier, once he was thrall in Iceland, and then it seems crusader, and again John Rolfe the planter, and now what he calls bargee; but he is always Storm and I am always Rain, and we shall always love."

"And have you loved none other?" asked the King.

"Nay, but there was one I worshiped as though he were a god. Captain Johnsmith."

"Which," cried Storm--"I'd know that face among millions--was Leif Ericson, the man who found a new world."

"And in his next life," said the King of the Fairies, "founded the United States, eh?"

"Then that," cried Rain, "which we drop in the last life, we take up again in the next."

"The ship," answered the Fairy King, "carries on her journey during the night, and at the next daybreak is that much nearer to her haven. Now tell me of this present day's journey, which you mortals call a lifetime, down on earth."

Storm answered. "Me and her is man and wife."

"Whom God hath joined," said the King, "no man can possibly sunder."

"Till death us part?" Rain whispered.

The Fairy King leaned forward on his throne, his hands clasped. "Death," he reflected, "Time, and Space are only three impostors. They are shadows, glamour, not realities like Faith or Hope or Love. A Spirit told me once that a man and a woman who love, whom death cannot set asunder, may in the end be parts of one, one Angel.

"How I do envy you two children! And have you been parted in this life you are living now down on the Earth?"

"We've never met," said Rain. "Storm is an English sailor; I live with my mother Thunder Feather, the sacred woman of the Blackfoot nation. We have our tipi in a lonely valley of the mountains, and pilgrims come to Thunder Feather to be healed when they are sick in soul or body. But she is dying, so I take up her work. And always I call my man, so that he has come on a voyage of six moons, to the mouth of my river. Still I call him to come up my river, then over the mountains to the sacred lodge. He brings the Christ Faith with him for our Indian peoples."

"I'm a prisoner," said Storm, "at Fort Vancouver, and they want to send me to England because they say I murdered mother. I didn't, so I don't want to be hanged for that. I did murder Christ. I want to die for that."

"A Roman legionary," said the King, "a brave man among the Vikings, a Crusader, a pioneer of the United States, a seaman of England--how I envy you the least of these achievements! And you, my daughter, loving and heroic, how poor my fate compared with yours! But I see ahead of you the greatest of all adventures, the most splendid, the most tremendous, the most triumphant. May God bless you both!"

"Good-by, sir." Storm kissed his hand. "My body is calling me, dragging me back to earth--to prison at Vancouver."

"And," said Rain, "my mother calls me home. Farewell, Great Chief."

VI

Bill Fright awakened in his cell at Fort Vancouver.

The dawn was breaking, and pale blue smoke went up from the chimneys as Fort Vancouver awakened, yawning, for the new day's work. Quite naked, wrapping a blanket about him, stately as a Roman Emperor, Black Douglas came to his door to snuff the breath of the spring. Then stepping gingerly, barefooted across the crisp and dewy lawn and the gravel road beyond, he made his way out of the fort and across the village, until he stood upon the riverbank, where he dropped his blanket and bath towel. It looked very cold.

Mist lay on the shining water and the dim gray ships, whose masts went up so sharply etched against the deeps of sky. Beyond them lofty firs and spreading cedars faint as dreams arose from isles invisible, rapt, waiting. Far up the valley, soaring above the forest and the cloud belts, snow fields of icy blue were edged with flame against the throbbing splendors of the sunrise. Close at hand some little fussy birds were singing orisons, but the great prayer of the forest and the volcanoes was a Silence, faithful, calm, triumphant, rendered to Love and Power which reigns for ever, the Spirit in the Sun, their Lord, their God.

In that homage Douglas joined for a moment shivering with cold, then dived for his morning bath in the Columbia.

Near by, at the jetty, a crew of five voyageurs, the hoods of their blanket capotes like the cowls of monks, were urging a prisoner into their birch canoe. As he flatly refused to enter they gabbled like squattering sea fowl in shrill French, until the patron Louis le Grandeur bade them desist. "Laissez, mes enfants! Restez! Cet animal!" He shook his fist in Bill's face. "And how you t'ink we mak' ze bre'kfas' if we no depart--hein? Sacré, mojee, batteme, goddam pig!"

He turned about and saw Black Douglas climb dripping up the bank, all glowing from the sting of the crisp tide.

"V'la!" He ran to the big chief. "Bo'jour, M'sieu Dougla!" He saluted. "Sare--zees animal prisonnier Beel----"

"Good morning, le Grandeur. Ready to start, eh?"

"--'e say he no coom!"

Bill shouldered him aside, presenting shackled hands.

"Don't like the handcuffs, eh?" said Mr. Douglas cheerily, grooming his back with the bath towel.

"Called me an animal!" cried Bill, exasperated, raging at fresh indignities. Yet somehow this man, twice his size and many times as strong, this Justice of the Peace, this leader born to command, who looked down at him smiling, indulgent, did make him feel like one of the lower animals content to obey, to trust, to do his bidding.

"You and I," said Douglas, "are being watched. There's your late commanding officer watching from the poop, and no doubt His Holiness the Chaplain is peeping somewhere from behind a house. The handcuffs look impressive."

"I see," said Bill, quite humbled.

"Look up the valley," said Douglas. "See a point of standing forest yonder?"

The headland was black against the sunblaze.

"Behind that point," said Douglas, "le Grandeur will release you."

"Yes, sure!" broke in le Grandeur, "and ze fusil!"

"The gun," Douglas translated, "and everything your shipmates gave you is in that canoe. You are free. You can run away, and my voyageurs will not shoot. They have my orders."

"You mean that, sir?"

"Yes. But will you take advice from an old frontiersman? I know you're too sensible a lad to run away and starve in the bush with a gun you can't use, in swamps you cannot cross. These good voyageurs will teach you how to hunt, and if you can feed the crew it stands to reason you wouldn't starve alone."

"Then I run away, sir?"

"I wouldn't. Inland the tribes are dangerous, unless you know their ways. Run by all means, but, if you want to live, go with these men to the point where the River of the Kutenais falls into Flatbow Lake. There you will find my old friend the Russian, Nicolai Tschirikoff."

"I've heard that name, sir, somewhere, Fatbald Tschirikov."

"That's curious, for the doctor and myself are the only men here in Oregon who know him by that name, or call him Fatbald."

"I must ha' dreamed it."

"Maybe. Anyway"--Douglas picked up his blanket and wrapped it about him like a Roman toga--"he'll make a man of you, hunter, trapper, able to hold your own among the tribes."

"Gawd bless you, sir."

"But, lad, remember that you've run away, and as a Justice of the Peace I'm after you, to catch you if I can, and ship you to England, to be hanged because your worthy father killed your mother. Don't let me catch you, Bill.

"Now, march off looking just as if I had sent you to the gallows."

"Mayn't I shake 'ands, sir?"

The magistrate shook his head, and as Bill turned to go assisted him on his way with a bare foot. At that Bill was indignant.

Still Black Douglas stood on the river bank, until the prisoner had boarded the canoe, and the voyageurs shoved off. They came upstream saluting as they passed, then the swing and flash and glitter of their paddles took time from the voyageur chantey:

_Allouette! Chantez Allouette!
All-ou-ette! Je le plumerai!_

Douglas followed with his eyes as the canoe went on into the blaze of sunshine on the ripples. There was something very tender, very wistful, in his smile as he stood listening.

_Je le plumerai le bee;
Et les yeux,
Et la tête,
Et les ailles,
Ah-a-allouette! Chantez allouette!_

* * * * *

_Et les ailles!_