To The Last Man

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Those timbered ridges were but billows of that tremendous slope that
now sheered above Jean, ending in a magnificent yellow wall of rock,
greened in niches, stained by weather rust, carved and cracked and
caverned. As Jean descended farther the hum of bees made melody,
the roar of rapid water and the murmur of a rising breeze filled
him with the content of the wild. Sheepmen like Colter and wild
girls like Ellen Jorth and all that seemed promising or menacing
in his father's letter could never change the Indian in Jean. So
he thought. Hard upon that conclusion rushed another--one which
troubled with its stinging revelation. Surely these influences
he had defied were just the ones to bring out in him the Indian
he had sensed but had never known. The eventful day had brought
new and bitter food for Jean to reflect upon.

The trail landed him in the bowlder-strewn bed of a wide canyon,
where the huge trees stretched a canopy of foliage which denied the
sunlight, and where a beautiful brook rushed and foamed. Here at last
Jean tasted water that rivaled his Oregon springs. "Ah," he cried,
"that sure is good!" Dark and shaded and ferny and mossy was this
streamway; and everywhere were tracks of game, from the giant spread
of a grizzly bear to the tiny, birdlike imprints of a squirrel. Jean
heard familiar sounds of deer crackling the dead twigs; and the chatter
of squirrels was incessant. This fragrant, cool retreat under the Rim
brought back to him the dim recesses of Oregon forests. After all,
Jean felt that he would not miss anything that he had loved in the
Cascades. But what was the vague sense of all not being well with
him--the essence of a faint regret--the insistence of a hovering
shadow? And then flashed again, etched more vividly by the repetition
in memory, a picture of eyes, of lips--of something he had to forget.

Wild and broken as this rolling Basin floor had appeared from the Rim,
the reality of traveling over it made that first impression a deceit
of distance. Down here all was on a big, rough, broken scale. Jean
did not find even a few rods of level ground. Bowlders as huge as
houses obstructed the stream bed; spruce trees eight feet thick tried
to lord it over the brawny pines; the ravine was a veritable canyon
from which occasional glimpses through the foliage showed the Rim
as a lofty red-tipped mountain peak.

Jean's pack mule became frightened at scent of a bear or lion and ran
off down the rough trail, imperiling Jean's outfit. It was not an
easy task to head him off nor, when that was accomplished, to keep
him to a trot. But his fright and succeeding skittishness at least
made for fast traveling. Jean calculated that he covered ten miles
under the Rim before the character of ground and forest began to change.

The trail had turned southeast. Instead of gorge after gorge,
red-walled and choked with forest, there began to be rolling ridges,
some high; others were knolls; and a thick cedar growth made up for
a falling off of pine. The spruce had long disappeared. Juniper
thickets gave way more and more to the beautiful manzanita; and soon
on the south slopes appeared cactus and a scrubby live oak. But for
the well-broken trail, Jean would have fared ill through this tough
brush.

Jean espied several deer, and again a coyote, and what he took to be
a small herd of wild horses. No more turkey tracks showed in the dusty
patches. He crossed a number of tiny brooklets, and at length came to
a place where the trail ended or merged in a rough road that showed
evidence of considerable travel. Horses, sheep, and cattle had passed
along there that day. This road turned southward, and Jean began to
have pleasurable expectations.

The road, like the trail, led down grade, but no longer at such steep
angles, and was bordered by cedar and pinyon, jack-pine and juniper,
mescal and manzanita. Quite sharply, going around a ridge, the road
led Jean's eye down to a small open flat of marshy, or at least grassy,
ground. This green oasis in the wilderness of red and timbered ridges
marked another change in the character of the Basin. Beyond that the
country began to spread out and roll gracefully, its dark-green forest
interspersed with grassy parks, until Jean headed into a long, wide
gray-green valley surrounded by black-fringed hills. His pulses
quickened here. He saw cattle dotting the expanse, and here and
there along the edge log cabins and corrals.

As a village, Grass Valley could not boast of much, apparently, in the
way of population. Cabins and houses were widely scattered, as if the
inhabitants did not care to encroach upon one another. But the one
store, built of stone, and stamped also with the characteristic
isolation, seemed to Jean to be a rather remarkable edifice. Not
exactly like a fort did it strike him, but if it had not been designed
for defense it certainly gave that impression, especially from the long,
low side with its dark eye-like windows about the height of a man's
shoulder. Some rather fine horses were tied to a hitching rail.
Otherwise dust and dirt and age and long use stamped this Grass Valley
store and its immediate environment.

Jean threw his bridle, and, getting down, mounted the low porch and
stepped into the wide open door. A face, gray against the background
of gloom inside, passed out of sight just as Jean entered. He knew he
had been seen. In front of the long, rather low-ceiled store were four
men, all absorbed, apparently, in a game of checkers. Two were playing
and two were looking on. One of these, a gaunt-faced man past middle
age, casually looked up as Jean entered. But the moment of that casual
glance afforded Jean time enough to meet eyes he instinctively distrusted.
They masked their penetration. They seemed neither curious nor friendly.
They saw him as if he had been merely thin air.

"Good evenin'," said Jean.

After what appeared to Jean a lapse of time sufficient to impress him
with a possible deafness of these men, the gaunt-faced one said,
"Howdy, Isbel! "

The tone was impersonal, dry, easy, cool, laconic, and yet it could
not have been more pregnant with meaning. Jean's sharp sensibilities
absorbed much. None of the slouch-sombreroed, long-mustached Texans
--for so Jean at once classed them--had ever seen Jean, but they knew
him and knew that he was expected in Grass Valley. All but the one
who had spoken happened to have their faces in shadow under the
wide-brimmed black hats. Motley-garbed, gun-belted, dusty-booted,
they gave Jean the same impression of latent force that he had
encountered in Colter.

"Will somebody please tell me where to find my father, Gaston Isbel?"
inquired Jean, with as civil a tongue as he could command.

Nobody paid the slightest attention. It was the same as if Jean had
not spoken. Waiting, half amused, half irritated, Jean shot a rapid
glance around the store. The place had felt bare; and Jean, peering
back through gloomy space, saw that it did not contain much. Dry goods
and sacks littered a long rude counter; long rough shelves divided
their length into stacks of canned foods and empty sections; a low
shelf back of the counter held a generous burden of cartridge boxes,
and next to it stood a rack of rifles. On the counter lay open cases
of plug tobacco, the odor of which was second in strength only to that
of rum.

Jean's swift-roving eye reverted to the men, three of whom were
absorbed in the greasy checkerboard. The fourth man was the one
who had spoken and he now deigned to look at Jean. Not much flesh
was there stretched over his bony, powerful physiognomy. He stroked
a lean chin with a big mobile hand that suggested more of bridle
holding than familiarity with a bucksaw and plow handle. It was
a lazy hand. The man looked lazy. If he spoke at all it would be
with lazy speech. yet Jean had not encountered many men to whom he
would have accorded more potency to stir in him the instinct of
self-preservation.

"Shore," drawled this gaunt-faced Texan, "old Gass lives aboot a mile
down heah. "With slow sweep of the big hand he indicated a general
direction to the south; then, appearing to forget his questioner,
he turned his attention to the game.

Jean muttered his thanks and, striding out, he mounted again, and
drove the pack mule down the road. "Reckon I've ran into the wrong
folds to-day," he said. "If I remember dad right he was a man to make
an' keep friends. Somehow I'll bet there's goin' to be hell." Beyond
the store were some rather pretty and comfortable homes, little ranch
houses back in the coves of the hills. The road turned west and Jean
saw his first sunset in the Tonto Basin. It was a pageant of purple
clouds with silver edges, and background of deep rich gold. Presently
Jean met a lad driving a cow. "Hello, Johnny!" he said, genially, and
with a double purpose. "My name's Jean Isbel. By Golly! I'm lost in
Grass Valley. Will you tell me where my dad lives?"

"Yep. Keep right on, an' y'u cain't miss him," replied the lad, with
a bright smile. "He's lookin' fer y'u."

"How do you know, boy?" queried Jean, warmed by that smile.

"Aw, I know. It's all over the valley thet y'u'd ride in ter-day.
Shore I wus the one thet tole yer dad an' he give me a dollar."

"Was he glad to hear it?" asked Jean, with a queer sensation in
his throat.

"Wal, he plumb was."

"An' who told you I was goin' to ride in to-day?"

"I heerd it at the store," replied the lad, with an air of confidence.
"Some sheepmen was talkin' to Greaves. He's the storekeeper. I was
settin' outside, but I heerd. A Mexican come down off the Rim ter-day
an' he fetched the news." Here the lad looked furtively around, then
whispered. "An' thet greaser was sent by somebody. I never heerd no
more, but them sheepmen looked pretty plumb sour. An' one of them,
comin' out, give me a kick, darn him. It shore is the luckedest day
fer us cowmen."

"How's that, Johnny?"

"Wal, that's shore a big fight comin' to Grass Valley. My dad says
so an' he rides fer yer dad. An' if it comes now y'u'll be heah."

"Ahuh!" laughed Jean. "An' what then, boy?"

The lad turned bright eyes upward. "Aw, now, yu'all cain't come thet
on me. Ain't y'u an Injun, Jean Isbel? Ain't y'u a hoss tracker thet
rustlers cain't fool? Ain't y'u a plumb dead shot? Ain't y'u wuss'ern
a grizzly bear in a rough-an'-tumble? . . . Now ain't y'u, shore?"

Jean bade the flattering lad a rather sober good day and rode on
his way. Manifestly a reputation somewhat difficult to live up to
had preceded his entry into Grass Valley.

Jean's first sight of his future home thrilled him through. It was
a big, low, rambling log structure standing well out from a wooded
knoll at the edge of the valley. Corrals and barns and sheds lay
off at the back. To the fore stretched broad pastures where numberless
cattle and horses grazed. At sunset the scene was one of rich color.
Prosperity and abundance and peace seemed attendant upon that ranch;
lusty voices of burros braying and cows bawling seemed welcoming Jean.
A hound bayed. The first cool touch of wind fanned Jean's cheek and
brought a fragrance of wood smoke and frying ham.

Horses in the Pasture romped to the fence and whistled at these
newcomers. Jean espied a white-faced black horse that gladdened
his sight. "Hello, Whiteface! I'll sure straddle you," called Jean.
Then up the gentle slope he saw the tall figure of his father--the
same as he had seen him thousands of times, bareheaded, shirt sleeved,
striding with long step. Jean waved and called to him.

"Hi, You Prodigal!" came the answer. Yes, the voice of his father--
and Jean's boyhood memories flashed. He hurried his horse those last
few rods. No--dad was not the same. His hair shone gray.

"Here I am, dad," called Jean, and then he was dismounting. A deep,
quiet emotion settled over him, stilling the hurry, the eagerness,
the pang in his breast.

"Son, I shore am glad to see you," said his father, and wrung his hand.
"Wal, wal, the size of you! Shore you've grown, any how you favor
your mother."

Jean felt in the iron clasp of hand, in the uplifting of the handsome
head, in the strong, fine light of piercing eyes that there was no
difference in the spirit of his father. But the old smile could not
hide lines and shades strange to Jean.

"Dad, I'm as glad as you," replied Jean, heartily. "It seems long
we've been parted, now I see you. Are You well, dad, an' all right?"

"Not complainin', son. I can ride all day same as ever," he said.
"Come. Never mind your hosses. They'll be looked after.
Come meet the folks. . . . Wal, wal, you got heah at last."

On the porch of the house a group awaited Jean's coming, rather
silently, he thought. Wide-eyed children were there, very shy and
watchful. The dark face of his sister corresponded with the image
of her in his memory. She appeared taller, more womanly, as she
embraced him. "Oh, Jean, Jean, I'm glad you've come!" she cried,
and pressed him close. Jean felt in her a woman's anxiety for the
present as well as affection for the past. He remembered his aunt
Mary, though he had not seen her for years. His half brothers,
Bill and Guy, had changed but little except perhaps to grow lean
and rangy. Bill resembled his father, though his aspect was jocular
rather than serious. Guy was smaller, wiry, and hard as rock, with
snapping eyes in a brown, still face, and he had the bow-legs of a
cattleman. Both had married in Arizona. Bill's wife, Kate, was a
stout, comely little woman, mother of three of the children. The
other wife was young, a strapping girl, red headed and freckled, with
wonderful lines of pain and strength in her face. Jean remembered,
as he looked at her, that some one had written him about the tragedy
in her life. When she was only a child the Apaches had murdered all
her family. Then next to greet Jean were the little children, all shy,
yet all manifestly impressed by the occasion. A warmth and intimacy
of forgotten home emotions flooded over Jean. Sweet it was to get
home to these relatives who loved him and welcomed him with quiet
gladness. But there seemed more. Jean was quick to see the shadow
in the eyes of the women in that household and to sense a strange
reliance which his presence brought.

"Son, this heah Tonto is a land of milk an' honey," said his father,
as Jean gazed spellbound at the bounteous supper.

Jean certainly performed gastronomic feats on this occasion, to the
delight of Aunt Mary and the wonder of the children. "Oh, he's
starv-ved to death," whispered one of the little boys to his sister.
They had begun to warm to this stranger uncle. Jean had no chance
to talk, even had he been able to, for the meal-time showed a relaxation
of restraint and they all tried to tell him things at once. In the
bright lamplight his father looked easier and happier as he beamed
upon Jean.

After supper the men went into an adjoining room that appeared most
comfortable and attractive. It was long, and the width of the house,
with a huge stone fireplace, low ceiling of hewn timbers and walls of
the same, small windows with inside shutters of wood, and home-made
table and chairs and rugs.

"Wal, Jean, do you recollect them shootin'-irons?" inquired the rancher,
pointing above the fireplace. Two guns hung on the spreading deer
antlers there. One was a musket Jean's father had used in the war
of the rebellion and the other was a long, heavy, muzzle-loading
flintlock Kentucky, rifle with which Jean had learned to shoot.

"Reckon I do, dad," replied Jean, and with reverent hands and a rush
of memory he took the old gun down.

"Jean, you shore handle thet old arm some clumsy," said Guy Isbel,
dryly. And Bill added a remark to the effect that perhaps Jean had
been leading a luxurious and tame life back there in Oregon, and then
added, "But I reckon he's packin' that six-shooter like a Texan."

"Say, I fetched a gun or two along with me," replied Jean, jocularly.
"Reckon I near broke my poor mule's back with the load of shells an'
guns. Dad, what was the idea askin' me to pack out an arsenal?"

"Son, shore all shootin' arms an' such are at a premium in the Tonto,"
replied his father. "An' I was givin' you a hunch to come loaded."

His cool, drawling voice seemed to put a damper upon the pleasantries.
Right there Jean sensed the charged atmosphere. His brothers were
bursting with utterance about to break forth, and his father suddenly
wore a look that recalled to Jean critical times of days long past.
But the entrance of the children and the women folk put an end to
confidences. Evidently the youngsters were laboring under subdued
excitement. They preceded their mother, the smallest boy in the lead.
For him this must have been both a dreadful and a wonderful experience,
for he seemed to be pushed forward by his sister and brother and
mother, and driven by yearnings of his own. "There now, Lee. Say,
'Uncle Jean, what did you fetch us?' The lad hesitated for a shy,
frightened look at Jean, and then, gaining something from his scrutiny
of his uncle, he toddled forward and bravely delivered the question
of tremendous importance.

"What did I fetch you, hey?" cried Jean, in delight, as he took the
lad up on his knee. "Wouldn't you like to know? I didn't forget, Lee.
I remembered you all. Oh! the job I had packin' your bundle of presents.
. . . Now, Lee, make a guess."

"I dess you fetched a dun," replied Lee.

"A dun!--I'll bet you mean a gun," laughed Jean. "Well, you four-year-old
Texas gunman! Make another guess."

That appeared too momentous and entrancing for the other two youngsters,
and, adding their shrill and joyous voices to Lee's, they besieged Jean.

"Dad, where's my pack? " cried Jean. "These young Apaches are after
my scalp."

"Reckon the boys fetched it onto the porch," replied the rancher.

Guy Isbel opened the door and went out. "By golly! heah's three
packs," he called. "Which one do you want, Jean?"

"It's a long, heavy bundle, all tied up," replied Jean.

Guy came staggering in under a burden that brought a whoop from
the youngsters and bright gleams to the eyes of the women. Jean
lost nothing of this. How glad he was that he had tarried in
San Francisco because of a mental picture of this very reception
in far-off wild Arizona.

When Guy deposited the bundle on the floor it jarred the room.
It gave forth metallic and rattling and crackling sounds.

"Everybody stand back an' give me elbow room," ordered Jean,
majestically. "My good folks, I want you all to know this is
somethin' that doesn't happen often. The bundle you see here
weighed about a hundred pounds when I packed it on my shoulder
down Market Street in Frisco. It was stolen from me on shipboard.
I got it back in San Diego an' licked the thief. It rode on a burro
from San Diego to Yuma an' once I thought the burro was lost for keeps.
It came up the Colorado River from Yuma to Ehrenberg an' there went
on top of a stage. We got chased by bandits an' once when the horses
were gallopin' hard it near rolled off. Then it went on the back of
a pack horse an' helped wear him out. An' I reckon it would be
somewhere else now if I hadn't fallen in with a freighter goin' north
from Phoenix to the Santa Fe Trail. The last lap when it sagged the
back of a mule was the riskiest an' full of the narrowest escapes.
Twice my mule bucked off his pack an' left my outfit scattered.
Worst of all, my precious bundle made the mule top heavy comin' down
that place back here where the trail seems to drop off the earth.
There I was hard put to keep sight of my pack. Sometimes it was
on top an' other times the mule. But it got here at last. . . .
An' now I'll open it."

After this long and impressive harangue, which at least augmented
the suspense of the women and worked the children into a frenzy,
Jean leisurely untied the many knots round the bundle and unrolled it.
He had packed that bundle for just such travel as it had sustained.
Three cloth-bound rifles he laid aside, and with them a long, very
heavy package tied between two thin wide boards. From this came the,
metallic clink. "Oo, I know what dem is!" cried Lee, breaking the
silence of suspense. Then Jean, tearing open a long flat parcel,
spread before the mute, rapt-eyed youngsters such magnificent things,
as they had never dreamed of--picture books, mouth-harps, dolls,
a toy gun and a toy pistol, a wonderful whistle and a fox horn,
and last of all a box of candy. Before these treasures on the floor,
too magical to be touched at first, the two little boys and their
sister simply knelt. That was a sweet, full moment for Jean; yet
even that was clouded by the something which shadowed these innocent
children fatefully born in a wild place at a wild time. Next Jean
gave to his sister the presents he had brought her--beautiful cloth
for a dress, ribbons and a bit of lace, handkerchiefs and buttons and
yards of linen, a sewing case and a whole box of spools of thread,
a comb and brush and mirror, and lastly a Spanish brooch inlaid with
garnets. "There, Ann," said Jean, "I confess I asked a girl friend
in Oregon to tell me some things my sister might like." Manifestly
there was not much difference in girls. Ann seemed stunned by this
munificence, and then awakening, she hugged Jean in a way that took
his breath. She was not a child any more, that was certain. Aunt Mary
turned knowing eyes upon Jean. "Reckon you couldn't have pleased Ann
more. She's engaged, Jean, an' where girls are in that state these
things mean a heap. . . . Ann, you'll be married in that!" And she
pointed to the beautiful folds of material that Ann had spread out.

"What's this?" demanded Jean. His sister's blushes were enough to
convict her, and they were mightily becoming, too.

"Here, Aunt Mary," went on Jean, "here's yours, an' here's somethin'
for each of my new sisters." This distribution left the women as happy
and occupied, almost, as the children. It left also another package,
the last one in the bundle. Jean laid hold of it and, lifting it,
he was about to speak when he sustained a little shock of memory.
Quite distinctly he saw two little feet, with bare toes peeping out
of worn-out moccasins, and then round, bare, symmetrical ankles that
had been scratched by brush. Next he saw Ellen Jorth's passionate
face as she looked when she had made the violent action so disconcerting
to him. In this happy moment the memory seemed farther off than a
few hours. It had crystallized. It annoyed while it drew him. As a
result he slowly laid this package aside and did not speak as he had
intended to.

"Dad, I reckon I didn't fetch a lot for you an' the boys," continued
Jean. "Some knives, some pipes an' tobacco. An' sure the guns."

"Shore, you're a regular Santa Claus, Jean," replied his father.
"Wal, wal, look at the kids. An' look at Mary. An' for the land's
sake look at Ann! Wal, wal, I'm gettin' old. I'd forgotten the
pretty stuff an' gimcracks that mean so much to women. We're out
of the world heah. It's just as well you've lived apart from us,
Jean, for comin' back this way, with all that stuff, does us a lot
of good. I cain't say, son, how obliged I am. My mind has been set
on the hard side of life. An' it's shore good to forget--to see the
smiles of the women an' the joy of the kids."

At this juncture a tall young man entered the open door. He looked
a rider. All about him, even his face, except his eyes, seemed old,
but his eyes were young, fine, soft, and dark.

"How do, y'u-all!" he said, evenly.

Ann rose from her knees. Then Jean did not need to be told who this
newcomer was.

"Jean, this is my friend, Andrew Colmor."

Jean knew when he met Colmor's grip and the keen flash of his eyes
that he was glad Ann had set her heart upon one of their kind. And
his second impression was something akin to the one given him in the
road by the admiring lad. Colmor's estimate of him must have been a
monument built of Ann's eulogies. Jean's heart suffered misgivings.
Could he live up to the character that somehow had forestalled his
advent in Grass Valley? Surely life was measured differently here
in the Tonto Basin.

The children, bundling their treasures to their bosoms, were dragged
off to bed in some remote part of the house, from which their laughter
and voices came back with happy significance. Jean forthwith had an
interested audience. How eagerly these lonely pioneer people listened
to news of the outside world! Jean talked until he was hoarse.
In their turn his hearers told him much that had never found place
in the few and short letters he had received since he had been left
in Oregon. Not a word about sheepmen or any hint of rustlers!
Jean marked the omission and thought all the more seriously of
probabilities because nothing was said. Altogether the evening was
a happy reunion of a family of which all living members were there
present. Jean grasped that this fact was one of significant
satisfaction to his father.

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