"His weakness?" queried the judge. "What did he mean?"
"Drink," said the Slattery person. "It's in the blood. But he can't last long--and he's Jim's father!"
She looked out of the window and dabbed with a lace handkerchief at her bright eyes, which she dared not wipe for fear of ruin to the applique complexion. Suddenly she had, to the mind of the susceptible John Smith, become a woman, with a woman's weakness and yearning over the departed Jim--of the blackness of whose life John had no means of taking the measure. He felt all at once that this person had shown feelings so like those he would have expected from his mother that it startled him.
"Oh, we're all alike!" said the judge when she had gone. "These things are worth the lawyer's study. Human nature--human nature! We must get above it and study it! Just ponder on the contradictions in the bases of life involved in this Slattery person and Mrs. Brunson's feeling toward Lear. Here's a woman, that no one at the circle last night would touch with anything shorter than a ten-foot pole or lighter than a club, who is actually carrying out toward a drunkard in Bloomington a policy of love and humanity that would be beyond Mrs. Brunson. She'd say: 'Let him behave the way I say, and I'll take him in!' Any of us moral folks would do the same, too. No knights and roistering for us! Quite a study--eh, John?"
John sat silent, far afloat from his moorings. The judge was too deep, too ethically acute for him. Perhaps by long association he, John Smith, might grow in moral height and mental grasp, so as to--
"I don't know," said Judge Thornton, "which is the worse--sale of the body, or barter of the soul. I don't mean that the body can be sold without the soul going with it, though Epictetus seems a case in point in favor of the separable-transaction theory; but if it can, sale of the soul would seem the more ruinous. I--"
Judge Thornton was interrupted by the opening of the office door and the entrance of a brisk, capable-looking, Vandyke-bearded man who carried a cane and bore himself with an ease that seemed somehow at war with something of restraint--the ease on the surface, the embarrassment underneath, like a dead swell coming in against the breeze. There was a triumphant gleam in Judge Thornton's eyes, filmed at once with self-possession and inscrutable calm. "Come in, Mr. Avery," he said.
"Just a word with you," said Mr. Avery, "in--"
"Certainly!" said the judge. "Right in here, Mr. Avery."
Mr. Avery passed into the private office. Judge Thornton remained for a word with John Smith.
"This is the vice-president of the gas company," he said. "Don't mention his call and don't allow me to be disturbed."
John Smith was triumphant. The very might of Thornton's ability and power had brought the gas company to its knees! This crucial stage of the gas fight thrust entirely out of his mind the deep moral and ethical consideration of the relations of the Slattery person to the discussion of Lear. The law, as of old, was a great profession. Would any of the Boone County folk be able to believe that he, John Smith, was so near the heart of big things as to sit here while Judge Thornton won this great bloodless victory for the people?
Mr. Avery came out, cordially smiling upon Judge Thornton, who looked triumphant, pleased, uplifted. For a man who had just been throttled, Mr. Avery looked in rather good form.
"I'll send all the papers over to you, Judge," he said. "And I'm mighty glad we've got together. It ought to have been done before; but you know how it is when you leave things to subordinates."
"Oh, well," said the judge. "Of course I'm very glad; but the subordinates may have done the right thing. Maxwell and Wilson are good men, but local conditions may--"
They went out into the anteroom, and John Smith heard them go away together. He felt disquieted. The appearances were so different from what he had expected. Not that it was in the least degree his affair, but--
The newsboy threw in the evening paper. John Smith looked at once for the account of the gas fight.
"The anti-ordinance forces make no secret of their regret that Judge Thornton has seen fit to withdraw his promise to address the mass-meeting on Tuesday. Late this afternoon he told a _News_ representative that he would not attend, and that in his opinion a study of the gas question will convince any business man that the illuminant can not be delivered at the meter at anything short of the rate now paid here. This is regarded by some as a reversal of Judge Thornton's position; but, as a matter of fact, in all his public utterances the judge has suspended judgment on the merits of the question. The outlook for a successful movement can not be regarded as bright to-day."
John Smith was looking at the paper as though it were some published blasphemy, some unspeakable profanation of all things good and holy, when Judge Thornton returned, whistling like a man at peace with the world and himself. The judge went into his private office and came out with a thin slip of paper folded in the palm of one smooth, strong hand.
"Too bad you're not a full-fledged lawyer, John, instead of a beginner.
I could use you a good deal. My practice is getting more extensive. I've just been retained as the general counsel of the gas company. Oh, all you have to do is to wait and make yourself indispensable! _You'll_ be getting plums like that one of these days. It's a great game! Good night."
Good night, indeed! There was no thunder and lightning like that on the heath when Lear went mad; but, to a boy whose world had suddenly tumbled into pieces, the snow which drove softly against his cheek and slithered hissingly along the asphalt was a natural feature to dwell in his memory for ever. He wandered out through the area of high buildings, past the residences, to where the snow rattled on the corn-husks that reminded him of the Slattery person's silks. He had confused visions of Mrs.
Brunson, dressed in Judge Thornton's decent high hat, flaunting gaudy garments and painting her face for indescribable drinking-bouts. He came back past the Thornton home, where he paused in the gray dawn and looked at one lace-curtained window to murmur "Good-by." At the door of the office-building where his days had been spent since his coming to town, he went in from force of habit and pushed the button for the elevator.
No sound rewarded the effort, and he pushed again impatiently. Then he laughed as he noted the elevator-cages about him, all shut down, all empty, like cells from which the lunatic occupants had escaped. A woman who had begun scrubbing the marble steps looked at him curiously as his mirthless laugh sounded through the empty building.
John Smith climbed flight after flight, opened the door which would never have "Thornton & Smith" on it, sat down at his desk and wrote:
"DEAR FATHER: I am quite well. Everything looks favorable for my studies. Judge Thornton says he wants to do all he can for me, and I think he does; but I guess I am not cut out for a lawyer. It isn't quite what I thought it was. If you are still willing to send me to the state college and give me that agricultural course, I believe I'll go. There's something about the farm that's always there; and you know it's there. I'll be home as soon as I can pack up.
"Your loving son,
"JOHN SMITH."
The party sat for a few moments motionless, as the Artist's voice became silent. Then the Colonel arose, bade them good night, and took the Artist's hand.
"As a legal Slattery person," said he, "I thank you for the tale of the young fool. Good night!"
CHAPTER XI
The traveler who is wise, going from Grand Canon Hotel to Tower Falls, will pass over Mount Washburn--and he starts early. He starts early that he may take with him the memory of the Upper and Lower Falls wrapped in the mist which they and night have wrought together, and which the nocturnal calm has perhaps left hanging wraith-like over the tremendous slot so filled with the roar of many waters. And he starts early, too, that he may make the ten-mile climb to Washburn's summit before the day-wind rises and sweeps the mountain's head with that gale which so tears the trees and twists them into a permanent declination, like vegetable dipping needles.
The Seven Wonderers pursued the way of wisdom, and so they startled deer and elk from their night beds along the road to Cascade Creek; and began the climb of Washburn before sunrise. The tops of Dunraven and Hedges Peaks were rosy with morning when the rested cayuses pulled over the first rugged spurs of these peaks, and it was morning with the perfect trees, that stood like spires about them, morning with the columbine and the larkspur, the forget-me-nots and the asters, the flea-bane and the paint-brush--and all the wild flowers that enameled the wayside. For many days they had been in the heart of the Rockies, and yet the scenery had not seemed like real mountain scenery. Here for the first time, it became alpine. They threaded Dunraven Pass in the early forenoon, and took the high road straight over the summit. The team leaned hard into the squeaking collars, and frequent stops that the horses might breathe made the tourists glad. Every stop and every turn brought the eye new delights. The great lake came into view again, like a distant splash of silver; and as if for another good-by, away off to the south stood Mount Sheridan, with the three Tetons to the right of it, solemnly overlooking the Park of which they are a part to the eye only.
"Oh! Oh!" said the Bride, gasping. "There's the Grand Canon, like a crack in the floor!"
"And," said the Poet, "there's the ghost of wasted power, mistily brooding over the falls, just as when we left."
"Ghost of wasted power!" repeated the Groom. "That's not half bad, Poet."
Another turn, and the Absarakas notched the eastern horizon; and the whole huge valley, with titanic slopes as its farther wall, and the zigzag trench of the canon as its central drain, lay at their feet. The air was cooler, now, and the breath came short, as lungs labored for more of the rare atmosphere. At their feet lay green meadows and open parks, on which they might have expected to see grazing herds of shaggy black Highland cattle.
Again a few starts and stops, and as if turned into view by machinery, came the northwest quarter of the Park, with all the country they had traversed--Electric Peak, in whose shadow they had entered upon their journey, Sepulcher Mountain, with its grave and the monuments at head and foot no longer to be made out, the valley of Carnelian Creek at their feet, and beyond it the jagged range, of which Prospect, Folsom and Storm Peaks are the culminations.
"That's something you don't always see," said Aconite, pointing to something away off to the northwest. "That thing is the Devil's Slide."
"And we saw his Inkstand yesterday," said the Hired Man. "He seems to've preempted a lot of this here region."
"Well," remarked the Colonel sardonically, "isn't the Park dedicated to the enjoyment, as well as the benefit of the people?"
"It started as 'Colter's Hell,'" suggested the Groom.
"In Old Jim Bridger's time," said Aconite, "it rained fire up here in these hills one year."
"I don't doubt it," assented the Artist. "And we've either seen or are promised a view of Hell Roaring Creek, Hell Broth Springs, Hell's Half Acre, Satan's Arbor, and a lot of other infernal real estate."
"It's heavenly up _here_!" said the Bride.
Once at the summit the Park lay under their eyes like a map--all these and a thousand other features to be taken in by merely turning about.
The land was sown with every variety of all that is wild and beautiful and strange; the sky was filled with peaks. Here they had mountains to spare. They looked, and looked, and grew tired of looking--and then gazed again. The wind blew up and whipped their faces; and the sun was far past the meridian, passing south through the silvery splotch of Yellowstone Lake, when Aconite literally loaded them into the surrey, and drove down the mighty flanks of Washburn, northwardly, until he found a place where a fire could be builded and luncheon prepared.
"You folks mustn't fergit," said he, "that scenery ain't so fillin' f'r them as looks it every little while, as it is f'r the tenderfoot."
The Professor was evidently pleased when his name came from the Stetson for the second time. He seemed to have something on his mind. Fully a mile short of Tower Falls, which they planned to visit in the early morning, they camped in dense forest, with a party of sight-seers just so far away as to seem neighborly without intrenching on privacy.