Meantime Shock's eyes were upon the trail, and his heart was ringing with that last word of his Convener."We expect you to get them.You are our prospector, dig them up." As he thought of the work that lay before him, and of all he was expected to achieve, his heart sank.
These wild, independent men of the West were not at all like the degraded men of the ward, fawning or sullen, who had been his former and only parishioners.A horrible fear had been growing upon him ever since his failure, as he considered it, with the Convener's congregation the night before.It helped him not at all to remember the kindly words of encouragement spoken by the Convener, nor the sympathy that showed in his wife's voice and manner."They felt sorry for me," he groaned aloud.He set his jaws hard, as men had seen him when going into a scrim on the football field."I'll do my best whatever," he said aloud, looking before him at the waving horizon; "a man can only fail.But surely I can help some poor chap out yonder." His eyes followed the waving foot-hill line till they rested on the mighty masses of the Rockies."Ay," he said with a start, dropping into his mother's speech, "there they are, 'the hills from whence cometh my help.' Surely, I do not think He would send me out here to fail."There they lay, that mighty wrinkling of Mother Earth's old face, huge, jagged masses of bare grey rock, patched here and there, and finally capped with white where they pierced the blue.Up to their base ran the lumbering foot-hills, and still further up the grey sides, like attacking columns, the dark daring pines swarmed in massed battalions; then, where ravines gave them footing, in regiments, then in outpost pickets, and last of all in lonely rigid sentinels.But far above the loneliest sentinel pine, cold, white, serene, shone the peaks.The Highland blood in Shock's veins stirred to the call of the hills.Glancing around to make sure he was quite alone--he had almost never been where he could be quite sure that he would not be heard--Shock raised his voice in a shout, again, and, expanding his lungs to the full, once again.How small his voice seemed, how puny his strength, how brief his life, in the presence of those silent, mighty, ancient ranges with their hoary faces and snowy heads.Awed by their solemn silence, and by the thought of their ancient, eternal, unchanging endurance, he repeated to himself in a low tone the words of the ancient Psalm:
"Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place, In generations all, Before Thou ever hadst brought forth The mountains, great or small!"How exalting are the mountains and how humbling! How lonely and how comforting! How awesome and how kindly! How relentless and how sympathetic! Reflecting every mood of man, they add somewhat to his nobler stature and diminish somewhat his ignobler self.To all true appeal they give back answer, but to the heart regarding iniquity, like God, they make no response.They never obtrude themselves, but they smile upon his joys, and in his sorrow offer silent sympathy, and ever as God's messengers they bid him remember that with all their mass man is mightier than they, that when the slow march of the pines shall have trod down their might's dust, still with the dew of eternal youth fresh upon his brow will he be with God.
Then and there in Shock's heart there sprang up a kindly feeling for the mountains that through all his varying experiences never left him.They were always there, steadfastly watchful by day like the eye of God, and at night while he slept keeping unslumbering guard like Jehovah himself.All day as he drove up the interminable slopes and down again, the mountains kept company with him, as friends might.So much so that he caught himself, more than once after moments of absorption, glancing up at them with hasty penitence.He had forgotten them, but unoffended they had been watching and waiting for him.
A little after noon Shock found the trail turn in toward a long, log, low-roofed building, which seemed to have been erected in sections, with an irregular group of sod-roofed out-houses clustering about.
An old man lounged against the jamb of the open door.
"Good day," said Shock politely.
The old man looked him over for a moment or two and then answered as if making a concession of some importance, "Good day, good day! From town? Want to eat?"A glance through the door, showing the remains of dinner on a table, determined Shock."No, I guess I'll push on.""All right," said the old man, his tone suggesting that while it was a matter of supreme indifference to him, to Shock it might be a somewhat serious concern to neglect to eat in his house.
"This is Spruce Creek?" enquired Shock.
"Yes, I believe that's what they call it," said the old man with slow deliberation, adding after a few moments silence "because there ain't no spruces here."Shock gave the expected laugh with such heartiness that the old man deigned to take some little interest in him.
"Cattle?" he enquired.
"No."
"Sport?"
"Well, a little, perhaps."
"Oh! Pospectin', eh? Well, land's pretty well taken up in this vicinity, I guess."To this old man there were no other interests in life beyond cattle, sport, and prospcting that could account for the stranger's presence in this region.
"Yes," laughed Shock, "prospecting in a ways too."The old man was obviously puzzled.
"Well," he ventured, "come inside, anyway.Pretty chilly wind that for April.Come right in!"Shock stepped in.The old man drew nearer to him.
"Pain-killer or lime-juice?" he enquired in an insinuating voice.
"What?" said Shock.
"Pain-killer or lime-juice," winking and lowering his voice to a confidential tone.
"Well, as I haven't got any pain I guess I'll take a little lime-juice," replied Shock.
The old man gave him another wink, long and slow, went to the corner of the room, pushed back a table, pulled up a board from the floor, and extracted a bottle.
