A Man: His Mark. A Romance / Second Edition

CONTENTS


One forenoon, in the winter of the great storms that swept the Pacific States, Adrian Wilder, a tall, slender, dark young man, stood in front of his stone hut on a shoulder of Mt. Shasta and watched the assembling of the elemental furies to do their savage work in the mountains. By all the signs that he had learned he knew that mighty havoc was to be done; but he did not foresee, nor did the oldest residents of that wilderness, that this was the beginning of the most memorable winter of terrors known to the white man’s history of the region.
A strong sense of security and comfort filled him as, turning from the gathering tumult about him, he studied the resistance of his hut. He, with Dr. Malbone’s help, had built it from foundation to roof, using the almost perfectly shaped blocks from the talus of the lofty perpendicular basalt cliff at whose base he had built his nest that summer. With nice discrimination he had selected the stones from the great heap that stretched far down from one end of the shelf upon which he had built; with mud he had fitted the stones to form floor, walls, arched roof, and chimney. With boards and a window-sash borne by him up the mountain from the road in the canon he had fashioned a window and doors. By the same means—for the shelf was inaccessible to a wagon—he had brought furniture, books, provisions, and fuel.
The hut was strong and comfortable.
Should snow fall to a great depth, he could easily shovel it down the steep slope of the canon. Should an avalanche come,—that made him wince. Still, he had made calculations on that account. By arching the roof of his hut he had given it great strength. Better than that, should an avalanche plunge over the edge of the cliff it must first gather great speed and momentum. Stretching back mountainward from the top of the cliff was a considerable space nearly level; an avalanche descending from the higher reaches of the vast mountain would likely stop on this level ground; but should it be so great and swift as to pass over, its momentum would likely carry it safely over his hut, as the water of a swiftly running stream, plunging over a ledge, leaves a dry space between itself and the wall.