The Lookout Man

by B. M. Bower

Marion carried away the chocolate cups, her heart light. She would not have believed that a reconciliation with Kate and the unburdening of her secret could work such a change in her feelings. She wished fervently that she had told Kate at first. Now they could have Jack down at the cabin sometimes, when the men were both away. They would cook nice little dinners for him, and she could lend him all the reading matter he wanted. She would not have to sneak it away from the cabin. It was a great relief. Marion was very happy that evening.

Jack was not so happy. He was climbing slowly back to his comfortless camp, wondering whether it was worth while to keep up the struggle for sake of his freedom. Jail could not be worse than this, he kept telling himself. At least there would be other human beings—he would not be alone day after day. He would be warm and no worse off for food than here. Only for his mother and the shame it would bring her, he would gladly make the exchange. He was past caring, past the horror of being humiliated before his fellows.

It was hard work climbing to the cave, but that was not the reason why he had not wanted Marion to make the trip. He did not want Marion to know that the cave was half full of snow that had blown in with the wind, and that he was compelled to dig every stick of firewood out from under a snowdrift. Only for that pile of wood, he would have moved his camp to the other side of the peak that was more sheltered, even though it was hidden from the mountain side and the lower valleys he had learned to know so well.

But the labor of moving his camp weighed heavily against the comfort he would gain. He did not believe that he would actually freeze here, now that he had the bearskin; stiff and unwieldy though it was, when he spread it with the fur next to his blankets it was warm—especially since he had bent the edges under his bed all around and let the hide set that way.

Marion would have been astonished had she known how many hours out of every twenty-four Jack spent under the strong-odored hide. Jack himself was astonished, whenever he came out of his general apathy long enough to wonder how he endured this brutish existence. But he had to save wood, and he had to save food, and he had to kill time somehow. So he crawled into his blankets long before dark, short as the days were, and he stayed there long after daylight. That is why he smoked so many cigarettes, and craved so much reading.

Lying there under the shelter of a rock shelf that jutted out from the cave wall, he would watch the whirling snow sift down through the opening in the cave's roof and pack deeper the drift upon that side. Twice he had moved his pile of supplies, and once he had moved his wood; and after that he did not much care whether they were buried or not.

Lying there with only his face and one hand out from under the covers so that he might smoke, Jack had time to do a great deal of thinking, though he tried not to think, since thinking seemed so profitless. He would watch the snow and listen to the wind whistling in the roof, and try to let them fill his mind. Sometimes he wondered how any one save an idiot could ever have contemplated passing a winter apart from his kind, in a cave on a mountain-top. Holed up with the bears, he reminded himself bitterly. And yet he had planned it eagerly with Marion and had looked forward to it as an adventure—a lark with a few picturesque hardships thrown in to give snap to the thing. Well, he had the hardships, all right enough, and the snap, but he could not see anything picturesque or adventurous about it.

He could have given it up, of course. His two legs would have carried him down to the valley in a matter of three hours or so, even with the snow hampering his progress. He could, for instance, leave his cave in the afternoon of any day, and reach Marston in plenty of time for either of the two evening trains. He could take the "up" train, whose headlight tempted him every evening when he went out to watch for it wistfully, and land in Salt Lake the next night; or he could take the "down" train a little later, and be in San Francisco the next morning. Then, it would be strange if he could not find a boat ready to leave port for some far-off, safe place. He could do that any day. He had money enough in his pocket to carry him out of the country if he were willing to forego the luxuries that come dear in travel—and he thought he could, with all this practice!

He played with the idea. He pictured himself taking the down train, and the next day shipping out of San Francisco on a sailing vessel bound for Japan or Panama or Seattle—it did not greatly matter which. He would have to make sure first that the boat was not equipped with wireless, so he supposed he must choose a small sailing vessel, or perhaps a tramp steamer. At other times he pictured himself landing in Salt Lake and hiking out from there to find work on some ranch. Who would ever identify him there as Jack Corey?

He dreamed those things over his cigarettes, smoked parsimoniously through a cheap holder until the stub was no longer than one of Marion's fingernails that Jack loved to look at because they were always so daintily manicured. He dreamed, but he could not bring himself to the point of making one of his dreams come true. He could not, because of Marion. She had helped him to plan this retreat, she had helped him carry some of the lighter supplies up to the cave, she had stood by him like the game little pal she was. He could dream, but he could not show himself ungrateful to Marion by leaving the place. Truth to tell, when he could be with her he did not want to leave. But the times when he could be with her were so dishearteningly few that they could not hold his courage steady. She upbraided him for going so far down the mountain to meet her—what would she have said if she knew that once, when the moon was full, he had gone down to the very walls of the cabin where she slept, and had stood there like a lonesome ghost, just for the comfort her nearness gave him? Jack did not tell her that!