The Strength of the Pines

by Edison Marshall

XX

The homeward journey over the ridges had meant only pleasure to Bruce. Every hour of it had brought a deeper and more intimate knowledge of the wilderness. The days had been full of little, nerve-tingling adventures, and the nights full of peace. And beyond all these, there was the hope of seeing Linda again at the end of the trail.

Thoughts of her hardly ever left him throughout the long tramp. She had more than fulfilled every expectation. It was true that he had found no one of his own kin, as he had hoped; but the fact opened up new possibilities that would have been otherwise forbidden.

It was strange how he remembered her kiss. He had known other kisses in his days—being a purely rational and healthy young man—but there had been nothing of immortality about them. Their warmth had died quickly, and they had been forgotten. They were just delights of moonlight nights and nothing more. But he would wake up from his dreams at night to feel Linda's kiss still upon his lips. To recall it brought a strange tenderness,—a softening of all the hard outlines of his picture of life. It changed his viewpoint; it brought him a knowledge of a joy and a gentleness that could exist even in this stern world of wilderness and pines. With her face lingering before his eyes, the ridges themselves seemed less stern and forbidding; there were softer messages in the wind's breath; the drama of the wild that went on about him seemed less remorseless and cruel.

He remembered the touch of her hands. They had been so cool, so gentle. He remembered the changing lights in her dark eyes. Life had opened up new vistas to him. Instead of a stern battleground, he began to realize that it had a softer, gentler, kinder side,—a place where there could be love as well as hatred, peace as well as battle, cheery homes and firesides and pleasant ways and laughter instead of cold ways and lonely trails and empty hearts and grim thoughts. Perhaps, if all went well, tranquillity might come to him after all. Perhaps he might even know the tranquil spirit of the pines.

These were mating days. It was true that the rutting season had not, in reality, commenced. The wolf pack had not yet gathered, and would not until after the heavy frosts. But the bucks had begun to rub the velvet from their horns so that they would be hard and sharp for the fights to come. And these would be savage battles—with death at the end of many of them. But perhaps the joys that would follow—the roving, mating days with the does—would more than make up for their pain. The trim females were seen less often with their fawns; and they seemed strangely restless and tremulous, perhaps wondering what fortune the fall would have for them in the way of a mate.

The thought gave Bruce pleasure. He could picture the deer herd in the fall,—the proud buck in the lead, ready to fight all contenders, his harem of does, and what fawns and young bucks he permitted to follow him. They would make stealing journeys down to the foothills to avoid the snow, and all manner of pleasures would be theirs in the gentler temperatures of the lowlands. They would know crisp dawns and breathless nights, long runnings into the valleys, and to the does the realization of motherhood when the spring broke.

But aside from his contemplations of Linda, the long tramp had many delights for him. He rejoiced in every manifestation of the wild life about him, whether it was a bushy-tailed old gray squirrel, watching him from a tree limb, a magpie trying its best to insult him, or the fleeting glimpse of a deer in the coverts. Once he saw the black form of Ashur the bear, mumbling and grunting as he searched under rotten logs for grubs. But he didn't see the Killer again. He didn't particularly care to do so.

He kept his rifle ready during the day for game, but he shot only what he needed. He did not attempt to kill the deer. He knew that he would have no opportunity to care for the meat. But he did, occasionally, shoot the head off a cock-grouse at close range, and no chef of Paris could offer a more tempting dish than its flesh, rolled in flour and served up, fried brown, in bacon grease. It was mostly white meat, exceedingly tender, yet with the zest of wild game. But he dined on bacon exclusively one night because, after many misses at grouse, he declined to take the life of a gray squirrel that had perched in an oak tree above the trail. Someway, it seemed to be getting too much pleasure out of life for him to blast it with a rifle shot. A squirrel has only a few ounces of flesh, and the woods without them would be dull and inane indeed. Besides, they were bright-eyed, companionable people—dwellers of the wilderness even as Bruce—and their personality had already endeared itself to him.

Once he startled a fawn almost out of its wits when he came upon it suddenly in a bend in the trail, and he shouted with delight as it bounded awkwardly away. Once a porcupine rattled its quills at him and tried to seem very ferocious. But it was all the most palpable of bluffs, for Urson, while particularly adept at defense, has no powers of offense whatever. He cannot move quickly. He can't shoot his spines, as the story-books say. He can only sit on the ground and erect them into a sort of suit of armor to repel attack. But Bruce knew enough not to attempt to stroke the creature. If he had done so, he would have spent the remainder of the season pulling out spines from the soft flesh of his hand.