CHAPTER XV

THE STORY OF THE TENAS PAPOOSE

Tisdale paused another moment, while his far-seeing gaze sifted the shadows of Constance, then began:  “We had made camp that afternoon, at the point where Rocky Brook tumbles over the last boulders to join the swift current of the Dosewallups.  I am something of an angler, and Sandy knew how to treat a Dolly Varden to divide honors with a rainbow; so while the others were pitching the tents, it fell to me to push up stream with my rod and flies.  The banks rose in sharp pitches under low boughs of fir, hemlock, or cedar, but I managed to keep well to the bed of the stream, working from boulder to boulder and stopping to make a cast wherever a riffle looked promising.  Finally, to avoid an unusually deep pool, I detoured around through the trees.  It was very still in there; not even the cry of a jay or the drum of a woodpecker to break the silence, until suddenly I heard voices.  Then, in a tangle of young alder, I picked up a trail and came soon on a group of squaws picking wild blackberries.  They made a great picture with their beautifully woven, gently flaring, water-tight baskets, stained like pottery; their bright shawls wrapped scarfwise around their waists out of the way; heads bound in gay handkerchiefs.  It was a long distance from any settlement, and they stood watching me curiously while I wedged myself between twin cedars, on over a big fallen fir, out of sight.

“A little later I found myself in a small pocket hemmed by cliffs of nearly two hundred feet, over which the brook plunged in a fine cataract.  Above, where it cut the precipice, a hanging spur of rock took the shape of a tiger’s profile, and a depression colored by mineral deposit formed a big red eye; midway the stream struck shelving rock, breaking into a score of cascades that spread out fan-shape and poured into a deep, green, stone-lined pool; stirring, splashing, rippling ceaselessly, but so limpid I could see the trout.  It was a place that held me.  When at last I put away my flies and started down the bank, I knew dinner must be waiting for me, but I had a string of beauties to pacify Sandy.  As I hurried down to the fallen tree, I heard the squaws calling to each other at a different point out of sight up the ridge; then I found a step in the rough bole and, setting my hands on the top, vaulted over.  The next instant I would have given anything, the best years of my life, to undo that leap.  There, where my foot had struck, left with some filled baskets in the lee of the log, lay a small papoose.”

Tisdale’s voice vibrated softly and stopped, while his glance moved from face to face.  He held the rapt attention of every one, and in the pause the water along the keel played a minor interlude.  Behind the awning a different sound broke faintly.  It was like the rustle of paper; a turned page.

“The baby was bound to the usual-shaped board,” Hollis went on, “with a woven pocket for the feet and a broad carrying-strap to fit the head of the mother.  I sat down and lifted the little fellow to my knees.  I wore heavy shoes, studded with nails for mountain climbing, and the mark of my heel was stamped, cruelly, on the small brown cheek; the rim had crushed the temple.”