Part 22 (1/2)

The horses flung up their heads and sniffed it, rearing and plunging as if they had scent of something menacing. Across the horizon a dark cloud scudded, no bigger than your hand.

”Cloud-burst!” announced Mrs. Yellett.

”Cloud-burst, all right enough,” agreed Leander, and he turned up his coat-collar in simple preparation for the deluge.

There flashed into Mary Carmichael's mind a sentence from her physical geography that she had been obliged to commit to heart in her school-days: ”A cloud-burst is a sudden, capricious rainfall, as if the whole cloud had been precipitated at once.” She wanted to question her companions as to the accuracy of this definition, but before she had time to frame a sentence the real cloud-burst came, with a splitting crack of thunder; then the lightning flashed out its message in the short-hand of the storm, across the inky blackness, and the water fell as if the ocean had been inverted. In the fraction of a second all three were drenched to the skin, the water pouring from them in sheets, as if they had been some slight obstruction in the path of a waterfall. The wagon was soon in a deep gully, with frothing, foaming, yellow water up to the hubs of the wheels.

Mrs. Yellett, like some G.o.ddess of the storm, lashed her horses forward to keep them from foundering in the mud, and the wagon creaked and groaned in all its timbers as it lurched and jolted through the angry torrents.

Each moment Mary expected to be flung from the barrels, and clung till her finger-tips were white and aching. From the drenched red bedquilts a sticky crimson trail ran over the barrel heads, as well as over Mary's hands, face, and dress. Still they forged on through the deluge, Mrs.

Yellett shouting and las.h.i.+ng the horses, holding them erect and safe with the skill she never lost. The fur on her rabbit-skin cap was beaten flat.

The great, wet braids had fallen from the force of the water and hung straight and black, like huge snakes uncoiled. She was far from losing her grip on either the horses or the situation, and from the inspiring ring of her voice as she urged them forward it was plain that she took a fierce joy in this conflict of the elements.

It was bitterly cold, and Mary reflected that if Leander's teeth chattered half as hard as hers did, without breaking, they must, indeed, be of excellent quality. The storm began to abate, and the sky became lighter, though the water still poured in torrents. As soon as her responsibility as driver left her time to speak, Mrs. Yellett lost no time in fastening the cloud-burst to Leander.

”This here is what comes of settin' up your back against G.o.d A'mighty and encouragin' the heathen and the infidel in his idolatry. I might 'a'

knowed somethin' would happen, takin' you along! 'And the heathen and the infidel went out, and the Lord G.o.d sent a cloud-burst to wet him,'” quoted Mrs. Yellett from the apocryphal Scriptures that never yet failed to furnish her with verse and text.

The infidel, from his side of the wagon, began to display agitation. His jaws worked, but he said nothing.

”You 'ain't lost them teeth again, have you?”

He nodded his head wretchedly.

”'And the Lord took away the teeth of his enemy, so that he could neither bite nor talk,'” quoted Mrs. Yellett to the miserable man, who could make no reply.

”Wonder you wouldn't see the foolishness o' being a heathen and a infidel, and turn to the Lord! You 'ain't got no teeth, and it takes your wife to herd you. 'And the Lord multiplied the tribulations of his enemy.' You got no more show standin' up agin the Lord than an insect would have standin'

up agin me.”

She had Leander, at last, just where she wanted him. He was forced to listen, and he could make no reply. She alternately abused him for his lack of faith and urged him to repentance. Leander raged, gesticulated, turned his back on her, mouthed, and finally put his fingers in his ears.

But nothing stemmed the tide of Mrs. Yellett's eloquence; it was as inexhaustible and as remorseless as the cloud-burst.

It continued bitterly cold, even after the rain had stopped falling, and the heap of sodden bedclothes furnished no protection against the chilling dampness. It was growing dark; there was no red in the sunset, only a streak of vivid orange along the horizon, chill and clear as the empty, soulless flame of burning paper. There were no deep, glowing coals, no amethystine opalescence, fading into gold and violet. All was cold and subdued, and the scrub pines on the mountain-tops stood out sharply against this cold background like an etching on yellow paper.

Mrs. Yellett's self-inspired scriptural maxims were discontinued after a while, either because she could think of no more, or because the rain-soaked, s.h.i.+vering, chattering object towards which they were directed was too abject to inspire further efforts. Leander huddled on the barrel that was farthest from Mrs. Yellett, and wrapped himself in the soaked red bedquilt. The dye smeared his face till he looked like an Indian brave ready for battle, but there was no further suggestion of the fighting red man in the utter desolation of his att.i.tude. Mary Carmichael, on her barrel, s.h.i.+vered with grim patience and longed for a cup of tea. Only Mrs.

Yellett gave no sign of anxiety or discomfort; she drove along, sometimes whistling, sometimes swearing, erect as an Indian, and to all appearances as oblivious of cold and wet as if she were in her own home.

The gathering darkness into which the horses were plunging was mysterious and appalling. Objects stood out enormously magnified, or distorted grotesquely, in the uncertain light. It was like penetrating into the real Inferno, like stumbling across the inspiration of Dante in all its sinister splendor. It was the Inferno of his dream rather than the Inferno of his poem; it had the ghastly reality of the unreal.

”It wouldn't surprise me if we had a smash-up in Clear Creek,” said Mrs.

Yellett, just by way of adding her quota of cheerful speculation. She ducked her head and whispered in Mary's ear:

”It's all along of me hirin' _him_! I wouldn't be surprised if paw died.

I'm thinkin' of shakin' him out after his teeth. 'Take not up with the enemy of the Lord, lest he make of you also an enemy.'”

But there was no accent of apprehension in Mrs. Yellett's dismal prognostications of the evil that might befall her for employing Leander.

She spoke more with the air of one who produces incidents to prove an argument than of one who antic.i.p.ates a calamity.