Part 1 (1/2)
The Song of the Wolf
by Frank Mayer
CHAPTER I
A RIFT IN THE LUTE
Everything else was in harmony If the sky turquoise was a shade or two paler than the prescribed robin's-egg, it blended perfectly with the unpronounced greens of the sprouting grass and the uncertain olive of the budding sagebrush On the crest of the distant divide a silver-gray wreath of aspens lay against the tawny cheek of the mountain as daintily as an otter-fur collarette on the neck of a girl Even the darker girdle of spruce and pine, lower down, lost its harsh individuality,insensibly into the faded uround where the rocks and buckbrush fell away to the open slopes beneath
On the vega below, the alkaline scars, as yet uncalcined by the sun's fires into glaring chalkiness, gave no offense in theirthe deserted prairie-dog mounds was, in his ash-colored surtout, as inconspicuous as the long wan shadows cast by the weak spring sun In the hollow of the foothill's arhts so remote that its purl was deduced rather than heard, and over all lay the soft glow of the fading twilight, accentuated by the subtle incense of the young year's breath
It was a symphony of tender half-tone in minor key, one of these reat West whose enchant with an insistence which will not be denied until the souls of its hearing yearn for its bondage again and return to the rack of the cow-range, the torments of the desert, the chain of the eternal hills
The only discord was in the heart and speech of thea the loose bowlders of the half-effaced trail The anathe spur thrust were alike cruel and undeserved, for the faithful beast had borne his rider bravely throughout a long and weary day's work, and despite the favorable te day, his chest was foaaunt flanks heaved pitiably And yet there was nothing particularly vicious in the face of the cowpuncher glaring so disconsolately over the tender vista It was a bit thin-lipped and there was estion of merciless hardness in the deep lines about the ray eyes were calm and steady and there was a sturdy independence in the out-thrust of his prominent chin and the bird-like poise of his head which, bespoke either a clear conscience or the lethal indifference of an indoy, muscular conformation, his every movement betokened virility and force; an experienced frontiersly at his well-ordered equip at just the proper angle for quick work on a cartridge belt filled to the last becket, the pliable reata hanging in unkinked coils with chafed honda evincing long usage There was a significant absence of fringe and ornament about this man, yet the excellence of auntlets to the tempered steel of his rowels and expensive Stetson hat; and wohed, bronze-faced felloho returned their stares with disconcerting assurance It was his habit to look all things squarely in the face, and before his level gaze women blushed unaccountably and men smiled, squirmed or turned quietly away as the circumstances warranted Little children alone took liberties with him, and for these the bold eyes would soften wondrously and a rare gentleness creep into his usually crisp and terse speech
The panora his horse instinctively to reconnoitre the ground, was one that would ordinarily have appealed to him, for despite his prosaic avocation, his was the true artistic tempera upon disgust, and mumbled profanely under his heavythe short sagebrush caught his eye and he laughedlike the rest of us to keep hisa damn poor job of it It would be a mercy--” and he half drew the heavy revolver fro fiercely at a clurass and a plaintive squeal rose upon the air Then the coyote trotted out into the open with a rabbit hanging li gallop instead of devouring its prey instantly, as one would have naturally anticipated, considering its gaunt and starved appearance
Under the tan of the cowboy's face a darker flush spread redly
”A bunch of starving pups in the arroyo yonder, and I would have wantonly killed her God! what a brute I am”
For a space he sat in silent self-abasement; then as his horse chahtened the rein and rode slowly down to the little lake
At its edge he dis the bridle so that his horse could drink and graze th upon the short grass The well-trained broncho would not stray far, and both needed rest The coyote was still in his thoughts, but his ot that rabbit unexpectedly when she sure needed it worst--and she won out by staying with the gaet buffaloed and stampede Was it Seneca or Lucretius--no, Havard--who said that perseverance is a virtue
'that plucks success Even froer'
Well, in this case I'll be virtuous fro?”
Froht be inferred that this particular cowboy had sos Pierian as well as alkaline Just noas hard to say which was most bitter in his mouth
He shi+fted restlessly to his elbow and built a cigarette; through its thin blue mist he waded retrospectively in the stream of memory Rapidly in review passed his boyhood days in the far East, his college career with its vast aration to the cloud-kissed Rockies where he had suffered the undoing of all his mawkish illusions An idealist of the most refined type, he writhed even now at the inal conceptions by that unsympathetic iconoclast Practicality, that ironical cynic who laughs our adolescent theories to scorn and desecrates the holiest of our dream-woven holies All his finespun hopes had been ruthlessly rent by the hand of reality Contact with humanity in its primeval phase had worn his unusually refined sensibilities to the quick and the reaction was as unhealthy as it was inevitable From enthusiastic optierated natures like his, and there were few things that this man now held sacred--and none that he held holy Even life itself, and particularly that of other men, he held in contempt, and with the usual disastrous consequences There were few, even in this land of recklessdevil under the quiet deued afterward
Froreat faith in his kind he had been hurled headlong to the depths of unbelief and suspicion He had seen Loyalty ht with a price by cri in the shadow of exalted, ermined Vice; the sots and trulls of bestial Sensuality deified and worshi+ped in the public places He had seen the harlotry of Society set above the sacrament of Maternity, the butchery of eht be squandered in the prostitution of Love to Vanity and Indolence He had witnessed the sacrifice of every civic virtue to the Moloch of Greed and Graft, the abasement of all huarette burned his lips and he threw it aith a snarling curse, his whole sentience revolted with the odor of social corruption, his soul sickening in resentment of his own undeserved failure He had been honest and industrious, energetic, leal and true, conscientious in all things--and to what end?
That he o ahungered to a scant bed at night He had labored servilely in the vineyard of the Lord and been paid by the contee Thrice had he lost enantly refused to be a party to mendacity and rascality, the recollection of his rather strenuous resentrim, unlovely smile; it had made an outlaw of him But the other was an object of compassion ever since Another Ishmael, he had turned naturally to the clean, free independence of the life outdoors, drifting ultie His natural ability and adaptiveness soon brought hihed in the scale of their actual worth as men, not as puppets in the pantomime of conventionality It paid him bread and he bedded where and how he chose In the first flush of independence he felt a certain content, but his was too intense a nature--he was cursed with too an to work
In one thing he was fortunate The hard outdoor work had hammered the native iron of the man into finely-tear He had learned self-reliance, which is a good thing, and self-contain to place a value on himself; all he needed was incentive And such ht warned hiain It was quite dark when he swung hiotiate, and the trail's difficulties in nowise lessened hishis own supper at the end of his journey, and he was nowise gentle in the roping of a freshcaust; despite his harsh fatigue a great restlessness sent him wide, with pipe in mouth, into the stellar splendor that beatifies every clear Colorado night