gaspard dufour, whose accumulations of adipose tissue appeared to serve him a good turn, as he descended the steep, rocky ravine, hummed a droll tune which was broken at intervals by sundry missteps and down-sittings and side-wise bumps against the jutting crags. he perspired freely, mopping his brow meantime with a vast silk kerchief that hung loosely about his short neck.
the wood grew denser as he descended and a damp, mouldy odor pervaded the spaces underneath the commingling boughs of the oaks, pines, cedars, and sassafras. here and there a lizard scampered around a tree-hole or darted[31] under the fallen leaves. overhead certain shadowy flittings betrayed the presence of an occasional small bird, demurely going about its business of food-getting. the main elements of the surroundings, however, were gloom and silence. the breeze-currents astir in the valley and rippling over the gray peaks of mt. boab could not enter the leafy chambers of this wooded gorge. heat of a peculiarly sultry sort seemed to be stored here, for as dufour proceeded he began at length to gasp for breath, and it was with such relief as none but the suffocating can fully appreciate, that he emerged into an open space surrounded, almost, with butting limestone cliffs, but cut across by a noisy little stream that went bubbling down into the valley through a cleft bedecked with ferns and sprinkled with perennial dew from a succession of gentle cascades. the ideal trout-brook was this, so far as appearances could go. at the foot of each tiny water-fall was a swirling pool, semi-opaque, giving forth emerald flashes and silver glints, and bearing little cones of creamy foam round and round on its bosom. a thousand noises, every one a water-note, rising all along the line of the brook’s broken current, clashed together with an effect like that of hearing a far-off multitude applauding or some distant army rushing on a charge.
so much out of breath and so deluged with perspiration was dufour that he flung himself upon the ground beside the brook and lay there panting and mopping his face. overhead[32] the bit of sky was like turquoise, below a slender glimpse of the valley shone between the rock walls, like a sketch subdued almost to monochrome of crepuscular purple. a fitful breath of cool air fell into the place, fanning the man’s almost purple cheeks and forehead, while a wood-thrush, whose liquid voice might have been regarded as part of the water-tumult, sang in a thorn tree hard by.
in a half-reclining attitude, dufour gave himself over to the delicious effect of all this, indulging at the same time in the impolite and ridiculous, but quite shakespearian, habit of soliloquizing.
“jingo!” he remarked, “jingo! but isn’t this a daisy prospect for trout! if those pools aren’t full of the beauties, then there’s nothing in waltonian lore and life isn’t worth living. ha! jingo! there went one clean above the water—a ten ouncer, at least!”
he sprang at his rod as if to break it to pieces, and the facility with which he fitted the joints and the reel and run the line and tied the cast was really a wonder.
“i knew they were here,” he muttered, “just as soon as i laid my eyes on the water. who ever did see such another brook!”
at the third cast of the fly, a brown hackle, by the way, up came a trout with a somersault and a misty gleam of royal purple and silver, attended by a spray of water and a short bubbling sound. dufour struck deftly, hooking the beautiful fish very insecurely through the edge[33] of the lower lip. immediately the reel began to sing and the rod to quiver, while dufour’s eyes glared almost savagely and his lips pursed with comical intensity.
round and round flew the trout, now rushing to the bottom of the pool, now whisking under a projecting ledge and anon flinging itself clean above the water and shaking itself convulsively.
the angler was led hither and thither by his active prey, the exercise bedewing his face again with perspiration, whilst his feet felt the cool bath of water and the soothing embrace of tangled water-grass. the mere switch of a bamboo rod, bent almost into a loop, shook like a rush in a wind.
dufour was ill prepared to formulate a polite response when, at the height of his sport, a gentle but curiously earnest voice exclaimed:
“snatch ’im out, snatch ’im out, dog gone yer clumsy hide! snatch ’im out, er i’ll do it for ye!”
the trout must have heard, for as the angler turned to get a hasty glance at the stranger, up it leaped and by a desperate shake broke the snell.
“confound you!” cried dufour, his face redder than ever. “confound your meddlesome tongue, why didn’t you keep still till i landed him?”
there was a tableau set against the gray, lichen-bossed rocks. two men glaring at each other. the new-comer was a tall, athletic,[34] brown-faced mountaineer, bearing a gun and wearing two heavy revolvers. he towered above dufour and gazed down upon him as if about to execute him. the latter did not quail, but grew angrier instead.
“you ought to have better sense than to interfere with my sport in such a way! who are you, anyway?” he cried in a hot, fierce tone.
the mountaineer stood silent for a moment, as if collecting words enough for what he felt like saying, then:
“see yer,” he drawled, rather musically, “ef i take ye by the scruff o’ yer neck an’ the heel o’ yer stockin’ an’ jest chuck ye inter thet puddle, ye’ll begin to surmise who i air, ye saucy little duck-legged minny-catcher, you!”
dufour, remembering his long training years ago at the gentlemen’s glove-club, squared himself with fists in position, having flung aside his tackle. in his righteous rage he forgot that his adversary was not only his superior in stature but also heavily armed.
“well, thet’ ther’ do beat me!” said the mountaineer, with an incredulous ring in his voice. “the very idee! w’y ye little aggervatin’ banty rooster, a puttin’ up yer props at me! w’y i’ll jest eternally and everlastin’ly wring yer neck an’ swob the face o’ nature wi’ ye!”
what followed was about as indescribable as a whirlwind in dry grass. the two men appeared to coalesce for a single wild, whirling, resounding instant, and then the mountaineer went[35] over headlong into the middle of the pool with a great plash and disappeared. dufour, in a truly gladiatorial attitude, gazed fiercely at the large dimple in which his antagonist was buried for the instant, but out of which he presently projected himself with great promptness, then, as a new thought came to him, he seized the fallen gun of the mountaineer, cocked it and leveled it upon its owner. there was a peculiar meaning in his words as he stormed out:
“lie down! down with you, or i blow a hole clean through you instantly!”
promptly enough the mountaineer lay down until the water rippled around his chin and floated his flaxen beard. some moments of peculiar silence followed, broken only by the lapsing gurgle and murmur of the brook.
dufour, with arms as steady as iron bars, kept the heavy gun bearing on the gasping face of the unwilling bather, whilst at the same time he was dangerously fingering the trigger. the stout, short figure really had a muscular and doughty air and the heavy face certainly looked warlike.
“stranger, a seein’ ’at ye’ve got the drap onto me, ’spose we swear off an’ make up friends?” the man in the water said this at length, in the tone of one presenting a suggestion of doubtful propriety.
“don’t hardly think you’ve cooled off sufficiently, do you?” responded dufour.
“this here’s spring warter, ye must ’member,” offered the mountaineer.
[36]
the gun was beginning to tire dufour’s arms.
“well, do you knock under?” he inquired, still carelessly fumbling the trigger.
“great mind ter say yes,” was the shivering response.
“oh, take your time to consider, i’m in no hurry,” said dufour.
if the man in the water could have known how the supple but of late untrained arms of the man on shore were aching, the outcome might have been different; but the bath was horribly cold and the gun’s muzzle kept its bearing right on the bather’s eye.
“i give in, ye’ve got me, stranger,” he at last exclaimed.
dufour was mightily relieved as he put down the gun and watched his dripping and shivering antagonist wade out of the cold pool. the men looked at each other curiously.
“ye’re the dog gone’dest man ’at ever i see,” remarked the mountaineer; “who air ye, anyhow?”
“oh, i’m a pretty good fellow, if you take me on the right tack,” said dufour.
the other hesitated a moment, and then inquired:
“air ye one o’ them people up at the tavern on the mounting?”
“yes.”
“a boardin’ there?”
“yes.”
“for all summer?”
“possibly.”
[37]
again there was a silence, during which the water trickled off the mountaineer’s clothes and ran over the little stones at his feet.
“goin’ ter make fun o’ me when ye git up thar?” the catechism was at length resumed. dufour laughed.
“i could tell a pretty good thing on you,” he answered, taking a sweeping observation of the stalwart fellow’s appearance as he stood there with his loose jeans trousers and blue cotton shirt clinging to his shivering limbs.
“see yer, now,” said the latter, in a wheedling tone, and wringing his light, thin beard with one sinewy dark hand, “see yer, now, i’d like for ye not ter do thet, strenger.”
“why?”
“well,” said the mountaineer, after some picturesque hesitation and faltering, “’cause i hev a ’quaintance o’ mine up ther’ at thet tavern.”
“indeed, have you? who is it?”
“mebbe ye mought be erquainted with miss sarah anna crabb?”
“no.”
“well, she’s up ther’, she stayed all night at our house las’ night an’ went on up ther’ this mornin’; she’s a literary woman an’ purty, an’ smart, an’ a mighty much of a talker.”
“ugh!”
“jest tell her ’at ye met me down yer, an’ ’at i’m tol’ble well; but don’t say nothin’ ’bout this ’ere duckin’ ’at ye gi’ me, will ye?”
“oh, of course, that’s all right,” dufour hastened[38] to say, feeling an indescribable thrill of sympathy for the man.
“yer’s my hand, strenger, an’ w’en wesley tolliver gives a feller his hand hit means all there air ter mean,” exclaimed the latter, as warmly as his condition would permit, “an’ w’en ye need er friend in these parts jest come ter me.”
he shouldered his gun, thereupon, and remarking that he might as well be going, strode away over a spur of the mountain, his clothes still dripping and sticking close to his muscular limbs. dufour found his rod broken and his reel injured, by having felt the weight of wesley tolliver’s foot, and so he too turned to retrace his steps.
such an adventure could not fail to gain in spectacular grotesqueness as it took its place in the memory and imagination of dufour. he had been in the habit of seeing such things on the stage and of condemning them out of hand as the baldest melodramatic nonsense, so that now he could not fairly realize the matter as something that had taken place in his life.
he was very tired and hungry when he reached hotel helicon.
