The Eagle's Heart Read online

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  HE DREW REIN AND LOOKED AT THE GREAT RANGE TOTHE SOUTHEAST.]

  THE EAGLE'S HEART

  HAMLIN GARLANDSUNSET EDITION

  HARPER & BROTHERSNEW YORK AND LONDON

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  COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY HAMLIN GARLAND

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  CONTENTS

  PART I

  I.--HIS YOUTH 1 II.--HIS LOVE AFFAIRS 11 III.--THE YOUNG EAGLE STRIKES 23 IV.--THE TRIAL 35 V.--THE EAGLE'S EYES GROW DIM 51 VI.--THE CAGE OPENS 72 VII.--ON THE WING 83 VIII.--THE UPWARD TRAIL 96 IX.--WAR ON THE CANNON BALL 123 X.--THE YOUNG EAGLE MOUNTS 143 XI.--ON THE ROUND-UP 157

  PART II

  XII.--THE YOUNG EAGLE FLUTTERS THE DOVE-COTE 175 XIII.--THE YOUNG EAGLE DREAMS OF A MATE 199 XIV.--THE YOUNG EAGLE RETURNS TO HIS EYRIE 220

  PART III

  XV.--THE EAGLE COMPLETES HIS CIRCLE 233 XVI.--AGAIN ON THE ROUND-UP 250 XVII.--MOSE RETURNS TO WAGON WHEEL 265XVIII.--THE EAGLE GUARDS THE SHEEP 283 XIX.--THE EAGLE ADVENTURES INTO STRANGE LANDS 316 XX.--A DARK DAY WITH A GLOWING SUNSET 339 XXI.--CONCLUSION 363

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  THE EAGLE'S HEART

  PART I

  CHAPTER I

  HIS YOUTH

  Harold was about ten years of age when his father, the Rev. Mr. Excell,took the pastorate of the First Church in Rock River. Many of the peoplein his first congregation remarked upon "the handsome lad." The clearbrown of his face, his big yellow-brown eyes, his slender hands, and thegrace of his movements gave him distinction quite aside from thatarising from his connection with the minister.

  Rev. John Excell was a personable man himself. He was tall and broadshouldered, with abundant brown hair and beard, and a winning smile. Hiseyes were dark and introspective, but they could glow like sunlit topaz,or grow dim with tears, as his congregation had opportunity to observeduring this first sermon--but they were essentially sad eyes.

  Mrs. Excell, a colorless little woman who retained only the dim outlineof her girlhood's beauty, sat gracelessly in her pew, but herstepdaughter, Maud, by her side, was carrying to early maturity a daintygrace united with something strong and fine drawn from her father. Shehad his proud lift of the head.

  "What a fine family!" whispered the women from pew to pew under cover ofthe creaking fans.

  In the midst of the first sermon, a boy seated in front of Harold gave ashrill whoop of agony and glared back at the minister's son withdistorted face, and only the prompt action on the part of both mothersprevented a clamorous encounter over the pew. Harold had stuck the headof a pin in the toe of his boot and jabbed his neighbor in the calf ofthe leg. It was an old trick, but it served well.

  The minister did not interrupt his reading, but a deep flush of hotblood arose to his face, and the lids of his eyes dropped to shut outthe searching gaze of his parishioners, as well as to close in a redglare of anger. From that moment Harold was known as "that preacher'sboy," the intention being to convey by significant inflections and ameaning smile that he filled the usual description of a minister'sgraceless son.

  Harold soon became renowned in his own world. He had no hard-foughtbattles, though he had scores of quarrels, for he scared his opponentsby the suddenness and the intensity of his rage, which was fairlydemoniacal in fury.

  "You touch me and I'll _kill you_," he said in a low voice to the fatboy whose leg he had jabbed, and his bloodless face and blazing eyescaused the boy to leap frenziedly away. He carried a big knife, hisplaymates discovered, and no one, not even youths grown to man'sstature, cared to attempt violence with him. One lad, struck with astone from his cunning right hand, was carried home in a carriage.Another, being thrown by one convulsive effort, fell upon his arm,breaking it at the elbow. In less than a week every boy in Rock Riverknew something of Harry Excell's furious temper, and had learned that itwas safer to be friend than enemy to him.

  He had his partisans, too, for his was a singularly attractive naturewhen not enraged. He was a hearty, buoyant playmate, and a good scholarfive days out of six, but he demanded a certain consideration at alltimes. An accidental harm he bore easily, but an intentionalinjury--that was flame to powder.

  The teachers in the public school each had him in turn, as he ranrapidly up the grades. They all admired him unreservedly, but most ofthem were afraid of him, so that he received no more decisive check thanat home. He was subject to no will but his own.

  The principal was a kind and scholarly old man, who could make a boy crywith remorse and shame by his Christlike gentleness, and Harold alsowept in his presence, but that did not prevent him from fairly knockingout the brains of the next boy who annoyed him. In his furious, fickleway he often defended his chums or smaller boys, so that it was not easyto condemn him entirely.

  There were rumors from the first Monday after Harold's pin-stickingexploit that the minister had "lively sessions" with his boy. The oldsexton privately declared that he heard muffled curses and shrieks andthe sound of blows rising from the cellar of the parsonage--but thisstory was hushed on his lips. The boy admittedly needed thrashing, butthe deacons of the church would rather not have it known that theminister used the rod himself.

  The rumors of the preacher's stern measures softened the judgment ofsome of the townspeople, who shifted some of the blame of the son to theshoulders of the sire. Harry called his father "the minister," andseemed to have no regard for him beyond a certain respect for hisphysical strength. When boys came by and raised the swimming sign hereplied, "Wait till I ask 'the minister.'" This was considered "queer"in him.

  He ignored his stepmother completely, but tormented his sister Maud in athousand impish ways. He disarranged her neatly combed hair. He threwmud on her dress and put carriage grease on her white stockings onpicnic day. He called her "chiny-thing," in allusion to her pretty roundcheeks and clear complexion, and yet he loved her and would instantlyfight for her, and no one else dared tease her or utter a word to annoyher. She was fourteen years of age when Mr. Excell came to town, and atsixteen considered herself a young lady. As suitors began to gatherabout her, they each had a vigorous trial to undergo with Harold; it wasindeed equivalent to running the gantlet. Maud was always in terror ofhim on the evenings when she had callers.

  One day he threw a handful of small garter snakes into the parlor wherehis sister sat with young Mr. Norton. Maud sprang to a chair screamingwildly, while her suitor caught the snakes and threw them from thewindow just as the minister's tall form darkened the doorway.

  "What is the matter?" he asked.

  Maud, eager to shield Harry, said: "Oh, nothing much, papa--only one ofHarry's jokes."

  "Tell me," said the minister to the young man, who, with a painful smileon his face, stammeringly replied:

  "Harry thought he'd scare me, that's all. It didn't amount to much."

  "I insist on knowing the truth, Mr. Norton," the minister sternlyinsisted.

  As Norton described the boy's action, Mr. Excell's face paled and hislips set close. His eyes became terrible to meet, and the beaded sweatof his furious anger stood thick on his face. "Thank you," he said withominous calmness, a
nd turning without another word, went to his study.

  His wife, stealing up, found the door locked and her husband walking thefloor like a roused tiger. White and shaking with a sort of awe, Mrs.Excell ran down to the kitchen where Harold crouched and said:

  "Harold, dear, you'd better go out to Mr. Burns' right away."

  Harold understood perfectly what she meant and fled. For hours neitherMrs. Excell nor Maud spoke above a whisper. When the minister came downto tea he made no comment on Harry's absence. He had worn out hiswhite-hot rage, but was not yet in full control of himself.

  He remained silent, and kept his eyes on his plate during the meal.

  The last time he had punished Harold the scene narrowly escaped a tragicending. When the struggle ended Harold lay on the floor, choked intoinsensibility.

  When he had become calm and Harold was sleeping naturally in his ownbed, the father knelt at his wife's knee and prayed God for grace tobear his burden, and said:

  "Mary, keep us apart when we are angry. He is like me: he has myfiendish temper. No matter what I say or do, keep us apart till I amcalm. By God's grace I will never touch his flesh again in anger."

  Nevertheless he dared not trust himself to refer to the battles whichshamed them all. The boy was deeply repentant, but uttered no word ofit. And so they grew ever more silent and vengeful in their intercourse.

  Harold early developed remarkable skill with horses, and once rode inthe races at the County Fair, to the scandal of the First Church. He notonly won the race, but was at once offered a great deal of money to gowith the victor to other races. To his plea the father, with deep-laiddiplomacy, replied:

  "Very well; study hard this year and next year you may go." But the boywas just at the age to take on weight rapidly, and by the end of theyear was too heavy, and the owner of the horse refused to repeat hisoffer. Harold did not fail to remark how he had been cheated, but saidnothing more of his wish to be a jockey.

  He was also fond of firearms, and during his boyhood his father tried inevery way to keep weapons from him, and a box in his study contained acontraband collection of his son's weapons. There was a certain pathosin this little arsenal, for it gave evidence of considerable labor onthe boy's part, and expressed much of buoyant hope and restless energy.

  There were a half-dozen Fourth of July pistols, as many cannons forcrackers, and three attempts at real guns intended to explode powder andthrow a bullet. Some of them were "toggled up" with twine, and one ortwo had handles rudely carved out of wood. Two of them were genuinerevolvers which he had managed to earn by working in the harvest fieldon the Burns' farm.

  From his fifteenth year he was never without a shotgun and revolver. Theshotgun was allowed, but the revolver was still contraband and keptcarefully concealed. On Fourth of July he always helped to fire theanvil and fireworks, for he was deft and sure and quite at home withexplosives. He had acquired great skill with both gun and pistol asearly as his thirteenth year, and his feats of marksmanship came now andthen to the ears of his father.

  The father and son were in open warfare. Harold submitted to everycommand outwardly, but inwardly vowed to break all restraint which heconsidered useless or unjust.

  His great ambition was to acquire a "mustang pony," for all theadventurous spirits of the dime novels he had known carried revolversand rode mustangs. He did not read much, but when he did it was alwayssome tale of fighting. He was too restless and active to continue at abook of his own accord for any length of time, but he listeneddelightedly to any one who consented to read for him. When his sisterMaud wished to do him a great favor and to enjoy his company (for sheloved him dearly) she read Daredevil Dan, or some similar story, whilehe lay out on his stomach in the grass under the trees, with restlessfeet swinging like pendulums. At such times his face was beautiful withlonging, and his eyes became dark and dreamy. "I'm going there, Beauty,"he would say as Maud rolled out the word _Colorado_ or _Brazos_. "I'mgoing there. I won't stay here and rot. I'll go, you'll see, and I'llhave a big herd of cattle, too."

  His gentlest moments were those spent with his sister in the fields orunder the trees. As he grew older he became curiously tender andwatchful of her. It pleased him to go ahead of her through the woods, topilot the way, and to help her over ditches or fences. He loved to leadher into dense thickets and to look around and say: "There, isn't thiswild, though? You couldn't find your way out if it wasn't for me, couldyou?" And she, to carry out the spirit of the story, always shudderedand said, "Don't leave me to perish here."

  Once, as he lay with his head in the grass, he suddenly said: "Can't youhear the Colorado roar?"

  The wind was sweeping over the trees, and Maud, eager to keep him inthis gentle mood, cried: "I hear it; it is a wonderful river, isn't it?"

  He did not speak again for a moment.

  "Oh, I want to be where there is nobody west of me," he said, a look ofsingular beauty on his face. "Don't you?"

  "N--no, I don't," answered Maud. "But, then, I'm a girl, you know; we'reafraid of wild things, most of us."

  "Dot Burland isn't."

  "Oh, she only pretends; she wants you to think she's brave."

  "That's a lie." He said it so savagely that Maud hastened to apologize.