 The Great Slave by Zane Gray. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Kevin S. The Great Slave. A voice on the wind whispered to Sienna the prophecy of his birth. A chief is born to save the vanishing tribe of Crows, a hunter to his starving people. While he listened at his feet swept swift waters, the rushing green-white thundering Athabasca, spirit forsaken river, and it rumbled his name and murmured his fate. Sienna, Sienna, his bride will rise from a wind kiss on the flowers in the moonlight. A new land calls to the last of the Crows, northward where the wild goose ends its flight. Sienna will father a great people. So Sienna, the hunter of the leafy trails, dreamed his dreams and at sixteen he was the hope of the remnant of a once powerful tribe. A stripling chief, beautiful as a bronzed autumn god, silent, proud, forever listening to voices on the wind. To Sienna the lore of the woodland came as flight comes to the strong wind while foul. The secrets of the forest were his and of the rocks and rivers. He knew how to find the nests of the plover, to call the loon, to net the heron and spear the fish. He understood the language of the whispering pines, where the deer came down to drink and caribou browsed on moss and the white rabbit nibbled in the grass and the beard dug in the logs for grubs, all these he learned. And also when the black flies drove the moose into the water and when the hunk of the geese meant the approach of the north wind. He lived in the woods with his bow, his net and his spear. The trees were his brothers. The loon laugh for his happiness, the wolf mourn for his sadness. The bold crag above the river, old stone face, heard his step when he climbed there in the twilight. He communed with the stern god of his ancestors and watched the flashing northern lights and listened. From all four corners came his spirit guides with steps of destiny on his trail. On all the four winds breathed voices whispering of his future. Loudest of all called the Athabasca, God-forsaken river, murmuring of the bride-born of a wind kiss on the flowers in the moonlight. It was autumn with the flame of leaf fading, the haze rolling out of the hollows, the low yielding to moan of coming wind. All the signs of the severe winter were in the hulls of the nuts, in the fur of the foxes, in the flight of waterfowl, Siena was spearing fish for winter store, none so keen of sight as Siena, so swift of arm, and as he was the hope so he alone was the provider for the starving tribe. Siena stood to his knees in a brook where it flowed over its gravely bed into the Athabasca. Poised high was his wooden spear. It glinted downward, swift as a shaft of sunlight through the leaves. Then Siena lifted a quivering white fish and tossed it upon the bank, where his mother, Ima, with other women of the tribe, sun-dried the fish upon a rock. Again and again many times flashed the spear. The young chief seldom missed his aim. Early frosts on the uplands had driven the fish down to deeper water, and as they came darting over the bright pebbles, Siena called them by name. The oldest squaw could not remember such a run of fish. Ima sang the praises of her son. The other women ceased the hunger chant of the tribe. Suddenly a horse shout peeled out over the waves. Ima fell in a fright, for companions ran away. Siena leaped upon the bank, clutching his spear, a boat in which men with white faces drifted down toward him. Alo again sounded the horse cry. Ima cowered in the grass. Siena saw a waving of white hands. His knees knocked together, and he felt himself about to flee. But Siena of the Crows, the savior of a vanishing tribe, must not fly from visible foes. Pale faces, he whispered, trembling, yet stood his ground ready to fight for his mother. He remembered stories of an old Indian who had journeyed far to the south and had crossed the trails of the dreaded white men. There stirred in him vague memories of strange Indian runners at far tales of white hunters with weapons of lightning and thunder. Nasa, Nasa, Siena cast one fleeting glance to the north in a prayer to his God of Gods. He believed his spirit would soon be wandering in the shades of the other Indian world. As the boat beached on the sand, Siena saw men lying with pale faces upward to the sky and voices in an unknown tongue greeted him. The tone was friendly, and he lowered his threatening spear. Then a man came up the bank, his hungry eyes on the pile of fish, and he began to speak haltingly and mingled Cree and chip away in language. Boy, we're white friends, starving. Let us buy fish, trade for fish. We're starving, and we have many moons to travel. Siena's tribe is poor, replied the land. Sometimes they starve, too. But Siena will divide his fish and wants no trade. His mother, seeing the white men intend it no evil, came out of her frighten, complained bitterly to Siena of his liberality. She spoke of the menacing winter of the frozen streams, the snowbound forest, the long night of hunger. Siena silenced her and waved the frighten braves and squaws back to their wigwams. Siena is young, he said simply, but he is chief here. If we starve, we starve. Whereupon he portioned out a half of the fish. The white men built a fire and sat around it, feasting like famished wolves around a fallen stag. When they had appeased their hunger, they packed the remaining fish in the boat, whistling and singing the while. Then the leader made offer to pay, which Siena refused, though the covetous light in his mother's eyes heard him, sorely. Chief said the leader. The white man understands. Now he offers presents as one chief to another. Thereupon he proffered bright beads and tinsel trinkets, yards of calico and strips of cloth. Siena accepted with a dignity in market contrast to the way in which the greedy Eema pounced upon the glittering heap. Next the pale face presented a knife, which, drawn from its scabbard, showed a blade that mirrored its brightness in Siena's eyes. Chief, your woman complains of a starving tribe when on the white men. Are there not many moose and reindeer? Yes, but seldom can Siena creep within range of his arrow. Aha! Siena will starve no more, replied the man, and from the boat he took a long iron tube with a wooden stock. What is that, asked Siena? The wonderful shooting stick. Here, boy, watch! See the bark on the campfire. Watch! He raised the stick to his shoulder, then followed a streak of flame, a puff of smoke, a booming report. In the bark of the campfire flew into bits. The children dodged into the wigwams with loud cries. The women ran screaming. Eema dropped in the grass well but the end of the world had come while Siena, unable to move hand or foot, breathed at another prayer to Naza of the Northland. The white men laughed and patting Siena's arm he said no fear. Then he drew Siena away from the bank and began to explain the meaning and use of the wonderful shooting stick. He reloaded it and fired again and yet again until Siena understood was all a flame at the possibilities of such a weapon. Patiently the white man taught the Indian how to load it, sight and shoot and how to clean it with ramrod and buckskin. Next he placed at Siena's feet a keg of powder, a bag of lead bullets and boxes full of caps. Then he bade Siena farewell, entered the boat with his men and grifted round a bend of the swift Athavasca. Siena stood alone upon the bank, with a wonderful shooting stick in his hands and the wail of his frightened mother in his ears. He comforted her, telling her the white men were gone, that he was safe and that the prophecy of his birth had at last begun its fulfillment. He carried the precious ammunition to a safe hiding place in a hollow log near his Waguang and then he plunged into the forest. Siena bent his course toward the runways of the moose. He walked in a kind of dream where he both feared and believed. Soon the glimmer of water, splashes and widening ripples caused him to crawl stealthily through the ferns and grasses to the border of a pond. The familiar hum of flies told him of the location of his quarry. The moose had taken to the water, driven by the swarms of black flies and were standing neck deep, lifting their muzzles to feed on the drooping poplar branches. Their widespread antlers, tipped back into the water, made the ripples. Trumbling as never before, Siena sank behind a log. He was within fifty paces of the moose, how often in that very spot had he strung a feathered arrow and shot it vainly. But now he had the white man's weapon, charged with lightning and thunder. Just then the poplar's parted above the shore, disclosing a bull in the act of stepping down. He tossed his antlered head at the cloud of humming flies then stopped, lifting his nose to scent the wind. Nasa whispered Siena in his swelling throat. He rested the shooting stick on the log and tried to see over the brown barrel, but his eyes were dim. Again he whispered a prayer to Nasa. His sight cleared, his shaking arms stilled, and with his soul waiting, hoping, doubting, he aimed and pulled the trigger. Boom! High the moose flung his ponderous head to crash down upon his knees to roll in the water and churn a bloody foam that then lies still. Siena, Siena, shrill the young chief's exultant yell peeled over the listening waters, piercing the still forest to ring back an echo from old stone face. With Siena's triumphant call to his forefathers, watching him from the silence, the herd of moose plowed out of the pond and crashed into the woods where, long after they had disappeared there, antlers could be heard cracking the saplings. When Siena stood over the dead moose, his doubts fled. He was indeed God-chosen, no longer chief of a starving trod. Revently and with immutable promise he raised the shooting stick to the north toward Nasa who had remembered him, and on the south were dwelt the enemies of his trod, his dark glance brooded, wild and proud and savage. Eight times the shooting stick boomed out in the stillness, and eight moose lay dead in the wet grasses. In the twilight Siena wended his way home and placed eight moose tongues before the whimpering squaws. Siena is no longer a boy, he said. Siena is a hunter. Let his woman go bring in the meat. Then to the rejoicing and feasting and dancing of his tribe he turned a deaf ear and in the night passed alone under the shadow of old stone face where he walked with the spirits of his ancestors and believed the voices on the wind. Before the ice locked the pond Siena killed a hundred moose and reindeer. Meat and fat and oil and robes changed the world for the crow tribe. Fires burned brightly all the long winter. The braves awoke from their stupor and chanted no more. The women sang of the Siena who had come and prayed for summer wind and moonlight to bring his bride. Spring went by, summer grew into blazing autumn, in Siena's fame and the wonder of the shooting stick spread through the length and breadth of the land. Another year passed, then another. In Siena was the great chief of the rejuvenated crows. He had grown into a warrior stature. His face had the beauty of the God chosen. His eye the falcon flash of the Sienas of old. Long communion in the shadow of old stone face had added wisdom to his other gifts and now to his worshiping tribe. All that was needed to complete the prophecy of his birth was the coming of the alien bride. It was another autumn, with the wind whipping the tamaracks and moaning in the pines. In Siena stole along a brown fern-lined trail. The dry smell of fallen leaves filled his nostrils. He tasted snow and the keen breezes. The flowers were dead and in still no dark-eyed bride sat in his wigwong. Siena sorrowed and strengthened his heart to wait. He saw her flitting in the shadows around him, a wraith with dusky eyes veiled by dusky wind-blown hair. And ever she hovered near him, whispering from every dark pine, from every waving tuft of grass. To her whispers he replied, Siena waits. He wondered of what alien tribe she would come. He hoped not of the unfriendly chip-awayans or the far-distant Blackfeet, surely not of the hostile Cree's, life-enemies of his tribe, destroyers of its once-huicent strength, jealous now of its resurging power. Other shadows flitted through the forest, spirits that rose silently from the graze over which he trod, and warned him of double steps on his trail, of unseen foes watching him from the dark culverts. His braves had repeated gossip, filtrings from stray Indian wanderers, hinting of plots against the risen Siena. To all these he gave no heed, for was not he Siena, God-chosen, and had he not the wonderful shooting stick? It was the season that he loved when dim forest and hazy fernland spoke most impellingly. The tamaracks talked to him, the poplars bowed as he passed, and the pines sang for him alone. The dying vines twined about his feet and clung to him, and the brown ferns, curling sadly, waved him a welcome that was a farewell. The bird twittered a plaintive note, and a loon whistled a lonely call. Across the wide grey hollows and meadows of white moss moaned the north wind, bending all before it, blowing full into Siena's face with its bitter promise. The lichen-covered rocks and the rugged barked trees and the creatures that moved among them, the world of earth and air heard Siena's step on the rustling leaves in a thousand voices, hummed in the autumn stillness. So he passed through the shadowy forest and over the grey muskeg flats to his hunting place. With his birch bark horn he blew the call of the moose. He alone of hunting Indians had the perfect moose call. There, hidden within a thicket, he waited, calling and listening till an angry reply bellowed and a bull-moose snorting fight came cracking the saplings in his rush when he sprang fierce and bristly into the glade Siena killed him, then, laying his shooting stick over a log, he drew his knife and approached the beast. A snapping of twigs alarmed Siena and he whirled upon the defensive but too late to save himself. A band of Indians pounced upon him and bore him to the ground. One wrestling heave Siena made then he was overpowered and bound. Looking upward he knew his captors though he had never seen them before. They were the lifelong foes of his people, the fighting Crees. A sturdy chief, bronze of face and sinister of eye looked grimly down upon his captive. Baroma makes Siena a slave. Siena and his tribe were dragged far southward to the land of the Crees. The young chief was bound upon a block in the centre of the village where hundreds of Crees spat upon him, beat him and outraged him in every way their cunning could devise. Siena's gaze was on the north and his face showed no sign that he felt the torments. At last Baroma's old advisors stopped the spectacle, saying this is a man. Siena and his people became slaves of the Crees. In Baroma's lodge hung upon carapoo antlers was the wonderful shooting stick with Siena's powder horn and bullet pouch, objects of intense curiosity and fear. None knew the mystery of this lightning flashing, thunderedealing thing, none dared touch it. The heart of Siena was broken, not for his shattered dreams or the end of his freedom, but for his people. His fame had been there undoing, slaves to the murderers of his forefathers, his spirit darkened, his soul sickened. No more did sweet voices faint to him on the wind, and his mind welled apart from his body among shadows and dim shapes. Because of his strength he was worked like a dog at hauling packs and carrying wood. Because of his fame he was set to cleaning fish and washing vessels with the squaws. Seldom did he get to speak a word to his mother or any of his people. Always he was driven. One day when he lagged almost fainting, a maiden brought her to drink. Siena looked up, and all about him suddenly brightened as when sunlight burst from cloud. Who was kind to Siena, he asked drinking. Oroma's daughter replied the maiden. What is her name? Quickly the maiden bent her head, veiling dusky eyes with dusky hair. Emi Haya. Siena has wandered on lonely trails and listened to voices not meant to hear. He has heard the music of Emi Haya on the winds, let the daughter of Siena's great foe, not fear to tell of her name. Emi Haya means a wind kiss on the flowers in the moonlight. She whispered shyly and fled. Love came to the last of the Sienas, and it was like a glory. Death shuddered no more in Siena's soul. He saw unto the future and out chosen in his own sight with such added beauty to his stern face and power to his piercing eye and strength to his lofty frame that the Cree's quailed before him and marveled. Once more sweet voices came to him, and ever on the soft winds were songs of the dewy moorlands to the northward, songs of the pines and the laugh of the loon and of the rushing green-white thundering at the baska, god-forsaken river. Siena's people saw him strong and patient, and they toiled on, unbroken, faithful. While he lived, the pride of Baroma was vaulting. Siena waits for the simple words he said to his mother, and she repeated them as wisdom. But the flame of his eye was like the leaping northern lights, and it kept alive the fire deep down in their breasts. In the winter when the Cree's lulled in their wigwams, as labor fell to Siena, he set traps in the snow trails for Silver Fox and Martin. No Cree had ever been such a trapper as Siena, and the long months he captured many furs with which he wrought a robe, the like of which had not before been the delight of a maiden's eye. He kept it by him for seven nights, and always during this time his ear was turned to the wind. The seventh night was the night when the torches burned bright in front of Baroma's lodge. Siena took the robe and passing slowly and stately till he stood before Emihaia. He laid it at her feet. Emihaia's dusky face paled, her eyes that shone like stars drooped behind her flying hair, and all her slender body trembled. Slave cried Baroma, leaping erect. Come closer that Baroma may see what kind of a dog Emihaia. Siena met Baroma's gaze, but spoke no word. His gift spoke for him. The hated slave had dared to ask and marriage the hand of the proud Baroma's daughter. Siena towered in the firelight with something in his presence that, for a moment, awed the holders. Then the passionate and untried braves broke the silence with a clamor of the wolf pack. Baroma strung an arrow to his bow and shot it into Siena's hip where it stuck with feathered shaft quivering. The spring of the panther was not swifter than Siena. He tossed silly monk into the air and fling him down trod on his neck and wrenched the bow away. Siena peeled out the long-drawn war-whoop of his tribe that had not been heard for a hundred years and the terrible cries stiffened the crease in their tracks. The arrow from his hip and fitting it to the string pointed the gory flint at it till he monk was eyes and began to bend the bow. He bent the tough wood till the ends almost met, a feat of exceeding strife and thus he stood with brawny arms knotted and stretched. A scream rent the suspense. Emi Haia fell upon her knees. Spare Emi Haia's brother. Siena cast one glance at the kneeling maiden, then twang he shot the arrow toward the sky. Boroma slave as Siena he said with scorn like the lash of a whip let the cre learn wisdom. Then Siena strode away with a stream of dark blood down his thigh and went to his brush tepee where he closed his wound. In the still watches of the night when the stars blinked through the leaves and the dew fell when Siena burned and throbbed in pain a shadow passed between his weary eyes and the pale light and a voice that was not one of the spirit voices on the wind called softly over him. Siena. Emi Haia comes. The maiden bound the hot thigh with a soothing balm and bathed his fevered brow. Then her hands found his in tender touch her dark face bent low to his her hair lay upon his cheek. Emi Haia keeps the robe she said. Loves Emi Haia he replied. Emi Haia loves Siena she whispered. She kissed him and stole away. On the morrow Siena's wound was as if it had never been no eyes saw his pain. Siena returned to his work in his trapping. The winter melted into spring spring flowered into summer summer withered into autumn. Once in the melancholy days Siena visited Baroma Baroma's hunters are slow. Siena sees a famine in the land. Let Baroma's slave keep his place among the squaws was the reply. That autumn the north wind came a moon before the Crees expected it. The reindeer took their annual march farther south. The moose herded warily in open groves. The whitefish did not run and the seven year pest depleted the rabbits. Baroma called a council and then sent his hunting braves far and wide. One by one they straggled back to camp foot sore and hungry. In each with the same story it was too late. A few moose were in the forest but they were wild and kept far out of range of the hunters' arrows and there was no other game. A blizzard clapped down upon the camp in sleet and snow whiten the forest and filled the trails. The winter froze everything in icy clutch. The old year drew to a close. The Crees were on the brink of famine. All day and all night they kept up their chanting and incantations and beating of tom-toms to conjure the return of the reindeer but no reindeer appeared. It was then that the stubborn Baroma yielded to his advisors and consented to let Siena save them from starvation by means of his wonderful shooting stick. Accordingly Baroma sent word to Siena to appear at his wigwong. Siena did not go and said to the medicine men tell Baroma soon it will be for Siena to demand. Then the Cree chieftain stormed and stamped in his wigwong and swore away the life of his slave. Yet again the wise medicine men prevailed. Siena and the wonderful shooting stick would be the salvation of the Crees. Baroma muttering deep in his throat like distant thunder gave sentence to star Siena until he volunteered to go forth to hunt or let him be the first to die. The last scraps of meat except a little hoarded in Baroma's lodge were devoured and then began the boiling of bones and skins to make a soup to sustain life. The cold days passed and a silent gloom pervaded the camp. Sometimes a cry of a bereaved mother mourning for a starved child wailed through the darkness. Siena's people, long use of starvation, did not suffer or grow weak so soon as the Crees. They were of heartier frame and they were upheld by faith in their chief. When he would sicken it would be time for them to despair but Siena walked erect as in the days of his freedom nor did he stagger under the loads of firewood and there was a light on his face. The Crees knowing of Baroma's order that Siena should be the first to perish of starvation gazed at the sleigh first in awe then in fear. The last of the Sienas was succoured by the spirits. But God chosen though Siena deemed himself he knew it was not by the spirits that he was fed in this time of famine. At night in the dead stillness over the frozen wilderness Siena lay in his brush tepee close and warm under his blanket. The wind was faint and low yet still it brought the old familiar voices. And it bore another sound the soft fall of a moccasin on the snow. A shadow passed between Siena's eyes in the pale light. Amihaya comes whispered the shadow and knelt over him. She tendered a slice of meat from Baroma's scant horde as he muttered and growled in uneasy slumber. Every night since her father's order to starve Siena Amihaya had made this perilous errand and now her hand sought his and her dusky hair swept his brow. Amihaya is faithful she breathed low. Siena only waits he replied. She kissed him and stole away. Cruel days fell upon the Crees where Baroma's pride was broken. Many children died and some of the mothers were beyond help. Siena's people kept their strength and he himself showed no effect of hunger. Long ago the Kree women had deemed him superhuman that the great spirit fed him from the happy hunting grounds. At last Baroma went to Siena. Siena may save his people and the Crees. Siena regarded him long then replied. Siena waits. Let Baroma know what does Siena wait for while he waits we die. Siena smiled his slow inscrutable smile and turned away. Baroma sent for his daughter and ordered her to plead for her life. Amihaya came fragile as a swaying wreath more beautiful than a rose choked in a tangled thicket. She stood before Siena with her child. Amihaya begs Siena to save her and the tribe of Crees. Siena waits, replied the slave. Baroma roared in his fury and bait his brave slashed the slave, but the blows fell from feeble arms and Siena laughed at his captors. Then like a wild lion unleashed from long frail he turned upon them. Starve, Cree dog, starve when the Crees all fall like leaves and Siena and his people will go back to the north. Baroma's arrogance left him then, and on another day when Amihaya lay weak in pallid in his wigwam the pangs of hunger gnawed at his own vitals, and he again sought Siena. Let Siena tell for what he waits. Siena rose to his lofty height in the leaping flame of the northern light gathered in his eyes. Freedom! One word he spoke rolled away on the wind. Baroma yields, replied the Cree, and hung his head. Send the squaws who can walk and the braves who can crawl out upon Siena's trail. Then Siena went to Baroma's lodge and took up a wonderful shooting stick and loading it he set out upon snowshoes into the white forest. He knew where to find the mooseyards in the sheltered corners. He heard the bulls pounding the hard-pack in their antlers on the trees. The wary beast would not have allowed him to steal clothes as a warrior armed with a bull must have done, but Siena fired into the herd at long range, and when they dashed off, sending the snow up like a spray, a huge black bull lay dead. Siena followed them as they floundered through the drifts, and whenever he came within range he shot again. When five moose were killed, he turned upon the whole Cree tribe had followed him and were tearing the meat and crying out in a kind of crazy joy. That night the fires burned before the wigwams. The earthen pot steamed and there was great rejoicing. Siena hunted the next day, and the next for ten days he went into the white forest with his wonderful shooting stick, and eighty moose fell to his unerring aim. The famine was broken and the Cree's were saved. When the mad dances ended and the feasts were over, Siena appeared before Baroma's lodge. Siena will lead his people northward. Baroma starving was a different chief from Baroma well fed and in no pain. All his cunning had returned. Siena goes free. Baroma gave his word, but Siena's people remain slaves. Siena demanded freedom for himself and people said the younger chief. Baroma heard no word of Siena's tribe. He would not have granted freedom for them. Siena's freedom was enough. The Cree twist the truth. He knows Siena would not go without his people. Siena might have remembered Baroma's cunning. The Cree's were ever liars. Baroma stalked before his fire with haughty presence, about him in the circle of lights at his medicine men, his braves and squas. The Cree is kind. He gave his word. Siena is free. Let him take his wonderful shooting stick and go back to the north. Siena laid the shooting stick at Baroma's feet and likewise the powder horn and bullet pouch. Then he folded his arms and his falcon eyes looked far beyond Baroma to the land of the changing lights and the old home on the green-white rushing Athabasca, god-forsaken river. Siena stays. Baroma started in amaze and anger. Siena makes Baroma's word idle, begun. Siena stays. The look of Siena, the peeling reply for a moment held the chief moot. Slowly Baroma stretched wide his arms and lifted them while from his face flashed a sullen wonder, great slave he thundered. So was respect forced from the soul of Siena, and a name thus rung from his jealous heart was one to live forever in the lives and legends of Siena's people. Baroma sought the silence of his lodge and his medicine men and braves dispersed, leaving Siena standing in the circle, a magnificent statue facing the steely north. From that day insult was never offered to Siena, nor word spoken to him by the go where he willed, and he spent his time in lessening the tass of his people. The trails of the forest were always open to him, as were the streets of the Kree village. If a brave met him it was to step aside, if a squaw met him it was to bow her head. The chief met him it was to face him as warriors faced warriors. One twilight Emi Haya crossed his path and suddenly she stood as her like a frail reed about to break in the wind. But Siena passed on. The days went by and each one brought less flavor to Siena's people. Until that one came wherein there was no tass save what they set themselves. Siena's tribe were slaves, yet not slaves. The winter wore by in the spring and the autumn, and again Siena's fame went abroad on the four winds. The great slave, and likewise the black feet and the yellow knives. Honor would have been added to fame. Councils called, overtures made to the somber baroma on behalf of the great slave, but Siena passed to and from among his people, silent and cold to all others, true to the place which his great foe had given him. Captive to a lesser chief they said the great slave who would yet a new and powerful nation. Once in the late autumn Siena sat brooding in the twilight by Ema's tepee. That night all who came near him were silent. Again Siena was listening to voices on the wind, voices that had been still for long which he had tried to forget. It was the north wind and it whipped the spruces and moaned through the pines. In its cold breath it bore a message to the coming winter and a call from Naza far north of the green-white, thundering Athabasca river without a spirit. In the darkness when the camp slumbered Siena faced the steely north as he looked a golden shaft arrow-shaped and arrow-swift shot to the zenith. Naza he whispered to the wind. Siena watches. Then the gleaming changing northern lights painted gold and silver bars a flushest pinkish shell of opal fire and sunset red and it was a picture of Siena's life from the moment the rushing Athabasca rumbled his name to the far distant time when he would say farewell to his great nation and pass forever to the retreat of the winds. God chosen he was and had power to read the story in the sky. Seven nights Siena watched in the seventh night when the golden flare and silver shafts fainted in the north. He passed from tipi to tipi, awakening his people. When Siena's people hear the sound of the shooting stick let them cry greatly. Siena kills Baroma. Siena kills Baroma. With noiseless stride Siena went among the wigwams and along the lanes until he reached Baroma's lodge entering in the dark he groped a mousses antlers and found the shooting stick. Outside he fired it into the air. Like a lightning bolt the report ripped us under the silence and the echoes clapped and re-clapped from the cliffs. Sharp on the dying echoes Siena bellied his warhub and it was the second time in a hundred years for foes to hear that terrible long-drawn cry. Then followed the shrill yells of Siena's people. Siena kills Baroma. Siena kills Baroma. Siena kills Baroma. The slumber of the Crees awoke to a babel of many voices. It rose orcely on the night air swelled hideously into a deafening roar that shook the earth. In this din of confusion and terror when the Crees were lamenting the supposed death of Baroma and screaming in each other's ears the great slave takes his freedom. Siena ran to his people and pointed to the north drove them before him. Single file like a long line of flitting specters they passed out of the fields into the forest Siena kept close on their trail ever looking backward and ready with a shooting stick. The roar of the stricken Crees softened in his ears and at last died away. Under the black canopy of whispering leaves over the grey mist shrouded muskeg flats around the ring-read bordered ponds Siena drove his people. All night Siena hurried them northward and with every stride his heart beat higher. Only he was troubled by a sound like the voice that came to him on the wind. But the wind was now blowing in his face and the sound appeared to be at his back. It followed on his trail as had the step of destiny. When he strained his ears he could not hear it yet when he suddenly fancied then the voice that was not a voice came haunting him. And the grey dawn Siena halted on the far side of a grey flat and peered through the mists on his back trail. Something moved out among the shadows a grey shape that crept slowly uttering a mournful cry. Siena is trailed by a wolf muttered the chief. Yet he waited and saw that the wolf was an Indian. He raised the flag as the Indian staggered forward. Siena recognized the robe of Silver Fox and Martin his gift to Emi Haya. He laughed in mockery. It was a creed trick. Tilly Mankwa had led the pursuit disguised in his sister's robe. Varoma would find his son dead on the great slave's trail. Siena came the strange low cry. It was the cry that had haunted him like the voice on the wind. He leaped as a bounding deer out of the grey fog burnt dusky eyes, half-failed by dusky hair in little hands that he knew wavered as fluttering leaves. Emi Haya comes, she said. Siena waits, he replied. Far to the northward he led his bride and his people far beyond the old home on the green-white thundering Athabasca, God-forsaken river, and there on the lonely shores of an inland sea he fathered the great slave tribe. And of the great slave by Zane Gray. The Great Stone Face by Nathaniel Hawthorne from Little Masterpieces edited by Bliss Perry. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Grace Buchanan. The Great Stone Face One afternoon when the sun was going down a mother and her little boy sat at the door of their cottage talking about the great stone face. They had but to lift their eyes and there it was plainly to be seen though miles away with the sunshine brightening all its features. And what was the great stone face? Embusomed amongst a family of lofty mountains there was a valley so spacious that it contained many thousand inhabitants. Some of these good people dwelt in log huts with the black forest all around them on the steep and difficult hillsides. Others had their homes in comfortable farmhouses and cultivated the rich soil on the gentle slopes or level surfaces of the valley. Others again were congregated into populous villages where some wild highland rivulet tumbling down from its birthplace in the upper mountain region had been caught and tamed by human cunning and compelled to turn the machinery of cotton factories. The inhabitants of this valley in short were numerous and of many modes of life. But all of them their own people and children had a kind of familiarity with the great stone face. Although some possessed the gift of distinguishing this grand natural phenomenon more perfectly than many of their neighbors, the great stone face then was a work of nature in her mood of majestic playfulness formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain by some immense rocks which had been thrown together in such a position as when viewed at a proper distance precisely to resemble the features of the human countenance. It seemed as if an enormous giant or a titan had sculptured his own likeness on the precipice. There was the broad arch of the forehead a hundred feet in height, the nose with its long bridge and the vast lips which if they could have spoken would have rolled their thunder accents from one end of the valley to the other. True it is that if the spectator approached too near he lost the outline of the giant visage and could discern only a heap of ponderous and gigantic rocks piled in chaotic ruin one upon another. Retracing his steps however, the wondrous features would again be seen and the farther he withdrew from them the more like a human face with all its original divinity intact did they appear until it grew dim in the distance with the clouds and glorified vapor of the mountains clustering about it the great stone face seemed positively to be alive. It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood with the great stone face before their eyes for all the features were noble and the expression was at once grand and sweet as if it were the glow of a vast warm heart that embraced all mankind in its affections and had room for more. It was an education only to look at it. According to the belief of many people the valley owed much of its fertility to this benign aspect that was continually beaming over it illuminating the clouds and infusing its tenderness into the sunshine. As we began with saying a mother and her little boy sat at their cottage door gazing at the great stone face and talking about it mother said he while a titanic visage smiled on him I wish that it could speak for it looks so very kindly that its voice must needs be pleasant if I were to see a man with such a face I should love him dearly. If an old prophecy should come to pass answered his mother we may see a man some time or other with exactly such a face as that. What prophecy do you mean dear mother eagerly inquired Ernest pray tell me all about it. So his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her when she herself was younger than little Ernest a story not of things that were passed but of what was yet to come a story nevertheless so very old that even the Indians who formerly inhabited this valley had heard it from their forefathers to whom as they affirmed it had been murmured by the mountain streams and whispered by the wind among the treetops the purport was that at some future day a child should be born hereabouts who was destined to become the greatest and noblest personage of this time and whose countenance in manhood should bear an exact resemblance to the great stone face not a few old fashioned people and young ones likewise in the ardor of their hopes still cherished an enduring faith in this old prophecy but others who had seen more of the world had watched and waited till they were weary and had beheld no man with such a face nor any man that proved to be much greater or nobler than his neighbors to be nothing but an idle tale at all events the great man of the prophecy had not yet appeared oh mother dear mother cried earnest clapping his hands above his head I do hope that I shall live to see him his mother was an affectionate and thoughtful woman and felt that it was wisest not to discourage the generous hopes of her little boy so she only said to him perhaps you may and earnest never forgot the story that his mother told him it was always in his mind whenever he looked upon the great stone face he spent his childhood in the log cottage where he was born and was dutiful to his mother and helpful to her in many things assisting her much with his little hands and more with his loving heart in this manner to be yet often pensive child he grew up to be a mild quiet unobtrusive boy and sun-browned with labour in the fields but more intelligence brightening his aspect than is seen in many lads who have been taught at famous schools yet earnest had had no teacher save only that the great stone face became one to him while of the day was over he would gaze at it for hours until he began to imagine that those vast features recognized him and gave him a smile of kindness and encouragement responsive to his own look of veneration we must not take upon us to affirm that this was a mistake although the face may have looked no more kindly at earnest than at all the world besides but the secret was that the boy's tender and confiding simplicity discerned what other people could not see and thus the love which was meant for all became his peculiar portion about this time there went a rumour throughout the valley that the great man foretold from ages long ago who was to bear a resemblance to the great stone face had appeared at last it seemed that many years before a young man had migrated from the valley and settled at a distant seaport where after getting together a little money had set up as a shopkeeper his name but I never could learn whether it was his real one or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and success in life was gather gold being shrewd and active and endowed by providence with that inscrutable faculty which develops itself in what the world calls luck he became an exceedingly rich merchant and owner of a whole fleet of bulky bottom ships all the countries of the globe appeared to join hands for the mere purpose of adding heap after heap to the mountainous accumulation of this one man's wealth the cold regions of the north almost within the gloom and shadow of the Arctic circle sent him their tribute in the shape of furs hot Africa sifted for him the golden sands of her rivers and gathered up the ivory tusks of her great elephants out of the forests the east came bringing him the rich shawls and spices and teas and the effulgence of diamonds and the gleaming purity of large pearls the ocean not to be behindhand with the earth yielded up her mighty whales that Mr. Gather Gold might sell their oil and make a profit on it be the original commodity what it might it was gold within his grasp it might be said of him as of Midas and the fable that whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened and grew yellow and was changed at once into sterling metal which suited him still better into piles of coin and when Mr. Gather Gold became so very rich that it would have taken him a hundred years only to count his wealth he be thought himself of his native valley and resolved to go back thither and end his days where he was born with this purpose and view he sent a skillful architect to build him such a palace that he would be fit for a man of his vast wealth to live in as I have said above it had already been rumored in the valley that Mr. Gather Gold had turned out to be the prophetic personage so long and vainly looked for and that his visage was the perfect and undeniable similitude of the great stone face people were the more ready to believe that this must needs be the fact when they beheld the splendid edifice that rose as if by enchantment on the sight of his father's old weather-beaten farmhouse the exterior was of marbles so dazzlingly white that it seemed as though the whole structure might melt away in the sunshine like those humbler ones which Mr. Gather Gold in his young play days before his fingers were gifted with the touch of transmutation destined to build of snow it had a richly ornamented portico supported by tall pillars beneath which was a lofty door studded with silver knobs and made of a kind of variegated wood that had been brought from beyond the sea the windows from the floor to the ceiling of each stately apartment were composed respectively of but one enormous pain of glass so transparently pure that it was said to be a finer medium than even the vacant atmosphere hardly anybody had been permitted to see the interior of this palace but it was reported and with good semblance of truth to be far more gorgeous than the outside in so much that whatever was iron or brass in other houses was silver or gold and Mr. Gather Gold's bedchamber especially made such a glittering appearance that no ordinary man would have been able to close his eyes there but on the other hand Mr. Gather Gold was now so inured to wealth that perhaps he could not have closed his eyes unless where the gleam of it was certain to find its way beneath his eyelids in due time the mansion was finished next came the upholsterers with magnificent furniture then a whole troop of black and white servants the harbingers of Mr. Gather Gold who in his own majestic person was expected to arrive at sunset our friend Ernest meanwhile had been deeply stirred by the idea that a great man, the noble man the man of prophecy after so many ages of delay was at length to be made manifest to his native valley he knew boy as he was that there were a thousand ways in which Mr. Gather Gold with his vast wealth might transform himself into an angel of beneficence and assume a control over human affairs as wide and benignant as the smile of the great stone face full of faith and hope Ernest doubted not that what the people said was true and that now he was to behold the living likeness of those wondrous features on the mountain side while the boy was still gazing up the valley and fancying as he always did that the great stone face returned his gaze and looked kindly at him the rumbling of wheels was heard approaching swiftly along the winding road here comes cried a group of people who were assembled to witness the arrival here comes the great Mr. Gather Gold a carriage drawn by four horses dashed round the turn of the road within it thrust partly out of the window appeared the physiognomy of a little old man with a skin as yellow as if his own mightest hand had transmuted it he had a low forehead small sharp eyes puckered about with innumerable wrinkles and very thin lips which he made still thinner by pressing them forcibly together the very image of the great stone face shouted the people sure enough the old prophecy is true and here we have the great man come at last and what greatly perplexed earnest they seemed actually to believe that here was the likeness which they spoke of by the roadside their chance to be an old beggar woman and two little beggar children stragglers from some far off region who as the carriage rolled onward held out their hands and lifted up their doleful voices most piteously beseeching charity a yellow claw the very same that had clawed together so much wealth poked itself out of the coach window and dropped some copper coins upon the ground so that though the great man's name seems to have been gathered gold he might just as suitably have been nicknamed scatter copper still nevertheless with an earnest shout and evidently with as much good faith as ever the people bellowed he is the very image of the great stone face but earnest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of that sordid visage and gazed up the valley where amid a gathering mist gilded by the last sunbeams he could still distinguish those glorious features which had impressed themselves into his soul their aspect cheered him what did the benign lips seem to say he will come fear not earnest the man will the years went on and earnest ceased to be a boy he had grown to be a young man now he attracted little notice from the other inhabitants of the valley for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life save that when the labor of the day was over he still loved to go apart and gaze and meditate upon the great stone face according to their idea of the matter it was a folly indeed but pardonable in as much as earnest was industrious kind and neighborly and neglected no duty for the sake of indulging this idle habit they knew not that the great stone face had become a teacher to him and that the sentiment which was expressed in it would enlarge the young man's heart and fill it with wider and deeper sympathies than other hearts they knew not that thence would come a better wisdom than could be learned from books and a better life than could be molded on the defaced example of other human lives neither did earnest know the actions which came to him so naturally in the fields and at the fireside and wherever he communed with himself were of a higher tone than those which all men shared with him a simple soul simple as when his mother first taught him the old prophecy he beheld the marvelous features beaming a down the valley and still wondered that their human counterpart was so long in making his appearance by this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and buried and the oddest part of the matter was that his wealth which was the body and spirit of his existence had disappeared before his death leaving nothing of him but a living skeleton covered over with a wrinkled yellow skin since the melting away of his gold it had been very generally conceded that there was no such striking resemblance after all betwixt the ignoble features of the ruined merchant and that majestic face upon the mountainside so the people ceased to honor him during his lifetime and quietly consigned him to forgetfulness after his decease once in a while it is true his memory was brought up in connection with the magnificent palace which he had built in which had long ago been turned into a hotel for the accommodation of strangers multitudes of whom came every summer to visit that famous natural curiosity the great stone face thus Mr. Gathergold being discredited and thrown into the shade the man of prophecy was yet to come it so happened that a native born son of the valley many years before had enlisted as a soldier and after a great deal of hard fighting had now become an illustrious commander whatever he may be called in history he was known in camps and on the battlefield under the nickname of old blood and thunder this war-worn veteran being now infirm with age and wounds and weary of the turmoil of a military life and of the role of the drum and the languor of the trumpet that had so long been ringing in his ears had lately signified a purpose of returning to his native valley hoping to find repose where he remembered to have left it the inhabitants his old neighbors and their grown up children were resolved to welcome the renowned warrior with a salute of canon and a public dinner and all the more enthusiastically it being affirmed that now at last the likeness of the great stone face had actually appeared an aid to camp of old blood and thunder traveling through the valley was said to have been struck with the resemblance moreover the schoolmates and early acquaintances of the general were ready to testify on oath that to the best of their recollection the aforesaid general had been exceedingly like the majestic image even what a boy only that the idea had never occurred to them at that period great therefore was the excitement through the valley and many people who had never once thought of glancing at the great stone face four years before now spent their time engaging at it for the sake of knowing exactly how general blood and thunder looked on the day of the great festival earnest with all the other people in the valley left their work and proceeded to the spot where the sylvan banquet was prepared as he approached the loud voice of the reverend doctor battleblast was heard beseeching a blessing on the good things set before them and on the distinguished friend of peace in whose honor they were assembled the tables were arranged in a cleared space of the woods shut in by the surrounding trees except where a vista opened eastward and afforded a distant view of the great stone face over the general's chair which was a relic from the home of washington there was an arch of verdant boughs with the laurel profusely intermixed and surmounted by his country's banner beneath which he had won his victories our friend earnest raised himself on his tiptoes in hopes to get a glimpse of the celebrated guest but there was a mighty crowd about the tables anxious to hear the toasts and speeches and to catch any word that might fall from the general and reply and a volunteer company doing duty as a guard pricked ruthlessly with their bayonets at any particularly quiet person among the throng so earnest being of an unobtrusive character was thrust quite into the background where he could see no more of old blood and thunder's physiognomy than if it had been still blazing on the battlefield to console himself he turned towards the great stone face which like a faithful and long-remembered friend looked back and smiled upon him through the vista of the forest meantime however he could overhear the remarks of various individuals who were comparing the features of the hero with the face on the distant mountainside tis the same face to a hair cried one man cutting a caper for joy wonderfully like that's a fact responded another like why I call it old blood and thunder himself in a monstrous looking glass cried a third and why not he's the greatest man of this or any age beyond a doubt and then all three of the speakers gave a great shout which communicated electricity to the crowd and called forth a roar from the thousand voices that went reverberating for miles among the mountains you might have supposed that the great stone face had poured its thunder breath into the cry all these comments and this vast enthusiasm served the more interest our friend nor did he think of questioning that now at length the mountain visage had found its human counterpart it is true Ernest had imagined that this long looked for personage would appear in the character of a man of peace uttering wisdom and doing good and making people happy but taking an habitual breath of view with all his simplicity he contended that Providence should choose its own method of blessing mankind and could conceive that this great end might be affected even by a warrior and a bloody sword should inscrutable wisdom see fit to order matters so the general the general was now the cry hush silence old blood and thunder is going to make a speech so for the cloth being removed the general's health had been drunk amid shouts of applause and he now stood upon his feet to thank the company Ernest saw him there he was over the shoulders of the crowd from the two glittering epaulets an embroidered collar upward beneath the arch of green bows with intertwined laurel and the banner drooping as if to shade his brow and there too visible in the same glance through the vista of the forest appeared the great stone face and was there indeed such a resemblance as the crowd had testified alas Ernest could not recognize it he beheld a war-worn and weather-beaten countenance full of energy and expressive of an iron will but the gentle wisdom the deep broad tender sympathies were all together wanting an old blood and thunder's visage and even if the great stone face had assumed his look of stern command the milder traits would still have tempered it this is not the man of prophecy sighed Ernest to himself as he made his way out of the throng and must the world wait longer yet the mists had congregated about the distant mountainside and there were seen the grand and awful features of the great stone face awful but benignant as if a mighty angel were sitting among the hills and enrobing himself in a cloud-vesture of gold and purple as he looked Ernest could hardly believe but that a smile beamed over the whole visage with a radiance still brightening although without motion of the lips it was probably the effect of the western sunshine melting through the thinly defused vapors that had swept between him and the object that he gazed at but as it always did the aspect of his marvelous friend made Ernest as hopeful as if he had never hoped in vain fear not Ernest said his heart even as if the great face were whispering him fear not Ernest he will come more years sped swiftly and tranquilly away Ernest still dwelt in his native valley and was now a man of middle age by imperceptible degrees he had become known among the people now as here to for he labored for his bread and was the same simple hearted man that he had always been but he had thought and felt so much he had given so many of the best hours of his life to unworldly hopes or some great good to mankind that it seemed as though he had been talking with the angels and had imbibed a portion of their wisdom unawares it was visible in the calm and well considered beneficence of his daily life the quiet stream of which had made a wide green margin all along its course not a day passed by that the world was not the better because this man humble as he was had lived he never stepped aside from his own path yet would always reach a blessing to his neighbor almost involuntarily too he had become a preacher the pure and high simplicity of his thought which as one of its manifestations took shape in the good deeds that dropped silently from his hand and forth also in speech he uttered truths that wrought upon and molded the lives of those who heard him his auditors it may be never suspected that Ernest, their own neighbor and familiar friend was more than an ordinary man least of all did Ernest himself suspect it but inevitably as the former of a rivulet came thoughts out of his mouth that no other human lips had spoken when the people's minds had had a little time to cool they were ready enough to acknowledge their mistake in imagining a similarity between general blood and thunder's truculent physiognomy and the benign dizzy on the mountainside but now again there were reports and many paragraphs in the newspapers affirming that the likeness of the great stone face had appeared upon the broad shoulders of a certain eminent statesman he, like Mr. Gathergold in old blood and thunder was a native of the valley but had left it in his early days and taken up the trades of law and politics instead of the rich man's wealth and the warrior's sword he had but a tongue and it was mightier than both together so wonderfully eloquent was he that whatever he might choose to say his auditors had no choice but to believe him wrong looked like right and right like wrong for when it pleased him he could make a kind of illuminated fog with his mere breath and obscure the natural daylight with it his tongue indeed was a magic instrument sometimes it rumbled like the thunder sometimes it warbled like the sweetest music it was the blast of war the song of peace and it seemed to have a heart in it when there was no such matter in good truth he was a wondrous man and when his tongue had acquired him all other imaginable success when it had been heard in halls of state and in the courts of princes and potentates after it had made him known all over the world even as a voice crying from shore to shore it finally persuaded his countrymen to select him for the presidency before this time indeed as soon as he began to grow celebrated his admirers had found out the resemblance between him and the great stone face and so much were they struck by it that throughout the country this distinguished gentleman was known by the name of old stony fizz the phrase was considered as giving a highly favorable aspect to his political prospects for as is likewise the case with the popedom nobody ever becomes president without taking a name other than his own while his friends were doing their best to make him president old stony fizz as he was called set out on a visit to the valley where he was born of course he had no other object than to shake hands with his fellow citizens and neither thought nor cared about any effect which his progress through the country might have upon the election magnificent preparations were made to receive the illustrious statesmen a cavalcade of horsemen set forth to meet him at the boundary line of the state and all the people left their business and gathered along the wayside to see him pass among these was earnest though more than once disappointed as we have seen he was aware that he was always ready to believe in whatever seemed beautiful and good he kept his heart continually open and thus was sure to catch the blessing from on high when it should come so now again as buoyantly as ever he went forth to behold the likeness of the great stone face the cavalcade came prancing along the road with a great clattering of hoofs and a mighty cloud of dust up so dense and high that the visage of the mountainside was completely hidden from earnest eyes all the great men of the neighborhood were there on horseback militia officers in uniform the member of congress the sheriff of the county the editors of newspapers and many a farmer too had mounted his patient steed with his Sunday coat upon his back it really was a very brilliant spectacle especially as there were numerous banners flaunting over the cavalcade on some of which were gorgeous portraits of the illustrious statesmen and the great stone face smiling familiarly at one another like two brothers if the pictures were to be trusted the mutual resemblance it must be confessed was marvelous we must not forget to mention that there was a band of music which made the echoes of the mountains ring and reverberate with the loud triumph of its strains so that airy and soul thrilling melodies broke out among the heights and hollows as if every nook of his native valley had found a voice to welcome the distinguished guest but the grandest effect was when the far off mountain precipice flung back the music for then the great stone face itself seemed to be swelling the triumphant chorus in acknowledgement that at length the man of prophecy was come all this while the people were throwing up their hats and shouting with enthusiasm so contagious that the heart of earnest kindled up and he likewise threw up his hat and shouted as loudly as the loudest who's ah for the great man who's ah for the old stony fizz but as yet he had not seen him here he is now cried those who stood near earnest there, there, look at old stony fizz and then at the old man of the mountain and see if they are not as like as two twin brothers in the midst of all this gallant array came an open barouche drawn by four white horses and in the barouche his head uncovered sat the illustrious statesman old stony fizz himself come tasset said one of earnest's neighbors to him the great stone face has met its match at last now it must be owned that at his first glimpse of the countenance which was bowing and smiling from the barouche earnest did fancy that there was a resemblance between it and the old familiar face upon the mountainside the brow with its massive depth and loftiness and all the other features indeed were boldly and strongly hewn as if in emulation of a more than heroic of a titanic model but the sublimity and stateliness grand expression of a divine sympathy that illuminated the mountain visage and etherealized its ponderous granite substance into spirit might here be sought in vain something had been originally left out or had departed and therefore the marvelously gifted statesman had always a very gloom in the deep caverns of his eyes as of a child that has outgrown its playthings or a man of mighty faculties and little aims whose life with all its high performances was vague and empty because no high purpose had endowed it with reality still earnest neighbor was thrusting his elbow into his side and him for an answer confess, confess is not he the very picture of your old man of the mountain no said earnest bluntly I see little or no likeness then so much the worse for the great stone face answered his neighbor and again he set up a shout for the old stony vis but earnest turned away melancholy almost despondent for this was the saddest of his disappointments to behold a man who might have fulfilled the prophecy and had not willed to do so meantime the cavalcade the banners the music and the barouches sweat past him with the vociferous crowd in the rear leaving the dust to settle down and the great face to be revealed again with the grandeur that it had worn for untold centuries low here I am earnest the benign lips seemed to say I have waited longer than thou and am not yet weary fear not the man will come the years hurried onward treading in their haste on one another's heels and now they began to bring white hairs and scatter them over the head of earnest they made reverent wrinkles across his forehead and furrows in his cheeks he was an aged man but not in vain had he grown old more than the white hairs in his wrinkles and furrows were inscriptions that time had engraved and in which he had written legends of wisdom that had been tested by the tenor of a life and earnest had ceased to be obscure unsought for undesired had come the fame which so many seek and made him known in the great world beyond the limits of the valley in which he had dwelt so quietly college professors and even the active men of cities came from afar to see and converse with earnest for the report had gone abroad that this simple husband men had ideas unlike those of other men not gained from books but of a higher tone a tranquil and familiar majesty as if he had been talking with the angels as his daily friends whether it were sage statesman or philanthropist earnest received these visitors with the gentle sincerity that had characterized him from boyhood and spoke freely with them of whatever came uppermost or lay deepest in his heart or their own while they talked together his face would kindle unawares and shine upon them as with a mild evening light pensive with the fullness of such discourse his guests took leave and went their way and passing up the valley paused to look at the great stone face imagining that they had seen its likeness in human countenance but could not remember where while earnest had been growing up and growing old a bountiful providence had granted a new poet to this earth he likewise was a native of the valley but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance from the romantic region pouring out his sweet music amid the bustle and din of cities often however did the mountains which had been familiar to him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into the clear atmosphere of his poetry neither was the great stone face forgotten for the poet had celebrated it in an ode which was grand enough to have been uttered by its own majestic lips this man of genius we might say had come down from heaven with wonderful endowments if he sang of a mountain the eyes of all mankind beheld a mightier grandeur reposing on its breast or soaring to its summit than had before been seen there if his theme were a lovely lake a celestial smile had now been thrown over it to gleam forever on its surface if it were the vast old sea even the deep immensity of its dread bosom seemed to swell the higher as if moved by the emotions of the song thus the world assumed another and a better aspect from the hour that the poet blessed it with his happy eyes the creator had bestowed him as the last best touch to his own handiwork creation was not finished till the poet came to interpret and so complete it the effect was no less high and beautiful when his human brethren were the subject of his verse the man or woman sorted with the common dust of life who crossed his daily path and the little child who played in it were glorified if he beheld them in his mood of poetic faith he showed the golden lengths of the great chain that intertwined with an angelic kindred he brought out the hidden traits of a celestial birth that made them worthy of such kin some indeed there were who thought to show the soundness of their judgment by affirming that all the beauty and dignity of the natural world existed only in the poet's fancy let such men speak for themselves who undoubtedly appeared to have been spawned forth by nature with a contemptuous bitterness she having plastered them up out of her refuse stuff after all the swine were made as respects all things else the poet's ideal was the truest truth the songs of this poet found their way to earnest he read them after his customary toil seated on the bench before his cottage door where for such a length of time he had filled his repose with thought by gazing at the great stone face and now as he read stanzas that caused the soul to thrill within him he lifted his eyes to the vast countenance beaming on him so benignantly oh majestic friend now somewhat and now as he read stanzas that the soul to thrill within him, he lifted his eyes to the vast countenance beaming on him so benignantly. Oh, majestic friend, he murmured, addressing the great stone face. Is not this man worthy to resemble thee? The face seemed to smile, but answered not a word. Now it happened that the poet, though he dwelt so far away, had not only heard of Ernest, but had meditated much upon his character, until he deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this man, whose untaught wisdom walked hand in hand with the noble simplicity of his life. One summer morning, therefore, he took passage by the railroad, and in the decline of the afternoon, alighted from the cars at no great distance from Ernest's cottage. The great hotel which had formerly been the palace of Mr. Gathergold was close at hand, but the poet, with his carpet-bag on his arm, inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and was resolved to be accepted as his guest. Closing the door, he there found the good old man holding a volume in his hand, which alternately he read, and then, with a finger between the leaves, looked lovingly at the great stone face. "'Good evening,' said the poet. Can you give a traveller a night's lodging?' Willingly answered Ernest, and then he added, smiling. "'Me thinks I never saw the great stone face look so hospitably at a stranger.' The poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he and Ernest talked together. Often had the poet held intercourse with the wittiest and the wisest, but never before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts and feelings gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who made great truths so familiar by his simple utterance of them. Angels had been so often said seemed to have wrought with him at his labour in the fields. Angels seemed to have sat with him by the fireside, and dwelling with angels as friend with friends he had imbibed the sublimity of their ideas, and imbued it with the sweet and lowly charm of household words. So thought the poet. And Ernest, on the other hand, was moved and agitated by the living images which the poet flung out of his mind, and which peopled all the air about the cottage door with shapes of beauty, both gay and pensive. The sympathies of these two men instructed them with a profounder sense than either could have attained alone. Their minds accorded into one strain, and made delightful music which neither of them could have claimed as all his own, nor distinguished his own share from the others. They led one another, as it were, into a high pavilion of their thoughts, so remote, and hitherto so dim that they had never entered it before, and so beautiful that they desired to be there always. As Ernest listened to the poet he imagined that the great stone face was bending forward to listen to. He gazed earnestly into the poet's glowing eyes. Who are you, my strangely gifted guest, he said? The poet laid his finger on the volume that Ernest had been reading. You have read these poems, said he. You know me, then, for I wrote them. Again, and still more earnestly than before, Ernest examined the poet's features, then turned towards the great stone face, then back with an uncertain aspect to his guest. But his countenance fell. He shook his head and sighed. Wherefore are you, sad, inquired the poet. Because, replied Ernest, all through life I have awaited the fulfillment of a prophecy, and when I read these poems I hoped that it might be fulfilled in you. You hoped, answered the poet, faintly smiling, to find in me the likeness of the great stone face. And you are disappointed, as formerly with Mr. Gathergold, an old blood and thunder, an old stony fizz. Yes, Ernest, it is my doom. You must add my name to the illustrious three and record another failure of your hopes. For in shame and sadness do I speak at Ernest. I am not worthy to be typified by yonder benign and majestic image. And why, asked Ernest, he pointed to the volume, are not those thoughts divine? They have a strain of the divinity, replied the poet. You can hear in them the far-off echo of a heavenly song, but my life, dear Ernest, has not corresponded with my thought. I have had grand dreams, but they have been only dreams, because I have lived, and that too by my own choice, among poor and mean realities. Sometimes even, shall I dare to say it, I lack faith in the grandeur, the beauty and the goodness, which my own works are said to have made more evident in nature and in human life. Why then, pure seeker of the good and true, shouldst thou hope to find me in yonder image of the divine? The poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with tears. So likewise were those of Ernest. At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, Ernest was to discourse to an assemblage of the neighbouring inhabitants in the open air. He and the poet arm in arm, still talking together as they went along, proceeded to the spot. It was a small nook among the hills with a grey precipice behind, the stern front of which was relieved by the pleasant foliage of many creeping plants that made a tapestry for the naked rock, by hanging their festoons from all its rugged angles. At a small elevation above the ground, set in a rich framework of verdure, there appeared a niche spacious enough to admit a human figure, with freedom for such gestures as spontaneously accompany Ernest's thought and genuine emotion. To this natural pulpit Ernest ascended, and threw a look of familiar kindness around upon his audience. They stood, or sat, or reclined upon the grass, as seemed good to each, with the departing sunshine falling obliquely over them, and mingling its subdued cheerfulness with the solemnity of a grove of ancient trees beneath and amid the boughs of which the golden rays were constrained to pass. In another direction was seen the great stone face, with the same cheer combined with the same solemnity in its benignant aspect. Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart and mind. His words had power because they accorded with his thoughts, and his thoughts had reality and depth because they harmonized with the life which he had always lived. It was not mere breath that this preacher uttered. They were the words of life because a life of good deeds and holy love was melted into them. Pearl's pure and rich had been dissolved into this precious draft. The poet, as he listened, felt that the being and character of Ernest were a nobler strain of poetry than he had ever written. His eyes glistened with tears. He gazed reverentially at the venerable man, and said within himself that never was there an aspect so worthy of a prophet and a sage as that mild, sweet, thoughtful countenance with the glory of white hair diffused about it. At a distance but distinctly to be seen, high up in the golden light of the setting sun appeared the great stone face with hoary mists around it like the white hairs around the brow of Ernest. Its look of grand beneficence seemed to embrace the world. At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter, the face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression so imbued with benevolence, that the poet by an irresistible impulse threw his arms aloft and shouted, Behold, Behold, Ernest is himself the likeness of the great stone face. Then all the people looked, and saw that what the deep-sided poet said was true, the prophecy was fulfilled. But Ernest, having finished what he had to say, took the poet's arm and walked slowly homeward, still hoping that some wiser and better man than himself would by and by appear bearing a resemblance to the great stone face. End of The Great Stone Face by Nathaniel Hawthorne Recording by Grace Buchanan Heap Gone from Bailed Hay by Bill Nye This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Red by Dale Grossman Another landmark of Laramie has gone. Another wreck has been strewn upon the sands of time. Another gay bark has gone to pieces upon the cruel rocks, and above the broken spars and jib boom, and four-top gallant royal main brace, and spanker boom euker deck, the cold damp tide is moaning. We refer to L. W. Schroeder, who has recently left this place in cog, also in debt, largely to various people of this gay and festive metropolis. Laramie has been the home at various times of some of the most classical dead beats of modern times, but Schroeder is the noblest and most grand and colossal of dead beats that has ever visited our shores. Born with unusual abilities in this direction, he early learned how to enlarge and improve upon the talents thus bestowed upon him, and here in Laramie he soon won a place at the front as a man who purchased everything and paid for nothing. He had a way of approaching the grocer and the merchant that was well calculated to deceive, and he did, in several instances, make representations which we now learn were false. He was by profession a carpenter and joiner, having learned the art while cutting cordwood on the Missouri bottoms near Omaha from the Collins Brothers. Here he rapidly won his way to the front rank by erecting some of the most commanding architectural ruins of which modern wood assassination can boast. He would take a hatchet and a buck saw and carve out his fortune anywhere in the world, and it wouldn't cost him a cent. He filled this whole Trans-Mazura country with his fame and his promissory notes, and then skinned out and left us here to mourn. Good-bye, Schroeder, wherever you go we will remember you and hope that you may succeed in piling up monuments of indebtedness as you did here. You were industrious and untiring in your efforts to become a great financial wreck and success has crowned your efforts. We will not grudge you the glory that coagulates around your massive brow. And of Keep Gone by Bill Nye. He was not a burglar. From Bailed Hay by Bill Nye. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Red by Dale Grossman The young man who was seen climbing in a window on Centre Street yesterday was not a burglar, as some might suppose. But on the contrary, he was a man whose wife had left the keys to the house lying on the mantel and locked them in by means of a spring lock on the front door. He did not climb in the window because he preferred that way, but because the door unlocked better from the inside. And of He Was Not a Burglar by Bill Nye. How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped From Something Childish and Other Stories by Catherine Mansfield This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Red by Dale Grossman Pearl Button swung on the little gate in front of the house of boxes. It was the early afternoon of a sunshiney day, with little winds playing hide and seek in it. They blew Pearl Button's pinafore frill into her mouth, and they blew the street dust all over the house of boxes. Pearl watched it like a cloud, like when Mother peppered her fish and the top of the pepper pot came off. She swung on the little gate all alone, and she sang a small song. Two big women came walking down the street. One was dressed in red, and the other was dressed in yellow and green. They had pink handkerchiefs over their heads, and both of them carry big, flax-basket of ferns. They had no shoes and stockings on, and they came walking along slowly, because they were so fat, and talking to each other, and always smiling. Pearl stopped swinging, and when they saw her they stopped walking. They looked and looked at her, and then they talked to each other, waving their arms and clapping their hands together. Pearl began to laugh. The two women came up to her, keeping close to the hedge and looking in a frightened way towards the house of boxes. "'Hello, little girl,' said one. Pearl said, "'Hello!' "'You all alone by yourself?' Pearl nodded. "'Where's your mother?' "'In the kitchen, ironing, because it's Tuesday.' The woman smiled at her, and Pearl smiled back. "'Oh!' she said. "'Haven't you got very white teeth indeed? Do it again!' The dark women laughed, and again they talked to each other, with funny voices, and wavings of the hands. "'What's your name?' they asked her. "'Pearl Button!' "'You coming with us, Pearl Button? We got beautiful things to show you,' whispered one of the women. So Pearl got down from the gate, and she slipped out onto the road. And she walked between the two dark women down the windy road, taking little running steps to keep up, and wondering what they had in their house of boxes. They walked a long way. "'You tired?' asked one of the women, bending down to Pearl. Pearl shook her head. They walked much further. "'You not tired?' asked the other woman, and Pearl shook her head again. But tears shook from her eyes at the same time, and her lips trembled. One of the women gave over her flax-basket of ferns and caught Pearl Button up in her arms, and walked with Pearl Button's head against her shoulder, and her dusty little legs dangling. She was softer than a bed, and she had a nice smell, a smell that made you bury your head and breathe and breathe it. They set Pearl Button down in a log room full of other people, the same color as they were. And all these people came close to her, and looked at her, nodding, and laughing, and throwing up their eyes. The women who had carried Pearl Button took off her hair-ribbit, and shook her curls loose. There was a cry from the other women, and they crowded close, and some of them ran a finger through Pearl Button's yellow curls, very gently. And one of them, a young one, lifted up Pearl Button's hair and kissed the back of her little white neck. Pearl felt shy, but happy at the same time. There were some men on the floor, smoking, with rugs and feather mats around their shoulders. One of them made a funny face at her, and he pulled a great peach out of his pocket, and set it on the floor, and flicked it with his finger as though it were a marble. It rolled right over to her. Pearl picked it up. "'Please, can I eat it?' she asked. At that they all laughed and clapped their hands, and the man with the funny face made another at her, and pulled a pear out of his pocket, and sent it bobbling over the floor. Pearl laughed. The women sat down on the floor, and Pearl sat down too. The floor was very dusty. She carefully pulled up her pinafore and dress, and sat on her petticoat as she had been taught to sit in dusty places, and she ate the fruit. The juice running all down her front. "'Oh!' she said, in a very frightened voice to one of the women. "'I've spilled all the juice!' "'That doesn't matter at all,' said the woman, patting her cheek. A man came into the room with a long whip in his hand. He shouted something. They all got up, shouting, laughing, wrapping themselves in rugs and blankets and feather mats. Pearl was carried again, this time into a great cart, and she sat on the lap of one of her women, with the driver beside her. It was a green cart with a red pony and a black pony. It went very fast out of the town. The driver stood up and waved the whip around his head. Pearl peered over the shoulder of her woman. Other carts were behind like a procession. She waved at them. When the country came, first fields of short grass with sheep on them, and little bushes of white flowers and pink briar rose baskets. Then big trees on both sides of the road, and nothing to be seen except big trees. Pearl tried to look through them, but it was quite dark. Birds were singing. She nestled closer in the big lap. The woman was warm as a cat. She moved up and down when she breathed, just like purring. Pearl played with the green ornament around her neck, and the woman took the little hand and kissed each of her fingers, and then turned it over and kissed the dimples. Pearl had never been happy like this before. On the top of a big hill they stopped. The driving-man turned to Pearl and said, Look, look, and pointed with his whip. And down at the bottom of the hill was something perfectly different. A great big piece of blue water was creeping over the land. She screamed and clutched at the big woman. What is it? What is it? Why, said the woman, it's the sea. Will it hurt us? Is it coming? I know it doesn't come to us. It's very beautiful. You look again. Pearl looked. You're sure it isn't coming, she said. I know. It stays in its place, said the big woman. Waves with white tops came leaping over the blue. Pearl watched them break on a long piece of land covered with garden path shells. They drove around a corner. There were some little houses down close to the sea with wooden fences around them and gardens inside. They comforted her. Pink and red and blue washing hung over the fences. And as they came near, more people came out and five yellow dogs with long, thin tails. All the people were fat and laughing with little-naked babies holding onto them or rolling about in the gardens like puppies. Pearl was lifted down and taken into a tiny house with only one room and a veranda. There was a girl there with two pieces of black hair down to her feet. She was setting the dinner on the floor. It is a funny place, Pearl said, watching the pretty girl while the woman unbuttoned her little drawers for her. She was very hungry. She ate meat and vegetables and fruit, and the woman gave her milk out of a green cup. And it was quite silent except for the sea outside and the laughs of the two women watching her. Haven't you got any houses and boxes, she said? Don't you all live in a row? Don't the men go to offices? Aren't there any nasty things? She took off her shoes and stockings, her pinafore and dress. She walked about in her petticoat and then she walked outside with the grass pushing between her toes. The two women came out with different sorts of baskets. They took her hands over a little paddock through a fence and then on to warm sand with brown grass in it. They went down to the sea. Pearl held back when the sand grew wet, but the women coaxed. Nothing to hurt, very beautiful, you come. They dug in the sand and found shells which they threw into the baskets. The sand was wet as mud-pies. Pearl forgot her fright and began digging too. She got hot and wet and suddenly over her feet broke a little line of foam. Ooh, ooh, she said, shrieking, dabbling with her feet. Lovely, lovely. She paddled in the shallow water. It was warm. She made a cup of her hands and caught some of it, but it stopped being blue in her hands. She was so excited that she rushed over to her woman and flung her little tiny arms around the woman's neck, hugging her, kissing. Suddenly the girl gave a frightful scream. The woman raised herself and Pearl slipped down on the sand and looked towards the land. Little men in blue coats, little men came running, running towards her with shouts and whistlings. A crowd of little blue men to carry her back to the house of boxes. The end of How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped by Catherine Mansfield. The Ingenious Patriot from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Beers. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Dale Grossman. Having obtained an audience of the King, an Ingenious Patriot pulled a paper from his pocket saying, may it please Your Majesty, I have here a formula for constructing armor plating, which no gun can pierce. If these plates are adopted in the Royal Navy, our warships will be invulnerable and therefore invincible. Here also are reports of Your Majesty's ministers attesting to the value of the invention. I will part with my right to it for a million tum-tums. After examining the papers, the King put them away and promised him an order on the Lord High Treasurer of the Extortion Department for a million tum-tums. And here, said the Ingenious Patriot, pulling another paper from another pocket, are the working plans of the gun that I have invented which will pierce that armor. Your Majesty's Royal Brother, the Emperor of Bang, is anxious to purchase it. But loyalty to Your Majesty's throne and person constrained me to offer it first to Your Majesty. The price is one million tum-tums. Having received the promise of another check, he thrust his hands into still another pocket, remarking, the price of the irresistible gun would have been much greater, Your Majesty, but for the fact that its missiles can be so effectively averted by my peculiar method of treating the armor plates with a new, the King's sign to the great head factotum to approach. Search this man, he said, and report how many pockets he has. Forty-three, Sire, said the great head factotum, completing the scrutiny. May it please Your Majesty, cried the Ingenious Patriot in terror. One of them contains tobacco. Hold him up by the ankles and shake him, said the King. Then give him a check for 42 million tum-tums and put him to death. Let a decree issue declaring ingenuity a capital offense. The end of The Ingenious Patriot by Ambrose Beers.