Dennis

The odd thing was that his name really was Dennis. In the West, Dennis is the name for the underdog, for the man who is always left behind. His name is—Dennis! Why? The man in this story was christened Dennis, and being a native son of the Golden West, he took particular pains to keep that fact secret from the "boys." When he punched cattle on the range, he was known as "Kingdom Come" Brown, because even then it was plain to newcomers that D. Brown, cowboy, was not likely to inherit the kingdoms of the earth.

Ever since he had been breeched, misfortune had marked him for her own. Nevertheless, he was rich in a temperament that soared like a lark above suffering and disappointment. He believed steadfastly that his "turn" would come. "It ain't goin' to be like this here, always," was a phrase familiar to us. To this we replied, "Not much!"

In our hearts we, too, believed that his turn would come, but that, humanly speaking, it would only arrive in the sweet by-and-by. Hence his nickname. The hardest nuts admitted that Brown was traveling on the rough road that leads upward. His golden slippers were waiting for him—sure! He set an example that none followed but that all, in sober moments, commended. He neither drank nor swore. He remained faithful to the memory of a woman who had married somebody else. For her sake, he sold his horse and saddle and became a lumberman.

Losing his Mamie was, of course, the heaviest of his many blows. She was a simple soul, like D. Brown, used to hard work, and at the mercy of a drunken father who had narrowly escaped the clutches of a lynch mob. Giving Mamie a home had been the consuming desire of poor Dennis. For this he pinched and saved until at last the needed sum lay snug in a San Lorenzo bank. Then the bank "bust"!

Without a word to Mamie, Dennis drifted away to some distant range, and before he was seen again, Tom Barker had appeared. Why Tom, a big, brutal lumberman, desired to marry Mamie—no longer young, never pretty, penniless, and admittedly fond of Dennis—must remain a mystery.

Why Mamie married Tom is easy to answer. Tom was "boss" of a logging camp, and no one had ever denied his Caesar-like qualities. He had the qualities and vices conspicuously absent in Dennis. He was Barker of Barker's Inlet. The mere mention of his name in certain saloons was enough to put the fear of God into men even bigger than himself. A sort of malefic magnetism exuded from every pore of his skin. When he held up his finger, Mamie crawled to him. She believed, probably, that she was escaping from a drunken father, and she knew that Tom could and would supply many things for which she had yearned—a parlor, for instance, possibly a piano, and a silk dress. She would have taken Dennis without these amenities, but Dennis had fled to the back of nowhere without even saying good-bye.

Months after the marriage, Dennis came back. Ajax described the wedding and the subsequent flitting to Barker's Inlet. Dennis listened, stroking his too-thin, straggling mustache. Next day he sold his horse and saddle.

When he appeared at Barker's Inlet and asked for a job, Tom Barker smiled. He had heard of Dennis, and he knew that Mamie had given Dennis what she would never give him—the love and confidence of a simple woman. Into his savage bull-head crept the determination to torment these two unsophisticated creatures delivered by fate to be his slaves and as such at his mercy.

Accordingly, Dennis was engaged.

Tom's position at the inlet must be defined. Some years before he had been known as a timber cruiser—that is, a man who, wandering through primeval forests, "locates" belts of timber likely to attract the speculative lumberman. Barker had thus discovered the inlet that bore his name, and in consideration of his services, and with a due sense of his physical and mental qualifications, he had been appointed boss of the camp by the real owners—a syndicate of rich men who knew that logs were worth ten dollars a thousand feet and that the man to make them so was Tom Barker. The syndicate wisely gave Tom a free hand, knowing that in everything concerning the working of men and machinery to the limit, Tom would begin where their less elastic consciences might leave off. The syndicate stayed in Victoria, Vancouver, or San Francisco and said of Tom that he was a rustler from "way back," and as lively as they make 'em.

It will be guessed that Tom's principal difficulty was engaging men. Once engaged, he was certain to get plenty of work out of them, and they couldn't leave until they had earned enough money to take themselves elsewhere. All the boys came to Tom stone-broke; otherwise, they would never have "signed on." To be treated like a hog, to work assiduously for Tom, or to starve—that stared several able-bodied men in the face. One genial Californian remarked, "It's a choice between Death and Damnation."

Now you understand why Tom smiled when Dennis Brown asked for a job. He knew Dennis was a cow-puncher and not a star performer even on his own ground, and he had only to look at the man to see how unfit he was for the rough work of a logging camp. A derisive chuckle gurgled from his huge, hairy throat as he growled, "Say! This ain't like teachin' Sunday school."

"I know it ain't," said Dennis cheerfully. But his heart sank at the mention of Sunday school. Long ago he had taught in one. It was terrible to think that the piety of a too-ardent youth was now to be held up to the ridicule of the boys.

"I believe your name is—Dennis?" continued the boss of Barker's Inlet.

"It is," our unhappy friend admitted.

"Go up to the bunkhouse," commanded Tom, "and tell Jimmy Doolan, with my regards, to take particular care of you. I'll speak to him later." Then, as Dennis was moving off, he added in a rasping voice, "You an' my wife are acquainted, eh? Well, when you've dropped your blankets, come up to the house and say howdy."

Dennis went up to the house. There was one house at the inlet: a four-roomed frame building with three coats of paint on it and a red roof. It stood some distance from the collection of shacks and cabins at the mouth of the Coho River, and it overlooked some of the most glorious scenery in the world. In front stretched the Sound, a silver sea just dimpled by the soft spring breeze. To right and left and behind lay the forest—that silent land of the North, illimitable as space, everlastingly green when the snows had melted, shadowy, mysterious, terrible!

As Dennis approached the house, he heard a terrific sound—the crash of a felled and falling tree, some giant that had held its own in the struggle for existence since William the Norman ruled in England. And then, from all points of the compass, the echoes, in varying cadence, repeated that tremendous, awe-inspiring sound—the last sobbing cry of a Titan.

A moment later Mamie received him and ushered him into the parlor, where a small piano, a table of shellwork, and crimson plush curtains challenged the interest and curiosity of all who were privileged to behold them. "Let me take your hat," said Mamie.

The hand she held out trembled slightly. Dennis saw that she was thinner and paler.

"You're well fixed," he murmured. "And happy as a clam, I reckon?"

"I'd ought to be happy," said Mamie dubiously. Then she added hastily, "Never expected to see you in a logging camp."

"No? Well, I kind of wondered how you were making it. You don't look extra peart, Mrs. Barker. Lonesome for you, isn't it?" Already he knew that except for a few squaws, she was the only woman in the camp.

"I don't mind that," said Mrs. Barker.

Something in her tone caught his attention. Slow though he was, he sensed that Mamie's thin white cheeks and trembling hands were not caused by loneliness. He stared at her intently until the blood rushed into her face. And then and there he knew almost everything.

"Got a baby?" he asked thickly.

She answered savagely, "No, I haven't, thank God!"

Above the mantelpiece hung an enlarged photograph of her husband, taken a couple of days after his wedding. Mr. Barker had faced the camera with the same brutal complacency that distinguished all his actions. He smiled grimly, thrusting forward his heavy lower jaw, inviting inspection, obviously pleased to exhibit himself as a ferocious and untamed animal. Through the sleeves of his ill-cut black coat, the muscles of his arms and shoulders bulged. The ordinary observer looking at the photo for the first time would likely think, "Here is a ruffian who needs a licking, but he hasn't got it yet."

"How's paw?" said Mamie.

"Last time I saw the old man, he was paralyzed drunk, as usual."

"Yes, he would be that," assented Mamie indifferently.

After that, conversation lagged, and soon the visitor took his leave. When Mamie handed him his hat, she said awkwardly, "You never told me good-bye." To this accusation Dennis replied curtly, "Holy Mackinaw! I couldn't."

Those who know the wilder parts of this planet will understand that all was said between these two weaklings who had loved each other dearly. Dennis returned to the bunkhouse. Mamie ran to her bedroom and cried her eyes out.

Within a week, the camp knew two facts about the newcomer: his name was Dennis, and he had loved Tom Barker's dough-faced wife!

Tom's choice of his first instrument of torture showed subtlety. He bought from a Siwash Indian the most contemptible-looking cur ever seen at the inlet and christened the poor beast—Dennis. There was a resemblance between dog and man. Each, in the struggle for existence, had received more than his due share of kicks, and the sense of this in any animal manifests itself unmistakably. And each, moreover, exhibited the same amazing optimism—perhaps a sure sign of a mind not quite balanced.

Dennis, the dog, followed his new master wherever he went. Tom would introduce him with the remark, "His name is Dennis, too." And if Dennis, the man, happened to be present, Tom would curse the dog, calling him every evil name that came to the tip of the foulest tongue in British Columbia. Always, at the end of these tirades, Tom would say to Dennis, the man, "I ain't a-speaking to you, old socks, so keep your hair on."

That the cow-puncher—who in his day must have carried a gun—did keep his hair became a topic of talk among the boys, confirming their opinion that Dennis had been aptly named. Certainly he lacked backbone. Moreover, a change of skies brought no change in his luck. Within a fortnight he was badly hurt and had to stay in bed for nearly a week.

"I got mixed up with a log," he explained to Mamie. "It broke loose, an' I didn't quite get out of the way. See?"

"Me, too," whispered Mamie. "Same trouble here—exactly."

Twice while he lay on his back she brought to the bunkhouse a chocolate layer cake and some broth. On her third visit she came empty-handed, her too-pale eyes full of tears and her heart full of indignation.

"I ain't got nothing," she muttered. "Tom says it's his grub."

"That's all right," replied Dennis, noting that she walked stiffly. "But look here; he hasn't been beating you, has he?"

"Yes, he has. When he was through, I told him I'd sooner have his blows than his kisses any day."

"I hadn't ought to have come here," said Dennis.

"Never saw the sun shine till you did," murmured Mamie.

At this he tried to take her hand, but she evaded his grasp. Then with an extraordinary dignity, looking deep into his eyes, she said slowly: "I told you that because it's God's truth, and rather justifies your coming; but I aim to be an honest woman, and you must help me remain so." With that, she hurried away.

The next day Dennis went back to work. And what work, for a man never strong and now weakened by pain and illness! Some magnificent timber had been found a couple of miles inland, not too far from the Coho. The experts had already felled, stripped, and sawed the huge trees into logs. To Dennis and others remained the hard labor of guiding, with the help of windlasses, these immense logs to the river, where they would descend in due time to the inlet, there to be joined into vast rafts and later towed to their destination. Of all labor, steering logs through dense forest to their appointed waterway is the hardest and roughest. Dennis wore thick gloves, but despite them his hands were horribly cut, because he lacked the experience to handle the logs with discretion. Even the best men get battered at this job, and the duffers are likely to be killed outright.

At the end of ten miserable days, Dennis concluded that Tom Barker wanted to kill him by the Chinese torture of Ling, or death by a thousand cuts. More than one of the boys said, "Why don't you get what you've earned and skip?" Dennis shook his head. Unable to explain to himself why he stayed, he kept quiet and thus gained a reputation for grit that lightened his other burdens. Jim Doolan, the big Irishman, thought Dennis Brown little better than a denied baby with a soft spot in his head, but he admitted the cow-puncher was "white" and obviously bent on self-destruction. The camp knew the boss was taking an unholy interest in Dennis, though he treated him with derisive civility. The rage he couldn't vent on Dennis was taken out on the dog.

Dennis never saw the poor beast kicked or beaten without thinking, "He does that to Mamie when nobody's looking." In his feeble way, he tried to interfere. Dollars to Tom Barker were dearer than cardinal virtues, and he was always ready to make a deal. Dennis offered to buy the dog.

"What's he worth?" said Tom, jutting out his jaw.

"I'll give five for him."

"Five? For a dog I've learned to love? Not much!"

"Ten?"

"Nope!"

"Fifteen?"

Tom laughed. "You ain't got money enough to buy him," he said. "I'm going to have more fun than a barrel of monkeys with this dog, and don't you forget it!"

After this, Dennis, the Sunday-school teacher, the man whose golden slippers awaited him in the sweet by-and-by, began to lie awake at night wrestling with the question: "Is a man ever justified in breaking the sixth commandment?" The camp held that Tom led a charmed life. Men had tried to kill him more than once and had perished in the attempt. His coolness and courage were undeniable. There are moments when nothing can save an impossible situation but the instant exercise of the most daring and devil-may-care pluck, determination, and skill. Tom was never found wanting at such moments. To see him ride a log was a sight to inspire admiration and respect in a Texas bronco-buster. Killing such a superb animal might well trouble a simple, guileless cowboy named Dennis.

It is worth mentioning that Dennis, the dog, licked the hand that beat him, fawned on the foot that kicked him, and rendered his master implicit and unvarying obedience. The Siwash, his former owner, had trained him to retrieve, and Tom took shameless advantage. He would throw his hat or glove or a stick into the middle of a rapid, and the gallant dog would dash into the swirling waters, regardless of colliding logs, fanged rocks, or spiky stumps. One day the dog got caught. Tom, with an oath, leaped onto the nearest log and from that to another until he reached the poor beast, freed him with incredible skill and audacity, and returned as he had come, followed by the dog. The boys yelled their appreciation. Jimmy Doolan asked, "What the thunder made you do that, Tom?"

Tom scowled. "I don't know," he answered. "Dennis Brown knows I think the world of that cur."

Within a fortnight—by an admittedly amazing coincidence—Dennis, the man, was caught in a precisely similar fashion. As a river driver, Dennis was beginning to catch on. But he had not yet learned what he could and could not do. River drivers wear heavy boots with spikes. One day Dennis had been sent with a crew to "sweep the river" after a regular drive. Logs that had wandered ashore or got hung up in back eddies were collected and sent on. This is hard but exciting work. Stubborn logs must be coaxed downriver. They almost seem to know their fate in the saw pits and resist. If a log refuses to pass a rock, the lumberman, with his long pole—spiked to push, hooked to pull—must reach that rock and pull and prod the log on its way.

Dennis slipped on a rock, and his heavy boot got caught between the log and the rock. Below was a boiling rapid; above, the river swirled in a heavy, oily mass. Dennis held onto the rock to save his life. He was like a drunken Scot clinging to a bar rail because if he let go he'd fall, and if he didn't, he'd miss his train. He held on with both hands.

If he tried to free his boot, he'd be swept into the rapid; if he didn't let go and no one came, the log would crush his leg.

Tom saw him and plunged into the river. Dennis had crawled onto the rock from the other side, so Tom could have gone around; any other man would have. The odds were against his reaching the rock, for the river was racing. Five minutes later both men were safe ashore, dripping wet, and the log careened downstream!

"You've saved my life," gasped Dennis.

"Never seen such a fool as you in all my days," replied Tom, staring savagely into Dennis's mild blue eyes. "You'd hurt yourself rocking a baby's cradle. About time you quit men's work, isn't it?"

"Not yet," said Dennis.

During these weeks on the river, Dennis hadn't seen Mamie. Tom Barker, as supreme boss, visited all crews and then returned to his wife with either a leer or a frown. She had come to loathe the leer more than the frown. In the camps the boys told the same story: "He knocks the stuffing out of her!"

The stay-at-home Briton, warm with roast beef and indigestion, may wonder how one man among a hundred could be allowed to mistreat a thin, dough-faced woman. Why didn't they rise and kill him? Had Tom stolen a colt in cattle country, he'd have been lynched. Let the publicists resolve the problem!

Finally, on a Sunday morning, Dennis and Mamie met again.

"Holy Mackinaw!" exclaimed Dennis.

"Anything wrong?"

"Everything."

"I don't understand." But of course she did.

"It's God's truth, then, what the boys say?"

She hung her head.

"I thought he'd quit when I went up the river," said Dennis. "Say, let's you and me skip out of this. I'll get my pay tonight."

"Oh, Dennis!" she murmured in piteous protest. "We'd burn in eternal torment."

"We'd burn together," said Dennis. "Anyway, if this isn't torment, and Barker isn't Beelzebub himself, I'm a liar."

She shook her head, tears streaming down her thin white cheeks.

"Gee!" said Dennis, reduced to silence.

"I took him for better or worse," sobbed Mamie.

"You might have guessed it would be worse," growled Dennis. Then, desperately, he blurted out, "Because you're dead set on keeping the seventh commandment, you're just naturally driving me to break the sixth."

"What?"

"I've said it. And he saved my life, too. But when I look at you, I get to thinking." His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. "I think lots at night. He comes back to you alone through those trees, and there's one place where the pine needles are thick as moss. I remember what a Dago told me once. He'd killed his man, stabbed him from behind with a knife he showed me: just an ordinary knife, only sharp. And he told me how he did it, where to strike—savvy? It goes in slick!"

He stopped, seeing Mamie staring at him with horror and consternation.

"Dennis!"

"Yes, my name's Dennis, right enough. That's the trouble. I haven't the nerve to kill Barker, and you haven't the nerve to run off with me. We're two of a kind, Mamie, scared to death of what comes after death. And you know it. So long!"

She caught at his arm. "You ain't going to leave the inlet?"

"It's a mighty big country," Dennis replied sternly, "but I've a notion it ain't quite big enough for Barker and me. So long!"

"I'm coming up tomorrow, Dennis, to see 'em run the last rapid. Maybe you was foolish to leave the range?"

He noted the question in her tone and answered, almost roughly, "Maybe I was, but not so foolish as you by a long sight!" With that, he returned to the bunkhouse.

Not half a mile from the inlet, the Coho gathers itself for its last wild rush to the sea. Here is a huge pool where logs lie peacefully like alligators in the sun. At the end of the pool, the river flows gently in a channel free from rocks. Then it narrows, and farther on are the head of the rapid and, halfway down, the Coho Falls thundering eternally. When logs reach the falls, they are food for the mills. Nothing can stop them then. One by one they rise on end for the final plunge, twisting and writhing as if in agony, conscious that the river and forest will know them no more. Thousands have gone that way; none has returned. The lower rapid hardly deserves its name; half a mile on, it becomes an estuary crossed by a boom.

The crews assembled on either side of the pool. The logs were set in motion. Since this was duffer's work, the less experienced did it; the picked river drivers stood on the rocks of the upper rapid, poles in hand. And here, watching with dull eyes, stood Mamie in the shade of a dogwood tree in full blossom. Every so often a soft white petal fell onto the water and floated away. Above, hemlocks soughed softly. At her feet, giant maidenhair ferns raised their delicate fronds to touch her cheek.

She watched the endless procession of logs. The scene fascinated her, though she was not imaginative. Movement entranced a woman whose own life had been stagnant for five and twenty years. Deep down, she felt the logs were moving and she was standing still. Tom loomed in the foreground. He moved so quickly that his huge form blurred. She saw him snatch a pole from a man and viciously stab at a log that refused to budge; each time his arm rose and fell, a shudder ran down her spine. The log seemed apathetic. A bad jam was imminent. She heard Tom swearing, and the other logs seemed to hear too and tremble. His bull's voice rose above the roar of the falls. Mamie looked down. At her feet crouched Dennis, the dog, trembling at those harsh sounds, and she felt his thin ribs press against her thin legs.

At that moment, light came to her clouded mind. She was like that log. She refused to move, dreaded the plunge, enduring endless blows and words worse than blows. And by her stubbornness and apathy, she was driving the best man on earth to premeditated murder.

That morning, Tom had beaten the dog, and when she protested, he struck her near the temple. Since then, she'd heard the roar of the falls with growing intensity.

"Why doesn't it move?" she asked herself.

As she spoke, the log did move, carried by the current. Mamie, followed by the dog, ran after it, her eyes bright with excitement. Dennis barked, sensing something uncanny, trying to distract her. But she ran on, eyes fixed on the log. The dog knew she must stop; no one could pass the falls without going over. Did he also guess she meant to go over—that at last she had seen that way out of captivity?

She reached the point where further advance was impossible. To her right rose a stone wall; to her left, its twin. Between them the river rushed, tossing great logs like matchsticks. Mamie watched her log. After its jabs, it kept a straighter course than most. But she had outrun it. Standing at the edge of the precipice, feeling cold spray, hearing the maddening roar below—less fearsome than the monster from whom she'd escaped—she waited for the final plunge.

What passed in her mind at that supreme moment? She saw clearly the past through the mists of the future. Always she'd been a log at the mercy of a drunken father. Her mother had died giving birth to her, but she vaguely knew her mother had been a church member.

She didn't know—and couldn't have understood—that from her mother and grandmother she'd inherited a conscience, an unshakeable instinct that made her shrink from breaking certain ethical laws. But nature had been too strong. Even as she had instinctively avoided adultery, she had chosen a mate with the physical power she lacked. She'd fallen victim—reluctant victim—to the law of compensation. When Tom Barker raised his finger and whistled, she crawled to him.

The log, rolling slightly as if drunk, neared the brink. Then it stopped again where the river was narrowest and the current strongest. No log had stopped there before. Mamie saw it was caught on a small rock, held by the logs behind.

"It won't go over," she murmured.

Within a minute, a terrible jam threatened. Across the river, Tom swore horribly. Between husband and wife rose a mist of spray on which shimmered the colors of the rainbow, which long ago Mamie had learned was God's promise that good would triumph over evil.

Afraid to move, fascinated, she stared at the rainbow.

Tom disappeared. When he returned, she could see him clearly. He carried a stick of dynamite and a fuse. She watched him measure the fuse, then leap from log to log toward the one stuck midstream. With skill and daring, he placed the dynamite on the rock holding the log and lit the fuse. He returned as he'd come, and Mamie heard the men on the far bank cheer.

"It'll have to go now," she thought.

At that moment, Dennis, the dog, realized his master had left something behind.

She saw him leap from log to log, grab the dynamite in his teeth—fuse still sputtering—and follow his master.

"Tom!" she screamed. "Look out!"

Tom turned and saw! The others—Dennis Brown, Mamie, the river drivers—saw too and froze. Tom cursed the dog, yelled at him to go back, to drop it, drop it, DROP IT!

But the faithful creature, who had risked his life retrieving sticks from raging rapids, ran on. Mamie saw her husband's face twist into hideous terror. His lips moved soundlessly; with his huge hands he tried to push back the approaching doom.

The dog laid the dynamite at his master's feet at the very moment it exploded.

And the man whose name was Dennis knew his turn had come at last.