THE FABRIC OF A VISION

THE mountaineer’s keen eye noted a change in the river along which his pathway led. There had been rain back in the hills, and now what the mountaineers call a “tide” was coming down, discoloring the stream. Passing more than one abandoned raft, its logs submerged in the sand, at length he stopped, having spied a pair of great logs of the yellow poplar, such as the raftsmen use as floaters for the hardwood logs they make up into their rafts. Himself an experienced river man, he saw now the means of hastening his progress.

With aid of a hardwood lever, he managed to get both his logs afloat in the deep pool at whose edge they lay. Waist deep he waded, binding his logs together with a length of grapevine, which he tore from a nearby tree. He found here and there some bits of boards, flotsam and jetsam of the stream, and on these, spread crosswise, he laid bits of brush, making a little mound midships of his craft. When presently he had found a twelve-foot pole for guiding oar, he had done his work in building himself a boat. He stepped aboard it with the confidence of the river man. He knew the stream would carry him three, four or five miles an hour, sometimes six miles, in its more rapid reaches. He advanced, bend after bend, through a beautiful panorama of flame-decked river banks now gilded by the failing sun. He heard sometimes the bells of wandering cattle, now and again the lowing of a cow, the neighing of a horse; and saw by the river banks many a home of a mountaineer who had settled here none might say when. But the eyes of David Joslin were not for these things.

It was sunset when the hurrying flood of the river brought him to the mouth of that other tributary in whose valley he himself had dwelt all these years. Here was the confluence of the two main forks of the Kentucky. He knew every house of the little village at the forks, every feature of the hills, which rose about the village on either side.

He swung straight past, on the bosom of the rising and augmented river, his craft swimming steadily enough under his accustomed guidance. He scarce saw the little houses, their smoke rising for the evening meal. It was something more which came to his gaze as he traveled here.

He saw, or thought he saw—it might have been but the ragged heads of thunder clouds beyond the rim of the hills—the roofs and stacks of buildings—not one, but many buildings. They sat there on the hill that rose above the town—yes, he was sure of it. There were many of them—there was a city of them! Yonder on the hill there stood again visualized the thing which he had dreamed! It was but a vision, caught for an instant as the yellow flood of the river swept him on, but it was enough for David Joslin. A strange confidence came to him. He felt all the zeal of the old covenanters, the assurance that God was with him, and that his “calling” now was clear.

But the Kentucky River, coming into full tide, mocked at a man who thought of anything else but things at hand. Joslin knew what was on ahead a few miles—the great Narrows of the Kentucky, fatal to many a raft and many a raftsman. Here, at the foot of a long reach of still water, lay a great rock dam, where the hillsides came close together. The river, narrowed and compressed, was flung furiously out over the rock ledge, to drop a certain distance, and then to curl up and back in a high white wave extending entirely across the stream—what the raftsmen always called the “king breaker” of the Narrows.

There was a sort of pathway along the sides of the Narrows, by which one could come below the big swell, but Joslin, whether moody and distrait, whether in indifference, or whether resolved to take his chances and test his fate, made no attempt to land his frail craft. He headed straight for the great stretch of slack water, which lay above the rolling crest of the Narrows.

Always he had been chosen steersman for his raft in the river work he knew, and he knew this spot well enough—the fatalities which attended it—but he did not hesitate, and with his long sweep straightened his craft for what he knew would be the great plunge. He took it fair, crouching forward, his knees bent, his eyes ahead, just as he had steered more than one raft through in earlier times, and caught the full blow of the great wave, as he plunged from the darkness into the white of the stream, now under the blanket of the twilight in the deep defile.

He was flung entirely free of his two logs, as they were rent asunder by the force of the swell. He went down into the white—how deep he could not tell—perhaps halfway down to the bottom of the great pool which lay below the Narrows. He emerged, dazed, but his arm found no supporting logs—the two had been flung far apart, and by this time were rolling down the middle course of the white water. With what strength remained to him, he struck out for the right-hand shore, and had strength enough to fling up a hand and ease himself of the current along the rock ledge.

For a time he swung, breathing hard, then drew himself up and out, and lay flat upon the rocks. It was almost night, and it was cold. He was chilled and weak. He had traveled long and far without rest, and without sufficient food. But the rugged rearing he had had stood him once more in stead. He managed once more, by means of his priceless flint and steel, to build him a little fire, though how he lived through the night he scarce could say.

He knew that it was thirty miles down to the first settlement below, and that there were few houses between. He must walk. Half barefooted, penniless, hungered, wearied and weak, he staggered on as though a man in a trance. At least he was able to make his painful way all those weary miles. It was again evening, and late, when at length he saw the red lights of the little mill town of Windsor, where more than once before then he had pulled up with others of the wild raftsmen, among whom he had spent his youth.

He was at the edge of the great Outside. This was Ultima Thule for the hardwood rafts. And all of Thule, all of the great, unknown, mysterious world lay on beyond. It was a wild figure that this gaunt and haggard young man presented as, hesitant, he stood gazing out at the habitations in which, near at hand to which, beyond which, must lie the answers to the questions of his soul. He saw not the town where the rafts landed. In his mind still lived the vision of yon other city on the hill.