The immediate result of these words, besides relief, was to set Dan
wondering how the old mountaineer had recognized him. He wondered if he
had any physical resemblance to his grandfather. But this hope was shot
to earth at once. His telegram had explained about his malady, and of
course the mountaineer had picked him out simply because he had the
mark of the disease on his face. As he shook hands, he tried his best
to read the mountaineer's expression. It was all too plain: an
undeniable look of disappointment.
The truth was that even in spite of all the Chamber of Commerce head had
told him, Lennox had still hoped to find some image of the elder Dan
Failing in the face and body of his grandson. But at first there seemed
to be none at all. The great hunter and trapper who had tamed the
wilderness about the region of the Divide--as far as mortal man could
tame it--had a skin that was rather the color of old leather. The face
of this young man was wholly without tinge of color. Because of the
thick glasses, Lennox could not see the young man's eyes; but he didn't
think it likely they were at all like the eyes with which the elder
Failing saw his way through the wilderness at night. Of course he was
tall, just as the famous frontiersman had been, but while the elder
weighed one hundred and ninety pounds, bone and muscle, this man did not
touch one hundred and thirty. Evidently the years had brought degeneracy
to the Failing clan. Lennox was desolated by the thought.
He helped Dan with his bag to a little wiry automobile that waited
beside the station. They got into the two front seats.
"You'll be wondering at my taking you in a car--clear to the Divide,"
Lennox explained. "But we mountain men can't afford to drive horses any
more where a car will go. This time of year I can make it fairly
easy--only about fifteen miles on low gear. But in the winter--it's
either a case of coming down on snowshoes or staying there."
And a moment later they were starting up the long, curved road that led
to the Divide.
During the hour that they were crossing over the foothills, on the way
to the big timber, Silas Lennox talked a great deal about the
frontiersman that had been Dan's grandfather. A mountain man does not
use profuse adjectives. He talks very simply and very straight, and
often there are long silences between his sentences. Yet he conveys his
ideas with entire clearness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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