The High Calling

Gradually the priests disappear down into the kiva where a feast has been prepared for them by the women. The great festival, which will not occur again at Oraibi for two years, is over.

Paul sees Masters standing by him. In the dim light he realises with a start as he looks up, that the tears are rolling down over Masters's face.

"Oh, the people! How long will they seek after God in these ways! Oh, for the power to open their eyes to see him as He is!"

Through the growing darkness groups of tourists and visitors pass, choking the narrow paths between the houses, crowding into the trail down to the wagons at the foot of the rock. Among the confusion of chattering voices and exclamations one shrill voice of a girl penetrates through to the hearing of Masters and Paul.

"Wasn't it the greatest thing you ever saw? and oh, how picturesque! Those people, those girls on the houses! What a pity it would be to spoil it by trying to civilise these nature children!"

Masters looked at Paul grimly.

"Yes, it would be a great pity, wouldn't it? I wish that girl could stay here one winter and enjoy the picturesqueness of a Hopi Indian girl's life. I wonder if she has any little thought of the real life of these 'nature children'? Of its misery, its impurity, its dreadful sin and superstition and darkness; its infant mortality; its pain and disease due to the absence of any sanitary or medical skill. But most of all its ignorance of Jesus Christ and his love. 'Picturesque!' I grant you it is. But Christianity would not destroy anything worth keeping. For centuries these 'nature children' have walked in darkness. Are they not entitled, like that white girl, to the light of life? And did you see Talavenka when her father reached into the kisi for the snake?"

"No," said Paul, "I must confess my eyes were on the priests, not the spectators."

"Talavenka was crying all through the ceremony. Her father can not understand her new life. The girl stands alone in the midst of this superstition. What will become of her? The estrangement in the family is one of the most painful things I ever knew. Her mother Schewingoiashchi is the only one who seems kind to her. At times I think Schewingoiashchi is not far from the Kingdom herself. She does not object to Talavenka's baptism. We have talked of that. It will be a part of our service to-night. I must go and get ready."

Paul and Esther and the rest of the party went to Talavenka's house for the evening meal. Masters, who was of the old school of preachers, they learned afterwards had spent the hour before the service out on the edge of the rock a little past the mission chapel, praying in the darkness for the people of Oraibi.

Helen was very eager to go to see Talavenka baptised. During the afternoon she had noticed the girl's grief and had been deeply touched by it. They were of the same age, she had learned from Mrs. Masters. The few words she spoke in English during the midday meal had revealed a quiet dignity and a genuine Christian faith. Already Helen's romantic temperament was constructing a plan to have Talavenka leave Oraibi and finish her education in Milton academy.

"We can carry you over to the chapel all right," her father said. "Where are those young men? I haven't seen Van Shaw or his friends all the afternoon."

"They were there, I saw them," said Walter.

"I saw them on the other side of the plaza," said Bauer who had not lost sight of Van Shaw during the afternoon and had wondered more than once why he was avoiding Helen. He had had his talk with Mrs. Douglas and had been tormented all through that ancient prayer for rain with questions as to his wisdom in telling some things to Helen's mother. But he was not given to doubt concerning his motives and in this particular instance he had no hesitation over his own absolutely clean and disinterested motive. He wanted Helen to escape the horror of a union with a degenerate mind and heart as he knew they existed in Van Shaw's character and his own feeling for her did not occupy a prominent place in his motive. Of that much he was sure and it helped him somewhat to get through one of the most trying experiences of his life.

Bauer went on to say to Mr. Douglas that he had seen Van Shaw and his two friends go down the trail to their wagons and had not seen them come back up the rock. So Paul and Walter, Clifford and Felix took Helen over to the mission chapel towards which various groups could be seen moving through the unlighted spaces of Oraibi's crooked and narrow windings.

The chapel had been built by a small missionary society ambitious to signalise its existence by doing something desperately hard in a corner of the world where no missionary work had ever been done. The missionary in charge had laboured several years with that marvelous patience and persistence which nothing but the history of missions in this old world has ever recorded. And as a result of his work Talavenka had come into the light. She had spent two winters at the mission in Tolchaco and Masters had shaped and enlarged the faith that first had begun to glow on the grey rock of Oraibi. And the missionary had been planning to have Masters hold this special service and baptise Talavenka from the time he heard of his coming up to the snake dance.

Masters found a place on one end of the little platform for Helen's cot where she lay propped up in comfortable fashion. The room was very small and it filled up rapidly. When it would hold no more it is doubtful if any man with a message ever faced a more mixed or astonishing audience.

There were native Hopis, old men and women who did not understand a word of English. Navajo visitors, men who never appeared at Oraibi except once in two years. Paul recognised one man whom Masters had pointed out one day at Tolchaco as a notorious gambler and horse trader, known all over the painted desert as "Iadaka" the gambler; there were traders from the different government posts; a few teachers from the government schools; a bunch of cowboys from Flagstaff; half a dozen Apaches who had come up to Oraibi from an encampment near the Bottomless Pits; a dozen tourists from a half dozen different cities in the east attracted from tourist curiosity; three interpreters, one of whom happened to be in government employ and had been caught at Oraibi and detained there by an accident to his team on the way to Shungapavi. Masters knew him and asked him to come in and help at the service.

Besides this miscellaneous and polyglot audience inside the room, Helen soon became aware of nearly as many more spectators and listeners outside the building crowded about the open windows. The night was warm and still. The chapel had three windows on each side, and two at the rear behind the platform, and at each opening dark faces of various nationalities grouped and peered in with stoical or wondering interest. After the service had begun Helen suddenly became aware of the presence of Van Shaw and his two friends. They had evidently finished their supper and camp work and come back up the rock to be present at the chapel service but had been too late to get inside. Helen felt Van Shaw's gaze directed constantly at herself. He had secured a position close up to the second window from the platform. Helen again had that curious blending of anger and exultation, of shame and gratified vanity as if there were forces at work in her at war with one another tempting and antagonistic, attractive and repellant. But after one look had been exchanged between her and Van Shaw she changed her position on the cot so that she was partly hidden from him by a lamp which stood on one corner of the little parlour organ of the platform.

Do you know of any greater heroes than the heroes of the cross? These are the undaunted, unterrified, passion-filled souls of the earth. Masters personified the very spirit of aggressive, human, loving Christianity. That strange room full of humanity would have appalled anyone but a real soul-hungry man. What could anyone do with it? Century old vices and superstitions, brutal contempt for anything but coarse pleasures, stolid indifference to God, measureless egotism and age-long selfishness looked at him from the faces in the room and at the windows, from "Iadaka" and the wrinkled Hopis, from the sentimental tourist girl and Van Shaw and his two friends, from the dull visaged Apaches and the smirking traders, one of whom, to Master's own knowledge, had for years been cheating the rug weavers all the way from Black Bear Canyon to the Spanish Peaks.

And yet for some reason or a number of reasons, these humans were all here in front of him and as he looked at them, Masters had soul hunger for them. He loved the multitude. And it never entered his simple thought that anything else was possible but that in the long run they would all have to go down before the conquering Carpenter's Son. Yes, even old "Iadaka." He would some day see the light and he would walk and run all the way from Crested Buttes to the Bottomless Pit and throw his da'aka in there and kneel at Jesus feet and call him Lord. Have not the peoples of the earth been doing that all through the ages? Is not the miracle of regeneration greatest of all miracles since Jesus lived? Is anything too hard for God?

So Masters's simple unswerving faith spoke that night. He told in the simplest possible way the story of the cross. The old, old story that is changing the history of the world every day. The old story that is not afraid of modern philosophy, nor antique prejudice nor even the scoffing and sneering of Athens and the jeers of Vanity Fair and the complacent self satisfaction of the modern pharisee.

Then he told Talavenka's story as he knew she would be willing to have it told. The Hopi girl had sat on the front seat close to the platform. She was dressed in white and Helen wondered with herself more than once if Talavenka was like other girls and really knew or understood how marvellous was her black hair and her perfect coloured skin. And then almost as if someone had asked her, Helen asked herself if Talavenka had ever known a lover and if the great romance of life could come to her now that she had cut herself off from her people, and the swift runner in the corn dance might no longer look for her to come out in the grey morning and with the other maidens snatch from his arms the cool dew washed corn leaves and from his glowing eye the message which is the same between youths and maidens the world over.

But Talavenka was conscious herself of no other thought here to-night in the mission chapel at Oraibi. Masters spoke to her of her faith and asked her a few questions. The girl's face shone with intelligent affection for her Redeemer and then the missionary rose and held the baptismal bowl. Talavenka kneeled between him and Masters, Elijah Clifford with the tear in his eye standing by Miss Gray as if naturally their common interest in Talavenka and knowledge of her history made their mutual nearness a natural thing. Masters touched Talavenka's forehead with the water and said in a voice that trembled for the first time that night, "Talavenka, I baptise thee because of thy faith in the Lord Jesus, into the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

All through the service Masters had spoken through one or the other of the interpreters. In turn the Hopis, the Navajos, and the Apaches had heard of Jesus and what he had said had been listened to in some instances with evident eagerness. But the baptism of Talavenka impressed all alike. Even the stolid imagination of the trader from Red Stone Tanks could understand a little of the significance of what was going on there that night when the first Hopi maiden was being baptised into a religion which her ancestors for centuries had known nothing about.

They sang "My Faith looks up to Thee," and after a prayer by Miss Gray, which was so tender it made Helen cry, the meeting was over.

The people went out slowly. Those who knew Talavenka came up to see her. Her mother had sat still as if graven there all through the evening. Suddenly she drew her shawl over her head and rose and went out. Talavenka trembled as she watched her. "My mother!" was all she said. It was a whole volume of longing for her redemption. Helen heard her and held out her hand to her as she stood there near the little platform. And the two girls, one born in Christian civilisation, nurtured in soft and comfortable ways, and the other who first drew breath in a dark and filthy corner of a stone hut on this treeless rock, drew near together and the Christian faith of each swiftly bridged over all the centuries of difference in matters of language, customs and ceremonies. For is it not beautifully true that when Jesus enters a life it becomes a part of all life everywhere, and there is no longer any Greek nor Jew, neither Barbarian, Scythian, bondman or freeman, but all are one.

At that instant Van Shaw and his friends came down the aisle of the little room. They had crowded in as soon as enough people had gone out. They came up now, greeting the other tourists, some of whom they had met for the first time that afternoon.

Van Shaw, however, seemed especially anxious to reach the spot where Mrs. Douglas was standing talking with one of the government teachers from Kean's Canyon. In passing one of the tourists who was in the middle of the aisle, Van Shaw came face to face with Bauer, and to Bauer's tremendous astonishment Van Shaw said at once in a threatening tone—which, however, he guarded so as not to be heard by anyone else:

"I understand you have been meddling in my affairs. I consider it a mighty sneaking thing for you to do and I want you to understand I won't–"

Bauer recovered his composure quickly as he interrupted Van Shaw.

"We can't very well discuss this matter in here."

"I want a word with Mrs. Douglas first," said Van Shaw.

But Bauer stepped in front of him and said:

"I think you had better have a word with me first."

Van Shaw looked at him uncertainly and then turned and walked out of the chapel. Bauer followed him immediately.

The only light out on the rock was starlight. Darkness covered the blurred outline of Oraibi's houses, with only an occasional point of light here and there, or the sudden glow from some kiva as the opening reflected the fire at the bottom.

Van Shaw walked slowly as if by appointment out to the edge of the rock. When he stopped, Bauer was close by him. In the mist far below a red glow marked the camp by the Oraibi Wash. The night was very still and they were almost near enough to the chapel to distinguish the sound of voices within.

CHAPTER XVI

"NOW that we are here," said Van Shaw, "I simply want to repeat what I said. You don't butt into my affairs. Keep out. Coleman overheard a part of what you told Mrs. Douglas to-day while you were near the cemetery rock. He was on the other side of it. What you said may be true, but I consider it a sneaking thing and I won't stand for it."

Bauer was still. In the first place he had never faced such a situation and in the darkness there he swiftly recurred to his talk with Mrs. Douglas. He had found her already prepared for a part of what he had to say. Esther, sensitively intelligent in anything relating to Helen's welfare, had not seen Van Shaw a moment before she felt a repulsion for him amounting to horror. What Bauer told her from his own knowledge of Van Shaw's immoral life in Burrton roused all her mother instincts to protect her child from a fate worse than death if she should marry a man who had already fallen. She shared in the fullest degree with Bauer's deep fear that Helen might, in her desire for the soft and beautiful things of wealth, risk her very life itself, not because she knew she was doing it, but partly through ignorance of the real character of the man who had the unblushing selfishness to ask a pure girl like Helen to accept him as a husband, knowing himself to be what he was.

And Bauer, measuring in his slow but not stupid fashion all the consequences of his action in warning Mrs. Douglas, knowing clearly the code of morals governing men like Van Shaw and the wicked and unchristian standard of even so-called Christian society in condemning what it called "telling on others," nevertheless went forward to do what seemed to him to be only necessary in the name of common honour and decency.

The fact that Van Shaw had found out what he had done did not disturb him greatly. The only thing that troubled him now was to hold himself sufficiently in hand. He had never hated anyone in his life except this rich man's son and he had been slow to entertain that feeling for him. But it had grown like a tropical plant within the last three days. And all the old Teutonic rage latent in him was at the boiling point whenever he thought of Van Shaw and Helen together. He said to himself there in the darkness that if there had been light enough to see Van Shaw's sneering face he would have struck it. He remembered hearing his own father say once that one of his ancestors at Lausbrachen had choked the life out of a family enemy, using only one hand around the man's throat. He was so afraid of himself now that he involuntarily stepped back away from Van Shaw and Van Shaw noted it and put the action down to cowardice or fear.

"Well, are you going to keep out of my affairs? Is it any business of yours whether I try to make friends with the Douglases? Or perhaps–" he suddenly changed his tone as if a new thought had broken in on his mind. "Look here, Bauer. Perhaps—well, maybe you don't understand–I am going to marry Miss Douglas!"

"What!" Bauer cried out. He stepped nearer Van Shaw and Van Shaw stepped back, nearer the edge of the rock.

"Well," Van Shaw laughed. "That is, as soon as she says yes, I am. My intentions are all right. But—" and his accustomed mood quickly reasserted itself, "I warn you to keep out. Leave my affairs alone. A fellow whose father and mother have done what yours have, isn't in the best position to throw stones at other people."

Felix Bauer long years afterwards confessed to the dearest friend he had, that in that moment he had the nearest approach to the thought of murder and hate he ever knew. But before he could reply to Van Shaw's brutality he saw him stagger and reel and throw up his arms on the edge of the rock. He heard him cry out, "For God's sake, Bauer!" and then he fell backward and disappeared over the cliff.

For a second Bauer stood in his place smitten with horror. He was totally ignorant of the character of the ground where Van Shaw had been standing and of what lay below. Evidently a shelving piece of the rotten sandstone had broken off. How much of the edge was dangerous it was impossible to tell there in the dark. He uttered one loud cry of "Help!" and then flung himself down full length and dragged himself up to the place where Van Shaw had disappeared.

Just as he reached the edge, he heard fragments of the rock go rattling down and a sound as of a heavy body falling somewhere. He peered over fearfully. He shouted again. He looked, straining down, and it seemed to him that about twenty feet below he could see a huddled-up body lying on a projecting ledge.

And then Felix Bauer did as brave or as foolhardy a thing as anyone ever did. It was partly to punish himself for the murderous feeling he had entertained a moment before that he now said, "Good God! I must save him now. Help me, God! Help me!"

He swung about on the edge of the ragged rock and let his feet down. He felt a projecting knob of something, and then for a sickening second he paused and shouted again and then he let go, hugging the face of the cliff. As he went down, he began to realise thankfully that the cliff was rough and irregular. His hands were running blood, but he did not know it. As he felt resting places for his feet, or anything for his hands to clutch, he sobbed, "God help me! God help me!"

He was down at last near enough to see that Van Shaw had fallen in a bent-over position on a shelf of rock, a little more than wide enough to hold his body. He called to him but received no answer. At last he was near enough to drop down on the ledge but as he was about to do so, Van Shaw, with a groan of pain, turned over, and began to roll towards the edge.

Bauer desperately let go of everything, fell in a lump and snatched at Van Shaw. He caught one arm and, panting, held onto it. The rest of Van Shaw's body was hanging over the side of the ledge, and even in that critical moment Bauer recalled his first view of Oraibi rock as the wagons had come up from the Oraibi Wash and the Tolchaco party had scanned through the field glass the inaccessible sides. But he was on the opposite side now and how far it was below the place where he now was he could not tell. Only he knew it must be a killing distance down there in the dark that seemed to be reaching up black, heavy hands pulling at Van Shaw's unconscious body, pulling at it harder and harder every second. He could feel himself slipping down across the smooth ledge which offered no place for his sliding feet. He was using his last strength, but every second it seemed impossible. His lungs were bursting. The red taste of hot blood was in his mouth; he had a confused thought that he could let go of Van Shaw's arm any time, but he did not let go. He was slipping, slipping down, pulled inch by inch by those strong black hands of the dark down there, but still he clung and sobbed "God, save us!"

And then Elijah Clifford's voice called to him.

"I'm coming, Bauer, I'm coming."

The voice gave Felix one more ounce of strength. He exerted it, was conscious that someone was down there with him farther off at the side of the ledge, then his hold loosened, everything turned black and he did not know any more.

When he came to himself he was lying on one of the seats of the little chapel. Anxious white, frightened faces were all about him. He was dimly aware of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas and Mr. and Mrs. Masters and Elijah Clifford and Miss Gray and Helen and a group of tourists, one of whom he heard Mr. Douglas call "doctor." He seemed to feel conscious of another body that was lying on a bench near him, the body of Van Shaw, and as it stirred and groaned, he had an undefined feeling of thankfulness that he was still alive and that no murder had been committed. And then the hot taste of blood came into his mouth and he knew his hemorrhage had come on again.

He was too weak to talk and felt irritated at the hubbub about him. But cots were soon provided and he and Van Shaw and Helen were carried down the trail to their tents, where a curious and interested group soon gathered. Van Shaw had broken his shoulder and one leg. The doctor was not certain about other and internal injuries. But Van Shaw was conscious and unless something unforeseen took place, he was in a fair way to recover.

Everyone was excited and sleep was out of the question. So when everything possible had been done for Bauer and Van Shaw, Elijah Clifford told what he knew of the accident and in his own way related his share in the evening's adventures.

"You see, I had just lighted our lantern and had stepped out of the chapel to light our folks down the trail when I heard Bauer's cry for help. I hadn't seen him go out and I didn't know what he was doing out there, but it's always been a rule of the Mission when anyone yells 'help,' to run in that direction. I fell over an old standard oil can and broke my lantern and my shins. And I guess while I was down, Bauer was just getting over the edge of the rock.

"Say! Talk about recklessness, I take it Herr Felix Bauer has us all beat to a-run-down-the-trail-and-back. You strangers from New York, how would you like to back off the top of the Flat Iron Building, hang onto the coping with your fingers for a second and then let go, trusting to strike a window ledge or something between the soles of your shoes and Madison Square? Well, that's just what this tuberculosis son of Germany did, and if it doesn't knock all the snake traditions of this old rock into piki bread crumbs then I have lost my way and forgotten where I started from."

"How about yourself?" asked one of the New York tourists. "Didn't you go down the same place?"

In the light of the camp fire it was not easy to see that Elijah Clifford actually blushed. But he did, and Miss Gray sat near enough to note it. If Elijah Clifford had not been so embarrassed by the New York man's question he might possibly, if he had been looking in Miss Gray's direction, have seen a new look on her face. A look of shy Admiration that belongs to the border land of another county called Affection, which is a near by state to another called Love. But Clifford hastened to say: