THE CUP OF TREMBLING
AND OTHER STORIES
BY MARY HALLOCK FOOTE
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1895
Copyright, 1895,
By MARY HALLOCK FOOTE.
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
CONTENTS
The Cup of Trembling
Maverick
On a Side-Track
The Trumpeter
BOOKS OF FICTION.
THE CUP OF TREMBLING
I
A miner of the Cœur d'Alêne was returning alone on foot, one winterevening, from the town in the gulch to his solitary claim far up on thetimbered mountain-side.
His nearest way was by an unfrequented road that led to the Dreadnaught,a lofty and now abandoned mine that had struck the vein three thousandfeet above the valley, but the ore, being low-grade, could never be madeto pay the cost of transportation.
He had cached his snow-shoes, going down, at the Bruce boys' cabin, theonly habitation on the Dreadnaught road, which from there was still opento town.
The snows that camp all summer on the highest peaks of the Cœurd'Alêne were steadily working downward, driving the game before them;but traffic had not ceased in the mountains. Supplies were stilldelivered by pack-train at outlying claims and distant cabins in thestanding timber. The miner was therefore traveling light, encumberedwith no heavier load than his personal requisition of tobacco and whiskyand the latest newspapers, which he circulated in exchange for thewayside hospitalities of that thinly peopled but neighborly region.
His homeward halt at the cabin was well timed. The Bruce boys were justsitting down to supper; and the moon, that would light his lonelier wayacross the white slopes of the forest, would not be visible for an houror more. The boys threw wood upon their low cooking-fire of coals, whichflamed up gloriously, spreading its immemorial welcome over that poor,chance suggestion of a home. The supper was served upon a board, orliterally two boards, nailed shelf-wise across the lighted end of thecabin, beneath a small window where, crossed by the squares of a dustysash, the austere winter twilight looked in: a sky of stained-glasscolors above the clear heights of snow; an atmosphere as cold and pureas the air of a fireless church; a hushed multitude of trees disguisedin vestments of snow, a mute recessional after the benediction has beensaid.
Each man dragged his seat to the table, and placed himself sidewise,that his legs might find room beneath the narrow board. Each dark facewas illumined on one side by the fitful fire-glow, on the other by theconstant though fading ray from the window; and, as they talked, theboisterous fire applauded, and the twilight, like a pale listener, laidits cold finger on the pane.
They talked of the price of silver, of the mines shutti