Analy High School - Azalea Yearbook (Sebastopol, CA)

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The Death Wind, Hell Delane By DON WALKER (Fourth Award) ( T A FONTAINE — ain’t that a bird of a name, DoctorT” asked Hell Delane, pointing with his great calloused hand down the long white slope to where several small ramshackle buildings were standing. “It’s French, you know. It means the fountain. No,” he continued, observing his companion’s surprise, “It’s merely a hell hole I’ve found¬ ed, reared and named — no, not after her.” He said the last quite sadly, and for ,a time following the two men stood in sil¬ ence and the dog teams licked the snow and rested on their haunches, waiting. The man Delane, who had spoken so, was a wonderful — ay, a beautiful, if such he might be termed — specimen of the human male, — physically beautiful and perfect. He was tall and, corresponding with his heiglitli, were his massive shoul¬ ders and frame — lean and straight with great sinewy muscles which moved beneath his furskin clothing like so many cords of straining inner-life. Bnt his companion did not harmonize. He was smaller, we,aker and physically inferior. “So there, Helbert,” began the little man suddenly, “lies the La Fontaine, eh, where I am to find a certain queer philo¬ sophy? May I - ” “You’re new to this land and its ways, Doctor,” inter¬ rupted the other. “You have told me many times that you hold that the mind is supreme when it comes to ergative and gov¬ erning abilities and that a man must first he a good animal, at least so in his intellect and his behavior, before he can justly be regarded as a m,an. I am just fool enough to disbelieve it. I claim that a man first must be a wild, vicious and freedom- loving animal, like the great white wolf, and that the survivor of this northern life must have strength and endurance and savageness, and thought afterwards. Hobart,” he continued, “we of the nortldand live through our actions; muscle, nerve ana fearlessness are the main ingredients of our compound known as life. And life to us — or at le.ast to me — seems cheap and at times almost worthless. I live and I love to live. And of death? Well, — death is one thing that cannot be avoided; we are born to die. Then why fear it ? For if we lived for ever 20

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“You shall never see inside its cover; sieze him!” I quickly fled to the great open door of the palace, through which I could see the blue waters of a lake smiling in the sun¬ shine. “If you hut touch me,” 1 said, “I shall hurl it into the lake and you shall never see it again.” His old face grew suddenly very tired, and he said in a weary voice, “I am an old man; give me my treasure and go away.” My heart smote me, but I s,aid finally, “Tell me how I may open it.” He dropped his head on his wrinkled hands and said in a low voice, “Press the left eye of the little dragon.” Now I would know. Now my eye could feast upon the wonderful treasure. My han ds trembled in their eagerness as I touched the gleaming ruby. The lid slowly raised- “If you want yer supper you’d better hurry, it’s a-coldin fast.” The h,arsh voice rang in my ears and before my eyes the emperor and all his court grew very dim. Through the wide dorway I caught one last glimpse of white cherry blos¬ soms, and blue water. The sweet scent of the blooming trees faint and far away. Across the lonely sight spread the dingy walls of my room, shutting out that fair land and closing in the disagreeable odor of frying food. There in my hand lay the little box with the red-eyed dragon on its fast closed lid, glaring up at me in malicious triumph. The sulky voice of my landlady had broken the delicate thread of thought which bad held me in another fairer land, where spring laughed and sang and where a tired old man mourned for his treasure. Now I would never know what mystery the box held nor how it came from the l,and of cherry blossoms and springtime to a wet, muddy New York street.

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how could we value life? It would be too great a certainty, ,and it is only that which cannot be retained for ever and eter¬ nity that we really treasure. I spoke of death and that we were born to die. I meant it. I have survived the Death Wind many times, and the Death Wind many times has favored me. I was the fittest, the strongest, fiercest and wildest—therefore I remained above the weaker—but some day Death Wind will deal with me; it will be the strongest and then, too, I must go. I live today and get all I can from life today—tomorrow, per¬ haps, to be gone. I alone, Hobart,’’ he concluded, “with my greater strength and, though I do say it, my greater fearless¬ ness, have created, reared and named that which lies before us—La Fontaine!” With this last boast he lashed the dogs in¬ to a yelping, dashing run down the long, snow-covered slope leading down to the village of La Fontaine. When those long shadows of the great Arctic night spread silently over the wild country, the lynx cat, otter, wolf and bear return to their long, long haunt of the lifeless winter. And so with the people, who through the summer hunt and seek in the great vast wilnerness,—they, too, have their haunts of the winter. And there all the congregated life of the north holds sway; and so it was with the little village of La Fontaine. Winter had retrieved t and revived the life and the soul of the great wild north. The wild storm winds, blowing from the death-stalked trails, howled and shrieked around the corners and beneath eaves of old Maine’s. It was evening, and beside the roaring logs of the open fire sat men, big, ho t ary, husky; bearded men who laughed and talked and shared their “hootch” to pass the time away. Old Spike-eye Mike of Ludenbec was planning of the spring and of a home at Kiskanook along the Kiani Ways. And French Le Due, too, counted on a shanty far down near Hudson Bay, when lie would have a home like old Maule’s with curtains on the windows and his guns upon the walls, and where the kettles on the open hearth would boil and bubble merrily at eve—where trophies of the chase, the skins of bear and wolf and minx and cat and the great antlers of the caribou would hang while he sat back in his chair and recounted to— why to the little French Le Dues, the history of each and why. And ah, yes, the femme—the petite spirit of the house—she would reign above them while he, the watchful mate, provided. 21