The Project Gutenberg eBook, They of the High Trails, by Hamlin Garland
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Title: They of the High Trails
Author: Hamlin Garland
Release Date: June 14, 2009 [eBook #29119]
Language: English
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THEY OF THE HIGH TRAILS
* * * * *
BOOKS BY HAMLIN GARLAND
THEY OF THE HIGH TRAILS. Illustrated. Post 8vo
THE FORESTER'S DAUGHTER. Illustrated. Post 8vo
VICTOR OLLNEE'S DISCIPLINE. Post 8vo
CAVANAGH--FOREST RANGER. Post 8vo
MAIN-TRAVELLED ROADS. Post 8vo
OTHER MAIN-TRAVELLED ROADS. Post 8vo
ROSE OF DUTCHER'S COOLLY. Post 8vo
THE CAPTAIN OF THE GRAY-HORSE TROOP. Post 8vo
PRAIRIE FOLKS. Post 8vo
THE TRAIL OF THE GOLD-SEEKERS. Post 8vo
BOY LIFE ON THE PRAIRIE. Illustrated. Post 8vo
HESPER. Post 8vo
THE LIGHT OF THE STAR. Illustrated. Post 8vo
MONEY MAGIC. Illustrated. Post 8vo
THE LONG TRAIL. Illustrated. Post 8vo
THE MOCCASIN RANCH. Illustrated. Post 8vo
THE TYRANNY OF THE DARK. Illustrated. Post 8vo
THE SHADOW WORLD. Post 8vo
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
ESTABLISHED 1817
* * * * *
[Illustration: [See page 220]
"TAKE ME BACK--INSIDE," ALICE SAID. "I FEEL COLD HERE."]
THEY OF THE HIGH TRAILS
[Illustration]
by
HAMLIN GARLAND
Illustrated
[Illustration]
Harper & Brothers Publishers
New York and London
THEY OF THE HIGH TRAILS
Copyright, 1902, 1906, 1908, 1910, 1913, 1914, 1915, by Hamlin Garland
Copyright, 1916, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published April, 1916
CONTENTS
PAGE
FOREWORD ix
I. THE GRUB-STAKER 3
II. THE COW-BOSS 31
III. THE REMITTANCE MAN 57
IV. THE LONESOME MAN 81
V. THE TRAIL TRAMP 95
VI. THE PROSPECTOR 155
VII. THE OUTLAW 181
VIII. THE LEASER 237
IX. THE FOREST RANGER 253
AFTERWORD 381
ILLUSTRATIONS
"TAKE ME BACK--INSIDE," ALICE SAID. "I FEEL COLD HERE" _Frontispiece_
"YOU'RE PRETTY SWIFT, AREN'T YOU?" SHE SAID, CUTTINGLY _Facing p._ 38
THE WOMAN CARRIED HERSELF SO UNGRACEFULLY AND DRESSED
SO PLAINLY THAT EVEN THE SALOON-DOOR LOAFERS CAST
CONTEMPTUOUS GLANCES UPON HER _Facing p._ 254
THE AUTHOR AND A FOREST RANGER _Facing p._ 278
_THE AUTHOR'S FOREWORD_
_Many changes have swept over the mountain West since twenty years ago,
but romance still clings to the high country. The Grub-Staker, hammer in
hand, still pecking at the float, wanders the hills with hopeful
patience, walking the perilous ledges of the cliffs in endless search of
gold._
_The Cow-Boss, reckless rear-guard of his kind, still urges his
watch-eyed bronco across the roaring streams, or holds his milling herd
in the high parks, but the Remittance Man, wayward son from across the
seas, is gone. Roused to manhood by his country's call, he has joined
the ranks of those who fight to save the shores of his ancestral isle._
_The Prospector still pushes his small pack-mule through the snow of
glacial passes, seeking the unexplored, and therefore more alluring,
mountain ranges._
_The Lonesome Man still seeks forgetfulness of crime in the solitude,
building his cabin in the shadow of great peaks._
_The Trail-Tramp, mounted wanderer, horseman of the restless heart,
still rides from place to place, contemptuous of gold, carrying in his
folded blanket all the vanishing traditions of the wild._
_The Fugitive still seeks sanctuary in the green timber--finding the
storms of the granite peaks less to be feared than the fury of the
law._
_The Leaser--the tenderfoot hay-roller from the prairies--still tries
his luck in some abandoned tunnel, sternly toiling for his faithful
sweetheart in the low country; and_
_The Forest Ranger, hardy son of the pioneers, representing the finer
social order of the future, rides his lonely woodland trail, guarding
with single-hearted devotion our splendid communal heritage of mine and
stream._
_On the High Trail_, SPRING, 1916.
THE GRUB-STAKER
_--hammer in hand, still pecking at the float, wanders the
Rockies with hopeful patience, walking the perilous ledges
of the cliffs in endless search of gold._
THEY OF THE HIGH TRAILS
I
THE GRUB-STAKER
I
"There's gold in the Sierra Blanca country--everybody admits it,"
Sherman F. Bidwell was saying as the Widow Delaney, who kept the Palace
Home Cooking Restaurant in the town of Delaney (named after her husband,
old Dan Delaney), came into the dining-room. Mrs. Delaney paused with a
plate of steaming potatoes, and her face was a mask of scorn as she
addressed the group, but her words were aimed especially at Bidwell, who
had just come in from the lower country to resume his prospecting up the
gulch.
"It's aisy sayin' gould is in thim hills, but when ye find it rainbows
will be fishin'-rods." As she passed the potatoes over Bidwell's head
she went on: "Didn't Dan Delaney break his blessed neck a-climbin' the
high places up the creek--to no purpis includin' that same accident? You
min may talk and talk, but talk don't pay for petaties and bacon, mind
that. For eight years I've been here and I'm worse off to-day than iver
before--an' the town, phwat is it? Two saloons and a boardin'-house--and
not a ton of ore dug--much less shipped out. Y'r large words dig no
dirt, I'm thinkin', Sherm Bidwell."
Bidwell was a mild-spoken man who walked a little sidewise, with eyes
always on the ground as though ceaselessly searching for pieces of
float. He replied to his landlady with some spirit: "I've chashayed
around these mountains ever since I got back from Californey in
fifty-four and I know good rocks. I can't just lay my pick on the vein,
but I'm due to find it soon, for I'm a-gettin' old. Why, consider the
float, it's everywhere--and you know there's colors in every sand-bar?
There's got to be a ledge somewhere close by."
The widow snorted. "Hah! Yiss, flo-at! Me windysills is burthened with
dirty float--but where's the gould?"
"I'll find it, Mrs. Delaney--but you must be patient," he mildly
replied.
"Pashint! Me, pashint! Sure Job was a complainin' mill-wheel beside me,
Sherm Bidwell. Me boarders have shrunk to five and you're one o' the
five--and here you are after another grub-stake to go picnicking into
the mountains wid. I know your smooth tongue--sure I do--but ye're up
against me determination this toime, me prince. Ye don't get a pound o'
meat nor a measure o' flour from Maggie Delaney--"
Bidwell sat with an air of resigned Christian fortitude while the widow
delivered herself. To tell the truth, he had listened to these precise
words before--and resented them only because spoken publicly.
The other boarders finished their supper in silence and went out, but
Bidwell lingered to wheedle the mistress while she ate her own fill at
the splotched and littered table. The kerosene-lamp stood close to her
plate and brought out the glow of her cheek and deepened the blue of her
eyes into violet. She was still on the right side of forty and well
cared for.
Bidwell shot a shy glance at her. "I like to stir you up, Maggie
darlin'; it makes you purty as a girl."
She caught up a loaf of bread and heaved it at him. He caught it deftly
and inquired, guilelessly: "Is this the first of my grub-stake, lassie?"
"It is _not!_ 'Tis the last crumb ye'll have of me. Out wid ye!
Grub-stake indade! You go out this night, me bucko!"
Bidwell rose in pretended fright and shuffled to the door. "I don't need
much--a couple o' sacks o' flour--"
She lifted an arm. "You tramp!"
He slammed the door just in time to prevent a cup from flying straight
into his smiling eyes. After a moment of silent laughter, and with a
wink at the men in the "office," he reopened the door and said:
"Ye're a warm-hearted, handsome girl, Maggie. Two strips o' bacon--"
A muffled cry and a crash caused him to again slam the door and
withdraw.
Coming back to the middle of the room, he took out his pipe and began to
fill it. One of the younger men said:
"You'll get that grub-stake over the eye; the widdy is dangerous
to-night."
Sherm seemed not much concerned. Having fired his pipe, he took a piece
of rock from his pocket. "What do you think o' this?" he inquired,
casually.
The other examined it eagerly, and broke out: "Jee--cripes! Why, say!
that's jest _rotten_ with gold. Where'd you find it?"
"Out in the hills," was the placid reply; "a new vein--high up."
The third man took the rock and said: "That vein has got to be low
down--that can't come from high up. We're on the wrong trail. Think o'
Cripple Creek--mine's right under the grass on the hills. Yer can't fool
me."
"But we know the veins are high--we've seen 'em," argued the other men.
"Yes--but they're different veins. This rock comes from lower down."
"What do you say to that, Sherm?"
"One guess is as good as another," he replied, and moved away with his
piece of ore.
"The old man's mighty fly this evenin'. I wonder if he really has
trailed that float to a standstill. I'd sooner think he's stringin' us."
Bidwell went out on the edge of the ravine, and for a long time sat on a
rock, listening to the roar of the swift stream and looking up at the
peaks which were still covered with heavy yellow snow, stained with the
impalpable dust which the winter winds had rasped from the exposed
ledges of rock. It was chill in the cañon, and the old man shivered with
cold as well as with a sense of discouragement. For twenty years he had
regularly gone down into the valleys in winter to earn money with which
to prospect in summer--all to no purpose. For years Margaret Delaney had
been his very present help in time of trouble, and now she had broken
with him, and under his mask of smiling incredulity he carried a
profoundly disturbed conscience. His benefactress was in deadly
earnest--she meant every word she said--that he felt, and unless she
relented he was lost, for he had returned from the valley this time
without a dollar to call his own. He had a big, strong mule and some
blankets and a saddle--nothing further.
The wind grew stronger and keener, roaring down the cañon with the
breath of the upper snows, and the man's blood cried out for a fire
(June stands close to winter in the high ranges of the Crestones), and
at last he rose stiffly and returned to the little sitting-room, where
he found the widow in the midst of an argument with her boarders to
prove that they were all fools together for hangin' to the side of a
mountain that had no more gould in it than a flatiron or a loomp o'
coal--sure thing!
"What you goin' to do about our assays?" asked young Johnson.
"Assays, is it? Annybody can have assays--that will pay the price. Ye're
all lazy dogs in the manger, that's phwat ye air. Ye assay and want
somebody else to pay ye fer the privilege of workin'. Why don't ye work
yer-silves--ye loots? Sit around here expectin' some wan ilse to shovel
gould into yer hat. Ye'll pay me yer board--moind that," she ended,
making a personal application of her theories; "ivery wan o' ye."
If any lingering resolution remained in Bidwell's heart it melted away
as he listened to Mrs. Delaney's throaty voice and plain, blunt words.
Opening the door timidly, he walked in and without looking at the angry
woman seized upon his bundles, which lay behind the door.
The widow's voice rang out: "Where ye gawun wid thim bags?"
Bidwell straightened. "They're my bundles, I reckon. Can't a man do as
he likes with his own?"
"Not whin he's owin' fer board. Put thim boondles down!"
The culprit sighed and sat down on the bundles. Even young Johnson lost
his desire to laugh, for Bidwell looked pathetically old and discouraged
at the moment, as he mildly asked:
"You wouldn't send a man out in the night without his blankets, would
you?"
"I'd send a sneak to purgatory--if I c'u'd. Ye thought ye'd ooze out,
did ye? Nice speciment you are!"
Bidwell was roused. "If I had planned to sneak I wouldn't 'a' come into
the room with you a-standin' in the middle of the floor," he replied,
with some firmness. "You ordered me out, didn't you? Well, I'm goin'. I
can't pay you--you knew that when you told me to go--and I owe you a
good deal--I admit that--but I'm going to pay it. But I must have a
little time."
The other men, with a grateful sense of delicacy, got up and went out,
leaving Bidwell free space to justify himself in the eyes of the angry
woman.
As the door slammed behind the last man the widow walked over and gave
Bidwell a cuff. "Get _off_ thim boondles. Gaw set on a chair like a man,
an' not squat there like a baboon." She pitched his bundles through an
open door into a small bedroom. "Ye know where yer bed is, I hope! I do'
know phwat Dan Delaney w'u'd say to me, housin' and feedin' the likes o'
you, but I'll do it wan more summer--and then ye gaw flyin'. Ye hear
that now!"
And she threw the door back on its hinges so sharply that a knob was
broken.
Bidwell went in, closed the door gently, and took to his bed, dazed with
this sudden change in the climate. "She's come round before--and
surprised me," he thought, "but never so durn sudden as this. I hope she
ain't sick or anything."
Next morning at breakfast Maggie was all smiles. The storm of the
evening before had given place to brilliant sunshine. She ignored all
winks and nudgings among her boarders, and did not scruple to point out
to Bidwell the choicest biscuit on the plate, and to hand him the
fattest slice of bacon, all of which he accepted without elation.
"Old Sherm must be one o' these hypnotical chaps," said Johnson as they
were lighting their pipes in the sitting-room. "He's converted the widow
into another helping. He's goin' to get his flour and bacon all right!"
"You bet he is, and anything else he wants. Beats me what she finds in
that old side-winder, anyhow."
"Oh, Sherm isn't so worse if he had a decent outfit."
Bidwell was deeply touched by Maggie's clemency, and would have put his
feelings into the best terms he was familiar with, but the widow stopped
him.
"The best way to thank me is to hustle out and trail up that flo-at. If
it's there, find it. If it's not there, give o'er the search, for ye are
a gray man, Sherm Bidwell, and I'm not the woman I was eight years ago."
In the exaltation of the moment Bidwell rose, and his shoulders were
squared as he said: "I'm a-goin', Maggie. If I find it I'll come back
and marry you. If I don't--I'll lay my useless old bones in the hills."
"Ah--go 'long! Don't be a crazy fool!" she said, but her face flushed
with pleasure at the sincerity of his tone. "Ye've made such promises
ivery time before."
"I know I have, but I mean it now."
"Aho! so that's the way of it--ye didn't mean it before? Is that phwat
ye're sayin'?"
His proud pose collapsed. "You know what I mean--only you're such a
tormentin' little devil."
"Thank ye for the compliment, Mr. Bidwell."
Bidwell turned. "I'm going after old Nebuchadnezzar," he said, firmly.
"I can't waste time on a chicken-headed woman--"
"Out wid ye before I break the measly head of ye!" she retorted.
An hour later, with his mule packed with food and blankets and tools, he
moved off up the trail. The other men stood to watch him go, consumed
with curiosity, yet withholding all question.
The widow did not so much as look from the door as her grub-staker
disappeared.
II
Three days later Bidwell crept stealthily down the trail, leading his
mule as silently as possible. He timed his arrival so that Mrs. Delaney
would be in the kitchen alone with the Chinaman, getting the dishes
ready for breakfast.
"Who is ut?" called the widow as he softly knocked.
"Me--Sherm," he replied.
"Saints in hevin! What's the matter? Are ye sick?" she gasped as she
flung the door open.
"'Sh! Don't speak so loud," he commanded. "Sit down; I want to speak
solemn-like to you."
His tone impressed her deeply. "Have ye struck ut?" she asked,
tremulously.
"I hain't found it yet, but I want to tell ye--I believe I've had a
hunch. Send the 'chink' away."
Something in his tone stopped all scornful words upon her lips. Ordering
the Chinaman to bed, she turned and asked:
"Phwat do ye mean? Spake, man!"
"Well, sir, as I started up the trail something kept sayin' to me,
'Sherman, you're on the wrong track.' It was just as if you pulled my
sleeve and nudged me and said, '_This_ way!' I couldn't sleep that
night. I just lay on the ground and figured. Up there high--terrible
high--are seams of ore--I know that--but they're in granite and hard to
get at. That's one gold belt. There's money in a mine up there, but it
will take money to get it. Then there's another gold belt down about
here--or even lower--and I've just come to the conclusion that our mine,
Maggie, is down here in the foot-hills, not on old Blanca."
The air of mystery which enveloped and transformed the man had its
effect on the woman. Her eyes opened wide.
"Was it a voice like?"
"No, it was more like a pull. Seemed to be pulling me to cross the creek
where I found that chunk of porph'ritic limestone. I couldn't sleep the
second night--and I've been in camp up there in Burro Park tryin' to
figure it all out. I hated to give up and come back--I was afraid ye'd
think I was weakening--but I can't help it. Now I'll tell you what I'm
going to do--I'm going to make a camp over on the north side of the
creek. I don't want the boys to know where I've gone, but I wanted you
to know what I'm doing--I wanted you to know--it's plum ghostly--it
scared me."
She whispered, "_Mebbe it's Dan._"
"I thought o' that. Him and me were always good friends, and he was in
my mind all the while."
"But howld on, Sherm; it may be the divil leadin' ye on to break y'r
neck as did Dan. 'Twas over there he fell."
"Well, I thought o' that, too. It's either Dan or the devil, and I'm
going to find out which."
"The saints go wid ye!" said the widow, all her superstitious fears
aroused. "And if it _is_ Dan he'll sure be good to you fer my sake."
III
Sierra Blanca is the prodigious triple-turreted tower which stands at
the southern elbow of the Sangre de Cristo range. It is a massive but
symmetrical mountain, with three peaks so nearly of the same altitude
that the central dome seems the lowest of them all, though it is
actually fourteen thousand four hundred and eighty feet above the sea.
On the west and south this great mass rises from the flat, dry floor of
the San Luis Valley in sweeping, curving lines, and the piñons cover
these lower slopes like a robe of bronze green.
At eight thousand feet above the sea these suave lines become broken.
The piñons give place to pine and fir, and the somber cañons begin to
yawn. It was just here, where the grassy hills began to break into
savage walls, that Bidwell made his camp beside a small stream which
fell away into Bear Creek to the south. From this camp he could look far
out on the violet and gold of the valley, and see the railway trains
pass like swift and monstrous dragons. He could dimly see the lights of
Las Animas also, and this led him to conceal his own camp-fire.
Each day he rode forth, skirting the cliffs, examining every bit of rock
which showed the slightest mineral stain. Scarcely a moment of the
daylight was wasted in this search. His mysterious guide no longer
touched him, and this he took to be a favorable omen. "I'm near it," he
said.
One day he hitched his mule to a small dead pine at the foot of a steep
cliff, and was climbing to the summit when a stone, dislodged by his
feet, fell, bounced, thumped the mule in the ribs, and so scared the
animal that he pulled up the tree and ran away.
Angry and dispirited (for he was hungry and tired) Bidwell clambered
down and began to trail the mule toward camp. The tree soon clogged the
runaway and brought him to a stand in a thicket of willows.
As Bidwell knelt to untie the rope his keen eyes detected the glitter of
gold in the dirt which still clung to the moist root of the pine. With a
sudden conviction of having unearthed his fortune, the miner sprang to
his saddle and hurried back to the spot whence the tree had been rived.
It was dusk by the time he reached the spot, but he could detect gold in
the friable rock which lined the cavity left by the uprooted sapling.
With a mind too excited to sleep he determined to stay with his find
till morning. To leave it involved no real risk of losing it, and yet he
could not bring himself to even build a camp-fire, for fear some one
might be drawn from the darkness to dispute his claim.
It was a terribly long night, and when old Blanca's southern peak began
to gleam out of the purple receding waves of the night the man's brain
was numb with speculation and suspense. Hovering over the little heap of
broken rock which he had scooped out with his hands, he waited in almost
frenzied impatience for the sun.
He could tell by the feeling that the ore was what miners of his grade
call "rotten quartz," and he knew that it often held free gold in
enormous richness. It was so friable he could crumble it in his hands,
and so yellow with iron-stains that it looked like lumps of clay as the
dawn light came. A stranger happening upon him would have feared for
his reason, so pale was his face, so bloodshot his eyes.
At last he could again detect the gleam of gold. Each moment as the
light grew the value of the ore increased. It was literally meshed with
rusty free gold. The whole mound was made up of a disintegrated ledge of
porphyry and thousands of dollars were in sight. As his mind grasped
these facts the miner rose and danced--_but he did not shout_!
All that day he worked swiftly, silently, like an animal seeking to
escape an enemy, digging out this rock and carrying it to a place of
concealment in a deep thicket not far away. He did not stop to eat or
drink till mid-afternoon, and then only because he was staggering with
weakness and his hands were growing ineffective. After eating he fell
asleep and did not wake till deep in the night. For some minutes he
could not remember what had happened to him. At last his good fortune
grew real again. Saddling his mule, he rode up the creek and crossed
miles above his newly discovered mine, in order to conceal his trail,
and it was well toward dawn before he tapped on the widow's window.
"Is that you, Sherm?" she asked.
"Yes. Get up quick; I have news!"
When she opened the kitchen door for him she started back. "For love of
God, man, phwat have you been doin' wid yersilf?"
"Be quiet!" he commanded, sharply, and crept in, staggering under the
weight of a blanket full of ore. "You needn't work any more, Maggie;
I've got it. Here it is!"
"Man, ye're crazy! What have you there? Not gould!"
"You bet it is! Quartz jest _rotten_ with gold. Where can I hide it?"
His manner would not have been wilder had his bag of ore been the body
of a man he had murdered. "Quick! It's almost daylight."
"Let me see ut. I do _not_ believe ut."
He untied the blanket, and as the corners unrolled, disclosing the
red-brown mass, even her unskilled eyes could see the gleaming grains of
pure metal. She fell on her knees and crossed herself.
"Praise be to Mary! Where did ye find ut--and how?"
"Not a word about that. I'm scared. If any one should find it while I am
away they could steal thousands of dollars. Why, it's like a pocket in a
placer! Get me every sack you can. Give me grub--and hide this. There
are tons of it! This is the best of it. We are rich--rich as Jews,
Maggie!"
They worked swiftly. The widow emptied a cracker-barrel and put the ore
at the bottom, and then tumbled the crackers in on top of the ore. She
set out some cold meat and bread and butter, and while Bidwell ate she
brought out every rag that could serve as a sack.
"I'll have more for ye to-morrow. I wish I c'u'd go wid ye, Sherm. I'd
like to set me claws at work at that dirt."
"I need help, but I am afraid to have a man. Well, I must be off.
Good-by. I'll be back to-night with another load. I guess old Sherm is
worth a kiss yet--eh--Maggie!"
"Be off wid ye. Can't ye see the dawn is comin'?" A moment later she ran
up to him and gave him a great hug. "There--now haste ye!"
"Be silent!"
"As the grave itself!" she replied, and turned to brush up the
cracker-crumbs. "That Chinese divil has sharp eyes," she muttered.
IV
It was inevitable that the golden secret should escape. Others besides
the Chinese cook had sharp eyes, and the Widow Delaney grew paler and
more irritable as the days wore on. She had a hunted look. She hardly
ever left her kitchen, it was observed, and her bedroom door had a new
lock. Every second night Bidwell, gaunt and ragged, and furtive as a
burglar, brought a staggering mule-load of the richest ore and stowed it
away under the shanty floor and in the widow's bedroom. Luckily miners
are sound sleepers, or the two midnight marauders would have been
discovered on the second night.
One day John, the cook, seized the cracker-barrel, intending to put it
into a different corner. He gave it a slight wrench, looked a little
surprised, and lifted a little stronger. It did not budge. He remarked:
"Klackels belly hebby. No sabbe klackels allee same deese."
"_Let that alone!_" screamed Mrs. Delaney. "Phwat will ye be doin' nixt,
ye squint-eyed monkey? I'll tell ye whin to stir things about."
The startled Chinaman gave way in profound dismay. "Me goin' s'eep lound
klackel-ballell, you sabbe?"
"Well, I'll do the sweepin' there. I nailed that barrel to the flure
apurpis. L'ave it alone, will ye?"
This incident decided her. That night, when Bidwell came, she broke out:
"Sherm, I cannot stand this anny longer. I'm that nairvous I can't hear
a fly buzz widout hot streaks chasin' up and down me spine like little
red snakes. And man, luk at yersilf. Why, ye're hairy as a go-at and yer
eyes are loike two white onions. I say stop, Sherm dear!"
"What'll we do?" asked Bidwell in alarm.
"Do? I'll tell ye phwat we'll do. We'll put our feets down and say,
'Yis, 'tis true, we've shtruck ut, and it's ours.' Then I'll get a team
from Las Animas and load the stuff in before the face and eyes of the
world, and go wid it to sell it, whilst you load y'r gun an' stand guard
over the hole in the ground. I'm fair crazy wid this burglar's business.
We're both as thin as quakin' asps and full as shaky. You go down the
trail this minute and bring a team and a strong wagon--no wan will know
till ye drive in. Now go!"
Bidwell was ruled by her clear and sensible words, and rode away into
the clear dark of the summer's night with a feeling that it was all a
dream--a vision such as he had often had while prospecting in the
mountains; but, as day came on and he looked back upon the red hole he
had made in the green hillside, the reality of it all came to pinch his
heart and make him gasp. His storehouse, his well of golden waters, was
unguarded, and open to the view of any one who should chance to look
that way. He beat his old mule to a gallop in the frenzy of the moment.
The widow meanwhile got breakfast for the men, and as soon as they were
off up the trail she set the awed and wondering Chinaman to hauling the
sacks of ore out from beneath the shanty and piling them conveniently
near the roadway. She watched every movement and checked off each sack
like a shipping-clerk. "Merciful powers! the work that man did!" she
exclaimed, alluding to Bidwell, who had dug all that mass of ore and
packed it in the night from the mine to its safe concealment.
Of course, Mrs. Clark, the storekeeper's wife, saw them at work and came
over to see what was going on.
"Good morning, Mrs. Delaney. You're not going to move?"
"I am."
"I'm sorry. What's the reason of it? Why, that looks like ore!" she said
as she peered at a sack.
"It _is_ ore! and I'm goin' to ship it to the mill. Have ye anny
objection?" asked Mrs. Delaney, defiantly.
"Where did it come from?"
"That's _my_ business. There's wan more under there," she said to the
Chinaman, and as he came creeping out like a monstrous bug tugging a
pair of Bidwell's overalls (ore-filled), as if they formed the trunk of
a man whom he had murdered and hidden, Mrs. Clark turned and fled toward
the store to tell her husband.
"There ye go, now! Ye screech-owl," sneered the Widow Delaney. "It's all
up wid us; soon the whole world will know of ut. Well--we're here
first," she defiantly added.
Clark came over, pale with excitement. "Let me see that ore!" he called
out as he ran up and laid his hand on a sack.
"Get off--and stay off!" said Maggie, whipping a revolver out of her
pocket. "That's my ore, and you let it alone!"
Clark recoiled in surprise, but the widow's anxiety to protect her
property added enormously to his excitement. "The ore must be very
rich," he argued. "How do I know but that comes from one of my claims?"
he asked.
The widow thrust the muzzle of the revolver under his nose. "Would ye
call me a thafe? 'Tis well Bidwell is not here; he'd do more than make
ye smell of a gun. Go back to yer own business--if ye value a whole
skin--an' stay away from phwat does not concern ye."
All this was characteristically intemperate of Maggie, and by the time
Bidwell came clattering up the trail with a big freight-wagon the whole
gulch was aroused, and a dozen men encircled the heap of motley bags on
which Mrs. Delaney sat, keeping them at bay.
When she heard the wagon her nerves steadied a little and she said, more
soberly: "Boys, there comes Bidwell with a wagon to haul this stuff
away, and, Johnson, you help him load it while I go see about dinner."
As Bidwell drove up a mutter of amazement ran round the group and each
man had his say.
"Why, Bid, what's the matter? You look like a man found dead."
"I'm just beginning to live!" said Bidwell, and the reply was long
remembered in Bear Gulch.
"Well, now ye know all about it, ye gawks, take hold and help the man
load up. I'll have dinner ready fer ye in a snort," repeated the widow.
Clark drew his partners aside. "He packed that ore here; he must have
left a trail. You take a turn up the cañon and see if you can't find it.
It's close by somewhere."
Bidwell saw them conferring and called out: "You needn't take any
trouble, Clark; I'll lead you to the place after dinner. My claim is
staked and application filed--so don't try any tricks on me."
The widow's eyes were equally keen, and the growing cupidity of the men
did not escape her. Coming out with a big meat sandwich, she said:
"'Twill not do to sit down, Sherm; take this in yer fist and go. They'll
all be slippin' away like snakes if ye don't. I'll take John and the
ore--we'll make it somehow--and I'll stay wid it till it's paid for."
She was right. The miners were struggling with the demons of desire and
ready to stampede at any moment. Hastily packing his mule, Bidwell
started up the trail, saying:
"Fall in behind me, boys, and don't scrouge. The man who tries to crowd
me off the trail will regret it."
They were quiet enough till he left the trail and started down toward
the Bear. Then Johnson cried, "I know where it is!" and plunged with a
whoop into the thicket of willows that bordered the creek.
"Mebbe he does and mebbe he don't," said Clark. "I'm going to stick by
Bid till we get the lay o' the land."
They maintained fairly good order until Bidwell's trail became a plain
line leading up the hillside; then the stampede began. With wild halloos
and resounding thwacking of mules they scattered out, raced over the
hilltop, and disappeared, leaving Bidwell to plod on with his laden
burro.
When he came in sight of his mine men were hammering stakes into the
ground on all sides of the discovery claim, and Clark and Johnson were
in a loud wrangle as to who reached the spot first. Leading his mule up
to the cliff wall where he had built a shelter, Bidwell unpacked his
outfit, and as he stood his rifle against a rock he said:
"I'm planted right here, neighbors. My roots run deep underground, and
the man who tries to jump this claim will land in the middle of hell
fire--now, that's right."
Their claims once staked and their loud differences stilled, the men had
leisure to come and examine the discovery claim.
"You've the best of it," said Cantor, an old miner. "There may not be an
ounce of gold outside your vein. It's a curious formation; I can't tell
how it runs."
Toward night the other miners left and went back to camp, leaving
Bidwell alone. As darkness came on he grew nervous again. "They'd kill
me if they dared," he muttered, as he crouched in his shelter, his gun
on his knee. He was very sleepy, but resolved not to close his eyes. "If
I only had a dog--some one I could trust; but I haven't a soul," he
added, bitterly, as his weakness grew. The curse of gold sat heavily
upon him and his hands were lax with weariness.
"I was a fool to let Maggie go off with that ore," he muttered, his mind
following the widow in her perilous journey down the gulch. He did not
distrust her; he only feared her ability to override the difficulties of
her mission. For the best part of his life he had sought the metal
beneath his feet, and, now that he had found it, his blood ran cold with
suspicion and fear.
Daylight brought a comparative sense of safety, and, building a fire, he
cooked his breakfast in peace--though his eyes were restless. "Oh,
they'll come," he said, aloud. "They'll boil in here on me in another
hour or two."
And they did. The men from Delaney came first, followed a little later
by their partners from the high gulches, and after them the genuine
stampeders. The merchants, clerks, hired hands, barbers, hostlers, and
half-starved lawyers from the valley towns came pouring up the trail
and, pausing just long enough to see the shine of gold in Bidwell's
dump, flung themselves upon the land, seizing the first unclaimed
contiguous claim without regard to its character or formation. Their
stakes once set, they began to roam, pawing at the earth like
prairie-dogs and quite as ineffectually. Swarms of the most curious
surrounded Bidwell's hole in the ground, picking at the ore and flooding
the air with shouts and questions till the old man in desperation
ordered them off his premises and set up a notice:
"Keep off this ground or meet trouble!"
To his friends he explained, "Every piece of rock they carry off is
worth so much money."
"Ye've enough here to buy the warrld, mon," protested Angus Craig, an
old miner from the north.
"I don't know whether I have or not," said Bidwell. "It may be just a
little spatter of gold."
That night the whole range of foot-hills was noisy with voices and
sparkling with camp-fires. From the treeless valleys below these lights
could be seen, and the heavily laden trains of the San Luis
Accommodation trailed a loud hallelujah as the incoming prospectors
lifted their voices in joyous greeting to those on the mountainside.
"It's another Cripple Creek!" one man shouted, and the cry struck home.
"We're in on it," they all exulted.
Bidwell did not underestimate his importance in this rush of
gold-frenzied men. He was appalled by the depth and power of the streams
centering upon him. For weeks he had toiled to the full stretch of his
powers without sufficient sleep, and he was deathly weary, emaciated to
the bone, and trembling with nervous weakness, but he was indomitable. A
long life of camping, prospecting, and trenching had fitted him to
withstand even this strain, and to "stay with it" was an instinct with
him. Therefore he built a big fire not far from the mine and spread his
blankets there; but he did not lie down till after midnight, and only
then because he could not keep awake, even while in sitting posture. "I
must sleep, anyhow," he muttered. "I can't stand this any longer. I must
sleep"--And so his eyes closed.
He was awakened by a voice he knew calling out: "Is this the way ye
watch y'r mine, Sherm Bidwell?" And, looking up, he saw the Widow
Delaney sitting astride a mule and looking down at him with tender
amusement. "Ye are a pitcher; sure! Ye look like wan o' the holy saints
of ould--or a tramp. Help me off this baste and I'll turn to and scorch
a breakfast for ye."
He staggered stiffly to his feet and awkwardly approached her. "I had
only just dropped off," he apologized.
"Ye poor lad!" she said, compassionately. "Ye're stiff as a poker wid
cold."
"How did ye come out with the ore?" he asked.
"Thrust y'r Maggie! I saw it loaded into a car and sent away. Bedad, I
had a moind to go wid it to the mill, but I says, Sherm nor mesilf can
be in two places to wanst. So I gave o'er the notion and came home.
They'll thieve the half of it, av coorse, but so goes the world, divil
catch it!"
The widow was a powerful reinforcement. She got breakfast while Bidwell
dozed again, and with the influence of hot coffee and the genial sun the
firm grew confident of holding at least the major part of their
monstrous good luck.
"Thrust no wan but me," said the widow in decisive warning. "The world
is full of rogues. From this toime ivery man's hand is agin' y'r
gold--schamin' to reach y'r pockets. Rest yersilf and I'll look after
the gould. From this toime on we work only wid our brains."
She did indeed become the captain. On her advice he sent a man for
ore-sacks and tools, while other willing hands set to work to build a
cabin to shelter them.
"We're takin' no chances," she said; "we camp right here."
That day Las Animas, Crestone, Powder Gulch, and Los Gatos emptied
themselves upon the hills, and among them were representatives of big
firms in Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo. The path past the Maggie
Mine was worn deep by the feet of the gold-seekers, and Bidwell's rude
pole barrier was polished by the nervous touch of greedy palms.
About ten o'clock a quiet man in a gray suit of clothes asked Bidwell if
he wanted to sell. Bidwell said, "No," short and curt, but Maggie asked,
with a smile, "How much?"
"Enough to make you comfortable for life. If it runs as well as this
sample I'll chance fifty thousand dollars on it."
Maggie snorted. "Fifty thousand! Why, I tuk twoice that to the mill last
night."
"Let me get in and examine the mine a little closer. I may be able to
raise my bid."
"Not till ye make it wan hundred thousand may you even have a luk at
it," she replied.
Other agents came--some confidential, others coldly critical, but all
equally unsuccessful. The two "idiots" could not see why they should
turn over the gold which lay there in sight to a syndicate. It was
theirs by every right, and though the offers went far beyond their
conception they refused to consider them.
All day axes resounded in the firs, and picks were busy in the gullies.
Camp goods, provisions, and bedding streamed by on trains of mules, and
by nightfall a city was in its initial stages--tent stores, open-air
saloons, eating-booths, and canvas hotels. A few of the swarming
incomers were skeptical of the find, but the larger number were
hilariously boastful of their locations, and around their evening
camp-fires groups gathered to exult over their potentialities.
The sun had set, but the western slope of the hill was still brilliant
with light as Bidwell's messenger with his sumpter horse piled high
with bales of ore-sacks came round the clump of firs at the corner of
Bidwell's claim. He was followed by a tall man who rode with a tired
droop and nervous clutching at the rein.
Bidwell stared and exclaimed, "May I be shot if the preachers aren't
takin' a hand in the rush!"
The widow looked unwontedly rosy as she conclusively said, "I sent for
him, man dear!"
"You did? What for?"
The widow was close enough now to put her hand in the crook of his
elbow. "To make us wan, Sherm darlin'. There's no time like the
prisent."
Bidwell tugged at his ragged beard. "I wish I had time to slick up a
bit."
"There'll be plinty of time for that afterward," she said. "Go welcome
the minister."
In the presence of old Angus Craig and young Johnson they were married,
and when the minister gave Mrs. Bidwell a rousing smack she wiped her
lips with the back of her hand and said to Bidwell:
"Now we're ayqul partners, Sherm, and all old scores wiped out."
And old Angus wagged his head and said, "Canny lass, the widdy!"
When the news of this marriage reached the camp demons of laughter and
disorder were let loose. Starting from somewhere afar off, a loud
procession formed. With camp-kettles for drums and aspen-bark whistles
for pipes, with caterwaul and halloo, the whole loosely cohering army of
prospectors surrounded the little log cabin of the Maggie Mine and
shouted in wild discord:
"Bidwell! Come forth!"
"A speech! A speech!"
Bidwell was for poking his revolver out through the unchinked walls and
ordering the mob to disperse, but his wife was diplomatic.
"'Tis but an excuse to get drink," she said. "Go give them treat."
So Bidwell went forth, and, while a couple of stalwart friends lifted
him high, he shouted, sharp and to the point, "It's on me, Clark!"
The mob, howling with delight, rushed upon him and bore him away,
struggling and sputtering, to Clark's saloon, where kegs of beer were
broached and the crowd took a first deep draught. Bidwell, in alarm for
Maggie, began to fight to get back to the cabin. But cries arose for the
bride.
"The bride--let's see the bride!"
Bidwell expostulated. "Oh no! Leave her alone. Are you gentlemen? If you
are, you won't insist on seeing her."
In the midst of the crowd a clear voice rang out:
"The bride, is it? Well, here she is. Get out o' me way."
"Clear the road there for the bride!" yelled a hundred voices as Maggie
walked calmly up an aisle densely walled with strange men. She had been
accustomed to such characters all her life, and knew them too well to be
afraid. Mounting a beer-keg, she turned a benign face on the crowd. The
light of the torches lighted her hair till it shone like spun gold in a
halo round her head. She looked very handsome in the warm, sympathetic
light of the burning pitch-pine.
"Oh yiss, Oi'll make a speech; I'm not afraid of a handful of
two-by-fours like you tenderfeet from the valley, and when me speech is
ended ye'll go home and go to bed. Eleven days ago Sherm, me man,
discovered this lode. Since then we've both worked night and day to git
out the ore--we're dog-tired--sure we are--but we're raisonable folk and
here we stand. Now gaze y'r fill and go home and l'ave us to rest--like
y'r dacent mothers would have ye do."
"Good for you, Maggie!" called old Angus Craig, who stood near her.
"Mak' way, lads!"
The men opened a path for the bride and groom and raised a thundering
cheer as they passed.
Old Angus Craig shook his head again and said to Johnson: "Sik a luck
canna last. To strike a lode and win a braw lass a' in the day, ye may
say. Hoo-iver, he waited lang for baith."
THE COW-BOSS
_--the reckless cowboy on his watch-eyed bronco still lopes
across the grassy foot-hills--or holds his milling herd in
the high parks._
II
THE COW-BOSS
I
The post-office at Eagle River was so small that McCoy and his herders
always spoke of the official within as "the Badger," saying that he must
surely back into his den for lack of room to turn round. His presentment
at the arched loophole in his stockade was formidable. His head was
large, his brow high and seamed, his beard long and tangled, and the
look of his hazel-gray eyes remote with cold abstraction.
"He's not a man to monkey with," said McCoy when the boys complained
that the old seed had put up a sign, "NO SPITTING IN THIS OFFICE." "I'd
advise you to act accordingly. I reckon he's boss of that thing while
he's in there. He's a Populist, but he's regularly appointed by the
President, and I don't see that we're in any position to presume to spit
if he objects. No, there ain't a thing to do but get up a petition and
have him removed--and I won't agree to sign it when you do."
Eagle River was only a cattle-yard station, a shipping-point for the
mighty spread of rolling hills which make up the Bear Valley range to
the north and the Grampa to the south. Aside from the post-office, it
possessed two saloons, a store, a boarding-house or two, and a low,
brown station-house. That was all, except during the autumn, when there
was nearly always an outfit of cowboys camped about the corrals, loading
cattle or waiting for cars.
On the day when this story opens, McCoy had packed away his last steer,
and, being about to take the train for Kansas City, called his foreman
aside.
"See here, Roy, seems to me the boys are extra boozed already. It's up
to you to pull right out for the ranch."
"That's what I'm going to try to do," answered Roy. "We'll camp at the
head of Jack Rabbit to-night."
"Good idea. Get 'em out of town before dark--every mother's son of 'em.
I'll be back on Saturday."
Roy Pierce was a dependable young fellow, and honestly meant to carry
out the orders of his boss; but there was so little by way of diversion
in Eagle, the boys had to get drunk in order to punctuate a paragraph in
their life. There was not a disengaged woman in the burg, and bad whisky
was merely a sad substitute for romance. Therefore the settlers who
chanced to meet this bunch of herders in the outskirts of Eagle River
that night walked wide of them, for they gave out the sounds of battle.
They could all ride like Cossacks, notwithstanding their dizzy heads,
and though they waved about in their saddles like men of rubber, their
faithful feet clung to their stirrups like those of a bat to its perch.
In camp they scuffled, argued, ran foot-races, and howled derisive
epithets at the cook, who was getting supper with drunken gravity, using
pepper and salt with lavish hand.
Into the midst of this hullabaloo Roy, the cow-boss, rode, white with
rage and quite sober.
"I'll kill that old son of a gun one of these days," said he to Henry
Ring.
"Kill who?"
"That postmaster. If he wasn't a United States officer, I'd do it now."
"What's the matter? Wouldn't he shuffle the mail fer you?"
"Never lifted a finger. '_Nothing_,' he barked out at me. Didn't even
look up till I let loose on him."
"What did he do then?"
"Poked an old Civil War pistol out of the window and told me to hike."
"Which you did?"
"Which I did, after passing him a few compliments. 'Lay down your
badge,' I says, 'come out o' your den, and I'll pepper you so full of
holes that your hide won't hold blue-joint hay.' And I'll do it, too,
the old hound!"
"But you got out," persisted Ring, maliciously.
"I got out, but I tell you right now he's got something coming to him.
No mail-sifter of a little two-for-a-cent town like Eagle is goin' to
put it all over me that way and not repent of it. I've figured out a
scheme to get even with him, and you have got to help."
This staggered Henry, who began to side-step and limp. "Count me out on
that," said he. "The old skunk treated me just about the same way. I
don't blame you; a feller sure has a right to have his postmaster make a
bluff at shuffling the deck. But, after all--"
However, in the end the boss won his most trusted fellows to his plan,
for he was a youth of power, and besides they had all been roiled by the
grizzled, crusty old official, and were quite ready to take a hand in
his punishment.
Roy developed his plot. "We'll pull out of camp about midnight, and ride
round to the east, sneak in, and surround the old man's shack, shouting
and yelling and raising Cain. He'll come out of his hole to order us
off, and I'll rope him before he knows where he's at; then we'll toy
with him for a few minutes--long enough to learn him a lesson in
politeness--and let him go."
No one in the gang seemed to see anything specially humorous in this
method of inculcating urbanity of manner, and at last five of them
agreed to stand their share of the riot, although Henry Ring muttered
something about the man's being old and not looking very strong.
"He's strong enough to wave a two-foot gun," retorted Roy, and so
silenced all objection.
One night as soon as the camp was quiet Pierce rose and, touching his
marauders into activity, saddled and rode away as stealthily as the
leader of a band of Indian scouts. He made straightway over the divide
to the east, then turned, and, crossing the river, entered the town from
the south, in order to deceive any chance observer.
Just below the station, in a little gully, he halted his war-party and
issued final orders. "Now I'll ride ahead and locate myself right near
the back door; then when I strike a light you fellows come in and swirl
round the shack like a gust o' hell. The old devil will come out the
back door to see what's doin', and I'll jerk him end-wise before he can
touch trigger. I won't hurt him any more than he needs. Now don't stir
till I'm in position."
Silently, swiftly, his pony shuffled along the sandy road and over the
railway-crossing. The town was soundless and unlighted, save for a dim
glow in the telegraph office, and the air was keen and crisp with
frost. As he approached the Badger's shack Pierce detected a gleam of
light beneath the curtain of the side windows. "If he's awake, so much
the better," he thought, but his nerves thrilled as he softly entered
the shadow.
Suddenly the pony trod upon something which made a prodigious crash. The
door opened, a tall young girl appeared in a wide flare of yellow light
which ran out upon the grass like a golden carpet. With eager, anxious
voice she called out:
"Is that you, Doctor?"
The raider stiffened in his saddle with surprise. His first impulse was
to set spurs to his horse and vanish. His next was to tear off his
disguise and wait, for the voice was sweeter than any he had ever heard,
and the girl's form a vision of beauty.
Alarmed at his silence, she again called out: "Who are you? What do you
want?"
"A neighbor, miss," he answered, dismounting and stepping into the
light. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
At this moment hell seemed to have let loose the wildest of its
warriors. With shrill whoopings, with flare of popping guns, Roy's
faithful herders came swirling round the cabin, intent to do their duty,
frenzied with delight of it.
Horrified, furious at this breach of discipline, Pierce ran to meet
them, waving his hat and raising the wild yell, "Whoo-ee!" with which he
was wont to head off and turn a bunch of steers. "Stop it! Get out!" he
shouted as he succeeded in reaching the ears of one or two of the
raiders. "It's all off--there's a girl here. Somebody sick! Skeedoo!"
The shooting and the tumult died away. The horsemen vanished as swiftly,
as abruptly, as they came, leaving their leader in panting, breathless
possession of the field. He was sober enough now, and repentant, too.
Slowly he returned to the door of the shack with vague intent to
apologize. Something very sudden and very terrible must have fallen upon
the postmaster.
After some hesitation he knocked timidly on the door.
"Have they gone?" the girl asked.
"Yes; I've scared 'em away. They didn't mean no harm, I reckon. I want
to know can't I be of some kind of use?"
The door opened cautiously and the girl again appeared. She was very
pale and held a pistol in her hand, but her voice was calm. "You're very
good," she said, "and I'm much obliged. Who are you?"
"I am Roy Pierce, foreman for McCoy, a cattleman north of here."
"Was it really a band of Indians?"
"Naw. Only a bunch of cow-punchers on a bat."
"You mean cowboys?"
"That's what. It's their little way of havin' fun. I reckon they didn't
know you was here. I didn't. Who's sick?"
"My uncle."
"You mean the postmaster?"
"Yes."
"When was he took?"
"Last night. They telegraphed me about six o'clock. I didn't get here
till this morning--I mean yesterday morning."
"What's the ail of him?"
"A stroke, I'm afraid. He can't talk, and he's stiff as a stake. Oh, I
wish the doctor would come!"
Her anxiety was moving. "I'll try to find him for you."
"I wish you would."
"You aren't all alone?"
"Yes; Mrs. Gilfoyle had to go home to her baby. She said she'd come
back, but she hasn't."
Roy's heart swept a wide arc as he stood looking into the pale, awed,
lovely face of the girl.
"I'll bring help," he said, and vanished into the darkness, shivering
with a sense of guilt. "The poor old cuss! Probably he was sick the very
minute I was bullyragging him."
The local doctor had gone down the valley on a serious case, and would
not be back till morning, his wife said, thereupon Roy wired to
Claywall, the county-seat, for another physician. He also secured the
aid of Mrs. James, the landlady of the Palace Hotel, and hastened back
to the relief of the girl, whom he found walking the floor of the little
kitchen, tremulous with dread.
"I'm afraid he's dying," she said. "His teeth are set and he's
unconscious."
Without knowing what to say in way of comfort, the herder passed on into
the little office, where the postmaster lay on a low couch with face
upturned, in rigid, inflexible pose, his hands clenched, his mouth
foam-lined. Roy, unused to sickness and death, experienced both pity and
awe as he looked down upon the prostrate form of the man he had expected
to punish. And yet these emotions were rendered vague and slight by the
burning admiration which the niece had excited in his susceptible and
chivalrous heart.
She was tall and very fair, with a face that seemed plain in repose, but
which bewitched him when she smiled. Her erect and powerful body was
glowing with health, and her lips and eyes were deliciously young and
sweet. Her anxious expression passed away as Roy confidently assured her
that these seizures were seldom fatal. He didn't know a thing about it,
but his tone was convincing.
"I knew a man once who had these fits four or five times a year. Didn't
seem to hurt him a bit. One funny thing--he never had 'em while in the
saddle. They 'most always come on just after a heavy meal. I reckon the
old man must of over-et."
Mrs. James came in soon--all too soon to please him--but he reported to
her his message to Claywall. "A doctor will be down on 'the Cannonball'
about five o'clock," he added.
"That's very kind and thoughtful of you," said the girl. Then she
explained to Mrs. James that Mr. Pierce had just driven off a horrid
band of cowboys who were attacking the town.
The landlady snorted with contempt. "I'm so used to boozy cowboys
howlin' round, I don't bat an eye when they shoot up the street. They're
all a lot of cheap skates, anyway. You want to swat 'em with the mop if
they come round; that's the way I do."
Roy was nettled by her tone, for he was now very anxious to pose as a
valorous defender of the innocent; but agreed with her that "the boys
were just having a little 'whiz' as they started home; they didn't mean
no harm."
"Ought I to sit in there?" the girl asked the woman, with a glance
toward the inner room.
"No; I don't think you can do any good. I'll just keep an eye on him and
let you know if they's any change."
The girl apologized for the looks of the kitchen. "Poor uncle has been
so feeble lately he couldn't keep things in order, and I haven't had
any chance since I came. If you don't mind, I'll rid things up now;
it'll keep my mind occupied."
[Illustration: "YOU'RE PRETTY SWIFT, AREN'T YOU?" SHE SAID, CUTTINGLY]
"Good idea!" exclaimed Roy. "I'll help."
He had been in a good many exciting mix-ups with steers, bears, cayuses,
sheriffs' posses, and Indians, but this was easily the most stirring and
amazing hour of his life. While his pony slowly slid away up the hill to
feed, he, with flapping gun and rattling spurs, swept, polished, and
lifted things for Lida--that was her name--Lida Converse.
"My folks live in Colorado Springs," she explained in answer to his
questions. "My mother is not very well, and father is East, so I had to
come. Uncle Dan was pretty bad when I got here, only not like he is now.
This fit came on after the doctor went away at nine."
"I'm glad your father was East," declared the raider, who was unable to
hold to a serious view of the matter, now that he was in the midst of a
charming and intimate conversation. "Just think--if he had 'a' come, I'd
never have seen _you_!"
She faced him in surprise and disapproval of his boldness. "You're
pretty swift, aren't you?" she said, cuttingly.
"A feller's got to be in this country," he replied, jauntily.
She was prepared to be angry with him, but his candid, humorous,
admiring gaze disarmed her. "You've been very nice," she said, "and I
feel very grateful; but I guess you better not say any more such things
to me--to-night."
"You mustn't forget I chased off them redskins."
"You said they were cowboys."
"Of course I did; I wanted to calm your mind."
She was a little puzzled by his bluffing. "I don't believe there are any
Indians over here."
"Well, if they were cowboys, they were a fierce lot."
She considered. "I've told you I feel grateful. What more can I do?"
"A good deal; but, as you say, that can go over till to-morrow. Did I
tell you that I had a bunch of cattle of my own?"
"I don't remember of it."
"Well, I have. I'm not one of these crazy cowboys who blows in all his
wad on faro and drink--not on your life! I've got some ready chink
stacked away in a Claywall bank. Want to see my bank-book?"
She answered, curtly: "Please take that kettle of slop out and empty it.
And what time did you say the express was due?"
Roy was absorbed, ecstatic. He virtually forgot all the rest of the
world. His herders could ride to the north pole, his pony might starve,
the Cannonball Express go over the cliff, the postmaster die, so long as
he was left in service to this princess.
"Lord A'mighty! wasn't I in luck?" he repeated to himself. "Suppose I'd
'a' roped _her_ instead of the old man!"
When he returned from listening for the train he found her washing her
hands at the end of her task, and the room in such order as it had never
known before. The sight of her standing there, flushed and very womanly,
rolling down her sleeves, was more than the young fellow could silently
observe.
"I hope the old man'll be a long time getting well," he said, abruptly.
"That's a nice thing to say! What do you mean by such a cruel wish?"
"I see my finish when you go away. No more lonely ranch-life for me."
"If you start in on that talk again I will not speak to you," she
declared, and she meant it.
"All right, I'll shut up; but I want to tell you I'm a trailer for
keeps, and you can't lose me, no matter where you go. From this time on
I forget everything in the world but you."
With a look of resolute reproof she rose and joined Mrs. James in the
inner room, leaving Roy cowed and a good deal alarmed.
"I reckon I'm a little _too_ swift," he admitted; "but, oh, my soul!
she's a peach!"
When the train whistled, Lida came out again. "Will you please go to
meet the doctor?" she asked, with no trace of resentment in her manner.
"Sure thing; I was just about starting," he replied, instantly.
While he was gone she asked Mrs. James if she knew the young man, and
was much pleased to find that the sharp-tongued landlady had only good
words to say of Roy Pierce.
"He's no ordinary cowboy," she explained. "If he makes up to you you
needn't shy."
"Who said he was making up to me? I never saw him before."
"I want to know! Well, anybody could see with half an eye that he was
naturally rustlin' round you. _I_ thought you'd known each other for
years."
This brought tears of mortification to the girl's eyes. "I didn't mean
to be taken that way. Of course I couldn't help being grateful, after
all he'd done; but I think it's a shame to be so misunderstood. It's
mean and low down of him--and poor uncle so sick."
"Now don't make a hill out of an ant-heap," said the old woman,
vigorously. "No harm's done. You're a mighty slick girl, and these boys
don't see many like you out here in the sage-brush and piñons. Facts
are, you're kind o' upsettin' to a feller like Roy. You make him kind o'
drunk-like. He don't mean to be sassy."
"Well, I wish you'd tell him not to do anything more for me. I don't
want to get any deeper in debt to him."
The Claywall physician came into the little room as silently as a Piute.
He was a plump, dark little man of impassive mien, but seemed to know
his business. He drove the girl out of the room, but drafted Mrs. James
and Roy into service.
"It's merely a case of indigestion," said he; "but it's plenty serious
enough. You see, the distended stomach pressing against the heart--"
The girl, sitting in the kitchen and hearing the swift and vigorous
movement within, experienced a revulsion to the awe and terror of the
midnight. For the second time in her life death had come very close to
her, but in this case her terror was shot through with the ruddy
sympathy of a handsome, picturesque young cavalier. She could not be
really angry with him, though she was genuinely shocked by his reckless
disregard of the proprieties; for he came at such a dark and lonely and
helpless hour, and his prompt and fearless action in silencing those
dreadful cowboys was heroic. Therefore, when the doctor sent Roy out to
say that her uncle would live, a part of her relief and joy shone upon
the young rancher, who was correspondingly exalted.
"Now you must let me hang round till he gets well," he said, forgetful
of all other duties.
"That reminds me. You'll need some breakfast," she said, hurriedly; "for
here comes the sun." And as she spoke the light of the morning streamed
like a golden river into the little room.
"It's me to the wood-pile, then," cried Roy, and his smile was of a
piece with the sunshine on the wall.
II
Beside the fallen monarch of the wood the lifting saplings bud and
intertwine. So over the stern old postmaster these young people
re-enacted the most primitive drama in the world. Indifferent to the
jeers of his fellows, Roy devoted himself to the service of "The
Badger's Niece," and was still in town when McCoy returned from "the
East"; that is to say, from Kansas City.
Lida had ceased to protest against the cowboy's attendance and his
love-making, for the good reason that her protests were unavailing. He
declined to take offense, and he would not remain silent. A part of his
devotion was due, of course, to his sense of guilt, and yet this was
only a small part. True, he had sent warnings and dire threats to
silence his band of marauders; but he did not feel keenly enough about
their possible tale-bearing to carry his warnings in person. "I can't
spare the time," he argued, knowing that Lida would be going home in a
few days and that his world would then be blank.
"I lose too much of you," he said to her once; "I can't afford to have
you out of my sight a minute."
She had grown accustomed to such speeches as these, and seldom replied
to them, except to order the speaker about with ever-increasing tyranny.
"You're so anxious to work," she remarked, "I'll let you do a-plenty.
You'll get sick o' me soon."
"Sick of you! Lord heavens! what'll I do when you leave?"
"You'll go back to your ranch. A fine foreman you must be, fooling round
here like a tramp. What does your boss think?"
"Don't know and don't care. Don't care what anybody thinks--but you.
You're my only landmark these days. You're my sun, moon, and stars,
that's what you are. I set my watch by you."
"You're crazy!" she answered, with laughter.
"Sure thing! Locoed, we call it out here. You've got me locoed--you're
my pink poison blossom. There ain't any feed that interests me but you.
I'm lonesome as a snake-bit cow when I can't see you."
"Say, do you know Uncle Dan begins to notice you. He asked me to-day
what you were hanging round here for, and who you were."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him you were McCoy's hired man just helping me take care of
him."
"That's a lie. I'm _your_ hired man. I'm takin' care of you--willing to
work for a kiss a day."
"You'll not get even that."
"I'm _not_ getting it--yet."
"You'll never get it."
"Don't be too sure of that. My life-work is _collecting_ my dues. I've
got 'em all set down. You owe me a dozen for extra jobs, and a good hug
for overtime."
She smiled derisively, and turned the current. "The meals you eat are
all of a dollar a day."
"They're worth a bushel of diamonds--when you cook 'em. But let me ask
you something--is your old dad as fierce as Uncle Dan?"
She nodded. "You bet he is! He's crusty as old crust. Don't you go up
against my daddy with any little bank-book. It's got to be a fat wad,
and, mind you, no cloves on your breath, either. He's crabbed on the
drink question; that's why he settled in Colorado Springs. No saloons
there, you know."
He considered a moment. "Much obliged. Now here's something for you.
You're not obliged to hand out soft words and a sweet smile to every
doggone Injun that happens to call for mail. Stop it. Why, you'll have
all the cow-punchers for fifty miles around calling for letters. That
bunch that was in here just now was from Steamboat Springs. Their mail
don't come here; it comes by way of Wyoming. They were runnin' a bluff.
It makes me hot to have such barefaced swindling going on. I won't stand
for it."
"Well, you see, I'm not really deputized to handle the mail, so I must
be careful not to make anybody mad--"
"Anybody but me. I don't count."
"Oh, _you_ wouldn't complain, I know that."
"I wouldn't, hey? Sure of that? Well, I'm going to start a petition to
have myself made postmaster--"
"Better get Uncle Dan out first," she answered, with a sly smile. "The
office won't hold you both."
* * * * *
At the end of a week the old postmaster was able to hobble to the window
and sort the mail, but the doctor would not consent to his cooking his
own meals.
"If you _can_ stay another week," he said to Lida, "I think you'd better
do it. He isn't really fit to live alone."
Thereupon she meekly submitted, and continued to keep house in the
little kitchen for herself, her uncle, and for Roy, who still came
regularly to her table, bringing more than his share of provisions,
however. She was a good deal puzzled by the change which had come over
him of late. He was less gay, less confident of manner, and he often
fell into fits of abstraction.
He was, in fact, under conviction of sin, and felt the need of
confessing to Lida his share in the zealous assault of the cowboys that
night. "It's sure to leak out," he decided, "and I'd better be the first
to break the news." But each day found it harder to begin, and only the
announcement of her intended departure one morning brought him to the
hazard. He was beginning to feel less secure of her, and less
indifferent to the gibes of the town jokers, who found in his
enslavement much material for caustic remark. They called him the "tired
cowboy" and the "trusty."
They were all sitting at supper in the kitchen one night when the old
postmaster suddenly said to Roy: "Seems to me I remember you. Did I know
you before I was sick?" His memory had been affected by his "stroke,"
and he took up the threads of his immediate past with uncertain fingers.
"I reckon so; leastwise I used to get my mail here," answered Roy, a bit
startled.
The old man looked puzzled. "Yes; but it seems a little more special
than that. Someway your face is associated with trouble in my mind. Did
we have any disagreement?"
After the postmaster returned to his chair in the office, Roy said to
Lida, "They're going to throw your uncle out in a few weeks."
"You don't mean it!"
"Sure thing. He really ain't fit to be here any more. Don't you see how
kind o' dazed he is? They're going to get him out on a doctor's
certificate--loss of memory. Now, why don't you get deputized, and act
in his place?"
"Goodness sakes! I don't want to live here."
"Where do you want to live--on a ranch?"
"Not on your life! Colorado Springs is good enough for me."
"That's hard on Roy. What could I do to earn a living there?"
"You don't have to live there, do you?"
"Home is where you are." She had come to the point where she received
such remarks in glassy silence. He looked at her in growing uneasiness,
and finally said: "See here, Lida, I've got something to tell you. You
heard the old man kind o' feelin' around in his old hay-mow of a mind
about me? Well, him and me did have a cussin'-out match one day, and he
drawed a gun on me, and ordered me out of the office."
"What for?"
"Well, it was this way--I think. He was probably sick, and didn't feel a
little bit like sorting mail when I asked for it. He sure was
aggravatin', and I cussed him good and plenty. I reckon I had a clove on
my tongue that day, and was irritable, and when he lit onto me, I was
hot as a hornet, and went away swearing to get square." He braced
himself for the plunge. "That was _my_ gang of cowboys that came
hell-roaring around the night I met you. They were under my orders to
scare your uncle out of his hole, and I was going to rope him."
"Oh!" she gasped, and drew away from him; "that poor, sick old man!"
He hastened to soften the charge. "Of course I didn't know he was sick,
or I wouldn't 'ave done it. He didn't look sick the day before; besides,
I didn't intend to hurt him--much. I was only fixin' for to scare him up
for pullin' a gun on me, that was all."
"That's the meanest thing I ever heard of--to think of that old man,
helpless, and you and a dozen cowboys attacking him!"
"I tell you I didn't know he was ailin', and there was only six of us."
Her tone hurt as she pointed at him. "And _you_ pretend to be so brave."
"No, I don't."
"You _did_!"
"No, I didn't. _You_ said I was brave and kind, but I denied it. I never
soberly claimed any credit for driving off that band of outlaws. That's
one reason why I've been sticking so close to business here--I felt kind
o' conscience-struck."
Her eyes were ablaze now. "Oh, it is! You've said a dozen times it was
on _my_ account."
"That's right--about eighty per cent, on yours and twenty per cent, on
my own account--I mean the old man's."
"The idea!" She rose, her face dark with indignation. "Don't you dare
come here another time. I never heard of anything more--more awful. You
a rowdy! I'll never speak to you again. Go away! I despise you."
Her anger and chagrin were genuine, that he felt. There was nothing
playful or mocking in her tone at the moment. She saw him as he was, a
reckless, vengeful young ruffian, and as such she hated him.
He got upon his feet slowly, and went out without further word of
defense.
III
The sun did not rise for Roy Pierce on the day which followed her
departure. His interest in Eagle River died and his good resolutions
weakened. He went on one long, wild, wilful carouse, and when McCoy
rescued him and began to exhort toward a better life, he resigned his
job and went back to the home ranch, where his brothers, Claude and
Harry, welcomed him with sarcastic comment as "the returning goat."
He tried to make his peace with them by saying, "I'm done with whisky
forever."
"Good notion," retorted Claude, who was something of a cynic; "just cut
out women _and_ drink, and you'll be happy."
Roy found it easier to give up drink than to forget Lida. To put away
thought of her was like trying to fend the sunlight from his cabin
window with his palm. He was entirely and hopelessly enslaved to the
memory of her glowing face and smiling eyes. What was there in all his
world to console him for the loss of her?
Mrs. Pierce wonderingly persisted in asking what had come over him, that
he should be so sad and silent, and Claude finally enlightened her.
"He's all bent up over a girl--the postmaster's niece--of Eagle River,
who had to quit the country to get shut of him."
The mother's heart was full of sympathy, and her desire to comfort her
stricken son led to shy references to his "trouble" which made him
savage. He went about the ranch so grimly, so spiritlessly, that Claude
despairingly remarked:
"I wish the Lord that girl _had_ got you. You're as cheerful to have
around as a poisoned hound. Why don't you go down to the Springs and sit
on her porch? That's about all you're good for now."
This was a bull's-eye shot, for Roy's desire by day and his dream by
night was to trail her to her home; but the fear of her scornful
greeting, the thought of a cutting query as to the meaning of his call,
checked him at the very threshold of departure a dozen times.
He had read of love-lorn people in the _Saturday Storyteller_, which
found its way into the homes of the ranchers, but he had always sworn or
laughed at their sufferings as a part of the play. He felt quite
differently about these cases. Love was no longer a theme for jest, an
abstraction, a far-off trouble; it had become a hunger more intolerable
than any he had ever known, a pain that made all others he had
experienced transitory and of no account.
Even Claude admitted the reality of the disease by repeating: "Well, you
_have_ got it bad. Your symptoms are about the worst ever. You're locoed
for fair. You'll be stepping high and wide if you don't watch out."
In some mysterious way the whole valley now shared in a knowledge of the
raid on the post-office, as well as in an understanding of Roy's
"throw-down" by the postmaster's niece, and the expression of this
interest in his affairs at last drove the young rancher to desperation.
He decided to leave the state. "I'm going to Nome," he said to his
brothers one day.
"Pious thought," declared Claude. "The climate may freeze this poison
out of you. Why, sure--go! You're no good on earth here."
Roy did not tell him or his mother that he intended to go by way of the
Springs, in the wish to catch one last glimpse of his loved one before
setting out for the far northland. To speak with her was beyond his
hope. No, all he expected was a chance glimpse of her in the street, the
gleam of her face in the garden. "Perhaps I may pass her gate at night,
and see her at the window."
IV
The town to him was a maze of bewildering complexity and magnificence,
and he wandered about for a day in awkward silence, hesitating to
inquire the way to the Converse home. He found it at last, a pretty
cottage standing on a broad terrace, amid trees and vines vivid with the
autumn hues; and if any thought of asking Lida to exchange it for a
shack on a ranch still lingered in his mind, it was instantly wiped out
by his first glance at the place.
He walked by on the opposite side of the street, and climbed the mesa
back of the house to spy upon it from the rear, hoping to detect his
loved one walking about under the pear-trees. But she did not appear.
After an hour or so he came down and paced back and forth with eyes on
the gate, unable to leave the street till his soul was fed by one look
at her.
As the sun sank, and the dusk began to come on, he grew a little more
reckless of being recognized, and, crossing the way, continued to
sentinel the gate. He was passing it for the fourth time when Lida came
out upon the porch with an older woman. She looked at the stranger
curiously, but did not recognize him. She wore a hat, and was plainly
about to go for a walk.
Roy knew he ought to hurry away, but he did not. On the contrary, he
shamelessly met her with a solemn, husky-voiced greeting. "Hello, girl!
How's Uncle Dan?"
She started back in alarm, then flushed as she recognized him. "How dare
you speak to me--like that!"
In this moment, as he looked into her face, his courage began to come
back to him. "Why didn't you answer my letters?" he asked, putting her
on defense.
"What business had you to write to me? I told you I would not answer."
"No, you didn't; you only said you wouldn't _speak_ to me again."
"Well, you knew what I meant," she replied, with less asperity.
Someway these slight concessions brought back his audacity, his power of
defense. "You bet I did; but what difference does that make to a sick
man? Oh, I've had a time! I'm no use to the world since you left. I told
you the truth--you're my sun, moon, and stars, and I've come down to say
it just once more before I pull out for Alaska. I'm going to quit the
state. The whole valley is on to my case of loco, and I'm due at the
north pole. I've come to say good-by. Here's where I take my congee."
She read something desperate in the tone of his voice. "What do you
mean? You aren't really leaving?"
"That's what. Here's where I break camp. I can't go on this way. I've
got the worst fever anybody ever had, I reckon. I can't eat or sleep or
work, just on account of studying about you. You've got me goin' in a
circle, and if you don't say you forgive me--it's me to the bone-yard,
and that's no joke, you'll find."
She tried to laugh, but something in his worn face, intense eyes, and
twitching lips made her breathing very difficult. "You mustn't talk like
that. It's just as foolish as can be."
"Well, that don't help me a little bit. You no business to come into my
life and tear things up the way you did. I was all right till you came.
I liked myself and my neighbors bully; now nothing interests me--but
just you--and your opinion of me. You think I was a cowardly coyote
putting up that job on your uncle the way I did. Well, I admit it; but
I've been aching to tell you I've turned into another kind of farmer
since then. You've educated me. Seems like I was a kid; but I've grown
up into a man all of a sudden, and I'm startin' on a new line of action.
I'm not asking much to-day, just a nice, easy word. It would be a heap
of comfort to have you shake hands and say you're willing to let the
past go. Now, that ain't much to you, but it's a whole lot to me. Girl,
you've got to be good to me this time."
She was staring straight ahead of her with breath quickened by the
sincere passion in his quivering voice. The manly repentance which
burdened his soul reached her heart. After all, it was true: he had been
only a reckless, thoughtless boy as he planned that raid on her uncle,
and he had been so kind and helpful afterward--and so merry! It was
pitiful to see how changed he was, how repentant and sorrowful.
She turned quickly, and with a shy, teary smile thrust her hand toward
him. "All right. Let's forget it." Then as he hungrily, impulsively
sought to draw her nearer, she laughingly pushed him away. "I don't
mean--so much as you think." But the light of forgiveness and something
sweeter was in her face as she added: "Won't you come in a minute and
see mother and father--and Uncle Dan?"
"I'm _wild_ to see Uncle Dan," he replied with comical inflection, as he
followed her slowly up the path.
THE REMITTANCE MAN
_--wayward son from across the seas--is gone. Roused to
manhood by his country's call, he has joined the ranks of
those who fight to save the shores of his ancestral isle._
III
THE REMITTANCE MAN
I
The Kettle Hole Ranch house faces a wide, treeless valley and is backed
by an equally bare hill. To the west the purple peaks of the Rampart
range are visible. It is a group of ramshackle and dispersed cabins--not
Western enough to be picturesque, and so far from being Eastern as to
lack cleanliness or even comfort, and the young Englishman who rode over
the hill one sunset was bitterly disappointed in the "whole plant."
"I shall stay here but one night," said he, as he entered the untidy
house.
He stayed five years, and the cause of this change of mind lay in the
person of Fan Blondell, the daughter of the old man who owned the ranch
and to whom young Lester had been sent to "learn the business" of
cattle-raising.
Fan was only seventeen at this time, but in the full flower of her
physical perfection. Lithe, full-bosomed, and ruddy, she radiated a
powerful and subtle charm. She had the face of a child--happy-tempered
and pure--but every movement of her body appealed with dangerous
directness to the sickly young Englishman who had never known an hour of
the abounding joy of life which had been hers from the cradle. Enslaved
to her at the first glance, he resolved to win her love.
His desire knew no law in affairs of this kind, but his first encounter
with Blondell put a check to the dark plans he had formed--for the
rancher had the bearing of an aged, moth-eaten, but dangerous old bear.
His voice was a rumble, his teeth were broken fangs, and his hands
resembled the paws of a gorilla. Like so many of those Colorado ranchers
of the early days, he was a Missourian, and his wife, big, fat, worried
and complaining, was a Kentuckian. Neither of them had any fear of dirt,
and Fan had grown up not merely unkempt, but smudgy. Her gown was
greasy, her shoes untied, and yet, strange to say, this carelessness
exercised a subduing charm over Lester, who was fastidious to the point
of wasting precious hours in filling his boots with "trees" and folding
his neckties. The girl's slovenly habits of dress indicated, to his
mind, a similar recklessness as to her moral habits, and it sometimes
happens that men of his stamp come to find a fascination in the
elemental in human life which the orderly no longer possess.
Lester, we may explain, was a "remittance man"--a youth sent to America
by his family on the pretense of learning to raise cattle, but in
reality to get him out of the way. He was not a bad man; on the
contrary, he was in most ways a gentleman and a man of some reading--but
he lacked initiative, even in his villainy. Blondell at once called him
"a lazy hound"--provoked thereto by Lester's slowness of toilet of a
morning, and had it not been for Fan--backed by the fifty dollars a
month which Lester was paying for "instruction"--he would have been
"booted off the place."
Fan laughed at her father. "You better go slow; George Adelbert is
heeled."
Blondell snorted. "Heeled! He couldn't unlimber his gun inside of
fifteen minutes."
"Well, he can ride."
The old man softened a little. "Yes, he can ride, and he don't complain,
once he gets mounted, but he carries 'pajammys' in his saddle-bags and a
tooth-brush on his slicker; hanged if he don't use it, too!"
"That's what I like about him," she answered, defiantly. "We're all so
blamed careless about the way we live. I wish he'd jack us all up a
bit."
Truly Fan was under conviction, brought to a realization of her
slouchiness by Lester's care of his own room as well as by his lofty
manners. She no longer wore her dress open at the throat, and she kept
her yellow hair brushed, trying hard to make each meal a little less
like a pig's swilling. She knew how things ought to be done, a little,
for at "The Gold Fish Ranch" and at Starr Baker's everything was spick
and span (Mrs. Baker especially was a careful and energetic
housekeeper), but to keep to this higher level every day was too great
an effort even for a girl in love. She dropped back, now and again,
weary and disheartened.
It was her mating-time. She leaned to Lester from the first glance. The
strangeness of his accent, his reference to things afar off, to London
and Paris, appealed to her in the same way in which poetry moved
her--dimly, vaguely--but his hands, his eyes, his tender, low-toned
voice won her heart. She hovered about him when he was at home, careless
of the comments of the other men, ignoring the caustic "slatting" of her
mother. She had determined to win him, no matter what the father might
say--for to her all men were of the same social level and she as good as
the best. Indeed, she knew no other world than the plains of Colorado,
for she was born in the little dugout which still remained a part of
the kitchen. The conventions of cities did not count with her.
She was already aware of her power, too, and walked among the rough men
of her acquaintance with the step of an Amazonian queen, unafraid,
unabashed. She was not in awe of Lester; on the contrary, her love for
him was curiously mingled with a certain sisterly, almost maternal pity;
he was so easily "flustered." He was, in a certain sense, on her hands
like an invalid.
She soon learned that he was wax beneath her palm--that the touch of a
finger on his arm made him uneasy of eye and trembling of limb. It
amused her to experiment with him--to command him, to demand speech of
him when he was most angry and disgusted with the life he was living.
That he despised her father and mother she did not know, but that he was
sick of the cowboys and their "clack" she did know, and she understood
quite as well as if he had already told her that she alone kept him from
returning at once to Denver to try some other manner of earning a
living. This realization gave her pride and joy.
She had but one jealousy--he admired and trusted Mrs. Baker and
occasionally rode over there to talk with her, and Fan could not
understand that he sought intellectual refuge from the mental squalor of
the Blondells, but she perceived a difference in his glance on his
return. Mrs. Baker, being a keen-sighted, practical little woman, soon
fell upon the plainest kind of speech with the young Englishman.
"This is no place for you," she defiantly said. "The rest of us are all
more or less born to the plains and farm-life, but you're not; you're
just 'sagging,' that's all. You're getting deeper into the slough all
the time."
"Quite right," he answered, "but I don't know what else I can do. I have
no trade--I know nothing of any art or profession, and my brother is
quite content to pay my way so long as he thinks I'm on a ranch, and in
the way of learning the business."
She, with her clear eyes searching his soul, replied: "The longer you
stay the more difficult it will be to break away. Don't you see that?
You're in danger of being fastened here forever."
He knew what she meant, and his thin face flushed. "I know it and I am
going to ask Starr to give me a place here with you, and I'm about to
write my brother stating full reasons for the change. He might advance
me enough to buy into Starr's herd."
She considered this. "I'll take the matter up with Starr," she replied,
after a pause. "Meanwhile, you can come over and stay as a visitor as
long as you please--but don't bring Fan," she added, sharply. "I can't
stand slatterns, and you must cut loose from her once for all."
Again he flushed. "I understand--but it isn't easy. Fan has been mighty
good to me; life would have been intolerable over there but for her."
"I should think life would have been intolerable _with_ her," Mrs. Baker
answered, with darkening brow, and then they talked of other things till
he rose to ride away.
He headed his horse homeward, fully resolved to give notice of removal,
but he did not. On the contrary, he lost himself to Fan. The girl,
glowing with love and anger and at the very climax of her animal beauty,
developed that night a subtlety of approach, a method of attack, which
baffled and in the end overpowered him. She was adroit enough to make no
mention of her rivals; she merely set herself to cause his committal, to
bend him to her side. As the romping girl she played round him,
indifferent to the warning glances of her mother, her eyes shining, her
cheeks glowing, till the man he was, the life he had lived, the wishes
of his brother, were fused and lost in the blind passion of the present.
"This glorious, glowing creature can be mine. What does all the rest
matter?" was his final word of renunciation.
In this mood he took her to his arms, in this madness he told her of his
love (committing himself into her hands, declining into her life), and
in the end requested of her parents the honor of their daughter's hand.
Mrs. Blondell wept a tear or two and weakly gave her consent, but the
old ranchman thundered and lightened. "What can you do for my girl?" he
demanded. "As I understand it, you haven't a cent--the very clothes
you've got on your back are paid for by somebody else! What right have
you to come to me with such a proposal?"
To all this Lester, surprised and disconcerted, could but meekly answer
that he hoped soon to buy a ranch of his own--that his brother had
promised to "set him up" as soon as he had mastered the business.
Blondell opened his jaws to roar again when Fan interposed and, taking a
clutch in his shaggy beard, said, calmly: "Now, dad, you hush! George
Adelbert and I have made it all up and you better fall in gracefully. It
won't do you any good to paw the dirt and beller."
Lester grew sick for a moment as he realized the temper of the family
into which he was about to marry, but when Fan, turning with a gay
laugh, put her round, smooth arm about his neck, the rosy cloud closed
over his head again.
II
Blondell was silenced, but not convinced. A penniless son-in-law was not
to his liking. Fan was his only child, and the big ranch over which he
presided was worth sixty thousand dollars. What right had this lazy
Englishman to come in and marry its heiress? The more he thought about
it the angrier he grew, and when he came in the following night he broke
forth.
"See here, mister, I reckon you better get ready and pull out. I'm not
going to have you for a son-in-law, not this season. The man that
marries my Fan has got to have sabe enough to round up a flock of
goats--and wit enough to get up in the morning. So you better vamoose
to-morrow."
Lester received his sentence in silence. At the moment he was glad of
it. He turned on his heel and went to packing with more haste, with
greater skill, than he had ever displayed in any enterprise hitherto.
His hurry arose from a species of desperation. "If I can only get out of
the house!" was his inward cry.
"Why pack up?" he suddenly asked himself. "What do they matter--these
boots and shirts and books?" He caught a few pictures from the wall and
stuffed them into his pockets, and was about to plunge out into the dusk
when Fan entered the room and stood looking at him with ominous
intentness.
She was no longer the laughing, romping girl, but the woman with alert
eye and tightly closed lips. "What are you doing, Dell?"
"Your father has ordered me to leave the ranch," he answered, "and so
I'm going."
"No, you're not! I don't care what he has ordered! You're not
going"--she came up and put her arms about his neck--"not without me."
And, feeling her claim to pity, he took her in his arms and tenderly
pressed her cheek upon his bosom. Then she began to weep. "I can't live
without you, Dell," she moaned.
He drew her closer, a wave of tenderness rising in his heart. "I'll be
lonely without you, Fan--but your father is right. I am too poor--we
have no home--"
"What does that matter?" she asked. "I wouldn't marry you for any amount
of _money_! And I know you don't care for this old ranch! _I'll_ be glad
to get shut of it. I'll go with you, and we'll make a home somewhere
else." Then her mood changed. Her face and voice hardened. She pushed
herself away from him. "No, I won't! I'll stay here, and so shall you!
Dad can't boss me, and I won't let him run you out. Come and face him up
with me."
So, leading him, she returned to the kitchen, where Blondell, alone with
his wife, was eating supper, his elbows on the table, his hair unkempt,
his face glowering, a glooming contrast to his radiant and splendid
daughter, who faced him fearlessly. "Dad, what do you mean by talking
this way to George Adelbert? He's going to stay and I'm going to stay,
and you're going to be decent about it, for I'm going to marry him."
"No, you're not!" he blurted out.
"Well, I am!" She drew nearer and with her hands on the table looked
down into his wind-worn face and dim eyes. "I say you've got to be
decent. Do you understand?" Her body was as lithe, as beautiful, as that
of a tigress as she leaned thus, and an unalterable resolution blazed in
her eyes as she went on, a deeper significance coming into her voice:
"Furthermore, I'm as good as married to him right now, and I don't care
who knows it."
The old man's head lifted with a jerk, and he looked at her with mingled
fear and fury. "What do you mean?"
"Anything you want to have it mean," she replied. "You drive him out and
you drive me out--that's what I mean."
Blondell saw in her face the look of the woman who is willing to assume
any guilt, any shame for her lover, and, dropping his eyes before her
gaze, growled a curse and left the room.
Fan turned to her lover with a ringing, boyish laugh, "It's all right,
Dell; he's surrendered!"
III
Lester passed the month before his marriage in alternating uplifts and
depressions, and the worst of it lay in the fact that his moments of
exaltation were sensual--of the flesh, and born of the girl's
presence--while his depression came from his sane contemplation of the
fate to which he was hastening. He went one day to talk it all over with
Mrs. Baker, who now held a dark opinion of Fan Blondell. She frankly
advised him to break the engagement and to go back to England.
"I can't do that, my dear Mrs. Baker. I am too far committed to Fan to
do that. Besides, I know she would make a terrible scene. She would
follow me. And besides, I am fond of her, you know. She's very
beautiful, now--and she does love me, poor beggar! I wonder at it, but
she does." Then he brightened up. "You know she has the carriage of a
duchess. Really, if she were trained a little she would be quite
presentable anywhere."
Mrs. Baker shook her head. "She's at her best this minute. Look at the
mother; that's what she'll be like in a few years."
"Oh no--not really! She's an improvement--a vast improvement--on the old
people, don't you think?"
"You can't make a purse out of a sow's ear. Fan will sag right down
after marriage. Mark my words. She's a slattern in her blood, and before
the honeymoon is over she'll be slouching around in old slippers and her
nightgown. That is plain talk, Mr. Lester, but I can't let you go into
this trap with your eyes shut."
Lester went away with renewed determination to pack his belongings and
bolt, but the manly streak in his blood made it impossible for him to go
without some sort of explanation to her.
The other hands, who called him "George Adelbert" in mockery, were more
and more contemptuous of him, and one or two were sullen, for they loved
Fan and resented this "lily-fingered gent," who was to their minds
"after the old man's acres." Young Compton, the son of a neighboring
rancher, was most insulting, for he had himself once carried on a frank
courtship with Fan, and enjoyed a brief, half-expressed engagement. He
was a fine young fellow, not naturally vindictive, and he would not have
uttered a word of protest had his successful rival been a man of "the
States," but to give way to an English adventurer whose way was paid by
his brother was a different case altogether.
Of George Adelbert's real feeling the boys, of course, knew nothing. Had
they known of his hidden contempt for them they would probably have
taken him out of the country at the end of a rope, but of his position
with Fan they were in no doubt, for she was very frank with them. If
they accused her of being "sweet on the bloody Englishman" she laughed.
If they threatened his life in a jocular way she laughed again, but in a
different way, and said: "Don't make a mistake; George Adelbert is a
fighter from way back East." And once, in a burst of rage, she said: "I
won't have you saying such things, Lincoln Compton. I won't have it, I
tell you!" No one could accuse her of disloyalty or cowardice.
In his letters home Lester had put his fiancée's best foot forward.
"She's quite too good for me," he wrote to his brother. "She's young and
beautiful and sole heiress of an estate twice as big as our whole family
can muster. She's uncultivated, the diamond in the rough, and all that
sort of thing, you understand, but she'll polish easily." He put all
this down in the sardonic wish to procure some sort of settlement from
his brother. He got it by return mail.
Edward was suavely congratulatory, and in closing said: "I'm deucedly
glad you're off my hands just now, my boy, for I'm confoundedly hard up.
You're doing the sensible thing--only don't try to bring your family
home--not at present."
Lester was thrown into despairing fury by this letter, which not only
cut him off from his remittances, but politely shut the paternal door in
his own face as well as in the face of his bride. For the moment he had
some really heroic idea of setting to work to show them what he could
do. "The beggar! He squats down on the inheritance, shoves me out, and
then takes on a lot of 'side' as to his superiority over me! He always
was a self-sufficient ass. I'd like to punch his jaw!"
Then his rage faded out and a kind of sullen resignation came to him.
What was the use? Why not submit to fate? "Everything has been against
me from the start," he bitterly complained, and in this spirit he
approached his wedding-day.
The old man, acknowledging him as a son-in-law prospective, addressed
him now with gruff kindness, and had Lester shown the slightest gain in
managerial ability he would have been content--glad to share a little of
his responsibility with a younger man. In his uncouth, hairy, grimy
fashion Blondell was growing old, and feeling it. As he said to his
wife: "It's a pity that our only child couldn't have brought a real man,
like Compton, into the family. There ain't a hand on the place that
wouldn't 'a' been more welcome to me. What do you suppose would become
of this place if it was put into this dandy's hands?"
"I don't know, pa. Fan, for all her slack ways, is a purty fair manager.
She wouldn't waste it. She might let it run down, but she'd hang on to
it."
"But she's a fool about that jackass."
"She is now," answered the mother, with cynical emphasis, which she
softened by adding, "Dell ain't the kind that would try to work her."
He sighed with troubled gaze and grumbled an oath. "I don't know what to
think of him! He gits me." And in that rather mournful spirit he went
about his work, leaving the whole matter of the marriage festival in the
hands of the women. In a dim way he still felt that haste was necessary,
although Fan's face was as joyous, as careless, and as innocent as a
child's. As she galloped about the country with her George Adelbert she
sowed her "bids" broadcast, as if wishing all the world to share her
happiness. There was nothing exclusive, or shrinking, or parsimonious
in Frances Blondell.
IV
The marriage feast was indeed an epoch-making event in the county. It
resembled a barbecue and was quite as inclusive. Distinctions of the
social sort were few in Arapahoe County. Cattle-rustlers and sheepmen
were debarred, of course, but aside from these unfortunates practically
the whole population of men, women, children, and babies assembled in
the Kettle Hole Ranch grove. The marriage was to be "_al fresco_," as
the Limone _Limerick_ repeated several times.
Blondell found it a hard day, for what with looking after the roasting
ox and the ice and the beer, he was almost too busy to say hello to his
guests. Fan had contrived to get a clean shirt on him by the trick of
whisking away his old one and substituting a white one in its place. He
put this on without realizing how splendid it was, but rebelled flatly
at the collar, and by the time the ox was well basted his shirt was
subdued to a condition which left him almost at ease with himself.
Fan received the people at the door of the shack--her mother being too
busy in the preparation for dinner to do more than say "Howdy?" to those
who deliberately sought her out; but Fan was not embarrassed or wearied.
It was her great day--she was only a little disturbed when George
Adelbert fled to his room for a little relief from the strain of his
position, for he lacked both her serenity of spirit and her physical
health.
Once Lester would have enjoyed the action and comment of these people as
characters in a play, but now the knowledge that he was about to sink to
their level and be nailed there filled him with a fear and disgust which
not even the radiant face and alluring body of his bride could conceal
or drive out. These lumbering ranchers, these tobacco-chewing, drawling
lumpkins, were they to be his companions for the rest of his life? These
women with their toothless, shapeless mouths, these worn and weary
mothers in home-made calico and cheap millinery, were they to be the
visitors at his fireside? What kind of woman would they make of Fan?
By one o'clock the corrals were full of ponies and the sheds and yards
crowded with carriages all faded by the pitiless sun and sucked dry by
the never-resting wind of the plain.
Meanwhile the young women had set long tables in the back yard and
covered them with food--contributed chicken, home-made biscuit, cake,
and pie, while the young fellows had been noisily working at
constructing a "bowery" for the dance which was to follow the ceremony
at three. And at last Fan raised a bugle-call for "_dinner!_" and they
all came with a rush.
The feast did not last long, for every one was hungry and ate without
permitting delay or distraction. Nearly all remarked on having had a
very early breakfast, and they certainly showed capacity for not merely
beef and beer, but pie and ice-cream, and when they shoved back, and
lighted the cigars which Lester had provided with prodigal hand, they
all agreed that the barbecue was "up to the bills."
The ceremony at three was short, almost hurried, so great was the bustle
about the house and yard. Fan wore no veil and George Adelbert made no
change from the neat sack-suit which he had put on at rising. At the
close of the clergyman's blessing he was called upon for a second time
to pump the hard hands and stringy arms of his neighbors as they filed
by to bid them both a hearty God-speed.
After this painful procession was ended Fan dragged him away to the
bower where the young folks were already dancing with prodigious
clatter. "How young she is!" he exclaimed, as he saw her mix with the
crowd of tireless, stamping, prancing cowboys.
As the dance went on he grew furious with her lack of reserve, her
indelicacy. Her good-natured laughter with the men who crowded about her
familiarly was a kind of disloyalty. She seemed at times to be
exchanging doubtful jests with them; and at last, to protect her from
the results of her own fatuity, he danced with her himself--danced
almost incessantly, notwithstanding the heat and the noise.
At sunset they all returned to the tables and ate up what remained of
the ox and the pies.
Lester was well enough acquainted with these rough youths to know that
some deviltry was preparing, and, already furious with his bride and
distrustful of the future, his self-command at last gave way. Drawing
Fan away from the crowd he said, tenderly:
"I've had enough of this! I'm having Aglar harness the buckskins into
the red cart, and I want you to go to the house and pack a few
things--we're going to Limone and catch the early train for Denver."
"We can't do that, Dell; we got to stay here and feed this gang once
more."
"Oh, hang the gang! I'm sick of them. Get ready, I tell you! Who cares
what these beggars think?"
She laughed. "You're jealous of them." Then, rising to his passion, she
answered, "All right; I'll sneak some clothes into a bag and we'll slide
out and leave the gang."
A half-hour later they stole away toward the back of the garden and out
upon the prairie, where a Mexican was holding a spirited team. Fan was
giggling so hard that she was barely able to lift the valise which she
carried in her hand.
"Don't you tell," she said to the Mexican. "If they ask, say we went to
Holcombe."
"All right. I _sabe_," the Mexican replied. Even as he spoke the music
in the bower ceased and voices were heard in question.
Fan sobered. "They've missed us already."
Lester took the reins. "Send 'em south, Aglar," and at his chirp the
team sprang forward out upon the road into the coolness and silence of
the midnight plain.
Fan, clutching Lester's arm, shook with laughter. "It's like
eloping--ain't it?"
The tone of her voice irritated him. "Good Heaven! how vulgar she is!
And she is my wife," was his thought; and he took no pleasure in her
nearness.
Wild whoops reached them from the ranch-house now hid in the valley
behind them, and a few moments later the yells broke out again
perceptibly nearer.
"They're after us!" cried Fan, vastly excited and pleased. "It's a race
now," and, catching the whip from his hand, she lashed the horses into a
gallop.
He said: "I'll turn into the Sun-Fish Trail; we'll throw 'em off the
track."
"No use," she laughed. "No use, Dell; they can read a trail like Injuns;
besides, they're overtaking us. We might as well turn and go back."
His only answer was a shout to the horses. He was burning with fury now.
All his hidden contempt, his concealed hatred of the vulgarians behind
him, filled his heart. It was like them, the savages, to give chase.
With shrill whoops in imitation of Comanches the cowboys came on, riding
their swift and tireless ponies; like skimming hawks they swept down the
swells, and the bride, clinging to her husband's arm, called each of
them by his name.
"Link Compton is in the lead. Pull up!" She reached a firm hand and laid
it on the lines. "Pull up, Dell; it's no use."
He tried to shake off her grasp, but could not. Her voice changed to
command. "Don't be a fool!" she called, sharply, and, laying both hands
upon the reins, she brought the horses into a trot in spite of his
furious objection, just as the first of the pursuing cowboys rode
alongside and, seizing one of the horses by the bit, cried out:
"Come back. We need you!"
Even as he spoke a whistling rope settled round the fleeing couple and
the team came to a stand, surrounded by a hooting mob of mounted men.
The noose, tight-drawn, was like a steel embrace, and Compton called:
"Thought you'd give us the slip, did ye? Well, I don't think!"
"Leave us alone, you ruffians," shouted Lester, "or it'll be the worse
for you!"
They all laughed at this, and Compton drew the rope tighter, pinning
Lester's arms to his side.
"Boys--" began Fan in appeal, but she got no further.
Lester, wrenching his right arm loose, began to shoot. What happened
after that no one ever clearly knew, but the team sprang wildly forward,
and Compton's pony reared and fell backward, and the bride and groom
were thrown violently to the ground.
* * * * *
When Fan opened her eyes she saw the big stars above her and felt a
sinewy arm beneath her head. Compton was fanning her with his hat and
calling upon her to speak, his voice agonized with fear and remorse.
Slowly it all came back to her, and, struggling to a sitting position,
she called piteously: "Dell, where are you? Dell!" Her voice rose in
fear, a tone no man had ever heard in it before. She staggered to her
feet and dazedly looked about her. A group of awed, silenced, dismounted
men stood not far away, and on the ground, lying in a crumpled,
distorted heap, was her husband. With a shriek of agony she fell on her
knees beside him, calling upon him to open his eyes, to speak to her.
Then at last, as the conviction of his death came to her, she lifted her
head and with a voice of level, hoarse-throated hate, she imprecated her
murderers. "I'll kill you, every one of you! I'll kill you for this--you
cowardly wolves--I'll kill--"
V
They lifted them both up for dead, and Compton, taking Fan in his strong
arms, held her like a child as they drove slowly back to the ranch. All
believed Lester dead; but Compton, who held his ear to Fan's lips,
insisted that she was breathing, and indeed she recovered from her swoon
before they reached the house.
Blondell, more powerfully moved than ever before in his life, after a
swift curse upon the culprits took his girl to his bosom and carried her
to her bed.
As her brain cleared, Fan rose and, staggering across the room, took her
husband's head in her arms. "Bring some water. Dell is hurt. Don't you
see he is hurt? Be quick!"
"Has somebody gone for the doctor?" asked the mother, to whom this was
the raving of dementia. "Somebody go."
No one had, for all believed the man to be dead; but Compton exclaimed,
"I'll go!" turning to vault his horse, glad of something to do, eager to
escape the sight of Fan's agonized face.
The dash of cold water on his bruised face brought a flutter of life to
Lester's eyelids, and in triumph the bride cried out:
"I told you so! He is alive! Oh, Dell, can't you speak to me?"
He could not so much as lift his eyelids, but his breathing deepened,
and with that sign of returning vitality Fan was forced to be content.
She was perfectly composed now, and helped to bathe his crushed and
bleeding head and his broken shoulder with a calmness very impressive to
all those who were permitted to glance within the room.
Slowly the guests departed. The cowboys, low-voiced and funereal of
mien, rode away in groups of three or four.
The doctor came hurrying down the slope about ten of the morning, his
small roan mustang galloping, his case of instruments between his feet.
He was very young, and, luckily, very self-confident, and took charge of
"the case" with thrilling authority.
"The coma was induced," he explained, "by the concussion of the brain.
The shoulder is also badly contused and the collar-bone broken, but if
brain fever does not set in the man will live. The treatment so far as
it has gone is admirable."
Compton returned with him, or a little before him, and seemed to be
waiting for arrest. He was a lean, brown young fellow with good, gray
eyes and a shapely nose. "Yes, I threw the rope," he confessed to every
one. "It was all in fun, but he shot my horse, and as he reared up he
jerked the people out of the buggy. I guess the broncos jumped ahead at
the same time. But it was my fault. I had no business to rope 'em. In
fact, we had no business chasing 'em up at all."
At last Blondell gruffly told him to go home. "If the man dies we'll
come after you," he added, with blunt ferocity.
"All right," responded the young fellow, with lofty spirit. "I'll be
there--but I want to see Fan a moment before I leave. I want to know if
there is anything I can do for her or him."
Blondell was for refusing this utterly, but his wife said: "You didn't
mean nothing, Link--I'm sure of that--and I've always liked you, and so
has Fan. She won't lay it up against you, I know. I'll tell her you're
here."
Fan, sitting beside Lester's bed, turned at her mother's word and saw
the young fellow standing in the doorway in mute appeal. Her glance was
without anger, but it was cold and distant. She shook her head, and the
young rancher turned away, shaken with sobs. That look was worse than
her curse had been.
* * * * *
From the dim, grim region of his delirium and his deathlike
unconsciousness George Lester struggled slowly back to life. His
reawakening was like a new birth. He seemed born again, this time an
American--a Western American. In the measure of a good old homely
phrase, some sense (a sense of the fundamental oneness of humanity) had
been beaten into his head.
As he lay there, helpless and suffering, he was first of all aware of
Fan, whose face shone above him like the moon, and was soon able to
understand her unwearying devotion and to remember that she was his
wife. She was always present when he woke, and he accepted her presence
as he accepted sunshine, knowing nothing of the sleeplessness and toil
which her attendance involved--a knowledge of this came later.
At times gruff old Blondell himself bent his shaggy head above his bed
to ask how he felt, and no mother could have been more considerate than
Mrs. Blondell.
"What right have I to despise these people?" he asked himself one day.
"What have I done to lift myself above them?" (And this question
extended to the neighbors, to the awkward ranchers who came stiffly and
with a sort of awe into his room to "pass a good word," as they said.)
"They are a good sort, after all"--his heart prompted him to admit.
But his deepest penitence, his tenderest gratitude, rose to Fan, whom
care and love had marvelously refined. He was able to forget her
careless speech and to look quite through her untidy ways to the golden,
good heart which beat beneath her unlovely gowns. Nothing was too hard,
too menial, for her hands, and her smile warmed his midnight sick-room
like sunshine.
He was curiously silent even after his strength was sufficient for
speech. Content to lie on his bed and watch her as she moved about him,
he answered only in monosyllables, while the deep current of his love
gathered below his reticence. As he came to a full understanding of what
he had been and to a sense of his unworthy estimate of her and her
people, his passion broke bounds.
"Fan!" he called out one morning, "I'm not fit to receive all your care
and devotion--but I'm going to try to be; I'm going to set to work in
earnest when I get up. Your people shall be my people, your cares my
cares." He could not go on, and Fan, who was looking down at him in
wonder, stooped and laid a kiss on his quivering lips.
"You get well, boy; that's all you need to worry about," she said, and
her face was very sweet--for she smiled upon him as if he were a child.
THE LONESOME MAN
_--the murderer still seeks forgetfulness in the solitude,
building his cabin in the shadow of great peaks._
IV
THE LONESOME MAN
The road that leads to the historic north shoulder of Solidor is lonely
now. The stages that once crawled painfully upward through its flowery
meadows are playhouses for the children of Silver Plume, and the brakes
that once howled so resoundingly on the downward way are rusting to
ashes in the weeds that spring from the soil of the Silverado Queen's
unused corral. The railway, half a hundred miles to the north, has left
the famous pass to solitude and to grass.
Once a week, or possibly oftener, a cattleman or prospector rides
across, or a little band of tourists plod up or down,--thinking they are
penetrating to the heart of the Rockies,--but for the most part the
trail is passing swiftly to the unremembered twilight of the tragic
past. There are, it is true, one or two stamp-mills above Pemberton, but
they draw their supplies from the valley to the west and not from the
plain's cities, and the upper camps have long since been deserted by the
restless seeker of sudden gold.
It is a desolate, unshaded country, made so by the reckless hand of the
tenderfoot prospector, who, in the days of the silver rush, cut and
burned the timber sinfully, and the great peaks are meticulated with the
rotting boles of noble pines and spotted with the decaying stumps of
the firs which once made the whole land as beautiful as a park. Here and
there, however, a segment of this splendid ancient forest remains to
give some hint of what the ranges were before the destroying horde of
silver-seekers struck and scarred it.
Along this trail and above the last vestige of its standing trees a man
could be seen, walking eastward and upward, one bright afternoon in
August, a couple of years ago. He moved slowly, for he was heavily built
and obviously not much used to climbing, for he paused often to breathe.
The air at that altitude is thin and, to the one not accustomed to it,
most unsatisfying. In the intervals of his pauses the traveler's eyes
swept the heights and explored each cañon wall as if in search of a
resting-place. Around him the conies cried and small birds skimmed from
ledge to ledge, but his dark face did not lighten with joy of the beauty
which shone over his head nor to that which flamed under his feet. It
was plain that he was too preoccupied with some inner problem, too
intent on his quest, to give eye or ear to the significance of bird or
flower.
Huge Solidor, bare and bleak, rose grandly to the north, propping the
high-piled shining clouds, and the somber, dust-covered fields of snow
showed to what far height his proud summit soared above his fellows.
Little streams of icy water trickled through close-knit, velvety sward
whereon small flowers, white and gold and lilac, showed like fairy
footprints. Down from the pass a chill wind, delicious and invigorating,
rushed as palpably as if it were a liquid wave. In all this upper region
no shelter offered to the tired man.
A few minutes later, as he rounded the sloping green bastion which
flanks the peak to the south, the man's keen eyes lighted upon a small
cabin which squatted almost unnoticeably against a gray ledge some five
hundred feet higher than the rock whereon he stood. The door of this hut
was open and the figure of a man, dwarfed by distance, could be detected
intently watching the pedestrian on the trail. Unlike most
cabin-dwellers, he made no sign of greeting, uttered no shout of cheer;
on the contrary, as the stranger approached he disappeared within his
den like a marmot.
There was something appealing in the slow mounting of the man on foot.
He was both tired and breathless, and as he neared the cabin (which was
built on ground quite twelve thousand feet above sea-level) his limbs
dragged, and every step he made required his utmost will. Twice he
stopped to recover his strength and to ease the beating of his heart,
and as he waited thus the last time the lone cabin-dweller appeared in
his door and silently gazed, confronting his visitor with a strangely
inhospitable and prolonged scrutiny. It was as if he were a lonely
animal, jealous of his ground and resentful even of the most casual
human inspection.
The stranger, advancing near, spoke. "Is this the trail to Silver
Plume?" he asked, his heaving breast making his speech broken.
"It is," replied the miner, whose thin face and hawk-like eyes betrayed
the hermit and the man on guard.
"How far is it across the pass?"
"About thirty miles."
"A good night's walk. Are there any camps above here?"
"None."
"How far is it to the next cabin?"
"Some twelve miles."
The miner, still studying the stranger with piercing intensity,
expressed a desire to be reassured. "What are you doing up here on this
trail? Are you a mining expert? A spy?" he seemed to ask.
The traveler, divining his curiosity, explained. "I stayed last night at
the mill below. I'm a millwright. I have some property to inspect in
Silver Plume, hence I'm walking across. I didn't know it was so far; I
was misinformed. I'm not accustomed to this high air and I'm used up.
Can you take care of me?"
The miner glanced round at the heap of ore which betrayed his craft, and
then back at the dark, bearded, impassive face.
"Come in," he said at last, "I'll feed you." But his manner was at once
surly and suspicious.
The walls of the hovel were built partly of logs and partly of boulders,
and its roof was compacted of dirt and gravel; but it was decently
habitable. The furniture (hand-rived out of slabs) was scanty, and the
floor was laid with planks, yet everything indicated many days of wear.
"You've been here some time," the stranger remarked rather than asked.
"Ten years."
Thereafter the two men engaged in a silent duel. The millwright, leaning
back in his rude chair, stretched his tired limbs and gazed down the
valley with no further word of inquiry, while his grudging host prepared
a primitive meal and set it upon a box which served as a table.
"You may eat," he curtly said.
In complete silence and with calm abstraction the stranger turned to the
food and ate and drank, accepting it all as if this were a roadhouse and
he a paying guest. The sullen watchfulness of his host seemed not to
disturb him, not even to interest him.
At length the miner spoke as if in answer to a question--the question he
feared.
"No, my mine has not panned out well--not yet. The ore is low-grade and
the mill is too far away."
To this informing statement the other man did not so much as lift an
eyebrow. His face was like a closed door, his eyes were curtained
windows. He mused darkly as one who broods on some bitter defeat.
Nevertheless, he was a human presence and the lonely dweller on the
heights could not resist the charm of his guest's personality, remote as
he seemed.
"Where do you live?" he asked.
There was a moment's hesitation.
"In St. Paul."
"Ever been here before?"
The dark man shook his shaggy head slowly, and dropped his eyes as if
this were the end of the communication. "No, and I never expect to come
again."
The miner perceived power in his guest's resolute taciturnity, and the
very weight of the silence eventually opened his own lips. From moment
to moment the impulse to talk grew stronger within him. There was
something as compelling as heat in this reticent visitor whose soul was
so intent on inward problems that it perceived nothing of interest in an
epaulet of gold on the shoulder of Mount Solidor.
"Few come this trail now," the miner volunteered, as he cleared the
table. "I am alone and seldom see a human being drifting my way. I do
not invite them."
The stranger refilled his pipe and again leaned back against the wall in
ponderous repose. If he heard his host's remark he gave no sign of it,
and yet, despite the persistence of his guest's silence--perhaps because
of it--the lonely gold-seeker babbled on with increasing candor,
contradicting himself, revealing, hiding, edging round his story,
confessing to his hopes of riches, betraying in the end the secrets of
his lonely life. It was as if the gates of his unnatural reserve had
broken down and the desire to be heard, to be companioned, had
over-borne all his early caution.
"It's horribly lonesome up here," he confessed. "Sometimes I think I'll
give it all up and go back to civilization. When I came here the pass
had its traffic; now no one rides it, which is lucky for me," he added.
"I have no prying visitors--I mean no one to contest my claim--and yet a
man can't do much alone. Even if my ore richens I must transport it or
build a mill. Sometimes I wonder what I'm living for, stuck away in this
hole in the hills. I was born to better things--"
He checked himself at this moment, as if he were on the edge of
self-betrayal, but his listener seemed not vitally interested in these
personal details. However, he made some low-voiced remark, and, as if
hypnotized, the miner resumed his monologue.
"The nights are the worst. They are endless--and sometimes when I cannot
sleep I feel like surrendering to my fate--" Here again he broke off
sharply. "That's nonsense, of course. I mean, it seems as if a life were
too much to pay for a crazy act--I mean a mine. You'll ask why I don't
sell it, but it's all I have and, besides, no one has any faith in it
but myself. I cannot sell, and I can't live down there among men."
Gabbling, keeping time to his nervous feet and hands, endlessly
repeating himself, denying, confessing, the miner raged on, and through
it all the dark-browed guest smoked tranquilly, too indifferent to ask a
question or make comment; but when, once or twice, he lifted his eyes,
the garrulous one shuddered and turned away, a scared look on his
haggard face. He seemed unable to endure that steady glance.
At last, for a little space, he remained silent; then, as if compelled
by some increasing magic in his hearer, he burst forth:
"I'm not here entirely by my own fault--I mean my own choice. A man is a
product of his environment, you know that, and mine made me idle,
wasteful. Drink got me--drink made me mad--and so--and so--here I am
struggling to win back a fortune. Once I gambled--on the wheel; now I am
gambling with nature on the green of these mountain slopes; but I'll
win--I have already won--and soon I shall sell and go back to the great
cities."
Again his will curbed his treacherous tongue, and, walking to the
doorway, he stood for a moment, looking out; then he fiercely snarled:
"Oh, God, how I hate it all--how I hate myself! I am going mad with this
life! The squeak of these shadowy conies, the twitter of these unseen
little birds, go on day by day. They'll drive me mad! If you had not
come to-night I could not have slept--I would have gone to the mill, and
that means drink to me--drink and oblivion. You came and saved me. I
feared you--hated you then; now I bless you."
Once more he seemed to answer an unspoken query:
"I have no people. My mother is dead, my father has disowned me--he does
not even know I am alive. I'm the black devil of the family--but I shall
go back--"
His face was working with passion, and though he took a seat opposite
his guest, his hands continued to flutter aimlessly and his head moved
restlessly from side to side.
"I don't know why I am telling all this to you," he went on after a
pause. "I reckon it's because of the weakness of the thirst that is
coming over me. Some time I'll go down to those hell-holes at the mills
and never come back--the stuff they sell to me is destructive as
fire--it is poison! You're a man of substance, I can see that--you're no
hobo like most of the fellows out here--that's why I'm talking to you.
You remind me of some one I know. There's something familiar in your
eyes."
The man with the beard struck the ashes from his pipe and began scraping
it. "There is always a woman in these cases," he critically remarked.
The miner took this simple statement as a challenging question. His
excitement visibly increased, but he did not at once reply. He talked on
aimlessly, incoherently, struggling like a small animal in a torrent. He
rose at last, and as he stood in the doorway, breathing deeply, his face
livid in the sunset light, the muscles of his jaw trembled.
The stranger observed his host's agitation, but put away his pipe with
slow and steady hand. He said nothing, and yet an observer would have
declared he held the other and weaker man in the grasp of an inexorable
hypnotic silence. Finally he fixed a calm, cold glance upon his host, as
if summoning him to answer.
"Yes," the miner confessed, "there is always a woman in the
case--another and more fortunate man. The woman is false, the man is
treacherous. You trust and they betray. Such beings ruin and
madden--they make outlaws such as I am--"
"Love is above will," asserted the millwright, with decision.
The other man fiercely turned. "I know what you mean--you mean the woman
is not to be condemned--that love goes where it is drawn. That is true,
but deceit is not involuntary--it is deliberate--"
"Sometimes we deceive ourselves."
"In her case it was deceit," retorted the miner, who was now so deeply
engaged with his own story that each general observation on the part of
his guest was taken to be specific and personal.
The room was growing dusky, and the stranger's glance appeared keener,
more insistent, as his body melted into the shadow. His shaggy head and
black beard all but disappeared; only the faint outlines of his forehead
remained, and yet, as his physical self faded into the gloom, his
personality, his psychic self, loomed larger. His will enveloped the
hermit, drawing upon him with irresistible power. It was as if he were
wringing him dry of a confession as the priest closes in upon the
culprit.
"I had my happy days--my days of care-free youth," the unquiet man was
saying. "But my time of innocence was short. Evil companions came early
and reckless deeds followed.... I knew I was losing something, I knew I
was being drawn downward, but I could not escape. Day and night I called
for help, and then--_she_ came--"
"Who came?"
"The one who made me forget all the others, the one who made me
ashamed."
"And then?"
"And then for a time I was happy in the hope that I might win her and so
redeem my life."
"And she?"
"She pitied me--at first--and loved me--at least I thought so."
As his excitement increased his words came slower, burdened with
passion. He spoke like a prisoner addressing a judge, his voice but a
husky whisper.
"I told her I was unworthy of her--that was when I believed her to be an
angel. I promised to begin a new life for her sake. Then she promised
me--helped me--and all the while she was false to me--false as a
hell-cat!"
"How?" queried the almost invisible man, and his voice was charged with
stern demand.
"All the time she was promised to another man--and that man my enemy."
Here his frenzy flared forth in a torrent of words.
"Then--then I went mad. My brain was scarred and numb. I lost all sense
of pity--all fear of law--all respect for woman. I only knew my
wrongs--my despair--my hate. I watched, I waited, I found them
together--"
"And then? What did you do then?" demanded the stranger, rising from his
seat with sudden energy, his voice deep, insistent, masterful. "Tell me
what you did?"
The miner's wild voice died to a hesitant whisper. "I--I fled."
"But before that--before you fled?"
"What is it to you?" asked the hermit, gazing with scared eyes at the
man who towered above him like the demon of retribution. "Who are you?"
"I am the avenger!" answered the other. "The man you hated was my
brother. The woman you killed was his wife."
The fugitive fell upon his knees with a cry like that of one being
strangled.
Out of the darkness a red flame darted, and the crouching man fell to
the floor, a crumpled, bloody heap.
For a long time the executioner stood above the body, waiting, listening
from the shadow to the faint receding breath-strokes of his victim. When
all was still he restored his weapon to its sheath and stepped over the
threshold into the keen and pleasant night.
As he closed the door behind him the stranger raised his eyes to
Solidor, whose sovereign, cloud-like crest swayed among the stars.
"Now I shall rest," he said, with solemn satisfaction.
THE TRAIL TRAMP
_--mounted wanderer, horseman of the restless heart, still
rides from place to place, contemptuous of gold, carrying in
his parfleche all the vanishing traditions of the West._
V
THE TRAIL TRAMP
KELLEY AFOOT
I
Kelley was in off the range and in profound disgust with himself, for
after serving honorably as line-rider and later as cow-boss for ten
years or more, he had ridden over to Keno to meet an old comrade. Just
how it happened he couldn't tell, but he woke one morning without a
dollar and, what was worse, incredibly worse, without horse or saddle!
Even his revolver was gone.
In brief, Tall Ed, for the first time in his life, was set afoot, and
this, you must understand, is a most direful disaster in cowboy life. It
means that you must begin again from the ground up, as if you were a
perfectly new tenderfoot from Nebraska.
Fort Keno was, of course, not a real fort; but it was a real barracks.
The town was an imitation town. The fort, spick, span, in rows, with
nicely planted trees and green grass-plats (kept in condition at vast
expense to the War Department), stood on the bank of the sluggish river,
while just below it and across the stream sprawled the town, drab,
flea-bitten, unkempt, littered with tin cans and old bottles, a
collection of saloons, gambling-houses and nameless dives, with a few
people--a very few--making an honest living by selling groceries,
saddles, and coal-oil.
Among the industries of Keno City was a livery-and-sales stable, and
Kelley, with intent to punish himself, at once applied for the position
of hostler. "You durned fool," he said, addressing himself, "as you've
played the drunken Injun, suppose you play valet to a lot of mustangs
for a while."
As a disciplinary design he felicitated himself as having hit upon the
most humiliating and distasteful position in Keno. It was understood
that Harford of the Cottonwood Corral never hired a real man as hostler.
He seemed to prefer bums and tramps, either because he could get them
cheaper or else because no decent man would work for him. He was an
"arbitrary cuss" and ready with gun or boot. He came down a long trail
of weather-worn experiences in the Southwest, and showed it in both face
and voice. He was a big man who had once been fatter, but his wrinkled
and sour visage seldom crinkled into a smile. He had never been jolly,
and he was now morose.
Kelley hated him. That, too, was another part of his elaborate scheme of
self-punishment--hated, but did not fear him, for Tall Ed Kelley feared
nothing that walked the earth or sailed the air. "You bum," he continued
to say in bitter derision as he caught glimpses of himself of a morning
in the little fragment of broken glass which, being tacked on the wall,
served as mirror in the office. "You durned mangy coyote, you need a
shave, but you won't get it. You need a clean shirt and a new bandanna,
but you won't get them, neither--not yet awhile. You'll earn 'em by
going without a drop of whisky and by forking manure fer the next six
months. You hear me?"
He slept in the barn on a soiled, ill-smelling bunk, and his hours of
repose were broken by calls on the telephone or by some one beating at
the door late at night or early in the morning; but he always responded
without a word of complaint. It was all lovely discipline. It was like
batting a measly bronco over the head in correction of some grievous
fault (like nipping your calf, for example), and he took a grim
satisfaction in going about degraded and forgotten of his fellows, for
no one in Keno knew that this grimy hostler was cow-boss on the Perco.
This, in a certain degree, softened his disgrace and lessened his
punishment, but he couldn't quite bring himself to the task of
explaining just how he had come to leave the range and go into service
with Harford.
The officers of the fort, when tired of the ambulance, occasionally took
out a team and covered rig, and so Kelley came in contact with the
commanding officer, Major Dugan, a fine figure of a man with carefully
barbered head and immaculate uniform. In Kelley's estimation he was
almost too well kept for a man nearing fifty. He was, indeed, a gallant
to whom comely women were still the fairest kind of game.
In truth, Tall Ed as hostler often furnished the major with a carriage,
in which to make some of his private expeditions, and this was another
and final disgrace which the cowman perceived and commented upon. To
assist an old libertine like the major in concealing his night journeys
was the nethermost deep of "self-discipline," but when the pretty young
wife of his employer became the object of the major's attention Kelley
was thrown into doubt.
Anita Harford, part Spanish and part German, as sometimes happens in New
Mexico, was a curious and interesting mixture with lovely golden-brown
hair and big, dark-brown eyes. She had the ingratiating smile of the
señora, her mother, and the moods of gravity, almost melancholy, of her
father.
She had been away in Albuquerque during the first week of Kelley's
hostlership, and though he had heard something of her from the men about
the corral, he had no great interest in her till she came one afternoon
to the door of the stable, where she paused like a snow-white, timid
antelope and softly said:
"Are you the new hostler?"
"I am, miss."
She smiled at his mistake. "I am Mrs. Harford. Please let me have the
single buggy and bay Nellie."
Kelley concealed his surprise. "Sure thing, mom. Want her right now?"
"If you please."
As she moved away so lightly and so daintily Kelley stared in
stupefaction. "Guess I've miscalculated somewhere. Old Harf must have
more drag into him than I made out. How did the old seed get a woman
like that? 'Pears like he's the champion hypnotic spieler when it comes
to 'skirts.'"
He hitched-up the horse in profound meditation. For the first time since
his downfall his humiliation seemed just a trifle deeper than was
necessary. He regretted his filthy shirt and his unshorn cheeks, and as
he brought the horse around to the door of the boss's house he slipped
out of the buggy on the off side, hurriedly tethered the mare to the
pole, and retreated to his alley like a rat to its burrow. The few
moments when Anita's clear eyes had rested upon him had been moments of
self-revelation.
"Kelley, you're all kinds of a blankety fool," said he. "You're causing
yourself a whole lot of extra misery and you're a disgustin' object,
besides. It isn't necessary fer you to be a skunk in order to give
yourself a welting. Go now and get a shave and a clean shirt, and start
again."
This he did, and out of his next week's pay he bought a clean pair of
overalls and a new sombrero, so that when he came back to the barn
Harford was disturbed.
"Hope you aren't going to pull out, Kelley? You suit me, and if it's a
question of pay, I'll raise you a couple of dollars on a week."
"Oh no, I'm not leaving. Only I jest felt like I was a little too
measly. 'Pears like I ought to afford a clean shirt. It does make a heap
of difference in the looks of a feller. No, I'm booked to stay with you
fer a while yet."
Naturally thereafter little Mrs. Harford filled a large place in
Kelley's gloomy world. He was not a romantic person, but he was often
lonesome in the midst of his self-imposed penance. He forbade himself
the solace of the saloon. He denied himself a day or even an hour off
duty, and Harford, secretly amazed and inwardly delighted, went so far
one day as to offer him a cigar.
Kelley waved it away. "No, I've cut out the tobacco, too."
This astounded his boss. "Say, it's a wonder you escaped the ministry."
"It's more of a wonder than you know," replied Kelley. "I was headed
right plumb that way till I was seventeen. My mother had it all picked
out fer me. Then I broke away."
Harford, with the instinctive caution of the plainsman, pursued the
subject no further. He was content to know that for a very moderate
wage he had secured the best man with horses that the stable had ever
known. His only anxiety related to the question of keeping his find.
"Kelley's too good to be permanent," he said to his wife that night.
"He'll skip out with one of the best saddle-horses some night, or else
he'll go on a tearing drunk and send the whole outfit up in smoke. I
don't understand the cuss. He looks like the usual hobo out of a job,
but he's as abstemious as a New England deacon. 'Pears like he has no
faults at all."
Anita had been attracted to Kelley, lowly as he looked, and, upon
hearing his singular virtues recounted by her husband, opened her eyes
in augmented interest. All the men in her world were rough. Her father
drank, her brothers fought and swore and cheated, and her husband was as
free of speech in her presence as if she were another kind of man,
softening his words a little, but not much. Therefore, the next time she
met Kelley she lingered to make conversation with him, rejoicing in his
candid eyes and handsome face. She observed also that his shirt was
clean and his tie new. "He looks almost like a soldier," she thought,
and this was her highest compliment.
Surrounded as she was by gamblers, horse-jockeys, cattle-buyers, and
miners, all (generally speaking) of the same slouchy, unkempt type, she
recognized in the officers of the fort gentlemen of highest breeding and
radiant charm. Erect, neat, brisk of step, the lieutenants on parade
gave off something so alien, yet so sweet, that her heart went out to
them collectively, and when they lifted their caps to her individually,
she smiled upon them all with childish unconsciousness of their
dangerous qualities.
Most of the younger unmarried men took these smiles to be as they were,
entirely without guile. Others spoke jestingly (in private) of her
attitude, but were inclined to respect Harford's reputation as a gunman.
Only the major himself was reckless enough to take advantage of the
young wife's admiration for a uniform.
Kelley soon understood the situation. His keen eyes and sensitive ears
informed him of the light estimation in which his employer's wife was
held by the major; but at first he merely said, "This is none of your
funeral, Kelley. Stick to your currycomb. Harford is able to take care
of his own."
This good resolution weakened the very next time Anita met him and
prettily praised him. "Mr. Harford says you are the best man he ever
had, and I think that must be so, for my pony never looked so clean and
shiny."
Kelley almost blushed, for (as a matter of faithful history) he had
spent a great deal of time brushing bay Nellie. She did indeed shine
like a bottle, and her harness, newly oiled and carefully burnished,
glittered as if composed of jet and gold.
"Oh, that's all right; it's a part of my job," he replied, as carelessly
as he could contrive. "I like a good horse"--"and a pretty woman," he
might have added, but he didn't.
Although Anita lingered as if desiring a word or two more, the tall
hostler turned resolutely away and disappeared into the stable.
Bay Nellie, as the one dependable carriage-horse in the outfit of
broncos, had been set aside for the use of Anita and her friends, but
Kelley had orders from Harford to let the mare out whenever the women
did not need her, provided a kindly driver was assured, and so it
happened that the wives of the officers occasionally used her, although
none of them could be called friends or even acquaintances of little
Mrs. Harford.
Kelley observed their distant, if not contemptuous, nods to his
employer's wife as they chanced to meet her on the street, but he said
no word, even when some of the town loafers frankly commented on it. He
owed nothing to Harford. "It's not my job to defend his wife's
reputation." Nevertheless, it made him hot when he heard one of these
loafers remark: "I met the old major the other evening driving along the
river road with Harf's wife. Somebody better warn the major, or there'll
be merry hell and a military funeral one of these days."
"I reckon you're mistaken," said Kelley.
"Not by a whole mile! It was dark, but not so dark but that I could see
who they were. They were in a top buggy, drivin' that slick nag the old
man is so choice about."
"When was it?" asked Kelley.
"Night before last. I met 'em up there just at the bend of the river."
Kelley said no more, for he remembered that Anita had called for the
horse on that date just about sundown, and had driven away alone. She
returned alone about ten--at least, she drove up to the stable door
alone, but he recalled hearing the low tones of a man's voice just
before she called.
It made him sad and angry. He muttered an imprecation against the whole
world of men, himself included. "If I hadn't seen her--if I didn't know
how sweet and kind and pretty she was--I wouldn't mind," he said to
himself. "But to think of a little babe like her--" He checked himself.
"That old cockalorum needs killing. I wonder if I've got to do it?" he
asked in conclusion.
II
Harford came home the next day, and for several weeks there was no
further occasion for gossip, although Kelley had his eyes on the major
so closely that he could neither come nor go without having his action
analyzed. He kept close record of Anita's coming and going also,
although it made him feel like a scoundrel whenever she glanced at him.
He was sure she was only the thoughtless child in all her indiscretions,
with a child's romantic admiration of a handsome uniform.
"I'll speak to her," he resolved. "I'll hand her out a word of warning
just to clear my conscience. She needs a big brother or an uncle--some
one to give her a jolt, and I'll do it!"
The opportunity came one day soon after Harford's return, but his
courage almost failed at the moment of meeting, so dainty, so small, so
charming, and so bird-like did the young wife seem.
She complimented him again on the condition of the mare and asked,
timidly, "How much does my husband pay you?"
"More than I'm worth," he replied, with gloomy self-depreciation.
She caught the note of bitterness in his voice and looked at him a
moment in surprised silence, her big eyes full of question. "What made
you say that?"
Kelley, repenting of his lack of restraint, smiled and said: "Oh, I felt
that way--for a minute. You see, I used to lead a high life of ease. I
was a nobleman--an Irish lord."
She smiled and uttered an incredulous word, but he went on:
"Yes, although my name is Kelley, I belong to a long line of kings. I'm
working as hostler just to square myself fer having killed a man. You
see, my queen was kind o' foolish and reckless and let a certain English
duke hang round her till I got locoed, and, being naturally quick on the
trigger, I slew him."
She was not stupid. She understood, and with quick, resentful glance she
took the reins from his hands and stepped into the carriage.
Kelley, silenced, and with a feeling that he had bungled his job, fell
back a pace, while she drove away without so much as a backward glance.
"I reckon she got it," he said, grimly, as he went back to his work. "I
didn't put it out just the way I had it in my head, but she 'peared to
sense enough of it to call me a Piute for butting in. If that don't work
on her I'll tack a warning on the major which nobody will misread fer a
joke."
As the hours of the afternoon went by he became more and more uneasy. "I
hope she'll turn up before dark, fer Harf is liable to get back any
minute," he said a dozen times, and when at last he saw her coming up
the street with a woman in the seat beside her he breathed deeply and
swore heartily in his relief. "I guess my parable kind o' worked," he
said, exultantly. "She's kept clear of the old goat this trip."
The little lady stopped her horse at the door of the stable and with a
cool and distant nod alighted and walked away.
"I'm the hostler now--sure thing," grinned Kelley. "No raise of pay fer
Tall Ed this week."
He was in reality quite depressed by the change in her attitude toward
him. "Reckon I didn't get just the right slaunch on that warning of
mine--and yet at the same time she ought to have seen I meant it
kindly.--Oh well, hell! it's none o' my funeral, anyway. Harford is no
green squash, he's a seasoned old warrior who ought to know when men are
stealing his wife." And he went back to his dusty duties in full
determination to see nothing and do nothing outside the barn.
Nevertheless, when, thereafter, anybody from the fort asked for bay
Nellie, he gave out that she was engaged, and the very first time the
major asked for the mare Kelley not only brusquely said, "She's in use,"
but hung up the receiver in the midst of the major's explanation.
The town gossips were all busy with the delightful report that Mrs.
Harford had again been seen driving with the major, whose reputation for
gallantry, monstrously exaggerated by the reek of the saloons, made even
a single hour of his company a dash of pitch to the best of women.
Kelley speculated on just how long it would take Harford to learn of
these hints against his wife. Some of his blunt followers were quite
capable of telling him in so many words that the major was doing him
wrong, and when they did an explosion would certainly take place.
One day a couple of Harford's horses, standing before the stable, became
frightened and ran away up the street. Kelley, leaping upon one of the
fleetest broncos in the stalls, went careering in pursuit just as Anita
came down the walk. He was a fine figure of a man even when slouching
about the barn, but mounted he was magnificent. It was the first time he
had ridden since the loss of his own outfit, and the feel of a vigorous
steed beneath his thighs, the noise of pounding feet, the rush of air,
filled his heart with mingled exultation and regret. He was the centaur
again.
Anita watched him pass and disappear with a feeling of surprise as well
as of admiration. She was skilled in reading the character of men on
horseback, and peculiarly sensitive to such an exhibition of grace and
power. Her hostler was transformed into something new and wholly
admirable, and she gladly took the trouble to watch for his return, as
she could not witness the roping and the skilful subduing of the
outlaws.
The picture he made as he tore along, swinging his rope, had displaced
that of the dirty, indifferent hostler, and Anita thereafter looked upon
him with respect, notwithstanding his presumptuous warning, which still
lay heavy in her ears.
She still resented his interference, but she resented it less now that
she knew him better. She began to wonder about him. Who was he? Why was
he the hostler? Naturally, being wise in certain ways of men, she
inferred that strong drink had "set him afoot"; but when she hesitantly
approached her husband on this point, his reply was brusque: "I don't
know anything about Kelley, and don't want to know. So long as he does
his work his family vault is safe."
Still desiring to be informed, she turned to her servants, with no
better results; they knew very little about Tall Ed, "but we like him,"
they were free to say.
This newly discovered mystery in the life of her hostler accomplished
what his warning had failed to do; it caused her to neglect her
correspondence with the major. His letter lay in a hollow willow-tree on
the river road unread for nearly a week. And when, one afternoon, she
finally rode by to claim it, her interest was strangely dulled. The
spice of the adventure was gone.
As she was about to deliver her pony to Kelley that night he handed her
an envelope, and, with penetrating glance, said: "I found this on the
river road to-day. I wouldn't write any more such--if I was you; it
ain't nice and it ain't safe."
It was her own letter, the one she had but just written and deposited in
the tree. She chilled and stiffened under the keen edge of Kelley's
contemptuous pity, then burned hot with illogical rage.
"What right--? You spied on me. It's a shame!"
"So it is!" he agreed, quietly; "but I don't want any killing
done--unless I do it myself."
"You are a thief," she accused.
"All right," he answered, dispassionately. "Spy--keeper--big
brother--dog--anything goes--only I don't intend to let you slide to
hell without a protest. You're nothing but a kid--a baby. You don't know
what you're going into. I'm an old stager; I know a whole lot that I
wish I didn't know. I've known women who _said_ they didn't care--lots
of 'em--but they did; they all cared. They all knew they'd lost out.
There's only one end to the trail you're starting in on, and it ain't a
pretty one. Harf married you in good faith, and even if he _is_ gettin'
old and slow-footed and skinny, he's your husband and entitled to a
square deal."
Blinded by her tears, and weak with passionate resentment of his tone,
she could scarcely clamber down from the carriage. As soon as her feet
touched the ground she started away. Kelley retained her by the force of
his hand upon her wrist.
"Wait a moment," he said, huskily. "You're mad now and you want to
murder me, but think it all over and you'll see I'm your friend."
There was something in his voice which caused her to look squarely up
into his face, and the tenderness she saw there remained long in her
memory.
"You're too sweet and lovely to be the sport of a cheap skate like that.
Don't throw yourself away on any man. Good-by and God bless ye."
She walked away with bent head and tear-blinded eyes, her heart filled
with weakness and pain. She was like a child justly punished, yet
resenting it, and mingled with her resentment was a growing love and
admiration for the man whose blunt words had bruised her soul in the
hope of her redemption.
* * * * *
Kelley went back to his little office, gathered his small belongings
together, and called up Harford on the 'phone. "I'll take that blue
cayuse and that Denver-brand saddle, and call it square to date.... Yes,
I'm leaving. I've got a call to a ranch over on the Perco. Sorry, but I
reckon I've worked out my sentence.... All right. So long."
Ten minutes later he was mounted and riding out of town. The air was
crisp with autumn frost and the stars were blazing innumerably in the
sky. A coyote had begun his evening song, and to the north rose the
high, dark mass of the Book cliffs. Toward this wall he directed his
way. He hurried like one fleeing from temptation, and so indeed he was.
KELLY AS MARSHAL
I
Along about '96 Sulphur Springs had become several kinds of a bad town.
From being a small liquoring-up place for cattlemen it had taken on
successively the character of a land-office, a lumber-camp, and a
coal-mine.
As a cow town it had been hardly more than a hamlet. As a mining center
it rose to the dignity of possessing (as Judge Pulfoot was accustomed to
boast) nearly two thousand souls, not counting Mexicans and Navajos. It
lay in the hot hollows between piñon-spotted hills, but within sight
spread the grassy slopes of the secondary mountains over whose tops the
snow-lined peaks of the Continental Divide loomed in stern majesty.
The herders still carried Winchesters on their saddles and revolvers
strung to their belts, and each of them strove to keep up cowboy
traditions by unloading his weapon on the slightest provocation. The
gamblers also sustained the conventions of their profession by killing
one another now and again, and the average citizen regarded these
activities with a certain approval, for they all denoted a "live town."
"The boys need diversion," said the mayor, "and so long as they confine
their celebrations to such hours as will not disturb the children and
women--at least, the domestic kind of women--I won't complain."
And really, it is gratifying to record that very few desirable citizens
were shot. Sulphur continued to thrive, to glow in the annals of
mountain chivalry, until by some chance old Tom Hornaby of Wire Grass
was elected Senator. That victory marked the beginning of the decline of
Sulphur.
Hornaby was Pulfoot's candidate, and the judge took a paternal pride in
him. He even went up to the capital to see him sworn in, and was there,
unfortunately, when the humorous member from Lode alluded to Hornaby as
"my esteemed colleague from 'Brimstone' Center, where even the judges
tote guns and the children chew dynamite"--and what was still more
disturbing, he was again in the capital when the news came of the
shooting and robbing of a couple of coal-miners, the details of which
filled the city papers with sarcastic allusions to "Tom Hornaby's live
town on The Stinking Water."
Hornaby, being a heavy owner of land in and about Sulphur, was very
properly furious, and Judge Pulfoot--deeply grieved--was, indeed, on the
instant, converted. A great light fell about him. He perceived his home
town as it was--or at least he got a glimpse of it as it appeared to the
timid souls of civilized men. He cowered before Hornaby.
"Tom, you're right," he sadly agreed. "The old town needs cleaning up.
It sure is disgraceful."
Hornaby buttered no parsnips. "You go right back," said he, "and kick
out that bonehead marshal of yours and put a full-sized man into his
place, a man that will cut that gun-play out and distribute a few of
those plug-uglies over the landscape. What chance have I got in this
Legislature as the 'Senator from Brimstone Center'? I'll never get shet
of that fool tag whilst I'm up here."
"You certainly have a right to be sore," the judge admitted. "But it
ain't no boy's job, cleaning up our little burg. It's going to be good,
stiff work. I don't know who to put into it."
"I do."
"Who?"
"My foreman, Ed Kelley."
"I don't know him."
"Well, I do. He's only been with me a few months, but I've tried him and
he's all right. He's been all over the West, knows the greasers and
Injuns, and can take care of himself anywhere. The man don't live that
can scare him. You notice his eyes! He's got a glare like the muzzle of
a silver-plated double-barrel shotgun. He don't know what fear is. I've
seen him in action, and I know."
The judge was impressed. "Will the board accept him?"
"They've _got_ to accept him or go plumb to the devil down there. These
articles and speeches have put us in wrong with the whole state. This
wild West business has got to be cut out. It scares away capital. Now
you get busy!"
The judge went back resolved upon a change of administration. The
constituent who held the office of marshal was brave enough, but he had
grown elderly and inert. He was, in truth, a joke. The gamblers laughed
at him and the cowboys "played horse" with him. The spirit of deviltry
was stronger than it had ever been in the history of the county.
"Something religious has got to be done," the judge argued to the city
fathers, and, having presented Hornaby's message, demanded the
installation of Kelley.
The board listened attentively, but were unconvinced. "Who is this
Kelley? He's nothing but a tramp, a mounted hobo. Who knows him?"
"Hornaby knows him and wants him, and his order goes. Let's have him in
and talk with him, anyhow."
Kelley was called in. He showed up a tall, composed young fellow of
thirty, with weather-worn face and steady gray eyes in which the pupils
were unusually small and very dark blue. His expression was calm and his
voice pleasant. He listened in amused silence while the judge told him
what the program was. Then he said:
"That's a whale of a job you've laid out for me; but Hornaby's boss. All
is, if I start in on this, you fellows have got to see me through. It's
a right stiff program and I need some insurance. 'Pears to me like there
should be a little pot for Tall Ed at the end of this game--say, three
dollars a day and a couple of hundred bones when everything is quiet."
To this the judge agreed. "You go in and clean up. Run these gunmen down
the valley. Cut out this amatoor wild West business--it's hurting us.
Property is depreciating right along. We certainly can't stand any more
of this brimstone business. Go to it! We'll see that you're properly
reimbursed."
"All right, Judge. But you understand if I go into this peacemaking war
I draw no political lines. I am chief for the time being, and treat
everybody alike--greasers, 'Paches, your friends, my friends,
everybody."
"That's all right. It's your deal," said the judge and the aldermen.
II
Tall Ed had drifted into Sulphur from the Southwest some six months
before, and although fairly well known among the ranchers on the Wire
Grass, was not a familiar figure in town. The news of his appointment
was received with laughter by the loafers and with wonder by the quiet
citizens, who coldly said:
"He appears like a full-sized man, but size don't count. There's Clayt
Mink, for instance, the worst little moth-eaten scrap in the state, and
yet he'll kill at the drop of a hat. Sooner or later he's going to try
out this new marshal same as he did the others."
This seemed likely, for Mink owned and operated the biggest
gambling-house in Sulphur, and was considered to be (as he was) a
dangerous man. He already hated Kelley, who had once protected a drunken
cattleman from being almost openly robbed in his saloon. Furthermore, he
was a relentless political foe to Hornaby.
He was indeed a mere scrap of a man, with nothing about him full-sized
except his mustache. And yet, despite his unheroic physique, he was
quick and remorseless in action. In Italy he would have carried a
dagger. In England he would have been a light-weight rough-and-tumble
fighter. In the violent West he was a gunman, menacing every citizen who
crossed his inclination, and he took Kelley's appointment as a direct
affront on the part of Hornaby and Pulfoot.
"He'd better keep out of my way," he remarked to his friends, with a
malignant sneer.
Kelley was not deceived in his adversary. "He's a coward at heart, like
all these hair-hung triggers," he said to Pulfoot. "I'm not hunting any
trouble with him, but--" It was not necessary to finish his sentence;
his voice and smile indicated his meaning.
The town was comparatively quiet for the first month or two after Kelley
took office. It seemed that the rough element was reflectively taking
his measure, and Hornaby's herders, as they rode in and out of town,
told stories of Tall Ed's rough and ready experiences, which helped to
establish official confidence in him.
"I reckon we've done the right thing this time," wrote Pulfoot to
Hornaby. "The boys all seem to realize we've got a _man_ in office."
This calm, this unnatural calm, was broken one night by Mink himself,
who shot and all but killed the livery-stable keeper in a dispute over
roulette. Knowing that his deed would bring the new marshal down upon
him at once, the gambler immediately declared determined war.
"The man who comes after me will need a wooden overcoat," he
promulgated. "I won't stand being hounded. That hostler was pulling his
gun on me. I got him first, that's all. It was a fair fight, and
everybody knows it."
The liveryman was, in fact, armed at the time, and the disposition of
many citizens was to "let him learn his lesson." But Judge Pulfoot,
fearing Hornaby's temper, ordered Kelley to get his man.
"Tom wants that weasel disciplined," he said. "He's a damage to the
community."
Kelley received his orders with calmness. "Well, Judge," he said, after
a little pause, "I'll get him, but I'd like to do it in my own way. To
go after him just now gives him the inside position. He'll hear of me
the minute I start and will be backed up into the corner somewhere with
his gun all poised."
"Are you afraid?"
"You can call it that," the young marshal languidly replied. "I don't
believe in taking fool chances. Mink is a dead shot, and probably
wire-edged with whisky and expecting me. My plan is to wait until he's a
little off his guard--then go in quick and pull him down."
To this the judge gave reluctant consent. But when, a few hours later,
he heard that Mink had disappeared he was indignant. "You get that devil
or we'll let you out," he said, and showed a telegram from Hornaby
protesting against this new outbreak of violence. "The old man's
red-headed over it."
"I know it," said Kelley. "I heard from him to that effect. If the
hostler dies we won't see Mink no more. If he's in town I'll get him.
Good _night_."
III
A few days later, as he was walking up the street, half a dozen men
successively spoke to him, saying, "Mink's at home, loaded--and looking
for you!" And each of them grinned as he said it, joyously anticipating
trouble.
Without a word, other than a careless, "That so?" Kelley passed on, and
a thrill of excitement ran through the hearts of the loafers.
It was about sunset of a dusty autumn afternoon, and the cowboys and
miners (gathered in knots along the street), having eaten their suppers,
were ready to be entertained. Upon seeing Kelley approach with easy
stride they passed the joyous word along. Each spectator was afraid he
might miss some part of the play.
Kelley was fully aware that his official career and perhaps his life
hung in the balance. To fail of arresting the desperado was to brand
himself a bungler and to expose himself to the contempt of other
sure-shot ruffians. However, having faced death many times in the
desert and on the range, he advanced steadily, apparently undisturbed by
the warnings he had received.
Just before reaching Mink's saloon he stepped into Lemont's drug-store,
a cheap little shop where candy and cigars and other miscellaneous goods
were sold. The only person in the place was Rosa Lemont, a slim, little
maid of about fifteen years of age.
"Hello, Rosie," he said, quietly. "I want to slip out your back door."
He smiled meaningly. "The street is a trifle crowded just now."
With instant comprehension of his meaning she led the way. "Don't let
them kill you," she whispered, with scared lips.
"I'll try not to," he answered, lightly.
Once in the alley, he swung his revolver to a handy spot on his thigh
and entered the saloon abruptly from the rear.
The back room, a rude dance-hall, was empty, but the door into the
barroom was open, and he slipped through it like a shadow. Mink was not
in sight, but the barkeeper stood rigidly on duty.
"Hello, Jack!" called Kelley, as he casually approached the bar.
"Where's the boss?"
Before he had finished his question he detected his man reflected in the
mirror behind the bar. The gambler imagined himself to be hidden behind
the screen which separated the women's drinking-place from the main
room, and did not know that Kelley had seen him in the glass. His
revolver was in his hand and malignant purpose blazed in his eyes--and
yet he hesitated. Lawless as he was, it appeared that he could not
instantly bring himself to the point of shooting an officer in the
back.
Kelley, realizing his disadvantage, and knowing that any attempt to
forestall the action of his enemy would be fatal, cheerily called out to
an acquaintance who stood in a stupor of fear, farther up the bar:
"Howdy, Sam! Come and have a drink." His jovial tone and apparent
ignorance of danger prolonged Mink's moment of indecision. The third man
thought Kelley unaware of his danger, but did not have the courage to
utter a sound.
The marshal, perceiving certain death in the assassin's eyes, was about
to whirl in a desperate effort to get at least one shot at him, when
something happened! Some one caromed against the screen. It toppled and
fell upon the gambler, disconcerting his aim. His bullet went wide, and
Kelley was upon him like a tiger before he could recover control of his
weapon, and they both went to the sawdust together.
Now came a singular revelation of the essential cowardice of the
desperado. Deprived of his revolver and helpless in Kelley's great
hands, he broke down. White, trembling, drooling with terror, he pleaded
for his life. "Don't shoot--don't kill me!" he repeated over and over.
"I ought to kill you," argued Kelley, with a reflective hesitation which
wrought his captive to a still greater frenzy of appeal.
"I beg--I beg," he whined. "Don't shoot!"
Amazed and disgusted with the man's weakness, Kelley kicked him in the
ribs. "Get up!" he said, shortly.
Mink arose, but no sooner was he on his feet than his courage returned.
"I'll have your heart for this," he said, venomously. Then his mind took
a sudden turn. "Who pushed that screen onto me?" he asked. "I'll kill
the man who did that."
"You'll have time to figure out that problem in the quiet of 'the jug,'"
said Kelley. "Come along."
At the door of the calaboose the gambler braced himself. "I won't go in
there!" he declared. "I won't be jugged--I'll die right here--"
Kelley's answer was a jerk, a twist, and a sudden thrust, which landed
the redoubtable boaster in the middle of his cell. "You can die inside
if you want to," he said, and turned the key on him. "My responsibility
ends right here."
IV
The street was crowded with excited men and women as Kelley came back up
the walk. One or two congratulated him on his escape from sudden death,
but the majority resented him as "the hired bouncer" of the land-boomers
in the town.
"Who pushed that screen?" was the question which everybody asked of
Kelley.
"I didn't see," he responded. "I was _busy_ just about that time."
In truth he had only glimpsed a darting figure, but one he knew! Who
else but Rosa Lemont could have been so opportune and so effective in
her action? She alone knew of his presence in the alley.
She was only a plain little hobbledehoy, half Mexican and half French,
and not yet out of short dresses, and Kelley had never paid her any
attention beyond passing the time of day, with a kindly smile; and yet
with the fervid imagination of her race she had already conceived a
passionate admiration for Kelley. Knowing that he was entering Mink's
death-trap, she had followed him like a faithful squire, eager to
defend, and, understanding his danger to the full, had taken the
simplest and most effective means of aiding him. From the doorway she
had witnessed his victory; then flying through the rear door, had been
in position at the store window as he passed with his prisoner on his
way to the calaboose.
When Kelley came back to her door, with intent to thank her for what she
had done, he found the room full of excited men, and with instinctive
delicacy passed on his way, not wishing to involve her in the story of
the arrest.
It appeared that all the men of the town who thrived by lawlessness and
vice now decided to take up Mink's case and make his discharge an issue.
A sudden demonstration of their political power brought the judge to
terms. He weakened. The gambler was released with a fine of one hundred
dollars and a warning to keep the peace, and by noon of the following
day was back in his den, more truculent than ever.
Kelley was properly indignant. "But the man tried to kill me!" he
protested to the court.
"He swears not," replied the justice. "We have punished him for
resisting an officer. That is the best we can do."
"What about Jake?"
"Oh, well! That was 'war.' Jake had a gun, and Mink is able to prove
that he shot in self-defense. Furthermore, he has settled with Jake."
Kelley argued no more. He could have called Rosa in as a witness to the
attempt upon his life, but to do so would expose her to public comment,
and her big, solemn, worshipful eyes had already produced in him a vague
pity. Without understanding fully her feeling, he knew that she looked
up to him, and he perceived that she was born to sorrow in larger
measure than she deserved. Sallow, thin, boyish, she gave promise of a
kind of beauty which would sometime make her desired of both white men
and brown.
"Poor little mongrel!" he said to himself. "She's in for misery enough
without worrying over me."
* * * * *
"Well, I'm up against it now," Kelley remarked to Dad Miller, Hornaby's
foreman, the next time he met him. "Mink's friends have thrown a scare
into the judge and he has turned that coyote loose against me. Looks
like I had one of two things to do--kill the cuss or jump the town."
"Shoot him on sight," advised Miller.
"If I do that I'm 'in bad' with the court," Kelley argued. "You see,
when I took him before, I had the law on my side. Now it's just man to
man--until he commits another crime. Killing me wouldn't be a crime."
"That's so," mused his friend. "You're cinched any way you look at it."
Kelley went on: "Moreover, some of my greaser friends have started a
line of fool talk about making me sheriff, and that has just naturally
set the whole _political_ ring against me. They'd just as soon I got
killed as not--a little sooner. I've a right to resign, haven't I?
Nobody has a license to call me a coward after what I've done, have
they?"
"No license; but I reckon they will, all the same," responded his
friend.
Kelley's face hardened. "Well, I'll disappoint 'em. I'm going to stay
with it." However, he went to the mayor and voiced his resentment of the
court's action.
His Honor pretended to be greatly concerned. "Now, don't quit on us, Ed.
Hornaby expects you to stay put. You're the only man who can clean up
the town. You've done great work already, and we appreciate it. In fact,
we're going to raise your pay."
"Pay to a corpse don't count," retorted Kelley. "It's a question of
backing. You fellows have got to stand behind me."
"We'll do it, Ed. Only, Hornaby thinks you'd better put a card in the
paper saying that you have no intention of going into politics."
"Oh, hell!" said Kelley, disgustedly. "Is Hornaby suspicious of me, too?
Well, for that I've a mind to run," and he went out in deep disgust.
As the days went by and no open movement against him took place, his
vigilance somewhat relaxed. Mink kept to his lair like some treacherous,
bloodthirsty animal, which was a bad sign.
At heart Tall Ed was restless and discontented. Each day he walked the
streets of the fly-bit town; dreaming of the glorious desert spaces he
had crossed and of the high trails he had explored. He became more and
more homesick for the hills. Far away to the north gleamed the snowy
crest of the Continental Divide, and the desire to ride on, over that
majestic barrier into valleys whose purple shadows allured him like
banners, grew stronger. Each night he lifted his face to the stars and
thought of his glorious moonlit camps on the Rio Perco sands, and the
sound of waterfalls was in his dreams.
"What am I here for?" he asked himself. "Why should I be watch-dog--me,
a wolf, a free ranger! Why should I be upholding the law? What's the law
to a tramp?"
Had it not been for a curious sense of loyalty to Hornaby, added to a
natural dislike of being called a quitter, he would have surrendered
his star and resumed his saddle. He owned a good horse once more and had
earned nearly two hundred dollars. "With my present outfit I can amble
clear across to Oregon," he assured himself, wistfully.
As he stood with uplifted face, dreaming of the mountains, Rosa Lemont
came down the street, and as she passed him said in a low voice: "Mink's
on the plaza--crazy drunk. Watch out!"
Kelley straightened and cast an unhurried glance around him. No one was
in sight but a group of cow-punchers tying their horses in front of a
saloon, and a few miners seated on the edge of the walk. Nevertheless,
he knew the girl had good reason for her warning, and so, after walking
a block or two in the opposite direction, he turned and came slowly back
up the main street till he reached Lemont's doorway, where he paused,
apparently interested in something across the street.
Rosa came from within and with equally well-simulated carelessness
leaned against the door-frame. "Mink's bug-house," she explained, "and
got a Winchester. He's just around the corner, waiting for you. He says
he's going to shoot you on sight." She stammered a little with
excitement, but her voice was low.
"Much obliged, Rosie," he replied, feelingly. "Don't worry. I may see
him first. And listen; while I have a chance I want to thank you for
pushing that screen onto him. It was a good job."
"That's all right," she answered, hastily. "But please be careful."
"Don't worry," he gravely replied. "I've beat him once and I can do it
again." And after a pause he added: "I reckon you're the only one that
cares what happens to me--but don't mix in this game, little one. Don't
do it."
A crowd had gathered in the street, with attention concentrated as if
for a dog-fight, and Kelley, pushing his way through the circle,
suddenly confronted Mink, who, as the object of interest, was busied in
rolling a cigarette, while his Winchester leaned against a post. To this
fact Kelley probably owed his life, for in the instant between the
gambler's recognition and the snatching up of his rifle Kelley was able
to catch and depress the muzzle of the gun before it was discharged. The
bullet passed low, entering the wooden sidewalk close to his foot. "I'll
take that gun," he said, and would have immediately overpowered his
adversary had not several of the by-standers furiously closed in upon
him. Single-handed he was forced to defend himself against these, his
fellow-citizens, as well as against Mink, who struggled like a wildcat
for the possession of his gun. One man seized the marshal from behind,
pinioning his arms. Another hung upon his neck. A third dogged at his
knees, a fourth disarmed him.
Battered, bruised, covered with blood and dirt, the marshal fought like
a panther weighed down with hounds. Twice he went to earth smothered,
blinded, gasping, but rose again almost miraculously, still unconquered,
until at last, through the sudden weakening of the men on his right arm
he gained possession of the rifle, and with one furious sweep brought it
down on the gambler's head. Another circling stroke and his assailants
fell away. With blazing eyes he called out: "_Get back there now! Every
man of you!_"
Breathing hard, he looked them over one by one. "You're a pretty bunch
of citizens," he said, with cutting contempt. "You ought to be
shot--every man jack of you!" Then glancing down at the wounded gambler
at his feet, he added: "Some of you better take this whelp to a doctor.
He needs help."
Lemont and another of Mink's friends took up the unconscious man and
carried him into the drug-store, and Kelley followed, with a feeling
that all the town was against him, and that he must re-arm himself for a
night of warfare. His revolver was gone, and to replace it and to gain a
breathing-space he retreated to his room, his endurance all but
exhausted.
He had no regret for what he had done. On the contrary, he took a savage
satisfaction in having at last ended Mink, but as he hurriedly buckled
on his cartridge-belt, he foresaw the danger ahead of him in Mink's
friends, who, he knew, would get him if they could.
The patter of feet in the hall and a knock at the door startled him.
"Who's there?" he demanded, catching up his rifle.
"It's Rosa," called a girlish voice. "Let me in."
"Are you alone?"
"Yes. Open! Quick!"
He opened the door, gun in hand. "What is it, Rosie?" he gently asked.
"They're coming!" she answered, breathlessly.
"Who're coming?"
"That saloon crowd. They're almost here!"
Other footsteps sounded on the stairs. "Run away, girl," said Kelley,
softly. "There's going to be trouble--"
Rosie pushed him back into the room. "No, no! Let me stay! Let me help
you fight!" she pleaded.
While still he hesitated, Mrs. Mink, a short, squat woman with eyes
aflame with hate, rushed through the doorway and thrust a rifle against
Kelley's breast. Quick as a boxer Rosa pushed the weapon from the
woman's hands and with desperate energy shoved her backward through the
door and closed it.
"Run--run!" she called to the marshal.
But Kelley did not move, and something in his face turned the girl's
face white. He was standing like a man hypnotized, every muscle rigid.
With fallen jaw and staring eyes he looked at the weapon in his hand. At
last he spoke huskily:
"Girl, you've saved my soul from hell. You surely have!" He shivered as
if with cold, rubbing his hands stiffly. "Yes," he muttered, "a second
more and I'd 'a' killed her--killed a woman!"
The sound of a fierce altercation came up the hall. Cautious footsteps
were heard approaching, and at last a voice called out, "Hello, Kelley!
You there?"
"I am. What's wanted of me?"
"It's the mayor. Let me speak with you a minute."
Kelley considered for a breath or two; his brain was sluggish. "Open the
door, Rosie," he finally said and backed against the wall.
The girl obeyed, and the mayor entered, but his hands were open and
raised. "Don't shoot, Ed. We're friends." He was followed by the judge
and a couple of aldermen.
"It's all right, Ed," said the judge. "Mink's coming to life. Put up
your gun. We don't blame you. He had no call to attack an officer like
that--"
At the word "officer" Kelley let his rifle slip with a slam to the floor
and began to fumble at the badge on his coat. "That reminds me, your
Honor," he said, at last. "Here's a little piece of tin that belongs to
you--or the city."
He tossed the loosened badge to the mayor, who caught it deftly,
protesting: "Oh, don't quit, Ed. You've just about won the fight. Stay
with it."
A wry smile wrinkled one side of the trailer's set face. "I'm no fool,
your Honor. I know when I've got enough. I don't mind being shot in the
back and mobbed and wallered in the dirt--that's all in the day's work;
but when it comes to having women pop in on me with Winchesters I must
be excused. I'm leaving for the range. I'll enjoy being neighbor to the
conies for a while. This civilized life is a little too busy for me."
Rosa, who had been listening, understood his mood much better than the
men, and with her small hands upon his arm she pleaded: "Take me with
you! I hate these people--I want to go with you."
He turned a tender, pitying, almost paternal glance upon her. "No, girl,
no. I can't do that. You're too young. It wouldn't be right to snarl a
grown woman's life up with mine--much less a child like you." Then, as
if to soften the effect of his irrevocable decision, he added: "Perhaps
some time we'll meet again. But it's good-by now." He put his arm about
her and drew her to his side and patted her shoulder as if she were a
lad. Then he turned. "Lend me a dollar, Judge! I'm anxious to ride."
The judge looked troubled. "We're sorry, Ed--but if you feel that way,
why--"
"That's the way I feel," answered the trailer, and his tone was
conclusive.
* * * * *
Dusk was falling when, mounted on his horse, with his "stake" in his
pocket, Kelley rode out of the stable into the street swarming with
excited men. The opposition had regained its courage. Yells of vengeance
rose: "Lynch him! Lynch the dog!" was the cry.
Reining his bronco into the middle of the road, with rifle across the
pommel of his saddle, Kelley advanced upon the crowd, in the shadowy
fringes of which he could see ropes swinging in the hands of Mink's
drunken partisans.
"Come on, you devils!" he called. "Throw a rope if you dare."
Awed by the sheer bravery of the challenge, the crowd slowly gave way
before him.
The block seemed a mile long to Kelley, but he rode it at a walk, his
horse finding his own way, until at last he reached the bridge which led
to the high-line Red Mountain road. Here he paused, faced about, and
sheathed his Winchester, then with a wave of his hand toward Rosa
Lemont, who had followed him thus far, he called out:
"Good-by, girl! You're the only thing worth saving in the whole dern
town. _Adios!_"
And, defeated for the first time in his life, Tall Ed turned his
cayuse's head to the San McGill range, with only the memory of a
worshipful child-woman's face to soften the effect of his hard
experience as the Marshal of Brimstone Basin.
PARTNERS FOR A DAY
I
Cinnebar was filled with those who took chances. The tenderfoot staked
his claim on the chance of selling it again. The prospector toiled in
his overland tunnel on the chance of cracking the apex of a vein. The
small companies sank shafts on the chance of touching pay ore, the big
companies tunneled deep and drifted wide in the hope of cutting several
veins. The merchants built in the belief that the camp was a permanent
town, and the gamblers took chances of losing money if their game was
honest, and put their lives at hazard if they cheated.
Only the saloon-keepers took no chances whatever. They played the safe
game. They rejoiced in a certainty, for if the miners had good luck they
drank to celebrate it, and if they had bad luck they drank to forget
it--and so the liquor-dealers prospered.
Tall Ed Kelley, on his long trip across "the big flat," as he called the
valley between the Continental Divide and the Cascade Range, stopped at
Cinnebar to see what was going on. In less than three days he sold his
horse and saddle and took a chance on a leased mine. At the end of a
year he was half owner in a tunnel that was yielding a fair grade of ore
and promised to pay, but he was not content. A year in one place was a
long time for him, and he was already meditating a sale of his interest
in order that he might take up the line of his march toward the
Northwest, when a curious experience came to him.
One night as he drifted into the Palace saloon he felt impelled to take
a chance with "the white marble." That is to say, he sat in at the
roulette-table and began to play small stakes.
The man who rolled the marble was young and good-looking. Kelley had
seen him before and liked him. Perhaps this was the reason he played
roulette instead of faro. At any rate, he played, losing steadily at
first--then, suddenly, the ball began to fall his way, and before the
clock pointed to ten he had several hundred dollars in winnings.
"This is my night," he said, on meeting the eyes of the young dealer.
"Don't crowd a winning horse," retorted the man at the wheel; and Kelley
caught something in his look which checked his play and led him to quit
the game. In that glance the gambler had conveyed a friendly warning,
although he said, as Kelley was going away: "Be a sport. Give the wheel
another show. See me to-morrow."
Kelley went away with a distinct feeling of friendliness toward the
youngster, whose appearance was quite unlike the ordinary gambler. He
seemed not merely bored, but disgusted with his trade, and Kelley said
to himself: "That lad has a story to tell. He's no ordinary robber."
The next afternoon he met the youth on the street. "Much obliged for
your tip last night. The game looked all right to me."
"It _was_ all right," replied the gambler. "I didn't mean that it was
crooked. But I hate to see a good man lose his money as you were sure to
do."
"I thought you meant the wheel was 'fixed.'"
"Oh no. It's straight. I call a fair game. But I knew your run of luck
couldn't last and"--he hesitated a little--"I'd kinda taken a fancy to
you."
"Well, that's funny, too," replied Kelley. "I went over to play your
machine because I kind of cottoned to you. I reckon we're due to be
friends. My name's Kelley--Tall Ed the boys call me."
"Mine is Morse--Fred Morse. I came out here with a grub-stake, lost it,
and, being out of a job, fell into rolling the marble for a living. What
are you--a miner?"
"I make a bluff at mining a leased claim up here, but I'll admit I'm
nothing but a wandering cow-puncher--a kind of mounted hobo. I have an
itch to keep moving. I've been here a year and I'm crazy to straddle a
horse and ride off into the West. I know the South and East pretty
well--so the open country for me is off there where the sun goes down."
His voice had a touch of poetry in it, and the other man, though he felt
the bigness of the view, said:
"I never was on a horse in my life, and I don't like roughing it. But I
like you and I wish you'd let me see something of you. Where are you
living?"
"Mostly up at my mine--but I have a room down here at the Boston House.
I pick up my meals anywhere."
The young man's voice grew hesitant. "Would you consider taking me in as
a side partner? I'm lonesome where I am."
Kelley was touched by the gambler's tone. "No harm trying," he said,
with a smile. "We couldn't do more than kill each other. But I warn you
I'm likely any day to buy an old cayuse and pull out. I'm subject to
fits like that."
"All right--I'll take the chance. I'm used to taking chances."
Kelley laughed. "So am I."
In this informal way they formed a social partnership, and the liking
they mutually acknowledged deepened soon into a friendship that was
close akin to fraternal love.
Within a week each knew pretty accurately the origin and history of the
other, and although they had but an hour or two of an afternoon for
talk, they grew to depend upon each other, strangely, and when one day
Morse came into the room in unwonted excitement and said, "Ed, I want
you to do something for me," Kelley instantly replied: "All right, boy.
Spit it out. What's wanted?"
"I'm in a devil of a hole. My mother and my little sister are coming
through here on their way to the Coast. They're going to stop off to see
me. I want you to let me in on a partnership in your mine just for a
day. They'll only stay a few hours, but I want to have them think I'm
making my living in a mine. You get me?"
"Sure thing, Fred. When are they due?"
"To-morrow."
"All right. You get a lay-off from your boss and we'll pull the deal
through. I'll tell my old partner I've taken you in on my share and
he'll carry out his part of it. He's a good deal of a bonehead, but no
talker. But you'll have to put on some miner's duds and spend to-day
riding around the hills to get a little sunburn. You don't look like a
miner."
"I know it. That worries me, too."
Having given his promise, Kelley seemed eager to carry the plan through
successfully. He was sorry for the youth, but he was sorrier for the
mother who was coming with such fond pride in the success of her
son--for Morse confessed that he had been writing of his "mine" for a
year.
He outfitted his new partner with a pair of well-worn miner's boots and
some trousers that were stained with clay, and laughed when Fred found
them several inches too long.
"You've got to wear 'em. No! New ones won't work. How would it do for
you to be so durn busy at the mine that I had to come down and bring
your people up?"
"Good idea!" Then his face became blank. "What would I be busy about?"
"That's so!" grinned Kelley. "Well, let's call it your day off and
_I'll_ be busy."
"No, I want you to come with me to the train. I need you. You must do
most of the talking--about the mine, I mean. I'll say you're the
practical miner and I'll refer all questions about the business to you.
And we must keep out of the main street. I don't want mother to even
_pass_ the place I've been operating in."
"What if they decide to stay all night?"
"They won't. They're going right on. They won't be here more than five
or six hours."
"All right. We'll find 'em dinner up at Mrs. Finnegan's. If they're like
most tourists they'll think the rough-scuff ways of the Boston House
great fun. By the way, how old is this little sister?"
"Oh, she must be about twenty-two."
"Good Lord!" Kelley was dashed. He thought a minute. "Well, you attend
to her and I'll keep the old lady interested."
"No, you've got to keep close to Flo. I'm more afraid of her than I am
of mother. She's sharp as tacks, and the least little 'break' on my part
will let her in on my 'stall.' No, you've got to be on guard all the
time."
"Well, I'll do my best, but I'm no 'Billie dear,' with girls. I've grew
up on the trail, and my talk is mostly red-neck. But I mean well, as the
fellow says, even if I don't always do well."
"Oh, you're all right, Kelley. You look the real thing. You'll be part
of the scenery for them."
"Spin the marble! It's only for half a day, anyway. They can call me a
hole in the ground if they want to. But you must get some tan. I tell
you what you do. You go up on the hill and lay down in the sun and burn
that saloon bleach off your face and neck and hands. That's _got_ to be
done. You've got the complexion of a barber."
Morse looked at his white, supple hands and felt of his smooth chin.
"You're right. It's a dead give-away. I'll look like a jailbird to them
if I don't color up. If I'd only known it a few days sooner I'd have
started a beard."
"You'll be surprised at what the sun will do in two hours," Kelley said,
encouragingly. "You'll peel afterward, but you'll get rid of the
bleach."
II
In truth Morse looked very well the next morning as he stood beside
Kelley and watched the High Line train come in over the shoulder of
Mogallon and loop its cautious way down the mine-pitted slopes. His main
uneasiness was caused by the thought that his mother might ask some man
on the train if he knew her son, and he was disturbed also by a number
of citizens lounging on the platform. Some of them were curious about
the change in him: "Hello, Fred! Going fishing, or been?"
The boy was trembling as he laid his hand on Kelley's arm. "Ed, I feel
like a coyote. It's a dang shame to fool your old mother like this."
"Better to fool her than to disappoint her," answered Tall Ed. "Stiffen
up, boy! Carry it through."
The little train drew up to the station and disgorged a crowd of Italian
workmen from the smoker and a throng of tourists from the
observation-car, and among these gay "trippers" Kelley saw a small,
plain little woman in black and a keen-eyed, laughing girl who waved her
hand to Fred. "Why, she's a queen!" thought Kelley.
Mrs. Morse embraced her son with a few murmured words of endearment, but
the girl held her brother off and looked at him. "Well, you _do_ look
the part," she said. "What a glorious sunburn--and the boots--and the
hat, and all! Why, Fred, you resemble a man."
"I may resemble one," he said, "but here's the real thing. Here's my
partner, Tall Ed Kelley." He pulled Kelley by the arm. "Ed, this is my
mother--"
"Howdy, ma'am," said Kelley, extending a timid hand.
"And this is my sister Florence."
"Howdy, miss," repeated Kelley.
Florence laughed as she shook hands. "He says 'Howdy' just like the
books."
Kelley stiffened a bit. "What should a feller say? Howdy's the word."
"I told you she'd consider you part of the scenery," put in Fred. "Well,
now, mother, we're going to take you right up to our mine. It's away on
top of that hill--"
"Oh, glorious!" exclaimed Florence. "And is it a real mine?"
"It is. But Kelley is boss, so I'm going to let him tell you all about
it. He's the man that found it."
Mrs. Morse looked up at the towering hill. "How do we get there?"
"A trolley-car runs part way, and then--we'll take a cab. Come on," he
added, anxiously, for he could see some of his saloon friends edging
near.
The trolley came down almost to the station, and in a few moments they
were aboard with Kelley seated beside Florence and Mrs. Morse fondly
clinging to her son, who seemed more boyish than ever to Kelley. The old
trailer was mightily embarrassed by his close contact with a sprightly
girl. He had never known any one like her. She looked like the pictures
in the magazines--same kind of hat, same kind of jacket and skirt--and
she talked like a magazine story, too. Her face was small, her lips
sweet, and her eyes big and bright.
She was chatty as a camp bird, and saw everything, and wanted to know
about it. Why were there so many empty cabins? What was the meaning of
all those rusty, ruined mills? Weren't there any gardens or grass?
"Why, you see, miss, the camp is an old busted camp. I'm working a
lease--I mean, we are--"
"What do you mean by a lease?"
"Well, you see, a lot of men have got discouraged and quit, and went
back East and offered their claims for lease on royalty, and I and
another feller--and Fred--we took one of these and it happened to have
ore in it."
"How long has Fred been with you?--he never mentioned you in his
letters."
"Why, it's about a year since we took the lease." Kelley began to grow
hot under her keen eyes.
"Strange he never wrote of you. He seems very proud of you, too."
Kelley looked out of the window. "We get along first rate."
The girl studied his fine profile attentively. "I'm glad he fell in with
a strong man like you--an experienced miner. He might have made a
mistake and lost all his small fortune. My! but it's fine up here!
What's that wonderful snowy range off there?"
"That's the Sangre de Cristo Range."
"Sangre de Cristo--Blood of Christ! Those old Spaniards had a lot of
poetry in them, didn't they?"
"I reckon so--and a whole lot of stiffening, too. You go through the
Southwest and see the country they trailed over--the hot, dry places and
the quicksands and cañons and all that. They sure made them Injuns
remember when they passed by."
"You know that country?"
"I may say I do. It was my parade-ground for about fifteen years. I
roamed over most of it. It's a fine country."
"Why did you leave it? Do you like this better?"
"I like any new country. I like to explore."
"But you're settled for a while?"
"Well, I don't know--if my partner will take my interest, I think I'll
shift along. I want to get into Alaska finally. I'd like to climb one of
them high peaks."
Fred, who was seated in front, turned. "Mother wants to know what the
mine paid last year--you tell her."
"It didn't pay much," replied Kelley, cautiously. "You see, we had some
new machinery to put in and some roads to grade and one thing or
another--I reckon it paid about"--he hesitated--"about three hundred a
month. But it's going to do better this year."
Florence, who was studying the men sharply, then said, "You wrote you
were getting about five dollars a day."
Fred's face showed distress. "I meant _net_," he said. "I didn't want to
worry you about details of machinery and all that."
Kelley began to feel that the girl's ears and eyes were alert to all
discrepancies, and he became cautious--so cautious that his pauses
revealed more than his words. But the mother saw nothing, heard nothing,
but the face and voice of her son, who pointed out the big mines that
were still running and the famous ones that were "dead," and so kept her
from looking too closely at the steep grades up which the car climbed.
At length, on the very crest of the high, smooth hill, they alighted and
Fred led the way toward a rusty old hack that looked as much out of
place on that wind-swept point as a Chinese pagoda.
Florence spoke of it. "Looks like Huckleberry Springs. Whom does its
owner find to carry up here?"
"Mostly it carries the minister and undertaker at funerals," replied
Kelley.
"Cheerful lot!" exclaimed the girl. "It smells morbific."
"You can't be particular up here," responded Fred. "You'll find our
boarding-place somewhat crude."
"Oh, I don't mind crudeness--but I hate decayed pretensions. If this
were only a mountain cart now!"
"It was the only kerridge with springs," explained Kelley.
The little mother now began to take notice of her son's partner. "My son
tells me you have been very good to him--a kind of big brother. I am
very grateful."
"Oh, I've done no more for him than he has for me. We both felt kind of
lonesome and so rode alongside."
"It's wonderful to me how you could keep Mr. Kelley out of your
letters," said Florence. "He looks exactly like a Remington character,
only his eyes are honester and his profile handsomer."
Kelley flushed and Fred laughed. "I never did understand why Remington
made all his men cross-eyed."
Mrs. Morse put her small, cold hand on Kelley's wrist. "Don't mind my
daughter. She's got this new fad of speaking her mind. She's a good
daughter--even if she does say rude things."
"Oh, I don't mind being called 'a good-looker,'" said Kelley, "only I
want to be sure I'm not being made game of."
"You needn't worry," retorted Fred. "A man of your inches is safe from
ridicule."
"Ridicule!" exclaimed Florence, with a glance of admiration. "You can't
ridicule a tall pine."
"I told you she'd have you a part of the landscape," exulted Fred.
"She'll have you a mountain peak next."
Kelley, who felt himself at a disadvantage, remained silent, but not in
a sulky mood. The girl was too entertaining for that. It amused him to
get the point of view of a city-bred woman to whom everything was either
strange or related to some play or story she had known. The cabins, the
mills, the occasional miners they met, all absorbed her attention, and
when they reached the little shaft-house and were met by old Hank
Stoddard, Kelley's partner, her satisfaction was complete, for Hank had
all the earmarks of the old prospector--tangled beard, jack-boots, pipe,
flannel shirt, and all. He was from the South also, and spoke with a
drawl.
"Oh, but he is a joy!" Florence said, privately, to Kelley. "I didn't
know such Bret Harte types existed any more. How did you find him?"
"I used to know him down on the Perco. He had a mine down there that
came just within a hair-line of paying, and when I ran across him up
here he had a notion the mine would do to lease. I hadn't much, only a
horse and saddle and a couple of hundred dollars, but we formed a
partnership."
"That was before my brother came into the firm."
Kelley recovered himself. "Yes; you see, he came in a little later--when
we needed a little ready cash."
She seemed satisfied, but as they went into the mine she listened
closely to all that Kelley and Stoddard said. Stoddard's remarks were
safe, for he never so much as mentioned Kelley's name. It was all "I"
with old Hank--"I did this" and "I did that"--till Florence said to
Kelley:
"You junior partners in this mine don't seem to be anything but
'company' for Mr. Stoddard."
"Hank always was a bit conceited," admitted Kelley. "But then, he is a
real, sure-enough miner. We are only 'capitalists.'"
"Where did Fred get all the signs of toil on his trousers and boots?"
she asked, with dancing eyes.
"Oh, he works--part of the time."
She peered into his face with roguish glance. "Does it all with his
legs, I guess. I notice his hands are soft as mine."
Kelley nearly collapsed. "Good Lord!" he thought. "You ought to be a
female detective." He came to the line gamely. "Well, there's a good
deal of running to be done, and we let him do the outside messenger
work."
"His sunburn seems quite recent. And his trousers don't fit as his
trousers usually do. He used to be finicky about such things."
"A feller does get kind of careless up here in the hills," Kelley
argued.
They did not stay long in the mine, for there wasn't much to see. It was
a very small mine--and walking made the mother short of breath. And so
they came back to the office and Hank arranged seats on some
dynamite-boxes and a keg of spikes, and then left them to talk things
over.
"I'm so glad you're up here--where it's so clean and quiet," said the
mother. "I'm told these mining towns are dreadful, almost barbaric, even
yet. Of course they're not as they were in Bret Harte's time, but they
are said to be rough and dangerous. I hope you don't have to go down
there often."
"Of course I have to go, mother. We get all our supplies and our mail
down there."
"I suppose that's true. But Mr. Kelley seems such a strong, capable
person"--here she whispered--"but I don't think much of your other
partner, Mr. Stoddard."
"Who? Old Hank? Why, he's steady as a clock. He looks rough, but he's
the kindest old chap on the hill. Why, he's scared to death of you and
Flo--"
"He has the appearance of a neglected old bachelor."
"Well, he isn't. He has a wife and seven children back in Tennessee--so
he says."
"Fred," said Florence, sharply, "I hope you aren't playing off on these
partners of yours."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean--letting them do all the hard and disagreeable work."
Kelley interposed. "Don't you worry about us, miss. We aren't
complaining. We can't do the part he does. He does all the buying and
selling--and--correspondence--and the like of that. But come, it's
pretty near noon. I reckon we'd better drift along to Mrs. Finnegan's.
The first table is bad enough in our boarding-place."
Again Fred took his mother and left Kelley to lead the way with
Florence.
"Now, Mr. Kelley," began the girl, "I must tell you that I don't believe
my brother has a thing to do with this mine except to divide the
profits. Furthermore, you are trying to cover something up from me.
You're doing it very well, but you've made one or two little 'catches'
which have disturbed me. My brother has never mentioned you or Hank in
his letters, and that's unnatural. He told us he was interested in a
mine which was paying one hundred and fifty dollars a month. Now, why
did he say that? I'll tell you why. It's because you pay him a salary
and he's not really a partner." She paused to watch his face, then went
on. "Now what does he do--what can he do to earn five dollars per day?
His palms are as soft as silk--the only callous is on his right
forefinger."
Kelley's face, schooled to impassivity, remained unchanged, but his eyes
shifted. His astonishment was too great to be entirely concealed.
"There's a whole lot of running--and figuring--and so on."
"Not with that little mine. Why, you can't employ more than five men!"
"Six," corrected Kelley, proudly.
"Well, six. You can't afford to pay my brother five dollars a day just
to run errands and keep accounts for these six men. You're fooling him.
You're paying him a salary out of sheer good nature because you like
him. Deny it if you can!"
Kelley looked back to see that Fred was well out of earshot. "He _is_
mighty good company," he admitted.
"There!" she exclaimed, triumphantly. "You can't fool me. I knew there
was something queer about this whole arrangement." Then her voice
changed. "It's very, very kind of you, Mr. Kelley, and I deeply
appreciate it, and if you don't want me to do it--I will not let mother
into our secret."
"What's the use? He's happier being called a partner."
"Very well--we'll let it go that way."
Thereafter her manner changed. She was more thoughtful; she looked at
him with softer eyes. It seemed to her very wonderful, this friendship
between a rough, big man and her brother, who had always been something
of a scapegrace at home. Her own regard for Kelley deepened. "Men aren't
such brutes, after all."
Her smile was less mocking, her jests less pointed, as she sat at Mrs.
Finnegan's long table and ate boiled beef and cabbage and drank the
simmered hay which they called tea. She was opposite Kelley this time,
and could study him to better advantage.
Kelley, on his part, was still very uneasy. The girl's uncanny
penetration had pressed so clearly to the heart of his secret that he
feared the hours which remained. "I'm at the end of my rope," he
inwardly admitted. "She'll catch me sure unless I can get away from
her."
Nevertheless, he wondered a little and was a trifle chagrined when the
girl suddenly turned from him to her brother. He was a little uneasy
thereat, for he was certain she would draw from the youngster some
admissions that would lead to a full confession.
As a matter of fact, she sought her brother's knowledge of Kelley. "Tell
me about him, Fred. Where did you meet him first? He interests me."
"Well," Morse answered, cautiously, "I don't know exactly. I used to see
him come down the hill of an evening after his mail, and I kind of took
a shine to him and he did to me. At least that's what he said afterward.
He has had a wonderful career. He's been all over Arizona and New Mexico
alone. He's been arrested for a bandit and almost killed as city
marshal, and he has been associated with a band of cattle-rustlers. Oh,
you should get him talking. He nearly died of thirst in the desert once,
and a snake bit him in the Navajo country, and he lay sick for weeks in
a Hopi town."
"What a singular life! Is he satisfied with it?"
"He says he is. He declares he is never so happy as when he is leading a
pack-horse across the range."
"I don't wonder you like him," she said, thoughtfully. "But you should
do your part. Don't let him be always the giver and you the taker. I'm
afraid you shirk on him a little, Fred."
"Why? What makes you think that?"
"Well, your hands are pretty soft for a working miner."
He met her attack bravely. "You don't suppose we do all the pick work in
the mine, do you?"
"No. I don't see how you could possibly do any of it. Come now, Freddy,
''fess up.' You've been playing the gentleman in this enterprise and all
this make-up is for our benefit, isn't it?"
Young Morse saw that the safest plan was to admit the truth of her
surmise. "Oh, well, I never did have any hand in the actual mining, but
then there is plenty of other work to be done."
Her answer was sharp and clear: "Well, then, do it! Don't be a drone."
Something very plain and simple and boyish came out in the young gambler
as he walked and talked with his mother and sister, and Kelley regarded
him with some amazement and much humor. It only proved that every man,
no matter how warlike he pretends to be in public, is in private a weak,
sorry soul, dependent on some one; and this youth, so far from being a
desperado, was by nature an affectionate son and a loyal brother.
Furthermore, Kelley himself felt very much less the tramp and much more
"like folks" than at any time since leaving home ten or fifteen years
before. He was careful to minimize all his hobo traits and to
correspondingly exalt his legitimate mining and cattle experiences,
although he could see that Morse had made Florence curious about the
other and more adventurous side of his career.
Florence was now determined to make a study of the town. "I like it up
here," she said, as she looked down over the tops of the houses. "It
interests me, Fred; I propose that you keep us all night."
"Oh, we can't do that!" exclaimed her brother, hastily. "We haven't
room."
"Well, there's a hotel, I should hope."
"A hotel--yes. But it is a pretty bad hotel. You see, it's sort of run
down--like the town."
This did not seem to disturb her. Rather, it added to her interest. "No
matter. We can stand it one night. I want to see the place. I would like
to see a little of its street life to-night. It's all so new and
strange to me."
Kelley, perceiving that she was determined upon this stop-over, and
fearing that the attempt to railroad her out of town on the afternoon
train might add to her suspicions, then said:
"I think we can find a place for you if you feel like staying."
Morse was extremely uneasy, and Florence remarked upon it. "You don't
seem overflowing with hospitality, Fred. You don't seem anxious to have
us stay on for another day."
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Well, it's a pretty
rough old village, Flo--a pretty rough place for you and mother."
"We are not alarmed so long as we have you and Mr. Kelley as our
protectors," she replied, smiling sweetly upon Tall Ed.
They had reached the car-line by this time, and were standing looking
down the valley, and Fred, pulling out his watch, remarked: "You just
have time to make that three-o'clock train. That will connect you with
the night express for Los Angeles."
"Fred, what's the matter with you?" queried his sister, sharply. "You
seem absolutely determined to get rid of us at once." Then, seeing that
she had perhaps gone a little too far, she said, with a smile, "Mother,
isn't he the loving son?"
The youth surrendered to her will and dropped all opposition. He
appeared to welcome their decision to wait over another day; but Kelley
busied himself with thinking how he could ward off any undesired
information which might approach the two women--the mother especially.
It would be quite wonderful if, with another twenty-four hours to
spend, Florence did not get Fred's secret from him.
He decided to put the matter squarely before her, and when they took the
car arranged to have her sit beside him in a seat across the aisle from
the mother and son, and almost immediately began his explanation by
saying, very significantly:
"I reckon the boy is right, Miss Morse. You had better take that
three-o'clock train."
She faced him with instant appreciation of the change in his tone. "Why
so?" she asked, fixing a clear and steady glance upon his face.
"It will be easier for him and better for--for all of us if you go. He
wants to spare your mother from--"
She was quick to perceive his hesitation. "From what?" she asked. And as
he did not at once reply she went on, firmly: "You might just as well
tell me, Mr. Kelley. Fred's been up to some mischief. He's afraid, and
you're afraid, we'll find out something to his disadvantage. Now tell
me. Is it--is it--a woman?"
"No," said Kelley as decisively as he could. "So far as I know Fred's
not tangled up _that_ way."
Quick as a flash she took him up on his emphasized word. "In what way
_is_ he tangled up?"
Kelley, more and more amazed at her shrewdness and directness, decided
to meet it with blunt candor. "Well, you see, it's like this. When he
first came out here he struck a streak of hard luck and lost all he had.
He was forced to go to work at anything he could get to earn money,
and--you see, when a feller is down and out he's got to grab anything
that offers--and so, when Dutch Pete took a liking to him and offered
him a job, he just naturally had to take it."
"You mean he has been working at something we wouldn't like to know
about?"
"That's the size of it."
"What is this job? It isn't working for you. You wouldn't ask him to do
anything that would be disgraceful."
Kelley did not take time to appreciate this compliment. He made his
plunge. "No. He has been working for--a saloon."
She showed the force of the blow by asking in a horrified tone, "You
don't mean tending bar!"
"Oh no! Not so bad as that," replied Kelley. "Leastways it don't seem so
bad to me. He's been rolling the marble in a roulette wheel."
She stared at him in perplexity. "I don't believe--I--I don't believe I
understand what that is. Just tell me exactly."
"Well, he's been taking care of a roulette layout."
"You mean he has been gambling?"
"Well, no. He hasn't been gambling. At least, not lately. But he
represents the house, you see. He is something like a dealer at faro and
is on a salary."
She comprehended fully now--at least she comprehended enough to settle
back into her seat with a very severe and somber expression on her face.
"That's where his five per day comes from." She mused for a little while
on this, and then suddenly another thought came to her: "What about his
being your partner?"
Kelley saw that it was necessary to go the whole way, and he said,
quietly: "That was all fixed up yesterday. You see, he wanted to save
your mother and you, and he came to me--and wanted me to take him in as
a partner, and--I did it."
"You mean a partner for a day?"
"Yes. He was mighty nervous about your coming, and I told him I would
help him out. Of course, it didn't worry me none, and so I concluded I
would do it."
Her face softened as she pondered upon this. "That was very good of you,
Mr. Kelley."
"Oh no! You see, I kinda like the boy. And then we've been
partners--side partners. We room together."
She looked out of the window, but she saw nothing of the landscape now.
"I understand it all. You want me to take mother away before she finds
out."
"'Pears like that is the best thing for you to do. It would hit her a
good deal harder than it does you."
"It hits me hard enough," she replied. "To think of my brother running a
gambling-machine in a saloon is not especially reassuring. You say he
went into it to carry him over a hard place. I'm afraid you were saving
my feelings in saying that, Mr. Kelley. How long has he been in this
business?"
"A little less than a year."
"And you want me to go away without trying to get him out of this awful
trade?"
"I don't see how you could safely try it. I think he is going to quit it
himself. Your coming has been a terrible jolt to him. Now I'll tell you
what you do. You take the old lady and pull out over the hill and I'll
undertake to get the boy out of this gambling myself."
She was deeply affected by his quiet and earnest manner, and studied him
with reflective glance before she said: "You're right. Mother must never
know of this. She was brought up to believe that saloons and gambling
were the devil's strongest lure for souls, and it would break her heart
to know that Fred has become a gambler. I will do as you say, Mr.
Kelley. I will take this train. But you must write me and tell me what
you do. You will write, won't you?"
"Yes," replied Kelley, hesitatingly. "I'll write--but I ain't much of a
fist at it. Of course, I may not make a go of my plan, but I think it
will work out all right."
She reached her hand to him, as if to seal a compact, and he took it.
She said: "I don't know who you are or what you are, Mr. Kelley. But
you've been a loyal friend to my brother and very considerate of my
mother and me, and I appreciate it deeply."
Kelley flushed under the pressure of her small fingers, and replied as
indifferently as he could: "That's all right, miss. I've got a mother
and a sister myself."
"Well, they'd be proud of you if they could know what you have done
to-day," she said.
His face took on a look of sadness. "They might. But I'm glad they don't
know all I've been through in the last ten years."
III
Morse was surprised, almost delighted, when his sister announced her
decision to take the afternoon train. "That's right," he said. "You can
stop on your way back in the spring. Perhaps Kelley and I will have our
own house by that time."
The train was on the siding, nearly ready to start, and there was not
much chance for further private conference, but Florence succeeded in
getting a few final words with Kelley.
"I wish you would tell me what your plan is," she said. "You needn't if
you don't want to."
Kelley seemed embarrassed, but concluded to reply. "It is very simple,"
said he. "I'm going to make him an actual partner in the mine. I'm going
to deed him an interest, so that when you come back in the spring he
won't have to lie about it."
Her glance increased his uneasiness. "I don't understand you, Mr.
Kelley. You must _love_ my brother."
He could not quite meet her glance as he answered. "Well, I wouldn't use
exactly that word," he said, slowly, "but I've taken a great notion to
him--and then, as I say, I have an old mother myself."
The bell on the engine began to ring, and she caught his hand in both of
hers and pressed it hard. "I leave him in your hands," she said, and
looked up at him with eyes that were wet with tears, and then in a low
voice she added: "If I dared to I'd give you a good hug--but I daren't.
Good-by--and be sure and write."
As they stood to watch the train climb the hill, Morse drew a deep sigh
and said: "Gee! but Flo is keen! I thought one while she was going to
get my goat. I wonder what made her change her mind all of a sudden?"
Kelley looked down at him somberly. "I did."
"You did? How?"
"I told her what you had really been working at."
The boy staggered under the force of this. "Holy smoke! Did you do
that?"
"Sure I did. It was the only way to save that dear old mother of yours.
I told your sister also that I was going to stop your white-marble
exercise, and I'm going to do it if I have to break your back."
There was no mistaking the sincerity and determination of Kelley's tone,
and the young man, so far from resenting these qualities, replied,
meekly: "I want to get out of it, Ed. I've been saying all day that I
must quit it. But what can I do?"
"I'll tell you my plan," said Kelley, with decision. "You've got to buy
my interest in the mine."
Morse laughed. "But I haven't any money. I haven't three hundred dollars
in the world."
"I'll take your note, provided your sister will indorse it, and she
will."
The young fellow looked up at his tall friend in amazement which turned
at last into amusement. He began to chuckle. "Good Lord! I knew you'd
made a mash on Flo, but I didn't know it was mutual. I heard her say,
'be sure and write.'" He slapped Kelley on the back. "There'll be
something doing when she comes back in the spring, eh?"
Kelley remained unmoved. "There will be if she finds you rolling that
white marble."
"She won't. I'll take your offer. But what will you be doing?"
"Climbing some Alaska trail," replied Kelley, with a remote glance.
THE PROSPECTOR
_--still pushes his small pack-mule through the snow of
glacial passes seeking the unexplored, and therefore more
alluring, mountain range._
VI
THE PROSPECTOR
Old Pogosa was seated in the shade of a farm-wagon, not far from the
trader's store at Washakie, eating a cracker and mumbling to herself,
when a white man in miner's dress spoke to her in a kindly voice and
offered her an orange. She studied him with a dim, shining, suspicious
gaze, but took the orange. Eugene, the grandson of her niece, stood
beside the stranger, and he, too, had an orange.
"Tell her," said the white man, "that I want to talk with her about old
days; that I am a friend of her people, and that I knew Sitting Bull and
Bear Robe. They were great chiefs."
As these words were interpreted to the old witch, her mouth softened a
little and, raising her eyes, she studied her visitor intently. At last
she said: "Ay, he was a great chief, Sitting Bull. My cousin. I came to
visit Shoshoni many moons ago. Never returned to my own people."
To this the miner replied, "They say your husband, Iapi, was one of the
sheep-eaters exiled to the mountains?"
Her eyes widened. Her gaze deepened. She clipped her forefinger in sign
of agreement. "It was very cold up there in winter. We were often
hungry, for the game had all been driven to the plain and we could not
follow. Many of our children died. All died but one."
The stranger, whose name was Wetherell, responded with a sigh: "My heart
is heavy when I hear of it. Because you are old and have not much food I
give you this money." And he handed her a silver dollar and walked away.
The next day, led by Eugene, Wetherell and Kelley, his partner, again
approached the old Sioux, this time with a generous gift of beef.
"My brother, here, is paper-chief," he explained. "As a friend of the
red people he wants to put in a book all the wrongs that the
sheep-eaters suffered."
In this way the gold-seekers proceeded to work upon Pogosa's withered
heart. Her mind was clouded with age, but a spark of her old-time
cunning still dwelt there, and as she came to understand that the white
men were eager to hear the story of the lost mine she grew forgetful.
Her tongue halted on details of the trail. Why should not her tale
produce other sides of bacon, more oranges, and many yards of cloth? Her
memory wabbled like her finger--now pointing west, now north. At one
time the exiles found the gold in the cabin in a bag--like shining sand;
at another it lay in the sand like shining soldiers' buttons, but always
it was very beautiful to look upon, and always, she repeated, the white
men fled. No one slew them. They went hurriedly, leaving all their
tools.
"She knows," exulted Wetherell. "She knows, and she's the one living
Indian who can direct us." To Eugene he exclaimed: "Say to her pretty
soon she's going to be rich--mebbe go home to Cheyenne River. If she
shows us the trail we will take her to her own people."
Like a decrepit eagle the crone pondered. Suddenly she spoke, and her
speech was a hoarse chant. "You are good to me. The bones of my children
lie up there. I will go once more before I die."
Kelley was quick to take advantage of sunset emotion. "Tell her we will
be here before sunrise. Warn her not to talk to any one." And to all
this Eugene gave ready assent.
Wetherell slept very little that night, although their tent stood close
beside the singing water of the Little Wind. They were several miles
from the fort and in a lonely spot with only one or two Indian huts
near, and yet he had the conviction that their plans and the very hour
of their starting were known to other of the red people. At one moment
he was sure they were all chuckling at the "foolish white men"; at
another he shivered to think how easy it would be to ambush this crazy
expedition in some of the deep, solitary defiles in those upper forests.
"A regiment could be murdered and hidden in some of those savage
glooms," said he to himself.
Kelley slept like a top, but woke at the first faint dawn, with the
precision of an alarm-clock. In ten minutes he had the horses in, and
was throwing the saddles on. "Roll out, Andy," he shouted. "Here comes
Eugene."
Wetherell lent himself to the work with suddenly developed enthusiasm,
and in half an hour the little train of laden animals was in motion
toward the hills. Pogosa was waiting, squatted on the ground at some
distance from her tepee. Slipping from his horse, he helped her mount.
She groaned a little as she did so, but gathered up the reins like one
resuming a long-forgotten habit. For years she had not ventured to
mount a horse, and her withered knees were of small service in
maintaining her seat, but she made no complaint.
Slowly the little train crawled up the trail, which ran for the most
part along the open side of the slope, in plain view from below. At
sunrise they were so well up the slope that an observer from below would
have had some trouble in making out the character of the cavalcade. At
seven o'clock they entered the first patch of timber and were hidden
from the plain.
On the steep places, where the old squaw was forced to cling to her
saddle, groaning with pain, the kindly Wetherell walked beside her,
easing her down the banks. In crossing the streams he helped her find
the shallowest fording, and in other ways was singularly considerate.
Kelley couldn't have done this, but he saw the value of it.
"It's a hard trip and we've got to make it as easy for the old bird as
we can."
"She's human," retorted Wetherell, "and this ride is probably painful
for her, mentally as well as physically."
"I s'pose it does stir her up some," responded Kelley. "She may balk any
minute and refuse to go. We'd better camp early."
A little later Eugene called out, "She says set tepee here." And Kelley
consented.
Again it was Wetherell who helped her from her saddle and spread his
pack for her to rest upon. He also brought a blanket and covered her as
tenderly as if she were his own grandmother. "She's pretty near all in,"
he said, in palliation of this action. He took a pleasure in seeing her
revive under the influence of hot food.
When she began to talk, Eugene laughingly explained: "She stuck on you.
She say you good man. Your heart big for old Injun woman."
Kelley chuckled. "Keep it up, Andy," he called through the tent. "I
leave all that business to you."
Pogosa's face darkened. She understood the laugh. "Send him away," she
commanded Eugene, all of which made Kelley grin with pleasure.
The whole enterprise now began to take on poetry to Wetherell. The
wilderness, so big, so desolate, so empty to him, was full of memories
to this brown old witch. To her the rushing stream sang long-forgotten
songs of war and the chase. She could hear in its clamor the voices of
friends and lovers. This pathway, so dim and fluctuating, so indefinite
to the white man, led straight into the heroic past for her. Perhaps she
was treading it now, not for the meat and flannel which Kelley had
promised her, but for the pleasure of reliving the past. She was young
when her husband was banished. In these splendid solitudes her brave
young hunter adventured day by day. Here beside one of these glorious
streams her children were born in exile; here they suffered the snows of
winter, the pests of summer; and here they had died one by one, till
only she remained. Then, old and feeble, she had crawled back into the
reservation, defiant of Washakie, seeking comfort as a blind dog returns
to the fireside from which he has been cruelly spurned.
As she slept, the men spread a map on the ground, and for the hundredth
time Wetherell measured the blank space lying between Bonneville Basin
and Frémont's Peak marked "unexplored," and exclaimed:
"It's wonderful how a mountain country expands as you get into it. Don't
look much on the map, but, gee! a fellow could spend ten years looking
for this mine, and then be no better off than when he started."
"Yes," responded Kelley, "it's certainly up to you to cherish the old
lady."
In the morning Wetherell dressed hastily and crept into the little tent
where Pogosa lay. "How are you, granny?" he asked. She only shook her
head and groaned.
"She say her back broke," Eugene interpreted.
A brisk rubbing with a liniment which he had brought from his kit
limbered the poor, abused loins, and at last Pogosa sat up. She suddenly
caught Wetherell's hand and drew it to her withered breast.
"Good white man," she cried out.
"Tell her I'll make her eyes well, too," he commanded Eugene. "The
medicine will hurt a little, but it will make her eyes stronger to see
the trail."
Kelley could not suppress his amusement as he watched Wetherell's
operations. "You'll spoil gran'ma," he remarked. "She'll be discontented
with the agency doctor. I'm not discouragin' your massage operations,
mind you, but I can't help thinking that she'll want clean towels, and
an osteopath to stroke her back every morning, when she goes back to her
tepee."
"If she only holds out long enough to help us to find the mine she can
have a trained nurse, and waiting-maid to friz her hair--if she wants it
frizzed."
"You don't mean to let her in as a partner?"
"I certainly do! Isn't she enduring the agonies for us? I'm going to see
that she is properly paid for it."
"A hunk of beef and plenty of blankets and flannel is all she can use;
but first let's find the mine. We can quarrel over its division
afterward."
"I doubt if we get her ahorse to-day. She's pretty thoroughly battered
up."
"We must move, Andy. Somebody may trail us up. I want to climb into the
next basin before night. Let me talk to her."
She flatly refused to move for Kelley, and Eugene said: "She too sick.
Legs sick, back sick, eyes sick. Go no further."
Kelley turned to Wetherell. "It's your edge, Andy. She's balked on me."
Wetherell took another tack. He told her to rest. "By and by I'll come
and rub your back again and fix your eyes. To-morrow you will feel
strong and well." To this she made no reply.
All the day Kelley kept his eyes on the back trail, expecting each
moment to see some dusky trailer break from the cover. As night began to
fall it was Wetherell who brought a brand and built a little fire near
the door to Pogosa's tent so that the flame might cheer her, and she
uttered a sigh of comfort as its yellow glare lighted her dark tepee
walls. He brought her bacon, also, and hot bread and steaming coffee,
not merely because she was useful as a guide, but also because she was
old and helpless and had been lured out of her own home into this gray
and icy world of cloud.
"Eddie," he said, as he returned to his partner, "we're on a wild-goose
chase. The thing is preposterous. There isn't any mine--there can't be
such a mine!"
"Why not? What's struck you now?"
"This country has been traversed for a century. It is 'sheeped' and
cattle-grazed and hunted and forest-ranged--"
Kelley waved his hand out toward the bleak crags which loomed dimly from
amid the slashing shrouds of rain. "Traversed! Man, nobody ever does
anything more than ride from one park to another. The mine is not in a
park. It's on some of these rocky-timbered ridges. A thousand
sheep-herders might ride these trails for a hundred years and never see
a piece of pay quartz. It's a big country! Look at it now! What chance
have we without Pogosa? Now here we are on our way, with a sour old
wench who thinks more of a piece of bread than she does of a hunk of
ore. It's up to you, Andy--you and your 'mash.'"
"Well, I've caught the mind-reading delusion. I begin to believe that I
understand Pogosa's reasoning. She is now beginning to be eaten by
remorse. She came into this expedition for the food and drink. She now
repents and is about to confess that she knows nothing about the mine.
She and Eugene have conspired against us and are 'doing' us--good."
"Nitsky! You're away off your base. The fact is, Pogosa is a Sioux. She
cares nothing for the Shoshoni, and she wants to realize on this mine.
She wants to go back to her people before she dies. She means
business--don't you think she don't; and if her running-gear don't
unmesh to-night or to-morrow she's going to make good--that's my hunch."
"I hope you're right, but I can't believe it."
"You don't need to. You keep her thinking you're the Sun-god--that's
your job."
It rained all that day, and when night settled down it grew unreasonably
warm for that altitude, and down on the marshes the horses stood,
patiently enduring the gnats and mosquitoes. They plagued Pogosa so
cruelly that Wetherell took his own web of bobinet and made a protecting
cage for her head and hands. Never before had she been shielded from the
pests of outdoor life. She laughed as she heard the baffled buzzing
outside her net, and, pointing her finger, addressed them mockingly.
Wetherell took the same joy in this that a child takes in the action of
a kitten dressed as a doll. To Eugene he said:
"You tell her Injun plenty fool. He don't know enough to get gold and
buy mosquito netting. If she is wise and shows me the mine she will
never be bitten again. No flies. No mosquitoes. Plenty beef. Plenty
butter and hot biscuits. Plenty sugar and coffee. White man's own horse
carry her back to her people."
It took some time to make the old woman understand this, and then she
replied briefly, but with vigor, and Eugene translated it thus: "White
man all same big chief. Go find mine, _sure_, for you. No want other
white man to have gold. All yours."
The morning broke tardily. The rain had ceased, but the gray mist still
hid the peaks, and now and then the pines shook down a shower of drops
upon the tent cloth as if impatient of the persistent gathering of
moisture. Otherwise the forest was as still as if it were cut from
bronze.
Kelley arose and, going outside, began kicking the embers together.
"Wake up, Andy. It's a gray outlook we have," he announced, after a
careful survey. "The worst sign is this warmth and stillness. We're in
the heart of the storm, and the mosquitoes are hellish."
As Wetherell was creeping from the tent door one of the pines quivered
and sent down a handful of drops, squarely soaking the back of his neck,
and a huge mosquito stuck savagely to the end of his nose. He was not in
the best of humor as he straightened up.
"I can stand cold and snow, or wet and cold, but this hot, sticky, dark
weather irritates me. Let's climb high and see if we can't reach the
frost-line."
"We'll be frosty enough when this storm passes," Kelley said,
comfortingly. Then in a note of astonishment and surprise, "Well, look
at that!"
Wetherell looked where he pointed, and beheld Pogosa squatting before a
meager fire at her tent door, her head carefully draped in her bobinet.
He forgot his own lumps and bumps, and laughed. "So doth the white man's
civilization creep upon and subdue the Amerind, destroying his robust
contempt for the elements and making of him a Sybarite."
Eugene appeared, grinning ruefully. "Heap dam' moskeets. Drink my blood
all night."
"I reckon you got gran'ma's share," said Kelley.
Pogosa met Wetherell's glance with an exultant smile and pointed at the
net as if to say: "See, I am safe. The angry brutes cannot touch me."
"The old girl is on her taps this morning. She deserves a reward. Wait a
jiffy. There"--and Kelley uncorked a flask and poured a wee drop of an
amber-colored liquid into the cup of coffee which Wetherell was about to
take to her--"say nothing and see what happens."
She ate a rousing breakfast and was especially pleased with the coffee.
Kelley repeated the dose, and she, much invigorated, ordered Eugene to
bring her pony to her. This tickled Kelley mightily.
"You see how it is! She's already the millionairess. Who ever heard of
an Injun getting up a horse for an old squaw? Look at Eugene!"
Eugene was indeed in open rebellion, and Wetherell, not caring to have
trouble with him, went down and brought up the pony himself. He also
gave the old woman his slicker and insisted on her wearing it, whereat
Eugene wondered again.
The rain was beginning as they took their way over the meadow, and
Wetherell was near to being bogged the first crack out of the box. "Do
we go up that cliff?" he asked.
Pogosa waved her forefinger back and forth as though tracing the
doublings of the trail.
Kelley scanned the wall narrowly. "I don't quite see it," he remarked,
openly, "but I reckon I can find it," and he spurred his horse to the
front.
"No! No!" screamed Pogosa in a sudden fury, her voice shrill and nasal.
Kelley stopped, and she motioned Wetherell to his place in the lead.
With a comical look in his eyes the trailer fell back. "'Pears like I
ain't good enough to precede her Majesty. Go ahead, Andy."
Wetherell, in much doubt of his ability to scale that cliff, started
forth. The old trail could be seen dimly, and also the recent tracks of
three horses. They were not precisely fresh, but they gave some
uneasiness.
"Who made 'em, Eugene, and when?" he asked.
"One man riding--white man," announced Eugene. "Two pack-horse--very
light pack--made--mebbe so--three days ago."
"The forest-ranger from the other side, possibly."
Wetherell, by watching the hoof-marks, by studying the conformation of
the cliff before him, and by glancing back now and again at Pogosa,
contrived to find the way. Slowly and for several hours they climbed
this vast dike. It was nearly eleven thousand feet above the sea here,
and Kelley himself breathed with effort as he climbed.
"I begin to see why people don't use this trail much," he said, as they
stopped to rest on one of the broad shelves. "I'm beginning to wonder
how we're going to pack our ore to market over this road."
"It will take mighty rich ore to pay its own freight," responded
Wetherell.
Pogosa seemed strangely excited. Her eyes were gleaming, her face
working with emotion.
"See the old girl!" said Kelley. "We must be hot on the trail of the
mine. It don't look like mineral formation, but gold is where you find
it."
"Go on," signed Pogosa.
The way seemed interminable, and at times Wetherell despaired of getting
his withered commander into the park which he was sure lay above this
dike. At noon they halted long enough to make coffee. Kelley flavored it
as before, and Pogosa was ready to go on an hour later.
As they rose above the dike and Bonneville's Peak came into view a low
humming sound startled the hunters. It came from Pogosa. With eyes lit
by the reviving fires of memory, she was chanting a hoarse song. She
seemed to have thrown off half the burden of her years. Her voice
gradually rose till her weird improvisation put a shiver into
Wetherell's heart. She had forgotten the present; and with hands resting
on the pommel of her saddle, with dim eyes fixed upon the valley, was
reliving the past.
"She singing old hunting song," Eugene explained. "Many years ago she
sing it. This heap fine hunting-ground then. Elk, big-horn, bear. All
fine things in summer. Winter nothing but big-horn. Sheep-eaters live
here many summers. Pogos' young and happy then. Now she is old and
lonesome. People all gone. Purty soon she die. So she say."
Even the unimaginative mind of Tall Ed Kelley thrilled to the tragic
significance of this survivor of a dying race chanting her solitary
song. Her memory was quickening under the touch of these cliffs and the
sound of these streams. She was retracing the steps of her youth.
Kelley interpreted it differently. "She's close to it," he called. "It's
here in this valley, in some of these ridges."
Resolutely, unhesitatingly, Pogosa rode down the first stream which ran
to the north, making directly for a low hill on which could be discerned
a low comb of deflected rocks of a dark color. At last, riding up the
ledge, she slipped from her horse and, tottering forward, fell face
downward on the grass beside an upturned giant slab of gray stone.
The men stared in wonder, searching the ground for evidence of mineral.
None could be seen. Suddenly lifting her head, the crone began to sing
again, uttering a heart-shaking wail which poured from her quivering
lips like the cry of the forsaken. The sight of her withered hands
strained together and the tears in her sunken cheeks went to the soul.
The desolate rocks, the falling rain, the wild and monstrous cliffs, the
encircling mountains, all lent irresistible power to her grief. She
seemed the minstrel of her race mourning for a vanished world.
"Come away," Eugene urged with a delicacy which sprang from awe. "_Her
husband buried there._"
Deeply touched to know that her grief was personal, and filled, too,
with a kind of helpless amazement at this emotional outbreak, the
gold-seekers withdrew down the slope, followed by the riderless pony,
leaving the old woman crouched close against the sepulcher of her dead,
pouring forth the sobbing wail of her song.
"This looks like the end of our mine," said Kelley, gloomily. "I begin
to think that the old witch led us up here just for the sake of visiting
that grave."
"It looks that way," responded Wetherell, "but what can we do? You can't
beat her, and we've done all we could to bribe her."
Eugene advised: "You wait. Bimeby she got done cryin'. To-morrow she got
cold--want meat, coffee--plenty bad. Then we go get her."
They went into camp not far away in the edge of a thicket of scraggly
wind-dwarfed pines, and put up their tents for the night.
"Wouldn't it put a cramp into you," began Kelley, as they stood beside
their fire, "to think that this old relict has actually led us all the
way up here in order to water the grave of a sweetheart who died forty
years ago?"
"It shows how human she is."
"Human! She's superhuman. She's crazy, that's what she is."
"It is all very wonderful to me, but I'm worried about her. She mustn't
stay out there in this rain. It's going to turn cold. See that streak in
the west?"
As Wetherell left the camp-fire and began to climb back toward the comb
of rocks he felt not merely the sheer immensity of this granite basin,
but the loneliness, its almost insupportable silence and emptiness. With
the feeling of one who intrudes he called to the old woman. He stooped
and put his arm about her. "Come," he said. "You will die here. Come to
the fire."
She suffered him to lead her away, but her head hung on her breast, her
arms were limp.
Back at the camp-fire, after seeing that Pogosa had been properly taken
care of, the men faced each other in gloomy silence.
"Right here we take our medicine, partner," remarked Kelley. "Here we
put a dot and double the line. I'd like to break over that divide and
see how it looks in there, but our lady friend seems indisposed, and I
guess we'll just toast our knees and think where we missed it."
"After all," said Wetherell, soothingly, "this morning may be merely
incidental. Let us be patient. She may recover." And at dark he carried
some hot drink over to her tepee, but found her sleeping, and decided
not to awaken her.
Back at their fire, as the night deepened, the men lighted their pipes,
and with blankets at their backs huddled close about it. An imperious
voice broke from Pogosa's tent. Wetherell looked around at Eugene.
"Did you speak?" he asked.
Eugene protested. "No. Pogosa talk."
"It sounded like a chief's voice," Kelley began. "A vigorous voice."
Eugene, trembling like a scared puppy, crept close to Wetherell. His
voice was a mere whisper. "That no Pogos'--that Injun spirit talking."
Kelley was amused. "A spirit, eh? What does this spirit Injun say?"
"Say, 'White man with red beard listen--come closer and listen'--"
"That's you, Andy. Draw close. Your side partner has something to say."
Wetherell, alarmed by this delirium of his patient, rose to his feet,
and as he did so her harsh voice uttered a short phrase which stiffened
Eugene with fright. He left his place and sidled after Wetherell.
"She say _me_, Eugene, come talk for you."
"Very true. You'll need him. This may be a dying confession," argued
Kelley.
"You go ahead in tepee," Eugene urged. "Me sit outside. Pogos' medicine
now. See 'um vision. Spirits talk to her."
As he peered in at the tepee door Wetherell perceived Pogosa dimly. She
was sitting erect in her bed. Her eyes were wide, the pose of her head
erect and vigorous. She appeared a span taller, and when she spoke her
voice seemed to issue from a deep and powerful chest.
With Eugene as a scared interpreter, Pogosa said: "Here, now where we
are encamped, a battle took place many winters ago, and some of the
exiles were slain. One of these was Iapi, the husband of Pogosa. He it
was who could not speak Shoshoni."
Impatiently Kelley asked, "Will she be able to show us the mine?"
"She will try, but she is old and her mind is misty. She say she is
grateful to you, Red Beard, and will give the gold to you. She asks that
you take her back to her own people after you find the mine."
"Is the mine far from here?" asked Wetherell, gently.
"No, but it is very hard to find."
"Can't you trace the trail on a piece of paper for me?" he inquired.
"No, Pogosa cannot make the road. She can only tell you. Send the other
white man away."
"Vamoose!" Wetherell called with a note of triumph in his voice, and
Tall Ed faded away.
With faltering voice Pogosa began the all-important part of her tale:
"The mine is on the head of the Wind River. Not far, but the way is very
hard. Pogosa will not be able to lead you. From where we are you cross
the valley to the mountain. You turn to your right and descend to a
small lake lying under a bank of snow. This bank is held up by a row of
black rocks. Below this lake is a stream and a long hill of round
stones, all mixed together. On the west side of this ridge, just above
another small lake, you will find the mine."
"Can it be approached from below?"
"No, a great cañon and many cliffs are there--" Her voice ceased
abruptly. As suddenly as if life had been instantly withdrawn, she fell
back upon her bed, and Eugene, released from the grasp of her hand, fled
to Kelley, leaving Wetherell alone with the mystery.
"She seems to have dropped into a sort of trance," he said to Kelley, as
he came back to the camp-fire.
"Have you faith enough to follow those directions?" asked his partner.
"I certainly have."
Kelley laughed. "She may have a different set of directions to-morrow
night. What do you say, Eugene? Pogos' all same fraud?"
Eugene, cowering close to the fire, needed not speech to make evident
his awe of the battle-field. "Injun spirits all round," he whispered.
"Hear 'em? They cry to Pogos'." He lifted a hand in warning.
"It's only the wind in the dead pines," said Kelley.
"Plenty Injun spirits. _They cry!_" persisted Eugene.
"There speaks the primitive man," remarked Wetherell. "Our ancestors in
Ireland or Wales or Scotland all had the same awe and wonder of the
dark--just as the negroes in the South believe that on certain nights
the dead soldiers of Lee and Grant rise and march again."
Kelley yawned. "Let's turn in and give the witches full swing. It's
certainly their kind of a night."
Eugene spoke up. "Me sleep in your tepee. Pogos' scare me plenty hard."
Ridicule could not affect him, and out of pity for his suffering
Wetherell invited him to make down his bed in the doorway of his own
little tent.
"I hope gran'ma won't have another fit in the middle of the night," said
Kelley, sleepily. "If she does, you can interview her alone. I'm dead to
the world till dawn."
Nothing happened after this save that an occasional nervous chill
overcame Eugene and caused him to call out, "What's that?" in a
suppressed tone. "You hear 'em voice?" he asked several times; to all of
which Wetherell replied, "It is the wind. Lie down; it is only the
wind."
Musing upon the singular business in the deep of the night, Wetherell
concluded that Pogosa, in a moment of emotional exaltation, and
foreseeing her inability to guide him in person, had taken this method
of telling him truly where the mine lay.
A mutter of voices in Pogosa's tepee interrupted his thought. "She is
delirious again," he thought, but the cold nipped, and he dreaded rising
and dressing. As he hesitated he thought he could distinguish two
voices. Shaking Eugene, he whispered, "Listen, Eugene, tell me what is
going on in Pogosa's tent."
The half-breed needed no awakening. "She speak Sioux. I no speak Sioux.
Some Sioux man's talk with her. Mebbe so her husband."
Wetherell smiled and snuggled down in his bed. "All right, Eugene. If
Iapi is there he will take care of her. Good night."
* * * * *
Morning broke gloriously clear, crisp, and frosty. The insects were
inert. The air had lost its heat and murk. The sun struck upon the sides
of the tepees with cheerful glow, and all was buoyant, normal, and
bracing as the partners arose.
Hurrying to Pogosa's tepee, Wetherell peeped in. "I wonder if she
remembers her performance?" he asked himself, but could not determine,
since she refused to answer Eugene when he questioned her. She took the
food which Wetherell gave her, but did not eat or drink. Slowly she rose
and hobbled away over the frosty grass toward the grave of Iapi.
"That's a bad sign," observed Kelley. "What's she going to do now,
Eugene?"
"She's goin' put meat by stone. Mebbe so Injun spirits come eat."
"Well, she'd better absorb some of the grub herself."
"I think it's a beautiful act," professed Wetherell, lifting his
field-glass to study her motions. "She's happy now. She and her dead
sweetheart are together again."
"I know Iapi once," Eugene volunteered. "He big man, very strong. Good
rider. One spring all people hungry. No game. Ponies weak. Iapi say go
kill sheep. Washakie hear of killing sheep. Send warriors. Iapi here.
Make battle. Kill mebbe so four, six Injun. Kill Iapi. Washakie sorry
now. His spirit cry in trees last night."
"Better let Pogosa alone for the day. The sun is warming the rocks. She
is no longer cold. We can leave our camp here and scout around on our
own account, returning this afternoon."
They rode across the valley in the direction indicated by the Voice. It
was a bewildering maze into which the prospector must descend in search
of the gold which is marked in yellow letters on some maps of the state.
Several times did Wetherell drop into the basins, searching in vain for
the small lake and the black-walled bank of snow, but at last Eugene's
eye detected faint indications of a trail.
"We've struck the right road this time," exulted Wetherell. "Here is
the wall of black rocks." There was no snow, but he argued that, the
season having been extraordinarily warm and wet, this landmark had
temporarily disappeared.
"I am sure this is the lake and stream," declared Wetherell. "See where
the snow has lain."
"How far down do you figure the mine was?"
"Some miles below, near a second lake. I'm afraid we can't make it this
trip. It will be dark by the time we reach camp. We'll just mark the
spot and come back to-morrow."
Kelley was for pushing on. "What matter if we don't get back?"
"I'm thinking of Pogosa--"
He shrugged his shoulders. "There's grub and shelter handy. She can come
down any time and feed."
"Yes, but I hate to think of her all alone. She may be worse."
"Send Eugene back. We don't need him now."
Wetherell was almost as eager to go on as Kelley, but could not banish
the pathetic figure of Pogosa so easily. Now that all signs pointed to
the actual mine, his blood was fired with passion for the gold.
"Eugene, go back and wait for us. See that Pogosa is comfortable. We'll
return by dark."
The word "dark" sent a shiver through Eugene. He shook his head. "No.
I'm afraid. Spirits come again."
"Come on," said Kelley. "You can't make him do that. If we hurry we can
get down to the other lake and back by sunset. The squaw will take care
of herself. She's used to being alone--besides, the spirits are with
her."
With the hope that it was not far, Wetherell yielded and set off down
the slope, following the bank of the stream. Soon the other lake could
be seen not far below them, and, slipping, sliding amid a cascade of
pebbles, the gold-seekers, now glowing with certainty of success,
plunged straight toward the pool. Two or three times this precipitous
method of descent led them into blind alleys from which they were
obliged to climb, but at last, just as the sun went behind the imperial
peak, they came out upon the shore of the little tarn which lay
shallowly over a perfectly flat floor of cream-colored sand.
"Here we are," called Kelley. "Now if your ghost proves a liar, Pogosa
must answer for it. Here is the rocky ridge on the east--"
"And here is trail," called Eugene, pointing to a faint line leading
straight into the pines.
Wetherell spurred his horse into this trail, and in less than five
minutes came upon the mine. It was not a shining thing to look at, so he
did not shout. It was merely a cavernous opening in a high ledge of dark
rock. On one side stood the sunken and decaying walls of a small log
hut. The roof had fallen in, and vines filled the interior. In front of
the door and all about, lumps of reddish, rusty-looking rock were
scattered. A big stone hollowed in the middle showed that it had been
used as a mortar for crushing the ore. The tunnel itself was irregular
in shape and almost high enough to admit a horse. It dipped slightly
from the threshold.
Tall Ed spoke first, in a tone of suppressed excitement. "Well, let's
see what she's like."
"I trust Pogosa. Up goes our poster," replied Wetherell.
"All right. You put up the sign while I examine this ore."
With his hatchet Wetherell set to work hewing a square face on a tree.
He was putting the first tack in his placard when Kelley walked over
toward him, and with exaggeratedly quiet voice said:
"Just look at that, will you?"
Wetherell took the lump of ore and thrilled to the sight. It needed no
expert to discern the free gold which lay in thin scales and sparkling
lumps all through the rock.
"I want to yell," said Kelley, and his voice trembled.
"Don't do it!" said Wetherell. "Let's hurry back to camp and move down
here. I won't feel safe till we do."
"I don't leave this place to-night, Andy. You and Eugene go back to
camp. I'll stay here and hold down the find."
Wetherell, tremulous with excitement and weak in the knees, remounted
his horse and set off for camp. It was a long climb, and the latter part
of it tedious by reason of the growing darkness and the weariness of the
horses. Wetherell's pony would not lead and was fairly at the end of his
powers, but at last they reached their camping-place. Wetherell's first
thought was of Pogosa. She was nowhere in sight and her tepee was empty.
"She on hill," declared Eugene. "Lying down on stone. Injun cry there
three days."
"The poor old thing! She'll be famished and chilled to the bone. It's a
shame, our leaving her alone this way. But that's the way of the man in
love with gold. Greed destroys all that is tender and loyal in a man. I
am going right up and bring her down. Eugene, you start a fire and put
some coffee on to boil."
With a heart full of pity the repentant gold-seeker hurried toward the
cairn. The crumpled little figure, so tragic in its loneliness and
helpless grief, was lying where he had left it. She did not stir at the
sound of his footsteps, nor when he laid his hand softly on her
shoulder.
"Come, Pogosa," he said, with gentle authority. "Come, coffee, fire
waiting. We found the mine. You're rich. You shall go back to your
people. Come!"
Something in the feel of her shoulder, in the unyielding rigidity of her
pose, startled and stilled him. He shook her questioningly. She was
stark as stone. Her body had been cold for many hours. Her spirit was
with Iapi.
THE OUTLAW
_--still seeks sanctuary in the green timber, finding the
storms of the granite peaks less to be feared than the fury
of his neighbors._
VII
THE OUTLAW
I
Freeman Ward, geologist for the government, was not altogether easy in
his mind as he led his little pack-train out of Pinedale, a frontier
settlement on the western slope of the Rocky Mountain divide, for he had
permitted the girl of his deepest interest to accompany him on his
expedition.
Alice Mansfield, accustomed to having her way, and in this case
presuming upon Ward's weakness, insisted on going. Outwardly he had
argued against it, making much of the possible storms, of the rough
trails, of the cold and dampness. But she argued that she was quite as
able to go as Mrs. Adams, the wife of the botanist of the expedition. So
Ward had yielded, and here these women were forming part of a cavalcade
which was headed for Frémont Peak, concerning whose height and formation
the leader wished to inform himself. Alice was, however, a bit dashed by
Ward's change of manner as he laid upon his train his final
instructions.
"There is to be no skylarking," he said, "and no back-tracking. Each one
is to exercise great care. We cannot afford to lose a horse nor waste
our provisions. This is not a picnic excursion, but a serious
government enterprise. I cannot turn back because of any discomfort you
may encounter in camp."
"I am ready for what comes," Alice answered, smilingly.
But she rode for the rest of the day remarkably silent. There had been
times when she was certain that Ward cared a great deal for her--not in
the impersonal way indicated by his reprimand--but in the way of a
lover, and she was very fond of him, had indeed looked forward to this
trip in his company as one sure to yield hours of delightful intimacy.
On the train he had been very devoted, "almost lover-like," Peggy Adams
insisted. But now she was dismayed by his tone of military command.
Their first day's march brought them to a beautiful water called Heart
Lake, which shone dark and deep amid its martial firs at the head of one
of the streams which descended into the East Fork, and there the guides
advised a camp. They were now above the hunters, almost above the game,
in a region "delightfully primeval," as the women put it, and very
beautiful and peaceful.
After the tents were in order and the supper eaten, Alice, having tuned
up her little metal banjo, began to twitter tender melodies (to the
moon, of course), and the long face of the man of science broadened and
he seemed less concerned about rocks and fauna and flora.
The camp was maintained at Heart Lake for a day while Ward and his men
explored the various gorges in order to discover a way into Blizzard
Basin, which was their goal. They returned to camp each time more and
more troubled about the question of taking the women over the divide
into the "rough country" which lay to the north.
"It is a totally different world," Adams explained to his wife. "It is
colder and stormier over there. The forest on the north slopes is full
of down-timber and the cliffs are stupendous. I wish you girls were back
in the settlement," and in this wish Ward heartily joined.
However, the more they talked the more determined the women were to go.
It was like a May day the following noon as they left timber-line and,
following the row of tiny monuments set up by the foresters, entered
upon the wide and undulating stretch of low edges which led to the
summit. The air was clear and the verdureless shapes of the monstrous
peaks stood sharp as steel against the sky. The tender grass was filled
with minute glistening flowers. The wind was gentle, sweet, moist, and
cool.
"Pooh!" said Alice, "this is absurdly easy. Freeman has been telling us
dreadful tales all along just to be rid of us."
But she began to admit that her escort of four strong men was a comfort,
as the guide explained that this "rough country" had long been known as
the retreat of cattle-thieves and outlaws.
"Do you think there are any such men in here now?" asked Mrs. Adams.
"Undoubtedly," Ward said; "but I don't think, from the condition of this
trail, that they come in on this side of the range. I suspect it's too
lonely even for a cattle-thief."
They unsaddled that night on the bank of a stream near a small meadow,
and around the camp-fire discussed the trail which they were to take
next day. The guides agreed that it was "a holy terror," which made
Alice the more eager to traverse it.
"I like trails that make men quake. I welcome adventure--that's what I
came for," she said.
Early the next forenoon, as they were descending the steep north-slope
trail, Alice gave out a cry of pain, and Adams called to Ward:
"Hold on! Allie's horse is down."
Ward was not surprised. He rode in continual expectation of trouble. She
was forever trying short cuts and getting snared in the fallen logs.
Once she had been scraped from her saddle by an overhanging bough, and
now, in attempting to find an easier path down a slippery ridge, her
horse had fallen with her. Ward was ungracious enough to say:
"Precisely what I've warned her against," but he hurried to her relief,
nevertheless.
"Are you badly hurt?" he asked, as she stood before him, striving to
keep back her tears of pain.
"Oh no, not at all badly. My foot was jammed a little. Please help me on
to my horse; I'll be all right in a minute."
She put so good a face on her accident that he helped her into her
saddle and ordered the train to move on; but Peggy perceived that the
girl was suffering keenly.
"Sha'n't we stop, Allie?" she called, a few minutes later.
"No. I'll be all right in a few minutes."
She rode on for nearly half an hour, bravely enduring her pain, but at
last she turned to Mrs. Adams and cried out: "I can't stand it, Peggy!
My foot pains me frightfully!"
Adams again called to Ward and the procession halted, while Ward came
back, all his anger gone.
"We'll go into camp," he said, as he examined her bruised foot. "You're
badly hurt."
"It's a poor place to camp, Professor," protested Gage. "If she can go
on for about fifteen minutes--"
"I'll try," she said; "but I can't bear the stirrup, and my shoe is full
of blood."
Ward, who was now keenly sympathetic, put her on his own horse and
walked beside her while they slowly crawled down into the small valley,
which held a deep and grassy tarn. Here they went into camp and the day
was lost.
Alice was profoundly mortified to find herself the cause of the untimely
halt, and as she watched the men making camp with anxious, irritated
faces she wept with shame of her folly. She had seized the worst
possible moment, in the most inaccessible spot of their journey, to
commit her crowning indiscretion.
She was ill in every nerve, shivering and weak, and remained for that
day the center of all the activities of the camp. Ward, very tender even
in his chagrin, was constantly at her side, his brow knotted with care.
He knew what it meant to be disabled two hundred miles from a hospital,
with fifty miles of mountain trail between one's need and a roof, but
Alice buoyed herself up with the belief that no bones were broken, and
that in the clear air of the germless world her wound would quickly
heal.
She lay awake a good part of that night, hearing, above the roar of the
water, the far-off noises of the wild-animal world. A wolf howled, a cat
screamed, and their voices were fear-inspiring.
She began also to worry about the effect of her mishap on the
expedition, for she heard Ward say to Adams: "This delay is very
unfortunate. Our stay is so limited. I fear we will not be able to
proceed for some days, and snow is likely to fall at any time."
What they said after that Alice could not hear, but she was in full
possession of their trouble. It was not a question of the loss of a few
days; it meant the possible failure of the entire attempt to reach the
summit.
"Peggy," she declared, next morning, "the men must push on and leave you
with me here in the camp. I will not permit the expedition to fail on my
account."
This seemed a heroic resolution at the moment, with the menacing sounds
of the night still fresh in her ears, but it was the most natural and
reasonable thing in the world at the moment, for the sun was rising warm
and clear and the valley was as peaceful and as beautiful as a park.
Mrs. Adams readily agreed to stay, for she was wholly free from the
ordinary timidities of women, but Ward, though sorely tempted, replied:
"No. We'll wait a day or two longer and see how you come on."
At this point one of the guides spoke up, saying: "If the women would be
more comfortable in a cabin, there's one down here in the brush by the
lake. I found it this morning when I was wranglin' the horses."
"A cabin! In this wild place?" said Alice.
"Yes, ma'am--must be a ranger's cabin."
Ward mused. "If it's habitable it would be warmer and safer than a tent.
Let's go see about it."
He came back jubilant. "It doesn't seem to have been occupied very
recently, but is in fair shape. We'll move you right down there."
The wounded girl welcomed the shelter of a roof, and it was good to feel
solid logs about her helpless self. The interior of the hut was untidy
and very rude, but it stood in a delightful nook on the bank of a pond
just where a small stream fell into the valley, and it required but a
few minutes of Mrs. Adams's efforts to clear the place out and make it
cozy, and soon Alice, groaning faintly, was deposited in the rough pole
bunk at the dark end of the room. What an inglorious end to her exalted
ride!
Ward seemed to understand her tears as he stood looking down upon her,
but he only said: "I dislike leaving you, even for the day. I shall give
up my trip."
"No, no! you must go on!" she cried out. "I shall hate myself if you
don't go on."
He reluctantly yielded to her demand, but said: "If I find that we can't
get back to-morrow I will send Gage back. He's a trusty fellow. I can't
spare Adams, and Smith and Todd--as you know--are paying for their
trip."
Mrs. Adams spoke up firmly. "You need not worry about us. We can get
along very well without anybody. If you climb the peak you'll need Gage.
I'm not afraid. We're the only people in this valley, and with this
staunch little cabin I feel perfectly at home."
"That's quite true," replied Ward in a relieved tone. "We are above the
hunters--no one ever crosses here now. But it will be lonely."
"Not at all!" Alice assured him. "We shall enjoy being alone in the
forest."
With slow and hesitating feet Ward left the two women and swung into his
saddle. "I guess I'll send Gage back, anyhow," he said.
"Don't think of it!" called Peggy.
As a matter of fact, Alice was glad to have the men pull out. Their
pity, their reproach, irritated her. It was as if they repeated aloud a
scornful phrase--"You're a lovely and tempting creature, but you're a
fool-hen just the same."
The two women spent the day peacefully, save now and then when Alice's
wounded foot ached and needed care; but as night began to rise in the
cañon like the smoke of some hidden, silent, subterranean fire, and the
high crags glowed in the last rays of the sun, each of them acknowledged
a touch of that immemorial awe of the darkness with which the race
began.
Peggy, seating herself in the doorway, described the scene to her
patient, who could see but little of it. "Oh, but it's gloriously
uncanny to be here. Only think! We are now alone with God and His
animals, and the night."
"I hope none of God's bears is roaming about," replied Alice,
flippantly.
"There aren't any bears above the berries. We're perfectly safe. My
soul! but it's a mighty country! I wish you could see the glow on the
peaks."
"I'm taking my punishment," replied Alice. "Freeman was very angry,
wasn't he?"
"If it breaks off the match I won't be surprised," replied Peggy, with
resigned intonation.
"There wasn't any match to break off."
"Well!" replied the other, and as she slowly rose she added: "I won't
say that he is perfectly distracted about you, but I do know that he
thinks more of you than of any other woman in the world, and I've no
doubt he is worrying about you this minute."
II
It was deep moonless night when Alice woke with a start. For a few
moments she lay wondering what had roused her--then a bright light
flashed and her companion screamed.
"Who's there!" demanded the girl.
In that instant flare she saw a man's face, young, smooth, with dark
eyes gleaming beneath a broad hat. He stood like a figure of bronze
while his match was burning, then exclaimed in breathless wonder:
"Great Peter's ghost! a woman!" Finally he stepped forward and looked
down upon the white, scared faces as if uncertain of his senses. "Two of
them!" he whispered. As he struck his second match he gently asked:
"Would you mind saying how you got here?"
Alice spoke first. "We came up with a geological survey. I got hurt and
they had to leave us behind."
"Where's your party gone?"
"Up to the glaciers."
"When did they leave?"
"Yesterday morning."
"When do you expect them back?"
"Not for two or three days."
He seemed to ponder a moment. "You say you're hurt? Where?"
"My horse slipped and fell on my foot."
"Wait a minute," he commanded. "I'll rustle a candle. I left one here."
When his form came out of the dark blur behind his candle Alice
perceived that he was no ordinary hunter. He was young, alert, and very
good-looking, although his face was stern and his mouth bitter. He laid
aside his hat as he approached the bunk in which the two women were
cowering as mice tremble before a cat. For a full minute he looked down
at them, but at last he smiled and said, in a jocular tone:
"You're sure-enough women, I can see that. You'll excuse me--but when a
man comes back to a shack in the middle of the night in a place like
this and finds a couple of women in a bunk he's likely to think he's
seeing pictures in his sleep."
"I can understand that," Alice returned, recovering her self-command.
"You're the ranger, I suppose? I told my friend here that you might
return."
"I'm mighty glad I did," he said, heartily.
"Thank you; you're very kind."
He bent a keen glare upon her. "What's your name?"
"Alice Mansfield."
"What's your friend's name?"
"Mrs. Adams."
"Are you a missis, too?"
She hesitated. This was impertinent, but then she herself was an
intrusive guest. "No," she answered, "I am not married."
"Where are you from?"
"New York City."
"You're a long way from home."
"Yes, I'm feeling that this minute." She drew the coverlet a little
closer to her chin.
He quickly read this sign. "You needn't be afraid of me."
"I'm not."
"Yes, you are. You're both all of a tremble and white as two sheep--"
"It isn't that," wailed the girl; "but I've twisted my foot again." Her
moan of pain broke the spell that bound Peggy.
"Would you leave, please, for a moment?" she called to the owner of the
cabin. "I've got to get up and doctor my patient."
"Sure!" he exclaimed, moving toward the door. "If I can do anything let
me know."
As soon as her patient's aching foot was eased Peggy opened the door and
peeped out. A faint flare of yellow had come into the east, and beside
the fire, rolled in his blanket, the ranger was sleeping. Frost covered
everything and the air was keen.
"He's out there on the cold ground--with only one blanket."
"What a shame! Tell him to come inside--I'm not afraid of him."
"Neither am I--but I don't believe he'll come. It's 'most morning,
anyway--perhaps I'd better not disturb him."
"Take one of these quilts to him--that will help some."
Mrs. Adams lifted one of the coverlets and, stealing softly up, was
spreading it over the sleeper when he woke with a start, a wild glare of
alarm in his eyes.
"Oh, it's you!" he said in relief. Then he added, as he felt the extra
cover: "That's mighty white of you. Sure you don't need it?"
"We can spare it. But won't you come inside? I'm sorry we drove you out
of your cabin."
"That's all right. I'm used to this. Good night. I'm just about dead for
sleep."
Thus dismissed, Peggy went back and lay down beside Alice. "He says he's
quite comfortable," she remarked, "and I hope he is, but he doesn't look
it."
When she woke again it was broad daylight and Alice was turning
restlessly on her hard bed. In the blaze of the sun all the mystery of
the night vanished. The incident of the return of the ranger to his
cabin was as natural as the coming of dawn.
"He probably makes regular trips through here," said Mrs. Adams.
But the wounded girl silently differed, for she had read in the man's
eyes and voice a great deal more than belonged to the commonplace
character of a forest-ranger. That first vision of his face burned deep.
She had seen on the wall of the station at "the road" the description of
a train-robber which tallied closely with this man's general appearance,
and the conviction that she was living in the hidden hut of an outlaw
grew into a certainty. "I must not let him suspect my discovery," she
thought.
Mrs. Adams (who had not read the placard) treated the young fellow as if
he were one of the forest wardens, manifesting complete confidence in
him.
He deftly helped her about breakfast, and when she invited him into the
cabin he came readily, almost eagerly, but he approached Alice's bed
with a touch of hesitation, and his glance was softer and his voice
gentler as he said:
"Well, how do you stack up this morning?"
"Much better, thank you."
"Must have been a jolt--my coming in last night the way I did?"
"I guess the 'jolt' was mutual. You looked surprised."
He smiled again, a faint, swift half-smile. "Surprised! That's no name
for it. For a minute I thought I'd fallen clear through. I hope you
didn't get a back-set on account of it."
"Oh no, thank you."
"How many men are in your party?"
"Six, counting the guides."
"Who are the men?"
She named them, and he mused darkly, his eyes on her face. "I reckon I
can't wait to make their acquaintance. I'm going on down the Green River
to-day. I'm sorry to miss 'em. They must be a nice bunch--to leave two
women alone this way."
He ate heartily, but with a nicety which betrayed better training than
is usual to men in his position. He remained silent and in deep thought,
though his eyes were often on Alice's face.
As he rose to go he said to Peggy: "Would you mind doing up a little
grub for me? I don't know just when I'll strike another camp."
"Why, of course! I'll be glad to. Do you have to go?"
"Yes, I must pull out," he replied, and while she was preparing his
lunch he rolled a blanket and tied it behind his saddle. At last he
re-entered the cabin and, again advancing to Alice's bedside, musingly
remarked: "I hate to leave you women here alone. It doesn't seem right.
Are you sure your party will return to-night?"
"Either to-night or to-morrow. Professor Ward intends to climb Frémont
Peak."
"Then you won't see him for three days." His tone was that of one who
communes with himself. "I reckon I'd better stay till to-morrow. I don't
like the feeling of the air."
She explained that Gage, one of the guides, would return in case the
professor wished to remain in the heights.
"Well, I'll hang around till toward night, anyhow."
He went away for half an hour, and upon his return presented a cleanly
shaven face and a much less savage look and bearing. He hovered about
the door, apparently listening to Peggy's chatter, but having eyes only
for the wounded girl. He seized every slightest excuse to come in, and
his voice softened and his manner changed quite as markedly, and at
last, while Mrs. Adams was momentarily absent, he abruptly said:
"You are afraid of me; I can see it in your eyes. I know why. You think
you know who I am."
"Yes; I'm sure of it."
"What makes you think so?"
"I saw your picture in the railway station."
He regarded her darkly. "Well, I trust you. You won't give me away. I'm
not so sure of her." He nodded his head toward the open door.
"What would be the good of my betraying you?"
"Two thousand dollars' reward is a big temptation."
"Nonsense! If I told--it would be for other reasons. If I were to betray
your hiding-place it would be because society demands the punishment of
criminals."
"I'm not a criminal. I never lifted a cent from any man. I didn't get a
dollar from the express company--but I tried--I want you to know,
anyway," he continued, "that I wouldn't rob an individual--and I
wouldn't have tried this, only I was blind drunk and desperate. I needed
cash, and needed it bad."
"What did you need it for?" asked Alice, with a steady look.
He hesitated, and a flush crept across his brown face. His eyes wavered.
"Well, you see, the old home was mortgaged--and mother was sick--"
"Oh, bosh! Tell me the truth," she demanded. "The papers said you did it
for a girl. Why not be honest with me?"
"I will," he responded, impulsively. "Yes, that's right. I did it for a
girl--and afterward, when I was on the run, what did she do? Threw me
down! Told everything she knew--the little coyote--and here I am hunted
like a wolf on account of it." His face settled into savage lines for a
moment. But even as he sat thus another light came into his eyes. His
gaze took account of Alice's lips and the delicate, rounded whiteness of
her neck and chin. Her like he had never met before. The girls he had
known giggled; this one smiled. His sweetheart used slang and talked of
cattle like a herder, but this woman's voice, so sweet and flexible,
made delightfully strange music to his ears.
Peggy's return cut short his confidence, and while she was in the cabin
he sat in silence, his eyes always on the girl. He seized every
opportunity to speak to her, and each time his voice betrayed increasing
longing for her favor.
Mrs. Adams, who had conceived a liking for him, ordered him about as
freely as though he were a hired guide, and he made himself useful on
the slightest hint.
Alice, on her part, was profoundly interested in him, and whenever her
foot would permit her to think of anything else, she pitied him. In the
madness of his need, his love, he had committed an act which made all
the world his enemy, and yet, as she studied his form and expression,
her heart filled with regret. He was very attractive in the Western way,
with nothing furtive or evasive about him.
With a directness quite equal to his own she questioned him about his
reckless deed.
"Why did you do it?" she exclaimed in despair of his problem.
"I don't know. Hanged if I do, especially now. Since seeing you I think
I was crazy--crazy as a loon. If I'd done it for you, now, it wouldn't
have been so wild. You're worth a man's life. I'd die for you."
This outburst of passion, so fierce and wild, thrilled the girl; she
grew pale with comprehension of his mood. It meant that the sight of her
lying there had replaced the old madness with a new one. She was
unprepared for this furious outflaming of primitive admiration.
"You mustn't talk like that to me," she protested, as firmly as she
could.
He sensed her alarm. "Don't you be scared," he said, gently. "I didn't
mean to jar you. I only meant that I didn't know such women as you were
in the world. I'd trust you. You've got steady eyes. You'd stick by the
man that played his whole soul for you, I can see that. I come of pretty
good stock. I reckon that's why you mean so much to me. You get hold of
me in a way I can't explain."
"Why don't you fly?" she asked him. "Every minute you spend here
increases your danger. The men may return at any moment."
"That's funny, too," he answered, and a look of singular, musing
tenderness fell over his face. "I'd rather sit here with you and take my
chances."
"But you must not! You are imperiling your life for nothing."
"You're mistaken there. I'm getting something every minute--something
that will stay with me all my life. After I leave you it doesn't matter.
I came into the hills just naturally, the way the elk does. After that
girl reported me, life didn't count. Seeing you has changed me. It
matters a whole lot to me this minute, and when I leave you it's stormy
sunset for me, sure thing."
Alice gazed upon him with steady eyes, but her bosom rose and fell with
the emotion which filled her heart. She debated calling for Mrs. Adams,
but there was something in the droop of the outlaw's head, in the tone
of his voice, which arrested her. However sudden and frenzied his
admiration might seem to others, it was sincere and manly, of that she
was persuaded. Nevertheless, she was deeply perturbed.
"I wish you would go," she entreated at last, huskily. "I don't want to
see you taken. You have made yourself a criminal and I ought not to find
excuses for you, but I do. You're so young. It doesn't seem as if you
knew what you were doing. Why don't you ride away into the wild north
country and begin a new life somewhere? Can't you escape to Canada?"
He seized eagerly upon her suggestion. "Will you write to me if I do?"
"No, I cannot promise that."
"Why can't I play the ranger here and wait upon you till the men
return?"
"Because Professor Ward read that placard with me. He will know you
instantly. I wish you'd go. Gage may come at any moment now."
Peggy came in with disturbed look. "It looks like rain," she announced;
"the clouds are settling down all over the peaks."
The outlaw sprang up and went to the door. "It looked bad when I got
up," he said, as he studied the sky. "I guess we're in for trouble. It
may be snow."
His fears were soon realized. Rain began to fall in a thin drizzle, and
at four o'clock the first faint flakes of snow began to flash amid the
gray veils of the water-drops. The women looked at each other in alarm
as the cabin's interior darkened with the ominous shadow of the storm.
"I don't like this a bit," said Peggy, after a while. "This is no
mountain squall. I wish the men were here."
"It can't be anything that will last," replied Alice. "It isn't time for
the winter snows."
"I know," replied Peggy. "But it's snowing perfect feather beds now,
and no wind. Lucky this forest-ranger is here. The men may get lost in
this storm."
"Mercy! Don't speak of such a thing!" exclaimed Alice; but she knew,
just the same, that Ward and his party were high in the peaks, far, far
above the cabin, and that the storm there would be proportionately
fiercer. She listened with growing thankfulness to the outlaw's blows
upon the dry limbs of wood that he was chopping for the fire. He was
very capable and would not desert them--of that she felt assured.
As the man worked on, the women both came to keen realization of the
serious view he took of the storm. He mounted his horse and with his
rope dragged great bundles of fagots from the thickets. As he came up,
laden with one of his bundles of hard-won fuel, Mrs. Adams asked:
"You don't think it will keep this up, do you?"
"You never can tell what will happen in these mountains. It doesn't
generally snow much till later, but you can't bank on anything in this
range."
Alice called to him and he stepped inside. "What do you think we'd
better do?" she asked.
"There isn't a thing you can do, miss. It's just a case of stick it out.
It may let up by sundown; but, as it is, your party can't get back
to-night, and if you don't mind I'll camp down just outside the door and
keep the fire going."
"You will be a comfort to us," she replied, "but I feel that--that you
ought to be going. Isn't it dangerous for you? I mean you will be shut
in here."
"If I'm shut in, others are shut out," he answered, with a grim smile.
"My job is to keep fire." With these words he returned to his work of
breaking limbs from the dead firs.
Alice said: "If it does turn out as this--this ranger says--if the storm
keeps up, you mustn't let him sleep out in the snow."
"Of course not," said Peggy. "He can sleep inside. I trust him
perfectly--and, besides, you have your revolver."
Alice smiled a little, wondering how Peggy's trust would stand the
strain of a fuller knowledge concerning their guardian's stirring
career.
III
In spite of her knowledge of the mountains and her natural intrepidity
of character the wounded girl's heart sank as the snow and the night
closed down over the tiny cabin in its covert of firs. To be on foot in
such gloom, in the heart of such a wilderness, was sufficiently
awe-inspiring, but to be helpless on a hard bed was to feel the utter
inconsequence of humankind. "Suppose the storm blocks the trails so that
the men cannot return for a week? What will we do for food?"
Each time she heard the outlaw deliver his burden of wood her heart
warmed to him. He was now her comfort and very present stay. "If it
should happen that the trails become impassable he alone will stand
between us and death," she thought.
The outlaw came in to say, abruptly, "If you weren't hurt and if I
weren't in such a hurry I'd rather enjoy this."
He slashed his sombrero against his thigh as he spoke, and Mrs. Adams
answered his remark without knowledge of its inner meaning.
"You mustn't think of sleeping outdoors to-night--Mr.--?"
"Smith. I belong to the big family, the Smiths," he promptly replied.
"Why don't you take away that improvised table by the wall and make your
bed there?"
"We'll need the table," he responded in a matter-of-fact tone. "I'll
just crawl under it. What's giving me most trouble is the question of
grub. They didn't leave you any too much, did they?"
"But you can kill game, can't you?" asked Peggy.
"We're pretty high up for elk, and the blue grouse are scarce this year,
but I reckon I can jump a deer or a ground-hog. We won't starve,
anyway."
Alice perceived in his voice a note of exultation. He was glad of his
reprieve, and the thought of being her protector, at least for the
night, filled him with joy. She read his mind easily and the romance of
this relationship stirred her own heart. The dramatic possibilities of
the situation appealed to her. At any moment the men might return and
force her into the rôle of defender. On the other hand, they might be
confined for days together in this little cabin, and in this enforced
intimacy Peggy was sure to discover his secret and his adoration.
The little hovel was filled with the golden light of the blazing fagots,
and through the open door Alice could see the feathery crystals falling
in a wondrous, glittering curtain across the night. The stream roared in
subdued voice as though oppressed by the snows, and the shadow of the
fugitive as he moved about the fire had a savage, primal significance
which awed the girl into silence.
He was very deft in camp work, and cooked their supper for them almost
as well as they could have done it themselves, but he refused to sit at
the table with Peggy. "I'll just naturally stick to my slicker, if you
don't mind. I'm wet and my hands are too grimy to eat with a lady."
Alice continued to talk to him, always with an under-current of meaning
which he easily read and adroitly answered. This care, this double
meaning, drew them ever closer in spirit, and the girl took an
unaccountable pleasure in it.
After supper he took his seat in the open doorway, and the girl in the
bunk looked upon him with softened glance. She had no fear of him now;
on the contrary, she mentally leaned upon him. Without him the night
would be a terror, the dawn an uncertainty. The brave self-reliance of
his spirit appeared in stronger light as she considered that for weeks
he had been camping alone, and that but for this accident to her he
would be facing this rayless wintry night in solitude.
He began again to question her. "I wish you'd tell me more about
yourself," he said, his dark eyes fixed upon her. "I can't understand
why any girl like you should come up here with a bunch of rock-sharps.
Are you tied up to the professor?"
If Peggy expected her patient to resent this question she must have been
surprised, for Alice merely smiled as if at the impertinence of a child.
Mrs. Adams replied: "I can tell you that she is--and a very fortunate
girl her friends think her."
He turned to her with unmoved face. "You mean he's got money, I reckon."
"Money and brains and good looks and a fine position."
"That's about the whole works, ain't it--leastwise he will have it all
when he gets you. A man like that doesn't deserve what he's got. He's a
chump. Do you suppose I'd go off and leave you alone in a hole like
this with a smashed leg? I'd never bring you into such a country, in the
first place. And I certainly wouldn't leave you just to study a shack of
ice on the mountainside."
"I urged him to go, and, besides, Peggy is mistaken; we're not engaged."
"But he left you! That's what sticks in my crop. He can't be just right
in his head. If I had any chance of owning you I'd never let you out of
my sight. I wouldn't take a chance. I don't understand these city
fellows. I reckon their blood is thinned with ice-water. If I had you
I'd be scared every minute for fear of losing you. I'd be as dangerous
to touch as a silver-tip. If I had any place to take you I'd steal you
right now."
This was more than banter. Even Mrs. Adams perceived the passion
quivering beneath his easy, low-toned speech. He was in truth playing
with the conception of seizing this half-smiling, half-musing girl whose
helpless body was at once a lure and an inspiration. It was perfectly
evident that he was profoundly stirred.
And so was Alice. "What," she dared ask herself, "will become of this?"
IV
To the outlaw in the Rocky Mountain cabin in that stormy night it was in
every respect the climax of his life. As he sat in the doorway, looking
at the fire and over into the storm beyond, he realized that he was
shaken by a wild, crude lyric of passion. Here was, to him, the pure
emotion of love. All the beautiful things he had ever heard or read of
girlhood, of women, of marriage, rose in his mind to make this night an
almost intolerable blending of joy and sorrow, hope and despair.
To stay time in its flight, to make this hour his own, to cheat the law,
to hold the future at bay--these were the avid desires, the vague
resolutions, of his brain. So sure as the day came this happiness would
end. To-morrow he must resume his flight, resigning his new-found jewel
into the hands of another. To this thought he returned again and again,
each time with new adoration for the girl and added fury and hate
against his relentless pursuers and himself. He did not spare himself!
"Gad! what a fool I've been--and yet, if I had been less a fool I would
not be here and I would never have met her." He ended with a glance
toward Alice.
Then he arose, closed the door of the cabin, and stood without beside
the fire, so that the women might prepare for bed. His first thought of
suicide came to him. Why not wait with his love as long as
possible--stay till the law's hand was in the air above his head,
uplifted to strike, and then, in this last moment, die with this latest,
most glorious passion as climax to his career? To flee meant endless
fear, torment. To be captured meant defeat, utter and final dismay.
A knock upon the door startled him, and Peggy's voice cut short his
meditation. "You can come in now, Mr. Smith," she said.
The broad crystals were still falling thickly and the fire was hissing
and spluttering around a huge root which he had rolled upon it. In its
light the cabin stood hardly higher than a kennel, and yet it housed the
woman whose glance had transformed his world into something mystical. A
man of commonplace ancestry would have felt only an animal delight in
shelter and warmth, but this youth was stirred to a spiritual
exaltation. The girl's bosom, the rounded beauty of her neck, appealed
to him, but so also did the steady candor of her gaze and the sweet
courage of her lips. Her helplessness roused his protective instinct,
and her words, the sound of her voice, so precise, so alien-sweet,
filled him with bitter sadness, and he re-entered the house in such
spirit of self-abasement as he had never known before.
He lay down upon the hard floor in silence, his audacity gone, his
reckless courage deep-sunk in gloomy foreboding.
Alice, on her part, could not free her mind from the burden of his
crime. He was so young and so handsome, to be hunted like a noxious
beast! She had at the moment more concern of him than of Ward, and in
this lay a certain disloyalty. She sighed deeply as she thought of the
outlaw resuming his flight next day. Would it not be better for him to
sacrifice himself to the vengeance of the state at once and so end it?
What right had she to shield him from the law's demand? "He is a
criminal, after all. He must pay for his rash act."
She could not sleep, and when he rose to feed the fire she softly asked,
"Does it still storm?"
"No," he answered in a tone that voiced disappointment; "the sky is
clear."
"Isn't that cheering!" she exclaimed, still in the same hushed voice.
"For you," he replied. "For me it's another story." He felt the desire
for a secret consultation which moved her, and on his way back to his
corner he halted and fixed his eyes upon her in hungry admiration of her
fire-lit face. Then he spoke: "I should have pulled out before the storm
quit. They can trail me now. But no matter; I've known you."
She still kept to ambiguous speech. "Wouldn't it be better to give up
and take your--misfortune, and begin again? Professor Ward and I will do
all we can to help you."
"That's mighty white of you," he responded, slowly. "But I can't stand
the thought of confinement. I've been free as an Injun all my life.
Every way of the wind has been open to me. No; just as long as I can
find a wild spot I must keep moving. If it comes to 'hands up!' I take
the short cut." He tapped his revolver as he spoke.
"You mustn't do that," she entreated. "Promise me you won't think of
that!"
He made a stride toward her, but a movement of her companion checked
him.
"Is it morning?" Peggy sleepily asked.
"Not quite," answered the outlaw, "but it's time for me to be moving.
I'd like to hear from you some time," he said to Alice, and his voice
betrayed his sadness and tenderness. "Where could I reach you?"
She gave her address with a curious sense of wrong-doing.
He listened intently. "I'll remember that," he said, "when I've
forgotten everything else. And now--" He reached his hand to her and she
took it.
"Poor boy! I'm sorry for you!" she whispered.
Her words melted his heart. Dropping on his knees beside her bed, he
pressed her fingers to his lips, then rose. "I'll see you
again--somewhere--some time," he said, brokenly. "Good-by."
No sooner had the door closed behind the outlaw than Peggy rose in her
place beside Alice and voiced her mystification. "Now what is the
meaning of all that?"
"Don't ask me," replied the girl. "I don't feel like talking, and my
foot is aching dreadfully. Can't you get up and bathe it? I hate to ask
you--but it hurts me so."
Peggy sprang up and began to dress, puffing and whistling with
desperation. As soon as she was dressed she ran to the door and opened
it. All was still a world of green and white. "The fire is almost out,"
she reported, "and I can see Mr. Smith's horse's tracks."
V
It was about ten o'clock when a couple of horsemen suddenly rounded the
point of the forest and rode into the clearing. One of them, a slender,
elderly man with gray, curly beard and a skin like red leather,
dismounted and came slowly to the door, and though his eyes expressed
surprise at meeting women in such a place, he was very polite.
"Mornin', ma'am," he said, with suave inflection.
"Good morning," Peggy replied.
"Fine snowy mornin'."
"It is so." She was a little irritated by the fixed stare of his round,
gray eyes.
He became more direct. "May I ask who you are and how you happen to be
here, ma'am?"
"You may. I'm Mrs. Adams. I came up here with my husband, Professor
Adams."
"Where is he?"
"He has gone up the trail toward Frémont. He is a botanist."
"Is that his horse's tracks?"
Alice called sharply, "Peggy!"
Mrs. Adams turned abruptly and went in.
The stranger turned a slow gaze upon his companion. "Well, this beats
me. 'Pears like we're on the wrong trail, Bob. I reckon we've just
naturally overhauled a bunch of tourists."
"Better go in and see what's inside," suggested the other man, slipping
from his horse.
"All right. You stay where you are."
As he stepped to the door and rapped, Peggy opened it, but Alice took up
the inquiry.
"What do you want?" she asked, imperiously.
The man, after looking keenly about, quietly replied: "I'm wonderin' how
you women come to be here alone, but first of all I want to know who
made them tracks outside the door?"
Alice ignored the latter part of his question and set about satisfying
his wonder. "We came up here with a geological survey, but my horse fell
on my foot and I couldn't ride, so the men had to leave me behind--"
"Alone?" sharply interrogated the man.
"No; one man stayed."
"What was his name?"
"I don't know. We called him Smith."
"Was he the man that rode away this morning?"
"What does that matter to you?" asked the girl. "Why are you so
inquisitive?"
He maintained his calm tone of mild authority. "I'm the sheriff of Uinta
County, ma'am, and I'm looking for a man who's been hiding out in this
basin. I was trailin' him close when the snow came on yesterday, and I
didn't know but what these tracks was his."
Peggy turned toward Alice with an involuntary expression of
enlightenment, and the sheriff read it quickly. Slipping between the two
women, he said:
"Jest a minute, miss. What sort of a looking man was this Smith?"
Alice took up the story. "He was rather small and dark--wasn't he,
Peggy?"
Peggy considered. "I didn't notice him particularly. Yes, I think he
was."
The man outside called: "Hurry up, Cap. It's beginning to snow again."
The sheriff withdrew toward the door. "You're both lying," he remarked
without heat, "but it don't matter. We'll mighty soon overhaul this man
on the horse--whoever he is. If you've been harboring Hall McCord we'll
have to take you, too." With that threat as a farewell he mounted his
horse and rode away.
Peggy turned to Alice. "Did you know that young fellow was an outlaw?"
"Yes; I saw his picture and description on a placard in the railway
station. I recognized him at once."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Well, I liked his looks, and, besides, I wanted to find out if he were
really bad or only unfortunate."
"What has he done?"
"They say he held up a train!"
"Merciful Heavens! a train-robber! What's his real name?"
"The name on the placard was Hall McCord."
"And to think he was in the same room with us last night, and you were
chumming with him! I can't understand you. Are you sure he is the
robber?"
"Yes. He confessed to having tried to rob the express car."
"He seemed such a nice fellow. How did he come to do it?"
Alice concluded not to honor the other girl by bringing her into the
discussion. "Oh, it is hard to say. Need of money, I suppose. Poor boy,
I pity him."
"They'll get him, sure. They can follow his tracks as easy as anything.
I don't suppose I ought to say it, but I hope he'll get away. Don't
you?"
"Yes, I do!" was Alice's fervent response. "But see! it's snowing again.
It may cover his trail."
Peggy went to the door and gazed long and keenly at the peaks. When she
turned her face was solemn. "Allie, this is getting pretty serious for
us. If the men don't come to-day they may get snowed up entirely."
Alice stifled a wail. "Oh, if I were only able to walk I wouldn't mind.
I could help gather fuel and keep the fire going."
"There's plenty of wood for another day, but I'm worried about the men.
Suppose they are up on that glacier?"
"I'm not worried about them, but I know they are worrying about us.
They'll surely start back this morning; but they may not be able to
reach us till night."
The light of the morning had turned gray and feeble. The air was still
and the forest soundless, save now and then when a snow-laden branch
creaked with its burden.
There was something majestic as well as menacing in this all-pervading
solemn hush.
Peggy went about her duties as cheerfully as she could, but with a wider
knowledge of mountaineering than Alice had. She was at heart quite
terrified. "We're going to miss our nice outlaw," she remarked. "He was
so effective as a purveyor of wood." Then she went to the door and
looked out. "That sheriff will never keep his trail," she said.
"What's that?" suddenly asked Alice.
Both listened. "I hear it!" whispered Peggy. "It's a horse--there! Some
one spoke."
"It's Freeman!" Alice joyously called out. "Coohoo!"
No one replied, and Peggy, rushing to the door, met the young outlaw,
who appeared on the threshold with stern, set face.
"Who's been here since I left? Your party?"
Peggy recoiled in surprise and alarm, and Alice cried out, "Why did you
come back?"
"Two men on horseback have been here since I left. Who were they?" His
voice was full of haste.
"One of them said--he was the--the sheriff," Alice replied, faintly.
He smiled then, a kind of terrifying humor in his eyes. "Well, the
chances are he knew. They took my trail, of course, and left in a hurry.
Expected to overhaul me on the summit. They've got their work cut out
for 'em."
"How did they miss you?" the girl asked, huskily.
"Well, you see, when I got up where I could view the sky I was dead sure
we were in for a whooping big snow-storm, and I just couldn't leave you
girls up here all alone, so I struck right down the cañon in the bed of
the creek--the short cut. I don't like to back-trail, anyway; it's a bad
habit to get into. I like to leave as blind a trail as I can." His face
lighted up, grew boyish again. "They're sure up against a cold
proposition about now. They'll lose my track among the rocks, but
they'll figure I've hustled right on over into Pine Creek, and if they
don't freeze to death in the pass they'll come out at Glover's
hay-meadow to-morrow night. How's the wood-pile holding out?"
"Please go!" cried Alice. "Take your chance now and hurry away."
"I'm not used to leaving women in such a fix. The moment I saw that the
blizzard was beginning all over again I turned back."
"You haven't had any breakfast?" said Peggy.
"Nothing to speak of," he replied, dryly. "I wasn't thinking of
breakfast when I pulled out."
"I'll get you some."
Alice could not throw off the burden of his danger. "What will you do
when my people return?"
"I don't know--trust to luck."
"You are very foolish. They are certain to come to-day."
"They won't know who I am if you women don't give me away."
"I'm sure Freeman--Professor Ward--will know you, for he also saw the
placard."
"That's no sign. Suppose he does--maybe he won't think it is his job to
interfere. Anyway"--here his voice became decisive--"I won't leave you
in such a fix as this." His eyes spoke to her of that which his tongue
could not utter. "I wanted an excuse to come back, anyway," he
concluded. "No matter what comes now, my job is here to protect you."
She did not rebuke him, and Peggy--though she wondered at his tone--was
too grateful for his presence even to question Alice's motive in
permitting such remarks.
As for Alice, she felt herself more and more involved in the tangled
skein of his mysterious life. His sudden and reckless abandonment of the
old love which had ruined him, and the new and equally irrational regard
which he now professed for her, filled her with a delicious marveling.
He appealed to a woman's imagination. He had the spice of the unknown.
In her relationship with Ward there was no danger, no mystery--his
courtship narrowly escaped being commonplace. She had accepted his
attentions and expected to marry him, and yet the thought of the union
produced, at its warmest, merely a glow of comfort, a sense of security,
whereas the hint of being loved and protected by this Rob Roy of the
hills, this reckless Rough Rider of the wilderness, was instinct with
romance. Of course his devotion was a crazy folly, and yet, lying there
in her rough bunk, with an impenetrable wall of snow shutting out the
rest of the world, it was hard not to feel that this man and his future
had become an inescapable part of her life--a part which grew in danger
and in charm from hour to hour.
Full two miles above the level of her own home, surrounded by peaks
unscalably wild and lonely, deserted by those who should care for her,
was it strange that she should return this man's adoring gaze with
something of the primal woman's gratitude and submission?
The noon darkened into dusk as they talked, slowly, with long pauses,
and one by one the stirring facts of the rover's life came out. From his
boyhood he had always done the reckless thing. He had known no restraint
till, as a member of the Rough Riders, he yielded a partial obedience to
his commanders. When the excitement of the campaigns was over he had
deserted and gone back to the round-up wagon and the camp-fire.
In the midst of his confidences he maintained a reserve about his family
which showed more self-mastery than anything else about him. That he was
the black sheep of an honorable flock became increasingly evident. He
had been the kind of lad who finds in the West a fine field for
daredevil adventure. And yet there were unstirred deeps in the man. He
was curious about a small book which Alice kept upon her bed, and which
she read from time to time with serene meditation on her face.
"What is that?" he asked.
"My Bible."
"Can I see it?"
"Certainly."
He took it carefully and read the title on the back, then turned a few
of the leaves. "I'm not much on reading," he said, "but I've got a
sister that sends me tracts, and the like." He returned to the fly-leaf.
"Is this your name?"
"Yes."
"'Alice Mansfield,'" he read; "beautiful name! 'New York City'! That's
pretty near the other side of the world to me." He studied the address
with intent look. "I'd like to buy this book. How much will you take for
it?"
"I'll trade it for your weapon," she replied.
He looked at her narrowly. "You mean something by that. I reckon I
follow you. No, I can't do that--not now. If I get into business over
the line I'll disarm, but in this country a fellow needs to be
protected. I want this book!"
"For the fly-leaf?"
He smiled in return. "You've hit it."
She hesitated. "I'll give you the book if you'll promise to read it."
He clapped the covers together and put the volume in his pocket. "It's
mine! I'll read every word of it, if it takes an age, and here's my hand
on it."
She gave him her hand, and in this clasp something came to her from his
clutching fingers which sobered her. She drew her hand away hastily and
said: "If you read that book--and think about it--it will change your
whole world."
He, too, lost his brightness. "Well, I'm not so anxious to keep up this
kind of life. But if anybody changes me it will be you."
"Hush!" she warned with lifted finger.
He fell back, and after a little silence went out to wait upon the fire.
"It seems to me," said Peggy, reprovingly, "that you're too gracious
with this mountaineer; he's getting presumptuous."
"He doesn't mean to be. It's his unsophisticated way. Anyhow, we can't
afford to be captious to our host."
"That's true," admitted Peggy.
The night shut down with the snow still falling, but with a growing
chill in the air.
"The flakes are finer," the outlaw announced, as he came in a little
later. "That is a good sign. It is growing colder and the wind is
changing. It will pinch hard before sun-up, and the worst of it, there's
no way to warm the cabin. We can't have the door open to-night. I'm
worried about you," he said to Alice. "If only those chumps had left a
man-size ax!"
The two women understood that this night was to bring them into closer
intimacy with the stranger than before. He could not remain outdoors,
and though they now knew something of his desperate character, they had
no fear of him. He had shown his chivalry. No one could have been more
considerate of them, for he absented himself at Peggy's request
instantly and without suggestion of jocularity, and when he came in and
found them both in bed he said:
"I reckon I'll not make down to-night--you'll need all your blankets
before morning"; and thereupon, without weighing their protests,
proceeded to spread the extra cover over them.
Alice looked up at him in the dim light of the candle and softly asked:
"What will you do? You will suffer with cold!"
"Don't worry about me; I'm an old campaigner. I still have a blanket to
wrap around my shoulders. I'll snooze in a corner. If you hear me moving
around don't be worried; I'm hired to keep the fire going even if it
doesn't do us much good inside."
The chill deepened. The wind began to roar, and great masses of snow,
dislodged from the tall trees above the cabin, fell upon its roof with
sounds like those of soft, slow footfalls. Strange noises of creaking
and groaning and rasping penetrated to Alice's ears, and she cowered
half in fear, half in joy of her shelter and her male protector. Men
were fine animals for the wild.
She fell asleep at last, seeing her knight's dim form propped against
the wall, wrapped in a blanket Indian-wise, his head bowed over the book
she had given him, a candle smoking in his hand.
She woke when he rose to feed the fire, and the current of cold air
which swept in caused her to cover her mouth with the blanket. He turned
toward her.
"It's all over for sure, this time," he said. "It's cold and goin' to be
colder. How are you standing it? If your feet are cold I can heat a
stone. How is the hurt foot?" He drew near and looked down upon her
anxiously.
"Very much easier, thank you."
"I'm mighty glad of that. I wish I could take the pain all on myself."
"You have troubles of your own," she answered, as lightly as she could.
"That's true, too," he agreed in the same tone. "So many that a little
one more or less wouldn't count."
"Do you call my wound little?"
"I meant the foot was little--"
She checked him.
"I didn't mean to make light of it. It sure is no joke." He added, "I've
made a start on the book."
"How do you like it?"
"I don't know yet," he answered, and went back to his corner.
She snuggled under her warm quilts again, remorseful, yet not daring to
suggest a return of the blanket he had lent. When she woke again he was
on his feet, swinging his arms silently. His candle had gone out, but a
faint light was showing in the room.
"Is it morning?" she asked.
"Just about," he replied, stretching like a cat.
The dawn came gloriously. The sun in far-splashing splendor slanted from
peak to peak, painting purple shadows on the snow and warming the boles
of the tall trees till they shone like fretted gold. The jays cried out
as if in exultation of the ending of the tempest, and the small stream
sang over its icy pebbles with resolute cheer. It was a land to fill a
poet with awe and ecstatic praise--a radiant, imperial, and merciless
landscape. Trackless, almost soundless, the mountain world lay waiting
for the alchemy of the sun.
VI
The morning was well advanced when a far, faint halloo broke through the
silence of the valley. The ranger stood like a statue, while Peggy cried
out:
"It's one of our men!"
Alice turned to the outlaw with anxious face. "If it's the sheriff stay
in here with me. Let me plead for you. I want him to know what you've
done for us."
The look that came upon his face turned her cold with fear. "If it is
the sheriff--" He did not finish, but she understood.
The halloo sounded nearer and the outlaw's face lightened. "It's one of
your party. He is coming up from below."
Impatiently they waited for the new-comer to appear, and though he
seemed to draw nearer at every shout, his progress was very slow. At
last the man appeared on the opposite bank of the stream. He was covered
with snow and stumbling along like a man half dead with hunger and
fatigue.
"Why, it's Gage!" exclaimed Peggy.
It was indeed the old hunter, and as he drew near his gaunt and
bloodless face was like that of a starved and hunted animal. His first
word was an anxious inquiry, "How are ye?"
"All well," Peggy answered.
"And the crippled girl?"
"Doing nicely. Thanks to Mr. Smith here, we did not freeze. Are you
hungry?"
The guide looked upon the outlaw with glazed, protruding eyes. "Hungry?
I'm done. I've been wallerin' in the snow all night and I'm just about
all in."
"Where are the others?" called Alice from her bed.
Gage staggered to the door. "They're up at timber-line. I left them day
before yesterday. I tried to get here, but I lost my bearin's and got on
the wrong side o' the creek. 'Pears like I kept on the wrong side o' the
hogback. Then my horse gave out, and that set me afoot. I was plum
scared to death about you folks. I sure was."
Peggy put some food before him and ordered him into silence. "Talk
later," she said.
The outlaw turned to Alice. "That explains it. Your Professor Ward
trusted to this man to take care of you and stayed in camp. You can't
blame him."
Gage seemed to have suddenly become old, almost childish. "I never was
lost before," he muttered, sadly. "I reckon something must have went
wrong in my head. 'Pears like I'm gettin' old and foolish."
Alice exchanged glances with the outlaw. It was plain that he was in no
danger from this dazed and weakened old man who could think of nothing
but the loss of his sense of direction.
As the day advanced the sun burned clear. At noon it was warm enough to
leave the door open, and Alice, catching glimpses of the flaming world
of silver and purple and gold, was filled with a desire to quit her dark
corner.
"I'm going to get up!" she exclaimed. "I won't lie here any longer."
"Don't try it!" protested Peggy.
"I'm going to do it!" she insisted. "I can hobble to the door if you
help me."
"I'll carry you," said the outlaw. "Wrap her up and I'll get her a
seat."
And so, while Mrs. Adams wrapped her patient in a blanket, the outlaw
dragged one of the rough, ax-hewn benches to the door and covered it
with blankets. He put a stone to heat and then re-entered just as Alice,
supported by Peggy, was setting foot to the floor. Swiftly,
unhesitating, and very tenderly he put his arms about her and lifted
her to the bench in the doorway before the fire.
It was so sweet to feel that wondrous body in his arms. His daring to do
it surprised her, but her own silent acquiescence, and the shiver of
pleasure which came with the embarrassment of it, confused and troubled
her.
"That's better," he said as he dropped to the ground and drew the
blankets close about her feet. "I'll have a hot stone for you in a
minute."
He went about these ministrations with an inward ecstasy which shone in
his eyes and trembled in his voice. But as she furtively studied his
face and observed the tremor of his hands in tender ministration she
lost all fear of him.
After three days in her dark corner of the hut the sunshine was
wondrously inspiring to the girl, although the landscape on which she
gazed was white and wild as December. It was incredible that only a few
hours lay between the flower-strewn valley of her accident and this
silent and desolate, yet beautiful, wilderness of snow. And so, as she
looked into the eyes of the outlaw, it seemed as though she had known
him from spring to winter, and her wish to help him grew with every hour
of their acquaintanceship.
She planned his defense before Ward and Adams. "When they know how kind
and helpful he has been they can but condone his one rash deed," she
argued in conclusion.
He was sitting at her feet, careless of time, the law, content with her
nearness, and mindful only of her comfort, when a distant rifle-shot
brought him to his feet with the swiftness of the startled stag.
"That's your expedition," he said, "or some one who needs help."
Again the shots rang out, _one_, _two_, _three_--_one_, _two_, _three_.
"It's a signal! It's your party!"
Peggy uttered a cry of joy and rushed outside, but Alice turned an
unquiet gaze on the outlaw. "You'd better fly!"
"What is the use?" he answered, bitterly. "The snow is so deep there is
no show to cross the range, and my horse is weak and hungry."
Gage appeared at the door. "Lemme take your gun, stranger; I want to
answer the signal."
"Where's your own?"
"I left it on my horse," the old man answered, sheepishly.
The young fellow looked at Alice with a keen glitter in his eyes. "I'll
make answer myself," he said; "I'm very particular about my barkers."
Alice, as she heard his revolver's answering word leap into the silent
air and bound and rebound along the cliffs, was filled with a sudden
fear that the sheriff might be guided back by the sound--and this indeed
the fugitive himself remarked as he came back to his seat beside her.
"If he's anywhere on this side of the divide he'll sure come back. But
I've done my best. The Lord God Almighty has dropped the snow down here
and shut me in with you, and I'm not complaining."
There was no answer to be made to this fatalism of utterance, and none
to the worship of his eyes.
"Lift me up!" commanded Alice; "I want to look out and see if I can see
anybody."
The outlaw took her in his arms, supporting her in the threshold in
order that she might see over the vast sea of white. But no human being
was to be seen.
"Take me back--inside," Alice said to the man who had her in his arms.
"I feel cold here."
Once again, and with a feeling that it was, perhaps, for the last time,
he carried her back to her bench and re-enveloped her in her blankets.
"Stay here with me now," she whispered to him, as she looked up into his
face.
And the outlaw, filled with gladness and pride, threw himself on the
floor beside her.
VII
The signal pistol-shots came nearer and nearer, but very slowly; and as
the outlaw sat beside Alice's couch he took her Bible from his pocket
and said:
"I made a stab at reading this last night."
She smiled. "I saw you. How did you like it?"
"I didn't exactly get aboard someway."
"What was the trouble?"
"I guess it was because I kept thinking of you--and my own place in the
game. Three days ago I didn't care what became of me, but now I want a
chance. I don't see any chance coming my way, but if I had it I'd make
use of it." He looked at her a moment in silence, then with sudden
intensity broke forth. "Do you know what you mean to me? When I look at
your face and eyes I'm crazy hungry for you."
She shrank from him and called to Mrs. Adams.
He went on. "Oh, you needn't be afraid. I just wanted to say it, that's
all. If there was only some other way to straighten myself--but I can't
go to jail. I can't stand up to be clipped like a poodle-dog, then put
on striped clothing and walk lock-step--I can't do it! They'll put me in
for ten years. I'd be old when I got out." He shuddered. "No, I won't do
that! I'd rather die here in the hills."
She grew white in sympathy. "It is a frightful price to pay for one
insane act, and yet--crime should be punished."
"I'm getting my punishment now," he replied, with darkly brooding
glance. "There's a good old man and two women, my sisters, waitin' for
me down the slope. If I could reach home I'd try to live straight, but
it's a long and dangerous trail between here and there."
Peggy now ran into the cabin. "It's the expedition," she announced. "I
can see Freeman."
"I reckon this is where I get off," said the outlaw in a tone of mingled
relief and dismay.
"No, no!" Alice entreated. "Stay till Freeman comes. He will help you.
Let me explain to him. I know he will not betray you."
He looked at her again with that intent, longing worship in his eyes,
and answered, "I accept the chance for the sake of one more hour with
you."
The outlaw stepped to the door, and he saw a man at the head of his
train mid-leg deep in snow, leading his horse, breaking the way for his
followers, who were all on foot, crawling, stumbling, and twisting among
the down-timber, unmindful of the old trail.
At sight of that big and resolute leader, with flowing black beard and
ruddy face, the outlaw was filled with jealous sadness. To find Ward a
man of superb physical prowess, the kind that measures peaks for the fun
of it, was disturbing, and without defining his feeling he was plunged
into melancholy musing. And when later Ward entered, and, stooping over
the couch, kissed Alice, the end of his idyl seemed to him announced.
In the bustle of the moment, in the interchange of anxious, hurried
inquiries, the outlaw stood aside in the corner, unnoticed, till Alice
caught Ward's arm and said:
"Freeman, this is Mr. Smith, to whom we owe a great deal. He has taken
the utmost care of us. We would have frozen but for him."
Ward shook hands with the outlaw, but wonderingly asked of Alice, "But
where was Gage?"
The outlaw answered, "Gage got lost and only turned up a couple of hours
ago."
Ward turned to Alice in horror. "Good Lord! And you were here
alone--crippled--in this storm?"
"No--that's what I'm telling you. Mr. Smith came and took care of us. He
brought our wood, he cooked for us, he kept our fire going. He gave up
his bed, even his blankets, for us. You should be very generous to him."
Ward again reached a hearty hand. "I'm tremendously obliged to you."
The outlaw quailed under all this praise. "There was mighty little to
do," he answered. "I only shared my fire with them."
Ward studied him closer. "Haven't we met before?"
"No, I reckon not."
"I'm quite sure I've seen you somewhere. What are you doing up in here?"
Alice interposed. "What are we going to do?"
Ward turned to the outlaw. "What would you advise? I've only had one
idea, and that was to reach this cabin. Now what would you do?"
The outlaw was ready. "I would send a part of the men with the horses
down the valley to grass and I'd wait here till Miss Mansfield is able
to ride."
"Will this snow go off?"
"That's my notion."
"It's certain we can't camp here--the horses must have grass."
"I'll be able to ride in a day or two," Alice said, bravely.
"We could frame up a portable bed and carry you," suggested the outlaw;
"but it can't be done to-night, so you'd better send your outfit down to
the marsh to camp. The horses are worn out and so are the men."
"Will you guide them to grass and help them find shelter?"
The outlaw hesitated for an instant, and Alice interposed: "No, no! let
Gage do that. I want Mr. Smith to remain here."
Ward perceived in her entreaty something of anxiety and fear, and after
the men and horses had started down the slope he turned to the outlaw
and said: "I'm mighty grateful to you, Mr. Smith. It must have surprised
you to find these women here."
The outlaw dryly replied, "It did!"
Alice added: "It was in the middle of the night, too; but Mr. Smith was
very nice about it. He slept outdoors without a word of complaint."
Ward had figured the situation to conclusion: "Smith is a poacher," and
though he had a savage dislike of these illicit game-slaughterers, he
could not but be glad of the presence of this particular outlaw, and
resolved to overlook his trade in gratitude for his cabin and service.
The outlaw helped Adams and Ward to clear away the snow for a tent, and
Alice, seeing the three men thus amicably joined in her defense, could
not find it in her heart to condemn one of them as a criminal. Here in
the white isolation of the peaks the question of crime and its
punishment became personal. To have this man's fate in her hand was like
grasping the executioner's sword for herself.
"If women had to punish criminals themselves, with their own hand," she
asked, "how many of them would do it?"
Peggy came in and whispered to her: "No one else seems to have
recognized him. He may get away safely. I hope he will. Shall we tell
the men who he is?"
"Yes, we shall have to do that soon, but I'm afraid they won't take the
sentimental view of him that we do. I tremble to think of what they will
do when they know."
Ward explained to Adams: "Our friend Smith here is a poacher--but as our
account stands I don't feel it my duty to report him, do you?"
"No; Peggy tells me he has acted like a gentleman all through."
In this spirit they made themselves comfortable for the night.
The sun set gloriously, but the air bit ever sharper, and while Peggy
went about her cooking, assisted by her husband and the outlaw, Alice
pulled Ward down to her bedside and hurriedly began:
"You remember that placard we read in the station--the one about the
train-robber?"
"Yes!"
"Well, this is the man--our Mr. Smith."
Ward looked at her a moment with reflective eyes, then exclaimed:
"You're right! I thought I'd seen him somewhere."
"And the sheriff is after him. He was here yesterday morning."
"Here?"
"Yes. You see, Mr. Smith stayed with us till he thought the storm was
over, then rode away, intending to cross the divide, but when the snow
began again he turned back. He said he couldn't leave us alone. He left
us just before dawn, and four or five hours afterward the sheriff came.
Of course he saw the poor fellow's trail and instantly set off after
him."
"But why didn't they meet?"
"Because Mr. Smith came back a different way and then the blizzard came
on and covered up his tracks. He thinks the sheriff has gone on over the
divide. You must help him, Freeman. Help him to get away and find some
way to give him a start. Nobody could have been more considerate, and I
can't see him taken by these cold-blooded men who want that two thousand
dollars' reward. He really could have escaped, only for us. He came back
to protect us."
Ward pondered. "The problem is not so easy of solution. A train robbery
is a pretty serious matter. I'm very grateful to him, but to connive at
his escape is itself a punishable act. Why did you tell me? I could have
passed it over--"
"Because I'm afraid the sheriff may come back at any moment."
Ward's brow was troubled. "I could ignore his deed and pretend not to
know who he is, but definitely to assist a bandit to escape is a very
serious matter."
"I know it is; but remember he gave up his chance to cross the divide in
order to keep us from suffering."
"I wish you hadn't told me," he repeated, almost in irritation. "If the
sheriff only keeps on over the range Smith can take care of himself."
As the outlaw re-entered the cabin Alice acknowledged in him something
worth a woman to love. In the older man was power, security, moral,
mental, and physical health, the qualities her reason demanded in a
husband; but in the other was grace and charm, something wildly
admirable. He allured as the warrior, intrepid and graceful, allured
the maiden, as the forest calls the householder. Something primordial
and splendid and very sweet was in her feeling toward him. There could
be no peaceful wedlock there, no security of home, no comfort, only the
exquisite thrill of perilous union, the madness of a few short
weeks--perhaps only a few swift days of self-surrender, and then,
surely, disaster and despair. To yield to him was impossible, and yet
the thought of it was tantalizingly sweet.
When she looked toward Ward she perceived herself sitting serenely in
matronly grace behind a shining coffee-urn in a well-ordered, highly
civilized breakfast-room, facing a most considerate husband who
nevertheless was able to read the morning paper in her presence. When
she thought of life with the outlaw all was dark, stormy, confused, and
yet the way was lit by his adoring eyes. A magical splendor lay in the
impulse. His love, sudden as it seemed, was real--she was certain of
that. She felt the burning power, the conjury of its flame, and it made
her future with Ward, at the moment, seem dull and drab.
"Why, why could not such a man and such a passion come with the orderly
and the ethical?" she asked herself.
At the best he was fitted only for the mine or the ranch, and the
thought of life in a lonely valley, even with his love to lighten it,
made her shudder. On one side she was a very practical and far-seeing
woman. The instant she brought her reason to bear on the problem she
perceived that any further acquaintance with this man was dangerous.
They must part here at this moment, and yet she could not let him go
without in some way making him feel her wish to help him.
VIII
Ward and the outlaw were discussing plans for getting out of the basin
when Adams came in to say, "A couple of other weary wanderers are
turning up."
"The sheriff!" instantly exclaimed Alice, her face whitening in swift
dismay.
In that moment the forester was transformed. With a weapon in his hand
he stood aside, his eyes on the door, a scowl of battle on his face. He
resembled a wolf with bared fangs ready to die desperately.
Ward, quick to read his purpose, interposed. "Wait!" he commanded. "Stay
here; I'll see them. Don't be rash."
As he passed out into the firelight the outlaw, without relaxing his
vigilance, said in a low voice, "Well, girl, I reckon here's where I say
good night."
"Don't resist," she pleaded. "Don't fight, please! Please! What is the
use? Oh, it's too horrible! If you resist they will kill you!"
There was no fear in his voice as he replied: "They may not; I'm handy
with my gun."
She was breathless, chilled by the shadow of the impending tragedy. "But
that would be worse. To kill them would only stain your soul the deeper.
You must not fight!"
"It's self-defense."
"But they are officers of the law."
"No matter; I will not be taken alive."
She moaned in her distress, helplessly wringing her hands. "O God! Why
should I be witness of this?"
"You won't be. If this is the sheriff I am going to open that door and
make a dash. What happens will happen outside. You need not see it. I'm
sorry you have to hear it. But I give you my word--if you must hear
something I will see to it that you hear as little as possible."
The latch clicked--he stepped back, and again stood waiting, silent,
rigid, ready to act, murderous in design.
Mrs. Adams entered quickly, and, closing the door behind her, hurriedly
whispered: "It's the sheriff. Hide! The men will hold them as long as
they can. Hide!"
The outlaw looked about and smiled. "Where?" he asked, almost
humorously. "I'm not a squirrel."
"Under the bunk. See, there is room."
He shook his head. "No, I refuse to crawl. I won't sneak. I never have.
I take 'em as they come."
"For my sake," pleaded Alice. "I can't bear to see you killed. Hide
yourself. Go to the door," she said to Peggy. "Don't let them in. Tell
Freeman--" She rose and stood unsteadily, forgetful of her own pain.
Mrs. Adams urged her to lie down, but she would not. The moments passed
in suspense almost too great to be endured.
"Listen!" commanded the outlaw. "They're coming in."
As they harkened Ward's voice rose clearly. "You can't miss the camp,"
he was saying, as if speaking to some one at a distance. "Just keep the
trail in the snow and you'll find them. I'm sorry we can't put you
up--but you see how it is."
"They're going!" exclaimed Alice. "Thank God, they're going!"
"It can't be they'll go without searching the shack," the fugitive
muttered, in no measure relaxing his attitude of watchful menace.
"They're playing a game on us."
Again the latch clicked, and this time it was Ward who confronted the
outlaw's revolver mouth.
"It's all right," Ward called, instantly understanding the situation.
"They're gone. The old man was about played out, for they've been
fighting snow all day, but I told him we couldn't take care of them here
and they have gone on down to the camp. He thinks you got over the
divide. You are all right for the present."
"They'll come back," replied the other. "It only puts the deal off a few
hours. They'll return, trailin' the whole camp after them. What can I
do? My horse is down there in the herd."
"That's bad," exclaimed Ward. "I wonder if I could get him for you?"
"If I had him he's weak and hungry, and the high places are feet deep in
drifts. It doesn't signify. I'm corralled any way you look at it, and
the only thing left is to fight."
"There's our trail to the glacier," Ward musingly suggested; "it's a
pretty deep furrow--you might make it that way."
A spark of light leaped into the man's eyes. "How far up does it run?
Where does it end?"
"In Glacier Basin, just at timber-line."
The outlaw pondered, speaking his thought aloud. "From there across to
the Indian reservation there isn't a wolf track.... It's a man's job
crossing there, almost sure death, but it's my only show." He had
replaced his weapon in his belt and was weighing his chance, his eyes
fixed on Alice's face. To leave this shelter, this warm circle of light,
this sweet girlish presence, and plunge into the dark, the cold and the
snow, was hard. No one but a man of unconquerable courage would have
considered it. This man was both desperate and heroic. "It's my only
chance and I'll take it," he said, drawing his breath sharply. "I'll
need your prayers," he added, grimly, with eyes that saw only the girl.
"If I fail you'll find me up there. I carry my sleeping-powder with me."
He touched his revolver as he spoke.
Alice's mind, sweeping out over that desolate expanse, had a moment's
vision of him as he would appear toiling across those towering cliffs,
minute as a fly, and her heart grew small and sick.
"Why don't you stay and take your lawful punishment?" she asked. "You
will surely perish up there in the cold. Wait for sunlight at least."
"I am ready to stay and to die here, near you," he replied, with a
significant glance.
"No, no, not that!" she cried out. "Talk to him, Freeman; persuade him
to give himself up. I've done my best to influence him. Don't let him
uselessly sacrifice himself."
Ward perceived something hidden in her voice, some emotion which was
more than terror, deeper than pity, but his words were grave and kindly.
"It is a frightful risk, young man, but the trail to the glacier is your
only open road. The sheriff is tired. Even if he finds out that you are
here he may not come back to-night. He will know you cannot escape. You
can't stir without leaving a telltale mark. If you could only get below
the snow on the west slope--"
"Whichever trail I take it's good-by," interrupted the fugitive, still
addressing Alice. "If there was anything to live for--if you'd say the
word!"--she knew what he meant--"I'd stay and take my schooling." He
waited a moment, and she, looking from his asking face to Ward's calm
brow, could not utter a sound. What could she promise? The outlaw's tone
softened to entreaty. "If you'll only say I may see you again on the
other side of the range 'twill keep my heart warm. Can't you promise me
that? It's mighty little."
He was going to almost certain death, and she could not refuse this.
"You may write to me--" she faltered. "You know my address--"
He struck the little book in his pocket. "Yes, I have it safe. Then I
may see you again?"
Alice, supported by Mrs. Adams, unsteadily rose. "Yes, yes, only go.
They are coming back! I can hear them."
He took her hand. "Good-by," he said, chokingly. "You've given me
heart." He bent swiftly and kissed her forehead. "I'll win! You'll hear
from me."
"Hurry!" she wildly cried. "I hear voices!"
He caught up his hat and opened the door. As he faced them his lips were
resolute and his eyes glowing. "It's only good night," he said, and
closed the door behind him.
"Hold!" shouted Ward. "You must take some food." He tore the door open.
"Wait--"
Even as he spoke a pistol-shot resounded through the night. It cut
through the deathly silence of the forest like a spiteful curse, and was
answered by another--then, after a short pause, a swift-tearing volley
followed.
"They are killing him!" cried Alice.
* * * * *
They brought him in and laid him at her feet. He had requested this, but
when she bent to peer into his face he had gone beyond speech. Limp and
bloody and motionless he lay, with eyes of unfathomable regret and
longing, staring up at her, and as the men stood about with uncovered
heads she stooped to him, forgetful of all else; knelt to lay her hand
upon his brow.
"Poor boy! Poor boy!" she said, her eyes blinded with tears.
His hand stirred, seeking her own, and she took it and pressed it in
both of hers. "Jesus be merciful!" she prayed, softly.
He smiled faintly in acknowledgment of her presence and her prayer, and
in this consolation died.
Wonderingly, with imperious frown, she rose and confronted the sheriff.
"How is it that you are unhurt? Did he not fight?"
"That's what I can't understand, miss," he answered. "He fired only
once, and then into the air. 'Pears like he wanted to die."
Alice understood. His thought was of her. "You shall hear as little as
possible," he had said.
"And you killed him--as he surrendered," she exclaimed, bitterly, and
turned toward the dead man, whose face was growing very peaceful now,
and with a blinding pain in her eyes she bent and laid a final caressing
hand upon his brow.
As she faced the sheriff again she said, with merciless severity: "I'd
rather be in his place than yours." Then, with a tired droop in her
voice, she appealed to Ward: "Take me away from here. I'm tired of this
savage world."
THE LEASER
_--the tenderfoot hay-roller from the
prairies--still tries his luck in some
abandoned tunnel--sternly toiling for
his sweetheart far away._
VIII
THE LEASER
The only passenger in the car who really interested me was a burly young
fellow who sat just ahead of me, and who seemed to be something more
than a tourist, for the conductor greeted him pleasantly and the
brakeman shook his hand. We were climbing to Cripple Creek by way of the
Short Line, but as "the sceneries" were all familiar to me, I was able
to study my fellow-passengers.
The man before me was very attractive, although he was by no
interpretation a gentle type. On the contrary, he looked to be the rough
and ready American, rough in phrase and ready to fight. His corduroy
coat hunched about his muscular shoulders in awkward lines, and his
broad face, inclining to fat, was stern and harsh. He appeared to be
about thirty-five years of age.
The more I studied him the more I hankered to know his history. The
conductor, coming through, hailed him with:
"Well, gettin' back, eh? Had a good trip?"
Once or twice the miner--he was evidently a miner--leaned from the
window and waved his hat to some one on the crossing, shouted a cheery,
"How goes it?" and the brakeman asked:
"How did you find the East?"
From all this I deduced that the miner had been away on a visit to New
York, or Boston, or Washington.
As we rose the air became so cool, so clear, so crisp, that we seemed to
be entering a land of eternal dew and roses, and as our car filled with
the delicious scent of pine branches and green grasses, the miner, with
a solemn look on his face, took off his hat and, turning to me, said,
with deep intonation:
"This is what I call _air_. This is good for what ails me."
"You've been away," I stated rather than asked.
"I've been back East--back to see the old folks--first time in eleven
years."
"What do you call East?" I pursued.
"Anything back of the Missouri River," he replied, smiling a little. "In
this case it was Michigan--near Jackson."
"Citizen of the camp?" I nodded up the cañon.
"Yes, I'm workin' a lease on Bull Hill."
"How's the old camp looking?"
"All shot to pieces. Half the houses empty, and business gone to pot.
It's a purty yellow proposition now."
"You don't say! It was pretty slow when I was there last, but I didn't
suppose it had gone broke. What's the matter of it?"
"Too many monopolists. All the good properties have gone into one or two
hands. Then these labor wars have scared operators away. However, I'm
not complainin'. I've made good on this lease of mine." He grinned
boyishly. "I've been back to flash my roll in the old man's face. You
see, I left the farm rather sudden one Sunday morning eleven years ago,
and I'd never been back." His face changed to a graver, sweeter
expression. "My sister wrote that mother was not very well and kind o'
grievin' about me, so, as I was making good money, I thought I could
afford to surprise the old man by slapping him on the back. You see,
when I left, I told him I'd never darken his door again--you know the
line of talk a boy hands out to his dad when he's mad--and for over ten
years I never so much as wrote a line to any of the family."
As he mused darkly over this period, I insinuated another question.
"What was the trouble?"
"That's just it! Nothing to warrant anything more than a cuss-word, and
yet it cut me loose. I was goin' around now and then with a girl the old
man didn't like--or rather, my old man and her old man didn't
hitch--and, besides, her old man was a kind of shiftless cuss, one o'
these men that raised sparrows in his beard, and so one Sunday morning,
as I was polishin' up the buggy to go after Nance, who but dad should
come out and growl:
"'Where ye goin' with that buggy?'
"'None o' your dam' business,' I snaps back, hot as hell in a secunt,
'but just to touch you up, I'll tell you. I'm goin' over to see Nance
McRae.'
"Well, sir, that set him off. 'Not with my horses,' says he, and,
grabbin' the buggy by the thills, he sent it back into the shed. Then he
turned on me:
"'If you want to see that girl, you walk! I won't have you usin' my
tired animals to cart such trash--'
"I stopped him right there. He was a big, raw-boned citizen, but I was a
husky chunk of a lad myself and ready to fight.
"'Don't you speak a word against Nance,' I says, 'for if you do I'll
waller ye right here and now; and as for your horse and buggy, you may
keep 'em till the cows come home. Here's where I get off. You'll never
see me again.'
"Gee! I was hot! I went in, packed up my grip, and hit the first train
for the West."
"Just as thousands of other angry boys have done," I said, realizing to
the minutest detail this scene. "They never think of going East."
"No, the West is the only place for a man in trouble--at least, so it
seems to me."
"Where did you go? What did you do?"
He mused again as if recalling his struggles. "I dropped off in Kansas
and got a job on a farm and fussed around there for the fall and winter.
Then I got the minin' fever and came to Victor. Of course, there wasn't
anything for a grass-cutter like me to do in the hills but swing a pick.
I didn't like underground work, and so I went on a ranch again. Well, I
kept tryin' the minin' game off and on, prospectin' here and there, and
finally I got into this leasin' business, and two years ago I secured a
lease on the 'Red Cent' and struck it good and plenty. Oh, I don't
intend to say it's any Portland--but it pays me and I've been stackin'
up some few dollars down at the Commercial Bank, and feelin' easy."
The man's essential sturdiness of character came out as he talked, and
his face lost the heavy and rather savage look it had worn at first. I
had taken a seat beside him by this time and my sincere interest in his
affairs seemed to please him. He was eager to talk, as one who had been
silent for a long time.
I led him back to the point of most interest to me. "And so at last you
relented and went home? I hope you found the old folks both alive? Did
they know where you were?"
"Yes. My sister saw my name in a paper--when I made my stake--and
wrote, and mother used to send word--used to mention dad occasionally."
He laughed silently. "It sure is great fun, this goin' back to the home
pasture with a fat wad in your pants pocket--Lord! I owned the whole
town."
"Tell me about it!" I pleaded.
He was ready to comply. "Our house stood near the railway, about four
miles this side of Jackson, and you bet I had my head out of the winder
to see if it was all there. It was. It looked just the same, only the
old man had painted it yellow--and seemed like I could see mother
settin' on the porch. I'd had it all planned to hire the best automobile
in town and go up there in shape to heal sore eyes--but changed my plan.
"'I'll give 'em more of a shock if I walk out and pretend to be poor and
kind o' meek,' I says to myself.
"So I cached my valise at the station and I wallered out there through
the dust--it was June and a dry spell and hot. Judas priest! I thought
I'd sweat my wad into pulp before I got there--me just down from the
high country! On the way I got to wonderin' about Nancy. 'Is she alive,
I wonder?'
"Do you mean to say you left _her_ without a word of good-by?"
He looked down at his knee and scratched a patch of grease there.
"That's what! I was so blame mad I cut loose of the whole outfit. Once
or twice sis had mentioned Nance in a casual kind of way, but as I
didn't bite--she had quit fishin', and so I was all in the dark about
her. She might 'ave been dead or married or crazy, for all I knew.
However, now that I was on my way back with nineteen thousand dollars in
the bank and a good show for more, I kind o' got to wonderin' what she
was sufferin' at."
"I hope she was married to a banker in town and the owner of an electric
brougham. 'Twould have served you right."
He smiled again and resumed his story. "By the time I reached the old
gate I was dusty as a stage-coach, and this old corduroy suit made me
look as much like a tramp as anybody. As I came onto the old man he was
waterin' a span o' horses at the well. Everything looked about the same,
only a little older--he was pretty gray and some thinner--and I calls
out kind o' meek-like:
"'Can I get a job here, mister?'
"He looked me over a spell, then says, 'No, for I'm purty well supplied
with hands.'
"'What you need is a boss,' I says, grinnin'.
"Then he knew me, but he didn't do no fancy start--he just growled out
kind o' surly:
"'I'm competent to do all the bossin' on this place,' he says.
"'You may think so,' I joshed him, 'but if I couldn't keep a place
lookin' a little slicker 'n this, I'd sell out and give some better man
a chance.'
"Did that faze him? Not on your life. He checked up both horses before
he opened his mouth again.
"'You don't look none too slick yourself. How comes it you're trampin'
this hot weather?'
"I see what he was driving at and so I fed him the dope he wanted.
"'Well, I've had hard luck,' I says. 'I've been sick.'
"'You don't look sick,' he snapped out, quick as a flash. 'You look
tolerable husky. You 'pear like one o' these chaps that eat up all they
earn--eat and drink and gamble,' he went on, pilin' it up. 'I don't pity
tramps a bit; they're all topers.'
"I took it meek as Moses.
"'Well,' I says, 'I'm just out of the hospital, and whilst I may seem
husky, I need a good quiet place and a nice easy job for a while.
Moreover, I'm terrible hungry.'
"'You go 'long up to the house,' he says, 'and tell the girl in the
kitchen to hand you out a plate of cold meat. I'll be along in a
minute.'
"And off he went to the barn, leavin' me shakin' with his jolt. He was
game all right! He figured me out as the prodigal son, and wa'n't goin'
to knuckle. He intended for me to do all the knee exercise. I drifted
along up the path toward the kitchen.
"Judas! but it did seem nice and familiar. It was all so green and
flowery after camp. There ain't a tree or a patch of green grass left in
Cripple; but there, in our old yard, were lylock-trees, and rose-bushes
climbin' the porch, and pinks and hollyhocks--and beehives, just as they
used to set--and clover. Say, it nearly had me snifflin'. It sure did."
The memory of it rather pinched his voice as he described it, but he
went on.
"Of course I couldn't live down there now--it's too low, after a man has
breathed such air as this."
He looked out at the big clouds soaring round Pike's Peak.
"But the flowers and the grass they did kind o' get me. I edged round on
the front side of the house, and, sure enough, there sat mother, just as
she used to--in the same old chair.
"Cap, I want to tell you, I didn't play no circus tricks on _her_. Her
head had grown white as snow and she looked kind o' sad and feeble. I
began to understand a little of the worry I'd been to her. I said good
evening, and she turned and looked at me. Then she opened her arms and
called out my name."
His voice choked unmistakably this time, and it was a minute or two
before he resumed.
"No jokes, no lies doin' there! I opened right up to her. I told her I'd
done well, but that I didn't want father to know it just yet, and we sit
there holdin' hands when the old man hove round the corner.
"'Stephen,' says mother, kind o' solemn, 'here's our son Edward.'
"Did the old man wilt, or climb the line fence and offer to shake hands?
Nitsky! He just shoved one hip onto the edge of the porch and remarked:
"'Does this dry spell reach as fur as where you've been?'"
He broke into silent laughter again, and I joined him. This was all so
deeply characteristic of the life I had known in my youth that I writhed
with delight. I understood the duel of wits and wills. I could see it
proceed as my companion chuckled.
"Well, sir, we played that game all the evening. I told of all the bad
leases I'd tackled--and how I'd been thrown from a horse and laid up for
six months. I brought out every set-back and bruise I'd ever had--all to
see if the old man would weaken and feel sorry for me."
"Did he?"
"Not for a minute! And sometimes, as I looked at him, I was sorry I'd
come home; but when I was with mother I was glad. She 'phoned to sis,
who lived in Jackson, and sis came on the lope, and we had a nice family
party. Sis touched on Nancy McRae.
"'You remember her?' she asked.
"'I seem to,' I says, kind of slow, as if I was dredgin' my mind to find
something.
"'Well, she's on the farm, just the same as ever--takin' care of the old
man. Her mother's dead.'
"I didn't push that matter any farther, but just planned to ride over
the next morning and see how she looked.
"All that evening sis and I deviled the old man. Mother had told sis
about my mine--and so she'd bring out every little while how uncertain
the gold-seekin' business was and how if I'd stayed on the farm I could
'a' been well off--and she'd push me hard when I started in on one of my
hard-luck stories. I had to own up that I had walked out to save money,
and that I was travelin' on an excursion ticket 'cause it was cheap--and
so on.
"The old man's mouth got straighter and straighter and his eyes
colder--but I told mother not to say anything till next day, and she
didn't, although he tossed and turned and grunted half the night. He
really took it hard; but he finally agreed to harbor me and give me a
chance--so mother told me next morning--which was Sunday. I had planned
to get home Saturday night.
"Next morning after breakfast--and it _was_ a breakfast--I strolled out
to the barn and, the carriage-shed door being open, I pulled the old
buggy out--'peared like it was the very same one, and I was a-dustin'
the cushions and fussin' around when the old man came up.
"'What you doin' with that buggy?' he asks.
"'I jest thought I'd ride over and see Nance McRae,' I says, just as I
did eleven years before.
"'I reckon you better think again,' he says, and rolls the buggy back
into the shed, just the way he did before. 'If you want to see Nance
McRae you can walk,' he says, and I could see he meant it.
"'All right,' I says, and out I stepped without so much as saying
good-by, intendin' to go for good this time.
"I went across the road to Martin's and got a chance to 'phone into
Jackson, and in about twenty minutes I was whirlin' over the road in a
red-cushioned automobile that ran smooth as oil, and inside of half an
hour I was rollin' through McRae's gate.
"Now, up to this time, I hadn't any notion of a program as to Nancy; I
was all took up with gettin' ahead of dad. But when I found myself in
front of old McRae, more down at the heel and raggeder in the seat than
ever, I was a whole lot set back. What was I to say to him and to her? I
didn't know. He was gappin' at me with the eyes of an owl, and so I
opened up.
"'I see you have no lightnin'-rods?' I says. 'In this day and age of the
world you can't afford to go without lightnin'-rods.'
"He wa'n't no fool, if he did wear rats in his hair, and he says:
"'I thought you was a cream-separator man. Are lightnin'-rods comin'
into style again?'
"'My kind is,' I says.
"'Well, the trade must be lookin' up,' he says, walkin' round and round
my machine and eyin' it. 'I'm thinkin' of havin' one of them wagons for
haulin' milk to town. Won't you light out?'
"'Don't care if I do,' I says, and out I rolled, feelin' a little shaky.
"I was mighty anxious to see Nance by this time, but felt shy of askin'
about her.
"'What _is_ the latest kink in rods?' asked the old cuss.
"'These kind I sell,' I says, 'are the kind that catch and store the
electricity in a tank down cellar. Durin' a thunder-storm you can save
up enough to rock the baby and run the churn for a week or two.'
"'I want 'o know,' he says. 'Well, we 'ain't got a baby and no
churn--but mebbe it would run a cream-separator?'
"'Sure it would.'
"All the time we was a-joshin' this way he was a-studyin' me--and
finally he said:
"'You can't fool me, Ed. How are ye?'
"And we shook hands. I always liked the old cuss. He was a great
reader--always talkin' about Napoleon--he'd been a great man if he'd
ever got off the farm and into something that required just his kind o'
brain-work.
"'Come in,' he says. 'Nance will want to see you.'
"The minute he said that I had a queer feelin' at the pit o' my
stummick--I did, sure thing. 'It's a little early for a call,' I says,
'and I ain't in Sunday clothes.'
"'That don't matter,' he says; 'she'll be glad to see you any time.'
"You'd 'a' thought I'd been gone eleven weeks instead of eleven years.
"Nance wasn't a bit like her dad. She always looked shipshape, no matter
what she was a-doin'. She was in the kitchen, busy as a gasoline-motor,
when we busted through the door.
"'Nance!' the old man called out, 'here's Ed Hatch.'
"She didn't do any fancy stunts. She just straightened up and looked at
me kind o' steady for a minute, and then came over to shake hands.
"'I'm glad to see you back, Ed,' she says."
The stress of this meeting was still over him, as I could see and hear,
and I waited for him to go on.
"She hadn't changed as much as mother. She was older and sadder and kind
o' subdued, and her hand felt calloused, but I'd 'a' known her
anywhere. She was dressed in a blue calico dress, but she was sure
handsome still, and I said to her:
"'You need a change of climate,' I says, 'and a different kind of boss.
Colorado's where you ought to be,' I went on.
"For half an hour I kept banterin' her like that, and though she got
pink now and then, she didn't seem to understand--or if she did she
didn't let on. She stuck to her work whilst the old man and me watched
her. Seein' her going about that kitchen that way got me locoed. I
always liked to watch mother in the kitchen--and Nance was a genuine
housekeeper, I always knew that.
"Finally I says:
"'I hain't got any buggy, Nance--the old man wouldn't let me have one
last Sunday--I mean eleven years ago--that's what threw me off the
track--but I've got a forty-horse-power car out here. Suppose you put on
your best apron and take a ride with me.'
"She made some words as women will, but she got ready, and she did look
handsomer than ever as she came out. She was excited, I could see that,
but she was all there! No jugglin' or fussin'.
"'Climb in the front seat, dad,' I says. 'It's me and Nance to the
private box. Turn on the juice,' I says to the driver.
"Well, sir, we burned up all the grease in the box lookin' up the old
neighbors and the places we used to visit with horse and buggy--and
every time I spoke to the old man I called him 'Dad'--and finally we
fetched up at the biggest hotel in the town and had dinner together.
"Then I says: 'Dad, you better lay down and snooze. Nance and me are
goin' out for a walk.'
"The town had swelled up some, but one or two of the old stores was
there, and as we walked past the windows I says: 'Remember the time we
stood here and wished we could buy things?'
"She kind o' laughed. 'I don't believe I do.'
"'Yes, you do,' I says. 'Well, we can look now to some account, for I've
got nineteen thousand dollars in the bank and a payin' lease on a
mine.'"
Up to this minute he had been fairly free to express his real
feelings--hypnotized by my absorbed gaze--but now, like most
Anglo-Saxons, he began to shy. He began to tell of a fourteen-dollar
suit of clothes (bought at this store) which turned green in the hot
sun.
"Oh, come now!" I insisted, "I want to know about Nancy. All this
interests me deeply. Did she agree to come back with you?"
He looked a little bit embarrassed. "I asked her to--right there in
front of that window. I said, 'I want you to let me buy you that white
dress.'
"'Judas priest! I can't let you do that,' she says.
"'Why not?' I said. 'We're goin' to be married, anyhow.'
"'Is that so?' she asked. 'I hadn't heard of it.'
"Oh, she was no babe, I tell you. We went back to the hotel and woke up
the old man, and I ordered up the best machine in the shop--a big
seven-seated, shiny one, half as long as a Pullman parlor-car, with a
top and brass housin's and extra tires strapped on, and a place for a
trunk--an outfit that made me look like a street-railway magnate. It set
me back a whole lot, but I wanted to stagger dad--and I did. As we
rolled up to the door he came out with eyes you could hang your hat on.
"'What's all this?' he asked.
"I hopped out.
"'Miss McRae,' I says, 'this is my father. Dad, this is Mister McRae. I
think you've met before.'"
He chuckled again, that silent interior laugh, and I was certainly
grinning in sympathy as he went on.
"'Just help me with this trunk,' I says. 'The horses bein' tired, I just
thought I'd have a dray to bring up my duds.'
"Well, sir, I had him flat down. He couldn't raise a grunt. He stood
like a post while I laid off my trunk; but mother and sis came out and
were both very nice to Nance. Mother asked her to get out, and she did,
and I took 'em all for a ride later--all but dad. Couldn't get him
inside the machine. Nance stayed for supper, and just as we were goin'
in dad said to me:
"'How much does that red machine cost you an hour?'
"'About two dollars.'
"'I reckon you better send it back to the shop,' he says. 'You can take
Nance home in my buggy.'
"It was his surrender; but I didn't turn a hair.
"'I guess you're right,' I says. 'It is a little expensive to spark
in--and a little too public, too.'"
The whistle of the engine announcing the station helped him out.
"Here's Victor, and my mine is up there on the north-west side. You can
just see the chimney. I've got another year on it, and I'm goin' to
raise dirt to beat hell durin' all the time there is left, and then I'm
goin' to Denver."
"And Nance?"
"Oh, she's comin' out next week," he said, as he rose to take down his
valise. "I've bought a place at the Springs."
"Good luck to you both," said I, as he swung from the train.
THE FOREST RANGER
_--hardy son of the pioneers--representing the finer social
order of the future, rides his lonely trail, guarding with
single-hearted devotion the splendid heritage of us all._
IX
THE FOREST RANGER
I
One April day some years ago, when the rustling of cattle (a picturesque
name for stealing) was still going on in one of our central mountain
states, Abe Kitsong, a rancher on the Shellfish, meeting Hanscom, the
forest ranger of that district, called out:
"Say, mister, do you know that some feller has taken a claim in our
valley right bang up against your boundary line?"
"Yes," replied Hanscom. "I've an eye on him. He's started a cabin
already."
"I didn't know that land was open or I'd 'a' took it myself. Who is the
old chap, anyway?"
"I don't know where he comes from, but his name is
Kauffman--Pennsylvania Dutch, I reckon."
"Watson will be hot when he runs agin' the fence that feller's puttin'
up."
"Well, the man's in there and on the way to a clear title, so what are
you going to do about it?"
"I don't plan for to do anything, but Watson will sure be sore,"
repeated Kitsong.
The ranger smiled and rode on. He was a native of the West, a
plain-featured, deliberate young fellow of thirty who sat his horse
with the easy grace which marks the trailer, while Abe Kitsong, tall,
gaunt, long-bearded, and sour-faced, was a Southerner, a cattleman of
bad reputation with the alfalfa farmers farther down the valley. He was
a notable survivor of the "good old days of the range," and openly
resented the "punkin rollers" who were rapidly fencing all the lower
meadows. Watson was his brother-in-law, and together they had controlled
the upper waters of the Shellfish, making a last stand in the secluded
valley.
The claim in question lay in a lonely spot at the very head of a narrow
cañon, and included a lovely little meadow close clasped by a corner of
the dark robe of forest which was Hanscom's especial care, and which he
guarded with single-hearted devotion. The new cabin stood back from the
trail, and so for several weeks its owner went about his work in
undisturbed tranquillity. Occasionally he drove to town for supplies,
but it soon appeared that he was not seeking acquaintance with his
neighbors, and in one way or another he contrived to defend himself from
visitors.
He was a short man, gray-mustached and somber, but his supposed wife
(who dressed in the rudest fashion and covered her head, face, and
shoulders with an old-fashioned gingham sunbonnet) was reported by
Watson, her nearest neighbor, to be much younger than her husband and
comely. "I came on her the other day without that dinged bunnit," said
he, "and she's not so bad-looking, but she's shy. Couldn't lay a hand on
her."
In spite of this report, for a month or two the men of the region,
always alert on the subject of women, manifested but a moderate interest
in the stranger. They hadn't much confidence in Watson's judgment,
anyhow, and besides, the woman carried herself so ungracefully and
dressed so plainly that even the saloon-door loafers cast contemptuous
glances upon her as she hurried by the post-office on her way to the
grocery. In fact, they put the laugh on Watson, and he would have been
buying the drinks for them all had not the postmaster come to his
rescue.
[Illustration: THE WOMAN CARRIED HERSELF SO UNGRACEFULLY AND DRESSED SO
PLAINLY THAT EVEN THE SALOON-DOOR LOAFERS CAST CONTEMPTUOUS GLANCES UPON
HER]
"Ed's right," said he. "She's younger than she looks, and has a right
nice voice."
"Is it true that her letters come addressed in two different names?"
queried one of the men.
"No. Her letters come addressed 'Miss Helen McLaren.' What that means I
can't say. But the old man spoke of her as his daughter."
"I don't take much stock in that daughter's business," said one of the
loafers. "There's a mouse in the meal somewhere."
Thereafter this drab and silent female, by her very wish to be left
alone, became each day a more absorbing topic of conversation. She was
not what she seemed--this was the verdict. As for Kauffman, he was
considered a man who would bear watching, and when finally, being
pressed to it, he volunteered the information that he was in the hills
for his daughter's health, many sneered.
"Came away between two days, I'll bet," said Watson. "And as fer the
woman, why should her mail come under another name from his? Does that
look like she was his daughter?"
"She may be a stepdaughter," suggested the postmaster.
"More likely she's another man's wife," retorted Watson.
During the early autumn Kauffman published the fact that he had
registered a brand, and from time to time those who happened to ride up
the valley brought back a report that he owned a small but growing herd
of cattle. Watson did not hesitate to say that he had never been able to
find where the new-comer bought his stock--and in those days no man was
quite free from the necessity of exhibiting a bill of sale.
However, the people of the town paid small attention to this slur, for
Watson himself was not entirely above suspicion. He was considered a
dangerous character. Once or twice he had been forced, at the mouth of a
rifle, to surrender calves that had, as he explained, "got mixed" with
his herd. In truth, he was nearly always in controversy with some one.
"Kauffman don't look to me like an 'enterprising roper,'" Hanscom
reported to his supervisor. "And as for his wife, or daughter, or
whatever she is, I've never seen anything out of the way about her. She
attends strictly to her own affairs. Furthermore," he added, "Watson, as
you know, is under 'wool-foot surveillance' right now by the Cattle
Raisers' Syndicate, and I wouldn't take his word under oath."
The supervisor shared the ranger's view, and smiled at "the pot calling
the kettle black." And so matters drifted along till in one way or
another the Kitsongs had set the whole upper valley against the hermits
and Watson (in his cups) repeatedly said: "That fellow has no business
in there. That's my grass. He stole it from me."
His resentment grew with repetition of his fancied grievance, and at
last he made threats. "He's an outlaw, that's what he is--and as for
that woman, well, I'm going up there some fine day and snatch the bunnit
off her and see what she really looks like!"
"Better go slow," urged one of his friends. "That chap looks to me like
one of the old guard. _He_ may have something to say about your doings
with his daughter."
Watson only grinned. "He ain't in no position to object if she
don't--and I guess I can manage her," he ended with drunken swagger.
Occasionally Hanscom met the woman on the trail or in the town, and
always spoke in friendly greeting. The first time he spoke she lifted
her head like a scared animal, but after that she responded with a low,
"Howdy, sir?" and her voice (coming from the shadow of her ugly
headgear) was unexpectedly clear and sweet. Although he was never able
to see her face, something in her bearing and especially in her accent
pleased and stirred him.
Without any special basis for it, he felt sorry for her and resolved to
help her, and when one day he met her on the street and asked, in
friendly fashion, "How are you to-day?" she looked up at him and
replied, "Very well, thank you, sir," and he caught a glimpse of a
lovely chin and a sad and sensitive mouth.
"She's had more than her share of trouble, that girl has," he thought as
he passed on.
Thereafter a growing desire to see her eyes, to hear her voice, troubled
him.
Kauffman stopped him on the road next day and said: "I am Bavarian, and
in my country we respect the laws of the forest. I honor your office,
and shall regard all your regulations. I have a few cattle which will
naturally graze in the forest. I wish to take out a permit for them."
To this Hanscom cordially replied: "Sure thing. That's what I'm here
for. And if you want any timber for your corrals just let me know and
I'll fix you out."
Kauffman thanked him and rode on.
As the weeks passed Hanscom became more and more conscious of the
strange woman's presence in the valley. He gave, in truth, a great deal
of thought to her, and twice deliberately rode around that way in the
hope of catching sight of her. He could not rid himself of a feeling of
pity. The vision of her delicately modeled chin and the sorrowful droop
in the line of her lips never left him. He wished--and the desire was
more than curiosity--to meet her eyes, to get the full view of her face.
Gradually she came to the exchange of a few words with him, and always
he felt her dark eyes glowing in the shadow of her head-dress, and they
seemed quite as sad as her lips. She no longer appeared afraid of him,
and yet she did not express a willingness for closer contact. That she
was very lonely he was sure, for she had few acquaintances in the town
and no visitors at all. No one had ever been able to penetrate to the
interior of the cabin in which she secluded herself, but it was reported
that she spent her time in the garden and that she had many strange
flowers and plants growing there. But of this Hanscom had only the most
diffused hearsay.
Watson's thought concerning the lonely woman was not merely
dishonoring--it was ruthless; and when he met her, as he occasionally
did, he called to her in a voice which contained something at once
savage and familiar. But he could never arrest her hurrying step. Once
when he planted himself directly in her way she bent her head and
slipped around him, like a partridge, feeling in him the enmity that
knows no pity and no remorse.
His baseness was well known to the town, for he was one of those whose
tongues reveal their degradation as soon as they are intoxicated. He
boasted of his exploits in the city and of the women he had brought to
his ranch, and these revelations made him the hero of a certain type of
loafer. His cabin was recognized as a center of disorder and was
generally avoided by decent people.
As he felt his dominion slipping away, as he saw the big farmers come in
down below him and recognized the rule of the Federal government above
him, he grew reckless in his roping and branding. He had not been
convicted of dishonesty, but it was pretty certain that he was a
rustler; in fact, the whole Shellfish community was under suspicion. As
the ranger visited these cabins and came upon five or six big, hulking,
sullen men, he was glad that he had little business with them. They were
in a chronic state of discontent with the world and especially with the
Forest Service.
With the almost maniacal persistency of the drunkard, Watson now fixed
his mind upon the mysterious woman at the head of the valley. He talked
of no one else, and his vile words came to Hanscom's ears. Watson's
cronies considered his failure to secure even a word with the woman a
great joke and reported that he had found the door locked when he
finally followed her home.
Hanscom, indignant yet helpless to interfere, heard with pleasure that
the old man had threatened Watson with bodily harm if he came to his
door again, that with all his effrontery Watson had not yet been able to
set his foot across the threshold, and that he had gone to Denver on
business. "He'll forget that poor woman, maybe," he said.
Thereafter he thought of her as freed from persecution, although he knew
that others of the valley held her in view as legitimate quarry.
His was a fine, serious, though uncultivated nature. A genuine lover of
the wilderness, he had reached that time of life when love is cleansed
of its devastating selfishness, and his feeling for the lonely woman of
the Shellfish held something akin to great poetry.
His own solitary, vigorous employment, his constant warfare with wind
and cloud, had made him a little of the seer and something of the poet.
Woman to him was not merely the female of his species; she was a
marvelous being, created for the spiritual as well as for the material
need of man.
In this spirit he had lived, and, being but a plain, rather shy farmer
and prospector, he had come to his thirtieth year with very little love
history to his credit or discredit. He was, therefore, peculiarly
susceptible to that sweet disease of the imagination which is able to
transform the rudest woman into beauty. In this case the very slightness
of the material on which his mind dwelt set the wings of his fancy free.
He brooded and dreamed as he rode his trail as well as when he sat
beside his rude fireplace at night, listening to the wind in the high
firs. In all his thought he was honorable.
II
One day in early autumn, as he was returning to his station, Hanscom met
Abe Kitsong just below Watson's cabin, riding furiously down the hill.
Drawing his horse to a stand, the rancher called out:
"Just the man I need!"
"What's the trouble?"
"Ed Watson's killed!"
Hanscom stared incredulously. "No! Where--when?"
"Last night, I reckon. You see, Ed had promised to ride down to my
place this morning and help me to raise a shed, and when he didn't come
I got oneasy and went up to see what kept him, and the first thing I saw
when I opened the door was him layin' on the floor, shot through and
through." Here his voice grew savage. "And by that Kauffman woman!"
"Hold on, Abe!" called the ranger, sharply. "Go slow on that talk. What
makes you think that woman--any woman--did it?"
"Well, it jest happened that Ed had spilled some flour along the porch,
and in prowling around the window that woman jest naturally walked over
it. You can see the print of her shoes where she stopped under the
window. You've got to go right up there--you're a gover'ment
officer--and stand guard over the body while I ride down the valley and
get the coroner and the sheriff."
"All right. Consider it done," said Hanscom, and Kitsong continued his
frenzied pace down the valley.
The ranger, his blood quickening in spite of himself, spurred his horse
into a gallop and was soon in sight of the Shellfish Ranch, where Watson
had lived for several years in unkempt, unsavory bachelorhood, for the
reason that his wife had long since quit him, and only the roughest
cowboys would tolerate the disorder of his bed and board. Privately,
Hanscom was not much surprised at the rustler's death (although the
manner of it seemed unnecessarily savage), for he was quarrelsome and
vindictive.
The valley had not yet emerged from the violent era, and every man in
the hills went armed. The cañons round about were still safe harbors for
"lonesome men," and the herders of opposition sheep and cattle outfits
were in bitter competition for free grass. Watson had many enemies, and
yet it was hard to think that any one of them would shoot him at night
through an open window, for such a deed was contrary to all the
established rules of the border.
Upon drawing rein at the porch the ranger first examined the footsteps
in the flour and under the window, and was forced to acknowledge that
all signs pointed to a woman assailant. The marks indicated small,
pointed, high-heeled shoes, and it was plain that the prowler had spent
some time peering in through the glass.
For fear that the wind might spring up and destroy the evidence, Hanscom
measured the prints carefully, putting down the precise size and shape
in his note-book. He studied the position of the dead man, who lay as he
had fallen from his chair, and made note of the fact that a half-emptied
bottle of liquor stood on the table. The condition of the room, though
disgusting, was not very different from its customary disorder.
Oppressed by the horror of the scene, the ranger withdrew a little way,
lit his pipe, and sat down to meditate on the crime.
"I can't believe a woman did it," he said. And yet he realized that
under certain conditions women can be more savage than men. "If Watson
had been shot on a woman's premises it wouldn't seem so much like
slaughter. But to kill a man at night in his own cabin is tolerably
fierce."
That the sad, lonely woman in the ranch above had anything to do with
this he would not for a moment entertain.
He turned away from the problem at last and dozed in the sunshine,
calculating with detailed knowledge of the trail and its difficulties
just how long it would take Kitsong to reach the coroner and start back
up the hill.
It was nearly four o'clock when he heard the feet of horses on the
bridge below the ranch, and a few minutes later Kitsong came into view,
heading a motley procession of horsemen and vehicles. It was evident
that he had notified all his neighbors along the road, for they came
riding in as if to a feast, their eyes alight with joyous interest.
The coroner, a young doctor named Carmody, took charge of the case with
brisk, important pomp, seconded by Sheriff Throop, a heavy man with
wrinkled, care-worn brow, who seemed burdened with a sense of personal
responsibility for Watson's death. He was all for riding up and
instantly apprehending the Kauffmans, but the coroner insisted on
looking the ground over first.
"You study the case from the outside," said he, "and I'll size it up
from the inside."
As the dead man had neither wife nor children to weep for him, Mrs.
Kitsong, his sister, a tall, gaunt woman, assumed the rôle of chief
mourner, while Abe went round uttering threats about "stringing the
Kauffmans up," till the sheriff, a good man and faithful officer,
jealous of his authority, interfered.
"None of that lynching talk! There'll be no rope work in this county
while I am sheriff," he said, with noticeable decision.
In a few moments Carmody, having finished his examination of the body,
said to the sheriff: "Go after this man Kauffman and his daughter. It
seems they've had some trouble with Watson and I want to interrogate
them. Search the cabin for weapons and bring all the woman's shoes," he
added. And while the sheriff rode away up the trail on his sinister
errand, Hanscom with sinking heart remained to testify at the inquest.
A coroner in the mountains seven thousand feet above the sea-level and
twenty miles from a court-house must be excused for slight informalities
in procedure, and Carmody confidentially said to the ranger:
"I don't expect for a minute the sheriff will find the Kauffmans. If
they did for Watson, they undoubtedly pulled out hotfoot. But we've got
to make a bluff at getting 'em, anyway."
To this the ranger made no reply, but a sense of loss filled his heart.
As soon as the jury was selected the condition of the body was noted,
and Abe Kitsong, as witness, was in the midst of his testimony (and the
shadows of the great peaks behind the cabin had brought the evening
chill into the air) when the sheriff reappeared, escorting a mountain
wagon in which Kauffman and his daughter were seated.
Hanscom stared in mingled surprise and dismay--surprise that they had
not fled and dismay at the girl's predicament--and muttered: "Now what
do you think of that! It takes an Eastern tenderfoot to kill a man and
then go quietly home and wait for results."
Kauffman glared about him defiantly, but the face of the girl remained
hidden in her bonnet; only her bowed head indicated the despair into
which she had fallen.
With a deep sense of pity and regret, Hanscom went to meet her. "Don't
be scared," he said. "I'll see that you have a square deal."
She peered down into his face as he spoke, but made no reply, and he
conceived of her as one burdened with grief and shame and ready for any
fate.
The sheriff, his face showing an agony of perplexity, turned over to the
coroner all the weapons and other "plunder" he had brought from the
house, and querulously announced that he couldn't find a shotgun
anywhere around, and only one small rifle. "And there wasn't a pointed
shoe on the place," he added, forcibly.
"That proves nothing," insisted Abe. "They've had time to hide 'em or
burn 'em."
"Well, bring them both over here and let's get to business," said the
coroner. "It's getting late."
As Hanscom assisted the accused woman from the wagon he detected youth
and vigor in her arm. "Don't be afraid," he repeated. "I will see that
you are treated right."
Her hand clung to his for an instant as she considered the throng of
hostile spectators, for she apprehended their hatred quite as clearly as
she perceived the chivalrous care of the ranger, and she kept close to
his side as he led the way to the cabin.
Kauffman was at once taken indoors, but the young woman, under guard of
a deputy, was given a seat on the corner of the porch just out of
hearing of the coroner's voice.
Carmody, who carried all the authority, if not all the forms, of a court
into his interrogation, sharply questioned the old man, who said that
his name was Frederick Kauffman and that he was a teacher of music.
"I was born near Munich," he added, "but I have lived in this country
forty years, mostly in Cincinnati. This young lady is my stepdaughter.
It is for her health that I came here. She has been very ill."
Carmody nodded to the sheriff, and Throop with a deep sigh and most
dramatic gesture lifted the shroud which concealed the dead man.
"Approach the body," commanded the coroner, and the jurors watched every
motion with wide, excited eyes, as though expecting involuntary signs of
guilt; but Kauffman calmly gazed upon the still face beneath him.
"Do you recognize this body?" demanded the coroner.
"I do," said Kauffman.
"When did you see him last?"
"Oh, two or three days ago," answered Kauffman.
"You may be seated," said the coroner.
Under close interrogation the old man admitted that he had had some
trouble with Watson. "Once I forced him to leave my premises," he said.
"He was drunk and insulting."
"Did you employ a weapon?"
"Only this "--here he lifted a sturdy fist--"but it was sufficient. I
have not forgotten my gymnastic training."
Prompted by Kitsong, who had assumed something of the attitude of a
prosecuting attorney, the coroner asked, "Has your daughter ever been in
an asylum?"
Although this question plainly disturbed him, Kauffman replied, after a
moment's hesitation, "No, sir."
"Where were you last night?"
"At home."
"Was your daughter there?"
"Yes."
"All the evening?"
"Yes, sir."
"Are you sure she did not leave the house?"
"Perfectly sure."
The coroner took up a small rifle which the sheriff had leaned against
the wall. "Is this your rifle?"
The old man examined it. "I think so--yes, sir."
"Have you another?"
"No, sir."
"That is all for the present, Mr. Kauffman. Sheriff, ask Miss Kauffman
to come in."
As the woman (without the disfiguring head-dress which she habitually
wore) stepped to the center of the room a murmur of surprise arose from
the jury and the few spectators who were permitted to squat along the
walls. She not only appeared young; she was comely. Her face, though
darkly tanned, was attractive, and her hair, combed rigidly away from
her brow, was abundant and glossy. The line of her lips was firm yet
sweet, and her long, straight nose denoted the excellence of her strain.
Even her hands, reddened and calloused by labor, were well kept and
shapely. But it was through her bearing that she appealed most strongly
to the ranger and the coroner. She was very far from being humble. On
the contrary, the glance which she directed toward Carmody was remote
and haughty. She did not appear to notice the still, sheeted shape in
the corner.
In answer to a query she informed the jury that her name was Helen
McLaren; that she was a native of Kentucky and twenty-six years of age.
"I came to the mountains for my health," she said, curtly.
"You mean your mental health?" queried the coroner.
"Yes. I wanted to get away from the city for a while. I needed rest and
a change."
The coroner, deeply impressed with her dignity and grace, leaned back in
his chair and said: "Now before I ask the next question, Miss McLaren, I
want to tell you that what you say in answer may be used against you in
court, and according to law you need not incriminate yourself. You
understand that, do you?"
"Yes, sir. I think I do."
"Very well. Now one thing more. It is usual in cases of this kind to
have some one to represent you, and if you wish Mr. Hanscom, the forest
ranger, will act for you."
The glance she turned on Hanscom confused him, but he said: "I'm no
lawyer, but I'll do my best to see that you are treated fairly."
She thanked him with a trustful word, and the coroner began.
"You have had a great sorrow recently, I believe?"
"Yes, sir."
"A very bitter bereavement?"
"Yes, sir."
"Have you any near relatives living?"
"Yes, sir. A sister and several aunts and uncles."
"Do they know where you are?"
"No, sir--at least, not precisely. They know I am in the mountains."
"Will you give me the names and addresses of these relatives?"
"I would rather not, if you please. I do not care to involve them in any
troubles of mine."
"Well, I won't insist on that at this point. But I would like to
understand whether, if I require it, you will furnish this information?"
"Certainly. Only I would rather not disturb them unnecessarily."
Her manner not only profoundly affected the coroner; it soon softened
the prejudices of the jury, although four of them were immediate friends
and neighbors of Kitsong. They all were manifestly astonished at the
candor of her replies.
The coroner himself rose and solemnly disclosed the corpse. "Do you
recognize this man?" he asked.
She paled and shrank from the face, which was brutal even in death, but
answered, quietly, "I do."
"Did you know him when alive?"
"I did not."
This answer surprised both the coroner and his jury.
"Your stepfather testified that he came to your home."
"So he did. But I refused to see him. My stepfather met him outside the
door. I never spoke to him in my life."
"You may be seated again," said Carmody, and after a slight pause
proceeded: "Why did you dislike the deceased? Was he disrespectful to
you?"
"He was."
"In what way?"
She hesitated and flushed. "He wrote to me."
"More than once?"
"Yes, several times."
"Have you those letters?"
"No; I destroyed them."
"Could you give me an idea of those letters?"
Hanscom interposed: "She can't do that, Mr. Coroner. It is evident that
they were vile."
The coroner passed this point. "You say he called at your house--how
many times?"
"Two or three, I think."
"Was your father at home each time?"
"Once I was alone."
"Did you meet Watson then?"
"No. I saw him coming in the gate and I went inside and locked the
door."
"What happened then?"
"He beat on the door, and when I failed to reply he went away."
"Was he drunk?"
"He might have been. He seemed more like an insane man to me."
Kitsong broke in, "I don't believe all this--"
"When was that?"
"Night before last, at about this time or a little earlier."
"Was he on foot?"
"No; he came on horseback."
"Did he ride away on horseback?"
"Yes, though he could scarcely mount. I was surprised to see how well he
was able to manage his horse."
"Did you tell your father of this?"
"No."
"Why not?"
She hesitated. "He would have been very--very much disturbed."
"You mean he would have been angry?"
"Yes."
The coroner suddenly turned the current of his inquiry. "Do you always
wear shoes such as you now have on?"
Every eye in the room was directed toward her feet, which were shod in
broad-toed, low-heeled shoes.
She was visibly embarrassed, but she answered, composedly: "I do--yes,
sir. In fact, I go barefoot a great deal while working in the garden.
The doctor ordered it, and, besides, the ordinary high-heeled shoes seem
foolish up here in the mountains."
"Will you be kind enough to remove your shoe? I would like to take some
measurements from it."
She flushed slightly, but bent quickly, untied the laces, and removed
her right shoe.
The coroner took it. "Please remain where you are, Miss McLaren." Then
to the jury, who appreciated fully the importance of the moment, "We
will now compare this shoe with the footprints."
"Don't be disturbed, miss," whispered the ranger. "I know the size and
shape of those footprints."
The sheriff cleared the way to the porch, where the little patch of
flour had been preserved by ropes stretched from post to post, and the
outside crowd, pressing closer, watched breathlessly while the jury bent
together and compared the shoes and the marks.
It required but a few moments' examination to demonstrate that the soles
of the accused woman's shoes were larger and broader and entirely
different in every way.
"She may have worn another shoe," Kitsong put in.
"Of course! We'll find that out," retorted the coroner.
As they returned to the room Hanscom said to the witness: "Now be very
careful what you reply. Take plenty of time before you answer. If you
are in doubt, say nothing."
In the sympathy of his glance her haughty pose relaxed and her eyes
softened. "You are very kind," she said.
"I don't know a thing about law," he added, apologetically, "but I may
be able to help you."
The coroner now told the jury that Mr. Hanscom, as representing the
witness at the hearing, would be allowed to ask any questions he pleased
before the end of the hearing.
"But I must insist upon taking measurements of your bare feet, Miss
McLaren."
The jury grinned and the girl flushed with anger, but at a word from the
ranger yielded and drew off her stocking.
Hanscom, while assisting the coroner in measurements, said, "I'm sorry,
miss, but it is necessary."
The examination proved that her bare foot was nearly two sizes wider and
at least one size longer than the footprints in the flour. Furthermore,
it needed but a glance for the jury, as well as the doctor, to prove
that she had been going barefoot, as she claimed, for many weeks. Her
foot was brown and her toes showed nothing of the close confinement of a
pointed shoe.
Carmody, returning to his seat, conferred with the jury, designating the
difference between the telltale marks on the porch and the feet of the
witness, and Hanscom argued that the woman who made the telltale tracks
must have been small.
"Miss McLaren could not possibly wear the shoe that left those marks in
the flour," he said.
"We are on the wrong trail, I guess," one of the jury frankly stated. "I
don't believe that girl was ever on the place. If she or the old man had
been guilty, they wouldn't have been hanging around home this morning.
They'd have dusted out last night."
And to this one other agreed. Four remained silent.
The ranger seized on these admissions. "There is nothing, absolutely
nothing, to connect the tracks in the flour with the person who did the
shooting. It may have been done by another visitor at another time."
"Well," decided the coroner, "it's getting dark and not much chance for
hotel accommodations up here, so I guess we'd better adjourn this
hearing." He turned to Helen. "That's all, Miss McLaren."
As Hanscom handed back her shoe he said: "I hope you won't worry another
minute about this business, miss. The jury is certain to report for
'persons unknown.'"
"I'm very grateful for your kindness," she answered, feelingly. "I felt
so utterly helpless when I came into the room."
"You've won even the jury's sympathy," he said.
Nevertheless, as she left the room, he followed closely, for the
Kitsongs, who had been denied admittance, were openly voicing their
dissatisfaction with the coroner's verdict. "She ought to be held, and
the old man ought to be held," they insisted.
"One or the other of them shot Watson," declared Abe to Carmody. "No
matter if the girl's foot doesn't just exactly fit the tracks. She could
jam her foot into a narrow shoe if she tried, couldn't she? If you let
that girl pull the wool over your eyes like that you ain't fit to be
coroner."
Carmody's answer was to the point. "The thing for your crowd to do is to
quit chewing the rag and get this body down the valley and decently
buried. I can't stand around here all night listening to amateur
attorneys for the prosecution."
"Vamose!" called the sheriff, and in ten minutes the crowd was
clattering down the trail in haste to reach food and shelter, leaving
the Kauffmans to take their homeward way alone.
Hanscom helped the girl into the wagon and rode away up the valley close
behind her, his mind filled with the singular story which she had so
briefly yet powerfully suggested. That she was a lady masquerading in
rough clothing was evident even before she spoke, and the picture she
made, sitting in the midst of that throng of rough men and slatternly
women, had profoundly stirred his imagination. He longed to know more of
her history, and it was the hope of still further serving her which led
him to ride up alongside the cart and say:
"Here's where my trail forks, but I shall be very glad to go up and camp
down at your gate if you feel at all nervous about staying alone."
Kauffman, who had regained his composure, answered, "We have no fear,
but we are deeply grateful for your offer."
The ranger dismounted and approached the wagon, as if to bring himself
within reach, and the girl, looking down at him from her seat with
penetrating glance, said:
"Yes, we are greatly indebted to you."
"If I can be of any further help at any time," the young forester said,
a little hesitatingly, "I hope you will let me know." His voice so
sincere, his manner so unassuming, softened her strained mood.
"You are very kind," she answered, with gentle dignity. "But the worst
of this trial is over for us. I cannot conceive that any one will
trouble us further. But it is good to know that we have in you a friend.
The valley has always resented us."
He was not yet satisfied. "I wish you'd let me drop around to-morrow or
next day and see how you all are. It would make me feel a whole lot
better."
The glance which she gave him puzzled and, at the moment, daunted him.
She seemed to search his soul, as if in fear of finding something
unworthy there. At last she gave him her strong, brown hand.
"Come when you can. We shall always be glad to see you."
III
Hanscom rode away up the trail in a singularly exalted mood. The girl
with whom he had been so suddenly related in a coroner's inquest filled
his mind to the exclusion of all else. He saw nothing, heard nothing of
the forest. Helen's sadness, her composure, her aloofness, engaged his
imagination.
"She's been sick and she's been in trouble," he decided. "She's out
here to get away from somebody or something."
Over and over again he recounted her words, lingering especially upon
the sweetness of her voice and the searching quality of that last look
she had given him. He unsaddled his horse mechanically, and went about
his cabin duties with listless deftness.
Lonely, cut off from even the most formal intercourse with marriageable
maidens, he was naturally extremely susceptible to the charm of this
cultivated woman. The memory of her handsome foot, the clasp of her
strong fingers, the lines of her lovely neck--all conspired to dull his
appetite for food and keep him smoking and musing far into the night,
and these visions were with him as he arose the next morning to resume
his daily duties in the forest. They did not interrupt his work; they
lightened it.
As the hours went by, the desire to see her grew more and more intense,
and at last, a couple of days later while riding the trail not far above
the Kauffman ranch, he decided that it was a part of his day's work to
"scout round" that way and inquire how they were all getting on. He was
strengthened in this determination by the reports which came to him from
the ranchers he met. No other clue had developed, and the Kitsongs,
highly incensed at the action of the jury, not only insisted that the
girl was the murderess, but that the doctor was shielding her for
reasons of his own--and several went so far as to declare their
intention to see that the Kauffmans got their just punishment.
It is true, the jury admitted that they were divided in their opinion,
but that the coroner's attitude brought about a change of sentiment. The
fact that the woman didn't wear and couldn't wear so small a shoe was at
the moment convincing. It was only later, when the Kitsong sympathizers
began to argue, that they hesitated.
Mrs. Abe Kitsong was especially bitter, and it was her influence which
brought out an expression of settled purpose to punish which led to the
ranger's decision to go over and see if the old German and his daughter
were undisturbed.
As he turned in at the Kauffman gate he caught a glimpse of the girl
hoeing in the garden, wearing the same blue sunbonnet in which she had
appeared at the inquest. She was deeply engaged with her potatoes and
did not observe him till, upon hearing the clatter of his horse's hoofs
upon the bridge, she looked up with a start. Seeing in him a possible
enemy, she dropped her hoe and ran toward the house like a hare seeking
covert. As she reached the corner of the kitchen she turned, fixed a
steady backward look upon him, and disappeared.
Hanscom smiled. He had seen other women hurrying to change their
workaday dress for visitors, and he imagined Helen hastily putting on
her shoes and smoothing her hair. He was distinctly less in awe of her
by reason of this girlish action--it made her seem more of his own
rough-and-ready world, and he dismounted at her door almost at his ease,
although his heart had been pounding furiously as he rode down the
ridge.
She surprised him by reappearing in her working-gown, but shod with
strong, low-heeled shoes. "Good evening, Mr. Forest Ranger," she said,
smiling, yet perturbed. "I didn't recognize you at first. Won't you
'picket' and come in?" She said this in the tone of one consciously
assuming the vernacular.
"Thank you, I believe I will," he replied, with candid heartiness. "I
was riding one of my lower trails to-day, so I just thought I'd drop
down and see how you were all coming on."
"We are quite well, thank you. Daddy's away just this minute. One of our
cows hid her calf in the hills, and he's trying to find it. Won't you
put your horse in the corral?"
"No; he's all right. He's a good deal like me--works better on a small
ration. A standing siesta will just about do him."
A gleam of humor shone in her eyes. "Neither of you 'pear to be
suffering from lack of food. But come in, please, and have a seat."
He followed her into the cabin, keenly alive to the changes in her dress
as well as in her manner. She wore her hair plainly parted, as at the
hearing, but it lay much lower about her brow and rippled charmingly.
She stood perfectly erect, also, and moved with a fine stride, and the
lines of her shoulders, even under a rough gray shirtwaist, were strong
and graceful. Though not skilled in analyzing a woman's "outfit," the
ranger divined that she wore no corset, for the flex of her powerful
waist was like that of a young man.
Her speech was noticeably Southern in accent, as if it were a part of
her masquerade, but she brought him a chair and confronted him without
confusion. In this calm dignity he read something entirely flattering to
himself.
"Evidently she considers me a friend as well as an officer," he
reasoned.
"I hope you are a little hungry," she said. "I'd like to have you break
bread in our house. You were mighty kind to us the other day."
"Oh, I'm hungry," he admitted, meeting her hospitality half-way. "Seems
like I'm always hungry. You see, I cook my own grub, and my bill of fare
isn't what you'd call extensive, and, besides, a man's cooking never
relishes the way a woman's does, anyhow."
"I'll see what I can find for you," she said, and hurried out.
While waiting he studied the room in which he sat with keenest interest.
It was rather larger than the usual living-room in a mountain home, but
it had not much else to distinguish it. The furniture was of the kind to
be purchased in the near-by town, and the walls were roughly ceiled with
cypress boards; but a few magazines, some books on a rude shelf, a
fiddle-box under the table, and a guitar hanging on a nail gave evidence
of refinement and taste and spoke to him of pleasures which he had only
known afar. The guitar especially engaged his attention. "I wonder if
she sings?" he asked himself.
Musing thus in silence, he heard her moving about the kitchen with rapid
tread, and when she came in, a few minutes later, bearing a tray, he
thought her beautiful--so changed was her expression.
"I didn't wait for the coffee," she smilingly explained. "You said you
were hungry and so I have brought in a little 'snack.' The coffee will
be ready soon."
"Snack!" he exclaimed. "Lady! This is a feast!" And as she put the tray
down beside him he added: "This puts me right back in Aunt Mary's house
at Circle Bend, Nebraska. I don't rightly feel fit to sit opposite a
spread like that."
She seemed genuinely amused by his extravagance. "It's nothing but a
little cold chicken and some light bread. I made the bread yesterday;
and the raspberry jam is mine also."
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR AND A FOREST RANGER]
"It's angels' food to me," he retorted, as he eyed the dainty napkins
and the silver spoons and forks. "You don't know what this means to a
man who lives on rice and prunes and kittle bread. I have a guilty
feeling; I do, indeed. Seems like I'm getting all this thanksgiving
treat under false pretenses. Perhaps you think I'm an English nobleman
in disguise. But I'm not--I'm just a plain dub of a forest ranger,
ninety dollars a month and board myself."
She laughed at his disclaimer, and yet under her momentary lightness he
still perceived something of the strong current of bitter sadness which
had so profoundly moved him at the inquest and which still remained
unexplained; therefore he hesitated about referring to the Watson case.
As he ate, she stood to serve him, but not with the air of a
serving-maid; on the contrary, though her face was bronzed by the winds,
and her hands calloused by spade and hoe, there was little of the rustic
in her action. Her blouse, cut sailor fashion at the throat, displayed a
lovely neck (also burned by the sun), and she carried herself with the
grace of an athlete. Her trust and confidence in her visitor became more
evident each moment.
"No," she said in answer to his question. "We hardly ever have visitors.
Now and then some cowboy rides past, but you are almost the only caller
we have ever had. The settlers in the valley do not attract me."
"I should think you'd get lonesome."
She looked away, and a sterner, older expression came into her face. "I
do, sometimes," she admitted; then she bravely faced him. "But my health
is so much better--it was quite broken when I came--that I have every
reason to be thankful. After all, health is happiness. I ought to be
perfectly content, and I am when I think how miserable I once was."
"Health is cheap with me," he smilingly replied. "But I get so lonesome
sometimes that I pretty near quit and go out. Do you intend to stay here
all winter?"
"We expect to."
He thought it well to warn her. "The snow falls deep in this
valley--terribly deep."
She showed some uneasiness. "I know it, but I'm going to learn to
snow-shoe."
"I wish you'd let me come over and teach you."
"Can you snow-shoe? I thought rangers always rode horseback."
He smiled. "You've been reading the opposition press. A forest ranger
who is on the job has got to snow-shoe like a Canuck or else go down the
valley after the snow begins to fall. It was five feet deep around my
cabin last year. I hate to think of your being here alone. If one of you
should be sick, it would be--tough. Unless you absolutely have to stay
here, I advise you to go down the creek."
"Perhaps our neighbors and not the snow will drive us out," she replied.
"They've already served notice."
He looked startled. "What do you mean by that?"
Without answering, she went to the bookshelf and took down a folded
sheet of paper. "Here is a letter I got yesterday," she explained, as
she handed it to him.
It was a rudely penciled note, but entirely plain in its message. "Spite
of what the coroner found, most folks believe you killed Ed Watson," it
began, abruptly. "Some of us don't blame you much. Others do, and they
say no matter what the jury reports you've got to go. I don't like to
see a woman abused, so you'd better take warning and pull out. Do it
right away." It was signed, "A Friend."
The ranger read this through twice before he spoke. "Did this come
through the mail?"
"Yes--addressed to me."
He pretended to make light of it. "I wouldn't spend much time over that.
It's only some smart Aleck's practical joke."
"I don't think so," she soberly replied. "It reads to me like a sincere
warning--from a woman. I haven't shown it to daddy yet, and I don't know
whether to do so or not. I thought of going over to see you, but I was
not sure of the way. I'm glad Providence sent you round to-day, for I am
uncertain about what to do."
"I'm a little uneasy about that warning myself," he confessed, after a
pause. "I hear the Kitsong gang is bitterly dissatisfied with the result
of the inquest thus far. They still insist on connecting you in some way
with the shooting. Fact is, I came over to-day to see if they had made
any new move."
All the lightness had gone out of his face now, and in the girl's eyes
the shadow deepened as she said:
"It seems to me that I have drawn more than my share of trouble. I came
out here hoping to find a sanctuary, and I seem to have fallen into a
den of wolves. These people would hang me if they could. I don't
understand their hate of us. They resent our being here. Sometimes I
feel as if they were only trying to drive us from our little ranch."
"Of course, all this talk of violence is nonsense," he vigorously went
on. "They can make you a whole lot of discomfort, but you are in no
danger."
Her glance was again remote as she said: "I cannot take that murder case
seriously. It all seems a thousand miles away from me now. And yet I am
afraid for daddy's sake. Why connect me with it? Is there no other woman
to accuse? Do you suppose a woman did the shooting? I don't."
"No. I think the footprints were accidental. I figure the killing was
done by some man who had it in for Watson. He was always rowing with his
help, and there are two or three Mexicans who have threatened to get
him. At the same time, I don't like this letter. They're a tough lot in
this valley." He mused a moment. "Yes, I guess you'd better plan to go."
Her gaze wandered. "I hate to leave my garden and my flowers," she said,
sadly. "After all, I've had some very peaceful hours in this nook." Her
face brightened. She became the genial hostess again. "If you have
finished your lunch, I wish you would come out and see my crops."
He followed her gladly, and their talk again became cheerfully
impersonal. Truly she had done wonders in a small space and in a short
time. Flower-beds glowed beside the towering rocks. Small ditches
supplied the plants with water, and from the rich red soil luscious
vegetables and fragrant blooms were springing.
All animation now, she pointed out her victories. "This is all my work,"
she explained, proudly. "Daddy isn't much of a hand with the spade or
the hoe. Therefore I leave the riding and the cows to him. I love to
paddle in the mud, and it has done me a great deal of good."
"What will you do with all this 'truck'?"
"Daddy intends to market it in town."
"He's away a good deal, I take it."
"Yes, I'm alone often all day, but he's always home before dark."
He voiced his concern. "I don't like to think of your being alone, even
in the daytime." He spoke as one who had been swiftly advanced from
stranger to trusted friend. "I'll tell you what I'll do," he continued,
as if moved by a sudden thought. "I'll go into camp across the creek for
to-night, and then if anything goes wrong I'll be within call."
"Oh no! Don't think of doing that! You must not neglect your duties.
Daddy is a pretty good marksman, and I have learned to handle a rifle,
and, besides"--here her tone became ironic--"in the chivalrous West a
woman need not fear."
"There is a whole lot of hot air about that Western chivalry talk," he
retorted. "Bad men are just as bad here as anywhere, and they're
particularly bad on the Shellfish. But, anyhow, you'll call on me if I
can be of any use, won't you?"
"I certainly shall do so," she responded, heartily, and there was
confidence and liking in her eyes as well as in the grip of her hand as
she said good-by.
When in the saddle and ready to ride away he called to her, "You won't
mind my coming over here again on Saturday, will you?"
"No, indeed. Only it is so far."
"Oh, the ride is nothing. I don't like to think of your being here
alone."
"I'm not afraid. But we shall be glad to see you just the same."
And in appreciation of her smile he removed his hat and rode away with
bared head.
The young ranger was highly exalted by this visit, and he was also
greatly disturbed, for the more he thought of that warning letter and
the conditions which gave rise to it, the more menacing it became. It
was all of a piece with the tone and character of the Shellfish gang,
for this remote valley had long borne an evil reputation, and Watson and
Kitsong had been its dominating spirits for more than twenty years and
deeply resented Kauffman's settlement in the cañon.
"It would be just like old Kit to take the law into his own hands," the
ranger admitted to himself. "And the writing in that letter looked to me
like Mrs. Abe Kitsong's."
Instead of going up to the Heart Lake sheep-camp, as he had planned to
do, he turned back to his station, moved by a desire to keep as near the
girl as his duties would permit. "For the next few days I'd better be
within call," he decided. "They may decide to arrest her--and if they
do, she'll need me."
He went about his evening meal like a man under the influence of a drug,
and when he sat down to his typewriter his mind was so completely filled
with visions of his entrancing neighbor that he could not successfully
cast up a column of figures. He lit his pipe for a diversion, but under
the spell of the smoke his recollection of just how she looked, how she
spoke, how she smiled (that sad, half-lighting of her face) set all his
nerves atingle. He grew restless.
"What's the matter with me?" he asked himself, sharply, but dared not
answer his own question. He knew his malady. His unrest was that of the
lover. Thereafter he gave himself up to the quiet joy of reviewing each
word she had uttered, and in doing so came to the conclusion that she
was in the mountains not so much for the cure of her lungs or throat as
to heal the hurt of some injustice. What it was he could not imagine,
but he believed that she was getting over it. "As she gets over it
she'll find life on the Shellfish intolerable and she'll go away," he
reasoned, and the thought of her going made his country lonesome, empty,
and of no account.
"I wish she wouldn't go about barefoot," he added, with a tinge of
jealousy. "And she mustn't let any of the Shellfish gang see her in that
dress." He was a little comforted by remembering her sudden flight when
she first perceived him coming across the bridge, and he wondered
whether the trustful attitude she afterward assumed was due entirely to
the fact that he was a Federal officer--he hoped not. Some part of it
sprang, he knew, from a liking for him.
The wilderness was no place for a woman. It was all well enough for a
vacation, but to ask any woman to live in a little cabin miles from
another woman, miles from a doctor, was out of the question. He began to
perceive that there were disabilities in the life of a forester. His
world was suddenly disorganized. Life became complex in its bearings,
and he felt the stirrings of new ambitions, new ideals. Civilization
took on a charm which it had not hitherto possessed.
He was awakened at dawn the following morning by the smell of burning
pine--a smell that summons the ranger as a drum arouses a soldier.
Rushing out of doors, he soon located the fire. It was off the forest
and to the southeast, but as any blaze within sight demanded
investigation, he put a pot of coffee on the fire and swiftly roped and
saddled one of his horses. In thirty minutes he was riding up the side
of a high hill which lay between the station and Otter Creek, a branch
of the Shellfish, at the mouth of which, some miles below, stood
Kitsong's ranch.
It was not yet light, the smoke was widely diffused, and the precise
location of the blaze could not be determined, but it appeared to be on
the Shellfish side of the ridge, just below Watson's pasture. Hence he
kept due south over the second height which divided the two creeks. It
was daylight when he reached the second hogback, and the smoke of the
fire was diminishing, but he thought it best to ride on to renew his
warning against the use of fire till the autumn rains set in, and he had
in mind also a plan to secure from Mrs. Kitsong a specimen of her
handwriting and to pick up whatever he could in the way of gossip
concerning the feeling against the Kauffmans.
He was still some miles from the ranch, and crossing a deep ravine, when
he heard the sound of a rifle far above him. Halting, he listened
intently. Another shot rang out, nearer and to the south, and a moment
later the faint reports of a revolver. This sent a wave of excitement
through his blood. A rifle-shot might mean only a poacher. A volley of
revolver-shots meant battle.
Reining his cayuse sharply to the right and giving him the spur, he sent
him on a swift, zigzagging scramble up the smooth slope. A third
rifle-shot echoed from the cliff, and was answered by a smaller weapon,
much nearer, and, with his hair almost on end with excitement, he
reached the summit which commanded the whole valley of the Otter, just
in time to witness the most astounding drama he had ever known.
Down the rough logging road from the west a team of horses was wildly
galloping, pursued at a distance by several horsemen, whose weapons,
spitting smoke at intervals, gave proof of their murderous intent. In
the clattering, tossing wagon a man was kneeling, rifle in hand, while a
woman, standing recklessly erect, urged the flying horses to greater
speed. Nothing could have been more desperate, more furious, than this
running battle.
"My God! It's the Kauffman team!" he exclaimed, and with a shrill shout
snatched his revolver from its holster and fired into the air, with
intent to announce his presence to the assailing horsemen. Even as he
did so he saw one of the far-off pursuing ruffians draw his horse to a
stand and take deliberate aim over his saddle at the flying wagon. The
off pony dropped in his traces, and the vehicle, swinging from the road,
struck a boulder and sent the man hurtling over the side; but the girl,
crouching low, kept her place. Almost before the wheels had ceased to
revolve she caught up the rifle which her companion had dropped and sent
a shot of defiance toward her pursuers.
"Brave girl!" shouted Hanscom, for he recognized Helen. "Hold the fort!"
But his voice, husky with excitement, failed to reach her.
She heard the sound of his revolver, however, and, believing him to be
only another of the attacking party, took aim at him and fired. The
bullet from her rifle flew so near his head that he heard its song.
Again her rifle flashed, this time at the man above her, and again the
forester shouted her name. In the midst of the vast and splendid
landscape she seemed a minute brave insect defending itself against
invading beasts. Her pursuers, recognizing the ranger's horse, wheeled
their ponies and disappeared in the forest.
Hanscom spurred his horse straight toward the girl, calling her name,
but even then she failed to recognize him till, lifting his hat from his
head, he desperately shouted:
"Don't shoot, girl--don't shoot! It's Hanscom--the ranger!"
She knew him at last, and, dropping her rifle to the ground, awaited his
approach in silence.
As he leaped from his horse and ran toward her she lifted her hands to
him in a gesture of relief and welcome, and he took her in his arms as
naturally as he would have taken a frightened child to his breast.
"Great God! What's the meaning of all this?" he asked. "Are you hurt?"
She was white, but calm. "No, but daddy is--" And they hastened to where
the old man lay crumpled up beside a rock.
Hanscom knelt to the fallen man and examined him carefully. "He's
alive--he isn't wounded," he said. "He's only stunned. Wait! I'll bring
some water."
Running down to the bank, he filled his hat from the flood, and with
this soon brought the bruised and sadly bewildered rancher back to
consciousness.
Upon realizing who his rescuer was Kauffman's eyes misted with
gratitude. "My friend, I thank God for you. We were trying to find you.
We were on our way to claim your protection. We lost our road, and then
these bandits assaulted us."
The girl pieced out this explanation. She told of being awakened in the
night by a horse's hoofs clattering across the bridge. Some one rode
rapidly up to the door, dismounted, pushed a letter in over the
threshold, and rode away. "I rose and got the letter," she said. "It
warned us that trouble was already on the way. '_Get out!_' it said. I
roused daddy, we harnessed the horses and left the house as quickly as
we could. We dared not go down the valley, so we tried to reach you by
way of the mill. We took the wrong road at the lake. Our pursuers
trailed us and overtook us, as you saw."
It was all so monstrous that the ranger could scarcely believe it
true--and yet, there lay the dead horse and here was the old man beside
the stone. He did not refer to his own narrow escape, and apparently
Helen did not associate him with the horseman at whom she had fired with
such bewildering zeal.
IV
It was a rugged and barren setting for love's interchange, and yet these
two young souls faced each other, across the disabled old man, with
spirits fused in mutual understanding. Helen's face softened and her
eyes expressed the gratitude she felt. At the moment the ranger's sturdy
frame and plain, strong-featured face were altogether admirable to her.
She relied upon him mentally and physically, as did Kauffman, whose head
was bewildered by his fall.
Hanscom roused himself with effort. "Well, now, let's see what's to be
done next. One of your horses appears to be unhurt, but the other is
down." He went to the team and after a moment's examination came back to
say: "One is dead. I'll harness my own saddler in with the other, and in
that way we'll be able to reach my cabin. You must stay there for the
present."
Quickly, deftly, he gathered the scattered goods from the ground,
restored the seat to the wagon, untangled the dead beast from its
harness, and substituted his own fine animal, while Helen attended to
Kauffman. He recovered rapidly, and in a very short time was able to
take his seat in the wagon, and so they started down the road toward the
valley.
"It's a long way round by the wagon road," Hanscom explained. "But we
can make the cabin by eleven, and then we can consider the next move."
To this Helen now made objection. "We must not bring more trouble upon
you. They will resent your giving us shelter. Take us to the railway.
Help us to leave the state. I am afraid to stay in this country another
night. I want to get away from it all to-day."
A shaft of pain touched the ranger's heart at thought of losing her so
soon after finding her, and he said: "I don't think that is necessary.
They won't attempt another assault--not while you are under my
protection. I'd like the pleasure of defending you against them," he
added, grimly.
"But I'm afraid for daddy. I'm sure he wounded one of them, and if he
did they may follow us. You are very good and brave, but I am eager to
reach the train. I want to get away."
To this Kauffman added his plea. "Yes, yes, let us go," he said,
bitterly. "I am tired of these lawless savages. We came here, thinking
it was like Switzerland, a land inhabited by brave and gentle people,
lovers of the mountains. We find it a den of assassins. If you can help
us to the railway, dear friend, we will ask no more of you and we will
bless you always."
The ranger could not blame them for the panic into which they had
fallen, and frankly acknowledged that it was possible for Kitsong to
make them a great deal of trouble. Reluctantly he consented.
"I am sorry to have you go, but I reckon you're justified. There is a
way to board the northbound train without going to town, and if nothing
else happens we'll make the eastbound express. That will take you out of
the state with only one stop."
Conditions were not favorable for any further expression of the deep
regret he felt, for the road was rough, and with only one seat in the
wagon he was forced to perch himself on his up-ended saddle, and so,
urging the team to its best, he spoke only to outline his plan.
"I'll drive you to the Clear Creek siding," he explained. "All trains
stop there to take on water, and No. 3 is due round about one. We can
make it easily if nothing happens, and unless the Kitsong gang get word
from some of these ranches we pass, you will be safely out of the
country before they know you've gone."
They rode in silence for some time, but as they were dropping down into
the hot, dry, treeless foot-hills the ranger turned to explain: "I'm
going to leave the main road and whip out over the mesa just above the
Blackbird Ranch, so don't be surprised by my change of plan. They are a
dubious lot down there at the Blackbird, and have a telephone, so I'd
just as soon they wouldn't see us at all. They might send word to Abe.
It'll take a little longer, and the road is rougher, but our chances for
getting safely away are much better."
"We are entirely in your hands," she answered, with quiet confidence.
Her accent, her manner, were as new to him as her dress. She no longer
seemed a young girl masquerading, but a woman--one to whom life was
offering such stern drama that all her former troubles seemed suddenly
faint and far away.
Kauffman was still suffering from his fall, and it became necessary for
Helen to steady, him in his seat. Her muscles ached with the strain, but
she made no complaint, for she feared the ranger might lessen the speed
of their flight.
Upon turning into the rough road which climbed the mesa, the horses fell
into a walk, and the ranger, leaping from the wagon, strode alongside,
close to the seat on which the girl sat.
"All this is not precisely in the Service Book," he remarked, with a
touch of returning humor, "but I reckon it will be accounted 'giving aid
and succor to settlers in time of need.'"
She was studying him minutely at the moment, and it pleased her to
observe how closely his every action composed with the landscape. His
dusty boots, clamped with clinking spurs, his weather-beaten gray hat,
his keen glance flashing from point to point (nothing escaped him), his
every word and gesture denoted the man of outdoor life, self-reliant yet
self-unconscious; hardy, practical, yet possessing something that was
reflective as well as brave. Her heart went out to him in tenderness and
trust. Her shadow lifted.
He had no perception of himself as a romantic figure; on the contrary,
while pacing along there in the dust he was considering himself a sad
esquire to the woman in whose worshipful service he was enlisted. He was
eager to know more about her, and wondered if she would answer if he
were to ask her the cause of her exile. Each moment of her company, each
glimpse of her face, made the thought of losing her more painful. "Will
I ever see her again?" was the question which filled his mind.
At the top of the mesa he again mounted to his seat on the upturned
saddle, and kept the team steadily on the trot down the swiftly
descending road. The sun was high above them now, and every mile carried
them deeper into the heat and dust of the plain, but the girl uttered no
word of complaint. Her throat was parched with thirst, but she did not
permit him to know even this, for to halt at a well meant delay. They
rode in complete silence, save now and again when the ranger made some
remark concerning the character of the ranches they were passing.
"We are down among the men of the future now," he said--"the farmers who
carry spades instead of guns."
Once they met a boy on horseback, who stared at them in open-mouthed,
absorbed interest, and twice men working in the fields beckoned to them,
primitively curious to know who they were and where they were going.
But Hanscom kept his ponies to their pace and replied only by shouting,
"Got to catch the train!" In such wise he stayed them in their tracks,
reluctant but helpless. At last, pointing to a small, wavering speck far
out upon the level sod, he called with forceful cheerfulness: "There's
the tank. We'll overhaul it in an hour." Then he added: "I've been
thinking. What shall I do about the cabin? Shall I pack the furniture
and ship it to you?"
"No, no. Take it yourself or give it away. I care very little for most
of the things, except daddy's violin and my guitar. Those you may keep
until we send for them."
"I shall take good care of the guitar," he asserted, with a look which
she fully understood. "What about the books?"
"You may keep them also. We'd like you to have them--wouldn't we,
daddy?"
"Yes, yes," said Kauffman. "There is nothing there of much value, but
such as they are they are yours."
"I shall store everything," the young fellow declared, firmly, "in the
hope that some day you will come back."
"That will never be! My life here is ended," she asserted.
"You will not always feel as you do now," he urged. "All the people of
the county are not of Watson's stripe."
"That is true," she said. "I shall try not to be unjust, but I see now
that in seeking seclusion in that lonely cañon we thrust ourselves among
the most lawless citizens of the state, and cut ourselves off from the
very people we should have known. However, I have had enough of
solitude. My mind has changed. This week's experience has swept away the
fog in my brain. I feel like one suddenly awakened. I see my folly and I
shall go back to my people--to the city."
The ranger, recognizing something inflexible in this, made no further
appeal.
There was nothing at the tank but a small, brown cottage in which the
wife of the Mexican section boss lived, and to her Hanscom committed his
charges and turned to the care of his almost exhausted team. The train
was late, the guard at the tank said, and in consequence the ranger was
torn between an agony of impatience and a dread of parting.
It was probable that some of the Kitsongs were in the raiding party, and
if they were hurt the Kauffmans were not safe till the state line was
passed. It would be easy to head them off by a wire. It was a hideous
coil to throw about a young girl seeking relief from some unusual
sorrow, and though he longed even more deeply to keep her under his
protection, he made no objection to her going.
Returning to the section-house, he shared with her the simple meal which
the reticent, smiling little Mexican woman had prepared, and did his
best to cheer Kauffman with a belief in the early arrival of the train.
"It will be here soon, I am sure," he said.
Helen detected the lack of elation in his tone, and understood in some
degree the sense of loss which made him heartsick, and yet she could not
bring herself to utter words of comfort.
At the close of the meal, as they set out to walk across the sand to the
switch, he said to her: "Am I never to see you again?"
"I hope so--somewhere, somehow," she replied, evasively.
"I wish you'd set a time and place," he persisted. "I can't bear to see
you go. You can't realize how I shall miss you."
A fleeting gleam of amusement lighted her face. "You have known me only
a few days."
"Oh yes, I have. I've known you all summer. You kept me busy thinking
about you. The whole country will seem empty now."
She smiled. "I didn't know I filled so much space in the landscape. I
thought I was but a speck in it." She hesitated a moment, then added: "I
came out to lose myself in nature. I had come to hate men and to despise
women. I was sick of my kind. I wanted to live like a savage, a part of
the wild, and so--forget."
"Animals sometimes live alone; savages never do," he corrected, "unless
they are outlawed from their tribe."
"That's what I tried to do--outlaw myself from my tribe. I wanted to get
away from foolish comment, from malicious gossip."
"Are you ready to go back to it now--I mean to the city?"
"No, not quite; and yet this week's experience has shaken me and helped
me. You have helped me, and I want to thank you for it. I begin to
believe once more in good, brave, simple manhood. You and daddy have
revived my faith in men."
"Some man must have hurt you mighty bad," he said, simply. Then added:
"I can't understand that. I don't see how any man could do anything but
just naturally _worship_ you."
She was moved by the sincerity of his adoration, but she led him no
farther in that direction. "At first I thought I had won a kind of
peace. I was almost content in a benumbed way. Then came my arrest--and
you. It was a rough awakening, but I begin to see that I still live,
that I am young, that I can become breathless with excitement. This
raid, this ride, has swept away all that deathlike numbness which had
fallen upon me. I've had my lesson. Now I can go back. I must get away
from here."
Under the spell of her intense utterance the ranger's mind worked
rapidly, filling in the pauses. "Yes, you'd better go away, but I'm not
going to let you pass out of my life--not if I can help it! I'm going to
resign and go where you go--"
She laid a protesting hand upon his arm. "No, no!" she said. "Don't do
that. Don't resign. Don't change your plans on my account. I'm not worth
such a sacrifice, such risk."
"You're worth any risk," he stoutly retorted, with some part of her own
intensity in his voice. "I can't think of letting you go. I need you in
my business." He smiled wanly. "I'm only a forest ranger at ninety
dollars per month, but I'm going to be something else one of these days.
I won't mind a long, rough trail if I can be sure of finding you at the
end of it."
The far-away whistle of the train spurred him into fierce demand.
"You'll let me write to you, and you will reply once in a while, won't
you? It will give me something to look forward to. You owe me that
much!" he added.
"Yes, I will write," she promised. "But I think it better that you
should forget me. I hope we have not involved you in any trouble with
your neighbors or with the coroner."
"I am not worrying about that," he answered. "I am only concerned about
you. I would go to jail in a minute to save you any further worry."
"You are putting me so deeply in your debt that I can never repay you,"
she replied.
"A letter now and then will help," he suggested.
The train, panting, wheezing, hot with speed, came to a creeping halt,
and the conductor, swinging out upon the side track, greeted the ranger
pleasantly. "Hello, Hans! What are you doing here?"
Hanscom returned his greeting gravely. "Billy, here are some friends of
mine, just down from the hills. Take good care of them for me, will
you?"
"Sure thing, major," said the conductor. He helped Kauffman aboard, then
turned to Helen. "Now, lady," he said, holding out a hand, "I'm sorry
the step is so high, but--"
The ranger, stooping, took the girl in his arms and set her feet on the
lower step. "Good-by," he said, huskily. Then added: "For now. Write me
soon."
She turned and looked down upon him with a faint smile on her lips and a
tender light in her eyes. "I promise. Good-by," she said, and entered
the car.
The ranger stood for a long time gazing after the train, then languidly
walked away toward his team.
* * * * *
Hanscom turned his face toward the forest with a full knowledge that
his world had suddenly lost its charm. At one moment his thought went
anxiously forward with the fugitives, at another it returned to confront
the problem of his own desires. His act in thus assisting the main
witness to escape might displease the court and would undoubtedly
intensify the dislike which Kitsong had already expressed toward him.
"My stay in the district is not likely to be as quiet as it has been,"
he said to himself.
However, his own safety was not a question of grave concern. The mystery
of Watson's death yet remained, and until that was solved Helen was
still in danger of arrest. His mind at last settled to the task of
discovering and punishing the raiders. Who was Watson's assassin? What
fierce desire for revenge had prompted that savage assault?
There was no necessary connection between that small footprint and the
shooting, and yet, until it was proved to be the work of another,
suspicion would point to Helen as the only woman of the vicinity who had
the motive for the deed. To some the coroner's failure to hold her was
almost criminal.
His return to the hills was equivalent to running the gantlet. From
every ranch-gate men and boys issued, wall-eyed with curiosity. They, of
course, knew nothing of the raiding-party of the morning, but they
understood that something unusual had taken place, for was not the
ranger's saddle in his wagon, and his saddle-horse under harness, not to
mention a streak of blood along the flanks of its mate? The eyes of
these solitary cattlemen are as analytical as those of trained
detectives. Nothing material escapes them. Being taught to observe from
infancy, they had missed little of the ranger's errand.
"Who were you taking to the train?" they asked.
Hanscom's defense was silence and a species of jocular, curt evasion,
and he succeeded at last in getting past them all without resort to
direct and violent lying. As he had reason to suspect that one, at
least, of the riflemen of the morning belonged to the Blackbird outfit,
he decided to avoid that ranch altogether.
It would be absurd to claim that his nerves were perfectly calm and his
heart entirely unhurried as he crept across the mesa and dropped into
the wooded cañon just above the pasture fence. Although sustained by his
authority as a Federal officer, he was perfectly well aware that it was
possible for him to meet with trouble when the gang found out what he
had done.
Another disturbing thought began to grow in his mind. "If those raiders
watched me go down the hill, they may consider it a clever trick to drop
in on the Kauffman place and loot the house. They know it is unguarded.
Perhaps I ought to throw the saddle on old Baldy and ride over there to
make sure about it."
The more he considered this the more uneasy he became. "They're just
about sure to run off the stock, or be up to some other devilment," he
said. "They might set fire to the house." In the end he roped his extra
horse and set out.
Even by the cut-off it was a stiff ride, and it was nearly midnight as
he topped the last ridge and came in sight of the cabin. "Hello!" he
exclaimed. "Somebody _has_ moved in. I'm just in time."
A light was gleaming from the kitchen window, and the ranger's mind
worked quickly. No one but members of the raiding-party would think of
taking possession of this cabin so promptly. No one else would know that
the Kauffmans were away. "That being the case," he said, musingly, "it
stands me in hand to walk light and shifty." And he kept on above the
ranch in order to drop down through the timber of the cañon.
After tethering his horse upon a little plot of grass just west of the
garden, he adjusted his revolver on his thigh at the precise point where
it was handiest, and moved forward with care. "They mustn't have time
even to _think_ fight," he decided.
As he rounded the corner of the stable he heard the voice of a girl
singing, and the effect of this upon him was greater than any uproar. It
was uncanny. It made him wonder what kind of woman she could be who
could carol in the midst of the band of raiders. She might be more
dangerous than the men. She certainly added another complication to the
situation.
Listening closely, he was able to detect the voices of at least two men
as they joined discordantly in the refrain of the song. It was evident
that all felt entirely secure, and the task to which the ranger now
addressed himself was neither simple nor pleasant. To take these raiders
unaware, to get the upper hand of them, and to bring them to justice was
a dangerous program, but he was accustomed to taking chances and did not
hesitate very long.
Keeping close to the shadow, he crept from the corral to the garden
fence and from the covert of a clump of tall sunflowers was able to peer
into the cabin window with almost unobstructed vision. A woman was
seated on a low chair in the middle of the floor, playing a guitar and
singing a lively song. He could not see the men. "I wonder if that door
is locked?" he queried. "If it isn't, the job is easy. If it is, I'll
have to operate through a screen window."
He remembered that both doors, front and back, were very strong, for
Kauffman had been careful to have them heavily hinged and double-barred.
They could not be broken except with a sledge. The screen on the windows
could be ripped off, but to do that would make delay at the precise
moment when a quarter of a second would be worth a lifetime. "No, I've
got to gamble on that door being unlocked," he concluded, with the
fatalism of the mountaineer, to whom danger is an ever-present
side-partner.
With his revolver in his hand, he slid through the garden and reached
the corner of the house unperceived. The woman was now playing a dance
tune, and the men were stamping and shouting; and under cover of their
clamor the ranger, stooping low, passed the window and laid his hand on
the knob. The door yielded to his pressure, and swiftly, almost
soundlessly, he darted within and stood before the astounded trio like a
ghost--an armed and very warlike ghost.
"What's going on here?" he demanded, pleasantly, as with weapon in
complete readiness he confronted them.
He had no need to command quiet. They were all schooled in the rules of
the game he was playing, and understood perfectly the advantage which he
held over them. They read in his easy smile and jocular voice the deadly
determination which possessed him.
The woman was sitting in a low chair with the guitar in her lap and her
feet stretched out upon a stool. Her companions, two young men, hardly
more than boys, were standing near a table on which stood a bottle of
liquor. All had been stricken into instant immobility by the sudden
interruption of the ranger. Each stared with open mouth and dazed eyes.
Hanscom knew them all. The girl was the wilful daughter of a Basque
rancher over on the Porcupine. One of the boys was Henry Kitsong, a
nephew of Abe, and the other a herder named Busby, who had been at one
time a rider for Watson.
"Having a pleasant time, aren't you?" the ranger continued, still
retaining his sarcastic intonation. From where he stood he could see the
bottom of the girl's upturned shoes, and his alert brain took careful
note of the size and shape of the soles. A flush of exultation ran over
him. "Those are the shoes that left those telltale footprints in the
flour," he said to himself.
"You lads had better let me have your guns," he suggested. "Busby, I'll
take yours first."
The young ruffian yielded his weapon only when the ranger repeated his
request with menacing intonation. "You next, Henry," he said to Kitsong,
and, having thus cut the claws of his young cubs, his pose relaxed. "You
thought the owners of the place safely out of reach, didn't you? You saw
me go down in the valley with them? Well, I had a hunch that maybe you'd
take advantage of my absence, so I just rode over. I was afraid you
might drop down here and break things up. You see, I'm responsible for
all these goods, and I don't want to see them destroyed. That music-box,
for instance" (he addressed the girl); "I happen to know that's a
high-priced instrument, and I promised the owner to take good care of
it. That bottle you fellows dug up I didn't know anything about, but I
guess I'll confiscate that also. It ain't good for little boys." He
turned sharply on Kitsong. "Henry, was your father in that band of
sharpshooters this morning?"
"No, he wasn't," blurted the boy. "And I wasn't, either."
"We'll see about that in the morning. Which of you rode a blaze-faced
sorrel?" Neither answered, and Hanscom said, contentedly: "Oh, well,
we'll see about _that_ in the morning."
Hanscom had drawn close to the girl, who remained as if paralyzed with
fright. "Señorita, I reckon I'll have to borrow one of your shoes for a
minute." As he stooped and laid hold of her slipper Busby fell upon him
with the fury of a tiger.
Hanscom was surprised, for he had considered the fellow completely cowed
by the loss of his revolver. He could have shot him dead, but he did
not. He shook him off and swung at him with the big seven-shooter which
he still held in his hand. The blow fell upon the young fellow's
cheek-bone with such stunning force that he reeled and fell to the
floor.
Young Kitsong cried out, "You've killed him!"
"What was he trying to do to me?" retorted Hanscom. "Now you take that
kerchief of yours and tie his hands behind him. If either of you makes
another move at me, you'll be sorry. Get busy now."
Young Kitsong obeyed, awed by the ranger's tone, and Busby was soon
securely tied. He writhed like a wildcat as his strength came back, but
he was helpless, for Hanscom had taken a hand at lashing his feet
together. There was something bestial in the boy's fury. He would have
braved the ranger's pistol unhesitatingly after his momentary daze had
passed, for he had the blind rage of a trapped beast, and his strength
was amazing.
During all this time the girl remained absolutely silent, her back
against the wall, as if knowing that her capture would come next.
Hanscom fully expected her to take a hand in the struggle, but he was
relieved--greatly relieved--by her attitude of non-resistance.
"Now, Henry," he said, with a breath of relief, "I can't afford to let
either you or the señorita out of my sight. I reckon you'll both have to
sit right here and keep me company till morning. Mebbe the señorita will
bustle about and make a pot of coffee--that'll help us all to keep
awake. But first of all I want both her slippers. Bring 'em to me,
Henry."
Kitsong obeyed, and the girl yielded the slippers, the soles of which
seemed to interest Hanscom very deeply.
He continued with polite intonation, "We'll all start down the valley at
daybreak."
"What do you want of me?" asked the girl, hoarsely.
"I want you as a witness to the assault Busby made on me; and then, you
see, you're all housebreakers"--he waved his hand toward the front
window, from which the screen had been torn and the glass broken--"and
housebreaking is pretty serious business even in this country.
Furthermore, you were all concerned in that raid, and I'm going to see
that you all feel the full weight of the law."
All the time he was talking so easily and so confidently he was really
saying to himself: "To take you three to jail will be like driving so
many wolves to market--but it's got to be done."
He was tired, irritable, and eager to be clear of it all. His own cabin
at the moment seemed an ideally peaceful retreat. Only his belief that
in this girl's small shoe lay the absolute proof of Helen's innocence
nerved him to go on with his self-imposed duty. His chief desire was to
place these shoes in the coroner's hands and so end all dispute
concerning the footprints in the flour.
The girl, whose name was Rita, sullenly made coffee, and as she brought
it to him, he continued his interrogation:
"How did you get here?"
"I rode."
"Over the trail? Across the divide?"
"Yes."
"Were you in the raid this morning?"
"What raid? I don't know of any raid."
He knew she was lying, but he only said, "When did you leave home?"
"Three days ago."
"Where have you been?"
"In camp."
"Where?"
She pointed up the stream.
"How long have you been acquainted with this man Busby?"
Here he struck upon something stubborn and hard in the girl's nature.
She refused to reply.
"When were you over here last?"
A warning word from Busby denoted that he understood the course of the
ranger's questioning and was anxious to strengthen her resistance.
Hanscom had several hours in which to ponder, and soon arrived at a
fairly accurate understanding of the whole situation. He remembered
vaguely the report of a row between Watson and Busby, and he was aware
of the reckless cruelty of the dead man. It might be that in revenge for
some savagery on his part, some graceless act toward Rita, this moody,
half-insane youth had crept upon the rancher and killed him.
He turned to young Kitsong. "I haven't seen you lately. Where have you
been?"
"Over on the Porcupine."
"Working on Gonzales's ranch?"
"Yes, part of the time."
"Does your father know you are back in the valley?"
"No--yes, he does, too!"
"You fired that shot that killed the horse, didn't you?"
Young Kitsong betrayed anxiety. "I don't know what you are talking
about."
"Which of you rode the blaze-faced sorrel?"
In spite of himself the boy glanced quickly at the girl, who shook her
head.
Hanscom addressed himself to her. "Señorita, which of your friends rode
the blaze-faced sorrel?"
Her head dropped in silent refusal to answer.
"Oh, well," said the ranger, "we'll find out in the course of time. My
eyesight is pretty keen, and I can swear that it was the man on the
sorrel horse that fired the shot that stopped the Kauffman team. Now one
or the other of you will have to answer to that charge." His voice took
on a sterner note. "What were you doing on Watson's porch last
Saturday?"
The girl started and flushed. "I wasn't on his porch."
"Oh yes, you were! You didn't know you left your footprints in some
flour on the floor, did you?"
Her glance was directed involuntarily toward her feet, as if in guilty
surprise. It was a slight but convincing evidence to the ranger, who
went on:
"Who was with you--Busby or Henry?"
"Nobody was with me. I wasn't there. I haven't been in the valley before
for weeks."
"You didn't go there alone. You wouldn't dare to go alone in the night,
and the man who was with you killed Watson."
She sat up with a gasp, and young Kitsong stared. Their surprise was too
genuine to be assumed. "What's that you say? Watson killed?"
"Yes. Watson was shot Monday night. Didn't you know that? Where have you
been that you haven't heard of it?"
Young Kitsong was all readiness to answer now. "We've been up in the
hills. We have a camp up there."
"Oh," said Hanscom, "kind of a robbers' den, eh? Has Busby been with
you?"
"Sure thing. We've all been fishing and hunting--" Here he stopped
suddenly, for to admit that he had been hunting out of season was to lay
himself liable to arrest as a poacher on the forest. He went on: "We all
came down here together."
"What were you doing chasing that team? What was the game in that?"
"Well, he shot at us first," answered the boy.
And Busby shouted from his position in the corner on the floor, "Shut
up, you fool!"
The ranger smiled. "Oh, it's got to all come out, Busby. I saw the man
on the sorrel horse fire that shot--don't forget that. And I know who
made the tracks in the flour. But I am beginning to wonder if you had
anything to do with warning the Kauffmans to get out."
He had indeed come to the end of his questioning, for his captives
refused to utter another word, and he himself fell silent, his mind
engaged with the intricacies of this problem. It might be that these
young dare-devils just happened to meet Kauffman on the road and decided
to hold him up. It was possible that they knew nothing of the warnings
which had been sent. But in that case, who pushed that final warning
under the door? Who let them know of trouble from above?
Dawn was creeping up the valley, and, calling young Kitsong from the
doze into which he had fallen, he said: "Now, Henry, I'm going to take
this bunch down to the sheriff, and you might as well make up your mind
to it first as last. You go out and saddle up while the señorita heats
up some more coffee, and we'll get ready and start."
Hanscom was by no means as confident as his voice sounded, and, as the
young fellow rose to go, only half expected him to show his face again.
"Well, let him slip," he said to himself. "I'll be safer without him."
Busby spoke up from the floor. "You stay with the game, Hank, and you
ride your own horse."
"You bet I'll ride my own horse," Kitsong violently retorted, from the
doorway.
The girl, who understood the significance of this controversy,
interposed. "I'll ride the sorrel. He's my horse, anyway."
Hanscom mockingly chimed in. "That's mighty fine and self-sacrificing,
but it won't do. The rider who fired that shot was a man. But I'll leave
it to Henry. Bring around the horses, and remember, if you slip out with
that bay horse I'll _know_ you rode the sorrel yesterday."
The situation had become too complicated for the girl, who fell silent,
while Busby cursed the ranger in fierce, set terms. "What right have you
got to arrest us, anyhow?"
"All the right I need. That shooting began inside the forest boundary,
and it's my duty to see that you are placed in the hands of the law."
Here his voice took on a note of grim determination. "And I want you to
understand there will be no funny business on the way down."
"How can I ride, all tied up like this?" demanded the ruffian.
"Oh, I'm going to untie you, and you are going to come along
quietly--either as live stock or freight--you can take your choice."
Busby, subdued by several hours on the floor, was disposed to do as he
was told, and Hanscom unbound his legs and permitted him to rise.
As young Kitsong brought the horses around in front of the cabin,
Hanscom was not disappointed in finding the girl's saddle on the sorrel.
He made no comment.
"Now, Busby, we'll mount you first," he said, and slipped the bridle
from the horse. "You see, to make sure of you I am going to lead your
pony." He then untied the youth's hands. "Climb on!" he commanded.
Busby silently mounted to his saddle, the girl took the sorrel, and at
command Kitsong started down the trail.
"You go next," said Hanscom to the girl, "now you, Busby," he added, and
with the rope across the horse's rump--the trick of a trained
trailer--he started down the trail.
Sinister as this small procession really was, it would have appeared
quite innocent to a casual observer as it went winding down the hill. No
one at a little distance would have been able to tell that in the silent
determination of the horseman in the rear lay the only law, the only
bond which kept these four riders in line. Neither Busby nor Kitsong nor
the girl doubted for an instant that if any of them made a deflection, a
rush for freedom, they would be shot. They knew that as a Federal
officer he had certain authority. Just how much authority they could not
determine, but they were aware that the shooting had begun in the
forest, which was his domain.
As they sighted Watson's cabin Hanscom was curious to know whether
nearing the scene of the crime would have any perceptible effect on
Busby. "Will he betray nervousness?" he asked himself.
Quite the contrary. As he came opposite the house, Busby turned in his
saddle and asked, "When was Watson killed?"
"Nobody knows exactly. Some time Monday night," answered the ranger.
A few miles down the road they met a rancher coming up the valley with a
timber-wagon, and to him the ranger explained briefly the nature of his
expedition, and said:
"Now, Tom, I reckon you'll have to turn around and help me take these
youngsters to the sheriff. I would rather have them in your wagon than
on horseback."
The rancher consented with almost instant readiness.
The prisoners were transferred to the wagon, and in this way the
remainder of the trip was covered.
V
The county jail was a square, brick structure standing in the midst of a
grove of small cottonwood-trees (planted in painful rows), and the
sheriff's office and his wife's parlor, situated on opposite sides of
the hall, occupied the front part of the first story, while the rear and
the basement served as kitchen and dungeon keep. Generally the lockup
was empty and the building quite as decorous as any other on the street,
although at certain times it resounded with life. On this day it was
quiet, and Throop and his wife, who served as matron, were sitting under
a tree as the rancher's wagon halted before the gate.
It was about three o'clock in the afternoon and Hanscom's prisoners
were dusty, tired, and sullen as they filed up the walk toward the
sheriff, who awaited their approach with an inquiring slant to his huge
head. Mrs. Throop retreated to the house.
When at close range Hanscom with a weary smile said, "I've brought you
some new boarders, Mr. Sheriff."
"So I see," said the officer, as he motioned them to enter the door.
"What's it all about?"
"It's a long story," replied the ranger, "and of course I can't go into
it here, but I want you to take charge of these people while I see
Carmody and find out what he wants done with them. I think he'll find
them valuable witnesses. Incidentally I may say they've been shooting a
horse and breaking and entering a house."
The sheriff was deeply impressed with this charge. "Well, well!" he
said, studying with especial care the downcast face of the girl. "I
thought it might be only killing game out of season, stealing timber, or
some such thing." He called a deputy. "Here, Tom, take these men into
the guard-room, and, Mrs. Throop, you look after this girl while I go
over the case with Mr. Hanscom."
"Don't let 'em talk with anybody," warned the ranger.
The sheriff passed the word to the deputy, "That's right, Tom."
In deep relief the ranger followed the sheriff into his private office
and dropped into a seat. "Jeerusalem! I'm tired!" he exclaimed. "That
was a nervous job!"
"Cut loose," said the sheriff.
Hanscom then related as briefly as he could the story of the capture. At
the end he confessed that he had hardly expected to reach town with all
of them. "I had no authority to arrest them. I just bluffed them, as
well as the rancher who drove the wagon, into thinking I had. I wanted
them for Carmody to question, and I hung to the girl because I believe
she can absolutely clear Kauffman and his daughter of any connection--"
Throop, who had listened intently, now broke out: "Well, I hope so. That
old man and his girl sure are acquiring all kinds of misery. Kitsong got
Carmody to issue a warrant for them yesterday, and I wired the
authorities at Lone Rock and had them both taken from the train."
The ranger's face stiffened as he stared at the officer. "You did!"
"I did, and they're on their way back on No. 6."
"How could Carmody do that?" Hanscom demanded, hotly. "He told them to
go--I heard him."
"He says not. He says he just excused the girl for the time being. He
declares now that he expected them both to stay within call, and when he
heard they were running away--"
"How did he know they were running away?"
"Search me! Some one on the train must have wired back."
"More likely the Blackbird Ranch 'phoned in. They are all related to
Watson. I was afraid of them." He rose. "Well, that proves that Abe and
his gang were at the bottom of that raid."
"Maybe so, but I don't see how Carmody can go into that--his job is to
find the man or woman who killed Watson."
"Well, there's where I come in. I've got the girl who made those tracks
on the floor."
The sheriff was thoughtful. "I guess you'd better call up Carmody--he's
the whole works till his verdict is rendered, and he ought to be
notified at once."
A moment's talk with the doctor's office disclosed the fact that he was
out in the country on a medical trip, and would not return till late.
"Reckon we'll have to wait," said the sheriff.
The ranger's face fell. After a pause he asked, "When does that train
get in?"
"About six; it's an hour late."
"And they'll be jailed?"
"Sure thing! No other way. Carmody told me to take charge of them and
see that they were both on hand to-morrow."
Hanscom's fine eyes flamed with indignation. "It's an outrage. That girl
is as innocent of Watson's killing as you are. I won't have her
humiliated in this way."
"You seem terribly interested in this young lady," remarked Throop, with
a grin.
Hanscom was in no mood to dodge. "I am--and I'm going to save her from
coming here if I can." He started for the door. "I'll see Judge Brinkley
and get her released. Carmody has no authority to hold her."
"I hope you succeed," said the sheriff, sympathetically; "but at present
I'm under orders from the coroner. It's up to him. So you think you've
got the girl who made them tracks?"
"I certainly do, and I want you to hold these prisoners till Carmody
gets home. Don't let anybody see them, and don't let them talk with one
another. They'll all come before that jury to-morrow, and they mustn't
have any chance to frame up a lie."
"All right. I see your point. Go ahead. Your prisoners will be here when
you come back."
Hanscom went away, raging against the indignity which threatened Helen.
At Carmody's office he waited an hour, hoping the coroner might return,
and, in despair of any help from him, set out at last for Brinkley's
office, resolute to secure the judge's interference.
The first man he met on the street stopped him with a jovial word:
"Hello, Hans! Say, you want to watch out for Abe Kitsong. He came
b'ilin' in half an hour ago, and is looking for you. Says you helped
that Dutchman and his girl (or wife, or whatever she is) to get away,
and that you've been arresting Henry, his nephew, without a warrant, and
he swears he'll swat you good and plenty, on sight."
Hanscom's voice was savage as he replied: "You tell him that I'm big
enough to be seen with the naked eye, and if he wants me right away
he'll find me at Judge Brinkley's office."
The other man also grew serious. "All the same, Hans, keep an eye out,"
he urged. "Abe is sure to make you trouble. He's started in drinking,
and when he's drunk he's poisonous as a rattler."
"All right. I'm used to rattlers--I'll hear him before he strikes. He's
a noisy brute."
The ranger could understand that Rita's father might very naturally be
thrown into a fury of protest by the news of his daughter's arrest, but
Kitsong's concern over a nephew whom he had not hitherto regarded as
worth the slightest care did not appear especially logical or singularly
important.
Brinkley was not in his office and so Hanscom went out to his house, out
on the north bend of the river in a large lawn set with young trees.
The judge, seated on his porch in his shirt-sleeves, exhibited the
placid ease of a man whose office work is done and his grass freshly
sprinkled.
"Good evening, Hanscom," he pleasantly called. "Come up and have a seat
and a smoke with the gardener."
"I have but a moment," the ranger replied, and plunged again into the
story, which served in this instance as a preface to his plea for
intervention. "You must help _me_, Judge. Miss McLaren must not go to
jail. To arrest her in this way a second time is a crime. She's a lady,
Judge, and as innocent of that shooting as a child."
"You surprise me," said Brinkley. "According to all reports she is very,
very far from being a lady."
Hanscom threw out his hands in protest. "They're all wrong, Judge. I
tell you she _is_ a lady, and young and handsome."
"Handsome and young!" The judge's eyes took on a musing expression.
"Well, well! that accounts for much. But what was she doing up there in
the company of that old Dutchman?"
"I don't know why she came West, but I'm glad she did. I'm glad to have
known her. That old Dutchman, as you call him, is her stepfather and a
fine chap."
"But Carmody has arrested her. What caused him to do that?"
"I don't know. I can't understand it. It may be that Kitsong has put the
screws on him some way."
The judge reflected. "As the only strange woman in the valley, the girl
naturally falls under suspicion of having made those footprints."
"I know it, Judge, but you have only to see her--to hear her voice--to
realize how impossible it is for her to kill even a coyote. All I ask,
now, is that you save her from going to jail."
"I don't see how I can interfere," Brinkley answered, with gentle
decision. "As coroner, Carmody has the case entirely in his hands till
after the verdict. But don't take her imprisonment too hard," he added,
with desire to comfort him. "Throop has a good deal of discretion and
I'll 'phone him to make her stay as little like incarceration as
possible. You see, while nominally she's only a witness for the state,
actually she's on trial for murder, and till you can get your other
woman before the jury she's a suspect. If you are right, the jury will
at once bring in a verdict against other parties, known or unknown, and
she will be free--except that she may have to remain to testify in her
own case against the raiders. Don't worry, my dear fellow. It will come
out all right."
Hanscom was now in the grasp of conflicting emotions. In spite of
Brinkley's refusal to interfere, he could not deny a definite feeling of
pleasure in the fact that Helen was returning and that he was about to
see her again. "Anyhow, I have another opportunity to serve her," he
thought, as he turned down the street toward the station. "Perhaps after
the verdict she will not feel so eager to leave the country."
VI
Meanwhile the fugitives on the westbound express were nearing the town
in charge of the marshal of Lone Rock, and Helen (who had telegraphed
her plight to Hanscom and had received no reply) was in silent dread of
the ordeal which awaited her. Her confidence in the ranger had not
failed, but, realizing how difficult it was to reach him, she had small
hope of seeing his kindly face at the end of her journey.
"He may be riding some of those lonely heights this moment," she
thought, and wondered what he would do if he knew that she was
returning, a prisoner. "He would come to me," she said, in answer to her
own question, and the thought that in all that mighty spread of peak and
plain he was the one gracious and kindly soul lent a kind of glamour to
his name. "After all, a loyal soul like his is worth more than any mine
or mountain," she acknowledged.
The marshal, a small, quaint, middle-aged person with squinting glance
and bushy hair, was not only very much in awe of his lovely prisoner,
but so accustomed to going about in his shirt-sleeves that he suffered
acutely in the confinement of his heavy coat. Nevertheless, in spite of
his discomfort, he was very considerate in a left-handed way, and did
his best to conceal the official relationship between himself and his
wards. He not only sat behind them all the way, but he made no attempt
at conversation, and for these favors Helen was genuinely grateful. Only
as they neared the station did he venture to address her.
"Now the sheriff will probably be on hand," he said; "and if he is I'll
just naturally turn you over to him; but in case he isn't I'll have to
take you right over to the jail. I'm sorry, but that's my orders. So if
you'll kindly step along just ahead of me, people may not notice you're
in my charge."
Helen assured him that she would obey every suggestion, and that she
deeply appreciated his courtesy.
Kauffman's spirit was sadly broken. His age, the rough usage of the day
before, and this unwarranted second arrest had combined to take away
from him a large part of his natural courage. He insisted that Helen
should wire her Eastern friends, stating the case and appealing for
aid.
"We need help now," he said. "We are being persecuted."
Helen, however, remembering Carmody's kindness, said: "Don't be
discouraged, daddy. It may be that we are only witnesses and that after
we have testified we shall be released. Wait until to-morrow; I hate to
announce new troubles to my relatives."
"But we shall need money," he said, anxiously. "We have only a small
balance."
It was nearly six o'clock as they came winding down between the grassy
buttes which formed the gateway to the town, and the girl recalled, with
a wave of self-pity, the feeling of exaltation with which she had first
looked upon that splendid purple-walled cañon rising to the west. It had
appealed to her at that time as the gateway to a mystic sanctuary. Now
it was but the lair of thieves and murderers, ferocious and obscene.
Only one kindly human soul dwelt among those majestic, forested heights.
She was pale, sad, but entirely composed, and to Hanscom very beautiful,
as she appeared in the vestibule of the long day-coach, but her face
flushed with pleasure at sight of him, and as she grasped his hand and
looked into his fine eyes something warm and glowing flooded her heart.
"Oh, how relieved I am to find you here!" she exclaimed, and her lips
trembled in confirmation of her words. "I did not expect you. I was
afraid my telegram had not reached you."
"Did you telegraph me?" he asked. "I didn't get it--but I'm here all the
same," he added, and fervently pressed the hands which she had allowed
him to retain.
Oblivious of the curious crowd, she faced him in a sudden realization of
her dependence upon him, and her gratitude for his stark manliness was
so deep, so full, she could have put her hands about his neck. How
dependable, how simple, how clear-eyed he was!
He on his part found her greatly changed in both face and voice. She
seemed clothed in some new, strange dignity, and yet her glance was less
remote, less impersonal than before and her pleasure at sight of him
deeply gratifying. In spite of himself his spirits lightened.
"I have a lot to tell you," he began, but the sheriff courteously
interposed:
"Put her right into my machine--You go too, Hanscom."
"I couldn't prevent this," he began, sorrowfully, as he took a seat
beside her; "but you will not be put into a cell. Mrs. Throop will treat
you as a guest."
The self-accusation in his voice moved her to put her hand on his arm in
caressing reassurance. "Please don't blame yourself about that," she
said. "I don't mind. It's only for the night, anyway. Let us think of
to-morrow."
The ride was short and Mrs. Throop, a tall, dark, rather gloomy woman,
came to the door to meet her guests with the air of an old-fashioned
village hostess, serious but kindly.
"Mrs. Throop," said her husband. "This is Miss McLaren and her father,
Mr. Kauffman. Make them as comfortable as you can."
Mrs. Throop greeted Helen with instant kindly interest. "I am pleased to
know you. Come right in. You must be tired."
"I am," confessed the girl, "very tired and very dusty. I hope you
always put your prisoners under the hose."
"I'll give you my spare chamber," replied the matron, with abstracted
glance. "It's next the bath-room. I'm sorry, but I guess your father'll
have to go down below."
"What do you mean by that?"
The sheriff explained, "The cells are below."
Helen was instantly alarmed. "Oh no!" she protested. "My father is not
at all well. Please give him my room. I'll go down below."
"It won't be necessary for either of you to go below," interposed the
sheriff. "Hanscom, I'll put Kauffman in your charge. You can take him to
your boarding-house if you want to."
"You're very kind," said Helen, with such feeling that the sheriff
reacted to it. "I hope it won't get you into trouble."
"Oh, I don't think it will," he said, cheerily. "So long as I know he's
safe, it don't matter where he sleeps."
"Well, you'd better all stay to supper, anyhow," said Mrs. Throop. "It's
ready and waiting."
No one but Helen perceived anything unusual in this hearty offhand
invitation. To Hanscom it was just another instance of Western
hospitality, and to the sheriff a common service, and so a few minutes
later they all sat down at the generous table, in such genial mood (with
Mrs. Throop doing her best to make them feel at home) that all their
troubles became less than shadows.
Although disinclined to go into a detailed story of his return to the
hills, Hanscom described the capture of the housebreakers and, in spite
of a careful avoidance of anything which might sound like boasting,
disclosed the fact that at the moment when he threw open the door of
the cabin he had exposed himself to the weapons of a couple of reckless
young outlaws and might have been killed.
"You shouldn't have risked that," Helen protested. "Our poor possessions
are not worth such cost."
"I couldn't endure the notion of those hoodlums looting the place," he
explained.
At the thought of Rita (who was occupying a cell in the women's ward)
Helen grew a little sad, for, according to the ranger's own account, she
was hardly more than a child, and had been led away by her first
passion.
At the close of the meal, upon Mrs. Throop's housewifely invitation,
they all took seats in the "front room" and Helen quite forgot that she
was a prisoner, and the ranger almost returned to boyhood as he faced
the marble-topped table, the cabinet organ, and the enlarged family
portraits on the walls, for of such quality were his mother's adornments
in the old home at Circle Bend. Something vaguely intimate and a little
confusing filled his mind as he listened to the voice of the woman
before him. Only by an effort could he connect her with the cabin in the
high valley. She was becoming each moment more alien, more aloof, but at
the same time more desirable, like the girls he used to worship in the
church choir.
Speech was difficult with him, and he could only repeat: "It makes me
feel like a rabbit to think I could not keep you from coming here, and
the worst of it is I had nothing to offer as security. All I have in the
world is a couple of horses, a saddle, and a typewriter."
"It really doesn't matter," she replied in hope of easing his mind. "See
how they treat us! They know we're unjustly held and that we shall be
set free to-morrow."
Strange to say, this did not lighten his gloom. "And then--you will go
away," he said, soberly.
"Yes; we cannot remain here."
"And I shall never see you again," he pursued.
Her face betrayed a trace of sympathetic pain. "Don't say that! _Never_
is such a long time."
"And you'll forget us all out here--"
"I shall never forget what you have done, be sure of that," she replied.
Nevertheless, despite the tenderness of her tone and her gratitude
openly expressed, something disconcerting had come into her eyes and
voice. She was more and more the lady and less and less the recluse, and
as she receded and rose to this higher plane, the ranger lost heart,
almost without knowing the cause of it.
At last he turned to Kauffman. "I suppose we'd better go," he said. "You
look tired."
"I am tired," the old man admitted. "Is it far to your hotel?"
"Only a little way."
"Good night," said Helen, extending her hand with a sudden light in her
face which transported the trailer. "We'll meet again in the morning."
He took her hand in his with a clutch in his throat which made reply
difficult; but his glance expressed the adoration which filled his
heart.
* * * * *
Kauffman left the house, walking like a man of seventy. "My bones are
not broken, but they are weary," he said, dejectedly; "I fear I am to be
ill."
"Oh, you'll be all right in the morning," responded the ranger much more
cheerily than he really felt.
"Is it not strange that any reasonable being should accuse my daughter
and me of that monstrous deed?"
"That is because no one knows you. When the towns-folk come to know you
and her they will think differently. That is why I am glad the coroner
is to hold his court here in the town."
"Well, if only we are set free--We shall be set free, eh?"
"Surely? But what will you do then? Where will you go?"
"I hope Helen will return to her people." He sighed deeply. "It was all
very foolish to come out here. But it was natural. She was stricken, and
sensitive--so morbidly sensitive--to pity, to gossip. Then, too, a
romantic notion about the healing power of the mountains was in her
thought. She wished to go where no one knew her--where she could live
the simple life and regain serenity and health. She said: 'I will not go
to a convent. I will make a sanctuary of the green hills.'"
"Something very sorrowful must have happened--" said Hanscom,
hesitatingly.
The old man's voice was very grave as he replied: "Not sorrow, but
treachery," he said. "A treachery so cruel, a betrayal so complete, that
when she lost her lover and her most intimate girl friend (one nearer
than a sister) she lost faith in all men and all women--almost in God. I
cannot tell you more of her story--" He paused a moment, then added:
"She believes in you--she already trusts you--and some time, perhaps,
she herself will tell the story of her betrayal. Till then you must be
content with this--she is here through no fault or weakness of her own."
The ranger, pondering deeply, dared not put into definite form the
precise disloyalty which had driven a broken-hearted girl to seek the
shelter of the hills, but he understood her mood. Hating her kind and
believing that she could lose herself in the immensity of the landscape,
she had come to the mountains only to be cruelly disillusioned. The
Kitsongs had taught her that in the wilderness a woman is more
noticeable than a peak.
Just why she selected the Shellfish for her retreat remained to be
explained, and to this question Kauffman answered: "We came here because
a friend of ours, a poet, who had once camped in the valley, told us of
the wonderful beauty of the place. It is beautiful--quite as beautiful
as it was reported--but a beautiful landscape, it appears, does not make
men over into its image. It makes them seem only the more savage."
Hanscom, refraining from further question, helped the old man up the
stairway to his bed and then returned to the barroom, in which several
of the regular boarders were loafing. One or two greeted him familiarly,
and it was evident that they all knew something of the capture and were
curious to learn more. His answers to their questions were brief:
"You'll learn all about it to-morrow," he said.
Simpson, the proprietor of the hotel, jocosely remarked: "Well, Hans, as
near as I can figure it out, to-morrow is to be your busy day, but you'd
better lay low to-night. The Kitsongs'll get ye, if ye don't watch
out."
"I'll watch out. What do you hear?"
"The whole of Shellfish Valley is coming in to see that your Dutchman
and his girl gets what's coming to them. Abe has just left here, looking
for you. He's turribly wrought up. Says you had no right to arrest them
youngsters and he'll make you sorry you did."
One of the clerks dryly remarked: "They's a fierce interest in this
inquest. Carmody will sure have to move over to the court-house. Gee!
but he feels his feed! For one day, anyhow, he's bigger than the
_en_tire County Court."
The ranger had a clearer vision of his own as well as Helen's situation
as he replied: "Well, I'm going over to see him. When it comes to a
show-down he's on my side, for he needs the witnesses I've brought him."
"Abe sure has got it in for you, Hans. Your standing up for the Dutchman
and his woman was bad enough, but for you to arrest Hank without a
warrant has set the old man a-poppin'." He glanced at the ranger's empty
belt. "Better take your gun along."
"No; I'm safer without it," he replied. "I might fly mad and hurt
somebody."
The loafers, though eager to witness the clash, did not rise from their
chairs till after Hanscom left. No one wished to betray unseemly haste.
"There'll be something doing when they meet," said Simpson. "Let's
follow him up and see the fun."
As he walked away in the darkness the ranger began to fear--not for
himself, but for Helen. The unreasoning ferocity with which the valley
still pursued her was appalling. For the first time in his life he
strongly desired money. He felt his weakness, his ignorance. In the face
of the trial--which should mean complete vindication for the girl, but
which might prove to be another hideous miscarriage of justice--he was
of no more value than a child. Carmody had seemed friendly, but some
evil influence had evidently changed his attitude.
"What can I do?" the ranger asked himself, and was only able to answer,
"Nothing."
From a sober-sided, capable boy, content to do a thing well, he had
developed at thirty into a serious but singularly unambitious man.
Loving the outdoor life and being sufficiently resourceful to live alone
in a wilderness cabin without becoming morbid, he had naturally drifted
into the Forest Service. Without being slothful, he had been foolishly
unaspiring, and he saw that now. "I must bestir myself," he said,
sharply. "I must wake up. I must climb. I must get somewhere."
He took close grip on himself. "Carmody must squeeze the truth out of
these youngsters to-morrow, and I must help him do it. If Brinkley can't
help, I must have somebody else." And yet deep in his heart was the
belief that the sight of Helen as she took the witness-chair would do
more to clear her name than any lawyer could accomplish by craft or
passionate speech.
At the door of Carmody's office he came upon Kitsong and a group of his
followers, waiting for him. Abe was in a most dangerous mood, and his
hearers, also in liquor, were listening with approval to the description
of what he intended to do to the ranger.
"You can't arrest a man without a warrant," he was repeating. "Hanscom's
no sheriff--he's only a dirty deputy game-warden. I'll make him wish he
was a goat before I get through with him."
Although to advance meant war, Hanscom had no thought of retreating. He
kept his way, and as the band of light which streamed from the saloon
window fell on him one of the watchers called out, "There's the ranger
now."
Kitsong turned, and with an oath of savage joy advanced upon the
forester. "You're the man I have been waiting for," he began, with a
menacing snarl.
"Well," Hanscom retorted, "here I am. What can I do for you?"
His quiet tone instantly infuriated the ruffian. Shaking his fist close
to the ranger's nose, he shouted: "I'll do for you, you loafer! What
right had you to arrest them kids? What right had you to help them
witnesses to the train? You're off your beat, and you'd better climb
right back again."
Righteous wrath flamed hot in the ranger's breast. "You keep your fist
out of my face or I'll smash your jaw," he answered, and his voice was
husky with passion. "Get out of my way!" he added, as Kitsong shifted
ground, deliberately blocking his path.
"You can't bluff me!" roared the older man. "I'm going to have you
jugged for false arrest. You'll find you can't go round taking people to
jail at your own sweet will."
The battle song in the old man's voice aroused the street. His
sympathizers pressed close. All their long-felt, half-hidden hatred of
the ranger as a Federal officer flamed from their eyes, and Hanscom
regretted the absence of his revolver.
Though lean and awkward, he was one of those deceptive men whose muscles
are folded in broad, firm flakes like steel springs. A sense of danger
thrilled his blood, but he did not show it--he could not afford to show
it. Therefore he merely backed up against the wall of the building and
with clenched hands awaited their onset.
Something in his silence and self-control daunted his furious opponents.
They hesitated.
"If you weren't a government officer," blustered Abe, "I'd waller
ye--But I'll get ye! I'll put ye where that Dutchman and his--"
Hanscom's fist crashing like a hammer against the rancher's jaw closed
his teeth on the vile epithet which filled his mouth, and even as he
reeled, stunned by this blow, the ranger's left arm flashed in another
savage swing, and Abe, stunned by the swift attack, would have fallen
into the gutter had not one of his gang caught and supported him.
"Kill him! Kill the dog!" shouted one of the others, and in his voice
was the note of the murderer.
Eli Kitsong whipped out his revolver, but the hand of a friendly
bystander clutched the weapon. "None of that; the man is unarmed," he
said.
At this moment the door of the saloon opened and five or six men came
rushing, eager to see, quick to share in a fight. Believing them to be
enemies, Hanscom with instant rush struck the first man a heavy blow,
caught and wrenched his weapon from his fist, and so, armed and
desperate, faced the circle of inflamed and excited men.
"Hands up now!" he called.
"Don't shoot, Hans!" shouted the man who had been disarmed. "We're all
friends."
In the tense silence which followed, the sheriff, attracted by the
noise, emerged from the coroner's door with a shout and hurled himself
like an enormous ram into the crowd. Pushing men this way and that, he
reached the empty space before the ranger's feet.
"What's the meaning of all this?" he demanded, with panting intensity.
"Put up them guns." The crowd obeyed. "Now, what's it all about?" he
said, addressing Abe.
"He jumped me," complained Kitsong. "I want him arrested for that and
for taking Henry without a warrant."
"Where's _your_ warrant?" asked Throop.
Abe was confused. "I haven't any yet, but I'll get one."
Throop addressed the crowd, which was swiftly augmenting. "Clear out of
this, now! _Vamose_, every man of you, or I'll run you all in. Clear
out, I say!" The throng began to move away, for the gestures with which
he indicated his meaning were made sinisterly significant by the weapon
which he swung. The leaders fell back and began to move away. Throop
said to the ranger: "Hans, you come with me. The coroner wants you."
Hanscom returned the revolver to the man from whom he had snatched it.
"I'm much obliged, Pete," he said, with a note of humor. "Hope I didn't
do any damage. I didn't have time to see who was coming. I wouldn't have
been so rough if I'd known it was you."
The other fellow grinned. "'Peared to me like you'd made a mistake, but
I couldn't blame you. Feller has to act quick in a case like that."
"Bring your prisoner here," called Carmody from his open door. "I'll
take care of him."
"I'll get you yet," called Kitsong, venomously. "I'll get you
to-morrow!"
"Go along out o' here!" repeated the sheriff, hustling him off the walk.
"You're drunk and disturbing the peace. Go home and go to bed."
With a sense of having made a bad matter worse the ranger followed the
coroner into his office and closed the door.
VII
Dr. Carmody, who had held the office of coroner less than a year, had a
keen sense of the importance which this his first murder case had given
him. His procedure at the cabin had been easy and rather casual, it is
true, but contact with the town-folk and a careful perusal of the State
Code had given him a decided tone of authority and an air of judicial
severity which surprised and somewhat irritated Hanscom, fresh from his
encounter with Kitsong.
"What was the cause of that row out there?" demanded the doctor,
resuming his seat behind his desk with the expression of a police
magistrate.
The ranger, still hot with anger, looked at his questioner with
resentful eyes. "Kitsong and his gang were laying for me and I stood 'em
off--that's all. Old Abe was out for trouble, and he got it. I punched
his jaw and the other outlaws started in to do me up."
Carmody softened a bit. "Well, you're in for it. He'll probably have you
arrested and charged with assault and battery."
"If he can," interposed Throop. "He'll find some trouble gettin' a
warrant issued in this town to-night."
Carmody continued his accusing interrogation: "What about this report of
your helping the Kauffmans to leave the country? Is that true?"
Hanscom's tone was still defiant as he replied: "It is, but I wonder if
you know that they were being chased out of the country at the time?"
"Chased out?"
"Yes. After receiving several warnings, they got one that scared them,
and so they hitched up and started over early in the morning to find me.
On the way they were waylaid by an armed squad and chased for several
miles. I heard the shooting, and by riding hard across the Black Hogback
intercepted them and scared the outlaws off, but the Kauffmans were in
bad shape. One of the horses had been killed and Kauffman himself was
lying on the ground. He'd been thrown from the wagon and was badly
bruised. The girl was unhurt, but naturally she wanted to get out of the
country at once. She wasn't scared; she was plain disgusted. She wanted
me to take them to the train, and I did. Any decent citizen would have
done the same. I didn't know you wanted them again, and if I had I
wouldn't have tried to hold them at the time, for I was pretty well
wrought up myself."
Carmody was less belligerent as he said: "What about arresting these
young people? How did that happen?"
"Well, on the way back from the station I got to thinking about those
raiders, and it struck me that it would be easy for them to ride down to
the Kauffman cabin and do some damage, and that I'd better go over and
see that everything was safe. It was late when I got home, but I saddled
up and drove across. Good thing I did, for I found the house all lit up,
and Henry Kitsong, young Busby, and old Pete Cuneo's girl were in full
possession of the place and having a gay time. I arrested the boys for
breaking into the house on the theory that they were both in that raid.
Furthermore, I'm sure they know something about Watson's death. That's
what Abe and Eli were fighting me about to-night--they're afraid Henry
was mixed up in it. He and Watson didn't get on well."
The vigor and candor of the ranger's defense profoundly affected
Carmody. "You may be right," he said, thoughtfully. "Anyhow, I'll bring
them all before the jury to-morrow. Of course, I can't enter into that
raid or the housebreaking--that's out of my jurisdiction--but if you
think this Cuneo girl knows something--"
"I am certain she does. She made those tracks in the flour."
The coroner turned sharply. "What makes you think so?"
Hanscom then told him of the comparison he had made of her shoes with
the drawings in his note-book, and the coroner listened intently.
"That's mighty important," he said, at last. "You did right in bringing
her down. I'll defend your action."
Hanscom persisted: "You must make it clear to that jury that Helen
McLaren never entered Watson's gate in her life."
Carmody was at heart convinced. "Don't worry," said he. "I'll give you a
chance to get all that evidence before the jury, and for fear Abe may
try to arrest you and keep you away from the session, I reckon I'd
better send you home in charge of Throop." He smiled, and the sheriff
smiled, but it was not so funny to the ranger.
"Never mind about me," he said. "I can take care of myself. Kitsong is
only bluffing."
"All the same, you'd better go home with Throop," persisted the coroner.
"You're needed at the hearing to-morrow, and Miss McLaren will want you
all in one piece," he said.
Hanscom considered a moment. "All right. I'm in your hands till
to-morrow. Good night."
"Good night," replied Carmody. "Take good care of him," he added to the
sheriff as he rose.
"He won't get away," replied Throop. As he stepped into the street he
perceived a small group of Kitsong's sympathizers still hanging about
the door of the saloon. "What are you hanging around here for?" he
demanded.
"Waiting for Abe. He's gone after a warrant and the city marshal," one
of them explained.
"You're wasting time and so is Abe. You tell him that the coroner has
put Hanscom in my custody and that I won't stand for any interference
from anybody--not even the county judge--so you fellers better clear
off home."
The back streets were silent, and as they walked along Throop said: "I'm
going to lose you at the door of the hotel, but you'd better turn up at
my office early to-morrow."
Hanscom said "Good night" and went to his bed with a sense of physical
relaxation which should have brought slumber at once, but it didn't. On
the contrary, he lay awake till long after midnight, reliving the
exciting events of the day, and the hour upon which he spent most
thought was that in Mrs. Throop's front room when he sat opposite Helen
and discussed her future and his own.
When he awoke it was broad day, and as Kauffman, who occupied a bed in
the same chamber, was still soundly slumbering, the ranger dressed as
quietly as possible and went out into the street to take account of a
dawn which was ushering in the most important morning of his life--a day
in which his own fate as well as that of Helen McLaren must be decided.
The air was clear and stinging and the mountain wall, lit by the direct
rays of the rising sun, appeared depressingly bald and prosaic, like his
own past life. The foot-hills, in whose minute wrinkle the drama of
which he was a vital part had taken place, resembled a crumpled carpet
of dull gold and olive-green, and for the first time in his experience
L. J. Hanscom, wilderness trailer, acknowledged a definite
dissatisfaction with his splendid solitude.
"What does my life amount to?" he bitterly inquired. "What am I headed
for? Where is my final camping-place? I can't go on as I'm going. If I
were sure of some time getting a supervisor's job, or even an assistant
supervisor's position, the outlook would not be so hopeless. But to get
even that far means years of work, years of riding." And then, as he
thought of his lonely cabin, so unsuited to a woman's life, he said:
"No, I must quit the service; that's sure."
Returning to the hotel, he wrote out his resignation with resolute hand
and dropped it into the mail-box. "There," he told himself, "now you're
just naturally obliged to hustle for a new job," and, strange to say, a
feeling of elation followed this decisive action.
Kauffman was afoot and dressing with slow and painful movements as
Hanscom re-entered, saying, cheerily, "Well, uncle, how do you feel by
now?"
With a wan smile the old man answered: "Much bruised and very painful,
but I am not concerned about myself. I am only afraid for you. I hope
you will not come to harm by reason of your generous aid to us."
"Don't you fret about me," responded Hanscom, sturdily. "I'm hard to
kill; and don't make the mistake of thinking that the whole country is
down on you, for it isn't. Abe and his gang are not much better than
outlaws in the eyes of the people down here in the valley, and as soon
as the town understands the case the citizens will all be with
you--and--Helen." He hesitated a little before speaking her name, and
the sound of the word gave him a little pang of delight--brought her
nearer, someway. "But let's go down to breakfast; you must be hungry."
The old man did not reply as cheerily as the ranger expected him to do.
On the contrary, he answered, sadly: "No, I do not feel like eating, but
I will go down with you. Perhaps I shall feel better for it."
The dining-room was filled with boarders, and all betrayed the keenest
interest in Kauffman. It was evident also that the ranger's punishment
of Kitsong was widely known, for several spoke of it, and Simpson
warningly said:
"Abe intends to have your hide. He's going to slap a warrant on you as
soon as you're out of Carmody's hands and have you sent down the line
for assault with intent to kill."
All this talk increased Kauffman's uneasiness, and on the way over to
the jail he again apologized for the trouble they had brought upon him.
"Don't say a word of last night's row to Helen," warned Hanscom. "Throop
promised to keep it from her, and don't consider Kitsong; he can't touch
me till after Carmody is through with me."
The deputy who let them in said that the sheriff was at breakfast--a
fact which was made evident by the savory smell of sausages which
pervaded the entire hall, and a moment later, Throop, hearing their
voices, came to the dining-room door, napkin in hand. "Come in," he
called. "Come in an have a hot cake."
"Thank you, we've had our breakfast," Hanscom replied.
"Oh, well, you can stand a cup of coffee, anyway, and Miss Helen wants
to see you."
The wish to see Helen brought instant change to the ranger's plan.
Putting down his hat, he followed Kauffman into the pleasant sunlit
breakfast-room with a swiftly pounding heart.
Helen, smiling cheerily, rose to meet her stepfather with a lovely air
of concern. "Dear old daddy, how do you feel this morning?"
"Very well indeed," he bravely falsified.
She turned to Hanscom with outstretched hand. "Isn't it glorious this
morning!" she exclaimed, rather than asked.
The sheriff, like the good boomer that he was, interrupted the ranger's
reply. "Oh, we have plenty of mornings like this."
She protested. "Please don't say that! I want to consider this morning
especially fine. I want it to bring us all good luck."
Evidently Throop had kept his promise to Hanscom, for Helen said nothing
of the battle of the night before, and with sudden flare of confidence
the ranger said:
"You're right. This is a wonderful morning, and I believe this trial is
coming out right, but just to be prepared for anything that comes, I
think I'd better get a lawyer to represent you. I don't feel able
properly to defend your interests."
"But you must be there," she quickly answered. "You are the one sure
friend in all this land."
His sensitive face flushed with pleasure, for beneath the frank
expression of her friendship he perceived a deeper note than she had
hitherto expressed, and yet he was less sure of her than ever, for in
ways not easily defined by one as simple as he she had contrived to
accent overnight the alien urban character of her training. She no
longer even remotely suggested the hermit he had once supposed her to
be. A gown of graceful lines, a different way of dressing her hair, had
effected an almost miraculous change in her appearance. She became from
moment to moment less of the mountaineer and more of the city dweller,
and, realizing this, the trailer's admiration was tinged with something
very like despair. He was not a dullard; he divined that these outer
signs of change implied corresponding mental reversals. Her attitude
toward the mountains, toward life, had altered.
"She is turning away from my world back to the world from which she
came," was his vaguely defined conclusion.
Meanwhile the sheriff was saying: "Well, now, Carmody opens court in the
town-hall at ten this morning, and, Hans, you are to be on hand early.
I'll bring Miss McLaren up in the car about a quarter to ten and have
her in the doctor's office, which is only a few doors away."
"How is the Cuneo girl?" asked Hanscom.
"She seems rested and fairly chipper, but I can see she's going to be a
bad witness."
Helen's face clouded. "Poor girl! I feel sorry for her."
Mrs. Throop was less sympathetic. "She certainly has made a mess of it.
I can't make out which of these raiders she ran away with."
"She's going to defend them both," said Throop; "and she's going to deny
everything. I'd like to work the third degree on her. I'd bet I'd find
out what she was doing down at Watson's."
Helen, who knew the value which her defenders placed on the
correspondence between Rita's shoes and the footprint, was very grave as
she said: "I hope she had no part in the murder. Mrs. Throop says she is
hardly more than a child."
"Well," warned the sheriff, "we're not the court. It's up to Carmody and
his jury."
They said no more about the trial, and Hanscom soon left the room with
intent to find a lawyer who would be willing for a small fee to
represent the Kauffmans--a quest in which he was unsuccessful.
The sheriff followed him out. "Reckon I'd better take you up to
Carmody's office in my car," he said. "Kitsong may succeed in clapping a
warrant on your head."
VIII
The valley had wakened early in expectation of an exciting day. The news
of the capture of Busby and his companions had been telephoned from
house to house and from ranch to ranch, and the streets were already
filled with farmers and their families, adorned as for a holiday. The
entire population of Shellfish Cañon had assembled, voicing high
indignation at the ranger's interference. Led by Abe and Eli, who busily
proclaimed that the arrest of Henry and his companions was merely a
trick to divert suspicion from the Kauffman woman, they advanced upon
the coroner.
Abe had failed of getting a warrant for the ranger, but boasted that he
had the promise of one as soon as the inquest should be ended.
"Furthermore," he said, "old Louis Cuneo is on his way over the range,
and I'll bet something will start the minute he gets in."
Carmody, who was disposed to make as much of his position as the
statutes permitted, had called the hearing in a public hall which stood
a few doors south of his office, and at ten o'clock the aisles were so
jammed with expectant auditors that Throop was forced to bring his
witnesses in at the back door. Nothing like this trial in the way of
free entertainment had been offered since the day Jim Nolan was lynched
from the railway bridge.
Hanscom was greatly cheered by the presence of his chief, Supervisor
Rawlins, who came into the coroner's office about a quarter to ten. He
had driven over from Cambria in anxious haste, greatly puzzled by the
rumors which had reached him. He was a keen young Marylander, a college
graduate, with considerable experience in the mountain West. He liked
Hanscom and trusted him, and when the main points of the story were
clear in his mind he said:
"You did perfectly right, Hans, and I'll back you in it. I'm something
of a dabster at law myself, and I'll see that Kitsong don't railroad you
into jail. What worries me is the general opposition now being
manifested. With the whole Shellfish Valley on edge, your work will be
hampered. It will make your position unpleasant for a while at least."
Hanscom uneasily shifted his glance. "That doesn't matter. I'm going to
quit the work, anyhow."
"Oh no, you're not!"
"Yes, I am. I wrote out my resignation this morning."
Rawlins was sadly disturbed. "I hate to have you let this gang drive you
out."
"It isn't that," replied Hanscom, somberly. "The plain truth is, Jack,
I've lost interest in the work. If Miss McLaren is cleared--and she will
be--she'll go East, and I don't see myself going back alone into the
hills."
The supervisor studied him in silence for a moment, and his voice was
gravely sympathetic as he said: "I see! This girl has made your cabin
seem a long way from town."
"She's done more than that, Jack. She's waked me up. She's shown me that
I can't afford to ride trail and camp and cook and fight fire any more.
I've got to get out into the world and rustle a home that a girl like
her can be happy in. I'm started at last. I want to do something. I'm as
ambitious as a ward politician!"
The supervisor smiled. "I get you! I'm sorry to lose you, but I guess
you are right. If you're bent on winning a woman, you're just about
obliged to jump out and try something else. But don't quit until I have
time to put a man in your place."
Hanscom promised this, although at the moment he had a misgiving that
the promise might prove a burden, and together they walked over to the
hall.
The crowded room was very quiet as the ranger and his chief entered and
took seats near the platform on which the coroner and his jury were
already seated. It was evident, even at a glance, that the audience was
very far from being dominated, or even colored, by the Shellfish crowd,
and yet, as none of the spectators, men or women, really knew the
Kauffmans, they could not be called friendly. They were merely curious.
Hanscom was somewhat relieved to find that the jury was not precisely
the same as it had been on the hillside. An older and better man had
replaced Steve Billop, a strong partisan of Kitsong's; but to
counter-balance this a discouraging feature developed in the presence of
William Raines, a dark, oily, whisky-soaked man of sixty, a lawyer whose
small practice lay among the mountaineers of Watson's type.
"He's here as Kitsong's attorney," whispered the ranger, who regretted
that he had not made greater efforts to secure legal aid. However, the
presence of his chief, a man of education and experience, reassured him
in some degree.
Carmody, rejoicing in his legal supremacy, and moved by love of drama,
opened proceedings with all the dignity and authority of a judge,
explaining in sonorous terms that this was an adjourned session of an
inquest upon the death of one Edward Watson, a rancher on the
Shellfish.
"New witnesses have been secured and new evidence has developed," he
said in closing, "and Mr. L. J. Hanscom, the forest ranger, who has
important testimony to give, will first take the stand."
Though greatly embarrassed by the eyes of the vast audience and somewhat
intimidated by the judicial tone of Carmody's voice, Hanscom went
forward and told his story almost without interruption, and at the end
explained his own action.
"Of course, I didn't intend to help anybody side-step justice when I
took the Kauffmans to the station, because I heard the coroner say he
had excused them."
"What about those raiders?" asked one of the jurors. "Did you recognize
the man who shot Kauffman's horse?"
Carmody interrupted: "We can't go into that. That has no connection with
the question which we are to settle, which is, Who killed Watson?"
"Seems to me there is a connection," remarked Rawlins. "If those raiders
were the same people Hanscom arrested in the cabin, wouldn't it prove
something as to their character?"
"Sure thing!" answered another of the jurors.
"A man who would shoot a horse like that might shoot a man, 'pears to
me," said a third.
"All right," said Carmody. "Mr. Hanscom, you may answer. Did you
recognize the man who fired that shot?"
"No, he was too far away; but the horse he rode was a sorrel--the same
animal which the Cuneo girl rode."
Raines interrupted: "Will you _swear_ to that?"
"No, I won't swear to it, but I think--"
Raines was savage. "Mr. Coroner, we don't want what the witness
_thinks_--we want what he _knows_."
"Tell us what you know," commanded Carmody.
"I know this," retorted Hanscom. "The man who fired that shot rode a
sorrel blaze-faced pony and was a crack gunman. To drop a running horse
at that distance is pretty tolerable shooting, and it ought to be easy
to prove who the gunner was. I've heard say Henry Kitsong--"
"I object!" shouted Raines, and Carmody sustained the objection.
"Passing now to your capture of the housebreakers," said he, "tell the
jury how you came to arrest the girl."
"Well, as I entered the cabin the girl Rita was sitting with her feet on
a stool, and the size and shape of her shoe soles appeared to me about
the size and shape of the tracks made in the flour, and I had just
started to take one of her shoes in order to compare it with the
drawings I carried in my pocket-book when Busby jumped me. I had to wear
him out before I could go on; but finally I made the comparison and
found that the soles of her shoes fitted the tracks exactly. Then I
decided to bring her down, too."
A stir of excited interest passed over the hall, but Raines checked it
by asking: "Did you compare the shoes with the actual tracks on the
porch floor?"
"No, only with the drawings I had made in my note-book."
Raines waved his hand contemptuously. "That proves nothing. We don't
know anything about those drawings."
"I do," retorted Carmody, "and so does the jury; but we can take that
matter up later. You can step down, Mr. Hanscom, and we'll hear James B.
Durgin."
Durgin, a bent, gray-bearded old rancher, took the stand and swore that
he had witnessed a hot wrangle between Kauffman and Watson, and that he
had heard the Dutchman say, "I'll get you for this!"
Hanscom, realizing that Durgin was Kitsong's chief new witness, was
quick to challenge his testimony, and finally forced him to admit that
Watson had also threatened Kauffman, so that the total effect of his
testimony was rather more helpful than harmful.
"Is it not a matter of common report, Mr. Coroner," demanded the ranger,
"that Watson has had many such quarrels? I am told that he had at least
one fierce row with Busby--"
"We'll come to that," interjected Carmody, as Durgin left the chair.
"Have you Rita's shoes, Mr. Sheriff?" Throop handed up a pair of women's
shoes, and Carmody continued: "You swear these are the shoes worn by
Margarita Cuneo when you took charge of her?"
"I do."
"Mr. Hanscom, will you examine these shoes and say whether they are the
ones worn by Rita Cuneo when you arrested her?"
Hanscom took them. "I think they are the same, but I cannot tell
positively without comparing them with my drawings."
The jury, deeply impressed by this new and unexpected evidence, minutely
examined the shoe soles and compared them with the drawings while the
audience waited in tense expectancy.
"They sure fit," said the spokesman of the jury.
Raines objected. "Even if they do _seem_ to fit, that is not conclusive.
We don't know _when_ the tracks were made. They may have been made after
the murder or before."
"Call Rita Cuneo," said Carmody to the sheriff.
The girl came to the stand, looking so scared, so pale, and so small
that some of the women, without realizing the importance of her
testimony, clicked their tongues in pity. "Dear, dear! How young she
is!" they exclaimed.
Carmody, by means of a few rapid questions gently expressed, drew out
her name, her age, and some part of her family history, and then, with
sudden change of manner, bluntly asked:
"How did you happen to be in that cabin with those two men?"
Pitifully at a loss, she finally stammered out an incoherent explanation
of how they were just riding by and saw the door standing open, and went
in, not meaning any harm. She denied knowing Watson, but admitted having
met him on the road several times, and hotly insisted that she had never
visited his house in her life.
"Where have you been living since leaving home?"
"In the hills."
"Where?"
"At the sawmill."
"How long had you been there when you heard of Watson's death?"
"About two weeks."
"Were you in camp?"
"No, we were staying in the old cabin by the creek."
"You mean Busby and Kitsong and yourself?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, now, which one of these men did you leave home with--Busby or
Kitsong?"
Her head drooped, and while she wavered Raines interposed, arguing that
the question was not pertinent. But Carmody insisted, and soon developed
the fact that she was much more eager to defend Busby than Kitsong. She
denied that he had ever cursed Watson or threatened to do him harm, but
the coroner forced her to admit that Busby had told her of having had
trouble with the dead man, and then, thrusting a pair of shoes at her,
he sternly asked:
"Are these your shoes?"
"No, sir," she firmly declared.
Her answer surprised Hanscom and dazed the sheriff, who exclaimed
beneath his breath, "The little vixen!"
Carmody's tone sharpened: "Do you mean to tell me that these are not the
shoes you wore in town yesterday?"
"No, I don't mean that."
"What _do_ you mean?"
"I mean they're not my shoes. They belong to that Kauffman girl. I found
them in that cabin."
Hanscom sprang to his feet. "She's lying, Your Honor."
"Sit down!" shouted Raines.
The entire audience rose like a wave under the influence of the passion
in these voices; the sheriff shouted for silence and order, and Carmody
hammered on his desk, commanding everybody to be seated. At last, when
he could be heard, he rebuked Hanscom.
"You're out of order," he said, and, turning to Raines, requested him to
take his seat.
Raines shook his fist at the ranger. "You can't address such remarks to
a witness. _You_ sit down."
Hanscom was defiant. "I will subside when you do."
"Sit _down_, both of you!" roared Carmody.
They took seats, but eyed each other like animals crouching to spring.
Carmody lectured them both, and, as he cooled, Hanscom apologized. "I'm
sorry I spoke," he said; "but the ownership of those shoes has got to be
proved. I _know_ they belong to this girl!"
"We'll come to that; don't you worry," said Carmody, and he turned to
Rita, who was cowering in the midst of this uproar like a mountain
quail. "Who told you to deny the ownership of these shoes?"
"Nobody."
"Just reasoned it out yourself, eh?" he asked, with acrid humor. "Well,
you're pretty smart."
The girl, perceiving the importance of her denial, enlarged upon it,
telling of her need of new shoes and of finding this dry, warm pair in a
closet in the cabin. She described minutely the worn-out places of her
own shoes and how she had thrown them into the stove and burned them up,
and the audience listened with renewed conviction that "the strange
woman" was the midnight prowler at the Watson cabin, and that Rita and
her companions were but mischievous hoodlums having no connection with
the murder.
Hanscom, filled with distrust of Carmody, demanded that the sheriff be
called to testify on this point, for he had made search of the cabin in
the first instance.
"We proved at the other session that Miss McLaren was unable to wear the
shoes which made the prints."
"We deny that!" asserted Raines. "That is just the point we are trying
to make. We don't _know_ that this Kauffman woman is unable to wear
those shoes."
Carmody decided to call young Kitsong, and Throop led Rita away and soon
returned with Henry, who came into the room looking like a trapped fox,
bewildered yet alert. He was rumpled and dirty, like one called from
sleep in a corral, but his face appealed to the heart of his mother, who
flung herself toward him with a piteous word of appeal, eager to let
him know that she was present and faithful.
The sheriff stopped her, and her husband--whose parental love was much
less vital--called upon her not to make a fool of herself.
The boy gave his name and age, and stated his relationship to the dead
man, but declared he had not seen him for months. "I didn't know he was
dead till the ranger told me," he said. He denied that he had had any
trouble with Watson. "He is my uncle," he added.
"I've known relatives to fight," commented the coroner, with dry
intonation, and several in the audience laughed, for it was well known
to them that the witness was at outs not only with his uncle, but with
his father.
"Now, Henry," said the coroner, severely, "we know this girl, Rita, made
a night visit to Watson's cabin. We have absolute proof of it. She did
not go there alone. Who was with her? Did you accompany her on this
trip?"
"_No_, sir."
"She never made that trip alone. Some man was with her. If not you, it
must have been Busby."
A sullen look came into the boy's face. "Well, it wasn't me--I know
that."
"Was it Busby?"
He paused for a long time, debating what the effect of his answer would
be. "He may of. I can't say."
Carmody restated his proof that Rita had been there and said: "One or
the other of you went. Now which was it?"
The witness writhed like a tortured animal, and at last said, "He did,"
and Mrs. Eli sighed with relief.
Carmody drew from him the fact that Watson owed Busby money, and that he
had vainly tried to collect it. He would not say that Rita left camp
with Busby, but his keen anxiety to protect her was evident to every one
in the room. He admitted that he expected Busby to have trouble with
Watson.
Mrs. Kitsong, who saw with growing anxiety the drift of the coroner's
questioning, called out: "Tell him the truth, Henry; the whole truth!"
Raines silenced her savagely, and Carmody said: "So Busby had tried to
collect that money before, had he?"
"Tell him 'yes,' Henry," shouted Eli, who was now quite as eager to
shield his son as he had been to convict Helen.
Carmody warned him to be quiet. "You'll have a chance very soon to
testify on this very point," he said, and repeated his question: "Busby
had had a fight with Watson, hadn't he--a regular knockdown row?"
Henry, sweating with fear, now confessed that Busby had returned from
Watson's place furious with anger, and this testimony gave an entirely
new direction to the suspicions of the jurors, several of whom knew
Busby as a tough customer.
Dismissing Henry for the moment, Carmody recalled Margarita. "You swear
you never visited Watson's cabin?" he began. "Well, suppose that I were
to tell you that we know you did, would you still deny it?" She looked
at him in scared silence, trying to measure the force of his question,
while he went on: "You mounted the front steps and went down the porch
to the right, pausing to peer into the window. You kept on to the east
end of the porch, where you dropped to the ground, and continued on
around to the back door. Do you deny that?"
Amazed by the accuracy of his information and awed by his tone, the girl
struggled for an answer, while the audience waited as at a crisis in a
powerful play.
Then the coroner snapped out, "Well, what were you doing there?"
She looked at Henry, then at Mrs. Eli. "I went to borrow some blankets,"
she confessed, in a voice so low that only a few heard her words.
"Was Watson at home?"
"Yes."
"Did you see him?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
At this point she became tearful, and the most that could be drawn from
her was a statement that Watson had refused to loan or sell her any
blankets. She denied that Busby was with her, and insisted that she was
alone till Carmody convinced her that she was only making matters worse
by such replies.
"Your visit was at night," he said. "You would never have walked in that
flour in the daytime, and you wouldn't have gone there alone in the
night. Busby wouldn't have permitted you to go to Watson's alone--he
knew Watson too well." The force of this remark was felt by nearly every
person in the room.
Hanscom said: "Mr. Coroner, this girl is trying to shield Busby, and I
want her confronted by him, and I want Eli Kitsong called."
By this time many admitted that they might have been mistaken in
accusing the Kauffmans of the deed.
Busby, a powerful young fellow, made a bad impression on the stand. His
face was both sullen and savage, and the expression of his eyes furtive.
He was plainly on guard even before Raines warned him to be careful.
"My name is Hart Busby," he said, in answer to Carmody. "I'm twenty-six
years old. I was born in the East. I've been here eight years." Here he
stopped, refusing to say where his parents lived or when he first met
Margarita. He flatly denied having had any serious trouble with Watson,
and declared that he had not seen him for almost a year.
"What were you doing in the Kauffmans' cabin?" demanded Hanscom. "You
won't deny my finding you there, will you?"
He told the same story that Rita had sworn to. "We were riding by and
saw that the place was deserted, and so we went in to look around."
"When did _you_ first hear of Watson's death?" asked Carmody.
The witness hesitated. A look of doubt, of evasion, in his eyes. "Why,
the ranger told us."
"Which of you owns that sorrel horse?" asked one of the jury.
Raines again interposed. "You needn't answer that," he warned. "That's
not before the court."
Carmody went on. "Now, Busby, you might as well tell us the truth. Henry
and Rita both state that Watson had refused to pay you, and that you had
a scrap and Watson kicked you off the place. Is that true?"
Raines rescued him. "You don't have to answer that," he said, and the
witness breathed an almost inaudible sigh of relief.
A violent altercation arose at this point between the coroner and the
lawyer. Carmody insisted on his right to ask any question he saw fit,
and Raines retorted that the witness had a right to refuse to
incriminate himself.
"You stick to your bread pills and vials," he said to the coroner, "and
don't assume a knowledge of the law. You become ridiculous when you do."
"I know my powers," retorted Carmody in high resentment, "and you keep a
civil tongue in your head or I'll fine you for contempt. I may not know
all the ins and outs of court procedure, but I'm going to see justice
done, and I'm going to see that you keep your place."
"You can't steam-roll me," roared Raines.
The argument became so hot that Throop was forced to interfere, and in
the excitement and confusion of the moment Busby mad a dash for the
door, and would have escaped had not Hanscom intercepted him. The room
was instantly in an uproar. Several of Busby's friends leaped to his
aid, and for a few minutes it seemed as if the coroner's court had
resolved itself into an arena for battling bears. Busby fought
desperately, and might have gained his freedom, after all, had not
Rawlins taken a hand.
At last Throop came into action. "Stop that!" he shouted, and fetched
Busby a blow that ended his struggles for the moment. "Let go of him,
Hanscom," he said. "I'll attend to him."
Hanscom and Rawlins fell back, and Throop, placing one huge paw on the
outlaw's shoulder, shoved the muzzle of a revolver against his neck.
"Now you calm right down, young man, and remember you're in court and
not in a barroom."
Raines, still unsubdued, shouted out, "You take your gun away from that
man, you big stiff!"
"_Silence!_" bellowed Carmody. "I'll have you removed if you utter
another word."
"I refuse to take orders from a pill-pusher like you."
"Sheriff, seat that man," commanded Carmody, white with wrath.
Throop, thrusting Busby back into his chair, advanced upon Raines with
ponderous menace. "Sit down, you old skunk."
"Don't you touch me!" snarled the lawyer.
"Out you go," said Throop, with a clutch at the defiant man's throat.
Raines reached under his coat-tails for a weapon, but Rawlins caught him
from behind, and Throop, throwing his arms around his shoulders in a
bearlike hug, carried him to his chair and forced him into it.
"Now will you be quiet?"
The whole room was silent now, silent as death, with a dozen men on
their feet with weapons in their hands, waiting to see if Raines would
rise.
Breaking this silence, Carmody, lifted by excitement to unusual
eloquence, cried out: "Gentlemen, I call upon you to witness that I am
in no way exceeding my authority. The dignity of this court must be
upheld." He turned to the jury, who were all on end and warlike. "I call
upon you to witness the insult which Mr. Raines has put on this court,
and unless he apologizes he will be ejected from the room."
Raines saw that he had gone too far, and with a wry face and
contemptuous tone of voice muttered an apology which was in spirit an
insult, but Carmody accepted the letter of it with a warning that he
would brook no further displays of temper.
When the coroner resumed his interrogation of Busby, whose sullen calm
had given place to a look of alarm and desperation, he refused to speak
one word in answer to questions, and at last Carmody, ordering him to
take a seat in the room, called Mrs. Eli Kitsong to the chair.
She was a thin, pale little woman with a nervous twitch on one side of
her face, and the excitement through which she had just passed rendered
her almost speechless; but she managed to tell the jury that Busby and
Watson had fought and that she had warned her son not to run with Hart
Busby.
"I knew he'd get him into trouble," she said. "I told Henry not to go
with him; but he went away with him in spite of all I could say."
"Did you actually _see_ the fight between Busby and Watson?"
"No, I only heard Ed tell about it."
"Did he say Busby threatened to kill him?"
"Yes, he did, but he laughed and said he was not afraid of a fool kid
like him."
Busby was deeply disturbed. He sat staring at the floor, moistening his
lips occasionally with the tip of his tongue as the coroner called one
after another of his neighbors to testify against him. The feeling that
Carmody was on the right track spread through the audience, but Abe
insisted that the Kauffmans be called to the stand, and to this Hanscom
added:
"I join in that demand. Call Miss McLaren. I want the ownership of these
shoes settled once and for all."
In the tone of one making a concession, Carmody said, "Very well. Mr.
Sheriff, take Busby out and ask Miss McLaren to step this way."
As the young ruffian was led out Rita sprang up as if to follow him, but
Carmody restrained her. "Stay where you are. I want you to confront Miss
McLaren."
A stir, a sigh of satisfaction, passed over the room, and every eye was
turned toward the door through which Helen must approach. Not one of all
the town-folk and few of the country-folk had ever seen her face or
heard her voice. To them she was a woman of mystery, and for the most
part a woman of dark repute, capable of any enormity. They believed that
she had been living a hermit life simply and only for the reason that
she had been driven out of the East by the authorities, and most of them
believed that the man she was living with was her paramour.
Every preconception of her was of this savage sort, and so when the
sheriff reappeared, ushering in a tall, composed, and handsome young
woman whose bearing, as well as her features, suggested education and
refinement, the audience stared in dumb amazement.
Hanscom and Rawlins both rose to their feet, and Carmody, moved by a
somewhat similar respect and admiration, followed their example. He went
further; he indicated, with a bow, the chair in which she was to sit,
while the jurors with open mouths followed her every movement. They
could not believe that this was the same woman they had examined at the
previous session of the court.
Hanscom, without considering her costume as designed to produce an
impression--he was too loyal for that--exulted in its perfectly obvious
effect on the spectators, and glowed with confidence over the outcome.
She looked taller, fairer, and younger in her graceful gown, and her
broad hat--which was in sharpest contrast to the sunbonnet which had so
long been her disguise--lent a girlish piquancy to her glance. Mrs.
Brinkley expressed in one short phrase the change of sentiment which
swept almost instantly over the room. "Why, she's a _lady_!" she gasped.
Carmody, while not so sure the witness's costume was unpremeditated,
nevertheless acknowledged its power. He opened his examination with an
apology for thus troubling her a second time, and explained that new
witnesses and new evidence made it necessary.
She accepted his apology with grave dignity, and in answer to questions
by Raines admitted that Kauffman had told her of his clash with Watson
over some cattle.
"But he never threatened to shoot Watson. He is not quarrelsome. On the
contrary, he is very gentle and patient, and only resented Watson's
invasion of our home."
Upon being shown the shoes which Rita Cuneo had worn she sharply
answered:
"No, they are not mine. I could not wear them. They are much too small
for me."
This answer, though fully expected by Hanscom and the coroner, sent
another wave of excitement over the audience, and when Carmody said,
almost apologetically, "Miss McLaren, will you kindly try on these
shoes?" the women in the room rose from their seats in access of
interest, and loud cries of "Down in front!" arose from those behind
them.
Seemingly without embarrassment, yet with heightened color, Helen
removed one of her shoes--a plain low walking-shoe--and handed it to
Carmody, who received it with respectful care and handed it to the
foreman of the jury, asking him to make comparison of it with the
footprints.
The jurors, two by two, examined, measured, muttered, while the audience
waited in growing impatience for their report. Most of the onlookers
believed this to be a much more important test than it really was, and
when at last the foreman returned the shoe, saying, "This ain't the
shoe that made the tracks," the courtroom buzzed with pleased comment.
Raines was on his feet. "Mr. Coroner, we demand that the witness try on
that other pair of shoes. We are not convinced that she cannot wear
them."
Carmody yielded, and the room became very quiet as Helen, with
noticeable effort, wedged her foot into the shoe.
"I cannot put it on; it is too small," she said to Carmody, and Rita,
who sat near, bent a terrified gaze upon her.
Raines then called out: "She's playing off. Have her stand up."
Hanscom, furious at this indignity, protested that it was not necessary,
but Helen rose and, drawing aside the hem of her skirt, calmly offered
her foot for inspection.
"I can't possibly walk in it," she said, addressing the jury.
One by one the jury clumsily knelt and examined her foot, then returned
to their seats, and when the foreman said, "That never was her shoe," a
part of the audience applauded his utterance as conclusive.
"That will do, Miss McLaren," said Carmody; "you may step down." And,
turning sharply to where Rita sat with open mouth and dazed glance, he
demanded: "Do you know what the court calls your testimony? It's
perjury! That's what it is! Do you know what we can do to you? We can
shut you up in jail. These shoes are yours. Are you ready to say so
now?"
She shrank from him, and her eyes fell.
Raines intervened. "You are intimidating the witness," he protested.
Carmody repeated his question, "_Are these your shoes?_"
"Yes, sir," she faintly answered; a sigh of relief, a ripple of
applause, again interrupted the coroner.
Hanscom rose. "Mr. Coroner, in view of this testimony, I move Miss
McLaren be excused from further attendance on this court."
The unmistakable rush of sympathy toward Helen moved Carmody to
dramatize the moment. "Miss McLaren," he said, with judicial poise, "I
am convinced that you are not a material witness in this case. You are
dismissed."
The hearty handclapping of a majority of the auditors followed, and
Helen was deeply touched. Her voice was musical with feeling as she
said:
"Thank you, sir. I am very grateful. Is my father also excused?"
"Unless the jury wishes to question him."
The jurors conferred, and finally the spokesman said, "I don't think
we'll need him."
"Very well, then, you are both free."
Mrs. Brinkley, a round-faced, fresh-complexioned little woman, who had
been sitting near the front seat, made a rush for Helen, eager to
congratulate her and invite her to dinner. Others, both men and women,
followed, and for a time all business was suspended. It was evident that
Helen had in very truth been on trial for murder, and that the coroner's
dismissal was in effect her acquittal. Hanscom, on the edge of the
throng, waited impatiently for an opportunity to present Rawlins. Raines
and Kitsong excitedly argued.
Meanwhile the jury and the coroner were in conference, and at last
Carmody called for the finding: "We believe that the late Edward Watson
came to his death at the hands of one Hart Busby, with Henry Kitsong and
Margarita Cuneo knowing to it, and we move that they be held to the
grand jury for trial at the next term of court," drawled the foreman and
sat down.
No one applauded now, but a murmur of satisfaction passed over the room.
Eli and Abe sprang up in excited clamor, and Raines made violent protest
against the injustice of the verdict.
"It's all irregular!" he shouted.
Carmody remained firm. "This finding will stand," he said. "The court is
adjourned."
Raines immediately made his way to Hanscom and laid a hand on his
shoulder. "In that case," he said, "I'll take you into camp. Mr.
Sheriff, I have a warrant for this man's arrest."
Hanscom was not entirely surprised, but he resented their haste to
humiliate him before the crowd--and before Helen. "Don't do that now,"
he protested. "Wait an hour or two. Wait till I can get Miss McLaren and
her father out of the country. I give you my word I'll not run away."
Carmody, seeing Raines with his hand on the ranger's arm, understood
what it meant and hurried over to urge a decent delay. "Let him put the
girl on the train," he said.
"I'll give him two hours," said Raines, "and not a minute more."
Hanscom glanced at Helen and was glad of the fact that, being surrounded
by her women sympathizers, she had seen and heard nothing of the enemy's
new attack upon him.
IX
Helen and the ranger left the room together, and no sooner were they
free from the crowd than she turned to him with a smile which expressed
affection as well as gratitude.
"How much we owe to you and Dr. Carmody, and what a sorry interruption
we've caused in your work."
He protested that the interruption had been entirely a pleasure, but
she, while knowing nothing of his impending arrest, was fully aware that
he had undergone actual hardship for her sake, and her plan for hurrying
away seemed at the moment most ungracious. Yet this, after all, was
precisely what she now decided to do.
"Is there time for us to catch that eastbound express?" she asked.
Her words chilled his heart with a quick sense of impending loss, but he
looked at his watch. "Yes, if it should happen to be late, as it
generally is." Then, forgetting his parole, in a voice which expressed
more of his pain than he knew, he said: "I hate to see you go. Can't you
wait another day?"
His pleading touched a vibrant spot in her, but she was resolved. "I
have an almost insane desire to get away," she hurriedly explained. "I
am afraid of this country. Its people scare me!" A quick change in her
voice indicated a new thought. "I hope the Kitsongs will not continue in
pursuit of you."
"They won't have a chance to do that," he replied, gloomily. "I'm
leaving, too. I have resigned."
"Oh no! You mustn't do that."
"I turned in my papers this morning." He suddenly recalled his parole.
"I shall soon be free--I hope--to go anywhere and do anything--and I'd
like to keep in touch with you--if you'll let me."
She evaded him. "I shall be very sorry if we are the cause of your
leaving the service."
"Well, you are--but not in the way you mean. You have made me
discontented with myself, that's all, and I'm going to get out of the
tall timber and see if I can't do something in the big world. I want to
win your respect."
"I respect you now. Your work as a forester seems to me very fine and
honorable."
"The work is all right, but I'm leaving it, just the same. I can't see a
future in it. Fact is, I begin to long for a home; that lunch in your
cabin started me on a new line of thought."
The memory of his visit to her garden in the valley seemed now like a
chapter in the story of a far-off community, and she could hardly relate
herself to the hermit girl who served the tea, but the forester--whom
she recognized as a lover--was becoming every moment nearer, more
insistent. A time of reckoning was at hand, and because she could not
meet it she was eager to escape--to avoid the giving of pain. His face
and voice had become dear--and might grow dearer. Therefore she made no
comment on his statement of a desire for a home, and he asked:
"Don't you feel like going back to your garden once more?"
"No," she answered, sharply, "I never want to see the place again. It is
repulsive to me."
Again a little silence intervened. "I hate to think of your posies
perishing for lack of care," he said, with gentle sadness. "If I can,
I'll ride over once in a while and see that they get some water."
His words exerted a magical power. She began to weaken in resolution. It
was not an easy thing to sever the connection which had been so
strangely established between herself and this good friend, who seemed
each moment to be less the simple mountaineer she had once believed him
to be. Western he was, forthright and rough hewn, but he had shown
himself a man in every emergency--a candid, strong man. Her throat
filled with emotion, but she walked beside him in silence.
He had another care on his mind. "You'd better let me round up your
household goods," he suggested.
"Oh no. Let them go; they're not worth the effort."
He insisted. "I don't like to think of any one else having them. It made
me hot just to see that girl playing your guitar. I'll have 'em all
brought down and stored somewhere. You may want 'em some time."
She was rather glad to find they had reached the door of Carmody's
office and that further confidences were impossible, for she was
discovering herself to be each moment deeper in his debt and
correspondingly less able to withstand his wistful, shy demand.
Mrs. Carmody, a short, fat, excited person, met them in the hall with a
cackle of alarm. "I'm awfully glad you've come," she exclaimed. "Your
father has been taken with a cramp or something."
Helen paled with apprehension of disaster, for she knew that her father
had been keenly suffering all the morning. "Here I am, daddy," she
cheerily called, as she entered the room. "It's all right. The inquest
is over and we are free to go."
Kauffman, who was lying on a couch in a corner of the office, turned his
face and bravely smiled. "I'm glad," he weakly replied. "I was afraid
they would call me to the stand again."
Kneeling at his side, she studied his face with anxious care. "Are you
worse, daddy? Has your pain increased?"
"Yes, Nellie, it is worse. I fear I am to be very ill."
She took his hand in hers, a pang of remorseful pity wrenching her
heart. "Don't say that, daddy," she gently chided. "Keep your good
courage." She looked up at the ranger, who stood near with troubled
brow. "Mr. Hanscom, will you please find Dr. Carmody and tell him my
father needs him?"
With a quick word of assurance he hurried away, and the girl, bending to
the care of her stepfather, suffered from a full realization of the fact
that he had been brought to this condition by the strength of his
devotion to her. "For my sake he exiled himself, for me he has been
assaulted, wounded, arrested"--and, looking down upon him in the light
of her recovered sense of values, she became very humble.
"Dear old daddy," she wailed, "it's all my fault. What can I do to make
amends? You've sacrificed so much for me."
Sick as he was, the old man did his best to comfort her, but she was
still sitting on the floor, with head bowed in troubled thought, when
Hanscom and Carmody hurried in. Her relief, made manifest by the instant
movement with which she gave way to him, was almost childlike.
"Oh, Doctor, I'm glad to see you!" she cried out. "I was afraid your
legal duties might keep you."
"Luckily my legal duties are over," he replied, quickly, "and I'm glad
of it. I hope I never'll have another such case."
A brief examination convinced him that the sick man should be put to
bed, and he suggested the Palace Hotel, which stood but a few doors
away.
"He can't travel to-day," he added, knowing that Helen had planned to
take the train.
Kauffman insisted on going. "I can walk," he said, firmly. "I feel a
little dizzy, but I'll be all right in the coach."
Hanscom was at his side, supporting him. "You'd better wait a day," he
said, gently; and Helen understood and sided with him.
Together they helped the sick man to the door and into the doctor's car,
and in a few minutes Kauffman was stretched upon a good bed in a
pleasant room. With a deep sigh of relief he laid his head upon the soft
pillow.
"I am glad not to entrain to-day," he said. "To-morrow will be better
for us all."
"Never mind about to-morrow," said Hanscom. "You rest as easy as you
can."
Helen followed Carmody into the hall. "Tell me the truth," she demanded.
"Is he injured internally?"
"It's hard to say what his injuries are," he cautiously replied. "He's
badly bruised and feverish, but it may be nothing serious. However, he
can't travel for a few days, that's certain."
She was not entirely reassured by his reply, and her voice was bitterly
accusing as she said: "If he should die, I would never forgive myself.
He came here on my account."
"There's no immediate danger. He seems strong and will probably throw
this fever off in a few hours, but he must be kept quiet and cheerful."
There was a rebuke in his final words, and she accepted it as such.
"I'll do the best I can, Doctor," she replied, and returned to her duty.
Hanscom, divining some part of the passion of self-accusation into which
the girl had been thrown, eagerly asked, "Is there something more I can
do?"
"If you will have our bags brought, I shall be grateful. We may not be
able to leave for several days."
"I'll attend to them at once, but"--he looked aside as if afraid of
revealing something--"I may be called away during the afternoon on
business, and if I am, don't think I'm neglecting you."
"How long will you be gone?"
"I can't tell--for a day or two, perhaps."
The thought of his going gave her a sharp pang of prospective
loneliness. "I know you must return to your work," she said, slowly,
"but I shall feel very helpless without you," and the voicing of her
dependence upon him added definiteness and power to her regret.
He hastened to say: "I won't go if I can possibly help it, be sure of
that; but something has come up which may make it necessary for me
to--to take a trip. I'll return as soon as I can. I'll hurry away now
and bring your baggage; that much I can surely do," and he went out,
leaving her greatly troubled by something unexplained in the manner of
his going.
Stopping at Carmody's, Hanscom again thanked him for his kindness and
warned him not to say one word to Helen about his fight with Abe nor
about the warrant that was hanging over him.
"She has enough to worry about as it is," he said; "and if they get me,
as they will, I want you to look after her and let me know how she gets
on."
Carmody did not attempt to minimize the seriousness of the opposition.
"Abe can make a whole lot of trouble for you, in one way and another,
and even if you shake him off, you're in for a settlement with old
Cuneo, who will reach here to-night. As near as I can discover, he's one
of those pop-eyed foreigners who'd just as soon use a knife as not, and
Abe will do his best to spur him into jumping you."
"Well, looks like he'll have hard work reaching me, for, unless
somebody goes my bail, I'm likely to be safe in the 'cooler' when he
gets here."
Carmody had been decidedly friendly all through this troublesome week,
and here was a good place for him to say, "I'll go your bail, Hans," but
he didn't--he couldn't. He was poor and not very secure in his position,
so he let Hanscom go out, and took up his own work with a feeling that
he was playing a poor part in a rough game.
The news of Kauffman's illness reached kindly Mrs. Brinkley and moved
her to call upon Helen, to offer her services, and in the midst of her
polite condolences she said: "Mr. Hanscom's arrest must have infuriated
you. It did me."
Helen turned a startled glance upon her visitor. "I didn't know he was
arrested."
"Didn't you? Well, he is," said Mrs. Brinkley.
"Why; that can't be true! He was here less than an hour ago."
"He's just been arrested for assaulting Kitsong."
Helen, still unable to believe in this calamity, stammered: "But I don't
understand. When did he--When was Kitsong--assaulted?"
"Last night," replied her visitor, with relish, "and you were the cause
of it--in a way."
"I?"
"So the story goes. It seems Abe got nasty about you, and Mr. Hanscom
resented it. They had a fight and Abe was hurt. Unless somebody bails
him out the poor ranger will have to go to jail."
The memory of the ranger's last look completed Helen's understanding of
the situation, and she listened abstractedly while her visitor rattled
on:
"Of course, the judge can't do anything, much as he likes Mr. Hanscom,
and I really don't see who is to go on his bond. He hasn't any relatives
here."
At this point Helen raised her head and interrupted her guest's
commiserating comment. "Yes, you can do something for me. I wish you
would ask Mr. Willing, the vice-president of the First National Bank, to
come over here. I want to consult him on a most important business
matter, and I cannot leave my father. Will you do this?"
"Certainly, with pleasure. I was hoping to be of use," said Mrs.
Brinkley, and she went away greatly wondering what this strange young
woman could possibly want of Mr. Willing.
Helen, with eyes fixed on her father's still form, went over every look
and word the ranger had uttered and understood at last that the "little
trip" he feared was a sentence to the county jail. She was still in
profound thought when Mr. Willing was announced. He was a neat, small
man, whose position in the bank was largely social. Being a friend of
Mrs. Brinkley, and keenly interested in the reports of Helen's romantic
appearance in the courtroom, he came to her door in smiling and
elaborate courtliness.
Helen coldly checked his gallant advances. "Mr. Willing," she said, with
business-like brevity, "I have an account with the Walnut Hills Trust
Company, of Cincinnati, and I want a part of that money transferred, by
telegraph, to my credit in your bank. Can it be done?"
"It is possible--yes."
"I need these funds at once. I must have them. Will you please wire Mr.
Paul Lyford, president of the company, and have five thousand dollars
transferred to my credit in your bank?"
Mr. Willing was cautious. He took the name and address. "I will see what
can be done," he said, non-committally. "Is there anything else I can
do?"
"Yes, I have just heard that Mr. Hanscom has been arrested. If this is
true I want him bailed out as soon as possible. I don't know how these
things are done, but I want to go on his bond. He should have a lawyer
also. He has fallen into this trouble entirely on my account, and I
cannot permit him to suffer. He must be defended."
"I'll do what I can," responded Willing, "but, of course, the matter of
release, on bail, lies with the judge."
"What judge?"
"Probably Judge Brinkley."
"I am glad of that. Mr. Hanscom knows Judge Brinkley. As soon as you
hear from Mr. Lyford let me know, please."
Meanwhile Hanscom had been stopped while bringing the valises to the
hotel and was now in Throop's care. Each hour seemed to involve the
ranger deeper, ever deeper, in his slough of troubles, for it was
reported that Cuneo had 'phoned in from the Cambria power-dam saying he
would reach the town in two hours, and one who had talked with him said
the receiver burned his ear, so hot was the sheepman's wrath.
Helen, greatly troubled, in an agony of impatience awaited Willing's
return, and the housekeeper of the hotel, who came to offer her advice,
did not help to tranquillity.
"It's a good thing the ranger's locked up," she said, "for old Cuneo,
father of the girl, is in town and on the ranger's trail with blood in
his eye."
Of course the eager gossip did not know that the ranger and this
handsome girl were something more than acquaintances, hence she felt
free to enlarge upon and embroider each scrap of rumor, after the
fashion of her kind, and Helen had great difficulty in concealing her
increasing anxiety and self-accusation.
"Don't say any of these things in my father's hearing," she sharply
urged. "He must be kept free from excitement."
It was a singular, a most revealing experience for Helen to find that
her deepening care for her stepfather and a grave sense of
responsibility toward Hanscom were bringing out decision and
determination in her own character. She increased in vigor and
perception. "They shall not persecute this man because he is poor and
alone," she declared, recalling with keen sense of pity his frank
statement that all his property consisted of a couple of ponies, a
saddle, and a typewriter.
She could not leave her father till a nurse came, and, as there was no
telephone in her room, she could only wait--wait and think, and in this
thinking she gave large space to the forester. Her apathy, her
bitterness were both gone. She was no longer the recluse. The mood which
had made her a hermit now seemed both futile and morbid--and yet she was
not ready to return to her friends and relatives in the East. That life
she had also put away. "What if I were to make a new home--somewhere in
the West?" she said, and in this speculation the worshipful face of the
ranger came clear before her eyes.
She was restless and aching with inaction when a hall-boy announced the
return of Mr. Willing, and, stepping into the hall, she discovered an
entirely different Mr. Willing. He was no longer gallant; he was quietly
respectful. With congratulatory word he handed to her two telegrams,
one addressed to her, the other to the bank. One was from the president
of the Walnut Hills Trust Company. It read: "Place five thousand dollars
to Miss McLaren's credit. See that she wants for nothing. Report if she
needs help. Her family is greatly alarmed. Any information concerning
her will be deeply appreciated. Ask her to report at once."
The other was to Helen from Mr. Lyford, whom she had known for many
years. As she read her face flushed and her eyes misted; then a glowing
tide of power, a sense of security, swept over her.
"After all, I am alive and young and rightful owner of this money," she
said to herself. "I will claim it and use it for some good purpose, and
at this moment, what better purpose than to see that a brave, good man
shall not lie in prison?" And, thanking the banker for his aid, she
added: "If Mr. Rawlins, the supervisor, is still in town, I wish you
would find him and ask him to come to me; tell him I want to see him
immediately."
Willing took occasion, as he went through the hotel office down-stairs,
to call the proprietor aside and say: "Anything Miss McLaren wants you'd
better supply. She's able to pay."
The landlord, who had shared the general suspicion abroad in the
community, stared. "Are you sure of that? I was just wondering about
these folks. They have the reputation of being as poor as Job's off ox."
"You needn't worry. The girl has a balance in our bank of several
thousand dollars."
"You don't tell me!" exclaimed the landlord.
Willing went on, smoothly: "Better give her the parlor and put an
extension 'phone in for her use. She needs a trained nurse, but I'll
attend to that if you'll see to the 'phone."
In theory, we all despise money; in fact, we find it of wondrous
potency. Behold this hotelkeeper mentally taking his feet from his desk
and removing his hat when he learned that one of these hermits had
unlimited credit at the bank. Mr. Willing's cashier was also deeply
impressed and puzzled.
"What did such a girl mean by living away up there with that Shellfish
gang of rustlers and counterfeiters? What's the idea?" he asked,
irritably. "She certainly has acted like a fly-by-night up to this
time."
"Well, she's established herself now. Her connections are first class,"
Willing rejoined. "Here's another telegram from Louisville asking full
information concerning Miss McLaren and Arnold Kauffman. They don't stop
at expense. Evidently they have all been in the dark about the girl's
whereabouts and want the facts. Some story to put into a telegram, but
I'll do my best."
"Don't scare 'em," cautioned Knight. "Say she's all right and surrounded
by friends."
Willing took his turn at smiling. "Didn't look that way this morning,
did it? But she's all right now--except that she's terribly wrought up
over Hanscom's predicament."
"Well, no wonder. As near as I can figger, he's stood by her like a
brother-in-law, and the least she can do is to stick around and help him
out."
Conditions between Helen and the ranger were now precisely reversed. It
was she who was eagerly trying to save him from the prison cell. She was
alarmed, also, by the prediction made by the housekeeper that if the
ranger were released on bail he would only be out of the frying-pan into
the fire, for old Cuneo would surely meet him and demand satisfaction.
"Perhaps if I were to see Cuneo," she thought, "I could persuade him
that Mr. Hanscom had no wish to involve Margarita--that her arrest was
only, in a way, incidental to Busby's capture."
She said nothing of this resolution, but sent a note to Throop,
requesting him to let Rawlins know that she was ready to bail Hanscom.
"It will be a great injustice if he is held on my account."
Throop replied in person, for he liked Helen and was eager to do Hanscom
a favor. "Yes," he said, "Hans is in jail, but not in a cell, and I
think Rawlins will succeed in reaching the judge and so get out the writ
this afternoon."
"Is there not some way for me to help? How much bail is needed?"
"Well, all depends on the judge. The charge the Kitsongs bring is pretty
serious. They call it assault with a deadly weapon, and I'll have to
testify that Hans was armed when I came into the scrap--and yet Simpson
says he left the hotel without his gun--Simpson declares Hanscom said:
'I'm safer without it. I might fly mad and hurt somebody with it!' As I
say, I didn't see the beginning of the battle, but when I broke into it,
'peared to me more like a dozen armed men were attacking Hans. They had
him jammed up against the wall. He was fighting mad--I must admit that,
and later he had a gun. Where he got it, I don't know. However, that
shouldn't count against him, for he was only defending himself as any
citizen has a right to do."
"Surely the judge will take that into account?"
"He will; but you see the witnesses are mostly all Abe's friends. And
then Hans did begin it--he admits he jolted Abe. However, the case will
come up before Brinkley, and he's friendly. He'll do all he can."
"Could I see him--I mean the judge?"
"Better not. Judges are fairly testy about being 'seen.' It would look
bad--especially after it got noised around that you had money to spend
on the case."
"Anyhow, Mr. Rawlins must let me relieve him of the financial part of
the burden. It may not be easy for him to sign such a bond."
"It isn't easy--now, that's the truth," admitted Throop. "You see, he's
only a young fellow on a salary, and it means a whole lot to a man just
starting a home. He might have to pledge his entire outfit."
"Don't let him do that--he mustn't do that! Tell him that I will assume
all the hazard."
Throop extended a big paw in a gesture of admiration and his throat
needed clearing before he spoke. "You're all _right_!" he said. "Hans is
in big luck to have you on his side."
She submitted to his grip with a fine glow in her face. "I _must_ be on
his side, for he has been on my side all along. He was the one soul in
all this land that I could trust."
Throop's statement concerning Rawlins was right. To put up a
thousand-dollar bond was a serious matter. It meant pledging his whole
fortune, and the case was made the more serious by reason of the
probable disapproval of the district office, and yet he liked Hanscom
too well not to do all he could for him. Hanscom, who realized quite
clearly his former chief's predicament, urged him not to sign.
"The office won't like it, Jack--especially as I have quit the work."
They were in the midst of a heated discussion of this point (in Throop's
office) when the sheriff returned from his interview with Helen. He
entered wearing a broad smile.
"I've got something for you, Mr. Supervisor. I've got you a date with
the handsomest girl in the county."
Rawlins remained calm. "There's only one girl in the world for me, and
she's in Cambria, getting supper for me. However, I'm interested. Who is
the lady?"
Throop dropped his humorous mask. "Miss McLaren wants to see you. She's
fairly anxious about Hans--wants to go on his bond with you, or instead
of you."
Hanscom gazed at the sheriff in silence, but Rawlins exclaimed: "Bless
the girl! That's fine of her, but does she realize what going on this
bond means?"
"She does, and she's willing to back Hans with two thousand dollars if
necessary."
Rawlins, frankly astonished, asked: "Two thousand dollars! Has she got
it?"
"She has, and a good deal more. Willing of the First National has been
in touch with her people back East, and apparently there's no end to
what they're ready to do for her. Somebody, a brother or cousin, has
come to her rescue like a savings-bank. Hans, you do beat the devil for
luck. I was ready to congratulate you before--now I am just plumb,
low-down envious."
So far from filling the forester with joy, this news threw him into dark
despair. If Helen turned out to be rich his case was even more hopeless
than he had imagined it to be. It was sweet to be so defended, so
rescued, but it was also disheartening. With wealth added to the grace
which he adored in her, she was lifted far beyond his reach.
"Don't let her go on the bond," he said at last; "it's splendid of her,
but if she does that she will be kept here, and I know she is crazy to
get away, and we must not let her any deeper into this muss of mine."
Rawlins rose. "Well, I'll go see her, anyway. I'm for letting her help
out if she's able and feels like it."
Throop followed him out and down the walk. "That girl's getting terribly
interested in Hans--and she has a right to be. No man could have put in
better work for a woman than he did for her. She says it's all her
fault--and so it is, in a way." He chuckled. "Rather dashes him to find
out she's a moneyed person, don't it? But what's the odds? He needn't
complain, if she don't."
Helen's deepening interest in the forester expressed itself in the
pleasure she took in discussing with Rawlins the means of setting him
free.
"All you have to do," the supervisor explained, "is to appear before the
judge, deposit a certified check, and sign the paper which the law
demands."
"Let us go at once," she said. "My father is sleeping now and the
housekeeper will sit with him. I can slip away for an hour."
"The sooner the quicker," agreed Rawlins.
While she was gone on a cautious inspection of the sick-room a
messenger-boy came to the door with a telegram. "Gee! but the company is
doing business to-day!" he remarked to Rawlins, with a grin. "Here's
another fat one."
Rawlins gently pushed him into the hall. "That'll do for you, son," he
said. "Fat or thin, you deliver your goods and keep still."
The message was indeed a "fat one," and came, Helen said, from a sister
in Chicago, and expressed great anxiety to know exactly what conditions
were. "Do you need me?" the writer demanded. "If you do, I will start at
once. Let us hear from you. We are all very anxious."
Though visibly affected by this appeal, Helen's reply was brief. "No
need of you. I am well and returning East soon. Have all I need."
This she handed in to the operator herself as she and Rawlins were on
the way to Judge Brinkley's office; and then with the thought of
possibly getting away in a day or two she asked of Rawlins: "When will
Mr. Hanscom's trial come off?"
"Not for several weeks, I fear, unless we can do something to have it
put forward. You see, they've all conspired to make it a case for the
County Court, but the judge may be able to throw it back into the
Justice Court, where it really belongs. At the worst, Hans should only
be fined, but, of course, we can't say a word. We can only wait till the
hearing."
A few hours ago she would have been fiercely impatient at this prospect
of delay, but now, most strangely, she found herself accepting, without
protest, a further stay in the town, for it came as a part of her
pledged service in the aid of an unselfish young man, and she was
definitely, distinctly moved at the thought of helping him.
"By the way, Mr. Rawlins, I notice you call Mr. Hanscom Hans. Is that
his Christian name?"
"Oh no, that's only his nickname. He signs his reports L. J. Hanscom. I
think his real name is Lawrence. I don't know why everybody calls him
'Hans'--probably because he is so friendly and helpful. Everybody likes
him except that Shellfish Valley crowd, and they feel, I suppose, that I
put him down here to keep tab on them, which is the fact. They're a nest
of bad ones--a lot of hold-overs from the past--and would have frozen
him out long ago if they could."
Knowing the ranger's first name seemed to bring him still nearer, and
she began to feel a little uneasy about the way in which he might take
her share in his liberation. "Suppose he should misread it!"
On the street corner near the judge's office they encountered a dozen
men, grouped around a small, dark, middle-aged citizen with very black
hair, a long mustache, and a fumed-oak complexion, who seemed to be
monologuing for the enlightenment of the crowd. He looked like a
Mexican, or some exile from the south of Europe, and as Helen and
Rawlins paused for a moment they heard him say in a voice of pathetic
softness: "I blame nobody but heem, Hart Busby. He steal my girl away. I
have no fight with any one else."
This was the dreaded Cuneo, the father of Margarita, whose coming
promised death to the ranger! The imaginary savage with ready knife, the
infuriated giant with blazing eyes, gave place to the actuality of this
gentle, stricken; melancholy little sheepherder, who had no insane
desire to avenge himself on any one, much less on Hanscom. Helen's
resolution to meet and placate the dreaded Basque gave place to pity and
a sense of relief.
Rawlins viewed the matter humorously and laughed softly. "Hans needn't
worry about that little mongrel."
"He has suffered--he is suffering now," Helen replied. "I wish he might
have his girl and take her home."
Judge Brinkley's chambers consisted of two large rooms stacked with
law-books to the ceiling, and in the outer one a couple of rough-looking
men and a discouraged-looking little woman were sitting, waiting for an
interview. Ordinarily Helen would have passed the woman without a second
thought; now she wondered what her legal troubles might be.
The judge gave precedence to Helen and the supervisor and invited them
to his private office at once. Although he had some inkling of the
romantic attachment between the ranger and this fine young woman, he
did not presume upon it in any way, even in his answer to her questions.
"I hardly think a serious case can be made out against Hanscom," he
said, "but you will soon know, for a preliminary hearing will be granted
within a day or two. Meanwhile," he added, "I am very glad to issue an
order for his liberation on bond."
Helen thanked him most warmly, and, with the writ of release in hand,
Rawlins asked if she would not like to present it to the sheriff
himself. At first she declined, thinking of her own embarrassment, but
as she recalled the unhesitating action with which Hanscom had always
acted in her affairs, she changed her mind and consented, and with her
consent came a strong desire to let him know that her gratitude had in
it something personal. Secretly she acknowledged a wish to see his
rugged, serious face light up with the relief which the release would
bring. His mouth, she remembered, was singularly refined and his smile
winning.
On the way Rawlins spoke of Hanscom's resignation in terms of sincere
regret. "If he will only stay in the service, I am sure he will be
promoted; but I cannot blame him for feeling lonely."
At the jail door Helen's self-consciousness increased mightily. Her
resolution almost failed her.
"What will he think of me coming to him in this way?" was the question
which disturbed her, and she was deeply flushed and her pulse quickened
as Rawlins, quite unconscious of her sudden panic, led the way into the
sheriff's office and with eager haste presented her to Throop, who
greeted her with the smile and gesture of an old acquaintance.
The supervisor lost no time. "We've come on business," he said. "We
want Hanscom, Mr. Sheriff. This young lady has gone on his bond in my
stead, and here is an order for his release, signed by Judge Brinkley."
Throop was genuinely pleased. "Hah! I'm glad of that," he said, as he
took the paper. After a moment's glance at it he said: "All right, you
can have the body. Go into the parlor and I'll send him in to you."
Helen obeyed silently, knowing that Rawlins would remain in the
office--which he did--leaving her to receive the ranger alone.
He came in with eyes alight with worship. "I'm heartily obliged to you,"
he said, boyishly. "I thought I was in for a week or two of cell life
and reflection."
She met his gratitude with instant protest. "Please don't thank me; I am
only repaying a little of our debt. Won't you be seated?" she added,
acting the part of hostess in her embarrassment. "Of course I don't mean
that. You must be anxious to leave this place."
"I was, but I'm not so anxious now. How is Mr. Kauffman?"
"Much easier. He was sleeping when I left."
"I'm glad of that. He's had a hard week, and so have you, and yet"--he
hesitated--"you are looking well in spite of it all."
"That is the strange part of it," she admitted. "I am stronger and
happier than I have been for two years. I have just heard from my family
in the East."
His eyes became grave. "Then you will go back to them?"
"I think so, but not at once--not till after your trial--it would be
grossly ungrateful for me to go now. I shall wait till you are free."
His fine, clear, serious eyes were steadily fixed upon her face as she
said this, and she knew that he was extracting from every word and tone
their full meaning, and it frightened her a little.
At last he said, in a voice which was tense with emotion, "Then I hope I
shall never be free."
She hastened to lessen this tension. "The judge has promised to grant
you a hearing soon. Mr. Rawlins thinks it only a case for Justice Court,
anyway." She rose. "But let me see Mrs. Throop for a few minutes and
then we will go."
"Wait a moment," he pleaded, but she would not stay her course--she
dared not.
They found Mrs. Throop in the hall, discussing the interesting situation
with Rawlins, and when Helen extended her hand and began to thank her
again for her kindness, the matron cut her short. "Never mind that now.
I want you should all stay to supper."
Helen expressed regret and explained that it was necessary to return to
the bedside of her father, and so they managed to get away, although
Mrs. Throop followed them to the door, inviting them both to come again.
She saw no humor in this, though the men had their joke about it.
Rawlins discreetly dropped back into the office, and the two young
people passed on into the street.
"You must let me watch with your father to-night," Hanscom said. "I've
been a nurse--along with the rest of my experiences."
"If I need you I shall certainly call upon you, and if you need money
you must call upon me."
There was something warmer than friendship in her voice, but the ranger
was a timid man in any matter involving courtship, and he dared not
presume on anything so vague as the change of a tone or the quality of a
smile. Nevertheless he said:
"I cannot imagine how it happens that you are here in this rough
country, but I am glad you are. I shall be glad all my life--even if you
go away and forget me."
"I shall not forget you," she replied, "not for what you've done, but
for what you are." And in this declaration lay a profound significance
which the man seized and built upon.
"I am not even a forest ranger now. I am nothing but a dub--and
you--they say are rich--but some day I'm going to be something else. I
haven't any right--to ask anything of you--not a thing, but I must--I
can't think of you going entirely out of my life. I want you to let me
write to you. May I do that?"
Her answer was unexpected. "You once spoke of getting a transfer to a
forest near Denver. If you should do that, you might see me
occasionally--for I may make my home in Colorado Springs."
He stopped and they faced each other. "Does that mean that you _want_ me
to stay in the service?"
Her face was pale, but her eyes were glowing. "Yes."
His glance penetrated deeper. "And you will wait for me?"
"As long as you think it necessary," she answered, with a smile whose
meaning did not at once make itself felt, but when it did he reached his
hand as one man to another. She took it, smiling up at him in full
understanding of the promise she had made.
"Right here I make a new start," he said.
"I shall begin a new life also," she replied, and they walked on in
silence.
_AFTERWORD_
_Have you seen sunsets so beautiful that your heart ached to watch them
fade? So my heart aches to see the trails fading from the earth._
_As I re-enter the mountain forest I am a reactionary. I would restore
every hill-stream to its former beauty if I could. I would carry forward
every sign, every symbol, of the border in order that the children of
the future should not be deprived of any part of their nation's epic
westward march._
_I here make acknowledgment to the trail and the trail-makers. They have
taught me much. I have lifted the latch-string of the lonely shack, and
broken bread with the red hunter. I know the varied voices of the
coyote, wizard of the mesa. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a
silken cord, opalescent dawns and ruby sunsets. My camping-places return
in the music of gold and amber streams. The hunter, the miner, the
prospector, have been my companions and my tutors--and what they have
given me I hold with jealous hand._
_The high trail leads away to shadow-dappled pools. It enables me to
overtake the things vanishing, to enter the deserted cabin, to bend to
the rude fireplace and to blow again upon the embers, gray with ashes,
till a flame leaps out and shadows of mournful beauty dance upon the
wall._
_I am glad that I was born early enough to hear the songs of the
trailers and to bask in the light of their fires._
[Illustration: Signature: Hamlin Garland]
+----------------------------------------------------+
| Transcriber's Note: |
| |
| Typographical errors corrected in the text: |
| |
| Page 108 ranche changed to ranch |
| Page 109 penon changed to piñon |
| Page 171 to changed to do |
| Page 314 worthy changed to worth |
| Page 316 misnumbered section V changed to VI |
| Page 329 misnumbered section VI changed to VII |
| Page 331 jurisdication changed to jurisdiction |
| Page 338 misnumbered section VII changed to VIII |
| Page 358 misnumbered section VIII changed to IX |
| Page 362 Kaufman changed to Kauffman |
+----------------------------------------------------+
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