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diff --git a/1204-0.txt b/1204-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1070da1 --- /dev/null +++ b/1204-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5701 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1204 *** + +CABIN FEVER + + +By B. M. Bower + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER + + I THE FEVER MANIFESTS ITSELF + II TWO MAKE A QUARREL + III TEN DOLLARS AND A JOB FOR BUD + IV HEAD SOUTH AND KEEP GOING + V BUD CANNOT PERFORM MIRACLES + VI BUD TAKES TO THE HILLS + VII INTO THE DESERT + VIII MANY BARREN MONTHS AND MILES + IX THE BITE OF MEMORY + X EMOTIONS ARE TRICKY THINGS + XI THE FIRST STAGES + XII MARIE TAKES A DESPERATE CHANCE + XIII CABIN FEVER IN ITS WORST FORM + XIV CASH GETS A SHOCK + XV AND BUD NEVER GUESSED + XVI THE ANTIDOTE + XVII LOVIN CHILD WRIGGLES IN + XVIII THEY HAVE THEIR TROUBLES + XIX BUD FACES FACTS + XX LOVIN CHILD STRIKES IT RICH + XXI MARIE'S SIDE OF IT + XXII THE CURE COMPLETE + + + + +CABIN FEVER + + + +CHAPTER ONE. THE FEVER MANIFESTS ITSELF + +There is a certain malady of the mind induced by too much of one thing. +Just as the body fed too long upon meat becomes a prey to that horrid +disease called scurvy, so the mind fed too long upon monotony succumbs +to the insidious mental ailment which the West calls “cabin fever.” + True, it parades under different names, according to circumstances and +caste. You may be afflicted in a palace and call it ennui, and it may +drive you to commit peccadillos and indiscretions of various sorts. You +may be attacked in a middle-class apartment house, and call it various +names, and it may drive you to cafe life and affinities and alimony. You +may have it wherever you are shunted into a backwater of life, and lose +the sense of being borne along in the full current of progress. Be sure +that it will make you abnormally sensitive to little things; irritable +where once you were amiable; glum where once you went whistling about +your work and your play. It is the crystallizer of character, the acid +test of friendship, the final seal set upon enmity. It will betray your +little, hidden weaknesses, cut and polish your undiscovered virtues, +reveal you in all your glory or your vileness to your companions in +exile--if so be you have any. + +If you would test the soul of a friend, take him into the wilderness +and rub elbows with him for five months! One of three things will surely +happen: You will hate each other afterward with that enlightened hatred +which is seasoned with contempt; you will emerge with the contempt +tinged with a pitying toleration, or you will be close, unquestioning +friends to the last six feet of earth--and beyond. All these things will +cabin fever do, and more. It has committed murder, many's the time. It +has driven men crazy. It has warped and distorted character out of all +semblance to its former self. It has sweetened love and killed love. +There is an antidote--but I am going to let you find the antidote +somewhere in the story. + +Bud Moore, ex-cow-puncher and now owner of an auto stage that did not +run in the winter, was touched with cabin fever and did not know what +ailed him. His stage line ran from San Jose up through Los Gatos and +over the Bear Creek road across the summit of the Santa Cruz Mountains +and down to the State Park, which is locally called Big Basin. For +something over fifty miles of wonderful scenic travel he charged six +dollars, and usually his big car was loaded to the running boards. Bud +was a good driver, and he had a friendly pair of eyes--dark blue and +with a humorous little twinkle deep down in them somewhere--and a human +little smiley quirk at the corners of his lips. He did not know it, but +these things helped to fill his car. + +Until gasoline married into the skylark family, Bud did well enough to +keep him contented out of a stock saddle. (You may not know it, but +it is harder for an old cow-puncher to find content, now that the free +range is gone into history, than it is for a labor agitator to be happy +in a municipal boarding house.) + +Bud did well enough, which was very well indeed. Before the second +season closed with the first fall rains, he had paid for his big car +and got the insurance policy transferred to his name. He walked up +First Street with his hat pushed back and a cigarette dangling from the +quirkiest corner of his mouth, and his hands in his pockets. The glow of +prosperity warmed his manner toward the world. He had a little money in +the bank, he had his big car, he had the good will of a smiling world. +He could not walk half a block in any one of three or four towns but he +was hailed with a “Hello, Bud!” in a welcoming tone. More people knew +him than Bud remembered well enough to call by name--which is the final +proof of popularity the world over. + +In that glowing mood he had met and married a girl who went into Big +Basin with her mother and camped for three weeks. The girl had taken +frequent trips to Boulder Creek, and twice had gone on to San Jose, and +she had made it a point to ride with the driver because she was crazy +about cars. So she said. Marie had all the effect of being a pretty +girl. She habitually wore white middies with blue collar and tie, which +went well with her clear, pink skin and her hair that just escaped being +red. She knew how to tilt her “beach” hat at the most provocative angle, +and she knew just when to let Bud catch a slow, sidelong glance--of the +kind that is supposed to set a man's heart to syncopatic behavior. She +did not do it too often. She did not powder too much, and she had the +latest slang at her pink tongue's tip and was yet moderate in her use of +it. + +Bud did not notice Marie much on the first trip. She was demure, and Bud +had a girl in San Jose who had brought him to that interesting stage +of dalliance where he wondered if he dared kiss her good night the +next time he called. He was preoccupiedly reviewing the +she-said-and-then-I-said, and trying to make up his mind whether he +should kiss her and take a chance on her displeasure, or whether he had +better wait. To him Marie appeared hazily as another camper who helped +fill the car--and his pocket--and was not at all hard to look at. It +was not until the third trip that Bud thought her beautiful, and was +secretly glad that he had not kissed that San Jose girl. + +You know how these romances develop. Every summer is saturated with them +the world over. But Bud happened to be a simple-souled fellow, and there +was something about Marie--He didn't know what it was. Men never do +know, until it is all over. He only knew that the drive through the +shady stretches of woodland grew suddenly to seem like little journeys +into paradise. Sentiment lurked behind every great, mossy tree bole. New +beauties unfolded in the winding drive up over the mountain crests. Bud +was terribly in love with the world in those days. + +There were the evenings he spent in the Basin, sitting beside Marie +in the huge campfire circle, made wonderful by the shadowy giants, +the redwoods; talking foolishness in undertones while the crowd sang +snatches of songs which no one knew from beginning to end, and that went +very lumpy in the verses and very much out of harmony in the choruses. +Sometimes they would stroll down toward that sweeter music the creek +made, and stand beside one of the enormous trees and watch the glow of +the fire, and the silhouettes of the people gathered around it. + +In a week they were surreptitiously holding hands. In two weeks they +could scarcely endure the partings when Bud must start back to San Jose, +and were taxing their ingenuity to invent new reasons why Marie must go +along. In three weeks they were married, and Marie's mother--a shrewd, +shrewish widow--was trying to decide whether she should wash her hands +of Marie, or whether it might be well to accept the situation and hope +that Bud would prove himself a rising young man. + +But that was a year in the past. Bud had cabin fever now and did not +know what ailed him, though cause might have been summed up in two meaty +phrases: too much idleness, and too much mother-in-law. Also, not enough +comfort and not enough love. + +In the kitchen of the little green cottage on North Sixth Street where +Bud had built the home nest with much nearly-Mission furniture and a +piano, Bud was frying his own hotcakes for his ten o'clock breakfast, +and was scowling over the task. He did not mind the hour so much, but he +did mortally hate to cook his own breakfast--or any other meal, for that +matter. In the next room a rocking chair was rocking with a rhythmic +squeak, and a baby was squalling with that sustained volume of sound +which never fails to fill the adult listener with amazement. It affected +Bud unpleasantly, just as the incessant bawling of a band of weaning +calves used to do. He could not bear the thought of young things going +hungry. + +“For the love of Mike, Marie! Why don't you feed that kid, or do +something to shut him up?” he exploded suddenly, dribbling pancake +batter over the untidy range. + +The squeak, squawk of the rocker ceased abruptly. “'Cause it isn't time +yet to feed him--that's why. What's burning out there? I'll bet you've +got the stove all over dough again--” The chair resumed its squeaking, +the baby continued uninterrupted its wah-h-hah! wah-h-hah, as though it +was a phonograph that had been wound up with that record on, and no one +around to stop it + +Bud turned his hotcakes with a vicious flop that spattered more batter +on the stove. He had been a father only a month or so, but that was +long enough to learn many things about babies which he had never known +before. He knew, for instance, that the baby wanted its bottle, and that +Marie was going to make him wait till feeding time by the clock. + +“By heck, I wonder what would happen if that darn clock was to stop!” he +exclaimed savagely, when his nerves would bear no more. “You'd let the +kid starve to death before you'd let your own brains tell you what +to do! Husky youngster like that--feeding 'im four ounces every four +days--or some simp rule like that--” He lifted the cakes on to a plate +that held two messy-looking fried eggs whose yolks had broken, set the +plate on the cluttered table and slid petulantly into a chair and began +to eat. The squeaking chair and the crying baby continued to torment +him. Furthermore, the cakes were doughy in the middle. + +“For gosh sake, Marie, give that kid his bottle!” Bud exploded again. +“Use the brains God gave yuh--such as they are! By heck, I'll stick +that darn book in the stove. Ain't yuh got any feelings at all? Why, I +wouldn't let a dog go hungry like that! Don't yuh reckon the kid knows +when he's hungry? Why, good Lord! I'll take and feed him myself, if you +don't. I'll burn that book--so help me!” + +“Yes, you will--not!” Marie's voice rose shrewishly, riding the high +waves of the baby's incessant outcry against the restrictions upon +appetite imposed by enlightened motherhood. “You do, and see what'll +happen! You'd have him howling with colic, that's what you'd do.” + +“Well, I'll tell the world he wouldn't holler for grub! You'd go by the +book if it told yuh to stand 'im on his head in the ice chest! By heck, +between a woman and a hen turkey, give me the turkey when it comes to +sense. They do take care of their young ones--” + +“Aw, forget that! When it comes to sense---” + +Oh, well, why go into details? You all know how these domestic storms +arise, and how love washes overboard when the matrimonial ship begins to +wallow in the seas of recrimination. + +Bud lost his temper and said a good many things should not have said. +Marie flung back angry retorts and reminded Bud of all his sins and +slights and shortcomings, and told him many of mamma's pessimistic +prophecies concerning him, most of which seemed likely to be fulfilled. +Bud fought back, telling Marie how much of a snap she had had since she +married him, and how he must have looked like ready money to her, and +added that now, by heck, he even had to do his own cooking, as well as +listen to her whining and nagging, and that there wasn't clean corner in +the house, and she'd rather let her own baby go hungry than break a simp +rule in a darn book got up by a bunch of boobs that didn't know anything +about kids. Surely to goodness, he finished his heated paragraph, it +wouldn't break any woman's back to pour a little warm water on a little +malted milk, and shake it up. + +He told Marie other things, and in return, Marie informed him that he +was just a big-mouthed, lazy brute, and she could curse the day she ever +met him. That was going pretty far. Bud reminded her that she had not +done any cursing at the time, being in his opinion too busy roping him +in to support her. + +By that time he had gulped down his coffee, and was into his coat, +and looking for his hat. Marie, crying and scolding and rocking the +vociferous infant, interrupted herself to tell him that she wanted a +ten-cent roll of cotton from the drug store, and added that she hoped +she would not have to wait until next Christmas for it, either. Which +bit of sarcasm so inflamed Bud's rage that he swore every step of the +way to Santa Clara Avenue, and only stopped then because he happened to +meet a friend who was going down town, and they walked together. + +At the drug store on the corner of Second Street Bud stopped and bought +the cotton, feeling remorseful for some of the things he had said to +Marie, but not enough so to send him back home to tell her he was sorry. +He went on, and met another friend before he had taken twenty steps. +This friend was thinking of buying a certain second-hand automobile that +was offered at a very low price, and he wanted Bud to go with him and +look her over. Bud went, glad of the excuse to kill the rest of the +forenoon. + +They took the car out and drove to Schutzen Park and back. Bud opined +that she didn't bark to suit him, and she had a knock in her cylinders +that shouted of carbon. They ran her into the garage shop and went deep +into her vitals, and because she jerked when Bud threw her into second, +Bud suspected that her bevel gears had lost a tooth or two, and was +eager to find out for sure. + +Bill looked at his watch and suggested that they eat first before they +got all over grease by monkeying with the rear end. So they went to the +nearest restaurant and had smothered beefsteak and mashed potato and +coffee and pie, and while they ate they talked of gears and carburetors +and transmission and ignition troubles, all of which alleviated +temporarily Bud's case of cabin fever and caused him to forget that he +was married and had quarreled with his wife and had heard a good many +unkind things which his mother-in-law had said about him. + +By the time they were back in the garage and had the grease cleaned out +of the rear gears so that they could see whether they were really burred +or broken, as Bud had suspected, the twinkle was back in his eyes, and +the smiley quirk stayed at the corners of his mouth, and when he was not +talking mechanics with Bill he was whistling. He found much lost motion +and four broken teeth, and he was grease to his eyebrows--in other +words, he was happy. + +When he and Bill finally shed their borrowed overalls and caps, the +garage lights were on, and the lot behind the shop was dusky. Bud sat +down on the running board and began to figure what the actual cost +of the bargain would be when Bill had put it into good mechanical +condition. New bearings, new bevel gear, new brake, lining, rebored +cylinders--they totalled a sum that made Bill gasp. + +By the time Bud had proved each item an absolute necessity, and had +reached the final ejaculation: “Aw, forget it, Bill, and buy yuh a +Ford!” it was so late that he knew Marie must have given up looking +for him home to supper. She would have taken it for granted that he had +eaten down town. So, not to disappoint her, Bud did eat down town. Then +Bill wanted him to go to a movie, and after a praiseworthy hesitation +Bud yielded to temptation and went. No use going home now, just when +Marie would be rocking the kid to sleep and wouldn't let him speak above +a whisper, he told his conscience. Might as well wait till they settled +down for the night. + + + +CHAPTER TWO. TWO MAKE A QUARREL + +At nine o'clock Bud went home. He was feeling very well satisfied with +himself for some reason which he did not try to analyze, but which +was undoubtedly his sense of having saved Bill from throwing away six +hundred dollars on a bum car; and the weight in his coat pocket of a +box of chocolates that he had bought for Marie. Poor girl, it was kinda +tough on her, all right, being tied to the house now with the kid. Next +spring when he started his run to Big Basin again, he would get a little +camp in there by the Inn, and take her along with him when the travel +wasn't too heavy. She could stay at either end of the run, just as she +took a notion. Wouldn't hurt the kid a bit--he'd be bigger then, and the +outdoors would make him grow like a pig. Thinking of these things, Bud +walked briskly, whistling as he neared the little green house, so that +Marie would know who it was, and would not be afraid when he stepped up +on the front porch. + +He stopped whistling rather abruptly when he reached the house, for it +was dark. He tried the door and found it locked. The key was not in the +letter box where they always kept it for the convenience of the first +one who returned, so Bud went around to the back and climbed through the +pantry window. He fell over a chair, bumped into the table, and damned +a few things. The electric light was hung in the center of the room by +a cord that kept him groping and clutching in the dark before he finally +touched the elusive bulb with his fingers and switched on the light. + +The table was set for a meal--but whether it was dinner or supper Bud +could not determine. He went into the little sleeping room and turned on +the light there, looked around the empty room, grunted, and tiptoed into +the bedroom. (In the last month he had learned to enter on his toes, +lest he waken the baby.) He might have saved himself the bother, for the +baby was not there in its new gocart. The gocart was not there, Marie +was not there--one after another these facts impressed themselves upon +Bud's mind, even before he found the letter propped against the clock +in the orthodox manner of announcing unexpected departures. Bud read the +letter, crumpled it in his fist, and threw it toward the little heating +stove. “If that's the way yuh feel about it, I'll tell the world you can +go and be darned!” he snorted, and tried to let that end the matter so +far as he was concerned. But he could not shake off the sense of having +been badly used. He did not stop to consider that while he was working +off his anger, that day, Marie had been rocking back and forth, crying +and magnifying the quarrel as she dwelt upon it, and putting a new and +sinister meaning into Bud's ill-considered utterances. By the time Bud +was thinking only of the bargain car's hidden faults, Marie had reached +the white heat of resentment that demanded vigorous action. Marie was +packing a suitcase and meditating upon the scorching letter she meant to +write. + +Judging from the effect which the letter had upon Bud, it must have +been a masterpiece of its kind. He threw the box of chocolates into the +wood-box, crawled out of the window by which he had entered, and went +down town to a hotel. If the house wasn't good enough for Marie, let her +go. He could go just as fast and as far as she could. And if she thought +he was going to hot-foot it over to her mother's and whine around and +beg her to come home, she had another think coming. + +He wouldn't go near the darn place again, except to get his clothes. +He'd bust up the joint, by thunder. He'd sell off the furniture and turn +the house over to the agent again, and Marie could whistle for a home. +She had been darn glad to get into that house, he remembered, and away +from that old cat of a mother. Let her stay there now till she was darn +good and sick of it. He'd just keep her guessing for awhile; a week or +so would do her good. Well, he wouldn't sell the furniture--he'd just +move it into another house, and give her a darn good scare. He'd get a +better one, that had a porcelain bathtub instead of a zinc one, and a +better porch, where the kid could be out in the sun. Yes, sir, he'd just +do that little thing, and lay low and see what Marie did about that. +Keep her guessing--that was the play to make. + +Unfortunately for his domestic happiness, Bud failed to take into +account two very important factors in the quarrel. The first and most +important one was Marie's mother, who, having been a widow for fifteen +years and therefore having acquired a habit of managing affairs that +even remotely concerned her, assumed that Marie's affairs must be +managed also. The other factor was Marie's craving to be coaxed back to +smiles by the man who drove her to tears. Marie wanted Bud to come and +say he was sorry, and had been a brute and so forth. She wanted to hear +him tell how empty the house had seemed when he returned and found her +gone. She wanted him to be good and scared with that letter. She stayed +awake until after midnight, listening for his anxious footsteps; after +midnight she stayed awake to cry over the inhuman way he was treating +her, and to wish she was dead, and so forth; also because the baby +woke and wanted his bottle, and she was teaching him to sleep all night +without it, and because the baby had a temper just like his father. + +His father's temper would have yielded a point or two, the next day, had +it been given the least encouragement. For instance, he might have gone +over to see Marie before he moved the furniture out of the house, had +he not discovered an express wagon standing in front of the door when +he went home about noon to see if Marie had come back. Before he had +recovered to the point of profane speech, the express man appeared, +coming out of the house, bent nearly double under the weight of Marie's +trunk. Behind him in the doorway Bud got a glimpse of Marie's mother. + +That settled it. Bud turned around and hurried to the nearest drayage +company, and ordered a domestic wrecking crew to the scene; in other +words, a packer and two draymen and a dray. He'd show 'em. Marie and her +mother couldn't put anything over on him--he'd stand over that furniture +with a sheriff first. + +He went back and found Marie's mother still there, packing dishes and +doilies and the like. They had a terrible row, and all the nearest +neighbors inclined ears to doors ajar--getting an earful, as Bud +contemptuously put it. He finally led Marie's mother to the front door +and set her firmly outside. Told her that Marie had come to him with +no more than the clothes she had, and that his money had bought every +teaspoon and every towel and every stick of furniture in the darned +place, and he'd be everlastingly thus-and-so if they were going to +strong-arm the stuff off him now. If Marie was too good to live with +him, why, his stuff was too good for her to have. + +Oh, yes, the neighbors certainly got an earful, as the town gossips +proved when the divorce suit seeped into the papers. Bud refused to +answer the proceedings, and was therefore ordered to pay twice as much +alimony as he could afford to pay; more, in fact, than all his domestic +expense had amounted to in the fourteen months that he had been married. +Also Marie was awarded the custody of the child and, because Marie's +mother had represented Bud to be a violent man who was a menace to her +daughter's safety--and proved it by the neighbors who had seen and heard +so much--Bud was served with a legal paper that wordily enjoined him +from annoying Marie with his presence. + +That unnecessary insult snapped the last thread of Bud's regret for what +had happened. He sold the furniture and the automobile, took the money +to the judge that had tried the case, told the judge a few wholesome +truths, and laid the pile of money on the desk. + +“That cleans me out, Judge,” he said stolidly. “I wasn't such a bad +husband, at that. I got sore--but I'll bet you get sore yourself and +tell your wife what-for, now and then. I didn't get a square deal, but +that's all right. I'm giving a better deal than I got. Now you can keep +that money and pay it out to Marie as she needs it, for herself and the +kid. But for the Lord's sake, Judge, don't let that wildcat of a mother +of hers get her fingers into the pile! She framed this deal, thinking +she'd get a haul outa me this way. I'm asking you to block that little +game. I've held out ten dollars, to eat on till I strike something. I'm +clean; they've licked the platter and broke the dish. So don't never ask +me to dig up any more, because I won't--not for you nor no other darn +man. Get that.” + +This, you must know, was not in the courtroom, so Bud was not fined for +contempt. The judge was a married man himself, and he may have had a +sympathetic understanding of Bud's position. At any rate he listened +unofficially, and helped Bud out with the legal part of it, so that Bud +walked out of the judge's office financially free, even though he had +a suspicion that his freedom would not bear the test of prosperity, +and that Marie's mother would let him alone only so long as he and +prosperity were strangers. + + + +CHAPTER THREE. TEN DOLLARS AND A JOB FOR BUD + +To withhold for his own start in life only one ten-dollar bill from +fifteen hundred dollars was spectacular enough to soothe even so bruised +an ego as Bud Moore carried into the judge's office. There is an +anger which carries a person to the extreme of self-sacrifice, in the +subconscious hope of exciting pity for one so hardly used. Bud was +boiling with such an anger, and it demanded that he should all but give +Marie the shirt off his back, since she had demanded so much--and for so +slight a cause. + +Bud could not see for the life of him why Marie should have quit for +that little ruction. It was not their first quarrel, nor their worst; +certainly he had not expected it to be their last. Why, he asked the +high heavens, had she told him to bring home a roll of cotton, if she +was going to leave him? Why had she turned her back on that little home, +that had seemed to mean as much to her as it had to him? + +Being kin to primitive man, Bud could only bellow rage when he should +have analyzed calmly the situation. He should have seen that Marie too +had cabin fever, induced by changing too suddenly from carefree girlhood +to the ills and irks of wifehood and motherhood. He should have known +that she had been for two months wholly dedicated to the small physical +wants of their baby, and that if his nerves were fraying with watching +that incessant servitude, her own must be close to the snapping point; +had snapped, when dusk did not bring him home repentant. + +But he did not know, and so he blamed Marie bitterly for the wreck of +their home, and he flung down all his worldly goods before her, and +marched off feeling self-consciously proud of his martyrdom. It soothed +him paradoxically to tell himself that he was “cleaned”; that Marie had +ruined him absolutely, and that he was just ten dollars and a decent +suit or two of clothes better off than a tramp. He was tempted to go +back and send the ten dollars after the rest of the fifteen hundred, but +good sense prevailed. He would have to borrow money for his next meal, +if he did that, and Bud was touchy about such things. + +He kept the ten dollars therefore, and went down to the garage where he +felt most at home, and stood there with his hands in his pockets and the +corners of his mouth tipped downward--normally they had a way of tipping +upward, as though he was secretly amused at something--and his eyes +sullen, though they carried tiny lines at the corners to show how they +used to twinkle. He took the ten-dollar bank note from his pocket, +straightened out the wrinkles and looked at it disdainfully. As plainly +as though he spoke, his face told what he was thinking about it: that +this was what a woman had brought him to! He crumpled it up and made a +gesture as though he would throw it into the street, and a man behind +him laughed abruptly. Bud scowled and turned toward him a belligerent +glance, and the man stopped laughing as suddenly as he had begun. + +“If you've got money to throw to the birds, brother, I guess I won't +make the proposition I was going to make. Thought I could talk business +to you, maybe--but I guess I better tie a can to that idea.” + +Bud grunted and put the ten dollars in his pocket. + +“What idea's that?” + +“Oh, driving a car I'm taking south. Sprained my shoulder, and don't +feel like tackling it myself. They tell me in here that you aren't doing +anything now--” He made the pause that asks for an answer. + +“They told you right. I've done it.” + +The man's eyebrows lifted, but since Bud did not explain, he went on +with his own explanation. + +“You don't remember me, but I rode into Big Basin with you last summer. +I know you can drive, and it doesn't matter a lot whether it's asphalt +or cow trail you drive over.” + +Bud was in too sour a mood to respond to the flattery. He did not even +grunt. + +“Could you take a car south for me? There'll be night driving, and bad +roads, maybe--” + +“If you know what you say you know about my driving, what's the +idea--asking me if I can?” + +“Well, put it another way. Will you?” + +“You're on. Where's the car? Here?” Bud sent a seeking look into the +depths of the garage. He knew every car in there. “What is there in it +for me?” he added perfunctorily, because he would have gone just for +sake of getting a free ride rather than stay in San Jose over night. + +“There's good money in it, if you can drive with your mouth shut. This +isn't any booster parade. Fact is--let's walk to the depot, while I +tell you.” He stepped out of the doorway, and Bud gloomily followed him. +“Little trouble with my wife,” the man explained apologetically. “Having +me shadowed, and all that sort of thing. And I've got business south and +want to be left alone to do it. Darn these women!” he exploded suddenly. + +Bud mentally said amen, but kept his mouth shut upon his sympathy with +the sentiment. + +“Foster's my name. Now here's a key to the garage at this address.” He +handed Bud a padlock key and an address scribbled on a card. “That's my +place in Oakland, out by Lake Merritt. You go there to-night, get the +car, and have it down at the Broadway Wharf to meet the 11:30 boat--the +one the theater crowd uses. Have plenty of gas and oil; there won't be +any stops after we start. Park out pretty well near the shore end as +close as you can get to that ten-foot gum sign, and be ready to go when +I climb in. I may have a friend with me. You know Oakland?” + +“Fair to middling. I can get around by myself.” + +“Well, that's all right. I've got to go back to the city--catching the +next train. You better take the two-fifty to Oakland. Here's money for +whatever expense there is. And say! put these number plates in your +pocket, and take off the ones on the car. I bought these of a fellow +that had a smash--they'll do for the trip. Put them on, will you? She's +wise to the car number, of course. Put the plates you take off under +the seat cushion; don't leave 'em. Be just as careful as if it was a +life-and-death matter, will you? I've got a big deal on, down there, and +I don't want her spilling the beans just to satisfy a grudge--which she +would do in a minute. So don't fail to be at the ferry, parked so you +can slide out easy. Get down there by that big gum sign. I'll find you, +all right.” + +“I'll be there.” Bud thrust the key and another ten dollars into his +pocket and turned away. + +“And don't say anything--” + +“Do I look like an open-faced guy?” + +The man laughed. “Not much, or I wouldn't have picked you for the +trip.” He hurried down to the depot platform, for his train was already +whistling, farther down the yards. + +Bud looked after him, the corners of his mouth taking their normal, +upward tilt. It began to look as though luck had not altogether deserted +him, in spite of the recent blow it had given. He slid the wrapped +number plates into the inside pocket of his overcoat, pushed his hands +deep into his pockets, and walked up to the cheap hotel which had been +his bleak substitute for a home during his trouble. He packed everything +he owned--a big suitcase held it all by squeezing--paid his bill at the +office, accepted a poor cigar, and in return said, yes, he was going to +strike out and look for work; and took the train for Oakland. + +A street car landed him within two blocks of the address on the tag, and +Bud walked through thickening fog and dusk to the place. Foster had a +good-looking house, he observed. Set back on the middle of two lots, it +was, with a cement drive sloping up from the street to the garage backed +against the alley. Under cover of lighting a cigarette, he inspected the +place before he ventured farther. The blinds were drawn down--at least +upon the side next the drive. On the other he thought he caught a gleam +of light at the rear; rather, the beam that came from a gleam of light +in Foster's dining room or kitchen shining on the next house. But he was +not certain of it, and the absolute quiet reassured him so that he went +up the drive, keeping on the grass border until he reached the garage. +This, he told himself, was just like a woman--raising the deuce around +so that a man had to sneak into his own place to get his own car out of +his own garage. If Foster was up against the kind of deal Bud had been +up against, he sure had Bud's sympathy, and he sure would get the best +help Bud was capable of giving him. + +The key fitted the lock, and Bud went in, set down his suitcase, and +closed the door after him. It was dark as a pocket in there, save where +a square of grayness betrayed a window. Bud felt his way to the side +of the car, groped to the robe rail, found a heavy, fringed robe, and +curtained the window until he could see no thread of light anywhere; +after which he ventured to use his flashlight until he had found the +switch and turned on the light. + +There was a little side door at the back, and it was fastened on the +inside with a stout hook. Bud thought for a minute, took a long chance, +and let himself out into the yard, closing the door after him. He walked +around the garage to the front and satisfied himself that the light +inside did not show. Then he went around the back of the house and found +that he had not been mistaken about the light. The house was certainly +occupied, and like the neighboring houses seemed concerned only with the +dinner hour of the inmates. He went back, hooked the little door on the +inside, and began a careful inspection of the car he was to drive. + +It was a big, late-modeled touring car, of the kind that sells for +nearly five thousand dollars. Bud's eyes lightened with satisfaction +when he looked at it. There would be pleasure as well as profit in +driving this old girl to Los Angeles, he told himself. It fairly made +his mouth water to look at her standing there. He got in and slid behind +the wheel and fingered the gear lever, and tested the clutch and the +foot brake--not because he doubted them, but because he had a hankering +to feel their smoothness of operation. Bud loved a good car just as he +had loved a good horse in the years behind him. Just as he used to walk +around a good horse and pat its sleek shoulder and feel the hard muscles +of its trim legs, so now he made love to this big car. Let that old hen +of Foster's crab the trip south? He should sa-a-ay not! + +There did not seem to be a thing that he could do to her, but +nevertheless he got down and, gave all the grease cups a turn, removed +the number plates and put them under the rear seat cushion, inspected +the gas tank and the oil gauge and the fanbelt and the radiator, turned +back the trip-mileage to zero--professional driving had made Bud careful +as a taxi driver about recording the mileage of a trip--looked at the +clock set in the instrument board, and pondered. + +What if the old lady took a notion to drive somewhere? She would miss +the car and raise a hullabaloo, and maybe crab the whole thing in the +start. In that case, Bud decided that the best way would be to let her +go. He could pile on to the empty trunk rack behind, and manage somehow +to get off with the car when she stopped. Still, there was not much +chance of her going out in the fog--and now that he listened, he heard +the drip of rain. No, there was not much chance. Foster had not seemed +to think there was any chance of the car being in use, and Foster ought +to know. He would wait until about ten-thirty, to play safe, and then +go. + +Rain spelled skid chains to Bud. He looked in the tool box, found a set, +and put them on. Then, because he was not going to take any chances, he +put another set, that he found hanging up, on the front wheels. After +that he turned out the light, took down the robe and wrapped himself in +it, and laid himself down on the rear seat to wait for ten-thirty. + +He dozed, and the next he knew there was a fumbling at the door in +front, and the muttering of a voice. Bud slid noiselessly out of the +car and under it, head to the rear where he could crawl out quickly. The +voice sounded like a man, and presently the door opened and Bud was sure +of it. He caught a querulous sentence or two. + +“Door left unlocked--the ignorant hound--Good thing I don't trust +him too far--” Some one came fumbling in and switched on the light. +“Careless hound--told him to be careful--never even put the robe on the +rail where it belongs--and then they howl about the way they're treated! +Want more wages--don't earn what they do get--” + +Bud, twisting his head, saw a pair of slippered feet beside the running +board. The owner of the slippers was folding the robe and laying it over +the rail, and grumbling to himself all the while. “Have to come out in +the rain--daren't trust him an inch--just like him to go off and leave +the door unlocked--” With a last grunt or two the mumbling ceased. The +light was switched off, and Bud heard the doors pulled shut, and the +rattle of the padlock and chain. He waited another minute and crawled +out. + +“Might have told me there was a father-in-law in the outfit,” he +grumbled to himself. “Big a butt-in as Marie's mother, at that. Huh. +Never saw my suit case, never noticed the different numbers, never got +next to the chains--huh! Regular old he-hen, and I sure don't blame +Foster for wanting to tie a can to the bunch.” + +Very cautiously he turned his flashlight on the face of the automobile +clock. The hour hand stood a little past ten, and Bud decided he had +better go. He would have to fill the gas tank, and get more oil, and he +wanted to test the air in his tires. No stops after they started, said +Foster; Bud had set his heart on showing Foster something in the way of +getting a car over the road. + +Father-in-law would holler if he heard the car, but Bud did not intend +that father-in-law should hear it. He would much rather run the gauntlet +of that driveway then wait in the dark any longer. He remembered +the slope down to the street, and grinned contentedly. He would give +father-in-law a chance to throw a fit, next morning. + +He set his suit case in the tonneau, went out of the little door, edged +around to the front and very, very cautiously he unlocked the big doors +and set them open. He went in and felt the front wheels, judged that +they were set straight, felt around the interior until his fingers +touched a block of wood and stepped off the approximate length of the +car in front of the garage, allowing for the swing of the doors, and +placed the block there. Then he went back, eased off the emergency +brake, grabbed a good handhold and strained forward. + +The chains hindered, but the floor sloped to the front a trifle, which +helped. In a moment he had the satisfaction of feeling the big car give, +then roll slowly ahead. The front wheels dipped down over the threshold, +and Bud stepped upon the running board, took the wheel, and by instinct +more than by sight guided her through the doorway without a scratch. +She rolled forward like a black shadow until a wheel jarred against the +block, whereupon he set the emergency brake and got off, breathing free +once more. He picked up the block and carried it back, quietly closed +the big doors and locked them, taking time to do it silently. Then, in +a glow of satisfaction with his work, he climbed slowly into the car, +settled down luxuriously in the driver's seat, eased off the brake, and +with a little lurch of his body forward started the car rolling down the +driveway. + +There was a risk, of course, in coasting out on to the street with +no lights, but he took it cheerfully, planning to dodge if he saw the +lights of another car coming. It pleased him to remember that the street +inclined toward the bay. He rolled past the house without a betraying +sound, dipped over the curb to the asphalt, swung the car townward, and +coasted nearly half a block with the ignition switch on before he pushed +up the throttle, let in his clutch, and got the answering chug-chug of +the engine. With the lights on full he went purring down the street in +the misty fog, pleased with himself and his mission. + + + +CHAPTER FOUR. HEAD SOUTH AND KEEP GOING + +At a lunch wagon down near the water front, Bud stopped and bought two +“hot dog” sandwiches and a mug of hot coffee boiled with milk in it +and sweetened with three cubes of sugar. “O-oh, boy!” he ejaculated +gleefully when he set his teeth into biscuit and hot hamburger. Leaning +back luxuriously in the big car, he ate and drank until he could eat and +drink no more. Then, with a bag of bananas on the seat beside him, he +drove on down to the mole, searching through the drizzle for the big +gum sign which Foster had named. Just even with the coughing engine of +a waiting through train he saw it, and backed in against the curb, +pointing the car's radiator toward the mainland. He had still half an +hour to wait, and he buttoned on the curtains of the car, since a wind +from across the bay was sending the drizzle slantwise; moreover it +occurred to him that Foster would not object to the concealment while +they were passing through Oakland. Then he listlessly ate a banana while +he waited. + +The hoarse siren of a ferryboat bellowed through the murk. Bud started +the engine, throttled it down to his liking, and left it to warm up for +the flight. He ate another banana, thinking lazily that he wished he +owned this car. For the first time in many a day his mind was not filled +and boiling over with his trouble. Marie and all the bitterness she had +come to mean to him receded into the misty background of his mind and +hovered there, an indistinct memory of something painful in his life. + +A street car slipped past, bobbing down the track like a duck sailing +over ripples. A local train clanged down to the depot and stood jangling +its bell while it disgorged passengers for the last boat to the City +whose wall of stars was hidden behind the drizzle and the clinging fog. +People came straggling down the sidewalk--not many, for few had business +with the front end of the waiting trains. Bud pushed the throttle up a +little. His fingers dropped down to the gear lever, his foot snuggled +against the clutch pedal. + +Feet came hurrying. Two voices mumbled together. “Here he is,” said one. +“That's the number I gave him.” Bud felt some one step hurriedly upon +the running board. The tonneau door was yanked open. A man puffed +audibly behind him. “Yuh ready?” Foster's voice hissed in Bud's ear. + +“R'aring to go.” Bud heard the second man get in and shut the door, and +he jerked the gear lever into low. His foot came gently back with the +clutch, and the car slid out and away. + +Foster settled back on the cushions with a sigh. The other man was +fumbling the side curtains, swearing under his breath when his fingers +bungled the fastenings. + +“Everything all ready?” Foster's voice was strident with anxiety. + +“Sure thing.” + +“Well, head south--any road you know best. And keep going, till I tell +you to stop. How's the oil and gas?” + +“Full up. Gas enough for three hundred miles. Extra gallon of oil in the +car. What d'yah want--the speed limit through town?” + +“Nah. Side streets, if you know any. They might get quick action and +telephone ahead.” + +“Leave it to me, brother.” + +Bud did not know for sure, never having been pursued; but it seemed to +him that a straightaway course down a main street where other cars were +scudding homeward would be the safest route, because the simplest. He +did not want any side streets in his, he decided--and maybe run into a +mess of street-improvement litter, and have to back trail around it. +He held the car to a hurry-home pace that was well within the law, and +worked into the direct route to Hayward. He sensed that either Foster or +his friend turned frequently to look back through the square celluloid +window, but he did not pay much attention to them, for the streets were +greasy with wet, and not all drivers would equip with four skid chains. +Keeping sharp lookout for skidding cars and unexpected pedestrians and +street-car crossings and the like fully occupied Bud. + +For all that, an occasional mutter came unheeded to his ears, the closed +curtains preserving articulate sounds like room walls. + +“He's all right,” he heard Foster whisper once. “Better than if he was +in on it.” He did not know that Foster was speaking of him. + +“--if he gets next,” the friend mumbled. + +“Ah, quit your worrying,” Foster grunted. “The trick's turned; that's +something.” + +Bud was under the impression that they were talking about father-in-law, +who had called Foster a careless hound; but whether they were or not +concerned him so little that his own thoughts never flagged in their +shuttle-weaving through his mind. The mechanics of handling the big car +and getting the best speed out of her with the least effort and risk, +the tearing away of the last link of his past happiness and his grief; +the feeling that this night was the real parting between him and Marie, +the real stepping out into the future; the future itself, blank beyond +the end of this trip, these were quite enough to hold Bud oblivious to +the conversation of strangers. + +At dawn they neared a little village. Through this particular county the +road was unpaved and muddy, and the car was a sight to behold. The only +clean spot was on the windshield, where Bud had reached around once or +twice with a handful of waste and cleaned a place to see through. It was +raining soddenly, steadily, as though it always had rained and always +would rain. + +Bud turned his face slightly to one side. “How about stopping; I'll have +to feed her some oil--and it wouldn't hurt to fill the gas tank again. +These heavy roads eat up a lot of extra power. What's her average +mileage on a gallon, Foster?” + +“How the deuce should I know?” Foster snapped, just coming out of a +doze. + +“You ought to know, with your own car--and gas costing what it does.” + +“Oh!--ah--what was it you asked?” Foster yawned aloud. “I musta been +asleep.” + +“I guess you musta been, all right,” Bud grunted. “Do you want breakfast +here, or don't you? I've got to stop for gas and oil; that's what I was +asking?” + +The two consulted together, and finally told Bud to stop at the first +garage and get his oil and gas. After that he could drive to a drug +store and buy a couple of thermos bottles, and after that he could go to +the nearest restaurant and get the bottles filled with black coffee, and +have lunch put up for six people. Foster and his friend would remain in +the car. + +Bud did these things, revising the plan to the extent of eating his own +breakfast at the counter in the restaurant while the lunch was being +prepared in the kitchen. + +From where he sat he could look across at the muddy car standing before +a closed millinery-and-drygoods store. It surely did not look much like +the immaculate machine he had gloated over the evening before, but it +was a powerful, big brute of a car and looked its class in every line. +Bud was proud to drive a car like that. The curtains were buttoned down +tight, and he thought amusedly of the two men huddled inside, shivering +and hungry, yet refusing to come in and get warmed up with a decent +breakfast. Foster, he thought, must certainly be scared of his wife, if +he daren't show himself in this little rube town. For the first time Bud +had a vagrant suspicion that Foster had not told quite all there was to +tell about this trip. Bud wondered now if Foster was not going to meet +a “Jane” somewhere in the South. That terrifying Mann Act would account +for his caution much better than would the business deal of which Foster +had hinted. + +Of course, Bud told himself while the waiter refilled his coffee cup, it +was none of his business what Foster had up his sleeve. He wanted to get +somewhere quickly and quietly, and Bud was getting him there. That was +all he need to consider. Warmed and once more filled with a sense of +well-being, Bud made himself a cigarette before the lunch was ready, +and with his arms full of food he went out and across the street. Just +before he reached the car one of the thermos bottles started to slide +down under his elbow. Bud attempted to grip it against his ribs, but the +thing had developed a slipperiness that threatened the whole load, so he +stopped to rearrange his packages, and got an irritated sentence or two +from his passengers. + +“Giving yourself away like that! Why couldn't you fake up a mileage? +Everybody lies or guesses about the gas--” + +“Aw, what's the difference? The simp ain't next to anything. He thinks I +own it.” + +“Well, don't make the mistake of thinking he's a sheep. Once he--” + +Bud suddenly remembered that he wanted something more from the +restaurant, and returned forth-with, slipping thermos bottle and all. He +bought two packages of chewing gum to while away the time when he could +not handily smoke, and when he returned to the car he went muttering +disapproving remarks about the rain and the mud and the bottles. He +poked his head under the front curtain and into a glum silence. The two +men leaned back into the two corners of the wide seat, with their heads +drawn down into their coat collars and their hands thrust under the +robe. Foster reached forward and took a thermos bottle, his partner +seized another. + +“Say, you might get us a bottle of good whisky, too,” said Foster, +holding out a small gold piece between his gloved thumb and finger. “Be +quick about it though--we want to be traveling. Lord, it's cold!” + +Bud went into a saloon a few doors up the street, and was back presently +with the bottle and the change. There being nothing more to detain them +there, he kicked some of the mud off his feet, scraped off the rest +on the edge of the running board and climbed in, fastening the curtain +against the storm. “Lovely weather,” he grunted sarcastically. “Straight +on to Bakersfield, huh?” + +There was a minute of silence save for the gurgling of liquid running +out of a bottle into an eager mouth. Bud laid an arm along the back of +his seat and waited, his head turned toward them. “Where are you fellows +going, anyway?” he asked impatiently. + +“Los An--” the stranger gurgled, still drinking. + +“Yuma!” snapped Foster. “You shut up, Mert. I'm running this.” + +“Better--” + +“Yuma. You hit the shortest trail for Yuma, Bud. I'm running this.” + +Foster seemed distinctly out of humor. He told Mert again to shut up, +and Mert did so grumblingly, but somewhat diverted and consoled, Bud +fancied, by the sandwiches and coffee--and the whisky too, he guessed. +For presently there was an odor from the uncorked bottle in the car. + +Bud started and drove steadily on through the rain that never ceased. +The big car warmed his heart with its perfect performance, its smooth, +effortless speed, its ease of handling. He had driven too long and too +constantly to tire easily, and he was almost tempted to settle down to +sheer enjoyment in driving such a car. Last night he had enjoyed it, but +last night was not to-day. + +He wished he had not overheard so much, or else had overheard more. He +was inclined to regret his retreat from the acrimonious voices as being +premature. Just why was he a simp, for instance? Was it because he +thought Foster owned the car? Bud wondered whether father-in-law had not +bought it, after all. Now that he began thinking from a different angle, +he remembered that father-in-law had behaved very much like the proud +possessor of a new car. It really did not look plausible that he would +come out in the drizzle to see if Foster's car was safely locked in for +the night. There had been, too, a fussy fastidiousness in the way the +robe had been folded and hung over the rail. No man would do that for +some other man's property, unless he was paid for it. + +Wherefore, Bud finally concluded that Foster was not above helping +himself to family property. On the whole, Bud did not greatly disapprove +of that; he was too actively resentful of his own mother-in-law. He was +not sure but he might have done something of the sort himself, if his +mother-in-law had possessed a six-thousand-dollar car. Still, such a +car generally means a good deal to the owner, and he did not wonder that +Foster was nervous about it. + +But in the back of his mind there lurked a faint dissatisfaction with +this easy explanation. It occurred to him that if there was going to +be any trouble about the car, he might be involved beyond the point of +comfort. After all, he did not know Foster, and he had no more reason +for believing Foster's story than he had for doubting. For all he knew, +it might not be a wife that Foster was so afraid of. + +Bud was not stupid. He was merely concerned chiefly with his own +affairs--a common enough failing, surely. But now that he had thought +himself into a mental eddy where his own affairs offered no new impulse +toward emotion, he turned over and over in his mind the mysterious trip +he was taking. It had come to seem just a little too mysterious to suit +him, and when Bud Moore was not suited he was apt to do something about +it. + +What he did in this case was to stop in Bakersfield at a garage that had +a combination drugstore and news-stand next door. He explained shortly +to his companions that he had to stop and buy a road map and that he +wouldn't be long, and crawled out into the rain. At the open doorway +of the garage he turned and looked at the car. No, it certainly did not +look in the least like the machine he had driven down to the Oakland +mole--except, of course, that it was big and of the same make. It might +have been empty, too, for all the sign it gave of being occupied. Foster +and Mert evidently had no intention whatever of showing themselves. + +Bud went into the drugstore, remained there for five minutes perhaps, +and emerged with a morning paper which he rolled up and put into his +pocket. He had glanced through its feature news, and had read hastily +one front-page article that had nothing whatever to do with the war, but +told about the daring robbery of a jewelry store in San Francisco the +night before. + +The safe, it seemed, had been opened almost in plain sight of the street +crowds, with the lights full on in the store. A clever arrangement of +two movable mirrors had served to shield the thief--or thieves. For no +longer than two or three minutes, it seemed, the lights had been off, +and it was thought that the raiders had used the interval of darkness to +move the mirrors into position. Which went far toward proving that the +crime had been carefully planned in advance. Furthermore, the article +stated with some assurance that trusted employees were involved. + +Bud also had glanced at the news items of less importance, and had been +startled enough--yet not so much surprised as he would have been a few +hours earlier--to read, under the caption: DARING THIEF STEALS COSTLY +CAR, to learn that a certain rich man of Oakland had lost his new +automobile. The address of the bereaved man had been given, and Bud's +heart had given a flop when he read it. The details of the theft had not +been told, but Bud never noticed their absence. His memory supplied all +that for him with sufficient vividness. + +He rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and with the paper stuffed carelessly +into his pocket he went to the car, climbed in, and drove on to +the south, just as matter-of-factly as though he had not just then +discovered that he, Bud Moore, had stolen a six-thousand-dollar +automobile the night before. + + + +CHAPTER FIVE. BUD CANNOT PERFORM MIRACLES + +They went on and on, through the rain and the wind, sometimes through +the mud as well, where the roads were not paved. Foster had almost +pounced upon the newspaper when he discovered it in Bud's pocket as he +climbed in, and Bud knew that the two read that feature article avidly. +But if they had any comments to make, they saved them for future +privacy. Beyond a few muttered sentences they were silent. + +Bud did not care whether they talked or not. They might have talked +themselves hoarse, when it came to that, without changing his opinions +or his attitude toward them. He had started out the most unsuspecting +of men, and now he was making up for it by suspecting Foster and Mert of +being robbers and hypocrites and potential murderers. He could readily +imagine them shooting him in the back of the head while he drove, if +that would suit their purpose, or if they thought that he suspected +them. + +He kept reviewing his performance in that garage. Had he really intended +to steal the car, he would not have had the nerve to take the chances +he had taken. He shivered when he recalled how he had slid under the car +when the owner came in. What if the man had seen him or heard him? He +would be in jail now, instead of splashing along the highway many miles +to the south. For that matter, he was likely to land in jail, anyway, +before he was done with Foster, unless he did some pretty close +figuring. Wherefore he drove with one part of his brain, and with +the other he figured upon how he was going to get out of the mess +himself--and land Foster and Mert deep in the middle of it. For such was +his vengeful desire. + +After an hour or so, when his stomach began to hint that it was eating +time for healthy men, he slowed down and turned his head toward the +tonneau. There they were, hunched down under the robe, their heads drawn +into their collars like two turtles half asleep on a mud bank. + +“Say, how about some lunch?” he demanded. “Maybe you fellows can get +along on whisky and sandwiches, but I'm doing the work; and if you +notice, I've been doing it for about twelve hours now without any +let-up. There's a town ahead here a ways--” + +“Drive around it, then,” growled Foster, lifting his chin to stare ahead +through the fogged windshield. “We've got hot coffee here, and there's +plenty to eat. Enough for two meals. How far have we come since we +started?” + +“Far enough to be called crazy if we go much farther without a square +meal,” Bud snapped. Then he glanced at the rumpled newspaper and added +carelessly, “Anything new in the paper?” + +“No!” Mert spoke up sharply. “Go on. You're doing all right so +far--don't spoil it by laying down on your job!” + +“Sure, go on!” Foster urged. “We'll stop when we get away from this darn +burg, and you can rest your legs a little while we eat.” + +Bud went on, straight through the middle of the town without stopping. +They scurried down a long, dismal lane toward a low-lying range of hills +pertly wooded with bald patches of barren earth and rock. Beyond were +mountains which Bud guessed was the Tehachapi range. Beyond them, he +believed he would find desert and desertion. He had never been over this +road before, so he could no more than guess. He knew that the ridge road +led to Los Angeles, and he did not want anything of that road. Too many +travelers. He swung into a decent-looking road that branched off to the +left, wondering where it led, but not greatly caring. He kept that road +until they had climbed over a ridge or two and were in the mountains. +Soaked wilderness lay all about them, green in places where grass would +grow, brushy in places, barren and scarred with outcropping ledges, +pencilled with wire fences drawn up over high knolls. + +In a sequestered spot where the road hugged close the concave outline of +a bushy bluff, Bud slowed and turned out behind a fringe of bushes, and +stopped. + +“This is safe enough,” he announced, “and my muscles are kinda crampy. +I'll tell the world that's been quite some spell of straight driving.” + +Mert grunted, but Foster was inclined to cheerfulness. “You're some +driver, Bud. I've got to hand it to you.” + +Bud grinned. “All right, I'll take it--half of it, anyway, if you don't +mind. You must remember I don't know you fellows. Most generally I +collect half in advance, on a long trip like this.” Foster's eyes +opened, but he reached obediently inside his coat. Mert growled +inaudible comments upon Bud's nerve. + +“Oh, we can't kick, Mert,” Foster smoothed him down diplomatically. +“He's delivered the goods, so far. And he certainly does know how to put +a car over the road. He don't know us, remember!” + +Mert grunted again and subsided. Foster extracted a bank note from his +bill-folder, which Bud observed had a prosperous plumpness, and held it +out to Bud. + +“I guess fifty dollars won't hurt your feelings, will it, brother? +That's more than you'd charge for twice the trip, but we appreciate a +tight mouth, and the hurry-up trip you've made of it, and all that It's +special work, and we're willing to pay a special price. See?” + +“Sure. But I only want half, right now. Maybe,” he added with the +lurking twinkle in his eyes, “I won't suit yuh quite so well the rest +of the way. I'll have to go b'-guess and b'-gosh from here on. I've got +some change left from what I bought for yuh this morning too. Wait till +I check up.” + +Very precisely he did so, and accepted enough from Foster to make up +the amount to twenty-five dollars. He was tempted to take more. For +one minute he even contemplated holding the two up and taking enough to +salve his hurt pride and his endangered reputation. But he did not do +anything of the sort, of course; let's believe he was too honest to do +it even in revenge for the scurvy trick they had played him. + +He ate a generous lunch of sandwiches and dill pickles and a wedge of +tasteless cocoanut cake, and drank half a pint or so of the hot, black +coffee, and felt more cheerful. + +“Want to get down and stretch your legs? I've got to take a look at the +tires, anyway. Thought she was riding like one was kinda flat, the last +few miles.” + +They climbed out stiffly into the rain, stood around the car and stared +at it and at Bud testing his tires, and walked off down the road for a +little distance where they stood talking earnestly together. From the +corner of his eye Bud caught Mert tilting his head that way, and smiled +to himself. Of course they were talking about him! Any fool would know +that much. Also they were discussing the best means of getting rid of +him, or of saddling upon him the crime of stealing the car, or some +other angle at which he touched their problem. + +Under cover of testing the rear wheel farthest from them, he peeked into +the tonneau and took a good look at the small traveling bag they had +kept on the seat between them all the way. He wished he dared--But they +were coming back, as if they would not trust him too long alone with +that bag. He bent again to the tire, and when they climbed back into +the curtained car he was getting the pump tubing out to pump up that +particular tire a few pounds. + +They did not pay much attention to him. They seemed preoccupied and not +too friendly with each other, Bud thought. Their general air of gloom +he could of course lay to the weather and the fact that they had been +traveling for about fourteen hours without any rest; but there was +something more than that in the atmosphere. He thought they had +disagreed, and that he was the subject of their disagreement. + +He screwed down the valve cap, coiled the pump tube and stowed it away +in the tool box, opened the gas tank, and looked in--and right there he +did something else; something that would have spelled disaster if either +of them had seen him do it. He spilled a handful of little round white +objects like marbles into the tank before he screwed on the cap, and +from his pocket he pulled a little paper box, crushed it in his hand, +and threw it as far as he could into the bushes. Then, whistling just +above his breath, which was a habit with Bud when his work was going +along pleasantly, he scraped the mud off his feet, climbed in, and drove +on down the road. + +The big car picked up speed on the down grade, racing along as though +the short rest had given it a fresh enthusiasm for the long road that +wound in and out and up and down and seemed to have no end. As though he +joyed in putting her over the miles, Bud drove. Came a hill, he sent her +up it with a devil-may-care confidence, swinging around curves with a +squall of the powerful horn that made cattle feeding half a mile away on +the slopes lift their startled heads and look. + +“How much longer are you good for, Bud?” Foster leaned forward to ask, +his tone flattering with the praise that was in it. + +“Me? As long as this old boat will travel,” Bud flung back gleefully, +giving her a little more speed as they rocked over a culvert and sped +away to the next hill. He chuckled, but Foster had settled back again +satisfied, and did not notice. + +Halfway up the next hill the car slowed suddenly, gave a snort, gasped +twice as Bud retarded the spark to help her out, and, died. She was +a heavy car to hold on that stiff grade, and in spite of the full +emergency brake helped out with the service brake, she inched backward +until the rear wheels came full against a hump across the road and held. + +Bud did not say anything; your efficient chauffeur reserves his +eloquence for something more complex than a dead engine. He took down +the curtain on that side, leaned out into the rain and inspected the +road behind him, shifted into reverse, and backed to the bottom. + +“What's wrong?” Foster leaned forward to ask senselessly. + +“When I hit level ground, I'm going to find out,” Bud retorted, still +watching the road and steering with one hand. “Does the old girl ever +cut up with you on hills?” + +“Why--no. She never has,” Foster answered dubiously. + +“Reason I asked, she didn't just choke down from the pull. She went and +died on me.” + +“That's funny,” Foster observed weakly. + +On the level Bud went into neutral and pressed the self-starter with +a pessimistic deliberation. He got three chugs and a backfire into the +carburetor, and after that silence. He tried it again, coaxing her with +the spark and throttle. The engine gave a snort, hesitated and then, +quite suddenly, began to throb with docile regularity that seemed to +belie any previous intention of “cutting up.” + +Bud fed her the gas and took a run at the hill. She went up like a +thoroughbred and died at the top, just when the road had dipped into the +descent. Bud sent her down hill on compression, but at the bottom she +refused to find her voice again when he turned on the switch and pressed +the accelerator. She simply rolled down to the first incline and stopped +there like a balky mule. + +“Thunder!” said Bud, and looked around at Foster. “Do you reckon the old +boat is jinxed, just because I said I could drive her as far as she'd +go? The old rip ain't shot a cylinder since we hit the top of the hill.” + +“Maybe the mixture--” + +“Yeah,” Bud interrupted with a secret grin, “I've been wondering about +that, and the needle valve, and the feed pipe, and a few other little +things. Well, we'll have a look.” + +Forthwith he climbed out into the drizzle and began a conscientious +search for the trouble. He inspected the needle valve with much care, +and had Foster on the front seat trying to start her afterwards. He +looked for short circuit. He changed the carburetor adjustment, and +Foster got a weary chug-chug that ceased almost as soon as it had begun. +He looked all the spark plugs over, he went after the vacuum feed and +found that working perfectly. He stood back, finally, with his hands on +his hips, and stared at the engine and shook his head slowly twice. + +Foster, in the driver's seat, swore and tried again to start it. “Maybe +if you cranked it,” he suggested tentatively. + +“What for? The starter turns her over all right. Spark's all right too, +strong and hot. However--” With a sigh of resignation Bud got out what +tools he wanted and went to work. Foster got out and stood around, +offering suggestions that were too obvious to be of much use, but which +Bud made it a point to follow as far as was practicable. + +Foster said it must be the carburetor, and Bud went relentlessly after +the carburetor. He impressed Foster with the fact that he knew cars, and +when he told Foster to get in and try her again, Foster did so with the +air of having seen the end of the trouble. At first it did seem so, for +the engine started at once and worked smoothly until Bud had gathered +his wrenches off the running board and was climbing it, when it slowed +down and stopped, in spite of Foster's frantic efforts to keep it alive +with spark and throttle. + +“Good Glory!” cried Bud, looking reproachfully in at Foster. “What'd yuh +want to stop her for?” + +“I didn't!” Foster's consternation was ample proof of his innocence. +“What the devil ails the thing?” + +“You tell me, and I'll fix it,” Bud retorted savagely. Then he smoothed +his manner and went back to the carburetor. “Acts like the gas kept +choking off,” he said, “but it ain't that. She's O.K. I know, 'cause +I've tested it clean back to tank. There's nothing the matter with the +feed--she's getting gas same as she has all along. I can take off the +mag. and see if anything's wrong there; but I'm pretty sure there ain't. +Couldn't any water or mud get in--not with that oil pan perfect. She +looks dry as a bone, and clean. Try her again, Foster; wait till I set +the spark about right. Now, you leave it there, and give her the gas +kinda gradual, and catch her when she talks. We'll see--” + +They saw that she was not going to “talk” at all. Bud swore a little and +got out more tools and went after the magneto with grim determination. +Again Foster climbed out and stood in the drizzle and watched him. Mert +crawled over into the front seat where he could view the proceedings +through the windshield. Bud glanced up and saw him there, and grinned +maliciously. “Your friend seems to love wet weather same as a cat does,” + he observed to Foster. “He'll be terrible happy if you're stalled here +till you get a tow in somewhere.” + +“It's your business to see that we aren't stalled,” Mert snapped at him +viciously. “You've got to make the thing go. You've got to!” + +“Well, I ain't the Almighty,” Bud retorted acidly. “I can't perform +miracles while yuh wait.” + +“Starting a cranky car doesn't take a miracle,” whined Mert. “Anybody +that knows cars--” + +“She's no business to be a cranky car,” Foster interposed pacifically. +“Why, she's practically new!” He stepped over a puddle and stood beside +Bud, peering down at the silent engine. “Have you looked at the intake +valve?” he asked pathetically. + +“Why, sure. It's all right. Everything's all right, as far as I can find +out.” Bud looked Foster straight in the eye--and if his own were a bit +anxious, that was to be expected. + +“Everything's all right,” he added measuredly. “Only, she won't go.” He +waited, watching Foster's face. + +Foster chewed a corner of his lip worriedly. “Well, what do you make of +it?” His tone was helpless. + +Bud threw out his two hands expressively, and shook his head. He let +down the hood, climbed in, slid into the driver's seat, and went through +the operation of starting. Only, he didn't start. The self-starter +hummed as it spun the flywheel, but nothing whatever was elicited save a +profane phrase from Foster and a growl from Mert. Bud sat back flaccid, +his whole body owning defeat. + +“Well, that means a tow in to the nearest shop,” he stated, after a +minute of dismal silence. “She's dead as a doornail.” + +Mert sat back in his corner of the seat, muttering into his collar. +Foster looked at him, looked at Bud, looked at the car and at the +surrounding hills. He seemed terribly depressed and at the same +time determined to make the best of things. Bud could almost pity +him--almost. + +“Do you know how far it is back to that town we passed?” he asked Bud +spiritlessly after a while. Bud looked at the speedometer, made a mental +calculation and told him it was fifteen miles. Towns, it seemed, were +rather far apart in this section of the country. + +“Well, let's see the road map. How far is it to the next one?” + +“Search me. They didn't have any road maps back there. Darned hick +burg.” + +Foster studied awhile. “Well, let's see if we can push her off the +middle of the road--and then I guess we'll have to let you walk back and +get help. Eh, Mert? There's nothing else we can do--” + +“What yuh going to tell 'em?” Mert demanded suspiciously. + +Bud permitted a surprised glance to slant back at Mert. “Why, whatever +you fellows fake up for me to tell,” he said naively. “I know the truth +ain't popular on this trip, so get together and dope out something. And +hand me over my suit case, will yuh? I want some dry socks to put on +when I get there.” + +Foster very obligingly tilted the suit case over into the front seat. +After that he and Mert, as by a common thought impelled, climbed out +and went over to a bushy live oak to confer in privacy. Mert carried the +leather bag with him. + +By the time they had finished and were coming back, Bud had gone through +his belongings and had taken out a few letters that might prove awkward +if found there later, two pairs of socks and his razor and toothbrush. +He was folding the socks to stow away in his pocket when they got in. + +“You can say that we're from Los Angeles, and on our way home,” Foster +told him curtly. It was evident to Bud that the two had not quite agreed +upon some subject they had discussed. “That's all right. I'm Foster, and +he's named Brown--if any one gets too curious.” + +“Fine. Fine because it's so simple. I'll eat another sandwich, if you +don't mind, before I go. I'll tell a heartless world that fifteen miles +is some little stroll--for a guy that hates walkin'.” + +“You're paid for it,” Mert growled at him rudely. + +“Sure, I'm paid for it,” Bud assented placidly, taking a bite. They +might have wondered at his calm, but they did not. He ate what he +wanted, took a long drink of the coffee, and started off up the hill +they had rolled down an hour or more past. + +He walked briskly, and when he was well out of earshot Bud began to +whistle. Now and then he stopped to chuckle, and sometimes he frowned at +an uncomfortable thought. But on the whole he was very well pleased with +his present circumstances. + + + +CHAPTER SIX. BUD TAKES TO THE HILLS + +In a little village which he had glimpsed from the top of a hill Bud +went into the cluttered little general store and bought a few blocks of +slim, evil smelling matches and a couple of pounds of sliced bacon, a +loaf of stale bread, and two small cans of baked beans. He stuffed +them all into the pocket of his overcoat, and went out and hunted up a +long-distance telephone sign. It had not taken him more than an hour to +walk to the town, for he had only to follow a country road that branched +off that way for a couple of miles down a valley. There was a post +office and the general store and a couple of saloons and a blacksmith +shop that was thinking of turning into a garage but had gone no further +than to hang out a sign that gasoline was for sale there. It was all +very sordid and very lifeless and altogether discouraging in the drizzle +of late afternoon. Bud did not see half a dozen human beings on his way +to the telephone office, which he found was in the post office. + +He called up San Francisco, and got the chief of police's office on the +wire, and told them where they would find the men who had robbed that +jewelry store of all its diamonds and some other unset jewels. Also he +mentioned the car that was stolen, and that was now stalled and waiting +for some kind soul to come and give it a tow. + +He speedily had all the attention of the chief, and having thought +out in advance his answers to certain pertinent questions, he did not +stutter when they were asked. Yes, he had been hired to drive the ear +south, and he had overheard enough to make him suspicious on the way. He +knew that they had stolen the car. He was not absolutely sure that +they were the diamond thieves but it would be easy enough to find out, +because officers sent after them would naturally be mistaken for first +aid from some garage, and the cops could nab the men and look into that +grip they were so careful not to let out of their sight. + +“Are you sure they won't get the car repaired and go on?” It was +perfectly natural that the chief should fear that very thing. + +“No chance!” Bud chuckled into the 'phone. “Not a chance in the world, +chief. They'll be right there where I left 'em, unless some car comes +along and gives 'em a tow. And if that happens you'll be able to trace +'em.” He started to hang up, and added another bit of advice. “Say, +chief, you better tell whoever gets the car, to empty the gas tank and +clean out the carburetor and vacuum feed--and she'll go, all right! +Adios.” + +He hung up and paid the charge hurriedly, and went out and down a +crooked little lane that led between bushes to a creek and heavy timber. +It did not seem to him advisable to linger; the San Francisco chief of +police might set some officer in that village on his trail, just as a +matter of precaution. Bud told himself that he would do it were he in +the chief's place. When he reached the woods along the creek he ran, +keeping as much as possible on thick leaf mold that left the least +impression. He headed to the east, as nearly as he could judge, and when +he came to a rocky canyon he struck into it. + +He presently found himself in a network of small gorges that twisted +away into the hills without any system whatever, as far as he could see. +He took one that seemed to lead straightest toward where the sun would +rise next morning, and climbed laboriously deeper and deeper into the +hills. After awhile he had to descend from the ridge where he found +himself standing bleakly revealed against a lowering, slaty sky that +dripped rain incessantly. As far as he could see were hills and more +hills, bald and barren except in certain canyons whose deeper shadows +told of timber. Away off to the southwest a bright light showed +briefly--the headlight of a Santa Fe train, he guessed it must be. To +the east, which he faced, the land was broken with bare hills that fell +just short of being mountains. He went down the first canyon that opened +in that direction, ploughing doggedly ahead into the unknown. + +That night Bud camped in the lee of a bank that was fairly well screened +with rocks and bushes, and dined off broiled bacon and bread and a can +of beans with tomato sauce, and called it a meal. At first he was not +much inclined to take the risk of having a fire big enough to keep him +warm. Later in the night he was perfectly willing to take the risk, but +could not find enough dry wood. His rainproofed overcoat became quite +soggy and damp on the inside, in spite of his efforts to shield himself +from the rain. It was not exactly a comfortable night, but he worried +through it somehow. + +At daylight he opened another can of beans and made himself two thick +bean sandwiches, and walked on while he ate them slowly. They tasted +mighty good, Bud thought--but he wished fleetingly that he was back +in the little green cottage on North Sixth Street, getting his own +breakfast. He felt as though he could drink about four cups of coffee; +and as to hotcakes--! But breakfast in the little green cottage recalled +Marie, and Marie was a bitter memory. All the more bitter because he +did not know where burrowed the root of his hot resentment. In a strong +man's love for his home and his mate was it rooted, and drew therefrom +the wormwood of love thwarted and spurned. + +After awhile the high air currents flung aside the clouds like curtains +before a doorway. The sunlight flashed out dazzlingly and showed Bud +that the world, even this tumbled world, was good to look upon. His +instincts were all for the great outdoors, and from such the sun brings +quick response. Bud lifted his head, looked out over the hills to where +a bare plain stretched in the far distance, and went on more briskly. + +He did not meet any one at all; but that was chiefly because he did not +want to meet any one. He went with his ears and his eyes alert, and was +not above hiding behind a clump of stunted bushes when two horsemen rode +down a canyon trail just below him. Also he searched for roads and then +avoided them. It would be a fat morsel for Marie and her mother to roll +under their tongues, he told himself savagely, if he were arrested and +appeared in the papers as one of that bunch of crooks! + +Late that afternoon, by traveling steadily in one direction, he topped a +low ridge and saw an arm of the desert thrust out to meet him. A scooped +gully with gravelly sides and rocky bottom led down that way, and +because his feet were sore from so much sidehill travel, Bud went down. +He was pretty well fagged too, and ready to risk meeting men, if thereby +he might gain a square meal. Though he was not starving, or anywhere +near it, he craved warm food and hot coffee. + +So when he presently came upon two sway-backed burros that showed the +sweaty imprint of packsaddles freshly removed, and a couple of horses +also sweat roughened, he straightway assumed that some one was making +camp not far away. One of the horses was hobbled, and they were all +eating hungrily the grass that grew along the gully's sides. Camp was +not only close, but had not yet reached suppertime, Bud guessed from the +well-known range signs. + +Two or three minutes proved him right. He came upon a man just driving +the last tent peg. He straightened up and stared at Bud unblinkingly for +a few seconds. + +“Howdy, howdy,” he greeted him then with tentative friendliness, and +went on with his work. “You lost?” he added carefully. A man walking +down out of the barren hills, and carrying absolutely nothing in the +way of camp outfit, was enough to whet the curiosity of any one who knew +that country. At the same time curiosity that became too apparent +might be extremely unwelcome. So many things may drive a man into the +hills--but few of them would bear discussion with strangers. + +“Yes. I am, and I ain't.” Bud came up and stood with his hands in his +coat pockets, and watched the old fellow start his fire. + +“Yeah--how about some supper? If you am, and you ain't as hungry as you +look--” + +“I'll tell the world I am, and then some. I ain't had a square meal +since yesterday morning, and I grabbed that at a quick-lunch joint. I'm +open to supper engagements, brother.” + +“All right. There's a side of bacon in that kyack over there. Get it out +and slice some off, and we'll have supper before you know it. We will,” + he added pessimistically, “if this dang brush will burn.” + +Bud found the bacon and cut according to his appetite. His host got +out a blackened coffeepot and half filled it with water from a dented +bucket, and balanced it on one side of the struggling fire. He remarked +that they had had some rain, to which Bud agreed. He added gravely that +he believed it was going to clear up, though--unless the wind swung back +into the storm quarter. Bud again professed cheerfully to be in perfect +accord. After which conversational sparring they fell back upon the +little commonplaces of the moment. + +Bud went into a brush patch and managed to glean an armful of nearly +dry wood, which he broke up with the axe and fed to the fire, coaxing it +into freer blazing. The stranger watched him unobtrusively, critically, +pottering about while Bud fried the bacon. + +“I guess you've handled a frying pan before, all right,” he remarked at +last, when the bacon was fried without burning. + +Bud grinned. “I saw one in a store window once as I was going by,” he +parried facetiously. “That was quite a while back.” + +“Yeah. Well, how's your luck with bannock? I've got it all mixed.” + +“Dump her in here, ole-timer,” cried Bud, holding out the frying pan +emptied of all but grease. “Wish I had another hot skillet to turn over +the top.” + +“I guess you've been there, all right,” the other chuckled. “Well, I +don't carry but the one frying pan. I'm equipped light, because I've got +to outfit with grub, further along.” + +“Well, we'll make out all right, just like this.” Bud propped the handle +of the frying pan high with a forked stick, and stood up. “Say, my +name's Bud Moore, and I'm not headed anywhere in particular. I'm just +traveling in one general direction, and that's with the Coast at my +back. Drifting, that's all. I ain't done anything I'm ashamed of or +scared of, but I am kinda bashful about towns. I tangled with a couple +of crooks, and they're pulled by now, I expect. I'm dodging newspaper +notoriety. Don't want to be named with 'em at all.” He, spread his +hands with an air of finality. “That's my tale of woe,” he supplemented, +“boiled down to essentials. I just thought I'd tell you.” + +“Yeah. Well, my name's Cash Markham, and I despise to have folks get +funny over it. I'm a miner and prospector, and I'm outfitting for a trip +for another party, looking up an old location that showed good prospects +ten years ago. Man died, and his wife's trying to get the claim +relocated. Get you a plate outa that furtherest kyack, and a cup. +Bannock looks about done, so we'll eat.” + +That night Bud shared Cash Markham's blankets, and in the morning +he cooked the breakfast while Cash Markham rounded up the burros and +horses. In that freemasonry of the wilderness they dispensed with +credentials, save those each man carried in his face and in his manner. +And if you stop to think of it, such credentials are not easily forged, +for nature writes them down, and nature is a truth-loving old dame who +will never lead you far astray if only she is left alone to do her work +in peace. + +It transpired, in the course of the forenoon's travel, that Cash Markham +would like to have a partner, if he could find a man that suited. One +guessed that he was fastidious in the matter of choosing his companions, +in spite of the easy way in which he had accepted Bud. By noon they had +agreed that Bud should go along and help relocate the widow's claim. +Cash Markham hinted that they might do a little prospecting on their own +account. It was a country he had long wanted to get into, he said, and +while he intended to do what Mrs. Thompson had hired him to do, still +there was no law against their prospecting on their own account. And +that, he explained, was one reason why he wanted a good man along. +If the Thompson claim was there, Bud could do the work under the +supervision of Cash, and Cash could prospect. + +“And anyway, it's bad policy for a man to go off alone in this part of +the country,” he added with a speculative look across the sandy waste +they were skirting at a pace to suit the heavily packed burros. “Case +of sickness or accident--or suppose the stock strays off--it's bad to be +alone.” + +“Suits me fine to go with you,” Bud declared. “I'm next thing to broke, +but I've got a lot of muscle I can cash in on the deal. And I know the +open. And I can rock a gold-pan and not spill out all the colors, if +there is any--and whatever else I know is liable to come in handy, and +what I don't know I can learn.” + +“That's fair enough. Fair enough,” Markham agreed. “I'll allow you wages +on the Thompson job' till you've earned enough to balance up with the +outfit. After that it'll be fifty-fifty. How'll that be, Bud?” + +“Fair enough--fair enough,” Bud retorted with faint mimicry. “If I was +all up in the air a few days ago, I seem to have lit on my feet, and +that's good enough for me right now. We'll let 'er ride that way.” + +And the twinkle, as he talked, was back in his eyes, and the smiley +quirk was at the corner of his lips. + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN. INTO THE DESERT + +If you want to know what mad adventure Bud found himself launched upon, +just read a few extracts from the diary which Cash Markham, being a +methodical sort of person, kept faithfully from day to day, until he cut +his thumb on a can of tomatoes which he had been cutting open with his +knife. After that Bud kept the diary for him, jotting down the main +happenings of the day. When Cash's thumb healed so that he could hold a +pencil with some comfort, Bud thankfully relinquished the task. He hated +to write, anyway, and it seemed to him that Cash ought to trust his +memory a little more than he did. + +I shall skip a good many days, of course--though the diary did not, I +assure you. + +First, there was the outfit. When they had outfitted at Needles for the +real trip, Cash set down the names of all living things in this wise: + +Outfit, Cassius B. Markham, Bud Moore, Daddy a bull terrier, bay horse, +Mars, Pete a sorrel, Ed a burro, Swayback a jinny, Maude a jack, Cora +another jinny, Billy a riding burro & Sways colt & Maude colt a white +mean looking little devil. + +Sat. Apr. 1. + +Up at 7:30. Snowing and blowing 3 ft. of snow on ground. Managed to get +breakfast & returned to bed. Fed Monte & Peter our cornmeal, poor things +half frozen. Made a fire in tent at 1:30 & cooked a meal. Much smoke, +ripped hole in back of tent. Three burros in sight weathering fairly +well. No sign of let up everything under snow & wind a gale. Making out +fairly well under adverse conditions. Worst weather we have experienced. + +Apr. 2. + +Up at 7 A.M. Fine & sunny snow going fast. Fixed up tent & cleaned up +generally. Alkali flat a lake, can't cross till it dries. Stock some +scattered, brought them all together. + +Apr. 3. + +Up 7 A.M. Clear & bright. Snow going fast. All creeks flowing. Fine +sunny day. + +Apr. 4. + +Up 6 A.M. Clear & bright. Went up on divide, met 3 punchers who said +road impassable. Saw 2 trains stalled away across alkali flat. Very +boggy and moist. + +Apr.5. + +Up 5 A.M. Clear & bright. Start out, on Monte & Pete at 6. Animals +traveled well, did not appear tired. Feed fine all over. Plenty water +everywhere. + +Not much like Bud's auto stage, was it? But the very novelty of it, the +harking back to old plains days, appealed to him and sent him forward +from dull hardship to duller discomfort, and kept the quirk at the +corners of his lips and the twinkle in his eyes. Bud liked to travel +this way, though it took them all day long to cover as much distance as +he had been wont to slide behind him in an hour. He liked it--this slow, +monotonous journeying across the lean land which Cash had traversed +years ago, where the stark, black pinnacles and rough knobs of rock +might be hiding Indians with good eyesight and a vindictive temperament. +Cash told him many things out of his past, while they poked along, +driving the packed burros before them. Things which he never had set +down in his diary--things which he did not tell to any one save his few +friends. + +But it was not always mud and rain and snow, as Cash's meager chronicle +betrays. + +May 6. + +Up at sunrise. Monte & Pete gone leaving no tracks. Bud found them +3 miles South near Indian village. Bud cut his hair, did a good job. +Prospector dropped into camp with fist full of good looking quartz. +Stock very thirsty all day. Very hot Tied Monte & Pete up for night. + +May 8. + +Up 5:30. Fine, but hot. Left 7:30. Pete walked over a sidewinder & Bud +shot him ten ft. in air. Also prior killed another beside road. Feed as +usual, desert weeds. Pulled grain growing side of track and fed plugs. +Water from cistern & R.R. ties for fuel. Put up tent for shade. Flies +horrible. + +May 9. + +Up 4. Left 6. Feed as usual. Killed a sidewinder in a bush with 3 shots +of Krag. Made 21 m. today. R.R. ties for fuel Cool breeze all day. + +May 11. + +Up at sunrise. Bud washed clothes. Tested rock. Fine looking mineral +country here. Dressed Monte's withers with liniment greatly reducing +swelling from saddle-gall. He likes to have it dressed & came of his own +accord. Day quite comfortable. + +May 15. + +Up 4. Left 6:30 over desert plain & up dry wash. Daddy suffered from +heat & ran into cactus while looking for shade. Got it in his mouth, +tongue, feet & all over body. Fixed him up poor creature groaned all +evening & would not eat his supper. Poor feed & wood here. Water found +by digging 2 ft. in sand in sandstone basins in bed of dry wash. Monte +lay down en route. Very hot & all suffered from heat. + +May 16. + +Bud has sick headache. Very hot so laid around camp all day. Put two +blankets up on tent pols for sun break. Daddy under weather from cactus +experience. Papago Indian boy about 18 on fine bay mare driving 4 ponies +watered at our well. Moon almost full, lots of mocking birds. Pretty +songs. + +May 17. + +Up 7:30 Bud some better. Day promises hot, but slight breeze. White +gauzy clouds in sky. Daddy better. Monte & Pete gone all day. Hunted +twice but impossible to track them in this stony soil Bud followed +trail, found them 2 mi. east of here in flat sound asleep about 3 P.M. +At 6 went to flat 1/4 mi. N. of camp to tie Pete, leading Monte by +bell strap almost stepped on rattler 3 ft. long. 10 rattles & a button. +Killed him. To date, 1 Prairie rattler, 3 Diamond back & 8 sidewinders, +12 in all. Bud feels better. + +May 18. + +At 4 A. M. Bud woke up by stock passing camp. Spoke to me who half awake +hollered, “sic Daddy!” Daddy sicced 'em & they went up bank of wash to +right. Bud swore it was Monte & Pete. I went to flat & found M. & P. +safe. Water in sink all gone. Bud got stomach trouble. I threw up my +breakfast. Very hot weather. Lanced Monte's back & dressed it with +creoline. Turned them loose & away they put again. + +Soon after this they arrived at the place where Thompson had located his +claim. It was desert, of course, sloping away on one side to a dreary +waste of sand and weeds with now and then a giant cactus standing +gloomily alone with malformed lingers stretched stiffly to the staring +blue sky. Behind where they pitched their final camp--Camp 48, Cash +Markham recorded it in his diary--the hills rose. But they were as stark +and barren almost as the desert below. Black rock humps here and there, +with ledges of mineral bearing rock. Bushes and weeds and dry washes for +the rest, with enough struggling grass to feed the horses and burros if +they rustled hard enough for it. + +They settled down quietly to a life of grinding monotony that would have +driven some men crazy. But Bud, because it was a man's kind of monotony, +bore it cheerfully. He was out of doors, and he was hedged about by no +rules or petty restrictions. He liked Cash Markham and he liked Pete, +his saddle horse, and he was fond of Daddy who was still paying the +penalty of seeking too carelessly for shade and, according to Cash's +record, “getting it in his mouth, tongue, feet & all over body.” Bud +liked it--all except the blistering heat and the “side-winders” + and other rattlers. He did not bother with trying to formulate any +explanation of why he liked it. It may have been picturesque, though +picturesqueness of that sort is better appreciated when it is seen +through the dim radiance of memory that blurs sordid details. Certainly +it was not adventurous, as men have come to judge adventure. + +Life droned along very dully. Day after day was filled with petty +details. A hill looks like a mountain if it rises abruptly out of a +level plain, with no real mountains in sight to measure it by. Here's +the diary to prove how little things came to look important because the +days held no contrasts. If it bores you to read it, think what it must +have been to live it. + +June 10. + +Up at 6:30 Baked till 11. Then unrigged well and rigged up an incline +for the stock to water. Bud dressed Daddy's back. Stock did not come in +all morning, but Monte & Pete came in before supper. Incline water shaft +does not work. Prospected & found 8 ledges. Bud found none. + +June 11. + +After breakfast fixed up shack--shelves, benches, tools, etc. Cleaned +guns. Bud dressed Daddy's back which is much better. Strong gold in test +of ledge, I found below creek. Took more specimens to sample. Cora comes +in with a little black colt newly born. Proud as a bull pup with two +tails. Monte & Pete did not come in so we went by lantern light a mile +or so down the wash & found them headed this way & snake them in to +drink about 80 gallons of water apiece. Daddy tied up and howling like a +demon all the while. Bud took a bath. + +June 12. + +Bud got out and got breakfast again. Then started off on Pete to hunt +trail that makes short cut 18 miles to Bend. Roofed the kitchen. Bud got +back about 1:30, being gone 6 hours. Found trail & two good ledges. Cora +& colt came for water. Other burros did not. Brought in specimens from +ledge up creek that showed very rich gold in tests. Burros came in at +9:30. Bud got up and tied them up. + +June 13. + +Bud gets breakfast. I took Sway & brought in load of wood. Bud went out +and found a wash lined with good looking ledges. Hung up white rags on +bushes to identify same. Found large ledge of good quartz showing fine +in tests about one mile down wash. Bud dressed Daddy's back. Located +a claim west of Thompson's. Burros did not come in except Cora & colt. +Pete & Monte came separated. + +June 14. + +Bud got breakfast & dressed Daddy's back. Very hot day. Stock came in +about 2. Tied up Billy Maud & Cora. Bud has had headache. Monte & Pete +did not come in. Bud went after them & found them 4 miles away where +we killed the Gila monster. Sent 2 samples from big ledge to Tucson for +assay. Daddy better. + +June 15. + +Up 2.30. Bud left for Bend at 4. Walked down to flat but could not see +stock. About 3 Cora & Colt came in for water & Sway & Ed from the south +about 5. No Monte. Monte got in about midnight & went past kitchen to +creek on run. Got up, found him very nervous & frightened & tied him up. + +June 17. + +Bud got back 4 P.M. in gale of wind & sand. Burros did not come in for +water. Very hot. Bud brought canned stuff. Rigged gallows for No. +2 shaft also block & tackle & pail for drinking water, also washed +clothes. While drying went around in cap undershirt & shoes. + +June 18. + +Burros came in during night for water. Hot as nether depths of infernal +regions. Went up on hill a mile away. Seamed with veins similar to shaft +No. 2 ore. Blew in two faces & got good looking ore seamed with a black +incrustation, oxide of something, but what could not determine. Could +find neither silver nor copper in it. Monte & Pete came in about 1 & +tied them up. Very hot. Hottest day yet, even the breeze scorching. Test +of ore showed best yet. One half of solution in tube turning to chloride +of gold, 3 tests showing same. Burros except Ed & Cora do not come in +days any more. Bud made a gate for kitchen to keep burros out. + +The next morning it was that Cash cut the ball of his right thumb open +on the sharp edge of a tomato can. He wanted the diary to go on as +usual. He had promised, he said, to keep one for the widow who wanted +a record of the way the work was carried on, and the progress made. Bud +could not see that there had been much progress, except as a matter of +miles. Put a speedometer on one of his legs, he told Cash, and he'd bet +it would register more mileage chasing after them fool burros than his +auto stage could show after a full season. As for working the widow's +claim, it was not worth working, from all he could judge of it. And if +it were full of gold as the United States treasury, the burros took up +all their time so they couldn't do much. Between doggone stock drinking +or not drinking and the darn fool diary that had to be kept, Bud opined +that they needed an extra hand or two. Bud was peevish, these days. Gila +Bend had exasperated him because it was not the town it called itself, +but a huddle of adobe huts. He had come away in the sour mood of a +thirsty man who finds an alkali spring sparkling deceptively under a +rock. Furthermore, the nights had been hot and the mosquitoes a humming +torment. And as a last affliction he was called upon to keep the diary +going. He did it, faithfully enough but in a fashion of his own. + +First he read back a few pages to get the hang of the thing. Then he +shook down Cash's fountain pen, that dried quickly in that heat. Then he +read another page as a model, and wrote: + +June 19. + +Mosquitoes last night was worse than the heat and that was worse than +Gila Bend's great white way. Hunted up the burros. Pete and Monte came +in and drank. Monte had colic. We fed them and turned them loose but the +blamed fools hung around all day and eat up some sour beans I throwed +out. Cash was peeved and swore they couldn't have another grain of feed. +But Monte come to the shack and watched Cash through a knothole the size +of one eye till Cash opened up his heart and the bag. Cash cut his thumb +opening tomatoes. The tomatoes wasn't hurt any. + +June 20. + +Got breakfast. Bill and harem did not come to water. Cash done the +regular hike after them. His thumb don't hurt him for hazing donkeys. +Bill and harem come in after Cash left. They must of saw him go. Cash +was out four hours and come in mad. Shot a hidrophobia skunk out by the +creek. Nothing doing. Too hot. + +June 21. + +The sun would blister a mud turtle so he'd holler. Cash put in most of +day holding a parasol over his garden patch. Burros did not miss their +daily drink. Night brings mosquitoes with their wings singed but their +stingers O.K. They must hole up daytimes or they would fry. + +June 22. + +Thought I know what heat was. I never did before. Cash took a bath. It +was his first. Burros did not come to water. Cash and I tried to sleep +on kitchen roof but the darned mosquitoes fed up on us and then played +heavenly choir all night. + +June 25. + +Cash got back from Bend. Thumb is better and he can have this job any +time now. He hustled up a widow that made a couple of mosquito bags to +go over our heads. No shape (bags, not widow) but help keep flies and +mosquitoes from chewing on us all day and all night. Training for hades. +I can stand the heat as well as the old boy with the pitch-fork. Ain't +got used to brimstone yet, but I'd trade mosquitoes for sulphur smoke +and give some boot. Worried about Cash. He took a bath today again, +using water I had packed for mine. Heat must be getting him. + +June 26. + +Cash opened up thumb again, trying to brain Pete with rock. Pete got +halfway into kitchen and eat biggest part of a pie I made. Cash threw +jagged rock, hit Pete in side of jaw. Cut big gash. Swelled now like +a punkin. Cash and I tangled over same. I'm going to quit. I have had +enough of this darn country. Creek's drying up, and mosquitoes have +found way to crawl under bags. Cash wants me to stay till we find good +claim, but Cash can go to thunder. + +Then Cash's record goes on: + +June 27. + +Bud very sick & out of head. Think it is heat, which is terrible. +Talked all night about burros, gasoline, & camphor balls which he seemed +wanting to buy in gunny sack. No sleep for either. Burros came in for +water about daylight. Picketed Monte & Pete as may need doctor if Bud +grows worse. Thumb nearly well. + +June 27. Bud same, slept most of day. Gave liver pills & made gruel of +cornmeal, best could do with present stores. Burros came at about 3 but +could not drink owing to bees around water hold. Monte got stung and +kicked over water cans & buckets I had salted for burros. Burros put for +hills again. No way of driving off bees. + +June 28. + +Burros came & drank in night. Cooler breeze, Bud some better & slept. +Sway has badly swollen neck. May be rattler bite or perhaps bee. Bud +wanted cigarettes but smoked last the day before he took sick. Gave him +more liver pills & sponge off with water every hour. Best can do under +circumstances. Have not prospected account Bud's sickness. + +June 29. + +Very hot all day, breeze like blast from furnace. Burros refuse to leave +flat. Bees better, as can't fly well in this wind. Bud worse. High fever +& very restless & flighty. Imagines much trouble with automobile, talk +very technical & can't make head or tail of it. Monte & Pete did not +come in, left soon as turned loose. No feed for them here & figured Bud +too sick to travel or stay alone so horses useless at present. Sponged +frequently with coolest water can get, seems to give some relief as he +is quieter afterwards. + +July 4th. + +Monte & Pete came in the night & hung around all day. Drove them away +from vicinity of shack several times but they returned & moped in shade +of house. Terrible hot, strong gusty wind. Bud sat up part of day, slept +rest of time. Looks very thin and great hollows under eyes, but chief +trouble seems to be, no cigarettes. Shade over radishes & lettice works +all right. Watered copiously at daylight & again at dusk. Doing fine. +Fixed fence which M & P. broke down while tramping around. Prospected +west of ranche. Found enormous ledge of black quartz, looks like +sulphur stem during volcanic era but may be iron. Strong gold & heavy +precipitate in test, silver test poor but on filtering showed like white +of egg in tube (unusual). Clearing iron out showed for gold the highest +yet made, being more pronounced with Fenosulphate than $1500 rock have +seen. Immense ledge of it & slightest estimate from test at least $10. +Did not tell Bud as keeping for surprise when he is able to visit ledge. +Very monotonous since Bud has been sick. Bud woke up & said Hell of a +Fourth & turned over & went to sleep again with mosquito net over head +to keep off flies. Burros came in after dark, all but Cora & Colt, which +arrived about midnight. Daddy gone since yesterday morning leaving no +trace. + +July 5. + +Miserable hot night. Burros trickled in sometime during night. Bud +better, managed to walk to big ledge after sundown. Suggests we call it +the Burro Lode. His idea of wit, claims we have occupied camp all summer +for sake of timing burros when they come to waterhole. Wish to call +it Columbia mine for patriotic reasons having found it on Fourth. Will +settle it soon so as to put up location. Put in 2 shots & pulpel samples +for assay. Rigged windows on shack to keep out bees, nats & flies & +mosquitoes. Bud objects because it keeps out air as well. Took them +off. Sick folks must be humored. Hot, miserable and sleepless. Bud very +restless. + +July 6. + +Cool wind makes weather endurable, but bees terrible in kitchen & around +water-hole. Flipped a dollar to settle name of big ledge. Bud won tails, +Burro lode. Must cultivate my sense of humor so as to see the joke. Bud +agrees to stay & help develop claim. Still very weak, puttered around +house all day cleaning & baking bread & stewing fruit which brought bees +by millions so we could not eat same till after dark when they subsided. +Bud got stung twice in kitchen. Very peevish & full of cuss. Says +positively must make trip to Bend & get cigarettes tomorrow or will blow +up whole outfit. Has already blowed up same several times today with no +damage. Burros came in about 5. Monte & Pete later, tied them up with +grain. Pete has very bad eye. Bud will ride Monte if not too hot for +trip. Still no sign of daddy, think must be dead or stolen though nobody +to steal same in country. + +July 7. + +Put in 2 shots on Burro Lode & got her down to required depth. Hot. Bud +finds old location on widow's claim, upturns all previous calculation +& information given me by her. Wrote letter explaining same, which Bud +will mail. Bud left 4 P.M. should make Bend by midnight. Much better but +still weak Burros came in late & hung around water hole. Put up monument +at Burro Lode. Sent off samples to assay at Tucson. Killed rattler near +shack, making 16 so far killed. + +CHAPTER EIGHT. MANY BARREN MONTHS AND MILES + +“Well, here come them darn burros, Cash. Cora's colt ain't with 'em +though. Poor little devils--say, Cash, they look like hard sleddin', and +that's a fact. I'll tell the world they've got about as much pep as a +flat tire.” + +“Maybe we better grain 'em again.” Cash looked up from studying the +last assay report of the Burro Lode, and his look was not pleasant. “But +it'll cost a good deal, in both time and money. The feed around here is +played out.” + +“Well, when it comes to that--” Bud cast a glum glance at the paper Cash +was holding. + +“Yeah. Looks like everything's about played out. Promising ledge, too. +Like some people, though. Most all its good points is right on the +surface. Nothing to back it up.” + +“She's sure running light, all right. Now,” Bud added sardonically, but +with the whimsical quirk withal, “if it was like a carburetor, and you +could give it a richer mixture--” + +“Yeah. What do you make of it, Bud?” + +“Well--aw, there comes that durn colt, bringing up the drag. Say Cash, +that colt's just about all in. Cora's nothing but a bag of bones, too. +They'll never winter--not on this range, they won't.” + +Cash got up and went to the doorway, looking out over Bud's shoulder +at the spiritless donkeys trailing in to water. Beyond them the desert +baked in its rim of hot, treeless hills. Above them the sky glared a +brassy blue with never a could. Over a low ridge came Monte and Pete, +walking with heads drooping. Their hip bones lifted above their ridged +paunches, their backbones, peaked sharp above, their withers were lean +and pinched looking. In August the desert herbage has lost what little +succulence it ever possessed, and the gleanings are scarce worth the +walking after. + +“They're pretty thin,” Cash observed speculatively, as though he was +measuring them mentally for some particular need. + +“We'd have to grain 'em heavy till we struck better feed. And pack +light.” Bud answered his thought. + +“The question is, where shall we head for, Bud? Have you any particular +idea?” Cash looked slightingly down at the assayer's report. “Such +as she is, we've done all we can do to the Burro Lode, for a year at +least,” he said. “The assessment work is all done--or will be when we +muck out after that last shot. The claim is filed--I don't know what +more we can do right away. Do you?” + +“Sure thing,” grinned Bud. “We can get outa here and go some place where +it's green.” + +“Yeah.” Cash meditated, absently eyeing the burros. “Where it's green.” + He looked at the near hills, and at the desert, and at the dreary march +of the starved animals. “It's a long way to green country,” he said. + +They looked at the burros. + +“They're tough little devils,” Bud observed hopefully. “We could take +it easy, traveling when it's coolest. And by packing light, and graining +the whole bunch--” + +“Yeah. We can ease 'em through, I guess. It does seem as though it would +be foolish to hang on here any longer.” Carefully as he made his tests, +Cash weighed the question of their going. “This last report kills any +chance of interesting capital to the extent of developing the claim on +a large enough scale to make it profitable. It's too long a haul to take +the ore out, and it's too spotted to justify any great investment in +machinery to handle it on the ground. And,” he added with an undernote +of fierceness, “it's a terrible place for man or beast to stay in, +unless the object to be attained is great enough to justify enduring the +hardships.” + +“You said a mouthful, Cash. Well, can you leave your seven radishes and +three hunches of lettuce and pull out--say at daybreak?” Bud turned to +him with some eagerness. + +Cash grinned sourly. “When it's time to go, seven radishes can't stop +me. No, nor a whole row of 'em--if there was a whole row.” + +“And you watered 'em copiously too,” Bud murmured, with the corners +of his mouth twitching. “Well, I guess we might as well tie up the +livestock. I'm going to give 'em all a feed of rolled oats, Cash. We +can get along without, and they've got to have something to put a little +heart in 'em. There's a moon to-night--how about starting along +about midnight? That would put us in the Bend early in the forenoon +to-morrow.” + +“Suits me,” said Cash. “Now I've made up my mind about going, I can't go +too soon.” + +“You're on. Midnight sees us started.” Bud went out with ropes to catch +and tie up the burros and their two saddle horses. And as he went, for +the first time in two months he whistled; a detail which Cash noted with +a queer kind of smile. + +Midnight and the moon riding high in the purple bowl of sky sprinkled +thick with stars; with a little, warm wind stirring the parched weeds as +they passed; with the burros shuffling single file along the dim trail +which was the short cut through the hills to the Bend, Ed taking the +lead, with the camp kitchen wabbling lumpily on his back, Cora bringing +up the rear with her skinny colt trying its best to keep up, and with +no pack at all; so they started on the long, long journey to the green +country. + +A silent journey it was for the most part. The moon and the starry +bowl of sky had laid their spell upon the desert, and the two men rode +wordlessly, filled with vague, unreasoning regret that they must go. +Months they had spent with the desert, learning well every little +varying mood; cursing it for its blistering heat and its sand storms +and its parched thirst and its utter, blank loneliness. Loving it too, +without ever dreaming that they loved. To-morrow they would face the +future with the past dropping farther and farther behind. To-night it +rode with them. + +Three months in that little, rough-walled hut had lent it an atmosphere +of home, which a man instinctively responds to with a certain clinging +affection, however crude may be the shelter he calls his own. Cash +secretly regretted the thirsty death of his radishes and lettuce which +he had planted and tended with such optimistic care. Bud wondered if +Daddy might not stray half-starved into the shack, and find them gone. +While they were there, he had agreed with Cash that the dog must be +dead. But now he felt uneasily doubtful It would be fierce if Daddy did +come back now. He would starve. He never could make the trip to the Bend +alone, even if he could track them. + +There was, also, the disappointment in the Burro Lode claim. As Bud +planned it, the Burro was packing a very light load--far lighter than +had seemed possible with that strong indication on the surface. Cash's +“enormous black ledge” had shown less and less gold as they went into +it, though it still seemed worth while, if they had the capital to +develop it further. Wherefore they had done generous assessment work +and had recorded their claim and built their monuments to mark its +boundaries. It would be safe for a year, and by that time--Quien sabe? + +The Thompson claim, too, had not justified any enthusiasm whatever. They +had found it, had relocated it, and worked out the assessment for the +widow. Cash had her check for all they had earned, and he had declared +profanely that he would not give his share of the check for the whole +claim. + +They would go on prospecting, using the check for a grubstake, That much +they had decided without argument. The gambling instinct was wide awake +in Bud's nature--and as for Cash, he would hunt gold as long as he could +carry pick and pan. They would prospect as long as their money held out. +When that was gone, they would get more and go on prospecting. But +they would prospect in a green country where wood and water were not +so precious as in the desert and where, Cash averred, the chance of +striking it rich was just as good; better, because they could kill game +and make their grubstake last longer. + +Wherefore they waited in Gila Bend for three days, to strengthen the +weakened animals with rest and good hay and grain. Then they took +again to the trail, traveling as lightly as they could, with food for +themselves and grain for the stock to last them until they reached +Needles. From there with fresh supplies they pushed on up to Goldfield, +found that camp in the throes of labor disputes, and went on to Tonopah. + +There they found work for themselves and the burros, packing winter +supplies to a mine lying back in the hills. They made money at it, +and during the winter they made more. With the opening of spring they +outfitted again and took the trail, their goal the high mountains south +of Honey Lake. They did not hurry. Wherever the land they traveled +through seemed to promise gold, they would stop and prospect. Many a pan +of likely looking dirt they washed beside some stream where the burros +stopped to drink and feed a little on the grassy banks. + +So, late in June, they reached Reno; outfitted and went on again, +traveling to the north, to the green country for which they yearned, +though now they were fairly in it and would have stopped if any tempting +ledge or bar had come in their way. They prospected every gulch that +showed any mineral signs at all. It was a carefree kind of life, with +just enough of variety to hold Bud's interest to the adventuring. The +nomad in him responded easily to this leisurely pilgrimage. There was no +stampede anywhere to stir their blood with the thought of quick wealth. +There was hope enough, on the other hand, to keep them going. Cash had +prospected and trapped for more than fifteen years now, and he preached +the doctrine of freedom and the great outdoors. + +Of what use was a house and lot--and taxes and trouble with the +plumbing? he would chuckle. A tent and blankets and a frying pan +and grub; two good legs and wild country to travel; a gold pan and a +pick--these things, to Cash, spelled independence and the joy of living. +The burros and the two horses were luxuries, he declared. When they once +got located on a good claim they would sell off everything but a couple +of burros--Sway and Ed, most likely. The others would bring enough for a +winter grubstake, and would prolong their freedom and their independence +just that much. That is, supposing they did not strike a good claim +before then. Cash had learned, he said, to hope high but keep an eye on +the grubstake. + +Late in August they came upon a mountain village perched beside a swift +stream and walled in on three sided by pine-covered mountains. A branch +railroad linked the place more or less precariously with civilization, +and every day--unless there was a washout somewhere, or a snowslide, +or drifts too deep--a train passed over the road. One day it would go +up-stream, and the next day it would come back. And the houses stood +drawn up in a row alongside the track to watch for these passings. + +Miners came in with burros or with horses, packed flour and bacon and +tea and coffee across their middles, got drunk, perhaps as a parting +ceremony, and went away into the hills. Cash watched them for a day or +so; saw the size of their grubstakes, asked few questions and listened +to a good deal of small-town gossip, and nodded his head contentedly. +There was gold in these hills. Not enough, perhaps, to start a stampede +with--but enough to keep wise old hermits burrowing after it. + +So one day Bud sold the two horses and one of the saddles, and Cash +bought flour and bacon and beans and coffee, and added other things +quite as desirable but not so necessary. Then they too went away into +the hills. + +Fifteen miles from Alpine, as a cannon would shoot; high up in the +hills, where a creek flowed down through a saucerlike basin under +beetling ledges fringed all around with forest, they came, after much +wandering, upon an old log cabin whose dirt roof still held in spite of +the snows that heaped upon it through many a winter. The ledge showed +the scars of old prospect holes, and in the sand of the creek they found +“colors” strong enough to make it seem worth while to stop here--for +awhile, at least. + +They cleaned out the cabin and took possession of it, and the next time +they went to town Cash made cautious inquiries about the place. It was, +he learned, an old abandoned claim. Abandoned chiefly because the old +miner who had lived there died one day, and left behind him all the +marks of having died from starvation, mostly. A cursory examination of +his few belongings had revealed much want, but no gold save a little +coarse dust in a small bottle. + +“About enough to fill a rifle ca'tridge,” detailed the teller of the +tale. “He'd pecked around that draw for two, three year mebby. Never +showed no gold much, for all the time he spent there. Trapped some in +winter--coyotes and bobcats and skunks, mostly. Kinda off in the upper +story, old Nelson was. I guess he just stayed there because he happened +to light there and didn't have gumption enough to git out. Hills is full +of old fellers like him. They live off to the'rselves, and peck around +and git a pocket now and then that keeps 'm in grub and tobacco. If you +want to use the cabin, I guess nobody's goin' to care. Nelson never had +any folks, that anybody knows of. Nobody ever bothered about takin' up +the claim after he cashed in, either. Didn't seem worth nothin' much. +Went back to the gov'ment.” + +“Trapped, you say. Any game around there now?” + +“Oh, shore! Game everywhere in these hills, from weasels up to bear and +mountain lion. If you want to trap, that's as good a place as any, I +guess.” + +So Cash and Bud sold the burros and bought traps and more supplies, and +two window sashes and a crosscut saw and some wedges and a double-bitted +axe, and settled down in Nelson Flat to find what old Dame Fortune had +tucked away in this little side pocket and forgotten. + + + +CHAPTER NINE. THE BITE OF MEMORY + +The heavy boom of a dynamite blast rolled across the fiat to the hills +that flung it back in a tardy echo like a spent ball of sound. A blob of +blue smoke curled out of a hole the size of a hogshead in a steep bank +overhung with alders. Outside, the wind caught the smoke and carried +streamers of it away to play with. A startled bluejay, on a limb high up +on the bank, lifted his slaty crest and teetered forward, clinging with +his toe nails to the branch while he scolded down at the men who had +scared him so. A rattle of clods and small rocks fell from their high +flight into the sweet air of a mountain sunset. + +“Good execution, that was,” Cash remarked, craning his neck toward the +hole. “If you're a mind to go on ahead and cook supper, I'll stay and +see if we opened up anything. Or you can stay, just as you please.” + +Dynamite smoke invariably made Bud's head ache splittingly. Cash was not +so susceptible. Bud chose the cooking, and went away down the flat, the +bluejay screaming insults after him. He was frying bacon when Cash came +in, a hatful of broken rock riding in the hollow of his arm. + +“Got something pretty good here, Bud--if she don't turn out like that +dang Burro Lode ledge. Look here. Best looking quartz we've struck yet. +What do you think of it?” + +He dumped the rock out on the oilcloth behind the sugar can and directly +under the little square window through which the sun was pouring a +lavish yellow flood of light before it dropped behind the peak. Bud set +the bacon back where it would not burn, and bent over the table to look. + +“Gee, but it's heavy!” he cried, picking up a fragment the size of +an egg, and balancing it in his hands. “I don't know a lot about +gold-bearing quartz, but she looks good to me, all right.” + +“Yeah. It is good, unless I'm badly mistaken. I'll test some after +supper. Old Nelson couldn't have used powder at all, or he'd have +uncovered enough of this, I should think, to show the rest what he had. +Or maybe he died just when he had started that hole. Seems queer he +never struck pay dirt in this flat. Well, let's eat if it's ready, Bud. +Then we'll see.” + +“Seems kinda queer, don't it, Cash, that nobody stepped in and filed on +any claims here?” Bud dumped half a kettle of boiled beans into a basin +and set it on the table. “Want any prunes to-night, Cash?” + +Cash did not want prunes, which was just as well, seeing there were none +cooked. He sat down and ate, with his mind and his eyes clinging to the +grayish, veined fragments of rock lying on the table beside his plate. + +“We'll send some of that down to Sacramento right away,” he observed, +“and have it assayed. And we won't let out anything about it, Bud--good +or bad. I like this flat. I don't want it mucked over with a lot of +gold-crazy lunatics.” + +Bud laughed and reached for the bacon. “We ain't been followed up with +stampedes so far,” he pointed out. “Burro Lode never caused a ripple in +the Bend, you recollect. And I'll tell a sinful world it looked awful +good, too.” + +“Yeah. Well, Arizona's hard to excite. They've had so dang much +strenuosity all their lives, and then the climate's against violent +effort, either mental or physical. I was calm, perfectly calm when I +discovered that big ledge. It is just as well--seeing how it petered +out.” + +“What'll you bet this pans out the same?” + +“I never bet. No one but a fool will gamble.” Cash pressed his lips +together in a way that drove the color from there. + +“Oh, yuh don't! Say, you're the king bee of all gamblers. Been +prospecting for fifteen years, according to you--and then you've got the +nerve to say you don't gamble!” + +Cash ignored the charge. He picked up a piece of rock and held it to the +fading light. “It looks good,” he said again. “Better than that placer +ground down by the creek. That's all right, too. We can wash enough gold +there to keep us going while we develop this. That is, if this proves as +good as it looks.” + +Bud looked across at him enigmatically. “Well, here's hoping she's worth +a million. You go ahead with your tests, Cash. I'll wash the dishes.” + +“Of course,” Cash began to conserve his enthusiasm, “there's nothing so +sure as an assay. And it was too dark in the hole to see how much was +uncovered. This may be just a freak deposit. There may not be any real +vein of it. You can't tell until it's developed further. But it looks +good. Awful good.” + +His makeshift tests confirmed his opinion. Bud started out next day with +three different samples for the assayer, and an air castle or two to +keep him company. He would like to find himself half owner of a mine +worth about a million, he mused. Maybe Marie would wish then that she +had thought twice about quitting him just on her mother's say-so. He'd +like to go buzzing into San Jose behind the wheel of a car like the one +Foster had fooled him into stealing. And meet Marie, and her mother +too, and let them get an eyeful. He guessed the old lady would have to +swallow what she had said about him being lazy--just because he couldn't +run an auto-stage in the winter to Big Basin! What was the matter with +the old woman, anyway? Didn't he keep Maria in comfort. Well, he'd like +to see her face when he drove along the street in a big new Sussex. +She'd wish she had let him and Marie alone. They would have made out all +right if they had been let alone. He ought to have taken Marie to some +other town, where her mother couldn't nag at her every day about him. +Marie wasn't such a bad kid, if she were left alone. They might have +been happy-- + +He tried then to shake himself free of thoughts of her. That was the +trouble with him, he brooded morosely. He couldn't let his thoughts ride +free, any more. They kept heading straight for Marie. He could not see +why she should cling so to his memory; he had not wronged her--unless +it was by letting her go without making a bigger fight for their home. +Still, she had gone of her own free will. He was the one that had been +wronged--why, hadn't they lied about him in court and to the gossipy +neighbors? Hadn't they broke him? No. If the mine panned out big as Cash +seemed to think was likely, the best thing he could do was steer clear +of San Jose. And whether it panned out or not, the best thing he could +do was forget that such girl as Marie had ever existed.. + +Which was all very well, as far as it went. The trouble was that +resolving not to think of Marie, calling up all the bitterness he could +muster against her memory, did no more toward blotting her image from +his mind than did the miles and the months he had put between them. + +He reached the town in a dour mood of unrest, spite of the promise of +wealth he carried in his pocket. He mailed the package and the letter, +and went to a saloon and had a highball. He was not a drinking man--at +least, he never had been one, beyond a convivial glass or two with his +fellows--but he felt that day the need of a little push toward optimism. +In the back part of the room three men were playing freeze-out. Bud went +over and stood with his hands in his pockets and watched them, because +there was nothing else to do, and because he was still having some +trouble with his thoughts. He was lonely, without quite knowing what +ailed him. He hungered for friends to hail him with that cordial, +“Hello, Bud!” when they saw him coming. + +No one in Alpine had said hello, Bud, when he came walking in that day. +The postmaster had given him one measuring glance when he had weighed +the package of ore, but he had not spoken except to name the amount of +postage required. The bartender had made some remark about the weather, +and had smiled with a surface friendliness that did not deceive Bud for +a moment. He knew too well that the smile was not for him, but for his +patronage. + +He watched the game. And when the man opposite him pushed back his chair +and, looking up at Bud, asked if he wanted to sit in, Bud went and sat +down, buying a dollar's worth of chips as an evidence of his intention +to play. His interest in the game was not keen. He played for the +feeling it gave him of being one of the bunch, a man among his friends; +or if not friends, at least acquaintances. And, such was his varying +luck with the cards, he played for an hour or so without having won +enough to irritate his companions. Wherefore he rose from the table at +supper time calling one young fellow Frank quite naturally. They went to +the Alpine House and had supper together, and after that they sat in +the office and talked about automobiles for an hour, which gave Bud a +comforting sense of having fallen among friends. + +Later they strolled over to a picture show which ran films two years +behind their first release, and charged fifteen cents for the privilege +of watching them. It was the first theater Bud had entered since he left +San Jose, and at the last minute he hesitated, tempted to turn back. +He hated moving pictures. They always had love scenes somewhere in the +story, and love scenes hurt. But Frank had already bought two tickets, +and it seemed unfriendly to turn back now. He went inside to the +jangling of a player-piano in dire need of a tuner's service, and sat +down near the back of the hall with his hat upon his lifted knees which +could have used more space between the seats. + +While they waited for the program they talked in low tones, a mumble of +commonplaces. Bud forgot for the moment his distaste for such places, +and let himself slip easily back into the old thought channels, the +old habits of relaxation after a day's work was done. He laughed at +the one-reel comedy that had for its climax a chase of housemaids, +policemen, and outraged fruit vendors after a well-meaning but +unfortunate lover. He saw the lover pulled ignominiously out of a duck +pond and soused relentlessly into a watering trough, and laughed with +Frank and called it some picture. + +He eyed a succession of “current events” long since gone stale out +where the world moved swifter than here in the mountains, and he felt +as though he had come once more into close touch with life. All the dull +months he had spent with Cash and the burros dwarfed into a pointless, +irrelevant incident of his life. He felt that he ought to be out in the +world, doing bigger things than hunting gold that somehow always +refused at the last minute to be found. He stirred restlessly. He was +free--there was nothing to hold him if he wanted to go. The war--he +believed he would go over and take a hand. He could drive an ambulance +or a truck-- + +Current Events, however, came abruptly to an end; and presently +Bud's vagrant, half-formed desire for achievement merged into biting +recollections. Here was a love drama, three reels of it. At first Bud +watched it with only a vague, disquieting sense of familiarity. Then +abruptly he recalled too vividly the time and circumstance of his first +sight of the picture. It was in San Jose, at the Liberty. He and Marie +had been married two days, and were living in that glamorous world of +the honeymoon, so poignantly sweet, so marvelous--and so fleeting. He +had whispered that the girl looked like her, and she had leaned heavily +against his shoulder. In the dusk of lowered lights their hands had +groped and found each other, and clung. + +The girl did look like Marie. When she turned her head with that little +tilt of the chin, when she smiled, she was like Marie. Bud leaned +forward, staring, his brows drawn together, breathing the short, quick +breaths of emotion focussed upon one object, excluding all else. Once, +when Frank moved his body a little in the next seat, Bud's hand went out +that way involuntarily. The touch of Frank's rough coat sleeve recalled +him brutally, so that he drew away with a wincing movement as though he +had been hurt. + +All those months in the desert; all those months of the slow journeying +northward; all the fought battles with memory, when he thought that he +had won--all gone for nothing, their slow anodyne serving but to sharpen +now the bite of merciless remembering. His hand shook upon his knee. +Small beads of moisture oozed out upon his forehead. He sat stunned +before the amazing revelation of how little time and distance had done +to heal his hurt. + +He wanted Marie. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted her in +the old days, with a tenderness, an impulse to shield her from her own +weaknesses, her own mistakes. Then--in those old days--there had been +the glamor of mystery that is called romance. That was gone, worn away +by the close intimacies of matrimony. He knew her faults, he knew how +she looked when she was angry and petulant. He knew how little the real +Marie resembled the speciously amiable, altogether attractive Marie who +faced a smiling world when she went pleasuring. He knew, but--he wanted +her just the same. He wanted to tell her so many things about the +burros, and about the desert--things that would make her laugh, and +things that would make her blink back the tears. He was homesick for her +as he had never been homesick in his life before. The picture flickered +on through scene after scene that Bud did not see at all, though he was +staring unwinkingly at the screen all the while. The love scenes at the +last were poignantly real, but they passed before his eyes unnoticed. +Bud's mind was dwelling upon certain love scenes of his own. He was +feeling Marie's presence beside him there in the dusk. + +“Poor kid--she wasn't so much to blame,” he muttered just above his +breath, when the screen was swept clean and blank at the end of the last +reel. + +“Huh? Oh, he was the big mutt, right from the start,” Frank replied +with the assured air of a connoisseur. “He didn't have the brains of a +bluejay, or he'd have known all the time she was strong for him.” + +“I guess that's right,” Bud mumbled, but he did not mean what Frank +thought he meant. “Let's go. I want a drink.” + +Frank was willing enough; too willing, if the truth were known. They +went out into the cool starlight, and hurried across the side street +that was no more than a dusty roadway, to the saloon where they had +spent the afternoon. Bud called for whisky, and helped himself twice +from the bottle which the bartender placed between them. He did not +speak until the second glass was emptied, and then he turned to Frank +with a purple glare in his eyes. + +“Let's have a game of pool or something,” he suggested. + +“There's a good poker game going, back there,” vouchsafed the bartender, +turning his thumb toward the rear, where half a dozen men were gathered +in a close group around a table. “There's some real money in sight, +to-night.” + +“All right, let's go see.” Bud turned that way, Frank following like a +pet dog at his heels. + +At dawn the next morning, Bud got up stiffly from the chair where he +had spent the night. His eyeballs showed a network of tiny red veins, +swollen with the surge of alcohol in his blood and with the strain of +staring all night at the cards. Beneath his eyes were puffy ridges. His +cheekbones flamed with the whisky flush. He cashed in a double-handful +of chips, stuffed the money he had won into his coat pocket, walked, +with that stiff precision of gait by which a drunken man strives to +hide his drunkenness, to the bar and had another drink. Frank was at his +elbow. Frank was staggering, garrulous, laughing a great deal over very +small jokes. + +“I'm going to bed,” said Bud, his tongue forming the words with a slow +carefulness. + +“Come over to my shack, Bud--rotten hotel. My bed's clean, anyway.” + Frank laughed and plucked him by the sleeve. + +“All right,” Bud consented gravely. “We'll take a bottle along.” + + + +CHAPTER TEN. EMOTIONS ARE TRICKY THINGS + +A man's mind is a tricky thing--or, speaking more exactly, a man's +emotions are tricky things. Love has come rushing to the back of a +tip-tilted chin, or the tone of a voice, or the droop of an eyelid. It +has fled for cause as slight. Sometimes it runs before resentment for +a real or fancied wrong, but then, if you have observed it closely, you +will see that quite frequently, when anger grows slow of foot, or dies +of slow starvation, love steals back, all unsuspected and unbidden--and +mayhap causes much distress by his return. It is like a sudden +resurrection of all the loved, long-mourned dead that sleep so serenely +in their tended plots. Loved though they were and long mourned, think +of the consternation if they all came trooping back to take their old +places in life! The old places that have been filled, most of them, by +others who are loved as dearly, who would be mourned if they were taken +away. + +Psychologists will tell us all about the subconscious mind, the +hidden loves and hates and longings which we believe are dead and long +forgotten. When one of those emotions suddenly comes alive and stands, +terribly real and intrusive, between our souls and our everyday lives, +the strongest and the best of us may stumble and grope blindly after +content, or reparation, or forgetfulness, or whatever seems most likely +to give relief. + +I am apologizing now for Bud, who had spent a good many months in +pushing all thoughts of Marie out of his mind, all hunger for her out of +his heart. He had kept away from towns, from women, lest he be reminded +too keenly of his matrimonial wreck. He had stayed with Cash and had +hunted gold, partly because Cash never seemed conscious of any need of +a home or love or wife or children, and therefore never reminded Bud of +the home and the wife and the love and the child he had lost out of his +own life. Cash seldom mentioned women at all, and when he did it was +in a purely general way, as women touched some other subject he was +discussing. He never paid any attention to the children they met +casually in their travels. He seemed absolutely self-sufficient, +interested only in the prospect of finding a paying claim. What he would +do with wealth, if so be he attained it, he never seemed to know or +care. He never asked Bud any questions about his private affairs, never +seemed to care how Bud had lived, or where. And Bud thankfully left his +past behind the wall of silence. So he had come to believe that he was +almost as emotion-proof as Cash appeared to be, and had let it go at +that. + +Now here he was, with his heart and his mind full of Marie--after more +than a year and a half of forgetting her! Getting drunk and playing +poker all night did not help him at all, for when he woke it was from a +sweet, intimate dream of her, and it was to a tormenting desire for her, +that gnawed at his mind as hunger gnaws at the stomach. Bud could not +understand it. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. By all +his simple rules of reckoning he ought to be “over it” by now. He had +been, until he saw that picture. + +He was so very far from being over his trouble that he was under it; a +beaten dog wincing under the blows of memory, stung by the lash of his +longing. He groaned, and Frank thought it was the usual “morning after” + headache, and laughed ruefully. + +“Same here,” he said. “I've got one like a barrel, and I didn't punish +half the booze you did.” + +Bud did not say anything, but he reached for the bottle, tilted it and +swallowed three times before he stopped. + +“Gee!” whispered Frank, a little enviously. + +Bud glanced somberly across at Frank, who was sitting by the stove with +his jaws between his palms and his hair toweled, regarding his guest +speculatively. + +“I'm going to get drunk again,” Bud announced bluntly. “If you don't +want to, you'd better duck. You're too easy led--I saw that last night. +You follow anybody's lead that you happen to be with. If you follow my +lead to-day, you'll be petrified by night. You better git, and let me go +it alone.” + +Frank laughed uneasily. “Aw, I guess you ain't all that fatal, Bud. +Let's go over and have some breakfast--only it'll be dinner.” + +“You go, if you want to.” Bud tilted the bottle again, his eyes half +closed while he swallowed. When he had finished, he shuddered violently +at the taste of the whisky. He got up, went to the water bucket and +drank half a dipper of water. “Good glory! I hate whisky,” he grumbled. +“Takes a barrel to have any effect on me too.” He turned and looked down +at Frank with a morose kind of pity. “You go on and get your breakfast, +kid. I don't want any. I'll stay here for awhile.” + +He sat down on the side of the cheap, iron bedstead, and emptied his +pockets on the top quilt. He straightened the crumpled bills and counted +them, and sorted the silver pieces. All told, he had sixty-three dollars +and twenty cents. He sat fingering the money absently, his mind upon +other things. Upon Marie and the baby, to be exact. He was fighting the +impulse to send Marie the money. She might need it for the kid. If he +was sure her mother wouldn't get any of it... A year and a half was +quite a while, and fifteen hundred dollars wasn't much to live on these +days. She couldn't work, with the baby on her hands... + +Frank watched him curiously, his jaws still resting between his two +palms, his eyes red-rimmed and swollen, his lips loose and trembling. +A dollar alarm clock ticked resonantly, punctuated now and then by the +dull clink of silver as Bud lifted a coin and let it drop on the little +pile. + +“Pretty good luck you had last night,” Frank ventured wishfully. “They +cleaned me.” + +Bud straightened his drooping shoulders and scooped the money into his +hand. He laughed recklessly, and got up. “We'll try her another whirl, +and see if luck'll bring luck. Come on--let's go hunt up some of them +marks that got all the dough last night. We'll split, fifty-fifty, and +the same with what we win. Huh?” + +“You're on, ho--let's go.” Bud had gauged him correctly--Frank would +follow any one who would lead. He got up and came to the table where Bud +was dividing the money into two equal sums, as nearly as he could make +change. What was left over--and that was the three dollars and twenty +cents--he tossed into the can of tobacco on a shelf. + +“We'll let that ride--to sober up on, if we go broke,” he grunted. “Come +on--let's get action.” + +Action, of a sort, they proceeded to get. Luck brought luck of the same +complexion. They won in fluctuating spells of good cards and judicious +teamwork. They did not cheat, though Frank was ready if Bud had led him +that way. Frank was ready for anything that Bud suggested. He drank when +Bud drank, went from the first saloon to the one farther down and +across the street, returned to the first with cheerful alacrity and much +meaningless laughter when Bud signified a desire to change. It soothed +Bud and irritated him by turns, this ready acquiescence of Frank's. He +began to take a malicious delight in testing that acquiescence. He began +to try whether he could not find the end of Frank's endurance in staying +awake, his capacity for drink, his good nature, his credulity--he ran +the scale of Frank's various qualifications, seeking always to establish +a well-defined limitation somewhere. + +But Frank was utterly, absolutely plastic. He laughed and drank when Bud +suggested that they drink. He laughed and played whatever game Bud urged +him into. He laughed and agreed with Bud when Bud made statements to +test the credulity of anyman. He laughed and said, “Sure. Let's go!” when +Bud pined for a change of scene. + +On the third day Bud suddenly stopped in the midst of a game of pool +which neither was steady enough to play, and gravely inspected the +chalked end of his cue. + +“That's about enough of this,” he said. “We're drunk. We're so drunk we +don't know a pocket from a prospect hole. I'm tired of being a hog. I'm +going to go get another drink and sober up. And if you're the dog Fido +you've been so far, you'll do the same.” He leaned heavily upon the +table, and regarded Frank with stern, bloodshot blue eyes. + +Frank laughed and slid his cue the length of the table. He also leaned a +bit heavily. “Sure,” he said. “I'm ready, any time you are.” + +“Some of these days,” Bud stated with drunken deliberation, “they'll +take and hang you, Frank, for being such an agreeable cuss.” He took +Frank gravely by the arm and walked him to the bar, paid for two beers +with almost his last dollar, and, still holding Frank firmly, walked him +out of doors and down the street to Frank's cabin. He pushed him inside +and stood looking in upon him with a sour appraisement. + +“You are the derndest fool I ever run across--but at that you're a good +scout too,” he informed Frank. “You sober up now, like I said. You ought +to know better 'n to act the way you've been acting. I'm sure ashamed +of you, Frank. Adios--I'm going to hit the trail for camp.” With that +he pulled the door shut and walked away, with that same circumspect +exactness in his stride which marks the drunken man as surely as does a +stagger. + +He remembered what it was that had brought him to town--which is more +than most men in his condition would have done. He went to the post +office and inquired for mail, got what proved to be the assayer's +report, and went on. He bought half a dozen bananas which did not +remind him of that night when he had waited on the Oakland pier for the +mysterious Foster, though they might have recalled the incident vividly +to mind had he been sober. He had been wooing forgetfulness, and for the +time being he had won. + +Walking up the steep, winding trail that led to Nelson Flat cleared a +little his fogged brain. He began to remember what it was that he had +been fighting to forget. Marie's face floated sometimes before him, but +the vision was misty and remote, like distant woodland seen through +the gray film of a storm. The thought of her filled him with a vague +discomfort now when his emotions were dulled by the terrific strain +he had wilfully put upon brain and body. Resentment crept into the +foreground again. Marie had made him suffer. Marie was to blame for this +beastly fit of intoxication. He did not love Marie--he hated her. He +did not want to see her, he did not want to think of her. She had done +nothing for him but bring him trouble. Marie, forsooth! (Only, Bud put +it in a slightly different way.) + +Halfway to the flat, he met Cash walking down the slope where the trail +seemed tunneled through deep green, so thick stood the young spruce. +Cash was swinging his arms in that free stride of the man who has +learned how to walk with the least effort. He did not halt when he +saw Bud plodding slowly up the trail, but came on steadily, his keen, +blue-gray eyes peering sharply from beneath his forward tilted hat brim. +He came up to within ten feet of Bud, and stopped. + +“Well!” He stood eyeing Bud appraisingly, much as Bud had eyed Frank a +couple of hours before. “I was just starting out to see what had become +of you,” he added, his voice carrying the full weight of reproach that +the words only hinted at. + +“Well, get an eyeful, if that's what you come for. I'm here--and +lookin's cheap.” Bud's anger flared at the disapproval he read in Cash's +eyes, his voice, the set of his lips. + +But Cash did not take the challenge. “Did the report come?” he asked, as +though that was the only matter worth discussing. + +Bud pulled the letter sullenly from his pocket and gave it to Cash. He +stood moodily waiting while Cash opened and read and returned it. + +“Yeah. About what I thought--only it runs lighter in gold, with a higher +percentage of copper. It'll pay to go on and see what's at bed rock. If +the copper holds up to this all along, we'll be figuring on the gold to +pay for getting the copper. This is copper country, Bud. Looks like we'd +found us a copper mine.” He turned and walked on beside Bud. “I dug in +to quite a rich streak of sand while you was gone,” he volunteered after +a silence. “Coarse gold, as high as fifteen cents a pan. I figure we +better work that while the weather's good, and run our tunnel in on this +other when snow comes.” + +Bud turned his head and looked at Cash intently for a minute. “I've been +drunker'n a fool for three days,” he announced solemnly. + +“Yeah. You look it,” was Cash's dry retort, while he stared straight +ahead, up the steep, shadowed trail. + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN. THE FIRST STAGES + +For a month Bud worked and forced himself to cheerfulness, and tried to +forget. Sometimes it was easy enough, but there were other times when +he must get away by himself and walk and walk, with his rifle over his +shoulder as a mild pretense that he was hunting game. But if he brought +any back camp it was because the game walked up and waited to be shot; +half the time Bud did not know where he was going, much less whether +there were deer within ten rods or ten miles. + +During those spells of heartsickness he would sit all the evening and +smoke and stare at some object which his mind failed to register. Cash +would sit and watch him furtively; but Bud was too engrossed with his +own misery to notice it. Then, quite unexpectedly, reaction would come +and leave Bud in a peace that was more than half a torpid refusal of his +mind to worry much over anything. + +He worked then, and talked much with Cash, and made plans for the +development of their mine. In that month they had come to call it a +mine, and they had filed and recorded their claim, and had drawn up an +agreement of partnership in it. They would “sit tight” and work on it +through the winter, and when spring came they hoped to have something +tangible upon which to raise sufficient capital to develop it properly. +Or, times when they had done unusually well with their sandbank, they +would talk optimistically about washing enough gold out of that claim to +develop the other, and keep the title all in their own hands. + +Then, one night Bud dreamed again of Marie, and awoke with an insistent +craving for the oblivion of drunkenness. He got up and cooked the +breakfast, washed the dishes and swept the cabin, and measured out two +ounces of gold from what they had saved. + +“You're keeping tabs on everything, Cash,” he said shortly. “Just charge +this up to me. I'm going to town.” + +Cash looked up at him from under a slanted eye-brow. His lips had a +twist of pained disapproval. + +“Yeah. I figured you was about due in town,” he said resignedly. + +“Aw, lay off that told-you-so stuff,” Bud growled. “You never figured +anything of the kind, and you know it.” He pulled his heavy sweater down +off a nail and put it on, scowling because the sleeves had to be pulled +in place on his arms. + +“Too bad you can't wait a day. I figured we'd have a clean-up to-morrow, +maybe. She's been running pretty heavy---” + +“Well, go ahead and clean up, then. You can do it alone. Or wait till I +get back.” + +Cash laughed, as a retort cutting, and not because he was amused. Bud +swore and went out, slamming the door behind him. + +It was exactly five days alter that when he opened it again. Cash was +mixing a batch of sour-dough bread into loaves, and he did not say +anything at all when Bud came in and stood beside the stove, warming his +hands and glowering around the room. He merely looked up, and then went +on with his bread making. + +Bud was not a pretty sight. Four days and nights of trying to see how +much whisky he could drink, and how long he could play poker without +going to sleep or going broke, had left their mark on his face and +his trembling hands. His eyes were puffy and red, and his cheeks were +mottled, and his lips were fevered and had lost any sign of a humorous +quirk at the corners. He looked ugly; as if he would like nothing better +than an excuse to quarrel with Cash--since Cash was the only person at +hand to quarrel with. + +But Cash had not knocked around the world for nothing. He had seen men +in that mood before, and he had no hankering for trouble which is vastly +easier to start than it is to stop. He paid no attention to Bud. He +made his loaves, tucked them into the pan and greased the top with bacon +grease saved in a tomato can for such use. He set the pan on a shelf +behind the stove, covered it with a clean flour sack, opened the stove +door, and slid in two sticks. + +“She's getting cold,” he observed casually. “It'll be winter now before +we know it.” + +Bud grunted, pulled an empty box toward him by the simple expedient of +hooking his toes behind the corner, and sat down. He set his elbows on +his thighs and buried his face in his hands. His hat dropped off +his head and lay crown down beside him. He made a pathetic figure of +miserable manhood, of strength mistreated. His fine, brown hair fell +in heavy locks down over his fingers that rested on his forehead. Five +minutes so, and he lifted his head and glanced around him apathetically. +“Gee-man-ee, I've got a headache!” he muttered, dropping his forehead +into his spread palms again. + +Cash hesitated, derision hiding in the back of his eyes. Then he pushed +the dented coffeepot forward on the stove. + +“Try a cup of coffee straight,” he said unemotionally, “and then lay +down. You'll sleep it off in a few hours.” + +Bud did not look up, or make any move to show that he heard. But +presently he rose and went heavily over to his bunk. “I don't want any +darn coffee,” he growled, and sprawled himself stomach down on the bed, +with his face turned from the light. + +Cash eyed him coldly, with the corner of his upper lip lifted a little. +Whatever weaknesses he possessed, drinking and gambling had no place in +the list. Nor had he any patience with those faults in others. Had Bud +walked down drunk to Cash's camp, that evening when they first met, he +might have received a little food doled out to him grudgingly, but +he assuredly would not have slept in Cash's bed that night. That he +tolerated drunkenness in Bud now would have been rather surprising to +any one who knew Cash well. Perhaps he had a vague understanding of the +deeps through which Bud was struggling, and so was constrained to hide +his disapproval, hoping that the moral let-down was merely a temporary +one. + +He finished his strictly utilitarian household labor and went off up the +flat to the sluice boxes. Bud had not moved from his first position on +the bed, but he did not breathe like a sleeping man. Not at first; after +an hour or so he did sleep, heavily and with queer, muddled dreams that +had no sequence and left only a disturbed sense of discomfort behind +then. + +At noon or a little after Cash returned to the cabin, cast a sour look +of contempt at the recumbent Bud, and built a fire in the old cookstove. +He got his dinner, ate it, and washed his dishes with never a word +to Bud, who had wakened and lay with his eyes half open, sluggishly +miserable and staring dully at the rough spruce logs of the wall. + +Cash put on his cap, looked at Bud and gave a snort, and went off again +to his work. Bud lay still for awhile longer, staring dully at the wall. +Finally he raised up, swung his feet to the floor, and sat there staring +around the little cabin as though he had never before seen it. + +“Huh! You'd think, the way he highbrows me, that Cash never done wrong +in his life! Tin angel, him--I don't think. Next time, I'll tell a +pinheaded world I'll have to bring home a quart or two, and put on a +show right!” + +Just what he meant by that remained rather obscure, even to Bud. He +got up, shut his eyes very tight and then opened them wide to clear his +vision, shook himself into his clothes and went over to the stove. +Cash had not left the coffeepot on the stove but had, with malicious +intent--or so Bud believed--put it away on the shelf so that what coffee +remained was stone cold. Bud muttered and threw out the coffee, grounds +and all--a bit of bachelor extravagance which only anger could drive him +to--and made fresh coffee, and made it strong. He did not want it. He +drank it for the work of physical regeneration it would do for him. + +He lay down afterwards, and this time he dropped into a more nearly +normal sleep, which lasted until Cash returned at dusk After that he lay +with his face hidden, awake and thinking. Thinking, for the most part, +of how dull and purposeless life was, and wondering why the world +was made, or the people in it--since nobody was happy, and few even +pretended to be. Did God really make the world, and man, just to play +with--for a pastime? Then why bother about feeling ashamed for anything +one did that was contrary to God's laws? + +Why be puffed up with pride for keeping one or two of them +unbroken--like Cash, for instance. Just because Cash never drank or +played cards, what right had he to charge the whole atmosphere of the +cabin with his contempt and his disapproval of Bud, who chose to do +both? + +On the other hand, why did he choose a spree as a relief from his +particular bunch of ghosts? Trading one misery for another was all +you could call it. Doing exactly the things that Marie's mother had +predicted he would do, committing the very sins that Marie was always +a little afraid he would commit--there must be some sort of twisted +revenge in that, he thought, but for the life of him he could not quite +see any real, permanent satisfaction in it--especially since Marie and +her mother would never get to hear of it. + +For that matter, he was not so sure that they would not get to hear. +He remembered meeting, just on the first edge of his spree, one Joe De +Barr, a cigar salesman whom he had known in San Jose. Joe knew Marie--in +fact, Joe had paid her a little attention before Bud came into her life. +Joe had been in Alpine between trains, taking orders for goods from the +two saloons and the hotel. He had seen Bud drinking. Bud knew perfectly +well how much Joe had seen him drinking, and he knew perfectly well +that Joe was surprised to the point of amazement--and, Bud suspected, +secretly gratified as well. Wherefore Bud had deliberately done what +he could do to stimulate and emphasize both the surprise and the +gratification. Why is it that most human beings feel a sneaking +satisfaction in the downfall of another? Especially another who is, or +has been at sometime, a rival in love or in business? + +Bud had no delusions concerning Joe De Barr. If Joe should happen to +meet Marie, he would manage somehow to let her know that Bud was going +to the dogs--on the toboggan--down and out--whatever it suited Joe to +declare him. It made Bud sore now to think of Joe standing so smug and +so well dressed and so immaculate beside the bar, smiling and twisting +the ends of his little brown mustache while he watched Bud make such +a consummate fool of himself. At the time, though, Bud had taken a +perverse delight in making himself appear more soddenly drunken, more +boisterous and reckless than he really was. + +Oh, well, what was the odds? Marie couldn't think any worse of him than +she already thought. And whatever she thought, their trails had parted, +and they would never cross again--not if Bud could help it. Probably +Marie would say amen to that. He would like to know how she was getting +along--and the baby, too. Though the baby had never seemed quite real +to Bud, or as if it were a permanent member of the household. It was a +leather-lunged, red-faced, squirming little mite, and in his heart of +hearts Bud had not felt as though it belonged to him at all. He had +never rocked it, for instance, or carried it in his arms. He had been +afraid he might drop it, or squeeze it too hard, or break it somehow +with his man's strength. When he thought of Marie he did not necessarily +think of the baby, though sometimes he did, wondering vaguely how much +it had grown, and if it still hollered for its bottle, all hours of the +day and night. + +Coming back to Marie and Joe--it was not at all certain that they would +meet; or that Joe would mention him, even if they did. A wrecked home is +always a touchy subject, so touchy that Joe had never intimated in his +few remarks to Bud that there had ever been a Marie, and Bud, drunk +as he had been, was still not too drunk to hold back the question that +clamored to be spoken. + +Whether he admitted it to himself or not, the sober Bud Moore who lay on +his bunk nursing a headache and a grouch against the world was ashamed +of the drunken Bud Moore who had paraded his drunkenness before the man +who knew Marie. He did not want Marie to hear what Joe might tell There +was no use, he told himself miserably, in making Marie despise him as +well as hate him. There was a difference. She might think him a brute, +and she might accuse him of failing to be a kind and loving husband; but +she could not, unless Joe told of his spree, say that she had ever heard +of his carousing around. That it would be his own fault if she did hear, +served only to embitter his mood. + +He rolled over and glared at Cash, who had cooked his supper and was +sitting down to eat it alone. Cash was looking particularly misanthropic +as he bent his head to meet the upward journey of his coffee cup, and +his eyes, when they lifted involuntarily with Bud's sudden movement, had +still that hard look of bottled-up rancor that had impressed itself upon +Bud earlier in the day. + +Neither man spoke, or made any sign of friendly recognition. Bud would +not have talked to any one in his present state of self-disgust, but for +all that Cash's silence rankled. A moment their eyes met and held; then +with shifted glances the souls of them drew apart--farther apart than +they had ever been, even when they quarreled over Pete, down in Arizona. + +When Cash had finished and was filing his pipe, Bud got up and reheated +the coffee, and fried more bacon and potatoes, Cash having cooked just +enough for himself. Cash smoked and gave no heed, and Bud retorted by +eating in silence and in straightway washing his own cup, plate, knife, +and fork and wiping clean the side of the table where he always sat. He +did not look at Cash, but he felt morbidly that Cash was regarding him +with that hateful sneer hidden under his beard. He knew that it was +silly to keep that stony silence, but he kept telling himself that if +Cash wanted to talk, he had a tongue, and it was not tied. Besides, +Cash had registered pretty plainly his intentions and his wishes when he +excluded Bud from his supper. + +It was a foolish quarrel, but it was that kind of foolish quarrel which +is very apt to harden into a lasting one. + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE. MARIE TAKES A DESPERATE CHANCE + +Domestic wrecks may be a subject taboo in polite conversation, but Joe +De Barr was not excessively polite, and he had, moreover, a very likely +hope that Marie would yet choose to regard him with more favor than she +had shown in the past. He did not chance to see her at once, but as soon +as his work would permit he made it a point to meet her. He went about +it with beautiful directness. He made bold to call her up on “long +distance” from San Francisco, told her that he would be in San Jose that +night, and invited her to a show. + +Marie accepted without enthusiasm--and her listlessness was not lost +over forty miles of telephone wire. Enough of it seeped to Joe's ears +to make him twist his mustache quite furiously when he came out of the +telephone booth. If she was still stuck on that fellow Bud, and couldn't +see anybody else, it was high time she was told a few things about him. +It was queer how a nice girl like Marie would hang on to some cheap +guy like Bud Moore. Regular fellows didn't stand any show--unless +they played what cards happened to fall their way. Joe, warned by her +indifference, set himself very seriously to the problem of playing his +cards to the best advantage. + +He went into a flower store--disdaining the banked loveliness upon the +corners--and bought Marie a dozen great, heavy-headed chrysanthemums, +whose color he could not name to save his life, so called them pink and +let it go at that. They were not pink, and they were not sweet--Joe held +the bunch well away from his protesting olfactory nerves which were not +educated to tantalizing odors--but they were more expensive than roses, +and he knew that women raved over them. He expected Marie to rave over +them, whether she liked them or not. + +Fortified by these, groomed and perfumed and as prosperous looking as a +tobacco salesman with a generous expense account may be, he went to San +Jose on an early evening train that carried a parlor car in which Joe +made himself comfortable. He fooled even the sophisticated porter +into thinking him a millionaire, wherefore he arrived in a glow of +self-esteem, which bred much optimism. + +Marie was impressed--at least with his assurance and the chrysanthemums, +over which she was sufficiently enthusiastic to satisfy even Joe. Since +he had driven to the house in a hired automobile, he presently had the +added satisfaction of handing Marie into the tonneau as though she were +a queen entering the royal chariot, and of ordering the driver to take +them out around the golf links, since it was still very early. Then, +settling back with what purported to be a sigh of bliss, he regarded +Marie sitting small and still and listless beside him. The glow of the +chrysanthemums had already faded. Marie, with all the girlish prettiness +she had ever possessed, and with an added charm that was very elusive +and hard to analyze, seemed to have lost all of her old animation. + +Joe tried the weather, and the small gossip of the film world, and a +judiciously expurgated sketch of his life since he had last seen her. +Marie answered him whenever his monologue required answer, but she was +unresponsive, uninterested--bored. Joe twisted his mustache, eyed her +aslant and took the plunge. + +“I guess joy-ridin' kinda calls up old times, ay?” he began insidiously. +“Maybe I shouldn't have brought you out for a ride; maybe it brings back +painful memories, as the song goes.” + +“Oh, no,” said Marie spiritlessly. “I don't see why it should.” + +“No? Well, that's good to hear you say so, girlie. I was kinda afraid +maybe trouble had hit you hard. A sensitive, big-hearted little person +like you. But if you've put it all outa your mind, why, that's where +you're dead right. Personally, I was glad to see you saw where you'd +made a mistake, and backed up. That takes grit and brains. Of course, we +all make mistakes--you wasn't to blame--innocent little kid like you--” + +“Yes,” said Marie, “I guess I made a mistake, all right.” + +“Sure! But you seen it and backed up. And a good thing you did. Look +what he'd of brought you to by now, if you'd stuck!” + +Marie tilted back her head and looked up at the tall row of eucalyptus +trees feathered against the stars. “What?” she asked uninterestedly. + +“Well--I don't want to knock, especially a fellow that's on the toboggan +already. But I know a little girl that's aw-fully lucky, and I'm honest +enough to say so.” + +“Why?” asked Marie obligingly. “Why--in particular?” + +“Why in particular?” Joe leaned toward her. “Say, you must of heard how +Bud's going to the dogs. If you haven't, I don't want--” + +“No, I hadn't heard,” said Marie, looking up at the Big Dipper so that +her profile, dainty and girlish still, was revealed like a cameo to Joe. +“Is he? I love to watch the stars, don't you?” + +“I love to watch a star,” Joe breathed softly. “So you hadn't heard how +Bud's turned out to be a regular souse? Honest, didn't you know it?” + +“No, I didn't know it,” said Marie boredly. “Has he?” + +“Well, say! You couldn't tell it from the real thing! Believe me, Bud's +some pickled bum, these days. I run across him up in the mountains, a +month or so ago. Honest, I was knocked plumb silly--much as I knew about +Bud that you never knew, I never thought he'd turn out quite so--” Joe +paused, with a perfect imitation of distaste for his subject. “Say, this +is great, out here,” he murmured, tucking the robe around her with +that tender protectiveness which stops just short of being proprietary. +“Honest, Marie, do you like it?” + +“Why, sure, I like it, Joe.” Marie smiled at him in the star-light. +“It's great, don't you think? I don't get out very often, any more. I'm +working, you know--and evenings and Sundays baby takes up all my time.” + +“You working? Say, that's a darned shame! Don't Bud send you any money?” + +“He left some,” said Marie frankly. “But I'm keeping that for baby, when +he grows up and needs it. He don't send any.” + +“Well, say! As long as he's in the State, you can make him dig up. For +the kid's support, anyway. Why don't you get after him?” + +Marie looked down over the golf links, as the car swung around the long +curve at the head of the slope. “I don't know where he is,” she said +tonelessly. “Where did you see him, Joe?” + +Joe's hesitation lasted but long enough for him to give his mustache end +a twist. Marie certainly seemed to be well “over it.” There could be no +harm in telling. + +“Well, when I saw him he was at Alpine; that's a little burg up in the +edge of the mountains, on the W. P. He didn't look none too prosperous, +at that. But he had money--he was playing poker and that kind of thing. +And he was drunk as a boiled owl, and getting drunker just as fast as +he knew how. Seemed to be kind of a stranger there; at least he didn't +throw in with the bunch like a native would. But that was more than a +month ago, Marie. He might not be there now. I could write up and find +out for you.” + +Marie settled back against the cushions as though she had already +dismissed the subject from her mind. + +“Oh, don't bother about it, Joe. I don't suppose he's got any money, +anyway. Let's forget him.” + +“You said it, Marie. Stacked up to me like a guy that's got just enough +dough for a good big souse. He ain't hard to forget--is he, girlie?” + +Marie laughed assentingly. And if she did not quite attain her old +bubbling spirits during the evening, at least she sent Joe back to San +Francisco feeling very well satisfied with himself. He must have been +satisfied with himself. He must have been satisfied with his wooing +also, because he strolled into a jewelry store the next morning and +priced several rings which he judged would be perfectly suitable for +engagement rings. He might have gone so far as to buy one, if he had +been sure of the size and of Marie's preference in stones. Since he +lacked detailed information, he decided to wait, but he intimated +plainly to the clerk that he would return in a few days. + +It was just as well that he did decide to wait, for when he tried again +to see Marie he failed altogether. Marie had left town. Her mother, with +an acrid tone of resentment, declared that she did not know any +more than the man in the moon where Marie had gone, but that she +“suspicioned” that some fool had told Marie where Bud was, and that +Marie had gone traipsing after him. She had taken the baby along, which +was another piece of foolishness which her mother would never have +permitted had she been at home when Marie left. + +Joe did not take the matter seriously, though he was disappointed at +having made a fruitless trip to San Jose. He did not believe that +Marie had done anything more than take a vacation from her mother's +sharp-tongued rule, and for that he could not blame her, after having +listened for fifteen minutes to the lady's monologue upon the subject +of selfish, inconsiderate, ungrateful daughters. Remembering Marie's +attitude toward Bud, he did not believe that she had gone hunting him. + +Yet Marie had done that very thing. True, she had spent a sleepless +night fighting the impulse, and a harassed day trying to make up her +mind whether to write first, or whether to go and trust to the element +of surprise to help plead her cause with Bud; whether to take Lovin +Child with her, or leave him with her mother. + +She definitely decided to write Bud a short note and ask him if he +remembered having had a wife and baby, once upon a time, and if he never +wished that he had them still. She wrote the letter, crying a +little over it along toward the last, as women will. But it sounded +cold-blooded and condemnatory. She wrote another, letting a little +of her real self into the lines. But that sounded sentimental and +moving-pictury, and she knew how Bud hated cheap sentimentalism. + +So she tore them both up and put them in the little heating stove, +and lighted a match and set them burning, and watched them until they +withered down to gray ash, and then broke up the ashes and scattered +them amongst the cinders. Marie, you must know, had learned a good many +things, one of which was the unwisdom of whetting the curiosity of a +curious woman. + +After that she proceeded to pack a suit case for herself and Lovin +Child, seizing the opportunity while her mother was visiting a friend +in Santa Clara. Once the packing was began, Marie worked with a feverish +intensity of purpose and an eagerness that was amazing, considering her +usual apathy toward everything in her life as she was living it. + +Everything but Lovin Child. Him she loved and gloried in. He was like +Bud--so much like him that Marie could not have loved him so much if she +had managed to hate Bud as she tried sometimes to hate him. Lovin Child +was a husky youngster, and he already had the promise of being as tall +and straight-limbed and square-shouldered as his father. Deep in his +eyes there lurked always a twinkle, as though he knew a joke that would +make you laugh--if only he dared tell it; a quizzical, secretly +amused little twinkle, as exactly like Bud's as it was possible for +a two-year-old twinkle to be. To go with the twinkle, he had a quirky +little smile. And to better the smile, he had the jolliest little +chuckle that ever came through a pair of baby lips. + +He came trotting up to the suit case which Marie had spread wide open on +the bed, stood up on his tippy toes, and peered in. The quirky smile was +twitching his lips, and the look he turned toward Marie's back was full +of twinkle. He reached into the suit case, clutched a clean handkerchief +and blew his nose with solemn precision; put the handkerchief back all +crumpled, grabbed a silk stocking and drew it around his neck, and was +straining to reach his little red Brownie cap when Marie turned and +caught him up in her arms. + +“No, no, Lovin Child! Baby mustn't. Marie is going to take her lovin' +baby boy to find--” She glanced hastily over her shoulder to make sure +there was no one to hear, buried her face in the baby's fat neck and +whispered the wonder, “--to find hims daddy Bud! Does Lovin Man want +to see hims daddy Bud? I bet he does want! I bet hims daddy Bud will +be glad--Now you sit right still, and Marie will get him a cracker, an' +then he can watch Marie pack him little shirt, and hims little bunny +suit, and hims wooh-wooh, and hims 'tockins--” + +It is a pity that Bud could not have seen the two of them in the next +hour, wherein Marie flew to her hopeful task of packing her suit case, +and Lovin Child was quite as busy pulling things out of it, and getting +stepped on, and having to be comforted, and insisting upon having on +his bunny suit, and then howling to go before Marie was ready. Bud would +have learned enough to ease the ache in his heart--enough to humble him +and fill him with an abiding reverence for a love that will live, as +Marie's had lived, on bitterness and regret. + +Nearly distracted under the lash of her own eagerness and the fear that +her mother would return too soon and bully her into giving up her wild +plan, Marie, carrying Lovin Child on one arm and lugging the suit case +in the other hand, and half running, managed to catch a street car and +climb aboard all out of breath and with her hat tilted over one ear. +She deposited the baby on the seat beside her, fumbled for a nickel, +and asked the conductor pantingly if she would be in time to catch the +four-five to the city. It maddened her to watch the bored deliberation +of the man as he pulled out his watch and regarded it meditatively. + +“You'll catch it--if you're lucky about your transfer,” he said, and +rang up her fare and went off to the rear platform, just as if it were +not a matter of life and death at all. Marie could have shaken him for +his indifference; and as for the motorman, she was convinced that he ran +as slow as he dared, just to drive her crazy. But even with these two +inhuman monsters doing their best to make her miss the train, and with +the street car she wanted to transfer to running off and leaving her at +the very last minute, and with Lovin Child suddenly discovering that he +wanted to be carried, and that he emphatically did not want her to carry +the suit case at all, Marie actually reached the depot ahead of the +four-five train. Much disheveled and flushed with nervousness and her +exertions, she dragged Lovin Child up the steps by one arm, found a seat +in the chair car and, a few minutes later, suddenly realized that she +was really on her way to an unknown little town in an unknown part of +the country, in quest of a man who very likely did not want to be found +by her. + +Two tears rolled down her cheeks, and were traced to the corners of her +mouth by the fat, investigative finger of Lovin Child before Marie could +find her handkerchief and wipe them away. Was any one in this world +ever so utterly, absolutely miserable? She doubted it. What if she found +Bud--drunk, as Joe had described him? Or, worse than that, what if she +did not find him at all? She tried not to cry, but it seemed as though +she must cry or scream. Fast as she wiped them away, other tears dropped +over her eyelids upon her cheeks, and were given the absorbed attention +of Lovin Child, who tried to catch each one with his finger. To distract +him, she turned him around face to the window. + +“See all the--pitty cows,” she urged, her lips trembling so much that +they would scarcely form the words. And when Lovin Child flattened a +finger tip against the window and chuckled, and said “Ee? Ee?”--which +was his way of saying see--Marie dropped her face down upon his fuzzy +red “bunny” cap, hugged him close to her, and cried, from sheer, nervous +reaction. + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN. CABIN FEVER IN THE WORST FORM + +Bud Moore woke on a certain morning with a distinct and well-defined +grouch against the world as he had found it; a grouch quite different +from the sullen imp of contrariness that had possessed him lately. He +did not know just what had caused the grouch, and he did not care. He +did know, however, that he objected to the look of Cash's overshoes that +stood pigeon-toed beside Cash's bed on the opposite side of the room, +where Bud had not set his foot for three weeks and more. He disliked the +audible yawn with which Cash manifested his return from the deathlike +unconsciousness of sleep. He disliked the look of Cash's rough coat and +sweater and cap, that hung on a nail over Cash's bunk. He disliked the +thought of getting up in the cold--and more, the sure knowledge that +unless he did get up, and that speedily, Cash would be dressed ahead of +him, and starting a fire in the cookstove. Which meant that Cash would +be the first to cook and eat his breakfast, and that the warped ethics +of their dumb quarrel would demand that Bud pretend to be asleep until +Cash had fried his bacon and his hotcakes and had carried them to his +end of the oilcloth-covered table. + +When, by certain well-known sounds, Bud was sure that Cash was eating, +he could, without loss of dignity or without suspicion of making +any overtures toward friendliness, get up and dress and cook his own +breakfast, and eat it at his own end of the table. Bud wondered how long +Cash, the old fool, would sulk like that. Not that he gave a darn--he +just wondered, is all. For all he cared, Cash could go on forever +cooking his own meals and living on his own side of the shack. Bud +certainly would not interrupt him in acting the fool, and if Cash wanted +to keep it up till spring, Cash was perfectly welcome to do so. It just +showed how ornery a man could be when he was let to go. So far as he was +concerned, he would just as soon as not have that dead line painted down +the middle of the cabin floor. + +Nor did its presence there trouble him in the least. Just this morning, +however, the fact of Cash's stubbornness in keeping to his own side +of the line irritated Bud. He wanted to get back at the old hound +somehow--without giving in an inch in the mute deadlock. Furthermore, +he was hungry, and he did not propose to lie there and starve while old +Cash pottered around the stove. He'd tell the world he was going to +have his own breakfast first, and if Cash didn't want to set in on the +cooking, Cash could lie in bed till he was paralyzed, and be darned. + +At that moment Cash pushed back the blankets that had been banked to his +ears. Simultaneously, Bud swung his feet to the cold floor with a thump +designed solely to inform Cash that Bud was getting up. Cash turned +over with his back to the room and pulled up the blankets. Bud grinned +maliciously and dressed as deliberately as the cold of the cabin would +let him. To be sure, there was the disadvantage of having to start his +own fire, but that disagreeable task was offset by the pleasure he would +get in messing around as long as he could, cooking his breakfast. He +even thought of frying potatoes and onions after he cooked his bacon. +Potatoes and onions fried together have a lovely tendency to stick to +the frying pan, especially if there is not too much grease, and if they +are fried very slowly. Cash would have to do some washing and scraping, +when it came his turn to cook. Bud knew just about how mad that would +make Cash, and he dwelt upon the prospect relishfully. + +Bud never wanted potatoes for his breakfast. Coffee, bacon, and hotcakes +suited him perfectly. But just for meanness, because he felt mean and +he wanted to act mean, he sliced the potatoes and the onions into the +frying pan, and, to make his work artistically complete, he let them +burn and stick to the pan,--after he had his bacon and hotcakes fried, +of course! + +He sat down and began to eat. And presently Cash crawled out into the +warm room filled with the odor of frying onions, and dressed himself +with the detached calm of the chronically sulky individual. Not once +did the manner of either man betray any consciousness of the other's +presence. Unless some detail of the day's work compelled them to speech, +not once for more than three weeks had either seemed conscious of the +other. + +Cash washed his face and his hands, took the side of bacon, and cut +three slices with the precision of long practice. Bud sopped his last +hotcake in a pool of syrup and watched him from the corner of his eyes, +without turning his head an inch toward Cash. His keenest desire, just +then, was to see Cash when he tackled the frying pan. + +But Cash disappointed him there. He took a pie tin off the shelf and +laid his strips of bacon on it, and set it in the oven; which is a very +good way of cooking breakfast bacon, as Bud well knew. Cash then took +down the little square baking pan, greased from the last baking +of bread, and in that he fried his hot cakes. As if that were not +sufficiently exasperating, he gave absolutely no sign of being conscious +of the frying pan any more than he was conscious of Bud. He did not +overdo it by whistling, or even humming a tune--which would have +given Bud an excuse to say something almost as mean as his mood. +Abstractedness rode upon Cash's lined brow. Placid meditation shone +forth from his keen old blue-gray eyes. + +The bacon came from the oven juicy-crisp and curled at the edges and +delicately browned. The cakes came out of the baking pan brown and thick +and light. Cash sat down at his end of the table, pulled his own can of +sugar and his own cup of syrup and his own square of butter toward him; +poured his coffee, that he had made in a small lard pail, and began to +eat his breakfast exactly as though he was alone in that cabin. + +A great resentment filled Bud's soul to bursting, The old hound! Bud +believed now that Cash was capable of leaving that frying pan dirty for +the rest of the day! A man like that would do anything! If it wasn't for +that claim, he'd walk off and forget to come back. + +Thinking of that seemed to crystallize into definite purpose what +had been muddling his mind with vague impulses to let his mood find +expression. He would go to Alpine that day. He would hunt up Frank and +see if he couldn't jar him into showing that he had a mind of his own. +Twice since that first unexpected spree, he had spent a good deal of +time and gold dust and consumed a good deal of bad whisky and beer, in +testing the inherent obligingness of Frank. The last attempt had been +the cause of the final break between him and Cash. Cash had reminded Bud +harshly that they would need that gold to develop their quartz claim, +and he had further stated that he wanted no “truck” with a gambler and +a drunkard, and that Bud had better straighten up if he wanted to keep +friends with Cash. + +Bud had retorted that Cash might as well remember that Bud had a half +interest in the two claims, and that he would certainly stay with it. +Meantime, he would tell the world he was his own boss, and Cash needn't +think for a minute that Bud was going to ask permission for what he did +or did not do. Cash needn't have any truck with him, either. It suited +Bud very well to keep on his own side of the cabin, and he'd thank Cash +to mind his own business and not step over the dead line. + +Cash had laughed disagreeably and asked Bud what he was going to +do--draw a chalk mark, maybe? + +Bud, half drunk and unable to use ordinary good sense, had said yes, by +thunder, he'd draw a chalk line if he wanted to, and if he did, Cash had +better not step over it either, unless he wanted to be kicked back. + +Wherefore the broad, black line down the middle of the floor to where +the table stood. Obviously, he could not well divide the stove and the +teakettle and the frying pan and coffeepot. The line stopped abruptly +with a big blob of lampblack mixed with coal oil, just where necessity +compelled them both to use the same floor space. + +The next day Bud had been ashamed of the performance, but his shame +could not override his stubbornness. The black line stared up at him +accusingly. Cash, keeping scrupulously upon his own side of it, went +coldly about his own affairs and never yielded so much as a glance at +Bud. And Bud grew more moody and dissatisfied with himself, but he would +not yield, either. Perversely he waited for Cash to apologize for what +he had said about gamblers and drunkards, and tried to believe that upon +Cash rested all of the blame. + +Now he washed his own breakfast dishes, including the frying pan, spread +the blankets smooth on his bunk, swept as much of the floor as lay upon +his side of the dead line. Because the wind was in the storm quarter and +the lowering clouds promised more snow, he carried in three big armfuls +of wood and placed them upon his corner of the fireplace, to provide +warmth when he returned. Cash would not touch that wood while Bud was +gone, and Bud knew it. Cash would freeze first. But there was small +chance of that, because a small, silent rivalry had grown from the +quarrel; a rivalry to see which kept the best supply of wood, which +swept cleanest under his bunk and up to the black line, which washed his +dishes cleanest, and kept his shelf in the cupboard the tidiest. Before +the fireplace in an evening Cash would put on wood, and when next it +was needed, Bud would get up and put on wood. Neither would stoop to +stinting or to shirking, neither would give the other an inch of ground +for complaint. It was not enlivening to live together that way, but it +worked well toward keeping the cabin ship shape. + +So Bud, knowing that it was going to storm, and perhaps dreading a +little the long monotony of being housed with a man as stubborn as +himself, buttoned a coat over his gray, roughneck sweater, pulled a pair +of mail-order mittens over his mail-order gloves, stamped his feet +into heavy, three-buckled overshoes, and set out to tramp fifteen miles +through the snow, seeking the kind of pleasure which turns to pain with +the finding. + +He knew that Cash, out by the woodpile, let the axe blade linger in +the cut while he stared after him. He knew that Cash would be lonesome +without him, whether Cash ever admitted it or not. He knew that Cash +would be passively anxious until he returned--for the months they had +spent together had linked them closer than either would confess. Like +a married couple who bicker and nag continually when together, but are +miserable when apart, close association had become a deeply grooved +habit not easily thrust aside. Cabin fever might grip them and impel +them to absurdities such as the dead line down the middle of their +floor and the silence that neither desired but both were too stubborn +to break; but it could not break the habit of being together. So Bud +was perfectly aware of the fact that he would be missed, and he was +ill-humored enough to be glad of it. Frank, if he met Bud that day, was +likely to have his amiability tested to its limit. + +Bud tramped along through the snow, wishing it was not so deep, or else +deep enough to make snow-shoeing practicable in the timber; thinking +too of Cash and how he hoped Cash would get his fill of silence, and of +Frank, and wondering where he would find him. He had covered perhaps two +miles of the fifteen, and had walked off a little of his grouch, and had +stopped to unbutton his coat, when he heard the crunching of feet in the +snow, just beyond a thick clump of young spruce. + +Bud was not particularly cautious, nor was he averse to meeting people +in the trail. He stood still though, and waited to see who was +coming that way--since travelers on that trail were few enough to be +noticeable. + +In a minute more a fat old squaw rounded the spruce grove and shied +off startled when she glimpsed Bud. Bud grunted and started on, and +the squaw stepped clear of the faintly defined trail to let him pass. +Moreover, she swung her shapeless body around so that she half faced him +as he passed. Bud's lips tightened, and he gave her only a glance. He +hated fat old squaws that were dirty and wore their hair straggling down +over their crafty, black eyes. They burlesqued womanhood in a way that +stirred always a smoldering resentment against them. This particular +squaw had nothing to commend her to his notice. She had a dirty red +bandanna tied over her dirty, matted hair and under her grimy double +chin. A grimy gray blanket was draped closely over her squat shoulders +and formed a pouch behind, wherein the plump form of a papoose was +cradled, a little red cap pulled down over its ears. + +Bud strode on, his nose lifted at the odor of stale smoke that pervaded +the air as he passed. The squaw, giving him a furtive stare, turned and +started on, bent under her burden. + +Then quite suddenly a wholly unexpected sound pursued Bud and halted him +in the trail; the high, insistent howl of a child that has been denied +its dearest desire of the moment. Bud looked back inquiringly. The squaw +was hurrying on, and but for the straightness of the trail just there, +her fat old canvas-wrapped legs would have carried her speedily out of +sight. Of course, papooses did yell once in awhile, Bud supposed, though +he did not remember ever hearing one howl like that on the trail. But +what made the squaw in such a deuce of a hurry all at once? + +Bud's theory of her kind was simple enough: If they fled from you, it +was because they had stolen something and were afraid you would catch +them at it. He swung around forthwith in the trail and went after +her--whereat she waddled faster through the snow like a frightened duck. + +“Hey! You come back here a minute! What's all the rush?” Bud's voice and +his long legs pursued, and presently he overtook her and halted her by +the simple expedient of grasping her shoulder firmly. The high-keyed +howling ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and Bud, peering under +the rolled edge of the red stocking cap, felt his jaw go slack with +surprise. + +The baby was smiling at him delightedly, with a quirk of the lips and +a twinkle lodged deep somewhere in its eyes. It worked one hand free of +its odorous wrappings, spread four fat fingers wide apart over one eye, +and chirped, “Pik-k?” and chuckled infectiously deep in its throat. + +Bud gulped and stared and felt a warm rush of blood from his heart up +into his head. A white baby, with eyes that laughed, and quirky red lips +that laughed with the eyes, and a chuckling voice like that, riding on +the back of that old squaw, struck him dumb with astonishment. + +“Good glory!” he blurted, as though the words had been jolted from him +by the shock. Where-upon the baby reached out its hand to him and said +haltingly, as though its lips had not yet grown really familiar with the +words: + +“Take--Uvin--Chal!” + +The squaw tried to jerk away, and Bud gave her a jerk to let her know +who was boss. “Say, where'd you git that kid?” he demanded aggressively. + +She moved her wrapped feet uneasily in the snow, flickered a filmy, +black eyed glance at Bud's uncompromising face, and waved a dirty paw +vaguely in a wide sweep that would have kept a compass needle revolving +if it tried to follow and was not calculated to be particularly +enlightening. + +“Lo-ong ways,” she crooned, and her voice was the first attractive thing +Bud had discovered about her. It was pure melody, soft and pensive as +the cooing of a wood dove. + +“Who belongs to it?” Bud was plainly suspicious. The shake of the +squaw's bandannaed head was more artfully vague than her gesture. “Don' +know--modder die--fadder die--ketchum long ways--off.” + +“Well, what's its name?” Bud's voice harshened with his growing interest +and bewilderment. The baby was again covering one twinkling eye with +its spread, pink palm, and was saying “Pik-k?” and laughing with the +funniest little squint to its nose that Bud had ever seen. It was so +absolutely demoralizing that to relieve himself Bud gave the squaw +a shake. This tickled the baby so much that the chuckle burst into a +rollicking laugh, with a catch of the breath after each crescendo tone +that made it absolutely individual and like none other--save one. + +“What's his name?” Bud bullied the squaw, though his eyes were on the +baby. + +“Don't know!” + +“Take--Uvin--Chal,” the baby demanded imperiously. + +“Uh--uh--uh? Take!” + +“Uvin Chal? Now what'd yuh mean by that, oletimer?” Bud obeyed an +overpowering impulse to reach out and touch the baby's cheek with a +mittened thumb. The baby responded instantly by again demanding that Bud +should take. + +“Pik-k?” said Bud, a mitten over one eye. + +“Pik-k?” said the baby, spreading his fat hand again and twinkling at +Bud between his fingers. But immediately afterwards it gave a little, +piteous whimper. “Take--Uvin Chal!” it beseeched Bud with voice and +starlike blue eyes together. “Take!” + +There was that in the baby's tone, in the unbaby-like insistence of its +bright eyes, which compelled obedience. Bud had never taken a baby of +that age in his arms. He was always in fear of dropping it, or crushing +it with his man's strength, or something. He liked them--at a safe +distance. He would chuck one under the chin, or feel diffidently the +soft little cheek, but a closer familiarity scared him. Yet when this +baby wriggled its other arm loose and demanded him to take, Bud reached +out and grasped its plump little red-sweatered body firmly under the +armpits and drew it forth, squirming with eagerness. + +“Well, I'll tell the world I don't blame yuh for wanting to git outa +that hog's nest,” said Bud, answering the baby's gleeful chuckle. + +Freed from his detaining grip on her shoulder, the squaw ducked +unexpectedly and scuttled away down the trail as fast as her old legs +would carry her; which was surprisingly speedy for one of her bulk. Bud +had opened his mouth to ask her again where she had gotten that baby. He +left it open while he stared after her astonished until the baby put up +a hand over one of Bud's eyes and said “Pik-k?” with that distracting +little quirk at the corners of its lips. + +“You son of a gun!” grinned Bud, in the tone that turned the epithet +in to a caress. “You dog gone little devil, you! Pik-k! then, if that's +what you want.” + +The squaw had disappeared into the thick under growth, leaving a track +like a hippo in the snow. Bud could have overtaken her, of course, and +he could have made her take the baby back again. But he could not face +the thought of it. He made no move at all toward pursuit, but instead he +turned his face toward Alpine, with some vague intention of turning the +baby over to the hotel woman there and getting the authorities to hunt +up its parents. It was plain enough that the squaw had no right to it, +else she would not have run off like that. + +Bud walked at least a rod toward Alpine before he swung short around in +his tracks and started the other way. “No, I'll be doggoned if I will!” + he said. “You can't tell about women, no time. She might spank the kid, +or something. Or maybe she wouldn't feed it enough. Anyway, it's too +cold, and it's going to storm pretty pronto. Hey! Yuh cold, old-timer?” + +The baby whimpered a little and snuggled its face down against Bud's +chest. So Bud lifted his foot and scraped some snow off a nearby log, +and set the baby down there while he took off his coat and wrapped it +around him, buttoning it like a bag over arms and all. The baby watched +him knowingly, its eyes round and dark blue and shining, and gave a +contented little wriggle when Bud picked it up again in his arms. + +“Now you're all right till we get to where it's warm,” Bud assured it +gravely. “And we'll do some steppin', believe me. I guess maybe you +ain't any more crazy over that Injun smell on yuh, than what I am--and +that ain't any at all.” He walked a few steps farther before he added +grimly, “It'll be some jolt for Cash, doggone his skin. He'll about +bust, I reckon. But we don't give a darn. Let him bust if he wants +to--half the cabin's mine, anyway.” + +So, talking a few of his thoughts aloud to the baby, that presently +went to sleep with its face against his shoulder, Bud tramped steadily +through the snow, carrying Lovin Child in his arms. No remote glimmer of +the wonderful thing Fate had done for him seeped into his consciousness, +but there was a new, warm glow in his heart--the warmth that came from a +child's unquestioning faith in his protecting tenderness. + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN. CASH GETS A SHOCK + +It happened that Cash was just returning to the cabin from the Blind +Ledge claim. He met Bud almost at the doorstep, just as Bud was fumbling +with the latch, trying to open the door without moving Lovin Child in +his arms. Cash may or may not have been astonished. Certainly he did +not betray by more than one quick glance that he was interested in Bud's +return or in the mysterious burden he bore. He stepped ahead of Bud and +opened the door without a word, as if he always did it just in that way, +and went inside. + +Bud followed him in silence, stepped across the black line to his own +side of the room and laid Lovin Child carefully down so as not to waken +him. He unbuttoned the coat he had wrapped around him, pulled off the +concealing red cap and stared down at the pale gold, silky hair and the +adorable curve of the soft cheek and the lips with the dimples tricked +in at the corners; the lashes lying like the delicate strokes of an +artist's pencil under the closed eyes. For at least five minutes he +stood without moving, his whole face softened into a boyish wistfulness. +By the stove Cash stood and stared from Bud to the sleeping baby, +his bushy eyebrows lifted, his gray eyes a study of incredulous +bewilderment. + +Then Bud drew a long breath and seemed about to move away from the bank, +and Cash turned abruptly to the stove and lifted a rusty lid and peered +into the cold firebox, frowning as though he was expecting to see fire +and warmth where only a sprinkle of warm ashes remained. Stubbornness +held him mute and outwardly indifferent. He whittled shavings and +started a fire in the cook stove, filled the teakettle and set it on +to boil, got out the side of bacon and cut three slices, and never once +looked toward the bunk. Bud might have brought home a winged angel, or +a rainbow, or a casket of jewels, and Cash would not have permitted +himself to show any human interest. + +But when Bud went teetering from the cabin on his toes to bring in +some pine cones they had saved for quick kindling, Cash craned his neck +toward the little bundle on the bunk. He saw a fat, warm little hand +stir with some baby dream. He listened and heard soft breathing that +stopped just short of being an infantile snore. He made an errand to his +own bunk and from there inspected the mystery at closer range. He saw +a nose and a little, knobby chin and a bit of pinkish forehead with the +pale yellow of hair above. He leaned and cocked his head to one side to +see more--but at that moment he heard Bud stamping off the snow from +his feet on the doorstep, and he took two long, noiseless strides to the +dish cupboard and was fumbling there with his back to the bunk when Bud +came tiptoeing in. + +Bud started a fire in the fireplace and heaped the dry limbs high. Cash +fried his bacon, made his tea, and set the table for his midday meal. +Bud waited for the baby to wake, looking at his watch every minute or +two, and making frequent cautious trips to the bunk, peeking and peering +to see if the child was all right. It seemed unnatural that it should +sleep so long in the daytime. No telling what that squaw had done to it; +she might have doped it or something. He thought the kid's face looked +red, as if it had fever, and he reached down and touched anxiously the +hand that was uncovered. The hand was warm--too warm, in Bud's opinion. +It would be just his luck if the kid got sick, he'd have to pack it +clear in to Alpine in his arms. Fifteen miles of that did not appeal +to Bud, whose arms ached after the two-mile trip with that solid little +body lying at ease in the cradle they made. + +His back to that end of the room, Cash sat stiff-necked and stubbornly +speechless, and ate and drank as though he were alone in the cabin. +Whenever Bud's mind left Lovin Child long enough to think about it, he +watched Cash furtively for some sign of yielding, some softening of that +grim grudge. It seemed to him as though Cash was not human, or he would +show some signs of life when a live baby was brought to camp and laid +down right under his nose. + +Cash finished and began washing his dishes, keeping his back turned +toward Bud and Bud's new possession, and trying to make it appear that +he did so unconsciously. He did not fool Bud for a minute. Bud knew that +Cash was nearly bursting with curiosity, and he had occasional fleeting +impulses to provoke Cash to speech of some sort. Perhaps Cash knew +what was in Bud's mind. At any rate he left the cabin and went out and +chopped wood for an hour, furiously raining chips into the snow. + +When he went in with his arms piled full of cut wood, Bud had the baby +sitting on one corner of the table, and was feeding it bread and +gravy as the nearest approach to baby food he could think of. During +occasional interludes in the steady procession of bits of bread from the +plate to the baby's mouth, Lovin Child would suck a bacon rind which +he held firmly grasped in a greasy little fist. Now and then Bud would +reach into his hip pocket, pull out his handkerchief as a make-shift +napkin, and would carefully wipe the border of gravy from the baby's +mouth, and stuff the handkerchief back into his pocket again. + +Both seemed abominably happy and self-satisfied. Lovin Child kicked +his heels against the rough table frame and gurgled unintelligible +conversation whenever he was able to articulate sounds. Bud replied +with a rambling monologue that implied a perfect understanding of Lovin +Child's talk--and incidentally doled out information for Cash's benefit. + +Cash cocked an eye at the two as he went by, threw the wood down on his +side of the hearth, and began to replenish the fire. If he heard, he +gave no sign of understanding or interest. + +“I'll bet that old squaw musta half starved yah,” Bud addressed the baby +while he spooned gravy out of a white enamel bowl on to the second slice +of bread. “You're putting away grub like a nigger at a barbecue. I'll +tell the world I don't know what woulda happened if I hadn't run across +yuh and made her hand yuh over.” + +“Ja--ja--ja--jah!” said Lovin Child, nodding his head and regarding Bud +with the twinkle in his eyes. + +“And that's where you're dead right, Boy. I sure do wish you'd tell me +your name; but I reckon that's too much to ask of a little geezer like +you. Here. Help yourself, kid--you ain't in no Injun camp now. You're +with white folks now.” + +Cash sat down on the bench he had made for himself, and stared into the +fire. His whole attitude spelled abstraction; nevertheless he missed no +little sound behind him. + +He knew that Bud was talking largely for his benefit, and he knew +that here was the psychological time for breaking the spell of silence +between them. Yet he let the minutes slip past and would not yield. +The quarrel had been of Bud's making in the first place. Let Bud do the +yielding, make the first step toward amity. + +But Bud had other things to occupy him just then. Having eaten all his +small stomach would hold, Lovin Child wanted to get down and explore. +Bud had other ideas, but they did not seem to count for much with Lovin +Child, who had an insistent way that was scarcely to be combated or +ignored. + +“But listen here, Boy!” Bud protested, after he had for the third time +prevented Lovin Child from backing off the table. “I was going to take +off these dirty duds and wash some of the Injun smell off yuh. I'll tell +a waiting world you need a bath, and your clothes washed.” + +“Ugh, ugh, ugh,” persisted Lovin Child, and pointed to the floor. + +So Bud sighed and made a virtue of defeat. “Oh, well, they say it's bad +policy to take a bath right after yuh eat. We'll let it ride awhile, but +you sure have got to be scrubbed a plenty before you can crawl in with +me, old-timer,” he said, and set him down on the floor. + +Lovin Child went immediately about the business that seemed most +important. He got down on his hands and knees and gravely inspected the +broad black line, hopefully testing it with tongue and with fingers to +see if it would yield him anything in the way of flavor or stickiness. +It did not. It had been there long enough to be thoroughly dry and +tasteless. He got up, planted both feet on it and teetered back and +forth, chuckling up at Bud with his eyes squinted. + +He teetered so enthusiastically that he sat down unexpectedly and with +much emphasis. That put him between two impulses, and while they battled +he stared round-eyed at Bud. But he decided not to cry, and straightway +turned himself into a growly bear and went down the line on all fours +toward Cash, growling “Ooooooo!” as fearsomely as his baby throat was +capable of growling. + +But Cash would not be scared. He refused absolutely to jump up and back +off in wild-eyed terror, crying out “Ooh! Here comes a bear!” the way +Marie had always done--the way every one had always done, when Lovin +Child got down and came at them growling. Cash sat rigid with his face +to the fire, and would not look. + +Lovin Child crawled all around him and growled his terriblest. For some +unexplainable reason it did not work. Cash sat stiff as though he had +turned to some insensate metal. From where he sat watching--curious to +see what Cash would do--Bud saw him flinch and stiffen as a man does +under pain. And because Bud had a sore spot in his own heart, Bud felt a +quick stab of understanding and sympathy. Cash Markham's past could not +have been a blank; more likely it held too much of sorrow for the salve +of speech to lighten its hurt. There might have been a child.... + +“Aw, come back here!” Bud commanded Lovin Child gruffly. + +But Lovin Child was too busy. He had discovered in his circling of Cash, +the fanny buckles on Cash's high overshoes. He was investigating them as +he had investigated the line, with fingers and with pink tongue, like +a puppy. From the lowest buckle he went on to the top one, where Cash's +khaki trousers were tucked inside with a deep fold on top. Lovin Child's +small forefinger went sliding up in the mysterious recesses of the fold +until they reached the flat surface of the knee. He looked up farther, +studying Cash's set face, sitting back on his little heels while he did +so. Cash tried to keep on staring into the fire, but in spite of himself +his eyes lowered to meet the upward look. + +“Pik-k?” chirped Lovin Child, spreading his fingers over one eye and +twinkling up at Cash with the other. + +Cash flinched again, wavered, swallowed twice, and got up so abruptly +that Lovin Child sat down again with a plunk. Cash muttered something in +his throat and rushed out into the wind and the slow-falling tiny white +flakes that presaged the storm. + +Until the door slammed shut Lovin Child looked after him, scowling, his +eyes a blaze of resentment. He brought his palms together with a vicious +slap, leaned over, and bumped his forehead deliberately and painfully +upon the flat rock hearth, and set up a howl that could have been heard +for three city blocks. + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN. AND BUD NEVER GUESSED + +That night, when he had been given a bath in the little zinc tub they +used for washing clothes, and had been carefully buttoned inside a clean +undershirt of Bud's, for want of better raiment, Lovin Child missed +something out of his sleepytime cudding. He wanted Marie, and he did not +know how to make his want known to this big, tender, awkward man who had +befriended him and filled his thoughts till bedtime. He began to whimper +and look seekingly around the little cabin. The whimper grew to a cry +which Bud's rude rocking back and forth on the box before the fireplace +could not still. + +“M'ee--take!” wailed Lovin Child, sitting up and listening. “M'ee +take--Uvin Chal!” + +“Aw, now, you don't wanta go and act like that. Listen here, Boy. You +lay down here and go to sleep. You can search me for what it is you're +trying to say, but I guess you want your mama, maybe, or your bottle, +chances are. Aw, looky!” Bud pulled his watch from his pocket--a man's +infallible remedy for the weeping of infant charges--and dangled it +anxiously before Lovin Child. + +With some difficulty he extracted the small hands from the long limp +tunnels of sleeves, and placed the watch in the eager fingers. + +“Listen to the tick-tick! Aw, I wouldn't bite into it... oh, well, darn +it, if nothing else'll do yuh, why, eat it up!” + +Lovin Child stopped crying and condescended to take a languid interest +in the watch--which had a picture of Marie pasted inside the back of the +case, by the way. “Ee?” he inquired, with a pitiful little catch in his +breath, and held it up for Bud to see the busy little second hand. “Ee?” + he smiled tearily and tried to show Cash, sitting aloof on his bench +beside the head of his bunk and staring into the fire. But Cash gave +no sign that he heard or saw anything save the visions his memory was +conjuring in the dancing flames. + +“Lay down, now, like a good boy, and go to sleep,” Bud wheedled. “You +can hold it if you want to--only don't drop it on the floor--here! Quit +kickin' your feet out like that! You wanta freeze? I'll tell the world +straight, it's plumb cold and snaky outside to-night, and you're pretty +darn lucky to be here instead of in some Injun camp where you'd have to +bed down with a mess of mangy dogs, most likely. Come on, now--lay down +like a good boy!” + +“M'ee! M'ee take!” teased Lovin Child, and wept again; steadily, +insistently, with a monotonous vigor that rasped Bud's nerves and nagged +him with a vague memory of something familiar and unpleasant. He rocked +his body backward and forward, and frowned while he tried to lay hold of +the memory. It was the high-keyed wailing of this same man-child wanting +his bottle, but it eluded Bud completely. There was a tantalizing sense +of familiarity with the sound, but the lungs and the vocal chords of +Lovin Child had developed amazingly in two years, and he had lost the +small-infant wah-hah. + +Bud did not remember, bat for all that his thoughts went back across +those two years and clung to his own baby, and he wished poignantly that +he knew how it was getting along; and wondered if it had grown to be +as big a handful as this youngster, and how Marie would handle the +emergency he was struggling with now: a lost, lonesome baby boy that +would not go to sleep and could not tell why. + +Yet Lovin Child was answering every one of Bud's mute questions. Lying +there in his “Daddy Bud's” arms, wrapped comically in his Daddy Bud's +softest undershirt, Lovin Child was proving to his Daddy Bud that his +own man-child was strong and beautiful and had a keen little brain +behind those twinkling blue eyes. He was telling why he cried. He wanted +Marie to take him and rock him to sleep, just as she had rocked him +to sleep every night of his young memory, until that time when he had +toddled out of her life and into a new and peculiar world that held no +Marie. + +By and by he slept, still clinging to the watch that had Marie's picture +in the back. When he was all limp and rosy and breathing softly against +Bud's heart, Bud tiptoed over to the bunk, reached down inconveniently +with one hand and turned back the blankets, and laid Lovin Child in his +bed and covered him carefully. On his bench beyond the dead line Cash +sat leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and sucked at a pipe +gone cold, and stared abstractedly into the fire. + +Bud looked at him sitting there. For the first time since their trails +had joined, he wondered what Cash was thinking about; wondered with a +new kind of sympathy about Cash's lonely life, that held no ties, no +warmth of love. For the first time it struck him as significant that +in the two years, almost, of their constant companionship, Cash's +reminiscences had stopped abruptly about fifteen years back. Beyond that +he never went, save now and then when he jumped a space, to the time +when he was a boy. Of what dark years lay between, Bud had never been +permitted a glimpse. + +“Some kid--that kid,” Bud observed involuntarily, for the first time in +over three weeks speaking when he was not compelled to speak to Cash. “I +wish I knew where he came from. He wants his mother.” + +Cash stirred a little, like a sleeper only half awakened. But he did not +reply, and Bud gave an impatient snort, tiptoed over and picked up the +discarded clothes of Lovin Child, that held still a faint odor of wood +smoke and rancid grease, and, removing his shoes that he might move +silently, went to work. + +He washed Lovin Child's clothes, even to the red sweater suit and the +fuzzy red “bunny” cap. He rigged a line before the fireplace--on his +side of the dead line, to be sure--hung the little garments upon it and +sat up to watch the fire while they dried. + +While he rubbed and rinsed and wrung and hung to dry, he had planned the +details of taking the baby to Alpine and placing it in good hands there +until its parents could be found. It was stolen, he had no doubt at +all. He could picture quite plainly the agony of the parents, and common +humanity imposed upon him the duty of shortening their misery as much +as possible. But one day of the baby's presence he had taken, with +the excuse that it needed immediate warmth and wholesome food. His +conscience did not trouble him over that short delay, for he was honest +enough in his intentions and convinced that he had done the right thing. + +Cash had long ago undressed and gone to bed, turning his back to the +warm, fire-lighted room and pulling the blankets up to his ears. He +either slept or pretended to sleep, Bud did not know which. Of the +baby's healthy slumber there was no doubt at all. Bud put on his +overshoes and went outside after more wood, so that there would be no +delay in starting the fire in the morning and having the cabin warm +before the baby woke. + +It was snowing fiercely, and the wind was biting cold. Already the +woodpile was drifted under, so that Bud had to go back and light the +lantern and hang it on a nail in the cabin wall before he could make +any headway at shovelling off the heaped snow and getting at the wood +beneath. He worked hard for half an hour, and carried in all the wood +that had been cut. He even piled Cash's end of the hearth high with the +surplus, after his own side was heaped full. + +A storm like that meant that plenty of fuel would be needed to keep the +cabin snug and warm, and he was thinking of the baby's comfort now, and +would not be hampered by any grudge. + +When he had done everything he could do that would add to the baby's +comfort, he folded the little garments and laid them on a box ready for +morning. Then, moving carefully, he crawled into the bed made warm +by the little body. Lovin Child, half wakened by the movement, gave +a little throaty chuckle, murmured “M'ee,” and threw one fat arm over +Bud's neck and left it there. + +“Gawd,” Bud whispered in a swift passion of longing, “I wish you was my +own kid!” He snuggled Lovin Child close in his arms and held him there, +and stared dim-eyed at the flickering shadows on the wall. What he +thought, what visions filled his vigil, who can say? + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN. THE ANTIDOTE + +Three days it stormed with never a break, stormed so that the men +dreaded the carrying of water from the spring that became ice-rimmed but +never froze over; that clogged with sodden masses of snow half melted +and sent faint wisps of steam up into the chill air. Cutting wood was an +ordeal, every armload an achievement. Cash did not even attempt to +visit his trap line, but sat before the fire smoking or staring into the +flames, or pottered about the little domestic duties that could not half +fill the days. + +With melted snow water, a bar of yellow soap, and one leg of an old pair +of drawers, he scrubbed on his knees the floor on his side of the dead +line, and tried not to notice Lovin Child. He failed only because Lovin +Child refused to be ignored, but insisted upon occupying the immediate +foreground and in helping--much as he had helped Marie pack her suit +case one fateful afternoon not so long before. + +When Lovin Child was not permitted to dabble in the pan of soapy water, +he revenged himself by bringing Cash's mitten and throwing that in, and +crying “Ee? Ee?” with a shameless delight because it sailed round and +round until Cash turned and saw it, and threw it out. + +“No, no, no!” Lovin Child admonished himself gravely, and got it and +threw it back again. + +Cash did not say anything. Indeed, he hid a grin under his thick, +curling beard which he had grown since the first frost as a protection +against cold. He picked up the mitten and laid it to dry on the slab +mantel, and when he returned, Lovin Child was sitting in the pan, +rocking back and forth and crooning “'Ock-a-by! 'Ock-a-by!” with the +impish twinkle in his eyes. + +Cash was just picking him out of the pan when Bud came in with a load of +wood. Bud hastily dropped the wood, and without a word Cash handed Lovin +Child across the dead line, much as he would have handed over a wet +puppy. Without a word Bud took him, but the quirky smile hid at the +corners of his mouth, and under Cash's beard still lurked the grin. + +“No, no, no!” Lovin Child kept repeating smugly, all the while Bud was +stripping off his wet clothes and chucking him into the undershirt he +wore for a nightgown, and trying a man's size pair of socks on his legs. + +“I should say no-no-no! You doggone little rascal, I'd rather herd a +flea on a hot plate! I've a plumb good notion to hog-tie yuh for awhile. +Can't trust yuh a minute nowhere. Now look what you got to wear while +your clothes dry!” + +“Ee? Ee?” invited Lovin Child, gleefully holding up a muffled little +foot lost in the depths of Bud's sock. + +“Oh, I see, all right! I'll tell the world I see you're a doggone +nuisance! Now see if you can keep outa mischief till I get the wood +carried in.” Bud set him down on the bunk, gave him a mail-order +catalogue to look at, and went out again into the storm. When he came +back, Lovin Child was sitting on the hearth with the socks off, and was +picking bits of charcoal from the ashes and crunching them like candy in +his small, white teeth. Cash was hurrying to finish his scrubbing before +the charcoal gave out, and was keeping an eye on the crunching to see +that Lovin Child did not get a hot ember. + +“H'yah! You young imp!” Bud shouted, stubbing his toe as he hurried +forward. “Watcha think you are--a fire-eater, for gosh sake?” + +Cash bent his head low--it may have been to hide a chuckle. Bud was +having his hands full with the kid, and he was trying to be stern +against the handicap of a growing worship of Lovin Child and all +his little ways. Now Lovin Child was all over ashes, and the clean +undershirt was clean no longer, after having much charcoal rubbed into +its texture. Bud was not overstocked with clothes; much traveling had +formed the habit of buying as he needed for immediate use. With Lovin +Child held firmly under one arm, where he would be sure of him, he +emptied his “war-bag” on the bunk and hunted out another shirt + +Lovin Child got a bath, that time, because of the ashes he had managed +to gather on his feet and his hands and his head. Bud was patient, and +Lovin Child was delightedly unrepentant--until he was buttoned into +another shirt of Bud's, and the socks were tied on him. + +“Now, doggone yuh, I'm goin' to stake you out, or hobble yuh, or some +darn thing, till I get that wood in!” he thundered, with his eyes +laughing. “You want to freeze? Hey? Now you're goin' to stay right on +this bunk till I get through, because I'm goin' to tie yuh on. You may +holler--but you little son of a gun, you'll stay safe!” + +So Bud tied him, with a necktie around his body for a belt, and a strap +fastened to that and to a stout nail in the wall over the bunk. And +Lovin Child, when he discovered that it was not a new game but instead a +check upon his activities, threw himself on his back and held his breath +until he was purple, and then screeched with rage. + +I don't suppose Bud ever carried in wood so fast in his life. He might +as well have taken his time, for Lovin Child was in one of his fits of +temper, the kind that his grandmother invariably called his father's +cussedness coming out in him. He howled for an hour and had both men +nearly frantic before he suddenly stopped and began to play with the +things he had scorned before to touch; the things that had made him bow +his back and scream when they were offered to him hopefully. + +Bud, his sleeves rolled up, his hair rumpled and the perspiration +standing thick on his forehead, stood over him with his hands on his +hips, the picture of perturbed helplessness. + +“You doggone little devil!” he breathed, his mind torn between amusement +and exasperation. “If you was my own kid, I'd spank yuh! But,” he added +with a little chuckle, “if you was my own kid, I'd tell the world you +come by that temper honestly. Darned if I wouldn't.” + +Cash, sitting dejected on the side of his own bunk, lifted his head, and +after that his hawklike brows, and stared from the face of Bud to +the face of Lovin Child. For the first time he was struck with the +resemblance between the two. The twinkle in the eyes, the quirk of +the lips, the shape of the forehead and, emphasizing them all, the +expression of having a secret joke, struck him with a kind of shock. If +it were possible... But, even in the delirium of fever, Bud had never +hinted that he had a child, or a wife even. He had firmly planted in +Cash's mind the impression that his life had never held any close +ties whatsoever. So, lacking the clue, Cash only wondered and did not +suspect. + +What most troubled Cash was the fact that he had unwittingly caused all +the trouble for Lovin Child. He should not have tried to scrub the floor +with the kid running loose all over the place. As a slight token of his +responsibility in the matter, he watched his chance when Bud was busy at +the old cookstove, and tossed a rabbit fur across to Lovin Child to play +with; a risky thing to do, since he did not know what were Lovin Child's +little peculiarities in the way of receiving strange gifts. But he was +lucky. Lovin Child was enraptured with the soft fur and rubbed it over +his baby cheeks and cooed to it and kissed it, and said “Ee? Ee?” to +Cash, which was reward enough. + +There was a strained moment when Bud came over and discovered what it +was he was having so much fun with. Having had three days of experience +by which to judge, he jumped to the conclusion that Lovin Child had been +in mischief again. + +“Now what yuh up to, you little scallywag?” he demanded. “How did you +get hold of that? Consarn your little hide, Boy...” + +“Let the kid have it,” Cash muttered gruffly. “I gave it to him.” He got +up abruptly and went outside, and came in with wood for the cookstove, +and became exceedingly busy, never once looking toward the other end of +the room, where Bud was sprawled upon his back on the bunk, with Lovin +Child astride his middle, having a high old time with a wonderful new +game of “bronk riding.” + +Now and then Bud would stop bucking long enough to slap Lovin Child in +the face with the soft side of the rabbit fur, and Lovin Child would +squint his eyes and wrinkle his nose and laugh until he seemed likely to +choke. Then Bud would cry, “Ride 'im, Boy! Ride 'im an' scratch 'im. Go +get 'im, cowboy--he's your meat!” and would bounce Lovin Child till he +squealed with glee. + +Cash tried to ignore all that. Tried to keep his back to it. But he was +human, and Bud was changed so completely in the last three days that +Cash could scarcely credit his eyes and his ears. The old surly scowl +was gone from Bud's face, his eyes held again the twinkle. Cash listened +to the whoops, the baby laughter, the old, rodeo catch-phrases, and +grinned while he fried his bacon. + +Presently Bud gave a whoop, forgetting the feud in his play. “Lookit, +Cash! He's ridin' straight up and whippin' as he rides! He's so-o-me +bronk-fighter, buh-lieve me!” + +Cash turned and looked, grinned and turned away again--but only to strip +the rind off a fresh-fried slice of bacon the full width of the piece. +He came down the room on his own side the dead line, and tossed the rind +across to the bunk. + +“Quirt him with that, Boy,” he grunted, “and then you can eat it if you +want.” + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. LOVIN CHILD WRIGGLES IN + +On the fourth day Bud's conscience pricked him into making a sort of +apology to Cash, under the guise of speaking to Lovin Child, for still +keeping the baby in camp. + +“I've got a blame good notion to pack you to town to-day, Boy, and +try and find out where you belong,” he said, while he was feeding him +oatmeal mush with sugar and canned milk. “It's pretty cold, though...” + He cast a slant-eyed glance at Cash, dourly frying his own hotcakes. +“We'll see what it looks like after a while. I sure have got to hunt up +your folks soon as I can. Ain't I, old-timer?” + +That salved his conscience a little, and freed him of the uneasy +conviction that Cash believed him a kidnapper. The weather did the rest. +An hour after breakfast, just when Bud was downheartedly thinking he +could not much longer put off starting without betraying how hard it was +going to be for him to give up the baby, the wind shifted the clouds +and herded them down to the Big Mountain and held them there until they +began to sift snow down upon the burdened pines. + +“Gee, it's going to storm again!” Bud blustered in. “It'll be snowing +like all git-out in another hour. I'll tell a cruel world I wouldn't +take a dog out such weather as this. Your folks may be worrying about +yuh, Boy, but they ain't going to climb my carcass for packing yuh +fifteen miles in a snow-storm and letting yuh freeze, maybe. I guess the +cabin's big enough to hold yuh another day--what?” + +Cash lifted his eyebrows and pinched in his lips under his beard. It did +not seem to occur to Bud that one of them could stay in the cabin +with the baby while the other carried to Alpine the news of the baby's +whereabouts and its safety. Or if it did occur to Bud, he was careful +not to consider it a feasible plan. Cash wondered if Bud thought he was +pulling the wool over anybody's eyes. Bud did not want to give up that +kid, and he was tickled to death because the storm gave him an excuse +for keeping it. Cash was cynically amused at Bud's transparency. But +the kid was none of his business, and he did not intend to make any +suggestions that probably would not be taken anyway. Let Bud pretend he +was anxious to give up the baby, if that made him feel any better about +it. + +That day went merrily to the music of Lovin Child's chuckling laugh and +his unintelligible chatter. Bud made the discovery that “Boy” was trying +to say Lovin Child when he wanted to be taken and rocked, and declared +that he would tell the world the name fit, like a saddle on a duck's +back. Lovin Child discovered Cash's pipe, and was caught sucking it +before the fireplace and mimicking Cash's meditative pose with a comical +exactness that made Bud roar. Even Cash was betrayed into speaking a +whole sentence to Bud before he remembered his grudge. Taken altogether, +it was a day of fruitful pleasure in spite of the storm outside. + +That night the two men sat before the fire and watched the flames and +listened to the wind roaring in the pines. On his side of the dead line +Bud rocked his hard-muscled, big body back and forth, cradling Lovin +Child asleep in his arms. In one tender palm he nested Lovin Child's +little bare feet, like two fat, white mice that slept together after a +day's scampering. + +Bud was thinking, as he always thought nowadays, of Marie and his own +boy; yearning, tender thoughts which his clumsy man's tongue would never +attempt to speak. Before, he had thought of Marie alone, without the +baby; but he had learned much, these last four days. He knew now how +closely a baby can creep in and cling, how they can fill the days with +joy. He knew how he would miss Lovin Child when the storm cleared and +he must take him away. It did not seem right or just that he should give +him into the keeping of strangers--and yet he must until the parents +could have him back. The black depths of their grief to-night Bud +could not bring himself to contemplate. Bad enough to forecast his own +desolateness when Lovin Child was no longer romping up and down the dead +line, looking where he might find some mischief to get into. Bad enough +to know that the cabin would again be a place of silence and gloom and +futile resentments over little things, with no happy little man-child to +brighten it. He crept into his bunk that night and snuggled the baby up +in his arms, a miserable man with no courage left in him for the future. + +But the next day it was still storming, and colder than ever. No one +would expect him to take a baby out in such weather. So Bud whistled and +romped with Lovin Child, and would not worry about what must happen when +the storm was past. + +All day Cash brooded before the fire, bundled in his mackinaw and +sweater. He did not even smoke, and though he seemed to feel the cold +abnormally, he did not bring in any wood except in the morning, but let +Bud keep the fireplace going with his own generous supply. He did not +eat any dinner, and at supper time he went to bed with all the clothes +he possessed piled on top of him. By all these signs, Bud knew that Cash +had a bad cold. + +Bud did not think much about it at first--being of the sturdy type that +makes light of a cold. But when Cash began to cough with that hoarse, +racking sound that tells the tale of laboring lungs, Bud began to feel +guiltily that he ought to do something about it. + +He hushed Lovin Child's romping, that night, and would not let him ride +a bronk at bedtime. When he was asleep, Bud laid him down and went over +to the supply cupboard, which he had been obliged to rearrange with +everything except tin cans placed on shelves too high for a two-year-old +to reach even when he stood on his tiptoes and grunted. He hunted for +the small bottle of turpentine, found it and mixed some with melted +bacon grease, and went over to Cash's bunk, hesitating before he crossed +the dead line, but crossing nevertheless. + +Cash seemed to be asleep, but his breathing sounded harsh and unnatural, +and his hand, lying uncovered on the blanket, clenched and unclenched +spasmodically. Bud watched him for a minute, holding the cup of grease +and turpentine in his hand. + +“Say,” he began constrainedly, and waited. Cash muttered something and +moved his hand irritatedly, without opening his eyes. Bud tried again. + +“Say, you better swab your chest with this dope. Can't monkey with a +cold, such weather as this.” + +Cash opened his eyes, gave the log wall a startled look, and swung +his glance to Bud. “Yeah--I'm all right,” he croaked, and proved his +statement wrong by coughing violently. + +Bud set down the cup on a box, laid hold of Cash by the shoulders and +forced him on his back. With movements roughly gentle he opened Cash's +clothing at the throat, exposed his hairy chest, and poured on grease +until it ran in a tiny rivulets. He reached in and rubbed the grease +vigorously with the palm of his hand, giving particular attention to the +surface over the bronchial tubes. When he was satisfied that Cash's +skin could absorb no more, he turned him unceremoniously on his face +and repeated his ministrations upon Cash's shoulders. Then he rolled +him back, buttoned his shirts for him, and tramped heavily back to the +table. + +“I don't mind seeing a man play the mule when he's well,” he grumbled, +“but he's got a right to call it a day when he gits down sick. I ain't +going to be bothered burying no corpses, in weather like this. I'll tell +the world I ain't!” + +He went searching on all the shelves for something more that he could +give Cash. He found a box of liver pills, a bottle of Jamaica ginger, +and some iodine--not an encouraging array for a man fifteen miles of +untrodden snow from the nearest human habitation. He took three of +the liver pills--judging them by size rather than what might be their +composition--and a cup of water to Cash and commanded him to sit up +and swallow them. When this was accomplished, Bud felt easier as to his +conscience, though he was still anxious over the possibilities in that +cough. + +Twice in the night he got up to put more wood on the fire and to stand +beside Cash's bed and listen to his breathing. Pneumonia, the strong +man's deadly foe, was what he feared. In his cow-punching days he had +seen men die of it before a doctor could be brought from the far-away +town. Had he been alone with Cash, he would have fought his way to town +and brought help, but with Lovin Child to care for he could not take the +trail. + +At daylight Cash woke him by stumbling across the floor to the water +bucket. Bud arose then and swore at him for a fool and sent him back +to bed, and savagely greased him again with the bacon grease and +turpentine. He was cheered a little when Cash cussed back, but he did +not like the sound of his voice, for all that, and so threatened mildly +to brain him if he got out of bed again without wrapping a blanket or +something around him. + +Thoroughly awakened by this little exchange of civilities, Bud started +a fire in the stove and made coffee for Cash, who drank half a cup quite +meekly. He still had that tearing cough, and his voice was no more than +a croak; but he seemed no worse than he had been the night before. So on +the whole Bud considered the case encouraging, and ate his breakfast an +hour or so earlier than usual. Then he went out and chopped wood until +he heard Lovin Child chirping inside the cabin like a bug-hunting meadow +lark, when he had to hurry in before Lovin Child crawled off the bunk +and got into some mischief. + +For a man who was wintering in what is called enforced idleness in a +snow-bound cabin in the mountains, Bud Moore did not find the next few +days hanging heavily on his hands. Far from it. + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. THEY HAVE THEIR TROUBLES + +To begin with, Lovin Child got hold of Cash's tobacco can and was +feeding it by small handfuls to the flames, when Bud caught him. He +yelled when Bud took it away, and bumped his head on the floor and +yelled again, and spatted his hands together and yelled, and threw +himself on his back and kicked and yelled; while Bud towered over him +and yelled expostulations and reprimands and cajolery that did not +cajole. + +Cash turned over with a groan, his two palms pressed against his +splitting head, and hoarsely commanded the two to shut up that infernal +noise. He was a sick man. He was a very sick man, and he had stood the +limit. + +“Shut up?” Bud shouted above the din of Lovin Child. “Ain't I trying to +shut him up, for gosh sake? What d'yuh want me to do?--let him throw +all the tobacco you got into the fire? Here, you young imp, quit that, +before I spank you! Quick, now--we've had about enough outa you! You +lay down there, Cash, and quit your croaking. You'll croak right, if you +don't keep covered up. Hey, Boy! My jumpin' yellow-jackets, you'd drown +a Klakon till you couldn't hear it ten feet! Cash, you old fool, you +shut up, I tell yuh, or I'll come over there and shut you up! I'll tell +the world--Boy! Good glory! shut up-p!” + +Cash was a sick man, but he had not lost all his resourcefulness. He +had stopped Lovin Child once, and thereby he had learned a little of +the infantile mind. He had a coyote skin on the foot of his bed, and +he raised himself up and reached for it as one reaches for a fire +extinguisher. Like a fire extinguisher he aimed it, straight in the +middle of the uproar. + +Lovin Child, thumping head and heels regularly on the floor and +punctuating the thumps with screeches, was extinguished--suddenly, +completely silenced by the muffling fur that fell from the sky, so far +as he knew. The skin covered him completely. Not a sound came from under +it. The stillness was so absolute that Bud was scared, and so was Cash, +a little. It was as though Lovin Child, of a demon one instant, was in +the next instant snuffed out of existence. + +“What yuh done?” Bud ejaculated, rolling wild eyes at Cash. “You--” + +The coyote skin rattled a little. A fluff of yellow, a spark of blue, +and “Pik-k?” chirped Lovin Child from under the edge, and ducked back +again out of sight. + +Bud sat down weakly on a box and shook his head slowly from one side to +the other. “You've got me going south,” he made solemn confession to the +wobbling skin--or to what it concealed. “I throw up my hands, I'll tell +the world fair.” He got up and went over and sat down on his bunk, +and rested his hands on his knees, and considered the problem of Lovin +Child. + +“Here I've got wood to cut and water to bring and grub to cook, and I +can't do none of them because I've got to ride herd on you every minute. +You've got my goat, kid, and that's the truth. You sure have. Yes, +'Pik-k,' doggone yuh--after me going crazy with yuh, just about, and +thinking you're about to blow your radiator cap plumb up through the +roof! I'll tell yuh right here and now, this storm has got to let up +pretty quick so I can pack you outa here, or else I've got to pen you +up somehow, so I can do something besides watch you. Look at the way +you scattered them beans, over there by the cupboard! By rights I oughta +stand over yuh and make yuh pick every one of 'em up! and who was it +drug all the ashes outa the stove, I'd like to know?” + +The coyote skin lifted a little and moved off toward the fireplace, +growling “Ooo-ooo-ooo!” like a bear--almost. Bud rescued the bear a +scant two feet from the flames, and carried fur, baby and all, to the +bunk. “My good lord, what's a fellow going to do with yuh?” he groaned +in desperation. “Burn yourself up, you would! I can see now why folks +keep their kids corralled in high chairs and gocarts all the time. They +got to, or they wouldn't have no kids.” + +Bud certainly was learning a few things that he had come near to +skipping altogether in his curriculum of life. Speaking of high chairs, +whereof he had thought little enough in his active life, set him +seriously to considering ways and means. Weinstock-Lubin had high chairs +listed in their catalogue. Very nice high chairs, for one of which Bud +would have paid its weight in gold dust (if one may believe his word) if +it could have been set down in that cabin at that particular moment. He +studied the small cuts of the chairs, holding Lovin Child off the page +by main strength the while. Wishing one out of the catalogue and into +the room being impracticable, he went after the essential features, +thinking to make one that would answer the purpose. + +Accustomed as he was to exercising his inventive faculty in overcoming +certain obstacles raised by the wilderness in the path of comfort, Bud +went to work with what tools he had, and with the material closest +to his hand. Crude tools they were, and crude materials--like using a +Stilson wrench to adjust a carburetor, he told Lovin Child who tagged +him up and down the cabin. An axe, a big jack-knife, a hammer and some +nails left over from building their sluice boxes, these were the tools. +He took the axe first, and having tied Lovin Child to the leg of his +bunk for safety's sake, he went out and cut down four young oaks behind +the cabin, lopped off the branches and brought them in for chair legs. +He emptied a dynamite box of odds and ends, scrubbed it out and left it +to dry while he mounted the four legs, with braces of the green oak and +a skeleton frame on top. Then he knocked one end out of the box, padded +the edges of the box with burlap, and set Lovin Child in his new high +chair. + +He was tempted to call Cash's attention to his handiwork, but Cash was +too sick to be disturbed, even if the atmosphere between them had been +clear enough for easy converse. So he stifled the impulse and addressed +himself to Lovin Child, which did just as well. + +Things went better after that. Bud could tie the baby in the chair, give +him a tin cup and a spoon and a bacon rind, and go out to the woodpile +feeling reasonably certain that the house would not be set afire during +his absence. He could cook a meal in peace, without fear of stepping on +the baby. And Cash could lie as close as he liked to the edge of the bed +without running the risk of having his eyes jabbed with Lovin Child's +finger, or something slapped unexpectedly in his face. + +He needed protection from slight discomforts while he lay there eaten +with fever, hovering so close to pneumonia that Bud believed he really +had it and watched over him nights as well as daytimes. The care he +gave Cash was not, perhaps, such as the medical profession would have +endorsed, but it was faithful and it made for comfort and so aided +Nature more than it hindered. + +Fair weather came, and days of melting snow. But they served only to +increase Bud's activities at the woodpile and in hunting small game +close by, while Lovin Child took his nap and Cash was drowsing. +Sometimes he would bundle the baby in an extra sweater and take him +outside and let him wallow in the snow while Bud cut wood and piled it +on the sheltered side of the cabin wall, a reserve supply to draw on in +an emergency. + +It may have been the wet snow--more likely it was the cabin air filled +with germs of cold. Whatever it was, Lovin Child caught cold and coughed +croupy all one night, and fretted and would not sleep. Bud anointed him +as he had anointed Cash, and rocked him in front of the fire, and met +the morning hollow-eyed and haggard. A great fear tore at his heart. +Cash read it in his eyes, in the tones of his voice when he crooned +soothing fragments of old range songs to the baby, and at daylight +Cash managed to dress himself and help; though what assistance he could +possibly give was not all clear to him, until he saw Bud's glance rove +anxiously toward the cook-stove. + +“Hand the kid over here,” Cash said huskily. “I can hold him while you +get yourself some breakfast.” + +Bud looked at him stupidly, hesitated, looked down at the flushed little +face, and carefully laid him in Cash's outstretched arms. He got up +stiffly--he had been sitting there a long time, while the baby slept +uneasily--and went on his tiptoes to make a fire in the stove. + +He did not wonder at Cash's sudden interest, his abrupt change from +moody aloofness to his old partnership in trouble as well as in good +fortune. He knew that Cash was not fit for the task, however, and he +hurried the coffee to the boiling point that he might the sooner send +Cash back to bed. He gulped down a cup of coffee scalding hot, ate a few +mouthfuls of bacon and bread, and brought a cup back to Cash. + +“What d'yuh think about him?” he whispered, setting the coffee down on +a box so that he could take Lovin Child. “Pretty sick kid, don't yuh +think?” + +“It's the same cold I got,” Cash breathed huskily. “Swallows like it's +his throat, mostly. What you doing for him?” + +“Bacon grease and turpentine,” Bud answered him despondently. “I'll have +to commence on something else, though--turpentine's played out I used it +most all up on you.” + +“Coal oil's good. And fry up a mess of onions and make a poultice.” He +put up a shaking hand before his mouth and coughed behind it, stifling +the sound all he could. + +Lovin Child threw up his hands and whimpered, and Bud went over to him +anxiously. “His little hands are awful hot,” he muttered. “He's been +that way all night.” + +Cash did not answer. There did not seem anything to say that would do +any good. He drank his coffee and eyed the two, lifting his eyebrows now +and then at some new thought. + +“Looks like you, Bud,” he croaked suddenly. “Eyes, expression, +mouth--you could pass him off as your own kid, if you wanted to.” + +“I might, at that,” Bud whispered absently. “I've been seeing you in +him, though, all along. He lifts his eyebrows same way you do.” + +“Ain't like me,” Cash denied weakly, studying Lovin Child. “Give him +here again, and you go fry them onions. I would--if I had the strength +to get around.” + +“Well, you ain't got the strength. You go back to bed, and I'll lay him +in with yuh. I guess he'll lay quiet. He likes to be cuddled up close.” + +In this way was the feud forgotten. Save for the strange habits imposed +by sickness and the care of a baby, they dropped back into their +old routine, their old relationship. They walked over the dead line +heedlessly, forgetting why it came to be there. Cabin fever no longer +tormented them with its magnifying of little things. They had no time +or thought for trifles; a bigger matter than their own petty prejudices +concerned them. They were fighting side by side, with the Old Man of the +Scythe--the Old Man who spares not. + +Lovin Child was pulling farther and farther away from them. They +knew it, they felt it in his hot little hands, they read it in his +fever-bright eyes. But never once did they admit it, even to themselves. +They dared not weaken their efforts with any admissions of a possible +defeat. They just watched, and fought the fever as best they could, and +waited, and kept hope alive with fresh efforts. + +Cash was tottery weak from his own illness, and he could not speak above +a whisper. Yet he directed, and helped soothe the baby with baths and +slow strokings of his hot forehead, and watched him while Bud did the +work, and worried because he could not do more. + +They did not know when Lovin Child took a turn for the better, except +that they realized the fever was broken. But his listlessness, the +unnatural drooping of his whole body, scared them worse than before. +Night and day one or the other watched over him, trying to anticipate +every need, every vagrant whim. When he began to grow exacting, they +were still worried, though they were too fagged to abase themselves +before him as much as they would have liked. + +Then Bud was seized with an attack of the grippe before Lovin Child +had passed the stage of wanting to be held every waking minute. Which +burdened Cash with extra duties long before he was fit. + +Christmas came, and they did not know it until the day was half gone, +when Cash happened to remember. He went out then and groped in the snow +and found a little spruce, hacked it off close to the drift and brought +it in, all loaded with frozen snow, to dry before the fire. The kid, he +declared, should have a Christmas tree, anyway. He tied a candle to +the top, and a rabbit skin to the bottom, and prunes to the tip of the +branches, and tried to rouse a little enthusiasm in Lovin Child. But +Lovin Child was not interested in the makeshift. He was crying because +Bud had told him to keep out of the ashes, and he would not look. + +So Cash untied the candle and the fur and the prunes, threw them across +the room, and peevishly stuck the tree in the fireplace. + +“Remember what you said about the Fourth of July down in Arizona, Bud?” + he asked glumly. “Well, this is the same kind of Christmas.” Bud merely +grunted. + + + +CHAPTER NINETEEN. BUD FACES FACTS + +New Year came and passed and won nothing in the way of celebration from +the three in Nelson's cabin. Bud's bones ached, his head ached, the +flesh on his body ached. He could take no comfort anywhere, under any +circumstances. He craved clean white beds and soft-footed attendance +and soothing silence and cool drinks--and he could have none of those +things. His bedclothes were heavy upon his aching limbs; he had to wait +upon his own wants; the fretful crying of Lovin Child or the racking +cough of Cash was always in his ears, and as for cool drinks, there was +ice water in plenty, to be sure, but nothing else. Fair weather came, +and storms, and cold: more storms and cold than fair weather. Neither +man ever mentioned taking Lovin Child to Alpine. At first, because +it was out of the question; after that, because they did not want to +mention it. They frequently declared that Lovin Child was a pest, and +there were times when Bud spoke darkly of spankings--which did not +materialize. But though they did not mention it, they knew that Lovin +Child was something more; something endearing, something humanizing, +something they needed to keep them immune from cabin fever. + +Some time in February it was that Cash fashioned a crude pair of +snowshoes and went to town, returning the next day. He came home loaded +with little luxuries for Lovin Child, and with the simpler medicines for +other emergencies which they might have to meet, but he did not bring +any word of seeking parents. The nearest he came to mentioning the +subject was after supper, when the baby was asleep and Bud trying to cut +a small pair of overalls from a large piece of blue duck that Cash had +brought. The shears were dull, and Lovin Child's little rompers were +so patched and shapeless that they were not much of a guide, so Bud was +swearing softly while he worked. + +“I didn't hear a word said about that kid being lost,” Cash volunteered, +after he had smoked and watched Bud awhile. “Couldn't have been any one +around Alpine, or I'd have heard something about it.” + +Bud frowned, though it may have been over his tailoring problem. + +“Can't tell--the old squaw mighta been telling the truth,” he said +reluctantly. “I s'pose they do, once in awhile. She said his folks were +dead.” And he added defiantly, with a quick glance at Cash, “Far as +I'm concerned, I'm willing to let it ride that way. The kid's doing all +right.” + +“Yeah. I got some stuff for that rash on his chest. I wouldn't wonder if +we been feeding him too heavy on bacon rinds, Bud. They say too much of +that kinda thing is bad for kids. Still, he seems to feel all right.” + +“I'll tell the world he does! He got hold of your old pipe to-day and +was suckin' away on it, I don't know how long. Never feazed him, either. +If he can stand that, I guess he ain't very delicate.” + +“Yeah. I laid that pipe aside myself because it was getting so dang +strong. Ain't you getting them pants too long in the seat, Bud? They +look to me big enough for a ten-year-old.” + +“I guess you don't realize how that kid's growing!” Bud defended his +handiwork “And time I get the seams sewed, and the side lapped over for +buttons--” + +“Yeah. Where you going to get the buttons? You never sent for any.” + +“Oh, I'll find buttons. You can donate a couple off some of your +clothes, if you want to right bad.” + +“Who? Me? I ain't got enough now to keep the wind out,” Cash protested. +“Lemme tell yuh something, Bud. If you cut more saving, you'd have +enough cloth there for two pair of pants. You don't need to cut the legs +so long as all that. They'll drag on the ground so the poor kid can't +walk in 'em without falling all over himself.” + +“Well, good glory! Who's making these pants? Me, or you?” Bud exploded. +“If you think you can do any better job than what I'm doing, go get +yourself some cloth and fly at it! Don't think you can come hornin' in +on my job, 'cause I'll tell the world right out loud, you can't.” + +“Yeah--that's right! Go to bellerin' around like a bull buffalo, and +wake the kid up! I don't give a cuss how you make'm. Go ahead and have +the seat of his pants hangin' down below his knees if you want to!” Cash +got up and moved huffily over to the fireplace and sat with his back to +Bud. + +“Maybe I will, at that,” Bud retorted. “You can't come around and grab +the job I'm doing.” Bud was jabbing a needle eye toward the end of a +thread too coarse for it, and it did not improve his temper to have the +thread refuse to pass through the eye. + +Neither did it please him to find, when all the seams were sewn, that +the little overalls failed to look like any garment he had ever seen on +a child. When he tried them on Lovin Child, next day, Cash took one look +and bolted from the cabin with his hand over his mouth. + +When he came back an hour or so later, Lovin Child was wearing his +ragged rompers, and Bud was bent over a Weinstock-Lubin mail-order +catalogue. He had a sheet of paper half filled with items, and was +licking his pencil and looking for more. He looked up and grinned a +little, and asked Cash when he was going to town again; and added that +he wanted to mail a letter. + +“Yeah. Well, the trail's just as good now as it was when I took it,” + Cash hinted strongly. “When I go to town again, it'll be because I've +got to go. And far as I can see, I won't have to go for quite some +time.” + +So Bud rose before daylight the next morning, tied on the makeshift +snowshoes Cash had contrived, and made the fifteen-mile trip to Alpine +and back before dark. He brought candy for Lovin Child, tended +that young gentleman through a siege of indigestion because of the +indulgence, and waited impatiently until he was fairly certain that +the wardrobe he had ordered had arrived at the post-office. When he had +counted off the two days required for a round trip to Sacramento, and +had added three days for possible delay in filling the order, he went +again, and returned in one of the worst storms of the winter. + +But he did not grudge the hardship, for he carried on his back a bulky +bundle of clothes for Lovin Child; enough to last the winter through, +and some to spare; a woman would have laughed at some of the things he +chose: impractical, dainty garments that Bud could not launder properly +to save his life. But there were little really truly overalls, in which +Lovin Child promptly developed a strut that delighted the men and +earned him the title of Old Prospector. And there were little shirts +and stockings and nightgowns and a pair of shoes, and a toy or two that +failed to interest him at all, after the first inspection. + +It began to look as though Bud had deliberately resolved upon carrying +a guilty conscience all the rest of his life. He had made absolutely no +effort to trace the parents of Lovin Child when he was in town. On the +contrary he had avoided all casual conversation, for fear some one might +mention the fact that a child had been lost. He had been careful not to +buy anything in the town that would lead one to suspect that he had a +child concealed upon his premises, and he had even furnished what +he called an alibi when he bought the candy, professing to own an +inordinately sweet tooth. + +Cash cast his eyes over the stock of baby clothes which Bud gleefully +unwrapped on his bunk, and pinched out a smile under his beard. + +“Well, if the kid stays till he wears out all them clothes, we'll just +about have to give him a share in the company,” he said drily. + +Bud looked up in quick jealousy. “What's mine's his, and I own a half +interest in both claims. I guess that'll feed him--if they pan out +anything,” he retorted. “Come here, Boy, and let's try this suit on. +Looks pretty small to me--marked three year, but I reckon they don't +grow 'em as husky as you, back where they make all these clothes.” + +“Yeah. But you ought to put it in writing, Bud. S'pose anything happened +to us both--and it might. Mining's always got its risky side, even +cutting out sickness, which we've had a big sample of right this winter. +Well, the kid oughta have some security in case anything did happen. +Now--” + +Bud looked thoughtfully down at the fuzzy yellow head that did not come +much above his knee. + +“Well, how yuh going to do anything like that without giving it away +that we've got him? Besides, what name'd we give him in the company? No, +sir, Cash, he gets what I've got, and I'll smash any damn man that tries +to get it away from him. But we can't get out any legal papers--” + +“Yeah. But we can make our wills, can't we? And I don't know where +you get the idea, Bud, that you've got the whole say about him. +We're pardners, ain't we? Share and share alike. Mines, mules, +grub--kids--equal shares goes.” + +“That's where you're dead wrong. Mines and mules and grub is all right, +but when it comes to this old Lovin Man, why--who was it found him, for +gosh sake?” + +“Aw, git out!” Cash growled. “Don't you reckon I'd have grabbed him off +that squaw as quick as you did? I've humored you along, Bud, and let you +hog him nights, and feed him and wash his clothes, and I ain't kicked +none, have I? But when it comes to prope'ty--” + +“You ain't goin' to horn in there, neither. Anyway, we ain't got so darn +much the kid'll miss your share, Cash.” + +“Yeah. All the more reason why he'll need it I don't see how you're +going to stop me from willing my share where I please. And when you come +down to facts, Bud, why--you want to recollect that I plumb forgot to +report that kid, when I was in town. And I ain't a doubt in the world +but what his folks would be glad enough--” + +“Forget that stuff!” Bud's tone was so sharp that Lovin Child turned +clear around to look up curiously into his face. “You know why you never +reported him, doggone yuh! You couldn't give him up no easier than I +could. And I'll tell the world to its face that if anybody gets this +kid now they've pretty near got to fight for him. It ain't right, and it +ain't honest. It's stealing to keep him, and I never stole a brass tack +in my life before. But he's mine as long as I live and can hang on to +him. And that's where I stand. I ain't hidin' behind no kind of alibi. +The old squaw did tell me his folks was dead; but if you'd ask me, I'd +say she was lying when she said it. Chances are she stole him. I'm sorry +for his folks, supposing he's got any. But I ain't sorry enough for 'em +to give him up if I can help it. I hope they've got more, and I hope +they've gentled down by this time and are used to being without him. +Anyway, they can do without him now easier than what I can, because...” + Bud did not finish that sentence, except by picking Lovin Child up in +his arms and squeezing him as hard as he dared. He laid his face down +for a minute on Lovin Child's head, and when he raised it his lashes +were wet. + +“Say, old-timer, you need a hair cut. Yuh know it?” he said, with a +huskiness in his voice, and pulled a tangle playfully. Then his eyes +swung round defiantly to Cash. “It's stealing to keep him, but I can't +help it. I'd rather die right here in my tracks than give up this little +ole kid. And you can take that as it lays, because I mean it.” + +Cash sat quiet for a minute or two, staring down at the floor. “Yeah. +I guess there's two of us in that fix,” he observed in his dry way, +lifting his eyebrows while he studied a broken place in the side of his +overshoe. “All the more reason why we should protect the kid, ain't it? +My idea is that we ought to both of us make our wills right here and +now. Each of us to name the other for guardeen, in case of accident, +and each one picking a name for the kid, and giving him our share in the +claims and anything else we may happen to own.” He stopped abruptly, his +jaw sagging a little at some unpleasant thought. + +“I don't know--come to think of it, I can't just leave the kid all my +property. I--I've got a kid of my own, and if she's alive--I ain't heard +anything of her for fifteen years and more, but if she's alive she'd +come in for a share. She's a woman grown by this time. Her mother died +when she was a baby. I married the woman I hired to take care of her and +the house--like a fool. When we parted, she took the kid with her. She +did think a lot of her, I'll say that much for her, and that's all I can +say in her favor. I drifted around and lost track of 'em. Old woman, +she married again, and I heard that didn't pan out, neither. Anyway, she +kept the girl, and gave her the care and schooling that I couldn't give. +I was a drifter. + +“Well, she can bust the will if I leave her out, yuh see. And if the old +woman gets a finger in the pie, it'll be busted, all right. I can write +her down for a hundred dollars perviding she don't contest. That'll fix +it. And the rest goes to the kid here. But I want him to have the use of +my name, understand. Something-or-other Markham Moore ought to suit all +hands well enough.” + +Bud, holding Lovin Child on his knees, frowned a little at first. But +when he looked at Cash, and caught the wistfulness in his eyes, he +surrendered warm-heartedly. + +“A couple of old he-hens like us--we need a chick to look after,” he +said whimsically. “I guess Markham Moore ought to be good enough for +most any kid. And if it ain't, by gosh, we'll make it good enough! If +I ain't been all I should be, there's no law against straightening up. +Markham Moore goes as it lays--hey, Lovins?” But Lovin Child had gone to +sleep over his foster fathers' disposal of his future. His little yellow +head was wabbling on his limp neck, and Bud cradled him in his arms and +held him so. + +“Yeah. But what are we going to call him?” Methodical Cash wanted the +whole matter settled at one conference, it seemed. + +“Call him? Why, what've we been calling him, the last two months?” + +“That,” Cash retorted, “depended on what devilment he was into when we +called!” + +“You said it all, that time. I guess, come to think of it--tell you +what, Cash, let's call him what the kid calls himself. That's fair +enough. He's got some say in the matter, and if he's satisfied with +Lovin, we oughta be. Lovin Markam Moore ain't half bad. Then if he wants +to change it when he grows up, he can.” + +“Yeah. I guess that's as good as anything. I'd hate to see him named +Cassius. Well, now's as good a time as any to make them wills, Bud. We +oughta have a couple of witnesses, but we can act for each other, and I +guess it'll pass. You lay the kid down, and we'll write 'em and have +it done with and off our minds. I dunno--I've got a couple of lots in +Phoenix I'll leave to the girl. By rights she should have 'em. Lovins, +here, 'll have my share in all mining claims; these two I'll name +'specially, because I expect them to develop into paying mines; the +Blind Lodge, anyway.” + +A twinge of jealousy seized Bud. Cash was going ahead a little too +confidently in his plans for the kid. He did not want to hurt old Cash's +feelings, and of course he needed Cash's assistance if he kept Lovin +Child for his own. But Cash needn't think he was going to claim the kid +himself. + +“All right--put it that way. Only, when you're writing it down, you make +it read 'child of Bud Moore' or something like that. You can will him +the moon, if you want, and you can have your name sandwiched in between +his and mine. But get this, and get it right. He's mine, and if we ever +split up, the kid goes with me. I'll tell the world right now that this +kid belongs to me, and where I go he goes. You got that?” + +“You don't have to beller at the top of your voice, do yuh?” snapped +Cash, prying the cork out of the ink bottle with his jackknife. “Here's +another pen point. Tie it onto a stick or something and git to work +before you git to putting it off.” + +Leaning over the table facing each other, they wrote steadily for a few +minutes. Then Bud began to flag, and finally he stopped and crumpled the +sheet of tablet paper into a ball. Cash looked up, lifted his eyebrows +irritatedly, and went on with his composition. + +Bud sat nibbling the end of his makeshift penholder. The obstacle that +had loomed in Cash's way and had constrained him to reveal the closed +pages of his life, loomed large in Bud's way also. Lovin Child was a +near and a very dear factor in his life--but when it came to sitting +down calmly and setting his affairs in order for those who might be left +behind, Lovin Child was not the only person he must think of. What of +his own man-child? What of Marie? + +He looked across at Cash writing steadily in his precise way, +duly bequeathing his worldly goods to Lovin; owning, too, his +responsibilities in another direction, but still making Lovin Child his +chief heir so far as he knew. On the spur of the moment Bud had thought +to do the same thing. But could he do it? + +He seemed to see his own baby standing wistfully aloof, pushed out of +his life that this baby he had no right to keep might have all of his +affections, all of his poor estate. And Marie, whose face was always in +the back of his memory, a tearful, accusing vision that would not let +him be--he saw Marie working in some office, earning the money to feed +and clothe their child. And Lovin Child romping up and down the cabin, +cuddled and scolded and cared for as best an awkward man may care for a +baby--a small, innocent usurper. + +Bud dropped his face in his palms and tried to think the thing out +coldly, clearly, as Cash had stated his own case. Cash did not know +where his own child was, and he did not seem to care greatly. He was +glad to salve his conscience with a small bequest, keeping the bulk--if +so tenuous a thing as Cash's fortune may be said to have bulk--for this +baby they two were hiding away from its lawful parents. Cash could do +it; why couldn't be? He raised his head and looked over at Lovin Child, +asleep in his new and rumpled little finery. Why did his own baby come +between them now, and withhold his hand from doing the same? + +Cash finished, glanced curiously across at Bud, looked down at what he +had written, and slid the sheet of paper across. + +“You sign it, and then if you don't know just how to word yours, you can +use this for a pattern. I've read law books enough to know this will +get by, all right. It's plain, and it tells what I want, and that's +sufficient to hold in court.” + +Bud read it over apathetically, signed his name as witness, and pushed +the paper back. + +“That's all right for you,” he said heavily. “Your kid is grown up now, +and besides, you've got other property to give her. But--it's different +with me. I want this baby, and I can't do without him. But I can't give +him my share in the claims, Cash. I--there's others that's got to be +thought of first.” + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY. LOVIN CHILD STRIKES IT RICH + +It was only the next day that Bud was the means of helping Lovin Child +find a fortune for himself; which eased Bud's mind considerably, and +balanced better his half of the responsibility. Cutting out the dramatic +frills, then, this is what happened to Lovin Child and Bud: + +They were romping around the cabin, like two puppies that had a surplus +of energy to work off. Part of the time Lovin Child was a bear, chasing +Bud up and down the dead line, which was getting pretty well worn out +in places. After that, Bud was a bear and chased Lovin. And when Lovin +Child got so tickled he was perfectly helpless in the corner where he +had sought refuge, Bud caught him and swung him up to his shoulder and +let him grab handfuls of dirt out of the roof. + +Lovin Child liked that better than being a bear, and sifted Bud's hair +full of dried mud, and threw the rest on the floor, and frequently cried +“Tell a worl'!” which he had learned from Bud and could say with the +uncanny pertinency of a parrot. + +He had signified a desire to have Bud carry him along the wall, where +some lovely lumps of dirt protruded temptingly over a bulging log. Then +he leaned and grabbed with his two fat hands at a particularly big, hard +lump. It came away in his hands and fell plump on the blankets of the +bunk, half blinding Bud with the dust that came with it. + +“Hey! You'll have all the chinkin' out of the dang shack, if you let +him keep that lick up, Bud,” Cash grumbled, lifting his eyebrows at the +mess. + +“Tell a worl'!” Lovin Child retorted over his shoulder, and made another +grab. + +This time the thing he held resisted his baby strength. He pulled and he +grunted, he kicked Bud in the chest and grabbed again. Bud was patient, +and let him fuss--though in self-defense he kept his head down and his +eyes away from the expected dust bath. + +“Stay with it, Boy; pull the darn roof down, if yuh want. Cash'll get +out and chink 'er up again.” + +“Yeah. Cash will not,” the disapproving one amended the statement +gruffly. “He's trying to get the log outa the wall, Bud.” + +“Well, let him try, doggone it. Shows he's a stayer. I wouldn't have any +use for him if he didn't have gumption enough to tackle things too big +for him, and you wouldn't either. Stay with 'er, Lovins! Doggone it, +can't yuh git that log outa there nohow? Uh-h! A big old grunt and a big +old heave--uh-h! I'll tell the world in words uh one syllable, he's some +stayer.” + +“Tell a worl'!” chuckled Lovin Child, and pulled harder at the thing he +wanted. + +“Hey! The kid's got hold of a piece of gunny sack or something. You +look out, Bud, or he'll have all that chinkin' out. There's no sense in +lettin' him tear the whole blame shack to pieces, is there?” + +“Can if he wants to. It's his shack as much as it's anybody's.” Bud +shifted Lovin Child more comfortably on his shoulder and looked up, +squinting his eyes half shut for fear of dirt in them. + +“For the love of Mike, kid, what's that you've got? Looks to me like a +piece of buckskin, Cash. Here, you set down a minute, and let Bud take a +peek up there.” + +“Bud--pik-k?” chirped Lovin Child from the blankets, where Bud had +deposited him unceremoniously. + +“Yes, Bud pik-k.” Bud stepped up on the bunk, which brought his head +above the low eaves. He leaned and looked, and scraped away the caked +mud. “Good glory! The kid's found a cache of some kind, sure as you +live!” And he began to claw out what had been hidden behind the mud. + +First a buckskin bag, heavy and grimed and knobby. Gold inside it, he +knew without looking. He dropped it down on the bunk, carefully so +as not to smash a toe off the baby. After that he pulled out four +baking-powder cans, all heavy as lead. He laid his cheek against the log +and peered down the length of it, and jumped down beside the bunk. + +“Kid's found a gold mine of his own, and I'll bet on it,” he cried +excitedly. “Looky, Cash!” + +Cash was already looking, his eyebrows arched high to match his +astonishment. “Yeah. It's gold, all right. Old man Nelson's hoard, I +wouldn't wonder. I've always thought it was funny he never found any +gold in this flat, long as he lived here. And traces of washing here and +there, too. Well!” + +“Looky, Boy!” Bud had the top off a can, and took out a couple of +nuggets the size of a cooked Lima bean. “Here's the real stuff for yuh. + +“It's yours, too--unless--did old Nelson leave any folks, Cash, do yuh +know?” + +“They say not. The county buried him, they say. And nobody ever turned +up to claim him or what little he left. No, I guess there's nobody got +any better right to it than the kid. We'll inquire around and see. But +seein' the gold is found on the claim, and we've got the claim according +to law, looks to me like--” + +“Well, here's your clean-up, old prospector. Don't swallow any, is all. +let's weigh it out, Cash, and see how much it is, just for a josh.” + +Lovin Child had nuggets to play with there on the bed, and told the +world many unintelligible things about it. Cash and Bud dumped all the +gold into a pan, and weighed it out on the little scales Cash had for +his tests. It was not a fortune, as fortunes go. It was probably all the +gold Nelson had panned out in a couple of years, working alone and with +crude devices. A little over twenty-three hundred dollars it amounted +to, not counting the nuggets which Lovin Child had on the bunk with him. + +“Well, it's a start for the kid, anyway,” Bud said, leaning back and +regarding the heap with eyes shining. “I helped him find it, and I kinda +feel as if I'm square with him now for not giving him my half the claim. +Twenty-three hundred would be a good price for a half interest, as the +claims stand, don't yuh think, Cash?” + +“Yeah--well, I dunno's I'd sell for that. But on the showing we've got +so far--yes, five thousand, say, for the claims would be good money.” + +“Pretty good haul for a kid, anyway. He's got a couple of hundred +dollars in nuggets, right there on the bunk. Let's see, Lovins. Let Bud +have 'em for a minute.” + +Then it was that Lovin Child revealed a primitive human trait. He would +not give up the gold. He held fast to one big nugget, spread his fat +legs over the remaining heap of them, and fought Bud's hand away with +the other fist. + +“No, no, no! Tell a worl' no, no, no!” he remonstrated vehemently, until +Bud whooped with laughter. + +“All right--all right! Keep your gold, durn it. You're like all the +rest--minute you get your paws on to some of the real stuff, you go +hog-wild over it.” + +Cash was pouring the fine gold back into the buck skin bag and the +baking-powder cans. + +“Let the kid play with it,” he said. “Getting used to gold when he's +little will maybe save him from a lot of foolishness over it when he +gets big. I dunno, but it looks reasonable to me. Let him have a few +nuggets if he wants. Familiarity breeds contempt, they say; maybe he +won't get to thinkin' too much of it if he's got it around under his +nose all the time. Same as everything else. It's the finding that hits +a feller hardest, Bud--the hunting for it and dreaming about it and not +finding it. What say we go up to the claim for an hour or so? Take the +kid along. It won't hurt him if he's bundled up good. It ain't cold +to-day, anyhow.” + +That night they discussed soberly the prospects of the claim and their +responsibilities in the matter of Lovin Child's windfall. They would +quietly investigate the history of old Nelson, who had died a pauper in +the eyes of the community, with all his gleanings of gold hidden away. +They agreed that Lovin Child should not start off with one grain of +gold that rightfully belonged to some one else--but they agreed the +more cheerfully because neither man believed they would find any close +relatives; a wife or children they decided upon as rightful heirs. +Brothers, sisters, cousins, and aunts did not count. They were +presumably able to look after themselves just as old Nelson had done. +Their ethics were simple enough, surely. + +Barring, then, the discovery of rightful heirs, their plan was to take +the gold to Sacramento in the spring, and deposit it there in a savings +bank for one Lovins Markham Moore. They would let the interest “ride” + with the principal, and they would--though neither openly confessed it +to the other--from time to time add a little from their own earnings. +Bud especially looked forward to that as a compromise with his duty to +his own child. He intended to save every cent he could, and to start +a savings account in the same bank, for his own baby, Robert Edward +Moore--named for Bud. He could not start off with as large a sum as +Lovins would have, and for that Bud was honestly sorry. But Robert +Edward Moore would have Bud's share in the claims, which would do a +little toward evening things up. + +Having settled these things to the satisfaction of their desires and +their consciences, they went to bed well pleased with the day. + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. MARIE'S SIDE OF IT + +We all realize keenly, one time or another, the abject poverty of +language. To attempt putting some emotions into words is like trying +to play Ave Maria on a toy piano. There are heights and depths utterly +beyond the limitation of instrument and speech alike. + +Marie's agonized experience in Alpine--and afterward--was of that kind. +She went there under the lure of her loneliness, her heart-hunger for +Bud. Drunk or sober, loving her still or turning away in anger, she had +to see him; had to hear him speak; had to tell him a little of what she +felt of penitence and longing, for that is what she believed she had to +do. Once she had started, she could not turn back. Come what might, +she would hunt until she found him. She had to, or go crazy, she told +herself over and over. She could not imagine any circumstance that would +turn her back from that quest. + +Yet she did turn back--and with scarce a thought of Bud. She could not +imagine the thing happening that did happen, which is the way life +has of keeping us all on the anxious seat most of the time. She could +not--at least she did not--dream that Lovin Child, at once her comfort +and her strongest argument for a new chance at happiness, would in +ten minutes or so wipe out all thought of Bud and leave only a dumb, +dreadful agony that hounded her day and night. + +She had reached Alpine early in the forenoon, and had gone to the one +little hotel, to rest and gather up her courage for the search which she +felt was only beginning. She had been too careful of her money to spend +any for a sleeper, foregoing even a berth in the tourist car. She could +make Lovin Child comfortable with a full seat in the day coach for +his little bed, and for herself it did not matter. She could not sleep +anyway. So she sat up all night and thought, and worried over the +future which was foolish, since the future held nothing at all that she +pictured in it. + +She was tired when she reached the hotel, carrying Lovin Child and her +suit case too--porters being unheard of in small villages, and the one +hotel being too sure of its patronage to bother about getting guests +from depot to hall bedroom. A deaf old fellow with white whiskers and +poor eyesight fumbled two or three keys on a nail, chose one and led the +way down a little dark hall to a little, stuffy room with another +door opening directly on the sidewalk. Marie had not registered on her +arrival, because there was no ink in the inkwell, and the pen had only +half a point; but she was rather relieved to find that she was not +obliged to write her name down--for Bud, perhaps, to see before she had +a chance to see him. + +Lovin Child was in his most romping, rambunctious mood, and Marie's head +ached so badly that she was not quite so watchful of his movements as +usual. She gave him a cracker and left him alone to investigate the tiny +room while she laid down for just a minute on the bed, grateful because +the sun shone in warmly through the window and she did not feel the +absence of a fire. She had no intention whatever of going to sleep--she +did not believe that she could sleep if she had wanted to. Fall asleep +she did, however, and she must have slept for at least half an hour, +perhaps longer. + +When she sat up with that startled sensation that follows unexpected, +undesired slumber, the door was open, and Lovin Child was gone. She had +not believed that he could open the door, but she discovered that its +latch had a very precarious hold upon the worn facing, and that a slight +twist of the knob was all it needed to swing the door open. She rushed +out, of course, to look for him, though, unaware of how long she had +slept, she was not greatly disturbed. Marie had run after Lovin Child +too often to be alarmed at a little thing like that. + +I don't know when fear first took hold of her, or when fear was swept +away by the keen agony of loss. She went the whole length of the one +little street, and looked in all the open doorways, and traversed the +one short alley that led behind the hotel. Facing the street was the +railroad, with the station farther up at the edge of the timber. Across +the railroad was the little, rushing river, swollen now with rains that +had been snow on the higher slopes of the mountain behind the town. + +Marie did not go near the river at first. Some instinct of dread made +her shun even the possibility that Lovin Child had headed that way. But +a man told her, when she broke down her diffidence and inquired, that he +had seen a little tot in a red suit and cap going off that way. He had +not thought anything of it. He was a stranger himself, he said, and he +supposed the kid belonged there, maybe. + +Marie flew to the river, the man running beside her, and three or four +others coming out of buildings to see what was the matter. She did not +find Lovin Child, but she did find half of the cracker she had given +him. It was lying so close to a deep, swirly place under the bank that +Marie gave a scream when she saw it, and the man caught her by the arm +for fear she meant to jump in. + +Thereafter, the whole of Alpine turned out and searched the river bank +as far down as they could get into the box canyon through which it +roared to the sage-covered hills beyond. No one doubted that Lovin Child +had been swept away in that tearing, rock-churned current. No one had +any hope of finding his body, though they searched just as diligently as +if they were certain. + +Marie walked the bank all that day, calling and crying and fighting off +despair. She walked the floor of her little room all night, the +door locked against sympathy that seemed to her nothing but a prying +curiosity over her torment, fighting back the hysterical cries that kept +struggling for outlet. + +The next day she was too exhausted to do anything more than climb up the +steps of the train when it stopped there. Towns and ranches on the +river below had been warned by wire and telephone and a dozen officious +citizens of Alpine assured her over and over that she would be notified +at once if anything was discovered; meaning, of course, the body of her +child. She did not talk. Beyond telling the station agent her name, and +that she was going to stay in Sacramento until she heard something, she +shrank behind her silence and would reveal nothing of her errand there +in Alpine, nothing whatever concerning herself. Mrs. Marie Moore, +General Delivery, Sacramento, was all that Alpine learned of her. + +It is not surprising then, that the subject was talked out long before +Bud or Cash came down into the town more than two months later. It is +not surprising, either, that no one thought to look up-stream for the +baby, or that they failed to consider any possible fate for him save +drowning. That nibbled piece of cracker on the very edge of the river +threw them all off in their reasoning. They took it for granted that +the baby had fallen into the river at the place where they found the +cracker. If he had done so, he would have been swept away instantly. No +one could look at the river and doubt that--therefore no one did doubt +it. That a squaw should find him sitting down where he had fallen, two +hundred yards above the town and in the edge of the thick timber, +never entered their minds at all. That she should pick him up with +the intention at first of stopping his crying, and should yield to the +temptingness of him just as Bud had yielded, would have seemed to Alpine +still more unlikely; because no Indian had ever kidnapped a white child +in that neighborhood. So much for the habit of thinking along grooves +established by precedent + +Marie went to Sacramento merely because that was the closest town of any +size, where she could wait for the news she dreaded to receive yet must +receive before she could even begin to face her tragedy. She did not +want to find Bud now. She shrank from any thought of him. Only for him, +she would still have her Lovin Child. Illogically she blamed Bud for +what had happened. He had caused her one more great heartache, and she +hoped never to see him again or to hear his name spoken. + +Dully she settled down in a cheap, semi-private boarding house to wait. +In a day or two she pulled herself together and went out to look for +work, because she must have money to live on. Go home to her mother +she would not. Nor did she write to her. There, too, her great hurt +had flung some of the blame. If her mother had not interfered and found +fault all the time with Bud, they would be living together now--happy. +It was her mother who had really brought about their separation. Her +mother would nag at her now for going after Bud, would say that she +deserved to lose her baby as a punishment for letting go her pride and +self-respect. No, she certainly did not want to see her mother, or any +one else she had ever known. Bud least of all. + +She found work without much trouble, for she was neat and efficient +looking, of the type that seems to belong in a well-ordered office, +behind a typewriter desk near a window where the sun shines in. The +place did not require much concentration--a dentist's office, where her +chief duties consisted of opening the daily budget of circulars, sending +out monthly bills, and telling pained-looking callers that the doctor +was out just then. Her salary just about paid her board, with a dollar +or two left over for headache tablets and a vaudeville show now and +then. She did not need much spending money, for her evenings were spent +mostly in crying over certain small garments and a canton-flannel dog +called “Wooh-wooh.” + +For three months she stayed, too apathetic to seek a better position. +Then the dentist's creditors became suddenly impatient, and the dentist +could not pay his office rent, much less his office girl. Wherefore +Marie found herself looking for work again, just when spring was opening +all the fruit blossoms and merchants were smilingly telling one another +that business was picking up. + +Weinstock-Lubin's big department store gave her desk space in the +mail-order department. Marie's duty it was to open the mail, check up +the orders, and see that enough money was sent, and start the wheels +moving to fill each order--to the satisfaction of the customer if +possible. + +At first the work worried her a little. But she became accustomed to +it, and settled into the routine of passing the orders along the proper +channels with as little individual thought given to each one as was +compatible with efficiency. She became acquainted with some of the +girls, and changed to a better boarding house. She still cried over the +wooh-wooh and the little garments, but she did not cry so often, nor did +she buy so many headache tablets. She was learning the futility of grief +and the wisdom of turning her back upon sorrow when she could. The sight +of a two-year-old baby boy would still bring tears to her eyes, and she +could not sit through a picture show that had scenes of children and +happy married couples, but she fought the pain of it as a weakness which +she must overcome. Her Lovin Child was gone; she had given up everything +but the sweet, poignant memory of how pretty he had been and how +endearing. + +Then, one morning in early June, her practiced fingers were going +through the pile of mail orders and they singled out one that carried +the postmark of Alpine. Marie bit her lips, but her fingers did not +falter in their task. Cheap table linen, cheap collars, cheap suits or +cheap something-or-other was wanted, she had no doubt. She took out the +paper with the blue money order folded inside, speared the money order +on the hook with others, drew her order pad closer, and began to go +through the list of articles wanted. + +This was the list:-- + + XL 94, 3 Dig in the mud suits, 3 yr at 59c $1.77 + XL 14 1 Buddy tucker suit 3 yr 2.00 + KL 6 1 Bunny pumps infant 5 1.25 + KL 54 1 Fat Ankle shoe infant 5 .98 + HL 389 4 Rubens vests, 3 yr at 90c 2.70 + SL 418 3 Pajamas 3 yr. at 59c 1.77 + OL 823 1 Express wagon, 15x32 in. 4.25 + -- + $14.22 + + For which money order is enclosed. Please ship at once. + + Very truly, + R. E. MOORE, + Alpine, Calif. + +Mechanically she copied the order on a slip of paper which she put into +her pocket, left her desk and her work and the store, and hurried to her +boarding house. + +Not until she was in her own room with the door locked did she dare let +herself think. She sat down with the copy spread open before her, her +slim fingers pressing against her temples. Something amazing had been +revealed to her--something so amazing that she could scarcely comprehend +its full significance. Bud--never for a minute did she doubt that it +was Bud, for she knew his handwriting too well to be mistaken--Bud was +sending for clothes for a baby boy! + +“3 Dig in the mud suits, 3 yr--” it sounded, to the hungry mother soul +of her, exactly like her Lovin Child. She could see so vividly just +how he would look in them. And the size--she certainly would buy than +three-year size, if she were buying for Lovin Child. And the little +“Buddy tucker” suit--that, too, sounded like Lovin Child. He must--Bud +certainly must have him up there with him! Then Lovin Child was not +drowned at all, but alive and needing dig-in-the-muds. + +“Bud's got him! Oh, Bud has got him, I know he's got him!” she whispered +over and over to herself in an ecstasy of hope. “My little Lovin Man! +He's up there right now with his Daddy Bud--” + +A vague anger stirred faintly, flared, died almost, flared again and +burned steadily within her. Bud had her Lovin Child! How did he come to +have him, then, unless he stole him? Stole him away, and let her suffer +all this while, believing her baby was dead in the river! + +“You devil!” she muttered, gritting her teeth when that thought formed +clearly in her mind. “Oh, you devil, you! If you think you can get away +with a thing like that--You devil!” + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO. THE CURE COMPLETE + +In Nelson Flat the lupines were like spilled bluing in great, acre-wide +blots upon the meadow grass. Between cabin and creek bank a little plot +had been spaded and raked smooth, and already the peas and lettuce and +radishes were up and growing as if they knew how short would be the +season, and meant to take advantage of every minute of the warm days. +Here and there certain plants were lifting themselves all awry from +where they had been pressed flat by two small feet that had strutted +heedlessly down the rows. + +The cabin yard was clean, and the two small windows were curtained with +cheap, white scrim. All before the door and on the path to the creek +small footprints were scattered thick. It was these that Marie pulled up +her hired saddle horse to study in hot resentment. + +“The big brute!” she gritted, and got off and went to the cabin door, +walking straight-backed and every mental and physical fiber of her +braced for the coming struggle. She even regretted not having a gun; +rather, she wished that she was not more afraid of a gun than of any +possible need of one. She felt, at that minute, as though she could +shoot Bud Moore with no more compunction that she would feel in swatting +a fly. + +That the cabin was empty and unlocked only made her blood boil the +hotter. She went in and looked around at the crude furnishings and the +small personal belongings of those who lived there. She saw the table +all set ready for the next meal, with the extremely rustic high-chair +that had DYNAMITE painted boldly on the side of the box seat. Fastened +to a nail at one side of the box was a belt, evidently kept there for +the purpose of strapping a particularly wriggly young person into +the chair. That smacked strongly of Lovin Child, sure enough. Marie +remembered the various devices by which she had kept him in his go cart. + +She went closer and inspected the belt indignantly. Just as she +expected--it was Bud's belt; his old belt that she bought for him just +after they were married. She supposed that box beside the queer high +chair was where he would sit at table and stuff her baby with all kinds +of things he shouldn't eat. Where was her baby? A fresh spasm of longing +for Lovin Child drove her from the cabin. Find him she would, and that +no matter how cunningly Bud had hidden him away. + +On a rope stretched between a young cottonwood tree in full leaf and +a scaly, red-barked cedar, clothes that had been washed were flapping +lazily in the little breeze. Marie stopped and looked at them. A man's +shirt and drawers, two towels gray for want of bluing, a little shirt +and a nightgown and pair of stockings--and, directly in front of Marie, +a small pair of blue overalls trimmed with red bands, the blue showing +white fiber where the color had been scrubbed out of the cloth, the two +knees flaunting patches sewed with long irregular stitches such as a man +would take. + +Bud and Lovin Child. As in the cabin, so here she felt the individuality +in their belongings. Last night she had been tormented with the fear +that there might be a wife as well as a baby boy in Bud's household. +Even the evidence of the mail order, that held nothing for a woman and +that was written by Bud's hand, could scarcely reassure her. Now she +knew beyond all doubt that she had no woman to reckon with, and the +knowledge brought relief of a sort. + +She went up and touched the little overalls wistfully, laid her cheek +against one little patch, ducked under the line, and followed a crooked +little path that led up the creek. She forgot all about her horse, +which looked after her as long as she was in sight, and then turned and +trotted back the way it had come, wondering, no doubt, at the foolish +faith this rider had in him. + +The path led up along the side of the flat, through tall grass and all +the brilliant blossoms of a mountain meadow in June. Great, graceful +mountain lilies nodded from little shady tangles in the bushes. +Harebells and lupines, wild-pea vines and columbines, tiny, gnome-faced +pansies, violets, and the daintier flowering grasses lined the way with +odorous loveliness. Birds called happily from the tree tops. Away up +next the clouds an eagle sailed serene, alone, a tiny boat breasting the +currents of the sky ocean. + +Marie's rage cooled a little on that walk. It was so beautiful for Lovin +Child, up here in this little valley among the snow-topped mountains; +so sheltered. Yesterday's grind in that beehive of a department store +seemed more remote than South Africa. Unconsciously her first nervous +pace slackened. She found herself taking long breaths of this clean air, +sweetened with the scent of growing things. Why couldn't the world be +happy, since it was so beautiful? It made her think of those three weeks +in Big Basin, and the never-forgettable wonder of their love--hers and +Bud's. + +She was crying with the pain and the beauty of it when she heard the +first high, chirpy notes of a baby--her baby. Lovin Child was picketed +to a young cedar near the mouth of the Blind ledge tunnel, and he was +throwing rocks at a chipmunk that kept coming toward him in little +rushes, hoping with each rush to get a crumb of the bread and butter +that Lovin Child had flung down. Lovin Child was squealing and +jabbering, with now and then a real word that he had learned from Bud +and Cash. Not particularly nice words--“Doggone” was one and several +times he called the chipmunk a “sunny-gun.” And of course he frequently +announced that he would “Tell a worl'” something. His head was bare and +shone in the sun like the gold for which Cash and his Daddy Bud were +digging, away back in the dark hole. He had on a pair of faded overalls +trimmed with red, mates of the ones on the rope line, and he threw rocks +impartially with first his right hand and then his left, and sometimes +with both at once; which did not greatly distress the chipmunk, who knew +Lovin Child of old and had learned how wide the rocks always went of +their mark. + +Upon this scene Marie came, still crying. She had always been an +impulsive young woman, and now she forgot that Lovin Child had not seen +her for six months or so, and that baby memories are short. She rushed +in and snatched him off the ground and kissed him and squeezed him and +cried aloud upon her God and her baby, and buried her wet face against +his fat little neck. + +Cash, trundling a wheelbarrow of ore out to the tunnel's mouth, heard a +howl and broke into a run with his load, bursting out into the sunlight +with a clatter and upsetting the barrow ten feet short of the regular +dumping place. Marie was frantically trying to untie the rope, and +was having trouble because Lovin Child was in one of his worst +kicking-and-squirming tantrums. Cash rushed in and snatched the child +from her. + +“Here! What you doing to that kid? You're scaring him to death--and +you've got no right!” + +“I have got a right! I have too got a right!” Marie was clawing like a +wildcat at Cash's grimy hands. “He's my baby! He's mine! You ought to +be hung for stealing him away from me. Let go--he's mine, I tell you. +Lovin! Lovin Child! Don't you know Marie? Marie's sweet, pitty man, he +is! Come to Marie, boy baby!” + +“Tell a worl' no, no, no!” yelled Lovin Child, clinging to Cash. + +“Aw--come to Marie, sweetheart! Marie's own lovin' little man baby! You +let him go, or I'll--I'll kill you. You big brute!” + +Cash let go, but it was not because she commanded. He let go and stared +hard at Marie, lifting his eyebrows comically as he stepped back, his +hand going unconsciously up to smooth his beard. + +“Marie?” he repeated stupidly. “Marie?” He reached out and laid a hand +compellingly on her shoulder. “Ain't your name Marie Markham, young +lady? Don't you know your own dad?” + +Marie lifted her face from kissing Lovin Child very much against his +will, and stared round-eyed at Cash. She did not say anything. + +“You're my Marie, all right You ain't changed so much I can't recognize +yuh. I should think you'd remember your own father--but I guess maybe +the beard kinda changes my looks. Is this true, that this kid belongs to +you?” + +Marie gasped. “Why--father? Why--why, father!” She leaned herself and +Lovin Child into his arms. “Why, I can't believe it! Why--” She closed +her eyes and shivered, going suddenly weak, and relaxed in his arms. +“I-I-I can't--” + +Cash slid Lovin Child to the ground, where that young gentleman picked +himself up indignantly and ran as far as his picket rope would let him, +whereupon he turned and screamed “Sunny-gun! sunny-gun!” at the two like +an enraged bluejay. Cash did not pay any attention to him. He was busy +seeking out a soft, shady spot that was free of rocks, where he might +lay Marie down. He leaned over her and fanned her violently with his +hat, his lips and his eyebrows working with the complexity of his +emotions. Then suddenly he turned and ducked into the tunnel, after Bud. + +Bud heard him coming and turned from his work. Cash was not trundling +the empty barrow, which in itself was proof enough that something had +happened, even if Cash had not been running. Bud dropped his pick and +started on a run to meet him. + +“What's wrong? Is the kid--?” + +“Kid's all right” Cash stopped abruptly, blocking Bud's way. “It's +something else. Bud, his mother's come after him. She's out there +now--laid out in a faint.” + +“Lemme go.” Bud's voice had a grimness in it that spelled trouble for +the lady laid out in a faint “She can be his mother a thousand times--” + +“Yeah. Hold on a minute, Bud. You ain't going out there and raise no +hell with that poor girl. Lovins belongs to her, and she's going to have +him.... Now, just keep your shirt on a second. I've got something more +to say. He's her kid, and she wants him back, and she's going to have +him back. If you git him away from her, it'll be over my carcass. Now, +now, hold on! H-o-l-d on! You're goin' up against Cash Markham now, +remember! That girl is my girl! My girl that I ain't seen since she was +a kid in short dresses. It's her father you've got to deal with now--her +father and the kid's grandfather. You get that? You be reasonable, Bud, +and there won't be no trouble at all. But my girl ain't goin' to be +robbed of her baby--not whilst I'm around. You get that settled in your +mind before you go out there, or--you don't go out whilst I'm here to +stop you.” + +“You go to hell,” Bud stated evenly, and thrust Cash aside with one +sweep of his arm, and went down the tunnel. Cash, his eyebrows lifted +with worry and alarm, was at his heels all the way. + +“Now, Bud, be calm!” he adjured as he ran. “Don't go and make a dang +fool of yourself! She's my girl, remember. You want to hold on to +yourself, Bud, and be reasonable. Don't go and let your temper--” + +“Shut your damn mouth!” Bud commanded him savagely, and went on running. + +At the tunnel mouth he stopped and blinked, blinded for a moment by the +strong sunlight in his face. Cash stumbled and lost ten seconds or so, +picking himself up. Behind him Bud heard Cash panting, “Now, Bud, don't +go and make--a dang fool--” Bud snorted contemptuously and leaped the +dirt pile, landing close to Marie, who was just then raising herself +dizzily to an elbow. + +“Now, Bud,” Cash called tardily when he had caught up with him, “you +leave that girl alone! Don't you lay a finger on her! That's my--” + +Bud lifted his lips away from Marie's and spoke over his shoulder, his +arms tightening in their hold upon Marie's trembling, yielding body. + +“Shut up, Cash. She's my wife--now where do you get off at?” + +(That, o course, lacked a little of being the exact truth. Lacked a few +hours, in fact, because they did not reach Alpine and the railroad +until that afternoon, and were not remarried until seven o'clock that +evening.) + +“No, no, no!” cried Lovin Child from a safe distance. “Tell a worl' no, +no!” + +“I'll tell the world yes, yes!” Bud retorted ecstatically, lifting his +face again. “Come here, you little scallywag, and love your mamma Marie. +Cash, you old donkey, don't you get it yet? We've got 'em both for +keeps, you and me.” + +“Yeah--I get it, all right.” Cash came and stood awkwardly over them. “I +get it--found my girl one minute, and lost her again the next! But I'll +tell yeh one thing, Bud Moore. The kid's' goin' to call me grampaw, er +I'll know the reason why!” + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cabin Fever, by B. M. Bower + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1204 *** |